[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back to behind the Scams. I'm Nick, and as always, I'm joined by my favorite co host, who just so happens to be my lovely wife Sue.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: And as always, I'm accepting that introduction because it remains factually accurate, emotionally generous, and frankly, pretty good branding.
[00:00:18] Speaker A: It is all three Today we're talking about a scam that begins on a screen or over the phone, but ends at a front door. Not a wire transfer. Not a crypto kiosk. A person standing outside someone's home sent to collect cash or gold bars.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: That's the part that makes my stomach drop. We've spent years warning people not to click suspicious links or send money to strangers. But now the stranger may be in the driveway.
[00:00:46] Speaker A: Exactly. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint center warned in 2024 that scammers were instructing victims, many of them senior citizens, and to liquidate assets into cash or precious metals, then sending couriers to retrieve those assets in person.
From May through December 2023 alone, IC3 reported more than $55 million in aggregated losses tied to this courier tactic.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: So this is not some one off local story. This is a system.
[00:01:18] Speaker A: It is. And once the money becomes physical cash in a bag, gold in a box, the protections we normally talk about become much harder. There's no bank wire recall, no card dispute, no easy freeze. The courier leaves and the victim is left with silence. For years, fraud investigators watched money move through familiar channels. Wire transfers, gift cards, peer to peer apps, cryptocurrency wallets and Bitcoin ATMs. Each method gave criminals speed, but it also gave banks, exchanges and investigators something to look at.
[00:01:54] Speaker B: Digital breadcrumb trail, right?
[00:01:56] Speaker A: Not always a clean trail, not always enough to recover the funds, but something Fraud filters got better. Bank employees started asking sharper questions. Crypto kiosks came under more scrutiny. So the criminals adapted. They pushed the last leg of the
[00:02:13] Speaker B: fraud offline because apparently organized fraud rings also believe in old fashioned customer service will come pick up your life savings.
[00:02:22] Speaker A: White glove theft except the gloves are evidence. And that evidence matters. In federal cases reported by the Department of Justice, prosecutors have described overseas call centers coordinating with domestic couriers and handlers who travel state to state to pick up gold bars, gold coins and bundled cash from older victims. In one Missouri case and the indictment alleged that victims were told to liquidate savings and retirement funds, purchase gold, and hand it over to supposed government couriers. In a Kentucky case, two defendants were accused of traveling around the United States to collect gold bars from victims who believed they were protecting their Retirement savings.
[00:03:04] Speaker B: Okay, so let's take this from the top. What does the playbook actually look like when it starts? Walk us through the first move. How does someone go from checking email to buying gold bars?
[00:03:15] Speaker A: Usually it starts with fear dressed up as authority. A pop up says a computer has been compromised. A phone call claims to be from a bank fraud department. A message appears to come from the Federal Trade Commission, treasury, the FBI, or another agency. The victim is told their accounts are exposed, their Social Security number is tied to crime, or their name appeared in a suspicious transaction.
The best impersonation scams rarely begin with send money. Now they begin with a problem the victim desperately wants to.
A frozen computer, a supposed bank breach, a false criminal allegation. The money demand comes later, after the victim has been pulled into the scammer's version of reality.
[00:03:59] Speaker B: And that's why smart people get caught. They're not responding to greed. They're responding to emergency.
[00:04:05] Speaker A: Exactly. This scam is engineered to hijack judgment. The caller keeps the victim on the phone. They add urgency. They introduce a second voice. Tech support becomes bank security.
Bank security becomes a federal agent. Each new character confirms the last one.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: Why does the fear work so quickly? Most people would like to think I'd hang up. But these callers seem to get inside someone's head in minutes.
[00:04:33] Speaker A: They stack emotions in the right order. First, confusion. Something is wrong. Then authority. I am the person who can explain it. Then urgency. You have to act now. Then isolation. Do not involve anyone else. Once those pieces are in place, the victim is not calmly evaluating his claim. They are trying to escape a threat.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: Though the scammer is not just lying about facts. They're managing the victim's nervous system.
[00:05:03] Speaker A: That is exactly right. The goal is to keep the person activated, worried, embarrassed, afraid of making the wrong move. Because high stress narrows attention. The victim might miss obvious contradictions because the scammer keeps applying the next instruction before the victim has time to think.
[00:05:22] Speaker B: From an investigator's point of view, what are you listening for in a scam like this? The words, the timing, the pressure pattern.
[00:05:31] Speaker A: Criminals have different accents, different scripts, different props, but the traits repeat. They create urgency, isolate the target, impersonate authority, and control the channel. If the victim cannot pause, cannot verify, and cannot speak to someone else, the scammer has built the room they want.
[00:05:51] Speaker B: Though if a caller says, ma', am, this is very urgent and you cannot tell your husband, I should assume he does not have our best interests at heart.
[00:06:01] Speaker A: That would be a safe investigative conclusion. Also, I would like to meet this Caller who thinks you're easily managed.
[00:06:08] Speaker B: Poor man. He has no idea how many follow up questions are coming.
This is the emotional corner they push people into. Don't tell your spouse. Don't tell your adult children. Don't talk to your banker. Don't call the police.
[00:06:23] Speaker A: The isolation script is everything. Victims are told, move your money to protect it. They're told your local bank branch is compromised. They're told, do not tell anyone. This is an active federal gag order. That phrase is nonsense in this context, but it sounds legal. And scammers know that legal sounding language can freeze people.
[00:06:44] Speaker B: A gag order delivered over the phone by someone who wants you to go buy go gold. That should set off every alarm bell.
[00:06:52] Speaker A: It should. But remember, the victim has already been told. Their identity is at risk, their accounts are compromised and law enforcement is involved. Shame and fear do half the criminals work? The scammer's job is to keep the victim from reality testing the story with someone who loves them.
[00:07:10] Speaker B: Why do criminals lean so hard on secrecy? Is it just to keep family from interfering? Or is there something more calculated going on?
[00:07:19] Speaker A: It is very calculated. Secrecy buys time. Time is the criminal's friend. Every hour the victim stays isolated is an hour. The money can move, the courier can travel, the phone number can be discarded and the trail can go cold.
Secrecy also shifts the victim into a private crisis. They stop asking, does this make sense? And start asking, how do I survive?
[00:07:44] Speaker B: The next instruction that sounds like coercion more than persuasion.
[00:07:49] Speaker A: That is the better way to understand it. These scams are not casual lies. They are pressure systems. Criminals test for compliance, escalate demands and punish hesitation with fear. If a victim questions them, the scammer may accuse the victim of risking arrest, losing their savings or ruining an investigation. That is coercive control applied to money.
[00:08:14] Speaker B: Is shame the reason people do not talk about it sooner? Or does shame start while the scam is still happening?
[00:08:20] Speaker A: Shame often starts early. The scammer may hint that the victim caused the problem, clicked the wrong thing, failed to secure an account, got tied to suspicious activity. That creates a kind of emotional debt. The victim feels responsible for fixing something they didn't cause.
Criminals exploit that because a person who feels ashamed is less likely to ask for help.
[00:08:45] Speaker B: That's why. Why didn't you know better? Is such a damaging question. It accidentally repeats the scammer's accusation exactly.
[00:08:54] Speaker A: The better question is what did they tell you? And what do we need to do next? That moves the person from shame into action.
Next comes the conversion. Retirement accounts, mutual funds, savings Certificates of deposit. The victim is instructed to liquidate long term assets and convert them into something portable. Cash, gold bars, gold coins, or other precious metals. IC3 specifically warned that victims may be told to wire funds to a precious metals dealer, receive the metals at home, and then wait for a courier.
[00:09:31] Speaker B: Why gold? Why not just cash?
[00:09:34] Speaker A: Gold is dense value. It's easier to move $200,000 in gold than $200,000 in small bills. It can be transported, resold, melted, or passed through intermediaries. It also feels to some victims like a safe asset. Gamers exploit that reputation. They don't need the victim to understand bullion markets. They just need the victim to believe gold equals protection.
[00:10:00] Speaker B: And if Someone has spent 40 years building a nest egg, that word protection has emotional gravity.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: It does. That's why we don't shame victims. The criminal creates a false emergency, blocks outside advice, and then turns the victim's own prudence against them.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: Why do victims keep following instructions even after the instructions become strange?
Like buying gold, splitting withdrawals, or meeting a courier.
[00:10:29] Speaker A: Commitment builds step by step. The first action may be small. Stay on the phone, click a link, read a code, check an account.
Then the next action is larger. By the time the request becomes extraordinary, the victim has already invested time, fear and effort into the scammer story.
Criminals use momentum. They want the victim thinking, I've come this far, I need to finish them.
[00:10:55] Speaker B: It's the opposite of a single bad decision. It's a staircase.
[00:11:00] Speaker A: Yes. And every stair is designed to make the next one easier. That's why prevention messages have to interrupt early. If we wait until the gold purchase, the person may already be deep inside the pressure system.
Then the digital scam acquires a body. A courier arrives at the victim's home. Home, a parking lot, or another public location.
Sometimes the courier is a recruited mule. Sometimes a rideshare driver is unknowingly used to move a package or person.
Sometimes the courier is part of the laundering crew. The victim may be given a password, a code word, or even told to match a serial number from a dollar bill before handing over the package.
[00:11:41] Speaker B: That little code word is theater. It makes the handoff feel official.
[00:11:46] Speaker A: Exactly. It's a confidence mechanism. In real investigations, criminals love rituals. Passwords, badge numbers, case numbers, reference numbers, sealed envelopes. The ritual makes compliance feel like procedure.
[00:12:01] Speaker B: If a courier is arrested, does that usually crack the whole case open?
[00:12:06] Speaker A: Sometimes it opens a door. Sometimes it opens a hallway. A courier may have phones, travel records, messages, hotel receipts, rental car agreements, or contacts that point investigators towards handlers. But the People controlling the script may be overseas, using disposable numbers and layered accounts. That is why the pickup is important. It is one of the few moments where an online crime creates a physical witness, a physical location and sometimes physical evidence.
[00:12:37] Speaker B: So the front door is not just the end of the scam. It may be the first real investigative foothold before we get into the specific cases. Give us the wider frame. How big is this Problem now?
[00:12:49] Speaker A: The FBI's 2024 Internet Crime Report recorded 859,532 complaints and reported losses exceeding $16 billion, a 33% increase from 2023. The FBI also reported that people over 60 filed the greatest number of complaints and suffered the highest aggregate losses, nearly $5 billion. California, Texas and Florida generated the most
[00:13:16] Speaker B: complaints, nearly $5 billion from older adults. That is not just a financial statistic. That is housing, security, medical care, independence, inheritance and trust.
[00:13:27] Speaker A: And the courier piece is now visible enough that field offices are warning locally. FBI Boston reported an increase in gold bar and bulk cash courier scams documenting 103 courier pickup instances from 2023 through May 2025 with losses totaling more than $26 million. The office said a roughly 98% of those losses were reported by people over 60.
[00:13:53] Speaker B: What does the organization look like behind the scenes?
[00:13:56] Speaker A: Think of it as a layered operation. Overseas callers generate the fear and control the script. A supervisor or handler may coordinate targets, take timing and courier movements. Domestic runners handle pickups, travel, rental cars, hotel rooms and phone transfers. Some of the people in that chain may know exactly what they are doing. Others may be fed a partial story. But the structure is designed to separate the victim from the person who ultimately profits.
[00:14:26] Speaker B: Is there a type of person who becomes a career or is that too simple?
[00:14:31] Speaker A: It is too simple to say there's one type of Some runners are fully aware criminals. Some are low level participants who chase quick money and ask very few questions. Some may be recruited through job ads, encrypted chats or personal connections and told only part of the story. But common traits show up. Willingness to be used, comfort with deception, short term thinking and the belief that distance from the victim means distance from responsibility.
[00:15:00] Speaker B: I was just picking something up is not exactly a moral defense.
[00:15:04] Speaker A: No, I was only the getaway driver has never aged well as a legal strategy.
[00:15:09] Speaker B: What about the people higher up the chain? Are they usually personally charming or is this more like a script factory?
[00:15:15] Speaker A: Both. A good fraud crew runs on scripts. But the better callers know how to improvise. They listen for fear, loneliness, confusion, pride and loyalty. They adapt. Some are patient. Some are aggressive. The common criminal trait is not brilliance. It's persistence without conscience. They keep pushing past ordinary social boundaries because they're not burdened by ordinary social obligation.
Federal charging documents have described those divisions. In the Missouri case, prosecutors alleged that callers outside the United States contacted elderly victims while defendants inside the US Acted as couriers or pickup managers. In the Kentucky indictment, prosecutors alleged that defendants posed as Federal Reserve agents or other government officials, collected gold for supposed safekeeping, and laundered the proceed.
[00:16:09] Speaker B: So the person at the door may not be the mastermind, but that doesn't make the crime smaller. It means the network is bigger. Let's stay with Missouri for a moment because this case shows how the whole machine works.
[00:16:21] Speaker A: Let's slow down on the Missouri case because because it shows the architecture of the scam.
According to the U.S. attorney's office for the Eastern District of Missouri, federal prosecutors charged Raj Chawan, Monarch Sachdev and Elon Harper in a conspiracy that allegedly stole $8 million from elderly victims.
Prosecutors said calls and electronic messages came from co conspirators outside the United States States who claimed the victim's financial accounts had been compromised.
[00:16:55] Speaker B: And then the caller walks the person from fear to action.
[00:16:58] Speaker A: Exactly. The indictment described victims being told to liquidate savings and retirement funds, buy gold bars or gold coins, and hand that goal to someone presented as a government courier. That word matters. The courier is not framed as a thief.
The courier is framed as the solution.
[00:17:21] Speaker B: Which means by the time the victim opens the door, they may believe the most dangerous person in the story is the only person helping them.
[00:17:28] Speaker A: That's one of the hardest parts for families to understand after the fact. The victim is not handing money to a stranger because they suddenly trust strangers. They are acting inside a pressure chamber created by the scammer. In one example cited by prosecutors, an elderly resident of Cedar Hill, Missouri was allegedly told she had been sent money through PayPal by mistake and would owe income taxes unless she bought $200,000 in gold bars. That is not random. It combines tax, fear, payment app confusion and a threat of financial penalty into one script.
[00:18:09] Speaker B: It is like they build a custom maze and then pretend the gold is the exit sign.
[00:18:13] Speaker A: Prosecutors also alleged a division of labor. Thachdev was described not only as a courier but as someone who managed pickups by other couriers. Detention filings cited by DOJ said he was personally responsible for retrieving proceeds on at least 65 occasions, tied to at least 5.4 million in losses and facilitated at least 4.2.2 million in pickups by others.
Harper was alleged to have handled at least 20 pickups.
That tells us this is not opportunistic errand running.
[00:18:48] Speaker B: This is logistic and logistics means calendars, travel, cars, phones, handoff points, and people who know where the next victim lives.
[00:18:59] Speaker A: Which is why if a courier is on the way, the safest move is not to confront them yourself. Call local law enforcement. Give them the time, location, phone numbers, vehicle description if you have it, and any code words or instructions the scammer gave you. The courier is the physical link in a transnational chain, and that link can be investigated.
A second case shows what the handoff can look like when investigators get there in time.
A second Missouri prosecution shows how the final handoff can look in real time.
DOJ reported that five people were sentenced for helping overseas scammers defraud elderly victims across 10 states.
The government estimated the overseas scammers netted $9.3 million.
In one St. Louis example, an 82 year old woman was contacted by someone claiming to represent a computer software support team and told her financial account had been compromised.
She was instructed to buy roughly $250,000 in gold bars.
[00:20:06] Speaker B: That detail computer software support feels familiar. It starts with something ordinary, a computer problem, a pop up, a call that
[00:20:14] Speaker A: sounds like technical help, and then it escalates. DOJ said courier Dariona Lambert flew from Gainesville, Florida to St. Louis.
Another defendant, Chintankumar Parek, rented a car and drove her to a parking lot near the victim's home. From there, Lambert took a ride share to the victim's residence.
That detail was important.
The network used layers of transportation to distance the handler from the door, so
[00:20:43] Speaker B: the person arranging the pickup may stay one step back while the courier becomes the face of the crime.
[00:20:49] Speaker A: Right? According to doj, Lambert was intercepted by law enforcement agents when she arrived.
After Parekh learned she had been apprehended, he fled to Pittsburgh.
That sequence shows why timing matters. When victims or families report before the courier arrives, law enforcement may have an opportunity to interrupt the pickup, identify a courier and work backward through phones, travel records, rental cars and communication.
[00:21:19] Speaker B: What would investigators want from a family member who realizes this is how happening before the career arrives?
[00:21:25] Speaker A: Specifics, not conclusions. Specifics. What number called? What name did they use? What time is the pickup? What address?
What do they tell the victim to say? Did they give a password? Is there a vehicle description? Are there texts, emails, receipts, shipping confirmations, bank slips or dealer invoices? Investigations are built from details that seem small in the moment, and families should
[00:21:52] Speaker B: write those details down instead of turning the kitchen into a courtroom.
[00:21:56] Speaker A: Exactly. The goal is not to cross examine the person you love. The goal is to stabilize a situation, preserve evidence and get help moving.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: And if the courier is stopped, that does not erase the trauma, but it may keep the gold from disappearing into the laundering chain.
[00:22:13] Speaker A: Exactly. Once assets move from a victim's house to a courier, from a courier to a handler, and from a handler to another state or country, country recovery becomes much harder. But the St. Louis intercept shows why early reporting is not symbolic. It can be operationally useful.
[00:22:33] Speaker B: Kentucky gives us another word to listen
[00:22:35] Speaker A: for safekeeping the Kentucky indictment gives us another phrase to watch for safekeeping. Federal authorities said Antonio Pena and Brandi Durst were charged in a gold bar conspiracy that targeted senior victims in Kentucky and across the United States.
Prosecutors alleged that between April 2024 and July 2025, they traveled around the country collecting gold bars from victims who had been convinced to liquidate retirement funds and buy gold.
[00:23:05] Speaker B: And the COVID story was that the victim had already been hit by identity theft.
[00:23:10] Speaker A: That's what prosecutors alleged unindicted co conspirators convinced victims they were victims of a prior identity theft scam and that buying gold would protect their assets. Then Pena, Durst and others allegedly posed as Federal Reserve agents or government officials who would pick up the gold for safekeeping. The word safekeeping is doing the emotional work there. It tells the victim, you are not giving this away, you are preserving it.
[00:23:37] Speaker B: That is cruel because it borrows the language of care.
[00:23:41] Speaker A: It does. And it is why family members should listen carefully for protective language that seems unique, oddly urgent. They're helping me secure my account. They're moving my money to a protected place. They're sending someone to safeguard it. Those are not reassuring phrases when they come with secrecy, pressure and a scheduled pickup.
[00:24:02] Speaker B: So the prevention question is not just, did anyone ask you for money? It is, has anyone told you to protect your money by moving it somewhere?
[00:24:10] Speaker A: That is exactly the right question.
It removes blame and gets to the mechanism. The scam is not always framed as payment. Sometimes it's framed as rescue.
[00:24:20] Speaker B: What should listeners know about obedience to authority? Because a fake badge number or fake federal title should not work. But it does.
[00:24:29] Speaker A: Most people are raised to cooperate with banks, police, courts, and government agencies. That's normally healthy. Society depends on a certain amount of trust.
Scammers counterfeit that trust. They use official vocabulary, case numbers, departments, and badges to borrow authority they don't have.
The warning sign isn't authority itself. The warning sign is authority. Plus secrecy, urgency and control of your money.
[00:24:57] Speaker B: That makes the prevention message a little more humane. We're not telling people trust no one. We're telling them verify before you obey.
[00:25:06] Speaker A: And now let's pull back again because the regional numbers show this is not confined to one crew or one state. FBI Boston's regional warning gives us the pattern at scale. From 2023 through May 2025, the Boston Division documented 103 instances of couriers being used to pick up illicit cash or gold bars, with losses totaling $26,000,000 $24,691.
Most of the reported regional losses came from Massachusetts, where 59 victims lost more than $18.6 million. Bain, New Hampshire and Rhode island also reported cases nationwide. FBI Boston cited at least 1737 courier pickup instances during the same period, with losses of more than $186.2 million.
[00:26:02] Speaker B: The regional numbers help listeners understand this is not one city, one crew, or one unlucky family. It is a tactic that can be deployed wherever a victim can answer a phone and a courier can reach an address.
[00:26:15] Speaker A: And FBI Boston emphasized the same core prevention point we want ringing in people's ears. Legitimate government agencies and businesses will not ask you to buy gold bars or withdraw bolt cash and hand those assets to a stranger at your door. If the story requires secrecy and the courier the story is false.
[00:26:36] Speaker B: I'd add one more thing for families. Do not wait for a crisis to have this conversation. The right time to make the rule is before anyone is scared, overwhelmed or embarrassed.
[00:26:47] Speaker A: That's how you take the oxygen away from the scam. You give people a standing permission slip to pull pause. You make it normal to say I need to call my daughter or I need to call my bank directly or I need to call local police before anyone comes here. The criminals want the victim alone at the door. Prevention puts someone else in the room before the doorbell ring.
[00:27:10] Speaker B: Let's turn all of that into rules people can remember before they need them.
[00:27:14] Speaker A: Here are the rules I want listeners to keep. Rule 1. No government age agency sends a courier to your house to collect cash, gold, silver, jewelry, gift cards or cryptocurrency. Not the FBI, not Treasury, not the FTC, not Social Security, not a court.
[00:27:32] Speaker B: Rule 2. A safe account is not safe. If someone says you need to move money to protect it, stop, hang up, call the institution using a number you already trust, not the number that you they gave you.
[00:27:45] Speaker A: Rule 3. Secrecy is the tell. Any real investigator who needs your cooperation will not tell you to hide the matter with your spouse. Your adult children, your attorney, your banker or local police, while demanding your assets.
[00:28:00] Speaker B: Rule 4. Passwords and badge numbers do not prove legitimacy. Scammers can invent official sounding details faster than I can lose my reading glasses in a room I just won't walked into.
[00:28:12] Speaker A: And somehow those glasses are usually on your head.
[00:28:15] Speaker B: Which is why in our house, verification requires an independent second source.
[00:28:21] Speaker A: Exactly. Independent verification saves people.
[00:28:25] Speaker B: Also, may I point out that independent verification is very romantic.
[00:28:29] Speaker A: In our house, it is. Nothing says lasting love like refusing to trust a stranger with a badge number and a burner phone.
[00:28:37] Speaker B: So we have the rules. Now. Let's say someone hears this and realizes this is happening to me or this is happening to my mom. What is the first calm move?
[00:28:47] Speaker A: Start with safety and separation. Get off the phone, stop the text exchange, and do not meet the courier. If the courier is already scheduled, that's not the time for a family showdown on the porch. That's the time to call local law enforcement and explain. Explain that someone may be coming to collect cash, gold or other property as part of a fraud scheme.
[00:29:08] Speaker B: And if the victim is scared, they'll get in trouble for stopping that fear
[00:29:12] Speaker A: is part of the trap. A real bank, a real agency, and the real investigator will not punish someone for pausing to verify. So step one is safety. Step two is preservation. Save the texts, phone numbers, emails, receipts, bank slips, dealer invoices, shipping notices and written instructions. Do not delete anything just because it's embarrassing.
[00:29:37] Speaker B: Then comes the reporting and the money trail.
[00:29:40] Speaker A: Exactly. Call your bank, brokerage, credit union or precious metals dealer using a verified number. If funds were wired, ask about recall or fraud procedures. If gold has been ordered but not picked up or shipped, ask whether the transaction can be paused. If retirement assets were liquidated, document every step. Then file a
[email protected] as quickly as possible.
Include the names used by the scammers, phone numbers, emails, websites, payment details, bank information, courier descriptions, vehicle details, dates, addresses and any passwords or codes they gave you. The details that feel small may connect this case to other.
[00:30:25] Speaker B: And if the handoff already happened, please hear us. You are not foolish. You were targeted by professionals who practice fear for a living.
[00:30:35] Speaker A: Shame is part of the criminal's exit plan. They count on silence. They count on people not wanting to tell their children, their pastor, their friends, their banker or police.
Reporting is not a confession of failure. It is evidence. It is a chance to protect the next person.
[00:30:53] Speaker B: If someone you love tells you this happened, the first words matter. Try. I'm glad you told me we're going to handle this together, not how could you not? Why didn't you know those questions?
[00:31:06] Speaker A: Close Doors the best prevention tool is not cynicism. It is consistent connection. A simple family rule can work no major financial move under pressure without a pause and a second conversation.
If a caller says secrecy is required, that is the exact moment to bring someone else in. The physical courier scam is a reminder that fraud does not stay in one lane. It can begin with a pop up, shift to a phone call, move through a bank branch, pass through a precious metals dealer, and end at a front door.
Every step is designed to make the victim feel alone. Our job is to break that isolation.
[00:31:46] Speaker B: Share this episode with someone who might never search for scam warnings on their own. Put the rule on the refrigerator. Say it out loud at dinner. No bank, no government agency, no legitimate investigator sends a stranger to pick up your cash or gold.
[00:32:02] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to behind the Scams, part of the SOS Media Network.
[00:32:07] Speaker B: SOS Stamp Out Scams is a 501c3 nonprofit dedicated to scam prevention and education.
Donations are tax deductible and help support public education, victim outreach, and prevention resources.
[00:32:22] Speaker A: If you've been targeted, report it. If someone you love has been targeted, stay close.
Fraud thrives in silence. Prevention starts with conversation. Bye for now.
[00:32:33] Speaker B: Bye for now.
