.

Good evening.

You're watching LIFE Ahead here on PBS Fort Wayne I'm the host of the show Sandy Thomson but the real stars are my guest tonight.

I have two guests and you're going to meet him in just a minute.

And the topic scams who doesn't want to talk about scams either?

You are curious about what scams are out there right now so that you can be educated about that or perhaps you've had someone try to scam you in either case, feel free to give us a call here if you'd like some legal advice or better Business Bureau advice.

Our number is on the bottom of the screen and that will appear periodically here during the show.

So grab your telephone, get your question ready.

Meanwhile, I'd like for you to meet a remeet rather a regular guest with us here on LIFE Ahead and that is Jessica Thorsen, an elder law attorney.

>> She's been on the show many times.

Always great to see you, Jessica.

It's great to be back.

So you better be ready to give us some good legal advice on scams.

And here's the guy who can tell you what scams are going around right now and how you can maybe identify them.

>> This is Rick who is the CEO of the Better Business Bureau and I'm glad to have you on again.

>> You've been on before but hey, things change.

>> You might have new things to tell us.

Absolutely.

It's been a while, Sandy , but it's great to be back with you.

>> Thank you.

All right.

Let's talk about scams first of all in terms of what the most popular ones are right now and I'm going to like ask you to even talk about if you will, covid scams because that's been the big topic here for the last maybe two years.

>> And I understand that there are fake websites or fake phone calls that want to sell people the COBA test, is that right?

>> What's happening with that?

Yes.

And since it has started we've seen just a litany of different types of scams coming from the covid situation and I'd start off with the fake P.P.

scams.

It's gone to like you mentioned now fake fake websites sites that are will sell you fake test that that give them inaccurate results or no results.

>> But they're primarily attempts to steal your personal information Social Security numbers, Medicare information.

They want to grab your personal information and then sell that on the black market to other scammers and make money off of that information.

>> Well, to begin with, the government now has the website where you can order I think it's to free residents to free test.

I did it and I got them.

I mean maybe two weeks I got them.

>> But you don't have to give any information like that your your name and address and that's about it.

>> They don't ask anything else doesn't cost anything not even for shipping.

So as Rick said, if somebody you see a website or somebody gives you a link to something they say you can get free home covid test but then they want to charge you eight ninety nine for shipping or sure don't do it.

>> Sure.

And there's the websites and there's also been some scam brick and mortar sites.

>> We investigated one locally here in Fort Wayne what people were going to a test site OK and they would register for their for their test and they were getting tested with the results before they took the test.

>> So man oh they were doing is trying to get their personal information.

>> They didn't pay anything but they tried to collect their so when they called to make the appointment for their test which are Social Security and sometimes people think well if this is something to do with government then it's honest but there are scams out there from phone scams like saying that they're the IRS or something.

>> Oh sure.

Sure.

That's very common and I'm sure Jessica runs into that all the time.

All the time.

Do you?

Yes.

People come into the office all the time worried or even just give us a phone call saying that they just received a call from the IRS and they are just so worried that they owe something and so they want to know who should they talk to?

What should you do?

Naturally we try to calm them first and foremost to say that it's probably not really truly the IRS.

If you are worried about your tax return, you should talk to your tax preparer first.

You know, really try to just stop for a second and really think about the things that they asked you about and kind of go through the motions of OK, well wait a minute.

>> I know I filed my tax return.

>> I know he did everything legally so that's probably not a legitimate but probably not true.

>> Do I understand, Rick, that if the IRS does want to get a hold of you it's never by phone they will send you letters?

That's correct.

Correct.

Yes.

So don't ever go for the phone call.

>> It says their IRS, other phone calls, phone scams.

I hear that maybe they're scams people think Jessica mentioned like the bank is calling or see there will be around this is MasterCard or they'll use some name brand or this is Microsoft .

>> We detect a problem with your computer.

What do you do about that when those are fake?

Yeah, know people always want to find what's the one simple way to identify it as a scam and in most cases there is no one quick easy answer.

But typically on cases like that they call saying I'm calling from Microsoft support.

It's probably a scam.

Microsoft support's not going to reach out to you particularly if you work for a company and you get a call your your IT departments could be notified of that.

You know, demands if you're a consumer and you get that be very skeptical and whether it's a phone call or you're contacted via an email same same kind of thing, you'll sometimes they will say they'll give you an email address that may mimic something and make you believe that it's from an official organization but there's like maybe one character off in the email address that should be alert alert you and sometimes the text of the communication they send you look for misspellings, bad English and things like that.

>> Sometimes those things can can clue you to the fact that the scam also here's Jessica is saying look over everything carefully.

What do you recommend, Jessica, in terms of you know, legally what should people to know that it's safe or not safe in addition to misspellings or different characters in the website name?

So I mean anybody is susceptible to this.

Law firms are susceptible to this nonprofits anybody is truly susceptible to this and a lot of advice that we usually give is actually just hover over the email address.

You don't necessarily have to click on an email address, try really hard not to click on things but just hover and it'll usually bring the email address up to see if it's a legitimate email address and so and when in doubt delete it just delete it.

>> I delete so much every day.

>> I mean I get so many you know, fake emails and things I just delete delete because if you open them if I understand correctly from what you guys the better business group said if you open them you get on somebody's list somewhere if you click on a link so you'll get an unsolicited email with a link to click on for you to complete a survey or something don't click on the link of its unsolicited it's basically going to load malware onto your computer so you want to you want to avoid that.

You were asking about tips on the Web sites of course one of the big tips is the imposter websites that want to sell you fake merchandise and again they can look legitimate and it appears to be designer merchandise logo stuff.

Are these unbelievably cheap prices?

Well, it's kind of like if it seems too good to be do true, it's probably not true.

Yeah, but one of the things that that I'm sure Jessica runs on too is that if you're going to be making a purchase online, first thing is make sure that in the you are Alex HTP s which stands for a secure site it doesn't have the S in the P or following HTTP.

It's not a secure site.

You definitely don't have to have the S yes.

Oh that's a good tenant.

Yes.

You definitely don't want to P. S right don't give them any credit card information could just not a secure site but other than a secure site it's probably a rip off anyway even if the site secure.

>> I know and it's so hard to tell and because we have become so techie you know in the last decade or two and will increase to be there are more computer scams or you know that come through Internet or email or whatever just kind of let's say that is Rick was saying, you know, if if you've ordered something maybe you get a pop up when you're on the computer and you get a little pop up that says, you know, Calvin Klein jeans only to ninety nine or whatever.

>> Right.

>> And you say oh what a good deal.

OK, I'll order those and so you go ahead and order it and it never comes home.

>> Are you going to get your money back or what.

Probably not.

It really kind of depends on the circumstances.

Some credit cards certainly will some bank accounts will do fraud alerts.

There are some that will really kind of maybe send you a phone call or an email and ask if that was purchased was yours.

Some will not authorize the transaction until you have verified that that was a purchase you were trying to make.

So it depends a lot on the type of card that you're using if you're using a debit card or a credit card and truly to know what kind of protections you have, you've got to ask those questions when you're signing up for that card or for that bank account.

And if you're starting you know, we deal with a lot of people who elder law attorneys deal with a lot of people who are starting to age and are starting to question even their own judgment sometimes.

And so when you're in that type of situation, it's really important at that point to bring on somebody that you trust, whether that is a son or a daughter or a niece or a nephew, somebody that who can help ask those questions if you've forgotten to ask those questions and to kind of maybe even sit down next to you when you're trying to order something because you can't do it in store anymore.

So really trying to at some point bring on somebody that you trust to kind of help make sure you're not falling victim to those things.

>> That's really great advice.

>> And again, I think that, you know, these couple of years of covid of may be made that a more typical thing to to not go to the store and order everything online and then again you run into that possibility of is it right or is it wrong?

Do you get people, Rick, that contact you that have online issues, something they order?

>> Is that a pretty typical all the time?

And I would add to Jessica's comment that if you are purchasing online, make sure you use a credit card not a debit card debit card just like using cash.

>> You have no no chance of getting your money back on that at least with a credit card you have whatever protection your bank allows and I mean I've dealt with it myself personally and just a couple of weeks ago with BBB my card was compromised.

I had some Shajarian show up that they weren't they weren't large but to breach charges that I'm like I never really and so yeah.

And of course the credit card company was was great about it.

They took the charge.

They showed me a new card so yeah.

Just protect yourself if you're going to do online purchase use your credit.

>> That's the only way you're going to have any protection if if you use the debit card you give them too late.

It's true it's going on and again because you said you caught those Uber invoices, make sure that when you do get your credit card statement that you go through it and make sure those charges are correct.

>> Yeah.

Is there a time limit, Jessica, where you can, you know, get legal guidance to try to get money back if it were a large amount?

So I would seek counsel right away as soon as you notice it just because the more delay that you take and trying to either find who did it or get your money back, the harder it is, the more time that passes these transactions, the harder it is to get.

So I would just as soon as you notice that I would contact whether it's the BBB or the even the police if it's a large amount I would seek counsel right away.

Scam tracker we need to talk about that.

It's a really cool thing.

In fact I looked at it this afternoon from what I understand this is a national has a whole US map and you can go to your own region but it tracks scams from all over the country and it'll give you I think the number of scams in that particular area pertaining to a particular issue.

>> Am I explaining that correctly?

Yes.

Antia Scampton is an interactive heat map.

You can go to BBB dog and down at the bottom you'll see Scam Tracker and you click on that and it's an interactive heat map that will show you what types of scams are going on in all parts of the country so you can zero in on your area to see what's the most prevalent scams you have to do searches by types of scams.

You can look at what the losses are.

We ask people if they've been victimized by a scam, whether they've lost money or not.

We ask people to go on and report it because what they report might help someone else from being victimized by that scam and it's scam trackers has been in place for I think probably five years now and it's amazing what we see.

You had had mentioned where to where to report.

>> We asked we asked that again what they've lost money or not report on scam tracker what if you've lost money also reported to the FTC or both so you have to do both share to Scam Tracker a better Business Bureau website and FTC.

>> Yeah so the FTC they're an enforcement agency.

They can actually help you know, maybe recover funds and you've lost them BBB as a reporting agency.

So we want to help spread the word and of course not on scams but on complaint issues or customer resolution or issues we can help consumers resolve issues with you know, with an institution we're not talking about scams.

They've had a maybe a problem with a company that dealt with it they can't resolve on their own.

We have a complaint resolution process that we help consumers and you would do that locally with your local businesses.

>> You have a process you go through to follow up on those complaints.

Yeah.

And again it starts online BBB dot org.

So that's where you can start with your complaint or your your particular issue.

>> Jessica, in terms of this scam tracker, have you ever looked at it or I have not.

>> I have to do it.

It's very interesting.

Yeah it is yeah.

>> Don't get your phone out now after the show would be OK but I like the idea that it's it's good to check on that to just see what scams are out there in your community.

I looked at it this afternoon and I noticed that here in Indiana cryptocurrency seems to be the number one scam right now.

>> Could you speak to that crypto is getting one of the things I'm not very knowledgeable and I'll be the first to admit it but you know, it's kind of an emerging field and what happens with any field is that the illegitimate players out there, they're going to try to mimic what the but the legitimate players are doing.

So sometimes they're it's difficult to discern what's legit and what's not.

But the like I said, the the fraudsters out there, they're going to mimic what a good company is doing but sometimes the claims they make will be a little bit more exaggerated than what the legitimate company.

So I see and again there's no easy way to look at a website and say yeah, that's that's a scam.

All we can say is look kind of let the buyer beware.

Do do your research right.

Another thing is don't ever get pressured into making a quick decision if you're dealing with a company like that and they're and they're really putting the sales pitch on you, you need to make this decision today or the deal goes away, walk away.

But you know, regardless of whether it's online or whether it's a brick and mortar store, we encourage consumers as part of the investigation process to go to BBB Digg first check out if it's a legitimate business.

Of course we would encourage you to look for BBB accredited businesses.

Sure.

But whether accredited or not, they're probably going to have a profile on BBB that work and they're going to have a letter grade rating ranging from A plus to F and you can look at complaint history reviews and also go to other sites just you know Google them, look at their look at their customer reviews and complaints.

>> Sure.

Do you do your homework?

Don't make a quick decision.

>> I like I like that comment.

Don't make a quick decision.

I've had a couple of phone scams once I was on a cruise of course ended up you know, for only 500 dollars.

You know, that's all you need other than that it's free, you know.

Right.

And it was very much pressured and this this offer goes away at two o'clock this afternoon.

>> They want you to make a quick decision or you say yes.

>> Well, I ended up I knew it was a scam right away but I ended up saying well, let me have your number.

>> I'm going to call the Better Business Bureau and if this all sounds good, I'd be happy to pay you the five hundred dollars tomorrow.

>> Well, that was the end of that phone call in terms of legal ramifications, is there anything that's requires more legal attention, Jessica?

Computer scams, phone scams, local business scams do you see anything like that common?

>> So generally speaking in my practice my biggest concern of course is is whose helping you kind of navigate this type of of situation?

And so I'm looking to see are you able to kind of participate in these type of reporting legal things whether it's reporting it, whether it's bringing a suit helping solve a complaint with a business because maybe you hired a landscaper and that landscaper didn't do the job you wanted?

Yeah.

So there there are a number of ways to kind of legally deal with this and so a lot of times it's me counseling and talking to a client about what options are available depending on the circumstances.

But then I also want to make sure that you've got maybe a power of attorney in place to make sure that you have got somebody who could maybe pick up the reins for you.

Maybe some of the confusion was on the person's your part so to speak if you were starting to have some dementia issues and so we are really looking for some people who could maybe take over the legal part of this for you so that we can help resolve the issue whether it is a scam that you fell victim to and money was actually taken or maybe it was just a dispute with like I said, a landscaper or a plumber or somebody that you hired.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So there's lots of routes that we can take.

It just depends on the circumstances.

But first and foremost, most attorneys are going to want to sit down, talk to you about what really happened and kind of vet the situation for is there a legal claim or something better suited for the Better Business Bureau and I know as an attorney you internalize it.

Take any documentation you have to save any documentation whether it's a paper or a text or whatever I mean so that you have all the information.

We've had a phone call from Jack and Jack.

Thank you so much for watching LIFE Ahead.

>> He wants to know how you can deal with robo calls there a lot of them out there.

>> What's the common one I haven't heard of for a while the it is it Carolann from whole she says she's from a bank or something.

>> I don't know that I don't not that one.

>> Oh my word.

And then it'll go on like a cycle like maybe one month I'll get five calls a week from voicemails from whatever and then it goes away for a few months and then she's always back again.

But it's a recorded voice and I think that's what probably Jack's talking about or those type of robo calls advice for Rick.

>> I would say the first thing is if it's on your cell phone block the call and what they're going to do is they're probably going to mimic that.

You'll get you'll get that same call from many other phone numbers that are very close might be a digit off from that.

>> But all you can do is block them, maybe talk to your whoever your carrier is, your cell phone carrier.

>> They may have some technology to help block it as well.

Yeah.

And I a lot of times will suggest if you if you do still have maybe a lender or something of that nature, they will often ask you if it's OK to do robo calls.

Just decline that all the time any time if you've called to question your bill or if you've called to make a payment by phone or something like that with a particular lender, a lot of times they're going to follow that up with is it OK if we call you bye bye.

A robo call and decline that.

>> OK, all right.

Anything to add to that, Rick?

>> She just is very thorough is again you still have a few more minutes if you'd like to give us a call with your question, we would love to find out what you want to know and give you an answer with our experts here.

>> OK, let's talk about it.

Let's say and you you mentioned earlier, Jessica maybe is people are aging.

They're maybe not as techie so they they either maybe don't even know how to operate a computer or very minimal.

So they may be more subject to believing what they see.

Is there anything that you can do as an attorney to protect them or does it matter I mean they can't sue somebody because they didn't understand what they were signing up for so a lot of times what it is is it's somebody who is making those quick decisions or they're feeling pressure and they're starting to kind of question their own judgment at that point.

And so really, truly Paw's think read what it is that is before you oftentimes it's really male because they're not techie they don't maybe they just have an old flip phone or something of that nature.

They're not on the computer.

>> People are bombarded with mail as well things it's not just computers.

It's in the mail and it will look very legitimate.

>> It will look like something that's a proper invoice or maybe you know your crew's opportunity something it could look very, very legitimate.

And so it's one of those things where you sit you pause, you really read it if you feel you don't understand it, you've got to get it to somebody that you do trust.

Yeah.

Is that an attorney is that your son, your daughter, somebody else that's in your family?

Really, truly.

Just take a moment to look at it and ask for help.

>> And I know that Rick mentioned earlier sometimes people don't report things because they're embarrassed that they think all right.

>> Sure.

Yeah.

And that's the thing with the government agencies and BBB we have numbers that we track but the general belief is that those numbers are very much understated because we've had people tell us I didn't report because I was too embarrassed.

>> I lost money.

I put my scams.

>> I'm sorry I should have but it's been a while so I want one thing I would add to Jessica's suggestion I would agree completely about getting an advisor whether it's just somebody a trusted family member, somebody knows something about it.

However one one apprehension would be the younger person may be much more computer savvy but from the standpoint of being scammed contrary to popular belief, the younger generation are the most highly scammed much more highly scammed than the elders.

And so the the incidence of dollar loss is far greater in the older generations.

But the incidence of actually numbers being scammed are much, much greater in the Gen Xers and the Millennials.

>> I remember you telling me the last time you were on that it's you think with seniors but it's really like 18 to 35 something or most subject to being scammed.

>> Jessica, you have like fifteen seconds to give any last minute advice to people about scams get power of attorney.

Yeah, every time I'm on your show I always I always suggest this because it truly is what I find more than anything is that at some point you are going to need this document.

Somebody is going to have to help you or make decisions for you.

It could be a physical incapacity as well as a mental incapacity.

No matter what age you are eighteen to ninety nine you're going to need it so truly go get one go get one power of attorney.

That's just like his recommendation and recommendation.

Make sure that you report any scams to the BBC and if you go to their website to do that and we'll hopefully see you all again next Wednesday night and if you have some scams let us know.

We'd like to talk about that again at some point.

Good night and I'll see you next Wednesday seven thirty