The Expert Podcast

…So what is the fastest growing area of fraud That we see in our investigative agency? if you've been watching our channel for years you've known that we've talked about Ponzi schemes, other types of corporate fraud embezzlement but there's a new type that's popping up that just in the last. You know 12 to 18 months is going through the roof Now before we go further, make sure that you know about our other two YouTube channels We have actual human.com. YouTube channel and also1@describe.tv You'll see the links below where we talk about many of these subjects In more detail we have live events on a daily basis. We have large-scale interactive events where you can talk back and forth with the, with the executives and the professionals.

So make sure you check out those channels for our loyal viewers and subscribers. Go look at those and see if those are venture So. That being said. What's going on with fraud. Right.

The biggest growth the fan. growing area Fraud is what we call family law fraud Now remember we're not attorneys we're not giving you legal advice. But. We're seeing cases skyrocket in two or three areas. If you are in any family that has any one of these events happening in it, you have somebody going through a divorce.

There was a death in the family or a birth of a baby a newborn. Keep these things in mind make sure you're aware of these things and pass this along to people that. You know that have one of these events. What are these frauds family law fraud. First we'll talk about probate fraud…

Well actually let's talk about divorce fraud because that's an easier one to understand you have two people fighting. Because they're breaking up. Right It's acrimonious There's a lot of conflict They hate each other for one reason or another. And they're both trying to get out of this divorce with as much money as possible. Right.

It's called settlement division of assets. Community property. There may be spousal maintenance child support alimony All these things are being. Settled negotiated. So these parties don't care about each other They don't care about the other person doing okay They are out for themselves.

So what they do. Is they try to conceal or divert assets So they get a bigger share of the pie than they're supposed to. Both people do not just one It's both people do this. We look at 10 to 12. divorce asset cases a week and almost every single case we find that both parties are actually trying to.

Improperly divert money And you want to not let that happen because it's cheating you out of what's coming to you What you deserve…

You want to get a good asset search on that divorce case? So how do they do it? Well everything from hidden bank accounts, many times somebody in a divorce will know that they're going to. Start this divorce or be afraid of it or be aware of it. Many months or years in advance So they may start this process years before.

they may open up a bank account. The hidden bank account that you don't know about. They may put money into one of their relatives names or a friend's name or coworker. They may take assets and put them in somebody else's name or hide them vehicles Real estate, corporate assets…

Right business assets They may hide those. another way to do it which is kind of sneaky is they might over pay their taxes So they might write a check to the IRS to the treasury. For more than what their tax bill is, or they might set up their withholdings on there. payroll to actually put more money in their tax account because if you overpay your taxes at some point, you can either credit it to what you owe in the future or just get a cash refund. Right.

We had one. S client. Who I wasn't aware of any of this They just thought there was hiding money in a in a bank account because there wasn't enough money compared to what this person the other person was making. What we found is we did We looked at their their withholdings on their paycheck It was too much money. They had actually told their employer to put an extra.

$800 a week. In. Withholdings…

That was $40,000 a year for two years that they had put into overpayment of taxes. It was $80,000 that they had overpaid their taxes, knowing full well that at some point they were going to get a divorce. And what they were planning on doing was after the divorce taking 80,000 and saying oh my bad I paid too much Give it back and get cash. If they owed some taxes they would put it towards that. So make sure you get tax transcripts and you look at those things.

Another way of doing it is by putting the money into some other form cryptocurrency. It could be even things like casino chips We've seen people go to casino, buy a bunch of chips gamble a little bit. but not all the chips. And then hide those casino chips that can happen or buy things like Rolex watches or something you can resell…

Now that's a case where the people are fighting You expect them to try to rip each other off But what about probate cases How how does that work Well usually what happens is somebody dies in a family, you know grandpa Joe, 92 years old God bless them Knock on wood He dies right. Okay, well grandpa Joe has assets real estate bank accounts insurance maybe vehicles maybe antiques, maybe corporate assets who knows what grandpa Joe has. And. That is willed or given to different areas different descendants or maybe not even in the family. So what happens is, as grandpa Joe is getting older maybe everybody knows in advance You know he's got dementia maybe he's in a nursing home.

Maybe he's sick in hospice. Or maybe he just dies suddenly, but at some point when people realized that this person is going to die, they start to say well what's in it for me. How can I conceal these assets? Maybe they start writing checks from bank account and put the money somewhere. Maybe they do a quick claim deed on a piece of real estate, a piece of hunting land that he had up in the woods that nobody will know about.

Maybe they find an old antique car in the garage in the barn and then they put that somewhere. Right. There's hundreds of ways to conceal assets in a probate What's worse about this is these are people that like each other. So when you are a member of a family and are stealing money from that estate, you're essentially stealing it from the other living relatives that are still alive, that you should be…

Respecting, you're going to see them at the family reunion You're going to go to their wedding You're going to write these are your siblings your cousins your aunt your uncles. And they're stealing money. They do it all the time. So anytime there's a death in the family, it doesn't matter who the executor is Sometimes the executors in on it. Get a good asset.

Search and asset tracing get a good inventory of those assets to make sure that what's rightfully yours or even other People's go to them because here. the thing. If you let them get away with it. You are disrespecting the will of the person who died in will…is literally what you're talking about It's their will they want this to happen? And a will is a document that evidence evidence is that So if you are letting somebody…

Get away with it. you're disrespecting that dead person's wishes. Right You don't want to do that. They lived a good life They. You want them to have whatever they want it to happen after their death?

So probate case. Man get asset searches. We're seeing hundreds of them. The last one is, what about if there's a new baby? If somebody gets born in a family.

Well you may not realize this but when a person's born it creates an opportunity what's for what's called a synthetic identity There are scammers out there sometimes within the family. That will use the identity of that baby to open up credit accounts to get a social security number. to do things And what happens is because a baby doesn't have any financial activity until they're maybe 12, 14, 16 depending up on. you know how they live their life. There's nothing watching this There's no observation of it So if a family member or even outside the family knows this person's born they say Hm what can I do?

They get a new social security number They open accounts They start running up credit. Of course if you're going to do something like this you're not running up credit to get a good credit score If you do if you would do that you do it on your own credit. They do this to ruin the credit. So now this poor kid. At 16 wants to buy a car or wants to co-sign on a loan or maybe get a credit card or 18.

He finds out his credit's been trashed for the last 15 years. So. If you have a new member of the family maybe it's your kid Maybe you have a you know, a new baby as a as a couple or as a mother. First thing you want to do is get a social security number. And freeze the credit lock the credit and monitor it.

Every year to get a credit report on that social security number, get a credit.

profile you can do all this for free. Through the credit bureaus credit freeze. Credit lock You can do all these things There's companies out there that will charge you a fee you know monitor your credit. You probably don't need to do that. If you do it yourself it's pretty much free, but definitely keep an eye on it because you hate to wake up 20 years down the road and have your son your daughter.

Somebody in your family realized that now it's time to go out into the world and start to buy houses buy cars get jobs, and find out your credit is ruined or you have criminal records. So you want to protect that identity. So somebody doesn't do a synthetic identity. And that's a, that's a big thing we're seeing. Hopefully that's helpful.

keep an eye on our channel for. More videos about fraud and checkout or other channels for a more detailed and live events coming up. And as always keep putting your comments below to let us know what you're seeing. Out there in the world for fraud investigations, cyber attacks Ponzi schemes, because we'd like to hear what's happening. On your end.