Scott: [00:00:00] Dollars and Cents with HAPO Community Credit Union helps empower our listeners to achieve financial success while living for today and planning for tomorrow. This podcast focuses on financial education, community support, fraud prevention, real life stories of financial transformation, and much more.

HAPO Community Credit Union serves Washington and Oregon with over 18 locations. Bank on more when you bank with us. Hi, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of Dollars and Cents, HAPO Community Credit Union. at unions, financial literacy podcast. Today, we are coming back to a standard topic.

We'll be talking about fraud again, which means if you guys have been listening for a while, you will recognize Jen. She is HAPO's fraud manager, and you have brought a friend in with you today. Detective Sam Grant with the Richland Police Department who I believe specializes in this type of thing as well.

So we're going to get a law enforcement perspective on some of these things, which brings me to my first question. What [00:01:00] new fraud trends are we seeing? 

Jennifer: Yeah, so we really wanted to highlight the trend where you get a phone call, it may or may not look like it's coming from the local police department, and the person on the other end of the line says you have a warrant out for your arrest and we're coming to find you.

Scott: So quick question, how often do you warn people that they have a warrant out by calling them? To let them know that you're going to come find them when there's a warrant out or not you specifically But the police in general 

Never 

Sam: If we're looking to find somebody we're just going to knock on your door We're not going to give you a warning that we're coming 

Scott: Yeah, like you've got 15 minutes if you want to pack up a bag and hit the road 

Sam: Not effective for warrant services 

Scott: So obviously we know first red flag we shouldn't be expecting a call if somebody's got a warrant out for us You what else are these new fraud calls doing?

Jennifer: What we've seen recently is they'll tell you that you missed jury duty. Obviously if somebody is calling you and saying, Hey, you missed jury duty did you have [00:02:00] jury duty? You should be aware of that. It comes in the mail. Typically, you're going to know you were, oh, maybe supposed to show up for jury duty.

Scott: Now that could possibly be a, I didn't get my mail. So maybe I did get a jury summons, but I didn't respond to it. So you can see that might be a reasonable entry into somebody's mind about, was I supposed to go to jury duty? What's the the scale at that point of if you were to miss jury duty or not call in, what would you be expecting to hear back from people at that point?

Jennifer: I would say anecdotally, because I obviously don't work in that department. A lot, you won't usually get anything. I will say one time I actually did serve on the jury and they put a pause on what we were doing because they had to go call people who didn't show up. But they literally just called and said, hey, you're supposed to be here for jury duty.

Please come in. 

Scott: So this isn't like bench warrant or I've got a warrant out, you missed jury duty, you're going to jail, that type of a thing. And that level of Emergency or immediateness is [00:03:00] what they're hoping to push on these fraud calls. 

Jennifer: Correct. Yeah. They want you to think that this is an immediate reaction where somebody is going to be coming to your door.

In the next two minutes. 

Scott: We we're just down the street. We know where you live because you didn't show up for jury duty. We're going to come bring you down to the courthouse right now, or maybe the jail or whatever is going to be scarier for you so that you have to respond in some way, shape, or form.

We know that things don't move that quickly from all of our previous conversations. If there's a, an air of immediacy that it's pause, take a second, Maybe call them back. 

Jennifer: Yes, absolutely. I would say our message is always, Hey, if somebody calls you and says, I'm with the police department, hang up the phone, call them back.

You can call the local police station. You can call non emergency. Hey, I just got this call. Is somebody really trying to call me? And they'll know. 

Scott: So how does that work on your [00:04:00] side? For 

Sam: Which particular part? 

Scott: So you if somebody is calling into the police department to verify these types of things, what is there something that they should go about doing or something they should not go about doing when they call?

Sam: All they have to do is call the non emergency number. This is not a 

Scott: 9 1 1 emergency situation. No, 

Sam: just call the dispatch non emergency number. Let them know hey, I just received this phone call. It's supposed to be from this officer now Sometimes these scam artists they're gonna, they'll get our names from our Facebook page you put a lot of stuff out on our Facebook page and Just to keep the community aware of what's going on with the police department that's you're also throwing out names that they can use exactly and you know all they have to do is call and verify I just received this phone number and I From what we've said before, we don't, we're not going to do that.

We're not going to call you. Nobody from the police department is going to call you and tell you have a warrant. 

Scott: And if it is a legitimate call, they're going to be able to contact that officer and confirm, yes, this was legitimate, 

Sam: which we have had happened before. Sometimes there are people [00:05:00] that don't believe that they're talking to a police officer and they call back in and then it is verified.

Yes. That officer is working and they just told us that they're trying to get ahold of you. 

Scott: And that is again the type of activity that we want people to go through if they think this is some sort of a fraud is to call in and verify. 

Sam: Absolutely. There's nothing wrong with that.

Especially, if it makes that little part of their neck tingle I don't think this is real, this doesn't sound right. It's probably. It is too good to be true. It is too, yeah, this is better safe than 

Scott: sorry, tends to be a legitimate thing. And there, I feel like there's very few scenarios where anybody that is trying to track you down, is going to be mad about the fact that you confirmed that they were tracking you down.

Not at 

Sam: all. Not at all. If it's an extra step to make you feel more comfortable especially with somebody. You know claiming to be the police and it's something that you're not aware of short of you know the initial explanation. Yeah, when a police officer calls, hey, I'm investigating this.

Okay. That makes sense But if it's you know, you have a warrant for your arrest your way. I've never committed a [00:06:00] crime in my life Yeah, you should think twice about that 

Scott: Now you also mentioned something social media which we have talked about before as far as where fraudsters can be mining this information about to use.

We, I believe it was when we were talking about the grandparent scams. Young young Billy calling grandma saying that he's going to a Mexican prison and needs 50 in Amazon gift cards. Do the police in these particular scams go about the same type of payment? 

Jennifer: Typically, yeah. What they'll ask for is, Hey, can you go out and buy gift cards?

And gimme the codes on the back. More recently we've even seen, oh, hey, there's a Bitcoin, ATM by you. You need to go get cash and put it into the Bitcoin ATM for us. So they've upped their game a little bit to be with the current trends. 

Scott: Do you prefer Bitcoin or, 

Sam: Or gift cards?

Yeah. Being a legitimate police officer, we don't accept either one. 

Scott: Technically interesting question, I think. Would [00:07:00] that be considered bribing? 

Sam: Oh, no, it's just, it's theft. You're trying to steal funds from somebody through deceptions. Oh, I 

Scott: was going to say the other way, if I were to be offering gift cards to an officer.

That would probably fall into a different legal category. Yeah, then you are going to 

Sam: jail for certain things. Yeah, that yeah. Hadn't thought of that from that perspective because that's so obscure but correct. Yes. 

Jennifer: So you guys typically we always tell our members if you have a warrant or a ticket or anything like that You're gonna pay that at the courthouse.

You'd never pay it any other way 

Sam: Yeah, the police department does not accept that you know that all happens through the court system for any fines or any fees We don't see any of that. We may make the initial, arrest on something or, a warrant arrest or a ticket or whatever it may be.

But after that, we submit all the paperwork and it's all handled by the court. So if you're ever getting a call from, [00:08:00] specifically the Richland Police Department, and I know it's the same in all the other police departments in this area that's, we don't do that. We are not going to accept.

gift cards as payment for your warrants or your ticket that didn't get paid. 

Scott: I was going to say it, it, for me, it's always been, we've had enough of these conversations to where if anybody's asking to be paid in gift cards it's a very interesting thing. I know one person who does because she gathers them up for a Christmas give out for, I want to say it's a sheltered children.

So she's gathering gift cards from friends to go deliver. That's the only time I've ever had a significant situation where somebody has asked specifically for gift cards to be given to them for a particular thing. And since I knew her, I'm pretty confident that it wasn't a scam. Speaking of these stories, do we have any examples or real life stories that we can go into about this that we've dealt with recently?

Jennifer: So we recently did have somebody who got the call said that, Hey, you miss jury duty. What was [00:09:00] interesting is they actually had happened to get a jury duty summons in the mail a couple of days prior. So it was in their brain. Oh, I know I have jury duty, even though it wasn't going to be until later.

But of course that fight or flight kicks in and they were like, Oh, I did get one. Maybe I read it wrong. Oh my gosh. I'm in trouble. And that's what these fraudsters prey on is they really prey on that fight or flight. They want to make you act before you have time to think about what you're doing.

So they actually did coincidental 

Scott: data like that really helps them out. 

Jennifer: Yes. Yeah. And it was just one of those total coincidences that happened. Unfortunately they did come in, took out cash, put it into a Bitcoin ATM, but literally as they're putting it into this Bitcoin ATM Kind of that adrenaline slowed a little bit and they were like, Oh no, what did I just do?

So they called us and we said, please immediately go and call the police department, let them know. Thankfully this person had made really [00:10:00] great notes. So they had the Bitcoin wallet and the whole nine yards of where everything went, which I think is super beneficial when this happens. Cause a lot of times when you're in that fight or flight, you don't think to make notes.

You just do what you're being told. 

Scott: And hopefully remember after the fact what it was. 

Jennifer: Yeah. And then a lot of times too, with that adrenaline, then you're like I don't remember like exactly what I was told or what happened or, maybe they said this was their name, but I'm not sure.

Yeah, that was an unfortunate situation. We have seen it a lot though, where we get people calling and saying, Hey, somebody told me that they had a warrant out. Thankfully, most of the time they're like, I hung up. I just want to make sure my information is safe. 

Scott: So with them calling the police department, how is that getting handled on your end of things?

Sam: It all depends. If there's a monetary loss, then we'll do what we can. To try to take those notes that are provided, or any of the information that's provided, and try to follow up on that. Unfortunately, a lot of these are international scams. [00:11:00] And, once we trace it back to, if we can.

Now a lot of the times they're using text now numbers, or, some sort of voice over IP, yeah, spoofed numbers. I know that we've, here locally, I can't remember which one of the agencies, somebody was getting spoofed numbers that looked like what was coming from the police department, but obviously those aren't coming from us, but we do what we can to exhaust all those leads.

Unfortunately, a lot of the times it's, it just goes to a dead end. 

Scott: And with the jurisdiction type thing, you mentioned international you I'm assuming that makes it, makes your job quite a bit harder to do anything. Yeah. Yeah. Is there more of like an inter agency or interdepartmental, can you like call up Chicago's police department and be like, Hey, we've got a person that had this and the number information trail leads back towards you guys.

Sure. 

Sam: Yeah. If we can get something back into the United States we absolutely can. In agencies across the United States are more than willing to help out. Sometimes it's a little bit harder if you were to call like a Chicago you may not get a call back for a couple of days, but [00:12:00] but we can get help from law enforcement partners all over the country.

It's once it goes outside of the country, gets 

Scott: a little bit tougher to do anything. 

Sam: I just had a case that I investigated where it was through tick tock. And I learned a lot about how, the different data centers where stuff is kept for TikTok. This one came back out of TikTok Singapore.

And my only option was to try to write, basically, it's a warrant that would go through I can't even remember the name of it now, but essentially an international intermediary, go to them and then they would send it the delay time on that, which I was told from The United States TikTok law enforcement official is, you probably get your information back in about 18 months.

Scott: Ooh. 

Sam: If you're lucky. 

Scott: And so with that type of a delay, obviously, whoever, whatever this is, unless it's a really big expense on this person's side, 

Sam: right? 

Scott: They might not want to continue following [00:13:00] up with that. Correct. 

Sam: Correct. And that's why that's where those dead ends 

Scott: and does that hit a statute of limitations type of a situation there?

Most of the time. Yeah. So it gets out of a point where you're actually able to really do anything about it beyond there. Correct. Which again, brings us back to the whole protect yourself from getting into these things to begin with. 

Sam: That's the most important thing is stop it from the very beginning.

If you don't hand over any money, there's nothing for us to try to go recover. We just, we know that we've got a scam artist out there That we just can't, we don't know who they are, but if we take away their source of income then we're doing our job and 

Scott: help people that are on the user side.

And if we can get everybody to protect that, then being a scam artist on platforms like tick tock or just via text message becomes non profitable. And, if people aren't making money because these guys are looking for money, the easiest way they can get access to it. then they'll find a new route to try and make that 

Sam: right.

And that's what you'll see. Especially like text messaging. I [00:14:00] got one last week, it was a text message that said, it was clearly this wasn't anybody that I know. And it, that's how they're going to try to get you there. Or the one that I'm sure everybody sees is the fraudulent emails that they're spoofed emails that try to get you to go to a, I've gotten ones from, for a Wells Fargo account that I've never had, and I continue to get that one.

So I think it's just, they blasted out there hoping that it hits. 

Scott: Yeah. They're looking for the coincidental data of if I send this to 10, 000 people, the odds that at least some of them will be Wells Fargo members is going to mean that like those of you who aren't might still click something, but most likely the people that are going to be the actual target audience shotgun marketing.

To call it marketing feels bad, but 

Sam: it's not wrong. That's what they're doing. They're just they're looking for one out of a hundred, 

Scott: which I was talking with you guys about this beforehand, but I'm very proud. My mom tracks how well she does at finding those and realizing that [00:15:00] they're not real.

So I've gotten lucky to a point where she will message me and be like, Hey, this isn't real. Is it? and verify it. And so before she's gone and done anything silly she's already messaging me to verify for her and very proud of the fact that she finds those, 

Sam: those email address in the header.

Yup. Cause no business is using. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven at gmail. com. Check that first. 

Scott: Also, there's a couple of other interesting ways that those ones will happen. If you see an email from say, Microsoft make sure that's an O and not a zero in that any of those things that they can do to hide those URLs or those names.

in there. A lot of red flags that are available. Also, a lot of information that you can find out online about how to spot these if you're trying to track down some good learning resources. Perhaps we'll create a blog post that'll go along with this. It'll gather up some of those red flags and whatnot that people can look for.

in text messages and emails. So yeah. [00:16:00] If you guys are listening to this and you want to track down some resources to learn, go check out the dollars and cents blog on HAPO. org. We'll have some additional information and resources for you there. What other items have we seen happening lately that we can talk about, bring people up to speed on?

Jennifer: I think lately, aside from obviously the call saying you're from law enforcement whether your jury duty or your socials being used fraudulently the other thing we touched on a little bit is just the text messages. We have seen a lot of that where you'll get a text message. It looks, hey, you have this big charge that's coming out of your account.

Press yes or no. They're going to make it an outrageous charge, 9, 950 from Home Depot, and you're like, Oh my gosh, I 

Scott: know lumber has gotten expensive, but that still seems a little over the top. 

Jennifer: And again, it's that shock factor. And what they're hoping for is whether you press yes or no, they know they have a person.

Scott: [00:17:00] Correct. 

Jennifer: So then you immediately get that phone call. Hey, you said this wasn't legitimate. And typically the first thing they're going to do is be like we have to verify you. 

Scott: And to do that, I'm going to need some very important numbers like social security, 

Jennifer: social security numbers, your card numbers, your pin numbers.

And even to that point, once they know, Oh now I know where you bank, they're going to go to that website and they're going to start asking you for login details. And if they can't get into the login details, they'll start telling you, Oh, I'm going to send you a code to verify who you are. When in reality, they're out there resetting your password on your login.

Scott: Yep. Which is why most of those text messages that you will get with those six digit codes in them say, do not share this. with anybody. And you absolutely shouldn't unless you know exactly who you're talking to and how that's behaving. Like again, with my mom, if I were to have my phone number set up on an account and she needed the number, she would let me [00:18:00] know.

And I would probably be aware that my number was associated with that. But yeah if you're on a tech support call and they ask you for a code like that, odds are this isn't tech support. 

Jennifer: Those codes typically are something where you've requested it, so you're getting it. It shouldn't be somebody's requesting it of you.

And I think that's a really important distinction to make when you're talking about those one time passcodes to identify who you are. Like, it should always be something you asked for. 

Scott: Yeah, and a lot of times you'll see that you'll get those codes that come in. I've had a couple of them that show up as email and I've always wondered how legitimate is this one because I didn't request it, but then it'll be like if you didn't request this code, you can safely ignore this because that means that somebody isn't getting access to your account right now.

But it likely, yeah, but it likely means that somebody was trying to get into my account. So I get one or two of those a week or so for different accounts that are out there. I think one of them might be a video [00:19:00] game platform like blizzard or something, but I'm like, I haven't had access to that for years.

So somebody gets a kick, gets on there. Good on them. You can have my screen name. That's about it. 

Jennifer: You'd be surprised though how much fraud actually happens in the online gaming world. It's a good way to transfer money when people aren't really paying attention to that and I think it's an up and coming fraud thing.

Maybe we'll have to have a whole other podcast on that. 

Scott: It could actually be a very interesting topic. How about you, Sam? What else do you have? Any other stories that you 

Sam: can share with us? I can give you a real life experience, basically, on what you just talked about from last week. I've got a family member.

We'll leave them anonymous. We're not going to dime them out. But they did the right thing, exactly like you talked about. There's been some history of some issues of clicking on the wrong link and that kind of thing. And unfortunately, I think This person's phone number is now on the dark web and some of their the dark web resources [00:20:00] of this is how the here's an easy mark.

Okay, and that's you know, if We know how that information is exchanged. It's not done openly It's done, you know being the digital forensic examiner for the police department have maybe a little bit more knowledge than the Average bear when it comes to that stuff, but I do know that's You That's where a lot of that stuff is passed on, especially, there's databases with your compromised passwords and in emails and phone numbers and that kind of thing.

Unfortunately I think this one's, it's definitely compromised. This happens about once every couple of months. So this person was onto it enough to say, Hey, I just got this text message. from this bank in Colorado. And so somebody at CVS had used it for 820. My first thought was, what can you get at CVS for 820?

A lot 

Scott: of, a very small item. It's a lot of cosmetic 

Sam: products. But so you had [00:21:00] that that particular text message forwarded and then you could look at it and you could see. Where bank was separated by space B, a space and K. So it's those little things that you're talking about. And, there was a link to it.

Hit this link. We obviously delete this, great with if you've got an iPhone, you can just swipe that thing to delete it, delete and report as junk. So that's we had this family member do and obviously didn't have to worry about it. Look, luckily the question was asked to us before it became a problem because historically.

It had been done. Click on the link. Now they've got the password and login or the, I'm sorry, the username and login password information. 

Scott: And at which point they've got access to whatever they want to do inside of that system, a hundred percent and potentially now have an idea of what username and password you might be using on multiple other sites.

Which is why a lot of times you'll see people now using these generated passwords and storing them in a password vault so that they don't even know what their own [00:22:00] passwords are. They know how to access the vault and the vault remembers how to log in. I've actually received a number of notifications from different sites being like, Hey, you're using a a password that appears to have been compromised on a different website.

We suggest you change this. Which I think is a fantastic new feature that, that we're starting to see in certain online sites where I think maybe they're tapping into a little bit of that dark web information being like, Hey, we know that this is not a good one for you anymore. Maybe time to come up with a new strategy for your passwords.

Right. 

Sam: 100%. Yeah. That information is shared where we don't even know about, and a lot of it has to do with. For legitimate purposes, Google's always tracking your app for advertisement stuff. They, it's no coincidence when you show up at a certain place that you have, now you get a suggestion, Hey, are you hungry?

This restaurant's just right around the corner. Yeah. 

Scott: Like we joke about how our devices are constantly listening to us. And I think it's that [00:23:00] behavioral tracking and that geofencing that is Hey, you were talking to this person and they recently searched for this thing and now you're in this area and therefore we're going to feed you this advertisement.

Yeah. There's so 

Sam: much transferring of your data that we'll never know because those companies aren't too keen on sharing that with anybody, especially law enforcement. And it's 

Scott: very, it's very easy to, when you see that pop up that says, yeah, allow all cookies. Just click that so the pop up goes away, and we don't think about exactly what that information transfer is going to be.

As always, be safe out there on the internet. Keep an idea of what your digital footprint is. That'll definitely help keep you a little bit safer from these calls and text messages and emails. The dark web stuff is very interesting. That's probably a rabbit hole that we could go down quite a while talking about how data can get compromised and who's out there trying to access it.

Perhaps we'll save that for another episode at some point, [00:24:00] if we decide to take that type of a a dive and follow Alice down the rabbit hole of the dark web. But in the meantime, what final thoughts do you guys have to leave the people with on the the warrant scams, the the jury duty any of these items that you want to just wrap this up for the people give a couple of good points at the end.

Jennifer: I think really just that education piece, just know that it's out there, know that it's happening and share it with your friends, share it with your neighbors. Hey, I heard this was happening because the more people that know and have heard, hey, this is a scam, the less likely they are to fall for it.

Sam: Yeah, a couple of things to finish up on. If they do get a hold of the police department, if we do see a common theme, we can put something out on social media. Hey, also be aware of this. The good side of social media. The good side of social media. But the other thing is, also remember, We can try to verify some of the information.

If somebody does receive one of these phone calls and they get that in the pit of their stomach, I don't think this is right. Number one, we're never going to ask for anything with gift cards or [00:25:00] Bitcoin. We're never going to do that. And then, like we said earlier, just hang up and call the police.

Call the court. The phone numbers there, just call and ask and you'll get the information that you're looking for. And police department, we're always willing to help. It's five minute phone call that we can. We can look up a couple things for you and make you feel better about that.

Scott: All right. Thank you guys for coming in and helping us out with this latest fraud topics for all of you watching and listening. This has been dollars and cents. HAPO Community Credit Union's financial literacy podcast. Until next time.