Ep 11 - Getting Scammed

Sharing how I got scammed out of $1,000 so you don't fall for the same trick...

My article about how scammers use classic copywriting tactics: 7 Ways Scammers Trick You With Classic Copywriting Tips

Other podcasts related to scamming (not sponsored):
Love, Janessa
The Opportunist
Scamanda

Disclaimer: I am not a professional mental health consultant, life coach, or accredited expert on the topics I discuss. This podcast and channel are based on my thoughts and opinions only.

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Transcript

(00:00): Intro music

Kayla (00:07):

Hello and welcome back to Routine Drama, a podcast about personal development and self-improvement despite the dramas of everyday life.

(00:17):

My name is Kayla, I'm your host, and I don't like to spend a ton of time on my intros so let's just get into today's topic, which is the drama of getting scammed.

(00:31):

I personally have been scammed very successfully at least one time in the past, and I can think of a couple other times where I definitely was suspicious that I was about to be scammed or someone was trying to scam me. So I am going to just be sharing some of my experiences dealing with scammers and some red flags to look out for if you suspect you might be getting scammed.

(00:59):

As well as just, hopefully by sharing these stories, if you are unsuspecting and a scammer reaches out to you or approaches you in some way, I hope that having listened to this episode, you will be in a little bit better of a position to listen to those red flag warnings when they start going off in your head, because they will. But if you're anything like me, you will ignore them because we all kind of think, "Oh, it's not going to happen to me." Well, it does and it's not fun.

(01:28):

So I think based on some information I'm going to share in a little bit that if you haven't been scammed in the past or haven't been approached by a scammer in the past, there's a very good chance that a scammer is going to be in your future in some way, shape, or form. It's just very prevalent right now, and I don't see it going away anytime soon.

(01:52):

If you have been scammed like me before, I just want to kind of, as usual, provide some kind of community and emotional support and just reassure you that it does happen to other people, even though it does feel a bit embarrassing when it happens to you.

(02:09):

So if you enjoy this episode as you're listening, please go ahead and while you have your app open, whatever you are listening on, please rate, review, and subscribe to this show wherever you are listening. It really helps motivate me, it helps the platform that you're listening on see that you don't hate what you're listening to. So if you could just engage with this episode in some way as you're listening, you're already here, that would really mean a lot to me. So thank you.

(02:41):

Alright, let's just get started with some stats to kick things off. According to a company called Axios, in conjunction with the FTC, apparently $10 billion were lost to scammers in 2023, and the top three states to be affected by financial scams specifically were California, Florida, and New Jersey.

(03:08):

If you live in one of those states, especially, be especially wary of anyone reaching out to you via text, phone calls, social media sites, anything like that, asking for money. As I'll cover in a little bit, there are some pretty deceptive ways that they go about trying to trick you into giving them money. So just be aware if you're in one of those very high-profile states for scammers, that there is probably a higher likelihood that you are going to be targeted.

(03:39):

So story time: I was the victim of a scam in 2022, and tell me if you would've fallen for this. Because I never thought that I would fall for a scam and I fell for this so fast, it was disturbing to me.

(03:57):

I also wrote an entire blog post about this from a kind of copywriting tactics perspective because I have a background in marketing and writing. So if you do want to read how I think scammers use classic copywriting strategies to get their victims to give them money, you can view that on Medium.com. And I will leave the link to the article in the show notes.

(04:23):

But essentially, I had been living in California for, I think, about one year at that point, maybe a little bit less. I was living in the San Francisco Bay Area and I had started a new job at a tech startup in San Francisco, Silicon Valley.

(04:42):

It was kind of like a dream job to me at the time because honestly, it just sounded really cool. And having come from a small town in Pennsylvania, working in Silicon Valley was just like, "Wow, I can't believe I'm doing this." But as cool as it was, I was definitely very out of my element and didn't really know kind of the culture of that industry very well.

(05:09):

So I start in this new company and my boss texted me one weekend, it was like a Saturday morning—and in any other role I would've been like, "Well, that's kind of inappropriate," or "That's not very respectful of my time,"—but there is a certain stereotype to hustle culture and startup culture in the Bay Area and I was like, "Oh, well maybe this is just normal. Maybe I'm just not used to this."

(05:35):

But I got a text saying that the person texting me was my boss, and could I go to the Apple store and pick up a couple Apple gift cards for him? Now right away you're probably thinking, "That's a red flag. Why would you take that seriously? What the hell is wrong with you?"

(05:58):

In hindsight, I'm like, "Wow, that's so obvious." But again, at the time, I had started a new job. I did not have my boss's cell number in my phone at the time. So when this person texted me, I thought, "Okay, he got my phone number from my Slack or whatever company paperwork I filled out. It's the Bay Area. Maybe he just knows that there's an Apple store right around the corner from me. Maybe this is something he just asks different employees to do occasionally."

(06:28):

But so he asked if I would go get these Apple gift cards. I initially pushed back and said, "No, I don't really have time to do that today," whatever, which was a lie and I felt guilty about it. But this is the CEO of the company texting me. As far as I'm concerned, that's all I know. And he said he's in a meeting and he needs some Apple gift cards. Can I go to the store and get them?

(06:54):

And I told him I could do that, but why couldn't he just order them online? That is the easiest way to do it. And he said, "No, that doesn't work. I need you to go get them in person." So I was like, "Okay, whatever. It's just two blocks away." It's California, the weather was beautiful. So I was like, "Okay, I'll take a little walk and I'll go to the Apple store."

(07:17):

So I go to the Apple store and he had specifically said he wanted, I think it was two or four Apple gift cards of a couple hundred dollars each. And I knew that we have different software vendor partners and potential clients, maybe they're doing some kind of giveaway. I knew we had different industry conferences and things like that coming up. So in my mind, the story is writing itself, right? "Oh, he needs these for X, Y, Z reasons."

(07:49):

I talk to an employee, tell him I'm looking for gift cards. He's like, "Okay." He sees me taking photos of them and he's like, "Oh, why are you taking photos?"

(07:57):

And I was like, "Oh, my boss asked me to get these. I just want to pick out a design that he likes so I can give them to him."

(08:06):

And he was like, "Are you sure it's your boss? Why is your boss texting you on a weekend?"

(08:12):

I was like, "It's a tech company, I don't know, but I'm just going to do this and it's annoying and whatever, but I'll do it."

(08:19):

So he was like, "Okay." And he was kind of skeptical, but he rang me out for the cards and I left the store, texted my boss and was like, "Alright, I got the gift cards," blah, blah, blah.

(08:31):

And he was like, "Okay, I need you to take them out and take a photo of the serial number on the back." Which again, in hindsight, that is so stupid.

(08:42):

And I was just like, "Ugh, whatever. This doesn't make any sense. But I already told him to just order them online." He shot me down and made me feel like that was a dumb request. So I was like, "Okay, fine." Took a photo, sent to him, whatever.

(08:55):

And he's like, "Okay, great." He's like, "Actually, I need a couple more." And to my small, small credit in this scenario, I am proud of myself at that moment as I think I'm talking to my CEO, saying, "I will do this, but you really need to come up with a better way to handle this in the future. I can't be going to the Apple store on my weekends all the time."

(09:19):

And he was like, "Yeah, okay, fine, but just get those for me."

(09:23):

So I go back to the Apple store and see the same employee and I'm like, "Oh, he said he needs some more gift cards."

(09:29):

And he got very serious with me, the employee, and he said, "Are you positive this is your boss? Because this is a really common tactic that scammers use."

(09:40):

And I was just so in denial or so committed at that point that I was like, "No, it's him. He's in a meeting so he can't go do this. And he said doing it online just hadn't worked in the past. So whatever." I convinced this poor guy who's probably in his early- to mid-twenties to sell me more Apple gift cards.

(10:01):

And I leave the store again, texting my boss. I was like, "Okay, I got them." And then as I'm walking, it's like with every step, I just start thinking more and more about what the Apple store employee had said to me. And I was like, "Is there a way for me to check what my boss's phone number is?" So I get on my Slack app on my phone and look at my boss's profile, see his cell phone number, pull up my boss who's been texting me and compare them, and they are not the same number at all.

(10:33):

And I just had this moment of, "Holy shit. I just gave about $1,000 to someone who I have no idea who they are." I instantly messaged my boss on Slack and was like, "Are you texting me right now?" Even though, at that point, I knew it wasn't him.

(10:51):

And then I got on my app and I was like, "You're not actually my boss!" And I immediately started walking back to the Apple store. The scammer texted me back and was like, "So? Haha." They knew they were caught and they just didn't care at all. That's probably a fun part for them, which was just so extra infuriating.

(11:15):

But I go back to the Apple store, the employee sees me coming, he's watching for me. I come in the store, he makes a beeline over to me. As he gets over to me, I'm like, "You're absolutely right. It's a scam. I just gave this guy $1,000."

(11:29):

He was like, "Do you have the cards you just bought?"

(11:31):

And I was like, "Yes, I have them. I didn't send him the codes for these."

(11:34):

And he was like, "Okay." He's like, "Go to whatever website is on the card or whatever, and see if the money is still on them. They've probably wiped it already, but just check, and we can cancel the card if it's on there." I tried to do that. The scammer had taken the money instantly, but at the very least, I had this last couple cards that I had purchased, which was again, probably about to the tune of $1,000.

(11:58):

Which, by the way, I was very new to this job, living in the Bay Area, coming off of working a part-time job... I did not have $1,000 to just be throwing away at things. But I had paid for them with my credit card and expected to be reimbursed for those purchases because, when I had started at this company, they did give me a sizable stipend to purchase home office equipment for my job, and they did reimburse me for that very quickly. So I already kind of had that trust built with my real employer, and it just, again, my brain made this narrative that completely worked in the scammer's favor.

(12:40):

I let my boss know what happened. It had been a problem at the company before I started that I just wasn't aware of, and it continued to be a problem for many months. Basically, this scammer or scamming group must have been targeting this company's LinkedIn profile and kind of seeing when new employees would come on. And when a new employee would get hired, they would reach out to them not too long after that and try to scam them in the same way. They were very aware of the context of the situation and of the new hires joining.

(13:14):

I lost $1,000, but ultimately my boss, my real CEO, did reimburse me for that, which was overwhelmingly generous on his part because clearly it wasn't his fault. But he did reimburse me the $1,000 I lost, which I was so, so grateful for, and it was just really generous. It could have been a lot worse.

(13:38):

After it happened, I was really embarrassed. I was of course crying and I was just so mad at myself for ignoring all these red flags and just trying to leave a good impression on my new boss rather than set appropriate work boundaries, and when someone doesn't respect when you tell them no don't just turn around and do what they're telling you to do anyway.

(14:06):

I just ignored so many red flags, and that was the most disturbing part of the whole thing. Because I knew. And I just let this narrative develop in my head and ignored every instinct I had to not do this.

(14:21):

So that is my experience getting scammed. And I think that having gone through that now, I am much more aware of situations that are giving off scammy vibes. And so that's what I want to talk about next.

(14:36):

So what are some red flags of a scammer? I think probably the most important one to pay attention to is urgency. Any potential scamming situation I have ever been a target of has always had a very urgent timeline to it.

(14:58):

Scammers want to get you really flustered and emotional so that you're not thinking rationally. And one of the easiest ways for them to do that is to have a really short time crunch on it. In my example of texting with my quote unquote boss, the time crunch that they put on it was like, "I'm in a meeting, I need these gift cards. I can't get them. Can you get them?" The urgency of "I need this in the next couple hours. I need this today." That got me kind of flustered and bothered, they caught me at a weird time—it was, again, a weekend morning—so I'm not expecting this kind of conversation to be happening. And it just completely disarmed whatever normal responses or whatever normal defensive mechanisms I might've had.

(15:51):

So if someone is really laying a time crunch on you, be wary of that. You always have the option to say, "Give me a little bit to think about it," if you are not entirely sure. Or even if you're pretty sure it's not a scam, but it just feels like a lot of pressure in the moment, try saying that and see how the person reacts.

(16:12):

If they're asking you for money of any kind, a gift card, some kind of subscription, anything like that, say, "Oh, give me a minute to think about it," or "I'm busy, give me some time to wrap up what I'm doing," whatever. Put some kind of time gap in there and see if they get more aggressive. If they do, that's not a good sign. Just be aware of really urgent emergency-type requests involving money.

(16:41):

Another red flag that I'm really aware of now is that, in terms of financial scamming specifically, the requests for money that scammers generally ask for is not a huge amount of money.

(16:54):

Like I said, I lost about $1,000. To me, that's a sizable amount of money, but they asked for it in increments of a couple hundred dollars—which again, I don't really have just hundreds of dollars to be throwing into the wind—but it made it seem like, "Okay, if I get a gift card for $250, I guess that's not a ton for (in my mind) the CEO to be asking for." It's not a large enough amount of money that it immediately made me think this is unreasonable. It was still reasonable within the context of getting gift cards for potentially a tech startup giveaway. That seemed within the realm of possibility to me.

(17:40):

Next, and probably the thing that I wish I would've paid attention to more is that when you push back on a request or if you kind of argue with the information that the person is giving you and they are conveniently either unable to verify whatever you're asking for or they just tell you something that invalidates whatever your concern is, that's another red flag to watch out for in conjunction with these other warning signs.

(18:11):

So, for example, in my case when I told my boss, "Why would I go to the Apple store? You can just buy these online." He just said, "That doesn't work." There was no long-winded explanation. He didn't try to provide any kind of very specific scenario. He just said, "That doesn't work." And I let my brain fill in the rest, and my brain kind of created this narrative of, "Oh, he must have tried it in the past and it didn't work, so I need to go do this."

(18:41):

The scammer never said that, but that is what my brain came up with. And I think that that is also part of what you want to be aware of if you're having a suspicious interaction with someone: They let you make up whatever narrative makes sense to you, and they don't actually have to say that much. They just give you the necessary little pieces to feed the story along or minimize whatever questions you have. But you are actually the one making up all the reasons, you are rationalizing to yourself why this is possible. Because again, I think we don't want to believe that we would be targeted by someone trying to steal money from us.

(19:23):

So do try to give some pushback if you're a little wary of a situation and, again, see how the person responds. Again, if they get aggressive, that's usually not a good sign, and it might just reinforce whatever feelings you have that this isn't a credible request.

(19:39):

Another red flag I've picked up on is that the scammer will probably at some point try to tell you how something works, and it might be a little bit counterintuitive or doesn't 100% align with your experiences in the past.

(19:58):

So for example, using the gift card in person versus online. Again, this person told me that doesn't work, which is completely counterintuitive to how I have experienced using Apple gift cards in the past. Their website works pretty good. It's Apple. Technology is their thing. But because this person said, "No, that doesn't work," it kind of just shut down my reasoning of the best way to go about doing this. I suggested the best way that I knew how to do it, and they were like, no, that's not an option and shut it down.

(20:35):

Again, I should have been a little more discerning there, but I was naive and this person was being manipulative.

(20:42):

And lastly, I think a good red flag check for any interaction that you're suspicious of is to run the scenario by someone else. Text a friend, a colleague, a family member, just tell someone else who is not involved in the situation what is happening. Because I did not do that.

(21:03):

I was like, "I'm going to handle this on my own. This is my big girl job. I'm going to go be a valuable employee and I'm going to be an asset to my CEO today." But had I taken one second to text my boyfriend, my parents, to text any of my colleagues at work, and been like, "Hey, this is what's happening." I guarantee you someone would've been like, "That sounds like a scam. Don't do that." But I didn't do that. So again, that red flag just didn't come up for me. But that I think would be a very easy way to get another opinion and just stop the progression of the scam before it goes too far.

(21:43):

Unfortunately, after you've been scammed, even if you get your money back or you resolve whatever situation you are a victim of, you do still kind of have that stigma of, "Oh, I'm someone who fell for a scam. I have been scammed."

(22:01):

 And that can just be really embarrassing. I think one of the reasons that it feels so embarrassing is because even though it happens really often—like a disturbing amount—because it's embarrassing, people don't really want to talk about it. So it does have this kind of isolating effect of feeling like, "Oh, nobody I know has ever been scammed, but I've been scammed." And that's not necessarily true.

(22:27):

You probably know someone who has been scammed and you just aren't aware of it because it might not be something that they want to advertise publicly. When I was scammed, there was actually another employee at the company I was working at who reached out to me privately and was like, "Hey, I just wanted to let you know, I know how this feels. It might feel like you did something wrong, but you didn't. I've been scammed before. I know it really, really sucks."

(22:53):

And so it was just really kind of that person to do that. And especially because I was new at this company, I just felt like the biggest fool. And just having someone else say, "Hey, look, it's a sucky situation. I've been there and it's okay. It's just an unfortunate thing that happened," that really helped me move past it a little more quickly and feel like it wasn't just me that this had happened to, or it wasn't something stupid I did.

(23:25):

It was a manipulative act by someone who does this as a career. And if you are the victim of a scam, hopefully it's not a bad scam. Again, I made out of this scenario, fine, ultimately I didn't lose anything.

(23:42):

And now when I am in situations that feel a little off to me, I have a little bit more awareness and I have the sense to be able to recognize, "Hey, this feels a little familiar. This is kind of like that time I got scammed. Maybe I should be paying attention a little bit more here." And as I'll talk about in a couple minutes, that I think has saved me from getting scammed again in the future.

(24:09):

So it's not all bad. It doesn't feel great, but it is a really valuable lesson to learn and an experience that I think can save you from being a victim of larger, potentially worse scams in the future. So just try to look at it as a learning experience and don't take it to heart.

(24:30):

Another positive side effect of getting scammed is that you can then be that person who goes to someone and says, "Hey, I've experienced this too. It's okay." And I think we're all going to know people in the future who are scammed. And again, that kind of just speaks to how prevalent I think this is. But if you have already been a victim of being scammed and you have that experience, that could be something that someone you know or care about might really, really value hearing in the future. And it might be a way that you can help someone feel better if they go through a similar thing.

(25:08):

I do think someone tried to scam me the other week, actually, and I'll tell you why. So I live in an apartment building. If you have listened to Episode 2, you know a little bit about just some of the dramas that come with that. But one of the things that happens occasionally in my apartment complex is people will go around, knocking door-to-door, asking for donations to certain events, charities, whatever. They're not really supposed to do that, but people do.

(25:42):

So someone came to my door the other night, and this was later in the evening, maybe five, six o'clock, so weird timing already. And I opened the door and there was a young man there. He looked maybe like 19 to 21 to me, it was hard to tell. But he was a younger guy and he had a laminated, printed flyer with him with just some ambiguous kind of wholesome, feel-good photos of teenagers hanging out together on it or something like that. And he launches into this pitch about how he is part of some kind of scholarship program, and they're going to pay his way through college, but there's an opportunity for him to raise a little bit more money and blah, blah, blah, he just needs a couple more donations. Would I be willing to donate to help him further his education?

(26:38):

Which is a really great cause, right? To reel you in and you just want to be like, "Yeah, I'll help you," you know, whatever.

(26:46):

I was like, "Oh, congratulations on your scholarship. What are the payment methods available?" And I'm already kind of like, "This is weird." I work in marketing and giving someone a laminated flyer that, one, they're not going to get to keep? And two, has no QR code, no phone number on it, nothing, that is suspicious. So that kind of just alerted me that something was strange right away. I was like, "What ways are you accepting donations?"

(27:19):

And he was like, "Well, you can write a check if you want. And I have this receipt that you can use to write off the charitable donation or whatever on your taxes," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he hands me a printed piece of paper anybody could have printed out on a home computer and it just has some information about being a charitable cause and a line to write in the amount you donate or whatever. It was not a proper tax form. And there, again, no identifying information on it.

(27:53):

And so I'm looking at that and I'm like, "Okay, so do you have a way to pay electronically?"

(27:59):

And he was like, "Yeah, yeah, you can pay me either via Cash App or Venmo."

(28:07):

And I was like, "Oh, okay, but you don't have a donation portal on your website?"

(28:11):

And he was like, "Well, we do, but the website is actually down right now and this is the last day to donate, so I would really appreciate if you would donate now so that I can get this funding," or whatever.

(28:25):

And I was like, "Oh, okay, well, is there a place where I can find some more information?"

(28:32):

And he was like, "Well, again, the website's down so you can't look there, but someone's going to be coming around with a brochure later and you can read more about it there. But this is the last day to donate."

(28:42):

And I was like, "Okay, well, I think I'm just going to wait for the brochure. Best of luck to you. When I get that, I'll read up some more about the organization and make a donation."

(28:52):

And he was like, "Okay, that's fine. I do need that tax slip back." And he took this piece of paper back and it was whatever. And we amicably parted ways.

(29:03):

But as soon as I shut the door, I was like, "That was definitely a potential scam. That had all the red flags." Not only did he use the time crunch thing on me of trying to be like, "Oh, this is the last day to donate." And just the fact that he is asking for donations to his personal Cash App or Venmo, added into the sense of urgency, the fact that the website isn't working—by the way, I never did get a brochure so that just reinforces that this was a scamming tactic—all of that together, I was just like, "There's no way."

(29:40):

So having been scammed before I think did help out in this case because, I probably wouldn't have lost a lot of money, I probably would've maybe donated like a hundred dollars to this kid because I would love to support someone's education. But the fact that these red flags started going up for me and that I had the presence of mind to pay attention to them this time is what I think made the difference.

(30:07):

So I do think being aware of some of those red flags can be really practical and helpful. And I hope that no one watching or listening to this is ever scammed but if you are, I hope that having listened to this, you do kind of trust your instincts a little bit more and make the decision to think about the situation more logically and not become a victim.

(30:33):

So unfortunately, I think that scams are only going to continue to be a problem for many of us. Scammers are getting more and more creative with the scenarios that they give people. And then on top of that, you have technologies like AI and deepfake video tactics, deepfake audio tactics, that can really convincingly mimic someone's voice or even your image.

(31:03):

So I think it's going to become a really difficult task to identify when something is a scam versus a legitimate opportunity. And I think if you add into that the way the economy is and likely how it's going to continue to become more and more expensive to live... I mean realistically, there's just a lot of people, and it's not easy for everyone to have access to the same kinds of resources depending where you live. The standard of living just feels outrageous in a lot of areas these days. And I think that that is going to exacerbate people's willingness to resort to scamming as a way to make money.

(31:47):

So unfortunately, I don't see this going away anytime soon. I just hope that anyone who is listening or watching can avoid being a victim of a scam in the future. And hopefully you can do a little bit to educate your friends and family, especially any older family that you have. They are really targeted by scammers because they aren't quite as technology savvy as some of the other generations are. So just do what you can to protect the elderly people in your life. Let them know the kinds of tactics that scammers might use to reach out to them and take advantage of them.

(32:25):

And again, if someone approaches you with a weird financial ask that just seems a little bit off, I hope that some of the things that I've discussed here today will help you recognize it's a potential scam.

(32:41):

So with all that said, I am really glad that you were here to listen to this today. Again, it is pretty embarrassing for me to talk about: just buying Apple gift cards for a random stranger that I had no proof of being my boss. But again, I think talking about it does help alleviate some of the embarrassment for other people.

(33:03):

If you've been scammed or you know someone who's been scammed, you can tell me a little bit about your experience in either the YouTube comments or you can fill out the form in the show notes on Spotify. I never cease to be amazed by the number of strategies and tactics that scammers will use to try to get money out of people.

(33:22):

And also, if this topic is interesting to you, this is not in any way a paid sponsorship, but there are a couple other podcasts that go into scammers in detail. A few that come to mind are the podcast Love, Janessa. There is one called The Opportunist that kind of goes through, not always scamming, but people taking advantage of opportune situations for them in ways that are usually pretty morally corrupt. And then there is also the podcast Scamanda. I will also link those in the show notes just because I think they're really great shows and I enjoy them.

(34:00):

If you enjoyed this show at all, again, please subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening. If you're on YouTube, please subscribe to my channel. Leave a note in the comments telling me that you subscribed today. It would really mean a lot to me.

(34:17):

And as always, if you have feedback on this or any episode or you want me to talk about a specific topic in a future episode, you can send those to me at routinedramapod@gmail.com.

(34:32):

Thank you so much for being here today, and I will see you next Monday.