Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - Scams!

Episode Date: June 7, 2021

Today, Nicole covers a range of scams… including one that tapped Money Rehab Producer Catherine Law’s checking account to the tune of $3000. Word to the wise: just because your checks have cute characters on them, it doesn’t mean you should take them lightly. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Well, it doesn't. Charge for wasting our time. I will take a check. Like an old school check. You recognize her from anchoring on CNN, CNBC, and Bloomberg. The only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. Nicole Lappin. Today on Money Rehab, we are talking all about scams.

I would be absolutely shocked if you haven't had at least one interaction with a scammer. Whether or not they've been successful is another story. I heard a scam attempt the other day not they've been successful is another story. I heard a scam attempt the other day. It was honestly hilariously bad. A listener got a DM from an account that used a picture of Beyonce, very ambitious of them, for their profile picture, and the account had literally zero followers. The DM was, and I quote, Hey babe, this is Beyonce from another account. I hear you're a big fan and I'd love to meet you. Send me your credit card information and I quote, Hey babe, this is Beyonce from another account. I hear you're a big fan and I'd love to meet you. Send me your credit card information and I'll fly you out. I'm not joking.

This is a real DM that someone got. Like, you cannot be more blunt than give me your credit card information. And also sorry, but if Beyonce is offering to fly anyone out, she's probably going to foot the bill or send her plane or something. Just saying. So this was a pretty obvious scam. And I actually laughed out loud when I saw it. But scammers are actually pretty terrifying because not all attempts are so obvious. In a study conducted by the Harris Poll, in 2019, $10.5 billion was lost because of scams over the phone in the U.S. alone. That is insane. I did not expect the number to be in the billions with a B. But get this,

in 2020, this number nearly doubled. In 2020, there was $19.7 billion lost in phone scams, which for starters is a huge number, but it's also a scary indication at how scammers are getting increasingly more effective. And I actually got a scam call the other day. I'll play it for you now. Hi, this is Daniel with the Student Services Department. I'm just following up in regards to your outstanding federal student loan balances. We have been trying to reach out to you because you regards to your outstanding federal student loan balances. We have been trying to reach out to you because you are eligible for the federal student loan forgiveness program due to the changes made in 2021.

It is imperative that I speak with you as soon as possible since the COVID-19 student loan payment delay is about to come to an end. You can reach me directly to discuss your options at 619-837-7663. Again, that's 619-837-7663. I look forward to speaking with you and have a great day. But our producer, Catherine, had an interaction with a scammer recently, so I had to have her come on the show and talk about it. Catherine, this makes me so happy to say, welcome to Money Rehab. Thank you, Nicole. I'm so excited to be chatting with you. I am really, really upset that the scammers have infiltrated the money rehab team. And that shows us if they have infiltrated our lives, they are out to get basically everyone. So what happened with your

scam situation? Okay. Well, the beginning of the saga is as follows. In Los Feliz, the neighborhood where I live, it's a very nice neighborhood. There's very little crime, but the crime that there is, is we have a ton of mail theft. Like they'll come into our apartment building and they actually for a long time had a key that would open up the mail slots and they just like take everyone's mail. They take packages. Yes. But now it's even escalated so that like our post office is not safe. I got a lot of grief about being an elder millennial and choosing to send a paper check in the mail to a friend of mine. Your face right now.

I already have a thousand questions. I'm just like, who does that? Who steals letters? Who hurt you? What's wrong with you? What has happened to society? Los Feliz is like hippy dippy. If this is happening in like the tree hugging Los Feliz, then this is happening everywhere. I didn't even think about it. I'm naive. I never thought that somebody wants to steal my random mail. I don't like it. I don't like it. Okay.

So people suck. First point. Second point, you and I are both elder millennials and you and I have memories of reconciling our checkbooks. We did learn how to do that in Hallmark. Me too. And I got a flower baby. Our other producer, Morgan, who's like 25 and the most adorable, has no idea what we're talking about with the checkbook situation. Younger millennial. Okay. So we had lots of old school checks in our lives.

I use a check every once in a while. Exactly. I was going to go on a vacation with a friend and she had booked the room. So I needed to send her some money for my portion of the room. So I even texted her and I said, which is great because it figures into my paper trail. I texted her and I said, is it okay if I send a paper check or should I just Venmo you? I'd prefer to send a check, but let me know. And she was like, laughed at me. She's about Morgan's age. So she absolutely roasted me for sending a paper check like a grandmother. But I wrote her a cute note. And one of the reasons I wanted to send a paper check is because I have Disney villain checks. send a paper check is because I have Disney villain checks. They're very cute. So she needed to have this Ursula check, right? So I had sent her this check. It was for a few hundred dollars

and I took it to the post office, which I thought would be the safest way to do this. Since we have a lot of male theft in the area and I took it to the post office and the post office was closed. So I put it into the box out front of the post office where you can drive by, drop your mail in. I put it in there. I figure totally good to go. Totally safe. Well, the weeks go by and I checked in with her and I'm like, Hey, did you get that check

in the mail? It's like three or four weeks later at this point, she's like, no, I didn't. I didn't get it. Did she get into any like adult? So old lady, she did. She was like, I don't understand why you wanted to send this check. I was like, there was Ursula on it, but she continued to make fun of me up until the point where I looked at my chase.com and I saw that $3,000 like exactly had been taken out of my account. And I had to wait over the weekend because it shows you the amount has been taken out, but you have to wait till the check clears and all that boring stuff before you can see the picture of the check that was written. They called the bank.

They were like, sorry, there's nothing we can do. We can't see it either until it actually clears. And then on Monday, I looked at the check. There was a rant. Can I say the name, do you think? I feel like it's like a fake name anyway, but I don't know. So I see that this name, Daniel Duke, spelled some kind of crazy way, somebody I've never heard from or of before.

That's who this check is made out to. And it's for $3,000, which was also not the amount that I had tried to send my friend. Hold on to your wallets, boys and girls. Money rehab will be right back. Now for some more money rehab. Okay, wait. So you sent your friend how much money? Like 900 and some dollars. Like a totally different amount. Okay. And their name is not Daniel Duke, I assume. Correct.

Okay. Okay. Continue. So you went onto your banking portal and you could see a photo of the check essentially that was cashed? Yes. Once it had cleared completely, I could see a photo of the check and it showed the Ursula right on there. Ursula was there. She was there. Nothing else. Right. And it was a little bit like, you know, it's not a very clear picture. It's just black and white. It's kind of splotchy, but I could see like clearly this name, it was re-signed, which I thought was interesting. Like they had signed it again. Like it was not my handwriting, but they had signed, re-signed my name. And it also, this was the cutest part.

He had written monthly payment in the memo portion. I was like, I don't know if you think that makes it more legit, Daniel, but. No, sir. It does not. Right. Like good try, but no. So I called the bank. They basically said, totally fine.

You will absolutely get your money back. We're looking at the check too. you will absolutely get your money back. We're looking at the check too. It looks like they basically like scraped off what you had written or whited out or whatever. So this is clearly fraud. They asked me sort of questions about, did I mail the check, which I feel like in a police report could be helpful because then that's like mail fraud or whatever else. Oh, sorry. I have a whining dog here right now. They had asked me if I had sent it through the mail. And I assumed that was for, you know, some sort of a creation of a police report because

that could potentially increase the charges from just, you know, maybe a misdemeanor to like mail fraud. It's like a big, like a BFD. Yeah. Like it's a huge deal. Like that's what they get. That's what the mafia guys on. And he's fucked with the family. So I want to get mafioso on him. You fuck with my family. You fuck with me. Okay, Daniel. So then what happens? Okay. So the bank basically is like, you're definitely getting your money back.

Ask me a bunch of questions. The thing that I was kind of confused by is I said, Hey, will this get reported to the police at all? Or what happens there? Because you can obviously tell whose bank account it went into. You can see who stole this money. It's not a mystery. And they said, no, we don't report it to the police. If you want to, you can. and they said, no, we don't report it to the police. If you want to, you can. And basically they just can't open a, another account with our bank with Chase ever again. So according to the bank, I would be getting my money back. They were like, yes, this is a very clear fraud. Um, you'll be getting your money back within 30 days. So I said, great. 30 days goes by no money back in my account. And so I called the bank again and they're like, oh, you were

supposed to fill out these mystery forms that we never sent you. So now you have to send those back again. It'll be another 30 days before you can get this money back. And I mean, like, it's not the most amount of money in the world, but it's also not the least amount of money in the world. No, it's a lot of money. It's a convenient amount of cash to have in your bank account. So we sent in the paperwork. I mean, they want you to jump through all these hoops. Like, can you get this paperwork signed by the person you originally wrote the check to? I'm like, she's in a different state. Like's a whole thing. That's so annoying. And what if you didn't even

have $3,000 in your bank account? That's literally what I just keep thinking of. What if I was counting on that money to make rent? What if I was counting on that money to feed my family? That's pretty shitty. They don't give it back to you in the meantime while they're investigating or whatever? No, you would think so. I know a lot of credit cards, if you have any issue like that, they automatically refund the money while they're settling the dispute. And then like they figure out how much the dispute is supposed to be for if it's the full amount or you might get back less or whatever it is. But this is a debit card. Like this is people's lifelines in a lot of cases. this is a debit card. Like this is people's lifelines in a lot of cases. And this is obviously like a tiny annoyance, but it's stuff like, like when he cashed the check,

because I had overdraft protection on, it took like some money from my savings account. So it's like, now I got to remember to put that back. And it's just like, that's stupid annoying bullshit. This is a really good lesson, Catherine. No overdraft protection. What? No overdraft protection. Don't do it? No. No overdraft protection. It sounds good. Of course, that's what the banks do to make you buy into it because then it takes money out of your account when you don't have it. So in times

like this, it allows the purchase to go through. So if you don't have the money, your purchase should not go through. And oftentimes these fees are redonkulous. And so if you're in line for Starbucks and your car doesn't go through, that's really embarrassing, but I'm not going to let you pay $30 for Starbucks to just- No. If I didn't have my damn Overgraph protection on, then Daniel Duke wouldn't have my $3,000. Yes. Catherine, Catherine. Now I'm a little bit mad at you. No, if you didn't have overdraft protection,

there would be no way to get that money. Dude. All right. I'm still on your team. This happened before the show launched, but I'm not happy about it. That's fair. All right, I'm turning it off.

I'm turning it off. Today, today it's happening. That is your homework. Here's fair. All right. I'm turning it off. I'm turning it off. Today. Today it's happening. That is your homework. Here's a tip from Catherine. You can take straight to the bank. I think the biggest thing too, that like I'm taking away from this is just like hound your bank to be like, bitch, where's my money? Get thee to Twitter. You know what I mean? Because otherwise they're just like, it's not their priority to give you your money back. Because otherwise they're just like, it's not their priority to give you your money back. Money Rehab is a production of iHeartMedia.

I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Our producers are Morgan Lavoie and Catherine Law. Money Rehab is edited and engineered by Brandon Dickert with help from Josh Fisher. Executive producers are Mangesh Hatikader and Will Pearson. Huge thanks to the OG Money Rehab supervising producer, Michelle Lanz, for her pre-production and development work. And as always, thanks to you for finally investing in yourself so that you can get it together and get it all. money money money money money money money money money money money money

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