The Expert Podcast

The growth and explosion of fraud and scams are getting to the point where no one can avoid talking about them. We've been on this subject for several years now. There's always been Ponzi schemes, always been investment scams, and always been people out there trying to get over on other people, but since about 2018 or so, it's gone through the roof. In the last two years, it's more than doubled again. We're getting a dozen or so inquiries, talking phone calls, and direct inquiries per day from people who have been scammed out of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, sometimes millions of dollars. And the methods these fraudsters are using are insidious. They're very sophisticated, they're very clever, they're capturing victims who are sophisticated types of people; they're educated, they're smart, and they're not just somebody who's naive. Lawyers, doctors, and professionals are all falling for these scams and losing a lot of money.

The government's being begged to step in and do something about it, but what can they do? It's not like scams are not already illegal, so you can't pass a law to make scams illegal because they already are illegal. What can you do to protect against it? One thing might be to try to get law enforcement more involved. One of the frustrations many of our clients have is that they contact the FBI, they contact their local police or sheriff, and they can't do anything. It's not that they don't want to; it's not that they're inept; it's that their hands are tied. They don't have the budget or the funding to investigate the vast number of scams that are out there. They have to deal with violent crimes, murders, narcotics trafficking, and all these other things, so they can't drop everything and worry about a $50 or $100,000 fraud case, even if it was your life savings, even if it was your last money that you relied on. They don't have the resources for it. A lot of times, that falls to the private sector, like private investigators and agencies that investigate fraud, but there's not enough of that to go around to catch all these scammers and fraudsters.

It's not a rare event anymore. Almost everybody knows a person who has been victimized by a scam. You sent money to somebody for an investment; money was taken from your bank account; money was embezzled from you as a company; maybe somebody convinced you to give the password to your login to your bank, and they stole all your money. The number and creativity of these scams are unlimited. It's not just an isolated event. Everybody is vulnerable and at risk, and even if it hasn't hit you yet, count yourself lucky, but be aware that it could. And what would happen if you knew if you had $7 $8, or $900,000 in the bank for your retirement and it's all gone? How would that affect your life? Think about all the Bernie Madoff victims who lost money, and that was, you know, like a rare Black Swan event. They were destitute. Some of these people, you know, had to file bankruptcy; they had to sell their homes, not retire, and work at, you know, a food service job in their 60s or 70s because they had no money.

Be prepared to prevent this at all costs. Talk to your relatives and talk to your friends about what they need to be aware of. One of the things the scammers are doing now is calling you on your cell phone and asking you, "Can you hear me?" "Yes." Well, if you say yes on the phone, they might be able to use that to get past your bank's voice prompt system. Your voice said yes; now they can get your money. There are a lot of ways they can do this. If you are a victim, there are steps you need to take right away. You can visit our website to find out what those steps are. If you need more detailed information, you can arrange for a consultation with one of our licensed investigators to talk about what steps to take to prevent it and, if you have been a victim, what steps to take to try to keep the losses from getting greater or recover some of the funds.