Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - TAKEDOWN! Granny Turns Tables on Con A Man!

Episode Date: February 11, 2022

A Long Island grandmother helps capture a suspected scammer. 73-year-old former 911 dispatcher Jean Ebbert receives a call from a man claiming to be her grandson, who's been jailed for DUI. He needs $8,000 for bail. Problem the scammer is, Ebbert's grandchildren aren't old enough to drive. Ebbert decides to play along and get the police involved. Multiple callers get involved claiming to be a bailbondman, and a lawyer. When the man shows up to collect the money, police are waiting. Ebbert hands the man an envelop full of paper towels and the police take him down. The man, identified as 28-year-old Joshua Estrella Gomez of Mineola, New York, was arrested and charged with attempted grand larceny in the third degree.Joining Nancy Grace Today: Jean Ebbert - Victim Rusty Ebbert - Victim's Son Troy Slaten - Los Angeles Criminal Defense Attorney, Slaten Lawyers, APC, Twitter @TroySlaten  Dr. Bethany Marshall - Psychoanalyst, www.drbethanymarshall.com, New Netflix show: 'Bling Empire' (Beverly Hills) J Jeff Cortese - Former FBI Special Agent, www.jeffcortese.com, Author: "Public Corruption in the United States" (May 13, 2022, Routledge.com to pre-order) Tom Patire - America’s Leading Personal Safety Expert, Author: "The Personal Protection Handbook, www.TomPatire.com, Instagram: @OfficialTomPatire Robert Brodsky - Breaking News Reporter, Newsday, Twitter: @BrodskyRobert Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Stop what you're doing just for a moment and think about your mother. Now think about your grandmother. Because right now I'm thinking about my grandmother, Lucy Minerva Fullwood Stokes Hartley, and how she had nothing. And I remember one time I couldn't pay a phone bill long distance to my fiance, Keith.

That's when you still had to pay long distance. And I went to her stupidly, unwittingly, and she had nothing and needed money to pay that phone bill. And she went to her change purse, she opened up her change purse, and she took out $50 and gave me her money. And I, the stupid teen that I was, went, thanks, and ran out and paid the bill, not realizing that that $50 was a huge amount of her monthly government payment for retirement. Okay? But she gave me that little bit, you know, that she had. And, of course, I never paid it back. God forgive me. That's who my daughter's named after.

Lucy's named after my grandmother, Lucy, that helped raise me. Okay, now that you've got the male image of your mother or your grandmother in your mind, think of some POS, technical legal term, that actually scams your grandmother to try to rip her off of her little money. He needs to be under the jail. I hope nobody disagrees with that. Maybe Troy Slayton, high profile defense attorney, might disagree with me. Take a listen to our cut. Hey, this is Kieran Dillon, CBS 2. The quick thinking of this 73 year old Seaford grandmother who only wants her first name used, Jean, is being credited for taking down an alleged predator. I knew he was a real scammer. I just knew he wasn't going to scam me. The former 911 dispatcher says Thursday morning she received a call from someone claiming to be

one of her grandsons. The caller said he had been arrested for drunk driving and was in jail. He starts calling me grandma and then I'm like I don't have a grandson that drives, so I knew it was a scam. Jean says she immediately knew the call was a hoax, but decided to play along for fun. After several calls back and forth, a person claiming to be her grandson's lawyer told her he needed $8,000 for bail. I told him I had the money in the house, and I figured he's not going to fall for that. Well, he fell for that hook, line, and sinker. Meantime, Jean also called police. When a man pretending to be a bail bondsman arrived to collect the cash, she handed him an envelope filled with paper towels. Waiting officers then pounced and took 28-year-old Joshua Estrella Gomez from

Mineola into custody. Do you know how close this beloved grandma came to real harm? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and SiriusXM 111. And with me right now, the former 911 dispatch employee, Gene.

Are we still not using your last name, Gene? Sure, you can use it. Gene Ebert. Did you hear that? I love that accent so much, Ms. Ebert. Ms. Ebert joining me from Long Island with her son, Rusty. You better be taking care of her, Rusty. Oh, yes. Also with me, an all-star panel to make sense of what we're learning right now about this grandma, this let me just say very clever grandma who lures a scammer to her house and single-handedly gets this guy arrested. Man, we don't have a whole lot of happy endings here on Crime Stories, but I've got one today, and PTL, praise the Lord. With me, high-profile defense attorney out of LA, Troy Slayton. We're now psychoanalysts to the

stars, Dr. Bethany Marshall, former FBI special agent at JeffCortese.com, Jeff Cortese, Tom Pateri, America's leading personal safety expert, author of the Personal Protection Handbook, and special guest joining us along with Ms. Ebert, Robert Brodsky, breaking news reporter with Newsday. First of all, to you, Ms. Ebert, what happened? Well, I was texting my son, asking him what he was going to do for the day. I was kind of bored, doing my crossword puzzles in the morning. And the house phone rings. The only reason old people have a house phone is so they can find their cell phone.

So I usually don't answer it. But for some reason, I just picked it up. And I hear a guy on there crying, saying he's been in an accident. And at first, I thought it was one of my son-in-laws who has that weird sense of humor. I thought it was him fooling around. But the minute he called me grandma, I knew that it was a scammer. So I texted my son and I said, I have a scammer on the line. And he texts me back and he says, hang up, Ma. And that hang up, Ma, from a 40-year-old to a 73-year-old just kind of like challenged me. He goes, I don't know what happened, but I didn't hang up.

Okay, how did you know immediately that this was a scammer? Well, I've worked at 911 for a long time, and I have taken calls from people who want to file a report because they've been scammed. And my brain always thought, how do you let this happen? But now I have a little bit more respect for them because these scammers are good. These scammers are good. Okay, let me understand. Tell me very slowly, Miss Ebert. With me is a very clever grandma who single-handedly gets a felony amount scammer, we're talking $8,000 scam, arrested single-handedly by luring him.

Let's just say she's no idiot. She didn't just fall off the turnip truck. To you, Ms. Jean Ebert, joining me. Tell me exactly how the conversation went. Okay, so after that, the person pretending to be my grandson gives me a case number and a phone number and tells me this is the municipal court building. They're trying to get him a lawyer. And he tells me to call that number.

So then we say goodbye. The last thing I said to him before I said goodbye was, listen, don't tell your mother. She will be mad. Let me handle this. Don't call your mother. And I think that's kind of what sucked them in because I'm keeping it to myself. They like that, scammers. Oh, they love it. They love it. You know, I have a case in my book to you, Tom Pateri, author of the Personal Protection Handbook, which is awesome. In my book, Don't Be a Victim, where a lady, an elderly lady much older than Miss Ebert, bought into a guy's scam. And she kept doing it and doing it and doing it.

She didn't want her family to know what she had done, that she had been scammed out of her whole life savings. Every penny had mortgaged the house on this scam. And in the end, Tom, she shot herself because she didn't want her family to know. Wow. Awful. So when we look at these situations, first understand the mindset of these scammers. They really do their homework. They do as much as they can on Intel, Google, knowing where the house is, knowing who lives there and all. I mean, this is preset. And though they're vicious in what they do and taking our money, they're smart and methodical in how they do it.

They cater to either need to help someone or the greed for wealth of someone. That'sical on how they do it they cater to either need to help someone or the greed for wealth of someone that's the only way they do it they want to put you in pity mode you know like in this case with this you know with the situation or in the wealth case of you know listen somebody left you x y and z and they get you down there. You know, the best way, the smartest way on any scam is always ask for a callback number and a number for the supervisor. OK, I guarantee you they will hang up in about three seconds. You know, we worked on this a lot when I was at the Federal Trade Commission, where I did consumer protection and antitrust work. And we had a lot of phone scams. So, Ms. Ebert, you told me that the very beginning when he said, did he call you grandma?

He called me grandma, right. And he was telling me he was in an accident and my oldest grandson is in the eighth grade. So, I know, you know, I knew where he was and I know he wasn't driving. And just from where I worked and being aware, part of the whole thing is the media. If they get out the message to these old people who are really sitting at home wondering, you know, or this is happening to that, maybe they'll think, oh, yeah, what about that lady on TV who didn't fall for it? You know, exactly. Brilliant. Awareness. What about that lady on TV who didn't fall for it? You know, exactly. Brilliant awareness. Crime stories with Nancy Grace. Robert Ruski with me from Newsday.

Breaking news reporter. Robert, thank you so much for being with us. Tell me how you first learned about Ms. Ebert and what you know. The Nassau Police Commissioner, along with the new county executive of the county of Nassau, held a news conference to alert the public about this scam and to also give credit to Jean for her ingenuity and creativity in helping to take down this perpetrator. To also announce this individual's arrest and to talk about how the public can prepare themselves against being a victim of this scam as well. What do we know about this guy, Robert Broski, this Joshua Gomez? So what we know so far is that Mr. Gomez has had no prior arrests prior to this incident.

He was charged with third degree attempted grand larceny. That's a felony. He was initially released on a desk appearance ticket. He was due back February 3rd. He was released on his own recognizance on February 3rd. There was a protective order issued, so he can't have any contact with Gene. We should also say that when Mr. Gomez was arrested, Gene was on the phone with a second individual at that moment. So there is undoubtedly a second individual involved in this crime. I spoke with Nassau police yesterday. There has not been a second arrest yet made in the case, but it is an open investigation, they say. Broski, you're awesome. See, I didn't even know there was a potentially second person involved in this scam on Ms. Ebert, but it makes perfect sense.

There could be two or three. I bet they're doing this to a lot of people. I wonder where they're getting the names and numbers of the grandmas, the seniors. Guys, before we call her a grandma, take a listen to our cut one, Eileen LaPalmer at News 12. Hello. Hi. This is ring doorbell video of a man who police say thought he was going to rip off a Seaford grandma for $8,000. Police say 28-year-old Joshua Estrella Gomez of Mineola was posing as a bail bondsman. The victim had been told her grandson was in jail, but watch what happens after he gets the envelope.

That takedown because 73-year-old Jean was on to the scam and already had police in her house. As we told you about first last night, she is a former Nassau 911 call operator and reached out to cops as soon as she got a phone call from a man claiming to be her grandson. He said, I'm in jail. They say I was under the influence. Today, Jean getting praise from the police commissioner. She's not afraid of these guys. You know, she goes what she had to do. And, you know, God bless her.

Tell it, God bless her. But it could have turned out so much differently with this guy actually coming to your house. I mean, Dr. Bethany Marshall, what kind of a freak, what kind of a degenerate would prey on a grandma? Actually go to the trouble of going to her house to get the money. Nancy, this happened to my 92 year old dad a few months ago. Somebody calls him from out of the blue and says, grandpa, this is, uh, this is so-and-so, the names of one of his grandchildren. I've been thrown in jail again for DUI. And you're asking, first of all, how he knew it was a scammer

is they didn't call him Grandpa John. They called him Grandpa. Secondly, he felt so stupid and foolish afterwards, even though he hung up on the scammers. So people who get scammed, I mean, our guest has been a 911 operator, is really on her toes, so she knew what was happening. But there are a lot of seniors out there who get scammed. And then they're so demoralized, they don't want to tell anybody. But back to your question about who would do this, people who lack a conscience, Nancy, because they're not just taking money from billionaires. They're taking money from older people who are maybe on Social Security or limited income.

And they're not just taking $100. They're taking, in this case, $8,000. So these people are at the bottom of the barrel in terms of lacking a conscience. Guys, in this case, thanks to the victim, I guess I could call her a victim, but she sure turned the tables on him, Grandma Jean Ebert. It doesn't always turn out with a happy ending. Take a listen to, this is about the case that we investigated, I told you about earlier, Hour Cut Six. This is actually Angela Stancic's testimony at the Senate Aging Committee.

My grandmother was targeted and pursued nonstop by a ring of fraudsters. Over time, these individuals used creative and cunning tactics to gain her trust. They told her she had won a large cash prize and all she needed to do was pay the taxes and fees. I first realized my grandmother was a victim of elder fraud by the last conversation I ever had with her. Reliving that phone call is very painful. She explained that she needed $6,000 wired to her as soon as possible. Her forceful tone and desperation was very upsetting. I could hear the panic in her voice and she was very, very afraid. This phone call set off many red flags and everyone grew extremely concerned about

her financial situation. We do not know of a single time in her entire life where she ever borrowed money from an individual. My father informed me that he had wired her $8,000 the week prior, and he assured me he was trying to find out what was happening. How did it end? Take a listen to our cut eight. After her death, we found out just how much these criminals had taken from her. We found hidden in a closet several bags full of wire receipts where she had been sending large sums of money overseas. My family visited these wire marketing services to talk with the clerks and discovered that they had warned her that this was not legitimate, and they believed it was a scam. She continued to wire money, but used a different location.

We also discovered not only did they drain her of all the money it took her a lifetime to save, but that she had taken out a reverse mortgage on her home, and she cashed out all of her life insurance. My grandmother died with $69 in her bank account. You know how hard my father worked, and his goal was to try to leave something to his children when he passed away? I remember that he would actually go to work with chest pains to go to work on the railroad. That's how hard he worked. And when I think of this grandma, Angela Stancic's grandma, take a listen to our cut for the way that they kept reaching her was through a method called

spoofing. Listen. My grandmother was targeted and pursued nonstop by a ring of fraudsters. Robo-callers targeted 82-year-old Marjorie Jones. We found hidden in a closet several bags full of wire receipts where she had been sending large sums of money overseas. Her granddaughter, Angela Stancic, testified before the U.S. Senate. It was a 10-person ring in Costa Rica. It was a call center, and they focused on calling people. They posed as representatives of the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission and also the FTC and using call spoofing technology. Spoofing tricks people into believing the call is coming from a specific location. The last phone call I had with her,

she was extremely adamant about needing this money. You were just hearing our friends at ABC10 describing the spoofing technique that was used. Now, opposed to that case, the case here with Ms. Jean Ebert had a very different ending. As a matter of fact, take a listen to our cut. See, this is body cam footage. Anybody want to talk to the guy on the phone? Up, up, up. I guess he realized what happened. To you, Ms. Ebert, the so-called clever grandma that lured a scammer to his own arrest. Is that you in the background saying,

does anybody want to talk to the guy on the phone? Oh, he hung up. I guess he realized what happened. What happened? That's me. Well, I had a guy on the phone. There must have been 15 phone calls. This took place over a period of three hours. And my son knew I was doing it. He knew I was playing around. I don't believe that the scammer knew who I was. But the minute he thought he had somebody on the line, he started investigating me because I use my middle name. And at some point he asked me who Helen was. He was looking up my address and who lives here and stuff like that. So I do think he investigated me. I actually went on Facebook and on my profile, I took off retired 911 operator because I figured if he looked at Facebook, he'd see that and he'd hang up. That's why I really, in the beginning, maybe for the first hour and a half of conversations, I didn't really think it was going to happen. And then once he told me, I think he told me he knew where I lived

from my grandson telling him, which is not really true, but he made that up. I don't think I ever gave him my address. Because that lady. He didn't have a grandson's name of mine. He actually, during one of the phone calls, just before I got to talk to the lawyer end of it, I was talking to someone in the municipal court. He asked me what my grandson's name was. So I took the first name of one of my son-in-laws, Emmanuel, and the last name of one of my other son-in-laws, Miro,

and made up a name. And then he says to me, hold on, let me see where he is in the system. He comes back five minutes later and he says, oh, I see him. We appointed a lawyer for him named Matt Levine. Meanwhile, I just made this name up. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Troy Slayton, what do you think about that?

If a scammer was to use your name, you know he looked up a lawyer in town and just used the name awful and that actually happened to me once i got a call from a bail bondsman who uh called my office and was said that he was calling me back and that somebody using my name had contacted him and tried to get the bail bondsman to bail the person out just based on my good faith and credit. And the bail bondsman reached out to me and obviously figured out that that was a scam.

But my hat's off to this savvy grandma who was able to not only have fun with the scammer, but also got him caught by law enforcement. Although I wouldn't recommend that anybody actually do that and have the person come to their house because this could have turned out quite differently. To Rusty Eber, this is Gene's son. Tell me your recollections of this day. Well, I was just home. I was home, too, at my house. And, you know, we do text every day. I talk to my mom every day and she was telling me. And, you know, I didn't pay no attention to it because it does happen quite often.

You know, she does get these calls and, you know, all these other, you know, telemarketing calls and stuff. So then she started telling me that, you know, that they're getting the police involved. I called my sister that actually works for the police department. I said, hey, you got to call your mother, man. I don't know what she's doing over there. And then it just happened so quick. I just, you know, I actually have, I set up her ring doorbell.

So I got to see what happened, like, live on the ring. I love the ring doorbell. I love it. Oh, I caught it all. Except our dog Fat Boy keeps setting it off all the time. Hey, Jeff Cortese, former FBI special agent at JeffCortese.com, author of Public Corruption in the U.S. Jump in, Jeff. Nancy, I've been doing this with you a little bit off and on over the last three years.

And this is the closest thing to a Nancy Grace feel good moment I've ever been a part of. And I'm so glad to be on with a story like this, an ending like this. Because as it's been pointed out, i think all of us have a story i have two three four personal stories of elder abuse elder fraud victimization within you know my circle of family and friends it sounds like we all do the volume of this is through the roof and it it's a high volume crime because it it's a high success rate, you know, when you put the numbers together. Thank God for the savvy of this woman and the awareness. You know, at the end of the day, we've got to educate our families.

We've got to educate our loved ones. If it doesn't feel right, it probably isn't. If it's too good to be true, it probably is. So, you know. Nancy, if I could jump in about this for a second, I stop you. Yes. No way. Go ahead. No, it is a feel good moment. I mean, it's wonderful to hear this grandmother who had all this experience being a 911 caller was incredibly resilient, had loving support and family around her. She's tech savvy. So so she could go on and off Facebook.

She had every psychological resource, but for every gene, there are thousands and thousands of men and women who are not that with it, aware, resilient. There are a lot of victims in society, Nancy. That's why you do this show. I just want to say that there are stages when people get scammed like this. If they're not resilient like a gene, often they're cut off from family or they feel guilty so they don't tell the people around them. They develop a quick rapport with the scammers. And so they make quick promises like, oh, sure, I'll be happy to call the bailzman or whoever. And then because

they've made a promise, they feel guilty about backing out. These scammers alienate them from friends and loved ones by saying, you know, don't tell anybody about this until this transaction is complete. And just like sexual abuse victims, they start to blame themselves to feel demoralized, and then they don't reach out for help. And so it's the same victimization cycle that we talk about again and again. This is a total triumph and a total success story. But unfortunately, most people are vulnerable to being victims, and they really need to learn from this. It's really a horrible situation. Guys, we are talking about a clever granny that actually turned the tables on a guy that was trying to scam her out of eight grand.

I'm very curious as to Robert Brodsky, how many times this particular perp, Joshua Gomez, had done the same thing. Any idea? I mean, can they get that information from his cell phone? That's a great question, Nancy. As of now, as I said earlier, he's never been charged. So we can imagine that this is probably not his first rodeo. It's probably not the first time he's ever tried to do this scam. But we know that these scams are happening all the time on Long Island, all the time in Nassau County. This incident happened in the third week of January. Just to put it in perspective, there had already been 165 reported scams of a similar nature in the first three weeks of 2022. So you can imagine at this point,

it's probably close over 200 to 250 times. What's unusual about this case is most times we see in Long Island, I can speak for myself as well, we just simply hang up. We just avoid, it's not worth the time and the effort. So, so many of these cases never even get reported. For every, you know, 250 cases reported the first six weeks of the year, there's probably five times as many that just never get reported. Well, this savvy grandma says, and I quote, I told him I had the money in the house and I figure he's not going to fall for that. Well, he fell for it. Hook, line and sinker. Actually, Nancy, I told, this is what I told him. I told him I was getting my kitchen remodeled. When he asked for the 8,000, I said, I'm getting my kitchen remodeled. The cabinets are coming next week. And my contractor asked me to pay for them in cash. So I do have the money in the house. And he says to me, this is Matt Levine, the lawyer. He says, do you know why your contractor asked you to pay in cash?

And I said, I acted dumb. I said, no, I have no idea. He says, because he's not going to pay tax. And my brain went to, here's the pot calling the kettle black. This guy's trying to tell me my imaginary contractor is crooked, and he's trying to scam me out of $8,000. I took everything I could do not to crack up. Oh, my goodness. You made me laugh for about the first time today. Okay, Rusty Ebert, did you have any idea your mom is so savvy? Yes. Yeah. When I was younger, I never got away with anything. Okay, guys, you did too. Yes, you did. I know you did.

I could tell. Listen, I worked at 911 and this kid was driving since he was three years old when he put the car in reverse and rolled it across the street into my neighbor's fence. And then when he had his permit and didn't have his license, I would hear from all the cops in the area, take the keys, hide the keys, Rusty's out again. Couldn't wait until he got his license. Rusty, don't you know better than to try to tell a lie with your mom listening? Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. We are talking about an actual success story in fighting crime. Gene Ebert, age 73, actually takes down a scammer, has him arrested and hauled off out of her front yard. Take a listen to our cut B, our friends at CBS2. Police say the suspect was arrested and charged with attempted grand larceny in the third degree. He was issued a desk

appearance ticket and will be arraigned on February 3rd. Police say elder scams like this one are rampant. Officers are asking the community to be on alert. Speak to your families. Speak to your neighbors. Visit those that are vulnerable, let them know, don't listen to these scams. These individuals sit at home, have nothing else to do but think of a way to take advantage of our elderly. Jean is also asking people to watch out. I feel like, and I feel like, like you say, so many people fall for this and you only

hear about it on the other end after they've lost $8,000. She hopes her story will serve as a cautionary tale for others and is glad no one was hurt in the process. Jean Everett, were you ever physically afraid that this guy would charge into the house and steal or hurt you? Basically, I was having fun right up until the bail bondsman part. Maybe the thing took three hours. The last hour, the police were here. And then about 40 minutes after the police got here, he was under arrest. What happened is the bail bondsman was in Jersey.

He was in Brooklyn. He was all over. And the guy kept giving me instructions. What to write. He gave me a file number. He gave me a case number, how to put it on the envelope. And he kept, then he would, three or four calls later, he would say, what does it say on the envelope? And I would have to read everything back to him. I guess he wanted to see that I was really doing it. But then he says to me, the last, the last two phone calls, he says to me, well,

as luck would have it, I have an operative who just finished a job in Massapequa. And I look at the cops and the cops look at me. Massapequa is the next town where my two daughters live. And so he says he's on his way. He'll be there in under 10 minutes. So the cops go flying out of the house. They get in their cars that are sitting in front of my house, and they take him down to the firehouse, and they come back. And within five minutes, the guy was here. That 10 minutes of saying he's less than 10 minutes away, I was a little scared for the cops, for me. What if he has a gun?

And it went down perfectly. Even the bad guy did what he's supposed to do. He didn't fight. He didn't resist arrest. He didn't get beat up. Nothing bad happened to him. You know, Ms. Ebert, you played him like a fiddle. You're like a concert violinist, the way you played this guy. And to you, Robert Brodsky, joining us, breaking news reporter from Newsday. I was researching, but I believe you've already identified this. Seniors in America alone were scammed $1 billion in 2020, up from $300 million the previous year. And that's just what we know of. A lot of them won't fess up that they have been scammed. Robert? It's really a tragedy what's going on. I mean, I don't think there's a person listening to this program who has not received a call purportedly from social security or from the IRS reporting about their tax returns. Uh, out here on long Island, the, uh,

P S E and G is the, uh, the utility company. We have a scam that says, you know, I'm calling from the utility company and I need your information from your utility bill. Looking for that kind of information. The New York lottery is a really big one saying we have, you are a winning ticket, you know, just calling people randomly and trying to say that they have a winning lottery ticket. And all you have to do is provide us with your debit card information so you can deposit that winning lottery information. It goes on and on and on. Robert Brodsky, do you know a scammer even called me while I was an assistant district attorney

prosecuting felonies every day? I had been in court all day, dragged all my files to the car, got home. By this time, it was like seven something o'clock, almost eight. And maybe the day before, I had been in a fender bender, not my fault. I want that on the record. And the phone rang at home. The phone, home phone never rang because I would never give out my phone number. So I assumed it was somebody in my family, like my mom. I picked it up and this guy had this deep voice and he said, oh, he wanted to file a lawsuit against the guy that ran into

me. And I said, listen, jackass, I'm a felony prosecutor in Fulton County. Now I've got your number. You're a runner. And this is unethical and against the law. He hung up. So, yeah. Explain, Troy Slayton, what that, well, I already said jackass, so I won't say it again. Troy, explain why that was illegal and unethical. illegal for attorneys. You can't pay a non-lawyer to bring cases to you. And you're not supposed to solicit somebody when they're most vulnerable. An attorney can't drop their card when the ambulance is picking somebody up on the side of the road after the accident. You can't go to somebody's hospital bed after they've been in an accident. You can't go to the hospital, go room to room, see who's been in accidents and drop off business cards. or to have a non-lawyer do the same thing and then sell the cases to an attorney. That's illegal. And what was so very concerning about that was nobody outside my family had a home number for me.

Nobody. And my boss, the elected district attorney. So Jeff Cortese, former FBI, he had to get it off the police report, which means he had somebody within the APD, maybe a clerk, I don't know who, feeding car crash victims phone numbers. Unfortunately, you know, that happens. Yeah. This is one of those instances where it probably did happen just like that. Yeah. I doubt it was a lawyer where it probably did happen just like that. Yeah. I doubt it was a lawyer. I think it was a runner that would bring cases to lawyers.

You just heard Troy Slayton talking about. Okay. So I can't tell you how long I researched this exact thing for the book, Don't Be a Victim. And I have a list on page 342. Take a list of this, Gene and Rusty. Have caller ID. Learn how to use it. When your, quote, grandchild calls, you'll recognize it's an unknown number. Don't buy anything from an unfamiliar company.

Legitimate businesses know you want more information, and they're happy to provide information and references. Request written materials on the offer, the phone offer, or the charity. Wait until the material arrives before you commit your money. If the material involves a substantial amount of money, ask somebody with a finance background about it. Investigate. Check out the company with Better Business Bureau. Contact the state attorney general or the National Fraud Information Center to find out if that company has ever been reported. Get the caller's name, number, street, mailing address. Ask the caller for a mailing address

and then Google it. You know you can put an address into Google and it will pull up information, the last time the house or the apartment was sold, all kind of information. Google details like the company name, the caller's name. A lot could pop up. Verify the info. Is it the right address and number? If not, something's hinky. Before you donate to charity, ask what percentage of your gift goes to commissions. Never pay in advance for services. Never hand over money to a messenger. Gene Ebert knew that one really well. Never wire money after a phone pitch. Take your time.

There's no such thing as a fee on a free prize. That's what happened to the elder that ultimately committed suicide. Fees and taxes. If the caller says the payment's for taxes, that's against the law and this is a comm. Never give out your credit card expiration dates. If you've been scammed, beware of callers who then call to try to help you get your money back. If you have information about a fraud, report it. Saying no on the phone is not being rude and never enter a deal you don't understand. I got so many facts in here. Tom Pateri,

you got anything to add to that? Well, the biggest thing that these shows and things like you writing the book does, it educates people. But, you know, we have one sad statistic in our country that less than 10 percent of our country will ever attend a safety or seminar based on safety. And it's really because people are uneducated in this realm that people don't understand. Also, these segments that these do, these be spoofing, these fishing expeditions, right now it's vehicle maintenance, it's IRS, and it's, you know, getting a loved one out of jail. Now that six months from now will change to beneficiary. You know, it'll change to Social Security. And every six months, they change their ways. So we have to pay attention and more shows like this to educate people are the way to go.

I'd like to add something quickly. Jump in. Okay. I have an acquaintance who raises millions and millions of dollars for USC. And he said to me about a month ago, Bethany, you know how I get money out of people? And I said, how? He goes, I develop a relationship with them. They may not give it to me about a month ago, Bethany, you know how I get money out of people? And I said, how? He goes, I develop a relationship with them. They may not give it to me today.

They may not give it to me next month. But the longer it takes for them to write that check, the guiltier they feel. And I'll eventually get the money. That encompasses so much of what we've already been talking about, Nancy. But you said on like page 347, there's this list. And one of the things that popped out was when something doesn't pass the smell test, you feel guilty and you're afraid to ask questions and you get isolated from the people you love. You're afraid to tell anyone else about it. Then certainly it's not a legit, but you don't need to

have a relationship with anybody who calls your house randomly. You don't owe them anything. They are strangers. You owe to your family and your loved ones, not somebody at the other end of a phone call. To Jean Ebert, joining us, the hero today. Jean Ebert, not everyone is as savvy, as smart, as quick-witted as you are. What is your message today, Miss Lady? My basic message is don't ever send anybody any kind of money anywhere.

Don't ever have anybody pick it up at your house. And basically, most people should just hang up on the scammers. You are something else, Jean Ebert. Rusty, you got a good deal going on with your mom. You take care of her, okay? As if she can't take care of herself. I can finally end Crime Stories today with a smile. Nancy Grace signing off.

Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.