Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - BONUS EPISODE | The Megyn Kelly Show

Episode Date: July 11, 2024

Today, we'd like to direct your attention to The Megyn Kelly Show. In this podcast episode, Megyn Kelly shares a personal fraud experience involving her mother-in-law and husband. With help from her family and Steve, a whale-watching guide from Cape Cod, she unravels the mystery. Hear Kelly's conversation with the scammer,  and get insights on how to avoid similar scams yourself from security expert Bill Stanton    Subscribe to The Megyn Kelly Show:   Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0awxEJH88Xur0GHXuteBLw?si=UYTJl1P6TQippmzAu3f69g&nd=1 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-megyn-kelly-show/id1532976305See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Hi, everybody. Nancy Grace here. Let me introduce you to a podcast. I think you will love, The Megyn Kelly Show. The Megyn Kelly Show features open, honest, and sometimes provocative, that's one way to put it, conversations with some of the most interesting and important political, legal, and cultural figures of the most interesting and important political, legal, and cultural

figures of the day. Give it a listen and follow The Megyn Kelly Show wherever you get your podcasts. You may love the guest. You may hate the guest. But I'm telling you, The Megyn Kelly Show is a must listen. Here's Megyn Kelly now. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM channel 111 every weekday at noon east. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and the conclusion of Fraud Week. I have a story that I need to share with you. It's one I've never told publicly before. And to do it right, it took virtually my entire family on my husband's side. January 22, 2021. Much of the world is still shut down due to COVID. Our family still living in Manhattan and getting ready to travel south for the weekend for my nephew's wedding.

As I pack up that Friday, my husband Doug calls, relaying that he has just heard from his then 84-year-old mother, Jackie, in Philadelphia. She's received a disturbing phone call from her daughter, Diane. Diane and her partner, Brad, are oyster fishermen on Cape Cod. She was hysterical, sobbing, and couldn't complete a full sentence. But she said that she was in jail on a drunk driving charge and that she, I needed to get, talk to somebody that, she had a telephone number and they were going to talk to me about getting bail. And this was on a Friday, which I don't know. Anyway, I didn't know much of anything, but I kept asking her if she was all right. And I just didn't know what to do. And she just said, I'm so scared. I'm terrified. And I asked her where Brad was.

And she said, well, he's in jail too. But she said, I don't really have time. They're not giving me long to talk. You need to call this number. So what did you do next? I called the number. And he told me that the court was closed on Friday. And it was COVID, so they had limited times when you could get in. And he told me to call this lawyer whose name I can't remember, and he would walk me through getting the bail money. So this was the court that you were talking to saying,

you need to talk to a lawyer. Here's a number you can call. Yes. And then did you call the lawyer? I did. I asked him, why is she there on a drunk driving charge when she doesn't drink? And he said, well, she told me she didn't drink, and I believed her, so I've sent off a tox screen, or, you know, I've sent off for a blood test.

I didn't know why Brad was in there. Once either the court told me or the lawyer told that Brad was in because he assaulted a policeman at the scene of the accident. The lawyer told Jackie the bail for both of them was $17,000. I said, well, I just don't have that kind of cash. I don't have that kind of money to give you. I said, I'm going to call my son. And she did. And that's where her son, my husband, Doug Brunt, comes in. I was in the car and my mom called and she was distressed and agitated and frustrated saying that she had just gotten off the phone with Diane and Diane had been in a car accident. She broke her nose and she was hysterically bawling from basically the holding cell at the jail on Cape Cod and that she had

this one phone call to make. So she had called my mom, but she needed to be bailed out. Both she and Brad had been arrested. So I'm asking my mom a bunch of questions, you know, what the heck happened? And she was telling me as best she could because it was a short phone call. And apparently Diane was, you know, sobbing through her broken nose about what had happened. But in short, a car accident, she broke her nose in the car accident. They, the police came, they thought that she had been drinking and driving. The police came. They thought that she had been drinking and driving. The police got aggressive with Diane. In response to that, Brad got aggressive with the police to defend Diane, and they arrested them both. And so they're now in jail in Cape Cod. Diane gave my mom this phone number to call, who was her court-appointed lawyer. And my mom had already spoken with this lawyer.

She gives me the number saying, it's very confusing. All of this was happening during COVID. And so he had these reasons why the court was about to close. It was a Friday afternoon. It closes early on Fridays now due to COVID. Nobody's even in there due to COVID. And we need to rush $17,000 over to the court or else Diane and Brad are going to spend a full weekend in jail. And you know, everything's going to shut down over the weekend. So they're in there unless we can somehow get the money to bail them out. And I, we had something like a two-hour timeframe. Right. So I remember you called me, you call me and you say, I'm like, honey, handle this.

Yeah. And I was like, where's Abby? Abby, we need you. So we were like, wait, this is impossible, first of all, because like the audience doesn't know Diane and Brad, but they are the nicest, kindest, most upstanding, cool people. Like these are not even potentially drunk driving lunatics who attack the cops. They're not. I mean, I think if someone got aggressive with Diane, I could see Brad stepping in. That made some sense. But otherwise, none of it was in character. The only thing that gave us pause was it was COVID. Things were nuts. Everyone was behaving bizarrely. So there really was a piece that was like, did they have some sort of a meltdown? Did something like, it was so bizarre. So mom gave me the phone number.

I called the lawyer. He was explaining he needs $17,000 in cash. He reiterates much of what my mom told me, which is the window is closing. It's due to COVID protocols. The whole thing shuts down at four o'clock on a Friday and it goes dark for the weekend. So we have only this amount of time

to get them out of the holding cell. So can you get $17,000 in cash to Cape Cod right now? And I'm thinking, I can't get myself to Cape Cod in two hours, let alone $17,000 in cash. So you and I start scrambling for ideas to how to deal with this. Right. So we're like, and it's not that easy to get $17,000 cash like that. So I'm trying to figure out how to get the money. So we're like, and it's not that easy to get $17,000 cash like that. So I'm trying to figure out how to get the money. And you're talking to your mom, trying to call your mom down. You're calling your brothers, letting them know what's happening with Di. Everybody's like, my God, this is a nightmare. And what was the next thing that happened? I'm trying to remember the next step in the chain. We were scrambling around to try to get money. We were talking to

the lawyer. We'd ask him questions like, what is a way we can do this? And we had the idea to call Diane Brad's friend in Cape Cod, who has sort of a whale watching business. He has a number of big charter boats where you can go out and watch the whales off Provincetown. Which we've done with him before. Which we've done with, yeah, so Steve.. And so we call Steve who, thank God, picks up the phone and we get him up to speed on the problem. Here's that friend, Steve from Cape Cod. Apparently this needed to be done locally. So Doug called me because I'm a close friend of both Brad and Diane's. It was a pretty large sum. And he said that i'd be reimbursed after we got them out but uh because it was a weekend things couldn't be done normally so then we call back to lauren say we've got

someone on the ground on the cape with the cash where do we go it says actually i'm not there now so there's no one to receive the cash. So he pivoted to saying, you can use cryptocurrency because of, again, COVID. The courts will accept in these extreme circumstances, the courts will actually accept cryptocurrency. And he was saying he was going to give us a wire to send it directly to the court. There was a phone to the court. We could call the court and they matched up case numbers. And we did call the court. Yeah. We called the court. We dialed the number and that the lawyer had given us. We had an official person answer. We were put on hold. They asked us for the case number. We gave them the case number. They looked it up. They said, Diane and Brad, they had their names and they verified

everything that we'd been told thus far. When we come back, what happened to Brad and Diane? Thankfully, Steve was on the case. We are picking up my conversation with Doug about what happened as soon as we got the instructions on how to get the crypto delivered. So I remember you were in Manhattan at the time. So I guess he went online and found locations where they have crypto kiosks where you can basically insert cash and it comes out on the other end as cryptocurrency.

So that's our next plan. But at this point, we're like, this is nuts. This can't be real. But I still thought, you know, going back to what we know, Diane's still in jail. It was like, maybe there's a sketchy lawyer involved, but really we were like, Diane and Brad are in trouble and we've got to find a way of helping them.

And thank God that you enlisted Steve. Yeah. So when we call Steve, we say, it's got to be crypto now. So stand down on the brown bag of cash. And so Steve's thinking, this is nuts. But he's now fully in it. He thought Diane Brad needed rescuing, so he's still in rescue mode. Steve asks for the lawyer's number so he can arrange this payment directly. And here the lawyer gets something very wrong, as Jackie would later explain to me. The town was Barnstable. And he said Barnstable. Because it's spelled that way. But up there they call it Barnstable.

You know, no one local that would have known straight off. You know, he didn't speak like he was even here. So that was a dead giveaway. That's when Steve decided to drive by Diane and Brad's house and to call the house phone on the way there. Where were Diane and Brad? In our living room. Having a great day. It was a regular perfect day in our lives.

Not in jail. Not punching out cubs. Happy at home. It had been a long time since we'd been in jail. Not punching out cubs. Happy at home. It had been a long time since we'd been in jail. I was in my recliner and I was very comfortable. In fact, it's a swivel recliner that, you know, goes back and forth. It goes every direction in the house. I live in it.

It's perfect. None of it was real. They had no idea any of this was going on. Right. And we'd been running around for hours at this point, hysterical. They were totally fine. There had been no incident whatsoever. Yes, Doug and I, with all of our so-called higher education and city sophistication,

had almost been had by some con man until Steve, the Cape Cod whale watch guy, shut the whole thing down. I just stopped and took a breath and thought it out a little bit and it just didn't make any sense to me at all. He is so incredibly capable at every aspect of life. He just is just a can-do guy. There's nothing.

Like he's unstoppable, especially in like his business. And, you know, dealing with stuff on the water too makes you that way because when you're out on a boat or a ship, you can't walk home if there's a problem. So he has that mentality that wherever he's standing, he can fix the problem. But Steve is also like a cool customer. Like he's not. He told us after the fact. Yeah, he's fix the problem. But Steve is also like a cool customer. Like he's not, like he told us after the fact.

Yeah, he's like, yeah. I mean, when I answered the phone and it was Steve, he said, oh, good, you're home. I have to call Doug. Like in that tone of voice. He wasn't like, oh my God, you're safe. You know, he doesn't overreact to anything. He's great in a crisis.

And when we asked him later, he said, I was going to call you. If you didn't answer, I was going to go to your house. If you weren't there, I was going to go to the Wellfleet police, our town. And if they didn't know anything about it, I was going to end there. If they did, I was going to go to Barnstable with the money. So he was never, he's unflappable. So Steve figured this whole thing out. And Doug and I began asking ourselves, how on earth did we almost fall for this nonsense?

Well, it all boiled down to one thing in our defense. We believed that Doug's mom had actually spoken with Diane. That was the key to this whole thing running us out as long as it did, because what we thought we had in the category of things we know wasn't right. That was a bad assumption. Right, they had fooled your mom, which is absolutely amazing that they fooled her

about her own daughter's voice, hence the importance of the broken nose. Yeah, right, right. They had so many tricks. And then of course, COVID was just opened the door to so many of these stupid things because we're all, everything was ridiculous then. Yeah. That's why they didn't, she didn't get it. Your mom heard a hysterical adult woman claiming she'd broken her nose, which would explain a different voice. And she went with it. She believed it. I thought it was Diane and still, if I could hear it again, I would still think it was Diane.

You believed it because why? It sounded like her voice and the panic. I mean, I could take the, it just seemed like she was crying and screaming, and not screaming, she was just kind of hysterical, and it sounded like her, but I really couldn't, you know, at the time I couldn't really work my way through the car accident. And I did realize that she would have been in a drunk driving accident, which is why I asked the lawyer that. Right, because Diane doesn't drink. No. Right. And that's why he said he believed her when she told him that, and that's why he sent off a blood test. When you found out that this was an attempted fraud, what did you think? What was your reaction?

I was wondering how I could have been so stupid, frankly. I mean, I just so thoroughly bought into that. And by that time, it was out of my hands. And I just watch all of you take over and figure it out. We're loved. We're loved. We did come away from that feeling very loved. It was so sophisticated, you know,

the woman calling, pretending to be Diane, the lawyer, the court, you know, multiple people involved. Did you ever figure out how you were chosen for this? No. I really didn't know. I have no idea. But then again, with these scams, I can't tell you how many times I've gotten one of these phone calls that says, Grandma, I'm in trouble. I need help. Oh, really? Yes.

And it's more fun because now I just say, is your mother proud of what you're doing? And they always hang up on me. So for those out there, it's Barnstable. If they try to do it again, it's not Barnstable. So Di and Brad are safe. No one has handed over any money. Thank God. and Steve has saved the day. Now, Doug and I decide to have a little fun with our con man, who does not yet know he's been busted. I called him up with Doug taping the conversation, and what happened next was six minutes of gold. That's next. I'm Megyn Kelly, host of The Megyn Kelly Show on Sirius XM. It's your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political, legal, and cultural figures today.

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I want to take you through my phone call with the scammer now, but to help me walk you through it, I brought in my pal, Bill Stanton. He's former NYPD, a private investigator and a security expert who helps us out sometimes on our own security from time to time. Watch this. So I'm just going to play the call, okay, that I did with this guy once we were finally on to this. And I would love if we could analyze it as we go. All right.

And I can pause it if necessary. Here we go. This is Paul. Paul, hey, it's Megyn Kelly. So I haven't received the Bitcoin verification yet. I was using my real name. He knew who I was. And I had mentioned that I was a public figure. Didn't stop him one bit.

Didn't bat an eye. You're not surprised at that, or are you? Well, my guess is he's not from this country. He may be out of the country. What? He sounds American. He does sound American, but I don't know that he fully knew the impact of Megyn Kelly or what was coming. Yeah. He was about to be humiliated. Exactly. From porn stores? Yeah. Is that Bitcoin, whatever that is? Is that Bitcoin? Yes. It hasn't come through. Any verification from them at all? No. Is there another way of doing this? Because I'm worried about them sitting there all day. Okay. Well, did you take your text messages? Does it still say awaiting review? Yep. There's

nothing. Another one didn't come in. So that's the last I have. At this point, he's walking me through exactly how to get him the Bitcoin. I mean, he's an expert. As I was listening to this on the way down here, what your listeners are listening to is a master class in three-level chess. It is a mind game that's going on and you handle it phenomenally. Okay, let's go. Here we go.

Where are you? Are you located at the machine? I haven't gone down there yet because I don't have the verification. Don't I need the verification before I can send anything? You're going to have to get on the chat and contact them because it could be that maybe the pictures were not legible or something like that. But if you go on the coin source.net, you can actually get on the chat with them

and ask them what's the status of your verification. All right. I'm worried about them sitting there all day. Is there any other way of doing this? I did contact the court and explain to them about the shutdown there. It's unconstitutional to keep them there. So we've got enough time to get them out. We just have to try to pay the bails to get them out.

Like, how are they? Is there any way of like lowering the bail or getting them out just like for now? I love what you're doing here because I call it doing the Columbo. You're playing, you're playing stupid, but you're doing it brilliantly. Because at this point, I know. Yes, and you're just slowly reeling him in, and he doesn't realize. He thinks he's the predator. Meanwhile, you're putting your jaws around him.

How serious are these charges? Well, they're very serious. I mean, it's a very serious charge. If we're not for the blood tests, we probably you know be looking at some jail time did she take one already yeah i already requested it we're just waiting for the result um you know i'm pretty sure it's going to come back below the levels because that's what she you know she she promised me that she was not drinking no there is zero chance that she was drinking zero so this is one of the weird risks he took

where he based this whole alleged crime on Diane drunk driving. And this is an area in which he didn't do his homework because she and Brad don't drink. They just don't drink. It's not their thing. And so he took a shot at it. And then everybody from Jackie to Doug to me,

we were all like, they don't drink. Right. What do you mean? Like he kind of, but he was like, yeah, you know, I believe her. That's why I'm going to, I'm going to mandate the blood test. Well, this, this character is a combination fortune teller con man, and he's reading everything. Right. So he is maybe done dozens, if not hundreds of these calls before. So just like a fortune teller, he's feeling it out and he needs to make some leaps in order to advance to get to end game. And like a telemarketer, he has heard so many different responses and he knows where to put, like cut and paste what type of answer. Yes, yes. And that's what you are defeating here.

And we'll listen as we go on. As he stumbles, like a mental computer glitch, you'll hear it as you get him. He's so clever because he doesn't get thrown at all by she doesn't drink. He's like, I'm on your side. I agree. She wasn't drunk.

That's why I'm mandating blood tests. Right. I mean, that's smooth. So once we pay the bail, how long until they can get out? It takes about 45 minutes to an hour for them to be released. Okay. And how do we get them? Are you going to be coming down to pick them up? We're not, but we'll find somebody there. Like, they have a friend there who we looped in

and he was going to try to help, but I don't know, that didn't work. But he's there so he can get them. Okay. Well, yeah,

I mean, once you guys pay the bill, you can have them drive down and they can pick him up. He didn't answer. Right. Well, you see,

the longer you're talking, the more it's giving him a chance to formulate some bullshit on what to say back to you. He doesn't know the address of the courthouse. And you are like a cat blocking him off like a mouse trying to get away. And you keep putting a paw down. Then he runs the other way. Yeah. And then you put a paw down here. He tried to get out of Dodge. And I'm like, I need the address of the jail so I can pick them up. And he's wondering what to say. Let me give you the address.

It's 725 Bedford. 725. Let me write this down Wait and what's the city? Bedford Okay and what's the city? Stanford Stanford Connecticut?

Correct Paul they're in Cape Cod Stanford. Stanford, Connecticut? Correct. Paul, they're in Cape Cod. You're absolutely right. I'm really sorry. I was confused. I have another case that's in Stanford. It's just been a very long day. That was the mental glitch.

And this guy is, as I said, dozens, if not hundreds of calls before. And notice how he maintains his calm, right? But there's these big pauses. He doesn't hang up right there. He doesn't hang up because he's invested in you. You are money on the hoof to him, right? Now, he may have 10 other calls in process lined up. But right now, all his focus is to get the money out of you. And every second is a cost benefit analysis. You know, can I still reel this one into the boat? Stanford, Connecticut, or it was because Stanford, or it was because, um, Doug was in Connecticut

that day. That was a year that we were commuting our two boys to Connecticut and our daughter was still going to school in New York. So we would split up during the days. Right. And when he spoke with Doug, I think Doug said, I'm in Connecticut. So he got confused. There were too many cities, too many places to juggle. He's juggling too many balls. Yeah, exactly. So where are they? I gave you the address earlier. It's in Barnstable. I gave it to your husband. Meanwhile, actual Cape Codders call it Barnstable.

And he's claiming that. He's from there. Yeah. Right. They don't say Barnstable. He's getting burned on multiple areas. He fell down a little on the job here. Just a second.

Let me see if she's still there because it could have been moved. Yeah, it's 3195 Main Street. 3195 Main Street. 3195 Main Street. She's still there. Okay, Main Street. So what's that town? Barnstable. Barnstable.

Okay, and where are you? I'm in Barnstable, but I'm not currently here. I'm in Ohio handling some family business, and I'm going to be back here on Monday. So why he has to not be in Barnstable because he can't receive the money in cash by our friend who's ready to deliver cash to his face. Right.

He's got to be someplace else so that we have to wire it Bitcoin. Right. And he adds like family business to prey upon, you know, your goodwill and to humanize him. Right. Like, oh, this guy's a regular guy. It's not a confidence man. This is legit. You can hear him thinking, like you can hear the wheels turning. Yes, you can hear it grinding. Right. Right. And you just keep throwing monkey wrench after monkey wrench. It's great to just ask questions. That can be harder than even confronting with facts. Exactly. Are you a sole practitioner or what are you? I'm a public defendant. I work for the state bar here in Massachusetts.

In Massachusetts, okay. Where'd you go to law school? I'm a lawyer too. I went to school in New York, John J. Long. Oh, really? What year did you graduate? I'm sorry? 73. You graduated law school in 73? You don't sound that old.

Oh, yeah. I am. Literally, I graduated law school in 95, so he'll be 22 years older than I. Yeah, I'm 87 and a half years old. Seriously. I mean, at that point, that would have made him in his mid-70s. He does not sound like he's in his mid-70s. And he's a public defender in his mid-70s.

So why did he say that? Why did he say he was a 73 grad? Because in my opinion, you have his mind racing so much, right? That was the first number that flew out of his mind. So I think it's because he knew, like he was worried I might've gone to John Jay and he was like, Oh, that's funny. I can't fit a year anywhere. I don't know how old she is. Right. Right. You know, cause these are small law schools, right? Like, I mean, 73, Jesus. Yeah. He went big. He went to, he had no, though. He didn't know how old I was. That's what I think. So the other thing is, you know, seventeen thousand dollars is a lot of money. And like, what if I don't get it back?

What do you mean? You're supposed to get it back once the case is closed or dismissed. Once it's closed or dismissed? Correct. I mean, I gotta be honest with you. I'm not that close with Diane. I'm not sure. No problem. You know, it's a lot of money.

That was it. You know what? On to the next call, on to the next victim. So you don't think I hurt his feelings? You think he was just like, cut my losses by? Cut my losses by. I kind of hoped I hurt him a little, you know, like, aha, I got you. You didn't even, he didn't miss a step, right? You became too much of an impediment to him.

And it's on to the easier fish. Think about a predator. Wolves go after the weakest sheep, the slowest, the oldest, the one's most vulnerable. And just to make a point, while we're laughing here, this is done in various machinations every day. Elderly women who are lonely, the Lonely Hearts Club, I've had through friends and family, I'd say about a baker's dozen cases where women in their 60s and 70s have sold their homes, have taken loans, sent that money, knowing them only a week. Loneliness is a son of a bitch. Having an open heart is a son of a bitch

in this case. So it's a combination of having street smart and cyber sense. When these things come in, there's a sense of urgency and you want to take care of your loved one and they'll come up with a number. And what they look at is your social media. We've all been guilty of it. Some more than others where we put everything on the effing internet, you know, and think about pictures in front of your house. I could spot your address. I'm not saying, you know, I never do that. I know that. But so many of us do write so many tells the type of car. So for the predator, the cyber predator, they're gathering, whether it's one person or a whole network of people, they'll gather that Intel and like, well, only

my family would know that. Well, let's talk about that in this case, because that's one of the weirdnesses. Jackie, Doug's 87-year-old mother, is not on social media. Right. Nor is Diane, nor is Brad, neither one of them. So this guy knew,

clearly he was targeting an elderly woman. Right. And he at least knew her daughter's name because he had a woman call pretending to be her and said, mom, it's Di. Right. And he at least knew her daughter's name because he had a woman call pretending to be her and said, mom, it's Di. Right. So like how, I don't even know how you figure that out. Could they have flipped it? Could she have touted your sister-in-law, correct? Yeah. Could she have had her mother, you know, online through social media? No. At mom's 85th. She's not even out. She's not online at all. No, your sister-in-law isn't. No. Oh, well, you know what? Then it may be closer to home than we

know. You know, most crimes, like God forbid anything would ever happen to this home, like whether it be burglary, vandalism, it's not from someone across the country. It's the landscaper's cousin. It's someone, you know, one or twice removed. Those are the people you gotta- I'll vet them, don't worry. I'll vet them. Cause that's what's really disturbing, right? They knew some facts about Jackie. Just enough.

About Diane. To think it's legit. They knew Diane was in Cape Cod. Right. So, I mean, that's another thing, right? That not online. Right. So it's actually, that's another thing, right? That not online. Right. So it's actually, I have no idea, but you're right.

Maybe it's somebody who somehow knew the family. Well, that's the only way. It's either, you know, one or two people removed or the internet. It's been my experience. Or someone may have reached out. You know, we don't know what we don't know. We don't know if your sister-in-law

had reached out on some service. Or if they called Jackie earlier under a different pretense to do info gathering. Yes. And they gather and then it's just in the conveyor belt when their time comes up. Okay. We have all this information. They're good to go. They're in the hopper. Let's go. That's another good warning. Like if somebody calls, and I think most younger people know this, but especially for our older listeners, if somebody calls looking for information, asking personal information about your family members, names, anything that,, you know, where it's just going to go. And they want everything. I go, yeah, Nanya. Nanya effing business, you know. Called the wrong guy. Well, I guess that's true. He must've gotten it from her or, because you said maybe he's out of the country. I just feel like he was an American, but that doesn't mean he wasn't sitting there in India making these calls. I don't know if he was close to them or not,

but that I hadn't considered that he had already done research potentially on Jackie because she wasn't that savvy to this prior to this whole event. Yes. All right, let's speak about how elaborate this was. You know, there was a article, I think it was the Forbes business columnist recently

who did this whole article about how she'd been defrauded out of $85,000 cash. She put it in a shoebox over just the course of eight hours. This guy convinced her to do it. And this is a financial columnist, so, you know, relatively sophisticated, but gave up the dough. And he, too, had multiple people working with him on the fraud. This guy, I think, had at least two others. He had a fake courthouse

number. He had hold music that he told us. Well, that tells me it's more than a one-man band. Like, let's just, like, as a sort of an example is this show. You're at the top of the masthead, but there's a whole infrastructure behind that beautiful face. What's going on? You bring your game, but you have your people, your producers, your bookers, your everything. And to the viewer, it seems so seamless, but there's a lot to make it happen. Same things with these confidence people. They're gathering information. Instead of producers, they may have researchers gathering backstory. Instead of celebrities or politicians, they're gathering it on everyday people.

They could do an easy journeyman's financial assessment. Is that house paid for? What's the type of cars do they have? Do they have that discretionary cash or are they alone? Are they desperate enough? Do they have family? These are all the stress points, if you will, that these confidence men, that these teams will look at and they use psychology. They listen, it happened to me and I'm in the business. I was on my, in a different form. I'm on my computer. My computer got hacked and I was so desperate. I didn't want them getting my shit. So I'm on it. And a little voice, I called up Andy, the guy we use, you know, that's helped you in the past. And Andy's like, discontinue right now.

I'm like, but I'm going to lose my, he goes, I'm fucking telling you, get off. And I was that old granny. Yeah. Right about to give away all my shit. Oh, it's terrifying. So there is no socioeconomic intelligence quotient that makes you immune. It's been my experience. Sometimes the smarter you are, you know, you're so confident in who you are. Oh, this would never happen to me. I would be

able to disseminate the BS. Yes. And they hit that pay button sooner than someone from the street. Well, we love the piece of the story that ultimately it was the Cape Cod whaling guy who was like, I'm going by their house. I don't know what these people are saying. And he figured it out. He's the hero of the story. 10 for that. Okay. So what about the targeting of the elderly? Because that does seem to be a theme in a lot of these. Yes. Yes. What they'll do, again, they go on people's nature or that they could lose their home. How do they find out who's elderly and how to call them? Like, do they get a sponsorship from the AARP or one of those magazines not to bash the AARP? But I'm just saying like,

is there a way of getting people's numbers who are old? Yeah. Well, you can go, there are services where you can get demographics of people. So like my house was up for sale, like you, mass exodus out of New York. And I had all these people, like how the F do you know? How do you have my cell number, number one, right? And how do you know my house is for sale? Oh, we'll pay cash. Oh, can I show your house? Because there are services that you pay into

and you get some certain demographics. So for me, I'm selling my house. There are elderly groups. If she ever signed on to any AARP or some type of association, those lots of, you know, the intelligence gathering of who you are, what you are, what demographic you are, the same way advertisers buy that. And voters, like the campaigns. Yes. The campaigns are getting all that information right now. The same way, you know, certain demographics want that information for sales. They get it for marks to mark you as a victim. It's amazing how much they can find out about us now. And it's scary. And it's the basic psychology. You see, when we're in our home, you're an old elderly lady. You may be widowed. You're all alone. And your primary thing is to go to the market to get that sale and come home. You're hit out of the blue. You're hit out of the blue

with a member of your family that's in distress. And you could hit that button and you're going to be walked through it to get them out of trouble. That's what you live for. And they know that. There's so many people who are in this exact position right now. And it's like, I think my audience is in generally, in general, they're a lot younger than 87. So I urge everybody, speak to your parent, speak to your great aunt, speak to anybody who's in this age group and speak to your friends too, because it's not just the elderly and let them know that this, this is out there, this kind of thing. Whether it's, it's this particular one, whether it's they hack into your computer, whether you're on one of those dating sites, they go to the basic emotion and need and insecurity of people and just realize, take that breath, take a step back because nothing is, unless you're in a car crash

where you have to hit that brake, you know, hit the brake in your mind, hit that cyber brake, hit that telephone brake and ask questions and say, give me a number. Let me get back to you. It can wait 10 minutes and that could save you a whole bunch of money, a whole bunch of. And I will say in that fraud that I mentioned that the business reporter wrote up about that happened to her, and in this attempted fraud of us, one of the things that she didn't do and that we didn't do and should have done was to do an independent Google search of the number of the courthouse, or in her case, I don't remember that it was like that. They said she was getting investigated by the federal government. But whoever they say is the third party, just hang up and do a Google search. Don't call their number. You find out the

number. You make an independent call to see if this is real and get the fraudster's number so you can then call them back. And go one step further because there are apps I can call you and it looks like it's coming from Doug's number. Yeah, that technology exists out there. That's rudimentary. Yes, I can call you right now and it would ring Doug's number and you would answer. Whoa. So there are different levels to this.

And, you know. But if I'm dialing out, I mean, like that's the empowerment is if you are dialing out on your phone, then you take the number. Right. Right. Like I had Amazon, I had an Amazon scam and it was online. It came over a text, right? You know, did you charge this on Amazon? Click here. Fuck that. I got on the phone with Amazon direct, you know, and I'm like, is this what you do? They go, absolutely not. They go, I go, is this a thing? They go, that's a thing. Don't you get, I get attempted frauds at me every day

via email, like on this. So it's like, I usually just forward them to Abby and she deals with it or like the scams. And she puts these major blockers on my phone. But it's amazing because most people don't have an Abby and most people haven't have an Abby and most people haven't had this happen to them and they're not living on guard. They're actually still trusting, loving people. Right. Unlike us cynical bastards. And even as cynical as we are, we always got taken

in. Let me tell you, listen, essentially we're good people. We care about people. But F that. Like, I had a lady. I was in Midtown. This was a number of years ago. Middle-aged, well-dressed woman. And she hit me with the gasoline on my car. And I was fascinated that this woman was well-dressed, well-spoken. And she's hitting me up. I said, I'll walk you to your car right now. Oh, I really get.

And then she just walked away. So they pray, you know, upon your good nature. And again, you know, many people don't haven't been raised from the streets, you know, but it's incumbent to have those street smarts and bad guys don't necessarily dress up like in the old Batman bad guy t-shirt. Now it's on the internet and the cyber world is a whole nother animal. And just remember, always press the brakes and question, question, question. Yes. You're not surprised the cops weren't interested. That's how they get away with it though. It's low level. It's low on their priority list. Many police departments aren't sophisticated in tracking this down. It's more an FBI issue, actually.

And this crossed state lines. Right. You know, that's why it's more of an FBI issue. And we know, you know, they have their own problems. I had all my evidence. I had his number. I had the court number. Let me tell you something.

You are turning out. This is this was actually your first undercover. We've done another undercover. We've done an undercover since then. You are proving to be quite, you know, I thought my initials were BS. You're getting very good at this, Megyn Kelly. You're getting a little bit too good. I do love, I mean, like the elderly, I love my Matlock.

I love my Jessica from Murder, She Wrote. I aspire to great things. Bill Stanton, thank you. 10-4, thank you for having me. Thanks to my family, Doug, Di, and Brad, my mother-in-law, Jackie. Thanks to Steve for helping us bring this story to you. I mean, can you believe this?

Like, isn't that a nuts story? It's cray-cray. And honestly, Doug and I have had so many conversations about it. I remember we had dinner with all these friends. It was still the COVID lockdowns and we sneaked a dinner, not sorry to tell you, at our apartment because crazy Andrew Cuomo was still trying to tell us we weren't allowed to do that kind of thing. And we told

our friends this story that night and everyone was riveted, right? Because no one could believe this crap. And I know what you're thinking. As soon as you hear crypto, you're like, wait a minute. And we too were like, what? But it was just the COVID weirdness, the fact that we had spoken with the court, we thought ourselves, and the fact that we hadn't yet even thought to question Jackie's telling us she had spoken with Diane herself and that she was really in trouble. Like that didn't even enter our minds that that piece of the story might not be true. So anyway, words of caution in this story for everyone. And honestly, you need to know this, right? Because what if this

happened to your mom or you, and now you'll know. It's like, if we hadn't told the story, you might not know. Maybe you would be hoodwinked. I don't know. It can happen. Trust me. So we decided to tell you the story, even though we knew you might mock us a little, because we want to help others. And we learned a lot too ourselves. I think all of us did. Hope all of you learned something from today's show and from Fraud Week all week. Because sadly, there are fraudsters out there working hard every day to steal your money or something precious. And most of these never see the light of day, right? They just happen privately because people are too embarrassed to talk about it or scared. Yeah, they're humiliated. And I get it, but there's

no reason to be humiliated. If you get defrauded by one of these losers or almost defrauded in our case, what does it say about you? It says you believe in human nature. You believe in others. You probably have a kind heart. You're probably a trusting soul. Those are not bad things, right? But slightly jaded, trusting soul, but slightly jaded. I think that's what we're going for. So that's why we shared. And that's why we hope everybody listens and shares and talks about these kinds of things more and more so we can help each other. All right. I love to hear from all of you. Do you have a fraud story? Have you been inspired or helped by our fraud week? Email me at megan, M-E-G-Y-N, at megankelly.com. I'll definitely be reading. We do read the emails. I see them every week and I

love going through them. I read them on Mondays. We get them collected from the week before, and there's nothing quite like hearing from all of you. So would love for you to email me. For now, my family and I are off next week on a family vacay, but we are back live on June 24th, and there's going to be plenty to do that week as there should be the first presidential debate of the 2024 election contest. See you then. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.