Police Perspective: Scams and Fraud

Podcast Transcription 

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Maddy: Welcome to another episode of PFCU’s Money Talk Podcast, I’m your host, Maddy. It seems like more and more often we hear about the latest scam and the newest tactics that criminals use to get our information. It can be really hard to stay on top of all of the warning signs to look out for, all of your accounts and what’s legitimate. I sit down with Police Officer, Brandon Shellberg, who also happens to be my husband, as he sees these scams in his job almost daily. He’s going to share common scams to watch out for, red flags and what to do if you think you’ve become a victim. Please help me in welcoming, Brandon.

Thank you for being on the podcast today.

Brandon: Yeah, no problem, glad to be here. My name is Brandon Shellberg, I work for the Dewitt Township Police Department. I’ve worked there for 10 years and I am a road patrol officer.

Maddy: So, today we’re focusing on frauds and scams because we know that it’s getting more and more common, people falling for these things, and they’re, I mean criminals are getting smart, right?

Brandon: Oh yeah, they definitely have their script laid out, they can easily trick people.

Maddy: Yeah, for sure. So, do you deal with, in your job, do you deal with a lot of instances of scams and fraud. Do you see that a lot?

Brandon: Yes, I do actually. We actually, I’d say almost daily we get calls for different frauds going on.

Maddy: Almost daily? That’s wild! That’s a lot, right?

Brandon: Yeah, it’s quite a bit actually. I would say it’s kind of surprising how many frauds are out there that people fall for or get called about or see on daily basis.

Maddy: Yeah, could you share some of the scams that you’ve seen over the last 10 years?

Brandon: Yeah, sure. Some of the most common ones that I’ve seen, especially lately, is a phone number calling you say that like a family member is in jail or was involved in an accident. Whether it be locally or internationally, even if that family member isn’t, you know, internationally traveling but they’ll say that they’re arrested or in jail and they need money to either get out of jail to see the judge. And this is something that I’ve actually seen a lot of people fall for when they don’t exactly know what family members are doing so, they just say, oh okay, I’ll send you some money to take care of grandson, son, whatever it be.

Maddy: Well and that’s pretty scary too because your first, your instinct is, oh my gosh I want to help…

Brandon: Yeah

Maddy: …When you get that phone call and I’m sure the scammers are very convincing.

Brandon: Yeah, they’re very convincing when it comes to that and they actually do the research. They’ll, you know, you may think that people can’t find information out about you but there’s actually a lot of information out there.

Maddy: Yeah and well, can they make, they can make the phone number look like it’s coming from your area too, right?

Brandon: Yeah, yeah so you can actually take mine or yours or anybody’s phone number and plug it into either a computer system or you know, there’s apps on phones nowadays that you can take any phone number and make it look like that phone number is calling you. So, like, if you get a phone number from a 517, 989 number or even a family member’s number and it’s not your family member, it can actually be one of these scammers because they can take phone numbers and call you with it.

Maddy: Right. If someone gets that call, what do you suggest they do? Should they just hang up and maybe even check on that family member separately, if they’re worried about it? 

Brandon: Yeah, I would say, you know, hang up. If you are suspicious of it, which you should be, ask questions. A lot of the times they get upset, if you start asking a bunch of questions they’ll actually get really upset with you because they aren’t expecting people to ask them questions so, they get thrown off and they get off their script, they can’t answer certain questions and stuff like that and it’ll actually throw them through a loop, so.

Maddy: Are there any other scams that you've seen aside from the phone calls?

Brandon: A lot of people see like Amazon, emails in your email account, Google accounts, different, you know, eBay, anything that you can think of that like you've bought things from, whether it be Macy's, whatever, they'll say that they'll send you an email making it look like Macy's or wherever sent you an email and you'll fall for it. You'll open that email, either click on a link and it can download, it'll download, you know, viruses to your computer where they can hack into your information on your computer or they'll say, there's been, you know, your account's been compromised, you owe $900 for previous purchases or your credit card or whatnot, and people will actually fall for that and the person on the other end of this scam will normally have like a chat bot or something like that to talk with you like an instant messenger and they'll say, hey, we need you to pay us, but it's got to be in gift cards, prepaid credit cards, Bitcoin, any sort of cryptocurrency. And people will go out and they'll say, oh, I don't want to have $900 floating around out there that I got to owe, you know, Macy's or Amazon or wherever, and it could even be a smaller amount, but they'll say, oh, to make this right, you got to go and get these gift cards to pay us.

Maddy: Because those are hard to track, like, you can't get that back.

Brandon: Yeah. Once you give this person the card number, there's no way to track those cards. So, another common one that we see is either like a fake item for sale on let's say Facebook marketplace, Craigslist, any sort of website or social media type that you see items for sale on and they'll ask for, it'll actually be a fake item. So, let's say they have a tractor for sale or I've seen bicycles, different items, doesn't matter what it is. They'll say, hey, you got to pay me in a, you know, be the prepaid credit card, you know, the same thing as before, the Bitcoin, pay me ahead of time before we meet up and I'll bring the item to you and people will go through and they'll pay them before and then they go to meet up with this person, it's either a bad address or, you know, they go there and they sit for an hour and this person never shows up with their item, but they already paid this gift card. Where did this money go? Nobody knows. It's gone, you know, so they're out the, whatever it costs them for this item. Related to that one also is people have an item for sale. Let's say I'm selling an item. You get a person that wants to buy the item and they contact you, they say hey I am in wherever, out of state or even you know a few towns away and they say I can't come and pick it up but I'm gonna hire a either a moving company or somebody to come and pick up this item I'm gonna pay you but I'm gonna pay you more than what you want for the item

Maddy: So, like they want to pay more for it yeah or say they're going to pay more for it?

Brandon: So, they say they're gonna pay more for the item a couple hundred dollars more whatever or even I've seen people say they'll pay like a thousand dollars more. And then they tell you what I want you to do is you give me $500 back because I can only make out a check for, or I can only pay you X amount of dollars. And then you guys got to pay me back the $500, but you can keep, let's say 300 for, you know, the inconvenience of having to run through all this. And they'll ask for it like in a cash app or yet again, the gift cards, prepaid credit cards, and whatnot. So, then you receive this money actually in your bank account, they'll wire it to you, or they'll send it to you in a cash app, and then you send them back the money, and you're out the X amount, $500, whatever it be, and then that money will actually get pulled out of your account because it was a fraudulent transfer. There is actually not that money there in the beginning.

Maddy: That's crazy. There's so much that I feel like goes into that.

Brandon: Yeah, they definitely have perfected the system over the years and they take advantage of the fact that nowadays people can open bank accounts without having to prove identification and everything like that. So, we see that a lot to where you do get these cases and you start looking into it and there's no way to track down even who this person is because they opened it online, they used a fake name, they used, you know, information that you can't even find out who this person is. And most of the time I'll say these are all people overseas. You see this to where, you know, it’ll be someone in a foreign country, not even in the United States.

Maddy: Right. You have talked about some red flags through all of that. Could you just quickly go over some really common red flags to look out for if you're dealing with possibly a scam?

Brandon: Yeah. Like I mentioned several times was, you know, payment with gift cards, payment with a cash app, payment with prepaid credit cards.

Maddy: What about crypto?

Brandon: Cryptocurrency. Yeah, that's those are all big red flags that you want to look out for because, like I said there’s no way to track most of that most of the time. Like I said previously also, when like people are very pushy on the phone, like let's say they make contact with you via the phone or even like on a chat app or whatever on your computer, if the person's really pushy about getting you to pay them, getting you to give them your information, your personal information, your social security number, your bank account information, anything like that, that's a red flag there when somebody is really pushy about that. Let's say it is your bank and they need to verify some information. Well, they already have that information, all you should have to do is verify maybe the last couple numbers of your account number or social security number. They already have it, they don't need it again.

Maddy: Yeah, yeah, your bank or credit union's never going to reach out to you and say, hey, I need your full social security or your account number. They already have that.

Brandon: Yeah. If you tell them, so one thing I've seen too is if you tell them that, yeah, I'll pay you, but I got to go to the store or whatever. A lot of the times they want you to stay on the phone with them the whole time through this entire thing, so I've actually been not at work or even at work and gotten calls on people or seen people that are at the store buying these prepaid gift cards while they're on the phone with this scammer that has them convinced that they need to pay them otherwise XYZ is gonna happen to them. Or let's say you do agree to pay them and you hang up and then they're immediately contacting you again with a different phone number. They're not going to use the same phone number normally. Or if you try calling that phone number back that they just called you from, it'll go either to another person, like I was saying with the masked phone call, or it'll just go to, to nowhere. It'll be a number not in service basically.

Maddy: So, we have a red flags to look out for. What advice do you have for people that want to do their best to keep their information safe? What kind of steps can people take?

Brandon: Just keep an eye out for these scams, obviously. You can run a yearly credit report, check in for any irregularities. You can, you know, prescribe to like a Life Lock type company where they actually do it for you. They keep an eye out on your accounts and that's what you pay them for. Check on your bank accounts, your, you know, investment accounts and everything like that. Just make sure that there's not anything that you didn't do going on in these accounts. I would say at least check it once a week, just to make sure credit cards, check everything because you never know, you might even come across where you get gas at wherever, and they have a skimmer device there and all of a sudden somebody has your credit card number that they can put onto a credit card that they have in their pocket and they're buying whatever it be.

Maddy: It can happen fast too.

Brandon: Yeah.

Maddy: Like they get that information, and.

Brandon: Normally, yeah, normally they get that information and it's within hours that they're already spending your money.

Maddy: Yeah. And you can also, I know at the credit union you can set up alerts. So, if like someone's trying to get into your account or if there's a purchase, you can get like a text to your phone.

Brandon: Yeah.

Maddy: That way you're alerted right away.

Brandon: Yup. And that’s actually how we get quite a bit of these, especially more so, obviously credit card and debit card type complaints, is their bank sent them text messages or called them and said that, hey, are you buying $500 to wherever?

Maddy: Right. What should someone do if they think they're a victim of fraud or are involved in a scam?

Brandon: Contact your, I would say contact your financial institutions. Let them know that you were a victim of fraud. So that way they can keep an eye on your accounts, put flags on your accounts. Report it to your local police department. That way they can look into it as well, take reports, so, that way you got it for your banking institutions and other places. And just to cover you, so that way it's not coming back on you later on if you know something nefarious did happen with your information and all of a sudden you got people knocking on your door. Well, I didn't report it when it happened, Also contact the credit bureau or the credit bureaus and what you can do is you can put a hold on your credit to where they have to double verify or triple verify who you are before you can actually open like a new line of credit so for a credit card, car loan, whatever it be, they have to triple verify you that it's actually you that is opening this account.

Maddy: Good! Just one extra step you can take. I know we got, remember we got that letter in the mail that said your information might have been breached.

Brandon: Yeah, from our mortgage company and we ended up putting holds on our account or on our credit.

Maddy: Yeah, just in case. Is there anything else that you wanted to share?

Brandon: I don't think so. I think that about covers it. There's obviously, you know, more frauds that go on and I have a whole laundry list of, you know, different frauds. I just wanted to touch on some of the basic ones that we come across quite a bit. I just appreciate your time today.

Maddy: Yeah, thank you.

Brandon: It was good being on here. I appreciate being able to get the word out of what's kind of going around.

Maddy: Yeah, we do too. I appreciate it.

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