The Liquidity Event Podcast: Episode 97

 

Episode 97: How Not To Get Scammed

Get ready for a special episode of "The Liquidity Event" podcast with AJ and Brett! Join them as they share their own scam stories and explain how to protect yourself and your loved ones. From music streaming fraud to cloning voices in fake kidnappings, we've got all the scams. Discover why Googling certain words is risky, how seniors are targeted, and the dangers of Taylor Swift ticket scams- no scam is left unturned! Stay informed, entertained, and one step ahead of scammers with The Liquidity Event!

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Airdate: 06/09/2023

Presenter:

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered tax or investment advice.

Welcome to The Liquidity Event, a show about all things personal finance with a laser focus on equity compensation. Hosted by AJ and Shane of Brooklyn FI, each episode will take you through the week's news on FinTech, IPOs, SPACs, founder wins and fails, crypto, and whatever else these nerds think is interesting. Learn more and subscribe today at brooklynfi.com.

AJ:

Hello and welcome to Liquidity Event. We're your hosts AJ-

Brett:

And I'm Brett.

AJ:

Ooh. Hello, Brett. This is episode 97 being recorded on Thursday, May 25th, airing on Friday, May 9th. This week, we will be discussing scams. We've got credit card scams, bitcoin scans, insurance scams, and why your pharmacy doesn't have any toothpaste. How are you doing, Brett?

Brett:

I'm doing well. This is going to be a fun one. Scams are always exciting.

AJ:

Yeah. I'm happy that you are joining me for this one, both from some personal scam stories you've told me. And also, the fact that you're a financial planner and you've worked with clients for almost a decade, and I'm sure you have some good scam stories to share with us. But yeah, I'd love for you to introduce yourself. Who are you? And where do you live?

Brett:

Yeah. Senior financial planner here at BKFi. I live in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. Let's see. Two little girls, so we might even get into a story today about little kidnapping AI, and it is legitimately my nightmare. So if we do hit on that one, I'll hold the tears back.

AJ:

Okay. Yeah. Jesus Christ. Yeah, what a parent's worst nightmare. Oh my God. I'm going to lose it. On the first story, I'm going to lose it.

Brett:

Yeah, right?

AJ:

What's a fun fact about you that listeners need to know? I have one in mind, but I'm curious what yours is.

Brett:

Maybe I'll roll with the one that you have in mind. Prior to doing financial planning, I played minor professional hockey, a little bit of time over in Europe, and then some time in the minors here in the United States.

AJ:

Yes. That's my favorite fun fact about Brett Weiss. He's a literal professional athlete in our midst, which is awesome. So as a financial planner... As financial planners, we consider ourselves fairly financially savvy and pretty aware of predators and things like that. But have you ever been scammed personally, or know anyone in your family who has been scammed?

Brett:

Yeah. So personally, no, I have not been scammed, thank goodness. I've been hacked to the point of everything, lesson learned, change your passwords and don't have the same passwords for everything. I learned that one.

AJ:

Brett loves hockey in 1986.

Brett:

Yeah, right? But I remember growing up, I was probably 13 or 14, I have an older sister, and she was going to University of Illinois at the time. And she was moving into an apartment complex, and my dad received this email from somebody who was trying to be essentially the landlord and collect this excess down payment. Fortunately enough, my dad was savvy enough to understand that this probably wasn't reality. So he contacted the actual landlord that he had spoken to. They really cleared up that this was not them at all. The request was... I can't remember what country it was trying to get the money deployed to or wired to, but it was something not that substantial that would make you shake your head. So pretty impressive on my dad's part. I think it was like a thousand dollars deposit or something like that. So fortunately, he didn't make that payment, but we did file a report with the FTC on it, just to cover your butt on it.

AJ:

Yeah. I mean, that's-

Brett:

How about you, AJ?

AJ:

Yeah, I've been scammed so many... No, just kidding. So I fell for a scam once. I was about 22 years old, first job out of college. It was actually my... It was the night before my first business trip ever. And I had a debit card, which I was nervous about traveling and paying for hotel expenses when I had no money at all. And I got a call from a scammer saying that there was some unusual activity on my debit card and it was going to be closed, could I please provide my full number, pin code, date of birth, all the above. And I was like, "Oh my God, of course, yeah. I just don't want my debit card to be..." And the minute I hung up, I was like, "Oh, no, I fell for it," and was able to cancel it right away.

But look, scammers play into our emotions, whether you're a parent and your kid's in danger, or not even in danger, just, "Hey, there's a fee associated with your kid." "Well, I don't want my kid to lose out on their spot on the soccer team, or tuition, or the house they're living in." They're smart. They're preying on our emotions to pay up, so we don't have to cause someone we love harm.

Brett:

Yeah.

AJ:

I forgot about this other kind of crazy story. One of the articles that we're going to talk about reminded me, this was not that long ago, maybe four or five years ago, I was back home in California. But I was actually getting my haircut, so I didn't have my phone for an hour of the time it takes to get a haircut. And when I got out of the haircut, I had 30 missed calls from my grandfather, my aunt, my dad. And someone had called my grandfather and said that there was a warrant out for my arrest in the state of California, unless... For unpaid tax debt, ironically, I was an accountant. And if they didn't... They needed to bring 10 grand to the courthouse for the bail. And it was a crazy idea, but the way that it was presented was very bureaucratic. And I think that's kind of what you were describing. That's what a lot of these scams are-

Brett:

Yeah.

AJ:

... is like, "Hey, here's bureaucracy. I need you to just bring this 10K in a suitcase to this courthouse." It was at the courthouse, so it was safe.

Brett:

Yeah.

AJ:

It wasn't a dark alley. But my aunt's a lawyer, she got involved. To their credit, they tried to contact me, and we're going to talk about that, how the most important thing you can do is try to contact the person that appears to be in danger. But they couldn't reach me, because I was getting my haircut cut. So anyway, that was a fun one.

Brett:

Yeah. I mean, these scams, they're simplistic in nature. But you do it enough times, and it's pretty profitable.

AJ:

Yeah.

Brett:

And that's really what they're doing. It's scamming at scale.

AJ:

Yeah. I mean, right. And we're going to talk about how technology, and AI especially, is going to make it a lot easier for scammers to make their scams believable. Right?

Brett:

Yeah.

AJ:

Because if you call a thousand people and say, "I need a debit card pin number," maybe 999 say no. But if one says yes, there's 200 bucks you can grab from the ATMs.

Brett:

Yeah. Yeah.

AJ:

So we've collected some articles. So different show format today, folks. Not necessarily record-breaking news, but we're just going to kind of talk about all different types of scams. So first one, I found this article on Bloomberg, and the title is Music Streaming Has A $2 Billion Fraud Program That Goes Beyond AI. What was your take on this? So this is basically like, scammers creating fake music to steal royalties away from legitimate artists. So this sucks, right?

Brett:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. This does suck. I mean, we'll talk about T Swift. I know you're a big fan. But this is one of those articles, kind of the AI ability to quickly just change music, and then put it on something like Spotify and take, basically, what was an artist's product and basically exploit them. And professional background, I'm all for people getting theirs. You got to get paid what is yours. So this one actually irked me a lot.

AJ:

Yeah.

Brett:

This scam irked me a lot. Not that I think Taylor Swift needs more money, but I do think her creative outlet allows her to earn that money, and she should be compensated for that. So in this article, they talk about some safeguards and things of that nature that need to get put in place. I think this needs to move more that direction even harder. I really do. I think they need to crack down on this. It reminds me of back when we were stealing music off Napster, or LimeWire.

AJ:

Never.

Brett:

Sooner or later, regulation has to step in.

AJ:

I never did that.

Brett:

Yeah. Yeah.

AJ:

I don't know what you're talking about.

Brett:

Me neither. What are you talking about? Woops.

AJ:

Yeah. When people, my really misbehaving friends stole all that music off LimeWire.

Brett:

Yeah. Yeah.

AJ:

I never stole Jay-Z's albums ever. Anyway...

Brett:

Yeah, burned you the CD, that's all.

AJ:

Yeah, yeah. Exactly.

Brett:

But you paid them for too.

AJ:

Oh, yeah, I paid my friend for it, who definitely sent the royalties into... Yeah.

Brett:

Yeah.

AJ:

Anyway...

Brett:

Yeah.

AJ:

So what's interesting about this, first of all, my friend Ben is quoted in it. I was reading this article, I was like, "Oh, Ben. Hey, what's up?" But basically, so what's happening is these scammers, let's say, Taylor Swift is kind of an extreme case, but let's say someone, some beatmaker has a catchy track that's caught naturally on TikTok and they're getting paid for that. What these scammers do is they basically use AI to create a similar recording. And what's so crazy about these scams, and what we're going to talk about today is, it used to be a lot harder. You used to have to go to, "Okay, let's pull the track down. Let's change the levels a little bit."

This is literally all happening by a piece of software that someone wrote. This is not really a person doing this. This is just a thing that's happening, because someone had this idea and wrote the software to execute this scam. So they're tagging their fake music as the original song and original artist, so they're able to just divert all the royalties away to them. So this scam sucks. Yes, Taylor Swift has laws of money. It's her creative output, and she should get her due, of course. But this is really hurting the smaller beatmakers, DJs, artists who might have that kind of one in million chance at going viral and actually getting paid through TikTok, and then these scammers are taking that away from them. So on a scale of one to 10, how bad is this scam?

Brett:

You know what? I think this is a pretty bad scam. I think this probably goes to a seven in my book.

AJ:

Okay. Seven.

Brett:

Somewhere in that range, just because like you said, if you take the T Swifts out of it, and it's more... What if I did something right and put something cool up for just one time?

AJ:

Yeah.

Brett:

That's kind of what that article alluded to, was like a group that kind of had their one hit.

AJ:

Yeah.

Brett:

I'd want to make that money. I don't want it going somewhere else, because somebody just snagged it from me. How about you?

AJ:

All right.

Brett:

What are you thinking?

AJ:

Brett says, "Streaming scam is a seven on the scale." I'm going to say it's a five, because I think there's a solution to this. And that solution is the blockchain. And this has been talked about in music circles for a while, which is we think about cryptocurrency gets a lot of attention as the use of the blockchain. But another way to use the blockchain is to actually identify who is the actual owner or originator of a piece of content. So the idea... And there's tons of startups that are trying to do this, but no one's really been able to do it at scale at a service like Spotify or Apple Music, where we can actually get ledger verified blockchain data on who created this piece of music and who should get paid for it. And we can go into... I can do a whole episode about music royalties, but it's not just the songwriter, it's the publisher, it's who played bass on the track.

Brett:

Right.

AJ:

It's all those things. So for something as complex as copyright and music, I think blockchain is a fix there. So that's a five for me, seven for you. Yeah, this one hurt you. This one cut you deep, right?

Brett:

It did. I don't like it. But like I said, I can go on this forever. Creatives, let them earn their money. \.

AJ:

Thank you.

Brett:

Creatives in general.

AJ:

Speaking of cutting deep, article from Hell Gate, which is Organized Retail Crime Is The Reason Your Pharmacy Sucks. Does NYC Have Organized Retail Crime? So for those who have not experienced this, and Brett have you? I'm going to describe it, and I want to hear if you've experienced it. But when I go to the Target at Atlantic Center in Downtown Brooklyn, and I want to buy my $11 body moisturizer, it is no longer on the shelf where I can grab it. It is behind a plastic case with a key, and I have to ring the button for the associate to come over and get it from me, which is very annoying when you're trying to pick up toothpaste, moisturizer, and mouthwash. I understand it for $40 packs of Nicorette gum or whatever, but that's kind of a new thing. Do you have this in where you live?

Brett:

We do.

AJ:

Yes? Okay.

Brett:

We do have that. Yeah.

AJ:

Crazy.

Brett:

Yeah.

AJ:

So yeah, this is called petite larceny, which is theft of goods under a thousand dollars, which I thought was such a cute name for theft. It's petite, it's petite larceny.

Brett:

Yeah. They're making it sound good.

AJ:

Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I didn't know this was... I thought this was... Me the East Coast liberal elite, I thought this was only a New York City problem, but it sounds like it's an all country problem.

Brett:

Yeah. Yeah, it is.

AJ:

What do you think, on the scale of one to 10, scam wise?

Brett:

This one, less angered about this one. I think this more probably just speaks to situations people feel like they're in at this point, which is unfortunate. I wish it would stop. I mean, we don't need it that way. We don't need our pharmaceuticals going any higher in expense than they already are today. That's a huge issue. What's more impressive is just, like I said, these small little crime like syndicates. That's the way to think of this group that's doing this, or groups, right? I mean, they're-

AJ:

Yeah, it's organized, right?

Brett:

Organized. It's amazing.

AJ:

It's not just one guy, grabbing the moisturizer and putting it on eBay.

Brett:

Yeah.

AJ:

It's this calculated, targeted attack in mass.

Brett:

Yeah. Imagine if we put that to good use. That's what I would say, put it to good use. We can all build some business, some legitimate businesses. But on a scale of one to five, or one to 10, pretty low. Probably like a four or five.

AJ:

Yeah. I'm going to go two on this one. This is-

Brett:

Yeah.

AJ:

People are always going to steal goods. I don't know. I don't know how we fix this one.

Brett:

Yeah.

AJ:

I do know how we fix the next one, which is to get crooked politicians out of politics. Our friend Mr. Santos scammed $25,000 in COVID unemployment benefits before he was elected to office, while he was in the investment world. Prosecutors say Bloomberg story... What I found crazy about the story is that they estimate that 20% of all unemployment paid is fraudulent. That blew my mind.

Brett:

Yeah. Yeah.

AJ:

What did you think about this one?

Brett:

I thought this one, obviously, corruption out of politics has to get out of there. I think my favorite quote of this was that Santos indictment was being unsealed early Wednesday when the anti-fraud legislation that he co-sponsored was getting approved by the House Committee.

AJ:

Yeah. Yeah.

Brett:

That's everything. Timing is everything in life for Santos, right?

AJ:

Sweet, sweet irony. Yes.

Brett:

Yeah.

AJ:

"Let me pass this bill to protect the American taxpayer from people like me."

Brett:

Yeah. Exactly, right. "I'm so happy to be here, everybody." No, I think this one is... This is actually something I've seen in the past with clients, where we get to year-end tax time and we're looking over documents that they submitted, and all of a sudden, you find this unemployment tax document, and you're thinking to yourself, "I know this client. They've never mentioned this. They haven't worked in years. They're retired." And it's like, wow, that happened so quickly, and they had no idea, just no clue. So the 20% didn't surprise me. I think it's a huge problem, right?

AJ:

Yeah.

Brett:

And I think COVID made that worse.

AJ:

Yeah. So what people are doing, people are finding social security numbers somehow and basically applying for unemployment benefits as you and stealing your... It is identity theft, right?

Brett:

Yeah.

AJ:

This is identity theft. And then being able to collect that unemployment, which unfortunately creates a tax problem for you.

Brett:

Yeah.

AJ:

Because those unemployment benefits could be taxable, depending on your situation.

Brett:

Yeah.

AJ:

All of this, it comes down to double checking and having someone that you trust double check your statements. And I feel like we've all complicated our financial lives so much. I have investment accounts at 15 different places, I have a million different credit cards, bunch of bank accounts. And I'm pretty good at checking everything over. But if there was a thousand dollars missing from some account somewhere, I might not notice it, and that's scary. That makes me feel negligent. But that's what we're talking about here. We're talking about people who, once they get their hands on the information, you try a little bit at first, and then you can push it and see how far you can go.

Brett:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's easy. It's easy to lose track of those kinds of things. I remember a time where I couldn't get my parents to use a debit card. They were like, "Do not give the credit card number away," and now it's like, "Order a pizza, new place?"

AJ:

Yeah.

Brett:

"Yeah, sure. Credit card gone," whatever.

AJ:

Yeah. I mean, my credit card is, it's click click, it's saved in my password manager, and it's like, "Ooh, that's a nice something that I want," Click, click. "Oh, now, it's at my house tomorrow."

Brett:

Yeah. Yeah.

AJ:

And now, that website has my credit card information. Well, supposedly, that's where these third party payment processors come in.

Brett:

Right.

AJ:

But all right. Here's a big, big, big fun scam. An Instagram influencer scammed over $2 million, sad, from older lonely Americans. So yeah, we basically had an Instagram influencer, who looked like they were living the high life, and basically... What did she... Wait, what happened here? She convinced these people that they were married?

Brett:

Yeah. Exactly.

AJ:

Did you read this one?

Brett:

Yeah.

AJ:

What?

Brett:

Yeah. She basically was... Like I said, the whole article was, basically, spoofing somebody into thinking there was this relationship, these wealthy people, that there was this relationship happening, which I mean, that's a ton of effort, okay, first of all. Maintaining one relationship is difficult. I don't know how you could fraudulently do numerous.

But this brought back for me, Manti Te'o, being a sports guy I am, he was a Notre Dame linebacker. I don't know if you remember the story. Netflix did a documentary on him recently.

AJ:

Okay.

Brett:

Basically, he got snubbed into this, I think it was a guy at the time, actually, but faked a woman's voice, who made him believe they were dating, essentially over time. He faked that she had cancer, and then she passed away. He had no idea that they just faked that she passed away. It was like right when the national title game was going on, so he got all this press for being this amazing trooper through all of this. Turns out it was a huge hoax, came to light. And it was devastating. So I think that's where I land on this scam is, if you've never met somebody, or have gone on some dates with people, don't be wiring money to bank accounts for people. That's just not the most intelligent thing to do in that situation. That's what kind of happened here.

AJ:

Yeah. I mean, I think that's the theme of this episode is never, ever, ever, ever wire money-

Brett:

Bingo.

AJ:

... unless you are on the phone with your bank and your investment advisor has said, "I'm wiring this money to your account," is the only time that you should be wiring money. Or you're buying a house and you're absolutely sure, and it's a trusted wirehouse that you've Googled, and you've said, "Okay, this is a legitimate company that's going to receive my escrow payment."

Brett:

Yeah.

AJ:

Those are the only times you're wiring money.

Brett:

Yeah.

AJ:

Because every single one of these scams, it's not like someone wrote a check. Wiring, it's untraceable. You can't claw it back. You can cancel a check. You can do all... But wiring is like it's gone. So folks, if you take one thing away from this episode, it's do not wire money to anybody that you have not met, ever.

Brett:

Yeah. And I would say take Google even farther, AJ. I know when you're doing down payments at title companies and stuff, call them, right?

AJ:

Yeah.

Brett:

Verify that this is a legit place.

AJ:

Yeah.

Brett:

Force them to give you the account numbers, those kinds of things.

AJ:

Yeah.

Brett:

Really got to check those boxes in these situations.

AJ:

Speaking of Googling, I'm going to skip ahead a little bit, here's a crypto scam, where an actual entire fake website was created. So yeah, calling is great advice, because you can think you're on mycryptowallet.com, but you're actually on mycryptowallet2.com, which is a completely fake website that's designed to wipe out all of your entire crypto holdings. So yeah, this was a serial scammer used advanced money laundering techniques to completely clone this website. So yeah, that scares the shit out of me is like-

Brett:

Yes.

AJ:

... not noticing that there's a difference in the URL. And we're seeing this a lot in the crypto space, which is pretty unregulated, but I don't know, I might predict that we would see this in the more traditional bank and investment space. Who's to say that we can't have BankofAmerica.co as a spoof site? Hopefully, these larger institutions are spending time and money, thinking about stopping this kind of cyber crime, but I don't know. That scares the out of me.

Brett:

Yeah.

AJ:

So to me, this is a nine in terms of scam. This is very smart. People could do their due diligence and just not notice that they're on a completely fake website. This one's scary.

Brett:

For sure. Yeah, I agree with this one, because I think the answers... These sophisticated scammers in these kinds of situations, they're always seeming to be a step or two ahead of what is happening from firewall standpoint and risk management standpoint. So this is a scary one, because you don't really know how this one gets under control yet.

AJ:

Yeah.

Brett:

This is TBD, and you're hoping these big private institutions are-

AJ:

You hope.

Brett:

... constantly monitoring this and spending a lot of money there, right?

AJ:

Yeah. Yeah.

Brett:

You really have to.

AJ:

And I think it's interesting thinking about older folks are typically the people who get scammed, just because they're living alone, they're maybe not used to technology. But I do think there's a propensity for younger people to get scammed, because younger people hate getting on the phone.

Brett:

Yeah.

AJ:

So to your point, if someone's going to make something easy and I have to do click, click, "Here's my credit card," or click, click, "Here's some wire transfers to buy Bitcoin," they don't want to get on the phone. That's seen as bureaucracy, or that's seen as inefficient. But maybe we need a bit of a return to that kind of analog lifestyle.

Brett:

Yeah, right? Or maybe just step back and do some more due diligence, right? I mean-

AJ:

Yeah. Yeah.

Brett:

... we're always on the go, go, go. We got to get to our Instagram faster.

AJ:

Oh my God. Yeah. Oh, Jesus. So addicted. I'm thinking about going on a week-long Instagram cleanse, but I don't have the guts to do it.

Brett:

I've thought about it as well.

AJ:

It's too hard.

Brett:

Different topic for a different day. Yeah.

AJ:

Yeah, different day. Okay, let's-

Brett:

It's an addiction.

AJ:

... talk about, in my opinion, the worst type of scam. This is a CNN article, the title of the article is, Mom, These Bad Men Have Me. She believes Scammers Cloned Her Daughter's Voice In A Fake Kidnapping. This is your worst nightmare, right-

Brett:

It is.

AJ:

... as a dad? Yeah.

Brett:

It is. A hundred percent. The scam is low on the totem pole, because in the article, they talk about how this scam has been around for a long time. But AI has, in this article, basically what they did is they cloned her voice using AI. That is freaky.

AJ:

Yeah.

Brett:

If I got a phone call and I heard my eldest daughter's voice crying out for help, I don't know what I would do. So when I was reading this article, I was like, "AJ, how dare you send this to me?"

AJ:

Yeah.

Brett:

"This is awful." But yeah, from how complicated this scam is, it didn't seem that complicated.

AJ:

Yeah.

Brett:

But from, like you said earlier, just preying on emotional behavior. This is a big one right here.

AJ:

Yeah.

Brett:

This is pure emotion.

AJ:

Right. I mean, these scammers know, what are you going to do when you hear that? Whatever it takes.

Brett:

Yeah.

AJ:

If it's a million dollars, you will find a million dollars, and you will get it wired tomorrow. And that's that idea of, "Don't go to the police. If you go to the police, I'll kill her," just like that. And look, this one's as old as time. So that's why this one is the scariest to me, because I don't see how technology... AI is a little bit scarier, but it used to be letters. It used to be serial killer, cut out letters on typewriters. So the technology might be moving fast, but this is a scam as old as time.

Brett:

Yeah.

AJ:

So this is a 10 for me, because yeah. I mean, but at the end of the day, the damage, if you think about it, the damage is only financial. The daughter was safe, she was at dance class. Right?

Brett:

Yeah.

AJ:

At the end of the day, the best advice is try to reach the person that you think is being harmed, as we talked about earlier.

Brett:

Yeah, absolutely.

AJ:

Hopefully, they're not at dance class, or at the hair salon.

Brett:

Yeah. Yeah, right?

AJ:

And if you can't reach them, try the three people closest to them. If they're married, try their spouse. If they have a best friend... As a parent, I'm sure you have all these safeguards in place, but there's always someone else you can ask, right?

Brett:

Yeah.

AJ:

We don't want to act without checking or verifying.

Brett:

Absolutely.

AJ:

So this is an interesting one, the idea of insurance scams. And this is a bit of a departure from the rest of the scams, which are criminal acts, because this is perfectly legal. Insurance sales salesmen can absolutely sell folks index universal life insurance policies. But as financial planners and as fiduciaries, we see a lot of these policies, well, I haven't actually seen one being sold, but I think you have, Brett, in your work.

Brett:

Yeah.

AJ:

You've seen one of these policies. Tell me, why are these so bad, and why is this actually a scam sometimes?

Brett:

Yeah. I think, not all salespeople on the insurance side are sleazy, so let's get that out of the way quickly.

AJ:

Yeah. There's a place for insurance. There can be a place for whole life insurance.

Brett:

Yeah. Yeah. So nobody come after us after this one. But it's a very complex and a very expensive product that is sold to people. The problem that people run into is, because of the complexity, it can be sold in many different fashions by these salespeople. They can really show performance that is highly unlikely to happen, which triggers our brain, as a buyer, to think best case scenario all the time, which is not the right way to look at these kinds of things.

I think by and large, if you are going to consider getting involved in one of these type of products, definitely talk to a fee only financial planner. At least, at bare minimum, get a really in-depth group of questions together that have to be answered by the insurance group before you even consider moving forward, and then talk with your planner about how this fits. Does it make sense? Do I even need this? That is the biggest one. Even if you understand it, sometimes it's not needed. And that becomes the problem. And it's big commission on the other side for the salespeople.

AJ:

Yeah. I mean, we're talking about insurance salesmen who quote, and I'm calling it a scam, because they're preying on folks. They're preying on recently single women, widows. They're preying on recently retired men, who don't want their life savings to run out. And basically, these salesmen are looking for vulnerable populations and saying, "How can I exploit them to sell them this product that, sure, I went to all the training and I believe maybe in my heart that it is a good fit for them, but I'm making 8% commission on the policy."

Brett:

Yeah.

AJ:

How do you sleep at night? So generally, for this one, if you have older relatives or people in your family who are recently retiring, if you hear the word, "My insurance guy," or, "my financial planner," do a double take and just make sure that their financial planner is not just trying to sell them an insurance policy. The person who's going to benefit most from that insurance policy is the guy selling it, who's going to go to Bora Bora as a prize for selling the most insurance policies.

I want to wrap things up here. How do we protect ourselves? What advice do we have for listeners and clients? How do we get out of that emotional state and actually make some good decisions?

Brett:

Yeah. I think we hit on a couple. Double check your sources, for sure. If you're talking to somebody who's trying to sell something, check a reference, ask for references, those kinds of things. Make sure, just in general, that you are doing your due diligence. We kind of talked about that. Take your time when you're making some of these decisions. Check web addresses. If you get a weird email from Apple, check email signatures, all of those kinds of things, like asking for credit cards. Just take your time when you're going through those things. What about you?

AJ:

I think the best one is just, A, check in and educate your... Check in and educate your older friends and relatives. They... I don't want to make generalizations, but if you're living alone and someone sends you an email, you might respond to it. Maybe you think it's important. They're not computer native, they're not internet native. They didn't grow up with... I remember getting porn scams when I was like 11. Because the moment I got an email address, I was like... We're conditioned to know, "Oh, that looks like spam." But someone who's getting an email address for the first time, or that's their whole world, might be more inclined to fall for something like, "Hey, I'm your friend. We have an internet relationship. I'd love to come visit you. Can you wire me $2,000 for my plane ticket?"

I think another thing is just trust your gut. If you think something's a scam, ask. You have a banker reaching out to you saying, "Hey, I'm from Washington Mutual." Hey, didn't that company go kaput? Or, "Hey, I'm your banker from Bank of America. Can you just confirm your address for me?" Why is your banker confirming your address? Don't they have access to the portal? So just be really smart. And if something smells fishy, it probably is.

Brett:

Yeah.

AJ:

I don't know. Have a scam buddy, who you can say like, "Hey, bud." I mean, we're scam buddies for our clients, right?

Brett:

Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

AJ:

I get emails all the time like, "Hey, is this you guys?" "No, it's not us." So yeah. Anyway, a bit of a different tone, folks. This is kind of the scariest shit list, don't get scammed episode. Brett, thanks so much for joining me here today on The Liquidity Event.

Brett:

Thanks for having me.

AJ:

You can always email us your worst and best scams at liquidityevent@brooklynfi.com, and show notes can be found at brooklynfi.com/episode97. I'll see you next week, folks. Take care.

Presenter:

Thanks for listening to The Liquidity Event, hosted by AJ and Shane of Brooklyn Fi. Head on over to brooklynfi.com, where you can subscribe to the podcast or YouTube channel, or if you want to learn about their full service, financial planning, tax, and investment firm, specializing in tech professionals and creatives on the path to financial independence. We'll see you next time on The Liquidity Event.

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