Listen in as Fraud Specialist Kristy Desimone shares some tips on how to protect yourself and loved ones from fraud on social media channels.

 

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0:00:07.1 Lynne Jarman-Johnson (LJJ): Money I’m Home. Welcome in. I’m Lynne Jarman-Johnson with Consumers Credit Union. From finance to fitness, we have it all, and I’ll tell you what, we are so excited because we are going to be doing a series across the entire year of 2022, and the series is all about fraud, and joining us today is Kristy Desimone, and she is our fraud monitoring specialist here at Consumers Credit Union. Kristy, that’s a big title, man there’s so much going on. Thanks for being with us today.

0:00:37.3 Kristy Desimone (KD): Yeah. Of course, I’m so happy to be here.

0:00:40.8 LJJ: Now, I’ll tell you what, if you don’t mind, we’re going to start off with a topic that is near and dear to my heart, because I’ve been doing social media for so many years, but I’ll tell you what… It seems like every day it gets a little bit scarier. Let’s talk about social media fraud, what’s going on out there?

0:01:00.8 KD: Yeah, so we have seen a lot of increase in fraudsters using social media. It’s been a way to reach multi-generations, so they reach younger generations and they reach older generations. One scam that we saw a lot of in 2021 was a charity scam, so someone would send a message on Instagram and they would say, “Hey, I want to donate to a charity, you have a lot of influence with all your followers. Can I send you a check? You’ll deposit it at your financial institution and then you’ll send me some of the funds and I will donate it to a charity.” And so what would happen is that check would not be good, obviously, and it would return and the member would be responsible for the funds.

0:01:47.7 LJJ: This sounds sketchy right up at the get-go, you know, but how easy is it for people to find you, find information about you, make it feel like it’s real, or that it’s like a really good cause that you don’t want to miss out on?

0:02:01.7 KD: Agreed, all of your information is out there, it’s on your profile, and a lot of times fraudsters can use that against you. They can act like they have the same interests, the same thought processes to be able to gain some confidence and some trust. I’ve talked to members and they’re like, as I repeat this to you, it doesn’t sound great, but in the moment, it felt like they were someone that I’ve known forever, and they were just talking to me about an opportunity.

0:02:30.7 LJJ: Have you found that it’s across different social media platforms, or is it something where these fraudsters start to target a certain maybe group or a certain social media platform in itself.

0:02:44.4 KD: Yeah. So we actually see different social media platforms used for different types of scams, so Instagram, we see more of the gaining trust, deposit a check, help me out kind of scams. And Facebook we really see more with Marketplace, so buying and selling things through Facebook Marketplace, we see fraud that way people sell cars on there and they’ve gotten bad cashier’s checks, and they’ve sold their vehicle and given it to someone, so just it’s the different uses of different social medias that you kind of see develop.

0:03:18.8 LJJ: Well, what are some of the things that we can do where we can stop for a moment and say, “Wait a minute, if this looks too good to be true, it probably is.” I know one thing that I’ve always been so fascinated with is even emails, you get an email and you think it’s from someone you know, but then when you really open up the name, it’s a totally different email.

0:03:41.5 KD: Right, exactly. And they use those phishing emails where they’re just trying to see who they can reel in, like they’re from Amazon, or they’re from someone you know and like how you put your mouse over the link and you see that it doesn’t come back to Amazon, or the email address changes, the misspellings. A big red flag that you can see in social media is when they ask you to send funds back, so any time someone says, Hey, you keep a little bit and send some back to me, that should automatically be a pause and say, “Hey, does this seem legitimate, this is kind of concerning. Why would I need to send funds back to you?” That is a huge pause moment in the social media kind of aspect.

0:04:27.6 LJJ: How is it… Especially you hear these stories, and it’s really not fraud, but it is something where perhaps parental controls could be set up where kids are on social, they may jump to a game to start to play, all of a sudden that costs money, and it just steamrolls into what could be very large bills.

0:04:48.8 KD: Yeah. It definitely happens, and we’ve seen that where kids will just keep going, keep spending, they don’t realize that it’s real money, and so they just keep going. A lot of times, if you talk to the company in which they have charged things like that, they’ll work with you since it is a minor who is charging things to an account that is not necessarily in their name, so that’s a good way to always try and approach it by reaching out to the company too, to see, “Hey, are you guys aware of this? Is there something that we can do to help stop this” kind of deal.

0:05:20.9 LJJ: One thing that has happened to two people I know, and unfortunately one of them went through with it, and that was where they received a phone call and the phone call came in and the voice sounded just like their grandchild, and the individual who was calling was literally a fraudster and had gathered the voice from recognition from gaming online. Literally, it’s the same voice, and so, especially older adults are feeling like they want to save their grandchild from whatever it is the fraudster is calling about, but it’s just not true.

0:05:58.5 KD: Exactly, and a lot of times in those situations, they’ve spoofed the cell phone number, so nine times out of 10, the recommendation is to hang up the phone and reach out to your loved one and try and get them on the phone in order to communicate with them, because they have spoofed the phone number. There are apps that allow you to do that or send text messages that look like they’re from someone you know when they’re not. So, nine times out of 10, the best thing, even when a company calls and says, Hey, Consumers Energy here, we need to verify your account. I always recommend hanging up and calling the company on the number that you’ve called them before in order to make sure that it’s valid.

0:06:36.3 LJJ: And then Kristy, let’s remind any of our members or anyone listening, look if someone from Consumers calls you, we are not about to ask you very specific information about your account or anything over the phone that would lead to any type of fraud.

0:06:53.9 KD: Correct. We don’t want your account numbers over the phone, we don’t want your full Social Security Number, debit card number, credit card number, none of that is anything that we will give you a call and ask for, so that’s always a caution too. If you have a company calling you and they’re asking for information they should have access to that should also be a pause moment there.

0:07:12.9 LJJ: Well, that is awesome, and thank you so much. Today’s, was awesome, it’s all about fraud and social media and all those different scams that are out there, be vigilant and also talk to your loved ones, your neighbors, your friends on what you can do to stay safe.

0:07:29.9 KD: Yeah, I think education is the most important thing, especially for younger individuals, because they’re going to get on social media, it’s part of their culture as they grow older, so if we can equip them with the best skills in order to make sure they stay out of scams then it’s awesome!

0:07:44.5 LJJ: Well, thank you, Kristy. Hey, next month, let’s bring up the question about checks, now, I know some people listening don’t even know what a check is anymore, right? Everybody’s doing debit cards and… So, let’s not forget about that next time.

0:08:02.0 KD: Oh, sounds great.

0:08:04.2 LJJ: I’m Lynne Jarman-Johnson. Hey Money, I’m Home. Consumers Credit Union. If you have a topic that you’d love to share with us, just send it on our way, and I’d like to say a big, huge shout out to Jake Esselink. Jake, thank you so much for your great editing skills. Everybody have a wonderful week.