When something feels too good to be true, it probably is. Tune in to Money, I’m Home as Lynne chats with Consumers Senior Fraud Specialist Kristy Desimone on Get Rich Quick schemes.

 

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0:00:06.4 Lynne Jarman-Johnson (LJJ): Money, I’m Home. Welcome in. From finance to fitness, we’ve got it all. I’m Lynne Jarman-Johnson with Consumers Credit Union. We’re so excited because every single month we really touch base on scams that are popping up. And these are true scams that are happening, and they’re happening right here in West Michigan. So, we don’t want you to be at all afraid of asking for help if you need it or asking the right questions to make sure that you don’t fall for a scam that is out in the marketplace. And you know what, we’ve got the perfect expert, our senior fraud specialist, Kristy Desimone, is here with us again today. And Kristy, today is a big topic because it’s really talking about something that everybody thinks, “Oh boy, that sounds good,” Get rich quick!

0:00:53.6 Kristy Desimone (KD): Yes. And they have come far, because we used to have the Publisher Housing scam where people would wait for that big check to come to their front door and people would get taken advantage there. And now with social media, it has introduced a whole new genre of get-rich-quick schemes. The most recent one we had was counterfeit money order checks. So, we found videos on TikTok that were showing people how to alter money orders and they were presenting them to financial institutions, including us! So, it was eye-opening to see what exactly was going on…

0:01:29.7 LJJ: Like live in public, “Here’s how you scam someone”?

0:01:33.4 KD: Yes. Exactly. “Here’s how you print them out, here’s what you do,” all these different ways. And what really got us is in talking to the people who presented the money orders, it was, “Well, someone reached out to me and said I would get to keep a part of the money I cashed and give them some.” So, they had multiples that they were attempting in order to try and get funds quickly, which was really eye-opening for us.

0:02:00.3 LJJ: The interesting thing is the boldness.

0:02:02.1 KD: Yeah. And those videos can be viewed by anybody. It’s not on a private page, they were public, so a wide variety of people who maybe needed some extra cash for something were able to find these and be taken advantage of by someone else who was trying to just get funds from them.

0:02:19.5 LJJ: Wow. So, explain a little bit about what happens. So, you said there was a video and it’s showing somebody exactly the steps they need to take?

0:02:28.3 KD: Exactly.

0:02:28.6 LJJ: And so, they’re actually asking for money of some sort, right?

0:02:32.8 KD: Yeah. So, what it creates is what we call fraud rings. And what those do is it starts with somebody who is engineering, the puppet master behind everything else, and what they do is they show people, “Oh, I can get you $500 really easily if you just take this money order and present it to a financial institution and get the cash back for it. You’ll bring me the cash and I will give you a piece of it and I’ll keep a piece of it and then we can keep going to different financial institutions.” So, people believe it’s a way to get quick money and the money orders look legitimate. So, some of them were bought, so they were like dollar money orders that then were altered to be $1000. And so, they were legitimate at one point, but the amounts were altered. So, some individuals that I spoke to just weren’t aware that they can get in trouble for that because it’s their account that they are cashing it off of. So, that was eye-opening for them too is to understand that if you accept one of these and cash it off your own account at a financial institution, you are the one that financial institution is going to try to get those funds back from.

0:03:39.8 LJJ: Kristy, every single day, do you just get calls that… Obviously, here we do our podcast once a month and I’m always so in awe of the fact that you’re staying on top of all of this, this is… Every day is different for you, isn’t it?

0:03:53.1 KD: Right. And that’s the greatest part about my job, which I love, is that I come in and it’s a different landscape. But it’s also a different opportunity to educate. So, my greatest passion is educating individuals about scams and how to avoid them. Even if you fall for one, educating them on what to do once that happens. Because we know not everyone’s perfect and scammers are smart and sometimes you fall for them, so we want to make sure that we provide you ways to call us and reach us or come to an office so that we can talk to you about it and be able to help you out that way.

0:04:25.3 LJJ: And honestly, don’t be embarrassed! These things are happening so real, they’re real, and you think that it’s a real thing, and that either, A, you’re trying to help someone or… Last month, you talked about job scams, it really truly is something where don’t be embarrassed if something happened, instead try to fix it right away.

0:04:46.2 KD: 100%. And we have all fallen for some type of scam before. And it’s hard to talk about and it’s hard to admit, but that’s the only way we can find an advantage over the fraudsters is by communicating with your financial institution or the people in your life in order to make sure that they don’t fall for the same thing. And so, these scams, those videos are out to everybody, so anyone can see it. And our best option is to educate so that if you do see it, you can report it to the social media platform that it’s on, or you can also let us know, you can send us an email or call us and say, “Hey, I just want you guys to be aware I’m seeing this,” or we can reach out to you if you happen to fall for it.

0:05:27.7 LJJ: You mentioned the money order. Are there other get-rich quicks that you’ve seen recently?

0:05:32.4 KD: Yes. So, we’ve seen counterfeit payroll checks. So, people will be printing out checks from local employers saying, “Hey, take these checks out, you get a part of it. So, cash it at your financial institution, you get to keep a percentage, I get to keep a percentage, and we can just keep going.” We’ve seen multiples of these. And they use local companies to Michigan, so it seems legitimate and you’re like, “Okay, this is… Somebody’s helping me out. Maybe I’m just a freelancer and this is how they pay us,” and then they come and cash in and it turns out to be fraud.

0:06:07.5 LJJ: Wow. So, again, do not be afraid to ask the questions prior to getting involved with something that… I love how you say it looks good… Too good to be true, it’s probably too good to be true.

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0:06:20.5 KD: A 100%. And I feel like sometimes we fall for things nowadays that we wouldn’t have a couple of years ago because of the state of the world and our experiences that have changed our viewpoints. So, there are moments where I know somebody is second guessing their self, but they’re like, “It could be true, like it could… That could be me.” [chuckle] So, just stop in and talk to us. Sometimes they tell you how to act or what to say. And if someone is trying to get you to act or say certain things when you go to cash a check or something, most likely it’s fraud and we need you to talk to us and tell us what’s going on.

0:06:52.4 LJJ: Yeah, a big red flag there. Well, Kristy, thank you so much. We sure appreciate every time you stop by and give us tips and information. If you’d like to reach Kristy, it’s just easy, just get in touch with us here at Consumers, send us a note if you’d like on Facebook, whatever you need, we’ll get you right to Kristy if you have some questions, and/or any of our team members would love to help you out. I’m Lynne Jarman-Johnson with Consumers Credit Union. Money, I’m home. If you have a topic, send it our way. And thank you Jake Esselink for your production skills. Hey, everybody, have a great week.

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