Picture this: you're swiping through a dating app when you match with someone who seems too good to be true. Spoiler alert – they might just be. Jenn & and Mel, tap into Jenn’s sister Stephanie's detective insights from Phoenix Investigations to unravel the hidden traps in online love affairs. Stephanie spills the tea on a case involving an older widow and a too-smooth-for-his-own-good European businessman. With a mix of laughter and serious talk, we dissect the scammer's playbook and arm you with the need-to-know to protect your heart and your wallet in the digital dating sphere.
Regardless of whether you're just getting the hang of this dating thing or you've been at it since disco was king, our mission is to make sure your search for romance is scam-free and filled with nothing but genuine butterflies. So let's get into it, and may the odds be ever in your favor, dear L-Poppers!
Resources from todays episode:
FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center
https://www.ic3.gov/
Phenix Investigations
https://www.phenixinvestigations.com/
Social Media: LPoP
https://www.instagram.com/lastpieceofpiepodcast/
https://www.threads.net/@lastpieceofpiepodcast
https://www.tiktok.com/@last.piece.of.pie?_t=8j0uDxkYoVm&_r=1
Send us your comments or questions and we will answer them on the show!
email - lastpieceofpiepodcast@gmail.com
Picture this: you're swiping through a dating app when you match with someone who seems too good to be true. Spoiler alert – they might just be. Jenn & and Mel, tap into Jenn’s sister Stephanie's detective insights from Phoenix Investigations to unravel the hidden traps in online love affairs. Stephanie spills the tea on a case involving an older widow and a too-smooth-for-his-own-good European businessman. With a mix of laughter and serious talk, we dissect the scammer's playbook and arm you with the need-to-know to protect your heart and your wallet in the digital dating sphere.
Regardless of whether you're just getting the hang of this dating thing or you've been at it since disco was king, our mission is to make sure your search for romance is scam-free and filled with nothing but genuine butterflies. So let's get into it, and may the odds be ever in your favor, dear L-Poppers!
Resources from todays episode:
FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center
https://www.ic3.gov/
Phenix Investigations
https://www.phenixinvestigations.com/
Social Media: LPoP
https://www.instagram.com/lastpieceofpiepodcast/
https://www.threads.net/@lastpieceofpiepodcast
https://www.tiktok.com/@last.piece.of.pie?_t=8j0uDxkYoVm&_r=1
Send us your comments or questions and we will answer them on the show!
email - lastpieceofpiepodcast@gmail.com
Just so you know, now that you've aired this out, that you have a sister who can look up anyone's shit. It's game over. You are gonna be single for the rest of your life.
Speaker 2:I know Macho man watch out.
Speaker 3:I know I have a friend in the DEA and a sister that's a private investigator. Like no man can date me.
Speaker 1:No, you're done, You're done.
Speaker 3:Welcome. This is last piece of pie. I'm Jen, I'm Mel and today we have our special guest, stephanie with Phoenix Investigations. She's also my sister. I was gonna say are you gonna tell them that it's your sister? Yes, so she's an investigator with Phoenix Investigations. She handles a broad range of investigative research and discovery assignments, from asset investigations to location of individuals, surveillance, social media scams and coordination of national case assignments. The company Phoenix Investigations has been in business for 30 years and serves clients throughout the US as well as globally. Phoenix specializes in asset search and recovery, surveillance, locates background checks, internal theft, insurance fraud, non-compete violations and much more. Welcome, stephanie.
Speaker 1:Hey, hey, l-poppers. So wait, hold on. You're never getting a date again. Just so you know, now that you've aired this out, that you have a sister who can look up anyone's shit. It's game over. You are gonna be single for the rest of your life.
Speaker 2:I know Macho man watch out.
Speaker 3:I know I have a friend in the DEA and a sister that's a private investigator. Like no man can date me.
Speaker 1:No, you're done, You're done.
Speaker 3:But we're so happy to have her on because, as everybody know, january 7th was like national dating app day, where everybody gets on the dating apps again once the year starts.
Speaker 1:Not, I, not I.
Speaker 3:But hey, you do, you will, I'm done. Hello, never again. Thank.
Speaker 2:God.
Speaker 3:I got Macho man and I'm good to go, but while I was on dating apps there are scammers and we went and stuff on because we have a lot of questions and I think Mel has a lot of questions.
Speaker 1:Where were you 20 years ago? That's my first question, and can you go back 20 years? Can you help me out?
Speaker 2:Yeah, actually we can go back 20 years.
Speaker 1:Oh, beautiful yeah, or?
Speaker 2:even you're even longer, if you'd like us to Love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right, so tell me about where you went to school, even back, further back, like why did you wanna do this? Like what made you think, oh, I'm gonna do that when?
Speaker 2:I'm older. Well, this was not my original career. I went to school for I was actually a graphic designer for 25 plus years Went to Heron School of Art in Indy and kind of evolved my career from there. I've been an investigator for about four years now. I kind of switched careers, switched years because I needed something a little bit more different and a little bit more challenging, exciting and exciting. Yes, it's never a dull day in my life. Oh my gosh, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:I'm looking at you and I'm like God, fuck my life, y'all don't age Like she was. Like I've worked 25 years. She looks 12. And I'm like, how do you work 25 years?
Speaker 3:And she's older sister than me.
Speaker 2:Oh, my Melanta hey, listen the podcast. My parents were on. I was the love child, ah I love it.
Speaker 1:You were the 4am, I was the sports apparently in the six bedroom.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. That was me. So what questions can I answer for you guys?
Speaker 3:as far as the dating apps, Well, one of my questions was like now that literally you can Google almost anybody's name, right, and there's like reverse image search. So one is there, people out there that still get scammed, even though they're not, even though it's hard to you know, sometimes you can tell and sometimes you can't. And then B, when do they call you, or when have they called you?
Speaker 2:Okay. So it is really hard when you get on a dating app to kind of Validate if somebody is actually real versus fake. What we found with the people that come to us in some of these instances is that the person on the dating app where they're young, middle aged or older aren't emotionally ready to be on the dating app, so there more vulnerable To anybody they speak to in terms of the language that's used, the dialogue that's used. So what typically happens from what we found is that they get emotionally invested with the person because the scammer on the other end is, you know, regaling them with All your pictures are beautiful, you look like an amazing person. You, you know, super intelligent. From what I read, I didn't get any of that.
Speaker 3:So now you didn't get loved bomb on the app because that sounds like what these guys do. I'm surprised that's like my jam you're in person, love bomber, damn it. Fucks to suck so do you have an example of how, like when this happens, stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have a really good example. So we had a case come in. A widowed older woman was on a dating app. She had just gotten on there a year after her husband had died. She met a gentleman online. He was in Europe. He told her he was a very successful businessman. He loved her profile, that her pictures were beautiful, wanted to marry her and typically flag number one.
Speaker 2:Absolutely red flag number one is when they start romancing you. From the very beginning he pretty much did that to her. He emotionally got her invested in him and from then and there they started conversing back and forth. He got her phone number so they started texting off of the dating app, which is one of the other switches that they do to get you to get off the dating app so that they can use another texting app like what's app, which is encrypted. So if you know what's app, you can use any type of other phone number that's not tied to you, so it's probably not their real number anyway.
Speaker 1:I hate, that I do.
Speaker 3:A lot of people internationally say they use it. So it's like, okay, that's kind of a legit reason why he would use it if he's international, but still.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because he was actually not legit. What we found out from the pictures they had exchanged he was actually using a profile of a real estate agent in Portugal, pretty successful guy. He had sent her enough of this guy's pictures and enough of the Photoshop pictures he had done of this guy. We were able to put it through our facial recognition software and find the real guys identity and basically break it down to her that no, he was not the guy on the profile. And through the course of events we found out she had actually mailed him money via Bitcoin, sent him some suggestive photos, mind you.
Speaker 2:Grandma, go with your bad self as well as you know, her personal information, like her social security number, oh shit, why. Yeah, he was you know, trying to get her to be a money mule for him. Essentially is what he wanted her to be. What's a money mule? Yeah, basically I want one.
Speaker 2:Basically what happens is a money mule is somebody that is used to move money from one person to another, so there can be anywhere from two to 15 different money mules that a scammer is using to move money from one person to another that eventually gets to him and it's never tied to him because he's having them send them through separate people all the time.
Speaker 1:Oh, I had one of those. I don't want that anymore. I got rid of that. Oh yeah, that sounds like number one.
Speaker 3:So, grandma, get man Okay so hi five the grandma for the nudes. Well, yeah, I mean confident badass in the nudes, do you girl? But I've had a couple guys who I pretty much knew they were a scammer and I was waiting for the Bitcoin piece to come and it did and I'm like bye. I always know it's a scam when they say I would love to get to know you more.
Speaker 1:Can we connect on WhatsApp? Do you have another app that you use and I'm like no, I'm good, right here, dude. Yeah, or there was the other one like kicker or something.
Speaker 3:There's another.
Speaker 1:Or they'll say do you have a Google phone number?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that too. Or kick is another one where you can hide your profile. Nobody would know who you were.
Speaker 2:But yeah when, once they romance you enough, they can move you off of that dating app and get you to go through WhatsApp, and then it's game on from there. For how much they can emotionally have you invest in them to take money from you, or to take your identity from you, or to buy your own account or to blackmail you for the nudes that you sent them, which is happening on a constant basis right now through social media.
Speaker 1:So is that what happened to grandma? She got blackmailed for the nudes.
Speaker 2:She didn't actually she. She got emotionally invested because through the process of their conversation he told her he lost his wallet, he didn't have any money, he couldn't get the money through his business. Could she please send him the money? And she did, and he actually sought out a location for her to go to in Lafayette, indiana, to Bitcoin money to him and she did it at least three or four times. She lost about 50,000.
Speaker 3:Oh my god, grandma. Wow, what was this lady?
Speaker 2:She was probably about 65 years old.
Speaker 3:Oh man, that's a lot of money and her husband died a year before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she. She lost quite a bit of her savings that she had from from her and her husband.
Speaker 3:So is it equal opportunity or do women scam men differently? Do you guys get men?
Speaker 2:Yes, we actually do get men that call us. We actually had a guy in Marion Indiana call us and this is another scam that's going on. It's the random text that you get to your phone, the hi hello. Hey, how are you, brittany, can you come pick me up from the airport? Are you coming to the party tonight? You know, hey, we talked on the phone the other night. It's just a random text that you get from someone and if you're emotionally invested enough and they get you on the hook, they'll take you to WhatsApp and this lady did just that. She wasn't a lady, she was a man in Asia and he got conned out of $150,000.
Speaker 3:Who has that mushroom body? It feels like it's 401K, it's life savings. Oh my God.
Speaker 1:Listen, you don't have to yell. The L-poppers can hear you in your seat. You don't have to yell, simmer down.
Speaker 3:My heart is going out for these older people who probably I mean, is it mostly older or are they younger?
Speaker 2:A lot of the cases are older, elderly people that don't quite understand how technology works and they don't understand what Bitcoin is or cryptocurrency. They're single, you know, either after being divorced, or they're widows or widowers, like your grandma in the hospital who stopped dating at 87.
Speaker 1:And 87 finally, but I guarantee, she's going to send some nudes.
Speaker 2:Let's hope not, yeah.
Speaker 1:Did you see the nudes?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we asked them for every piece of evidence they have sent or they have received.
Speaker 3:So imagine, though, that you can't really get any restitution back from these people. I'm guessing that once the money's gone, the money's gone yeah.
Speaker 2:Through Bitcoin. Once the money has left your hands, it's hard to trace Bitcoin. You can up to a certain level, but it's not traceable because their wallet could change. They could have multiple wallets that they send that Bitcoin money to and once it's gone it's gone. You're not ever going to see it back unless you know specific details about who it was that sent what their wallet ID was. But generally most people don't.
Speaker 3:So, alpapers, if you got an older mom, dad, aunt, probably what? 55 plus, who's out there single, let's just say dumb. Please watch out for them. Make sure they're not getting scammed. Be their social media police.
Speaker 1:Or if you're young and dumb, I tell every thou do not send money to anybody.
Speaker 3:Period yes.
Speaker 2:Well, and I tell you because you said Abby's name, the leading thing going on with kids her age or even younger is sex distortion, is trying to get them to send nudes to people, where they use it to blackmail them and have the young kids send money.
Speaker 1:I could get that at being young. But I'm sorry, but if I sent you a nude and it was like my boobs and he'd be like 100 grand, I'm gonna put that out and be like get it, I want 10%. Give me some royalties. Shit, go famous. How can you blackmail that?
Speaker 3:Well, when you think, when you're 18 and your friends like getting it out in front of your peers, I think for them, though, it's much different. It's a much different social anxiety of your peers seeing that for the world Right. So I think for them. And when you're 18, you don't really that's not something you're like. Yeah, I showed my tits. Please give me 100. No, I don't think most teenagers would want that.
Speaker 2:No, most of them, most of them don't, because they're scammed, just like older adults are. You know, they can have somebody randomly send them a message via Instagram or Snapchat and you know, kind of get invested in them. And when they send the nude they're not thinking well, I shouldn't show my face, I shouldn't show my tattoo, I shouldn't show my scar, I shouldn't show anything in the background of that picture that somebody can identify. And that's typically what happens with a sex distortion is that they'll show their face. So now you're totally out there.
Speaker 1:So if you're going to send a nude, I know, I feel like this is a podcast on how to send nudes.
Speaker 2:If you're going to and you feel the need to blur out your tattoos, blur out your scars, blank background in front of you and don't put your face in it. They would never be able to really trace that back to you if they even tried to.
Speaker 3:I don't even like sending nudes. When I'm in a relationship, I'm like here's a PG 13 picture. You're too, you're big toe, You're such a dork.
Speaker 1:Here's a picture of my legs in shorts Not that I've had you know a lot of history with it, but yeah, definitely never gonna show my face.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'll tell you. Another one that we see a lot, too, is LinkedIn. Linkedin is getting a lot of scams, romancing scams yeah we like you're like there's.
Speaker 3:So there I'm on LinkedIn for, obviously, business. So they're sending you a message on LinkedIn like hey, I saw your business profile. Yes, and let's connect, and then they really in.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. Can you help me with my?
Speaker 1:spreadsheet Girls. Don't let them say that that's not what it means.
Speaker 2:No, we, we actually had a. I helped a gentleman in California. The LinkedIn profile that he had been talking to was a fake military profile. Now it was of a real military woman, but the person had set it up to where it looked like it was real, but it wasn't her. She had messaged him via his LinkedIn profile, got him to get off of LinkedIn and they started chatting, exchanging you know messages, romancing. That was the big key. Right there was. She romanced him. He was divorced, going through a divorce. It was really bad. She told him you know, my money is locked up right now overseas. You know, I'm trying to get home, I'm trying to do this. He sent her money, like wire money, to a bank that never existed. Um, he lost. I'm pretty sure he lost 125,000, given money to her, and then they wanted more.
Speaker 2:They kept coming back and telling him well, you have to pay a tax now on this money that you sent already and it's within the stipulation of the law. And we looked it up and no law ever existed. And the funny thing is I had to tell him over and over again she is not real. I don't know who this person is. You're not going to see your money back and you shouldn't be sending more money. This law doesn't exist for you to pay a tax on this. So those people are out.
Speaker 1:They never get their money back. They never get it back.
Speaker 2:I mean it's it's sad to have to say that to somebody and it's sad to have to bring them into the reality of this is where we're at. This is what you've lost. You know. This is what you're going to have to do to protect yourself in the interim, like the lady in Lafayette where she gave him her social security number. We had to tell her. You need to contact the social security administration. Tell them that your social security number is back. Tell them that your social security number might be being used for fraud. You need to contact local law enforcement. You need to contact the FBI, file the cyber criminal complaint, basically because she gave him her social security number, her date of birth and her full name. You have to do that to protect yourself.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, cause he could take like all her information now that he has social security date of birth, like he could wipe her out, clean and start racking up money on credit cards.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah. He could open a credit card, he could open a loan, he could open a mortgage. He could do anything he wanted to with her identity.
Speaker 1:No, what would possess somebody to give that away, like what did he say to her to get her to give that?
Speaker 2:up Talk of love, coming, coming to see her.
Speaker 1:I know, but why would he need her social security number to come see her Like?
Speaker 2:he was trying to open a bank account for her to put money in for him. That's what he wanted it for. He was going to open a bank account for her with her social security number, supposedly, and then have her transfer the money over into this account that she had, but he had opened for her. Oh, that's so sad yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean especially if she's an older lady and maybe her husband took all of the care, the financial parts of their marriage and not knowing, basically, like she trusted him, like she would have trusted her husband with money, without even knowing, like this man they never met in person, probably never even saw his face, like on a phone call, because they usually won't do a video call ever. That's a big red flag. Also, they won't ever get on a video call or something comes up oh my, oh, my wife, I isn't working so I can't get on video.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's actually one of the bigger red flags is that they'll never FaceTime you. They'll never call you, but you know when you want to call them and talk to them, but they'll never do it. They'll never get on FaceTime. They'll never do anything like that. They'll never meet. If they do set up a meeting with you, they'll cancel out the last minute, supposedly, you know, because something came up. You know. Oh, I have an illness, I was in an accident or I got injured. They're always trying to find a way to manipulate you and that keeps you in the loop of being emotionally invested with them.
Speaker 3:It's like that tender swindler guy documentary, but he was a real person but he was Faking like he was some air to some diamond business. There was a girl that did that too. Yeah, and or whatever her name was, and but yeah. I don't know if there's like still roll people out there who are acting like those two Yahoo's.
Speaker 2:They probably are. I'm sure there are. They just haven't been caught yet, so stuff.
Speaker 1:Let's get off the daynamps for a little bit and go to the scams on the internet. I want to go to YouTube because I'm a big YouTuber. I listen to church, black church how am I? Black church people every day, and there's ads now on there.
Speaker 1:So there was one day that this ad came up and I was and I don't watch the news and I'm too busy working to like be involved in life so I'm really clueless. So I was like oh, wow, there's a new stimulus check coming out. I had no idea. Yeah, so I call my dad. I was like dad. I was like are we really getting another stimulus check, like because prices are so high? Like that's like silly, like Biden's going to screw us some more.
Speaker 1:What's up? He's like honey, I think that's a scam. I was like well, I'll send it to you. So I took a screenshot of it. Actually, I clicked the link, took a screenshot of it, send it to dad. And he's like it's, it has to be a scam because it says it ends today. He says, okay, I'm going to send it to you. It ends today. He said that's, that's the clue. It ends today, like it has to be urgent. I was like, oh, okay, I was like carry on. Well, like an hour later they text me. So what do they have on me? Do they have my digits? Should I text them back? Should I blackmail them? It's the truth. It's the first real question.
Speaker 2:Well, typically with a, typically with a scam like that, that link contains malware that will be put on your device typically, and that's how they are able to get into your computer, to your phone. And typically, when they install them all, where what happens is they'll spoof a call and say and there is a spoofing app that you can use, that you can use any number and disguise it so that it maybe it looks like your credit union or for your financial institution, or Netflix or Amazon I'm calling you because your account is locked out. They get your individual details that way, by spoofing you that way too, or?
Speaker 2:a local number yes, they can use a local number as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've seen that. Where it's like, it will say like Flint Michigan, I'm thinking, oh, this must be someone I know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. They'll do it just to try to get you to get your personal information. And that's been going on quite a bit lately too. So it's very hard to distinguish whether it's an actual phone number calling you that's important or it's a spoof number. So we try to tell people. You know, if you don't know that there's something wrong in your bank and your bank settingly calling you, don't just automatically give out your information, just say, hey, you know what I'm busy right now, let me give you a call back. If in that instance, you say that and they're like no, no, no, this is urgent. You know, I have to talk to you, I need your information. Well, they're your bank. Why are they calling you for your information when they already have it? Thanks, yeah.
Speaker 3:I get the text all the time like your credit card is blah, blah blah. I'm like I don't even have a key credit card, so I don't even like. I just ignore those texts. It's like a spam text to try to get me to click on the whatever credit card. Oh, your credit card is gonna be shut off. Call us now. Or I'm like I don't even have this credit card.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they do that with them. They do that with them. The US Postal Service too. They'll send me a message and say hey, we can't deliver your package to this address. You know your package can't be delivered. We need for you to call us. You know, Click on this link and we'll send it to you. And it's like yeah, I don't have a package coming from you, oh.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like the UPS to you have a UPS package or DSL. I'm like I'm not sure.
Speaker 1:Now. You don't look young, now you look oh Okay. Well, thank goodness we're having this conversation because it jogged my memory that I was scammed. I was scammed in December by who. I couldn't remember where I bought it from. It was either tiktok or Instagram, and it was a product that Abby wanted for Christmas and I like clicked it. It was super cool and it was like if you buy two, you can get another one for like ten dollars more. And I'm like, perfect. So it was like 60 bucks for like this fancy lotion that she uses, and it was like a big case of it. Well, it never came. And so I was like, oh my gosh, that gift never came.
Speaker 1:So I emailed them. I'm like, hey, I didn't receive my package, what's up? He's and they're like well, we'll get back to you, ma'am. They get back to me and they're like it was delivered to the address that you provided. And I'm like, no, it wasn't and I don't have my, my Christmas gift, what's up? And he's like, well, you, the address you gave us, we sent us there and it said it was delivered. I'm like it wasn't delivered. He's like, well, we'll give you 10% off. And right then I knew it was a scam. And Then I emailed him back and I said obviously this is a scam, shame on you. And he emailed me back. He's like how about 50% off? I'm like I will report you.
Speaker 2:Good yeah, did you report him?
Speaker 1:No, I don't know how to do that.
Speaker 2:Would you do that and where did you? Where did you say you did this from, from tiktok?
Speaker 1:I don't remember, but the email is on my email, like I have his email.
Speaker 2:Um, you can send it to the FBI cybercrime online unit. I don't have the link with me right now, but what you can do is you can provide them with the email, what application you were scammed from, and just give them as many details as you can. If you took a screenshot of what you bought, if you have a recording of the phone call, you can send all that to them so that they have it in their files.
Speaker 3:So that's the FBI cyber Security scam.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cyber. Um, yeah, the FBI. I'll have to look it up, sorry guys.
Speaker 1:Okay, they make good money that work there.
Speaker 3:The FBI or the guy that's scamming you.
Speaker 1:Both. Yeah, cuz I probably have the email and I it's on my bank card, so it came out of my bank. So does that mean they have my bank information?
Speaker 2:They might, yeah, so I would. I would cancel your card and get a new one and let your bank know that you are a victim of a scam. You need to have that. You can. Typically, if you tell your bank what happens sometimes, I'll give you the money back, but it depends on your financial institution too. But for the FBI? So it's the FBI's internet crime complaint center. You can look it up online. You can file a complaint with them so that they have it on file.
Speaker 1:You know, what's bad about me is like I now, now I want to get. Even now I'm like fuck you, so now I'm gonna keep like five bucks in there and hope they transfer it and I'm gonna email them. Ha, what are you gonna buy now, fucker? Sorry for my language, but just to, just, you know, just to.
Speaker 3:But they could overdraft your account, though by, like you know, a hundred, and then your bank will probably inform you. But you only have five dollars, that could still try to overdraft your account.
Speaker 2:Yeah, unless you have like an overdraft, um alert protection on there where your bank would call you and say, hey, somebody's trying to take money out. Is this you?
Speaker 1:I've got some cleaning up to do.
Speaker 2:You do Damn.
Speaker 1:I've been. I've learned now that I've been scammed.
Speaker 3:I hey, listen I there's one guy I called Stephanie about and I was like I cannot figure out if this guy is freaking fake or not, cause he would call me through Instagram and I'm like why are you calling me through Instagram, a number one? Well, that's how that he kept sending me messages on Instagram. I'm like I cannot figure this guy out, and then his accent wasn't matching up to where he said he was from. Oh really.
Speaker 1:Oh, so you did hear his voice.
Speaker 3:Yeah, cause once, the one time I answered it, I'm like hello and his, he had a fucking Jamaican accent, but he said he was from like Germany and I'm like, uh, he's not lined up.
Speaker 1:I would have been like give me your bank account information.
Speaker 2:Is this the guy that you sent pictures to me too? And so can you take a look at him? Yeah, yeah. So I looked him up through our facial recognition software. His picture was like on 50 different sites, like a tutoring website and then a couple of dating sites, and then on a different LinkedIn site and I was like, hmm, yeah, you might want to just block this guy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, at that point I was like, hmm, what can I do to mess with this dude? I'm like, is it worth my time? No, it's going to block you. Right. Yeah, she literally found it in like five minutes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's pretty easy to do.
Speaker 1:We all need a Stephanie in our back pocket.
Speaker 3:Well, like I know, like okay. So you guys have probably heard about the dude in Chicago who's suing all the ladies because they blasted him on a Facebook page that's out there because of his bad behavior.
Speaker 2:Yeah, isn't that the Facebook page of? Are we dating the same guy? Yep.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So Jen was part of it, I was, I was on there.
Speaker 3:Let me tell you like there is some very bad behavior on there for these guys and some of it, these guys need to be called out because I saw one the other day where he was an abusive, he was an abuser oh, you did, okay, but anyway. But like the page is going off about this guy in Chicago but there are women on there all the time that post people and are like I can't figure out if this is fake or not. And some of these chicks on there are pretty good detectives and like five minutes all women are like yep here's his real profile.
Speaker 3:He's fake account, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like you know, it's good thing that that page exists. But then there's sometimes it is kind of catty, like I'm just like, okay, that's not a red, I just want to be like that's not a red flag, that's just you being like cray cray but I'm girl power, whatever. But there are women who still get scammed because they'll put the guy's picture up there all the time. And there's sometimes most of the women other women on there can figure it out. And then there's other times women are like oh yeah, he messaged me too and I can't figure it out. If it's and it's now, it's like AI generated pictures.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's the worst that's the worst thing that's happened right now is the deep fake pictures and videos that people are using to blackmail people with. I mean, they're actually taking somebody's actual face and putting on somebody else's body and using sex torsion as a way to get money from them, saying it's them when it's really not, and that is that's probably one of the worst things that's going to come out of social media in the end. Ai right now is just the fake photos and the fake videos that are going to start going around.
Speaker 3:Oh my God, I don't want my head put on somebody else's.
Speaker 1:I want your head on my body. I can sell that shit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if you're going to put me on, you know like uh. Vogue yeah, you know, send me on Jessica Beals like body, okay, whatever, but still like I don't know, that's scary.
Speaker 1:It is, it's, it's very scary, and I hate social media for all the reasons above.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do it Absolutely. It's kind of it's you run a fine line with social media. It's either really good or it's really bad. It all depends on the experience that you have with it. You know, right now there's a lot of kids out there not in their teens yet. They're like tweens and teenagers and early twenties. It's really hard for them to stop and think about what am I going to post on social media? Is this going to be good or bad for me? And it's really hard to get kids to understand that everything you put on the internet is going to stay on the internet. It doesn't disappear. If you decide to take your post down five minutes later, it's always going to be out there.
Speaker 2:We have to be very careful about the people that you invite into your social media profile. It's really important for parents to be able to talk to their kids and say this is how you need to use social media the right way. This is the circle that you need to have on your social media, not some random person that texts you or somebody who says they're a friend of a friend. Because you don't know who they are, you don't know what they want. You know we try to tell kids that age, you know. Put it on private. Put your social media on private so that nobody can try to get into your circle and break it.
Speaker 3:That's good wisdom. You're going to end up on the show catfish, yeah, or cheaters, remember that show. Is that show still on? And BH1 cheaters.
Speaker 2:Cheaters, I don't think it is anymore.
Speaker 1:Showing your age again. All right, stephanie, so give us three tips before you leave us tonight, hey. I have one more question, of course. Imagine that Jen's interrupting L Poppers. Imagine that Clap on, clap off. I have to mark our spot.
Speaker 3:So I remember where this is.
Speaker 1:And she is seriously showing her age. I love it today. All right, well, grandma's back. All right, steph's going to leave us, which is really sad, because I think we could talk to you for hours. So what would you give me for advice when I get brave one day and get back on line dating and try it again? What would you tell me to do and not to do?
Speaker 2:I think the biggest thing when you get back on the dating app be ready to get on there and don't be emotionally invested.
Speaker 1:That's asking me not to have a heart. You're asking me to remove my soul, stephanie. She's asking you to be me. Hello, the black heart.
Speaker 2:Oh, I would say, when you talk to someone on the dating app, don't divulge every single life story that you have. Keep it ambiguous. Ask them a lot of questions about who they are, what they do, where they live, and make sure that you're taking notes. And it sounds kind of crazy to say, well, I'm going to take notes on a dating app. Well, you need to make sure that they're consistent with what they're telling you every time you have a conversation with them.
Speaker 2:You need to make sure that what they're saying to you follows a timeline that they've given to you every time you have a conversation. So stay safe in not divulging all your information up front. Know who they are, you know, so you can kind of vet them out. But just keep asking questions and you know. If you do actually go and meet someone on a dating site, tell your buddy. Tell your buddy, hey, I'm going to meet someone. So here's the picture that they sent where we're going to meet at what time. Keep yourself safe. Keep it in public.
Speaker 2:That's right Never at your house and don't ever go off the dating site to talk on WhatsApp.
Speaker 1:All right, stephanie, thank you. Thank you for being amazing, and I wish you were around 20 years ago. Could have really used you.
Speaker 3:Well, we still may be a user. That's part two, l-poppers. So we want to thank you. I think this has been great information, so no matter if you're 16 or 87, I think this is good tips for all of us.
Speaker 1:Amen.
Speaker 3:Stay safe, l-poppers, yep, and good luck on the dating apps. Be smart.
Speaker 2:Date smart, that's right.