By BILL HEINMILLER
Los Alamos

I start with a love story. Not long ago, I met the love of my life, a beautiful princess, online. She lived in Nigeria. She emailed her picture to me and said she loved me. It was love at first sight! All I needed to do to win her heart, she wrote, was wire her $10,000 to help her get her sizeable inheritance through the Nigerian bureaucracy. Then she would come to the US and give me not only her hand in marriage but also a reward of trunks filled with gems and diamonds for helping her out. What a deal! So, I promptly wired her the funds and began preparing our matrimonial home and nursery. That was in 2005 and I am still waiting for the gems, diamonds and that lousy stinkin’ princess!

In late 1999, I was deeply concerned about the imminent Y2K disaster. It had been widely reported power across the nation would be lost, both airplanes and banks would crash. Clouds would disappear into thin air, water would spiral out of control, toasters would explode, CDs, DVDs and nuclear reactors would all melt. Computers would go BSOD, VCRs and cassettes would only erase. Elevators would stop stopping, mirrors would stop reflecting, toilets would stop flushing, doors would stop closing, cars, clocks and watches would only run backwards!

Luckily, a Y2K expert appeared at my front door and announced he was sent by the government (he did not say whose government) and for a small fee he would assess my Y2K vulnerability and make any needed adjustments to save me from severe consequence. He flashed a badge, just like Hershel Walker did, and went to work with his boxes of blinking lights. Yes, he charged $150 for each certification, but he guaranteed that my home appliances—washer, dryer, fridge; my home furnishings—rugs, tables, lamps, light bulbs, doorknobs, faucets; my shop tools—drills, screwdrivers, hammers, condoms (handy in a shop if you are a plumber and need to seal screwed pipe joints), pliers, wrenches, chisels, sandpaper, were all Y2K immune and would continue to operate through the change of century and beyond. What a relief! Well worth the $12,000 or so it cost me! I even recall the expert’s name. It was Charles Tann and he spoke with a heavy French accent.

Also in late 1999, I received an email asking me to nominate the best invention of the 20th century, even though the 20th century wouldn’t end for another year. If my entry was judged the best, I stood to gain $10,000, a new car and worldwide recognition. All that for just a small $100 entry fee. What a deal! I named my entry and clicked “pay”, but did not win. In fact, nobody won. When I called to learn the winning entry, all I heard was, “We’re sorry, the number you have called is not in service. Please check your number and try your call again.”

Yes, we have scams. Lots of them. So, many, many kudos to Becky Rutherford for her articles in the LADP (Los Alamos Daily Post) on various scams and measures for victim avoidance. Hers is an endless task. Scams are widespread, involving imposters, phony stories, phony links, phony kidnappers, phony police, phony real estate agents; phony QRs; OTP bots; SIM swaps and of course the ever-so-popular phishes, smishes and vishes! Becky has not and cannot even scratch the surface.

Presently, unemployed federal workers are being scammed by phony recruiters for phony jobs and immigrants are being scammed by phony lawyers for phony legal protection services.  Monsieur Tann has long scammed the chronically ill with phony cures and persons with disabilities with phony medical devices. The first ones on the scene of many natural disasters are the scammers, not the first responders.  Becky cannot possibly write about them all, nor can she keep up. I too recently got the text from the Philippines telling me, among other things, that NMDOT is going to put me in a toll booth. Perhaps “troll booth” would have been more apt. There is no end to such texts.

Scams started around the time of Adam and Eve, and have been evolving ever since. Without a doubt, that phony serpent was Scammer 1.0. Today innumerable scams swindle people out of hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands at the mere cost of a phone call, email or text. Anyone can try it!  Who wouldn’t love cruising around Ashley Park eating a burger in a Bentley, or a muffin in a Maserati MC12?

Understanding scams first involves understanding the human vulnerability of “indset”. A person in Mindset is convinced they are doing the right thing when they are not. Mindset is frequently driven by a long record of success, which causes us to drop our guard. We’ve answered our phones and responded to emails and texts many times without problem. We trust experts and authorities. We don’t question because we know we are right. In industrial settings Mindset can lead to injury or death.

Perhaps the most well-known case of Mindset involved Captain Smith and the Titanic. Captain Smith and many others were convinced the Titanic was unsinkable. This was based on much “expert” testimony about the ship’s subdivided watertight compartment design. With a long career in commanding seagoing vessels, he should have known better, but he chose to follow the legend.

Thus, there was no need to heed ice warnings and it was perfectly safe to run the ship at full speed at night through a field of drifting icebergs until he finally succeeded in hitting one. He exited Mindset only when the onboard Shipbuilder’s Engineer told him the ship was going to sink, sink fast, actual lifeboat capacity was far short of needed capacity, and all the hype about the ship being unsinkable was just that, pure bunk. Captain Smith then retired to Bikini Bottom, which at least sounds like a nice place to retire!

Scammers run the same general MO, regardless of format or story. This allows us to recognize a scam and avoid cruising down Mindset Manor.

Scammers must:

  • First, establish Authority. The scammer poses as an authoritative figure, such as a law enforcement official, IT Tech, FBI agent, FTC agent, fraud investigator, a CIA agent, even a kidnapper. People generally respect and cooperate with authoritative figures. In Capt. Smith’s case, Authority was established by widely published “expert” testimony.
  • Second, establish credibility, or Trust. The scammer reveals valid information to prove his or her authority. These may include financial accounts; names of family, friends, relatives; children’s friends; birthdays; owned property; mother’s maiden names; schools attended; even Social Security numbers. Innumerable hacks and data transactions over the last 20 years have made all this and more available to anyone with money and a desire to do ill. (I found my SSN on a dot ru website.) In Capt. Smith’s case, the Trust came with the detailed explanations of the ship’s watertight design, indicating the Authorities knew what they were talking about.
  • Third, invent an emergency. Emergencies are wonderful things. Every purchase of $100 or more on Amazon should come with a free emergency! Emergencies provide the fear and sense of urgency needed to override logical and critical thinking, and kick the victim into gear. Much like the “only 1 left” you see when shopping online! Your bank account has been hacked, your children’s college funds need protection, your account is suspended, your 401(k) needs to be moved, we have your child, the package cannot be delivered, your Apple ID has been compromised, the house is about to be sold, your credit card shows overseas activity, you’re going to jail because you didn’t pay, your power is about to be cut off, we need your help to capture spies, blah blah blah. Scammers have more emergencies than a cat has hairs so it is impossible to list all the storylines. Variations on the invented emergency include phony romance and get-rich non-emergencies. You stand to gain much love, money, property, treasure, etc., as long as you make the required payment. Decisions made in this environment are usually wrong.

Fourth, reveal the solution to the emergency. This is obvious. The universal solution to all emergencies is your money.  If we pause to think about it, it is amazing how many dire situations can be quickly resolved by simply sending all our money to somebody else!  And more, the money always has to be in an untraceable and irretrievable form, like cash, gift cards, bullion, or EFT to disappearing bank accounts. Scammers do not accept checks! So should someone demand money and send you a link for an EFT, tell them you can’t click because you don’t know a j-p-g from a p-i-g. Ask if they’ll take a check, who the payee should be and where it should be mailed! LOL! (Note: Scammed funds are typically out of the country and the receiving account erased within 15 minutes of clicking “pay”. USPS can’t match that!)

Fifth, add the need to remain silent.  This leaves the victim isolated and under scammer control so no outside perspective or assurance is received, much less heeded.

Some scams execute the five steps with a smile and a handshake. A rash of professional and businesslike emails (Authority) continues to circulate advising recipients to review a document on “Docusign”, a valid website (Trust). The email also indicates there is a billed amount of $500 (Emergency), and the solution to the emergency is to click the Review Document link and log in with your email credentials (wow!), take the malware hit and kiss your data and maybe even your identity goodbye. The variations are infinite.

Mindset can last from minutes to months, however long it takes to build and maintain confidence to get the money. As Captain Smith showed us, victims exit Mindset only when blatant irrefutable evidence that something is wrong surfaces.  

In these examples, literally just the tip of the iceberg, try to spot the Shipbuilder’s Engineer in each case:

  • “Financial Advisor Shoebox”
  • “Retired Attorney $740,000”
  • “Mom, these bad men have me”

In each of these cases, the five steps were executed, sometimes within seconds as in the case of the phony kidnapping. The kidnapping case is noteworthy because it involved AI-generated audio. This too is easy to produce, and just one of many tools scammers use. Mindset there was so strong that even after the police (the real Authority) advised the victim the kidnapping was a hoax, the victim chose to believe the phony Authority (“kidnapper”) instead, and started to transfer money after the phony ransom was lowered from $50k to $5k, which was another missed red flag.  

There are false stereotypes about who falls for scams:

The “elderly” fall for them because they are not tech savvy or are losing their minds. “Elderly” is a buzzword for Boomers and Xers. This stereotype is false because Boomers and most Xers were adults when computers and email entered the workplace in a meaningful way, when practical cell phones arrived, when home networking was introduced. These technologies were rudimentary at first, so Boomers and Xers had to master mouseless command lines, TUIs, multi-tap texting, assigning IP Addresses, and keep current as it evolved. Why, just last week I learned how to rotate a pdf, ending decades of chronic neck pain and crooked vision! Actually, the “elderly” are targeted because they have the assets to make the crime worthwhile. Therefore, those with genuinely reduced cognition need help from family in safeguarding their assets. 

Only “uneducated” people fall for scams. This says “educated” people are too smart to be scammed. Well, aren’t scientists and engineers “educated”? Can they be scammed? Search “White House Bioweapons Scientist Scam”. An “educated” friend and co-worker answered a call from “Comcast” and lost $700 (paid with gift cards of course) chasing steeper and steeper discounts on his CATV account in return for longer and longer phony pre-payment plans (the promised gain). The scammers were armed with a first-class imitation of Comcast website pages to prove their authority and trust. Smug in thinking he had secured a large discount by paying many months in advance, he could not understand why the real Comcast still sent him monthly bills. Blatant irrefutable evidence something is wrong! Note the colloquial boundary between “educated” and “uneducated” seems to be a college degree, which is another false stereotype.

Teens don’t get scammed because they have no assets to steal. This too is false. While small compared to half-million-dollar heists, teens are scammed with phony jobs, phony clubs, phony financial aid, phony contests and prizes, phony weight loss schemes, phony service offers, phony merchandise, even phony extortion threats. But the fees they send are real. Additionally, teen media accounts are mined for data to be combined with other data as gateways to those who do have assets worth pursuing.

In short, anyone and everyone can and do fall for scams. Here are a few rules I follow for a piece of mind. Basically, scammers can’t scam if there’s no one to scam.

First, sit back; do like Einstein, and picture the big picture. Assume everything all the scammers say is true and see where you land.

  • Banks across the nation hemorrhaging money every day.
  • Investment firms failing in large numbers due to zero confidence in their security.
  • Housing unavailable in every market because it is sold/rented to someone else.
  • Jails releasing criminals to make room for late toll and other payers, even in states without tolls.
  • Empty highways due to all the drivers being in jail.
  • Banks closing credit accounts en masse under an avalanche of contested transactions.
  • School attendance dropping 30% as children are kidnapped, released and re-kidnapped.
  • Law Enforcement paralyzed with kidnapping cases.
  • Post Offices overflowing with mis-addressed packages.
  • Foreign Royalty flooding INS offices nationwide; clergy occupied 24/7 marrying millions to foreign dignitaries, princes and princesses. In short, it would be Y2K every day! LOL!

Well, that doesn’t make sense; so I urge we adjust behaviors and perceptions to the new reality:

  1. Most importantly, recognize dead giveaways of a scam and disengage: a crisis, imminent financial ruin, urgency, secrecy, someone you know in a pickle, arrest or jail, fast easy money, EFTs, indeed anything involving your money. Impossible to list them all. These are all signs it’s time to hang up if you’ve even gotten that far. See Rule #4.
  2. Equally important to Rule #1, recognize if you are in a state of fear or desperation, or feel any emotional pressure to act quickly, especially involving money, you’ve been duped. Talk to a friend, decompress and become unduped. Many have avoided becoming a victim by doing just that.
  3. Equally important to Rule #2, learn and understand your legal protections for unauthorized transactions on your accounts. This alone will relieve much anxiety. The only information a legitimate financial institution official should be telling you if funds really have been stolen is what they are doing to restore the funds and when they will be finished.
  4. In the past, phones were tied to homes and were always answered because the call might be important. Today, phones are tied to individuals and shouldn’t be answered because the call most definitely isn’t important! So, unless you are in the mood for donating to phony charities, buying phony warranties on phony cars, or just plain old cheap entertainment, answer calls only from contacts. Caller ID can be spoofed to display anything, so believing Caller ID can be a gateway to Hell! Non-contact calls roll to VM. Bad callers do not leave messages, so a message like this just ain’t gonna happen:

“Hello, Mr. Heinmiller. This is Becky Rutherford. How is your day going? I am calling to let you know I have your daughter and she will be toast unless you pay my ransom. Please call back at your earliest convenience so we can finalize the ransom and due date. I will text you a link where you can make payment. For your convenience I allow interest-free monthly payments in case you cannot pay the whole balance at once. You may choose levelized payments or minimum payments with a balloon payment at the end. The girl will be released upon final payment, provided there has been no lapsed payment during the ransom payment period. My goal is to provide exceptional customer service. After you call back and set up your payment plan, you will be routed to my customer satisfaction survey. Were my directions clear? Did I address your concerns adequately? Be sure to leave me 5 stars, or the girl gets it! Thank you and have a nice day.”

Yes, scammers can spoof your contacts, so should you answer one of those and hear not your contact but rather some clown blathering about kidnapping your mother, hang up! (My mother is already dead, so I’m not worried if she gets kidnapped or not. All the gold in Ft Knox won’t get her back!)

Note the phony kidnapping mentioned above started when the victim answered a call from ‘Unknown’. The $50,000 shoebox scam started with a call from ‘Amazon’. My friend’s CATV scam started with a call from “Comcast”.

5. Do not discuss personal finances with anybody unless you initiate the conversation.  Initiate the conversation because you have a financial reason to do so, not because some popup or text said so.

6. Do not click or tap a link in any email or SMS. Do not call any number in it. They’re all highways to Hell! Email and SMS senders can be as phony as Caller ID. If you visit the “website” on a browser, “Page not found” will be the likely result since the link in the message is either a cover or the site is a blocked scam site.  The number connects to the phony Authority, replete with impressive information.

7. Never invoke untraceable funds to an unknown party. Just don’t. It’s a dead giveaway of a scam.

8. The only popups needing heeding are the ones advising the site you are on does not allow popups. The scams involving the Bioweapons scientist and the attorney started with a popup.  (I occasionally get fear-popping popups indicating my bank account is “exposed”. Well, yes, it is exposed. So is everybody’s. On every check mailed, which passes through who-knows-how-many-hands, and on every site used for payment. Yes, I write checks. They’re cool, they’re fun, and they draw out expressions of puzzlement from my kids asking, “what are those?” I tell them they are negotiable instruments of finance under a contract with a federally licensed interstate bank, and then they run away!)

9. Never honor any request to remain quiet. That too is a dead giveaway of a scam.

Real estate scams are another adventure. They are as old as real estate itself; only the medium has changed. Phony property listings, bait and switch, advance deposits, viewing fees, fake buyers/renters; all these and more abound. One particular scam has popped up which short circuits the five steps of a scam because the victim is already in Mindset, mainly, already planning to transfer a large sum of money for say, a dream home down payment. In comes the expected email from the “agent”, the “broker” or “title company loan officer” advising everything is in order and the down payment should now be paid by clicking the link in the email! After clicking the tune of $150,000 down on the dream home, click another tune. Don’t Dream It’s Over, by Sixpence None the Richer, now a literal truth, would be a good choice. Then and only then, call the bank!

Search “homebuyer closing scam” for a plethora of such cases. If one is going to make a transaction involving such a sum of money, do so by handing a check to your agent or attorney in person. But first, make sure you and your kids know what checks are!

Summary

Scammers are very sophisticated. They must be to survive. They spoof numbers and senders, install malware on computers and phones, and are persistent. They come armed with much legitimate personal information along with phony papers and IDs. They grasp human vulnerabilities and have mastered the art of persuasion. They learn and get better with time and will only get better with more AI. The days of the simple email from the Nigerian prince with incorrect grammar and error-filled logos are long gone.  But we can avoid these so-called princes and Mindset Manor if we recognize their themes, ignore their lines, and refuse to engage.

As a final incentive to not send money around to princes and princesses, remember that scammed funds from a tax-deferred account, e.g., an IRA, Keough or employer 401(k), is taxable income to the account holder, no matter where the money goes. The notice from the IRS won’t be a scam. Some call that Scam Part 2, but it’s the law.

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