Moore Style - The Future of Online Dating is Bright Swipe with Scott Bright

Episode Date: May 15, 2023

Have you or anyone you know fallen victim to a romance scam? Unfortunately, these scams are becoming more prevalent everyday and to solve that problem Scott Bright, risk mitigation specialist, has created Bright Swipe!  With a handful of information and a small fee you can find out if your next date is a real person, has a criminal background and all about their social media presence. This app is changing the game in online dating…for the better! You do not want to miss this week’s episode!  In this week’s episode, we discuss:  [1:19] About Scott Bright  [2:27] The inspiration behind Bright Swipe [5:26] How Bright Swipe works [10:09] Is there a way for a parent to use this to verify who their child is speaking to online?  [13:02] Typical fraud stories when dating online  [15:57] What if someone is a criminal but there is no record of it? [17:25] When Bright Swipe will be officially launched  [18:29] How much the app costs  [22:01] How Bright Swipe manages the data they receive  [23:27] Does misreporting ever happen? [27:04] Scott’s favorite date  Connect with Scott:  Website

Hi, everyone. I'm your host, Celeste Moore, and you are listening to the Down and Dirty podcast, aka the Double D's of dating. This is a podcast for navigating the ins and outs of modern midlife dating. Here, we will discuss the challenges that men and women face in today's dating world. Like many industries, this one is forever changing, and I believe this platform will help those who need or want it. Today, it is the best time to take control of your desired outcome, whether it is a marriage, significant other, life partner, or just to gain the confidence in dating once again. Every other week, we will dive in and talk about different viewpoints that seem to be challenges in today's dating arena.

So let's get into today's episode. Welcome everybody to another episode of the Down and Dirty podcast. This is episode number 42. But before we dive into today's episode, I want to introduce my guest today. His name is Scott bright? Scott has over 20 years of experience in risk mitigation and is the former head of global risk strategy at Visa. He spent many years creating solutions to stop fraudsters and bad actors in various sectors. He is a frequent speaker at prominent conferences on risk threats in the global landscape and is known for his ability to create personalized user experiences that can scale quickly he now put his he now puts his focus on the online dating space to stop the

growing threat of romance scams and help protect deeters from bad actors by creating the new app bright swipe wow that's um okay that's crazy because yeah that's a lot that's a lot um But what decided you to get into the whole online dating fraud situation? Is that how you came up with your company? Yeah, and thanks for having me. Definitely, it's interesting kind of topics that we're getting into this world. What really kind of got me into focusing really in kind of the whole romance space is that we've seen really these bad actors doing fraud around the world, usually focus in finance for really the last, I mean, 10, 20 years, because it's really been

the low hanging fruit that these bad guys have been kind of tapping into. What I've seen is that as new security systems, solutions that have kind of stopped all the fraud that really happens in banking and credit card transactions, these same bad actors, they didn't just go away. They're now going into other kind of sectors where we see as most prevalent into actually in the romance scam space because they know that there's low security. There's a lot of people that are unaware that fraud is happening. So they found this is really just a new pool of victims that they can start going out to try to steal money and money and goods from people. So did this lead to the development of BrightSwipe? Yeah. So it was kind of a few things on it. We saw it's that

there's two sides of the coin here that there is one you know there's we're kind of talking about all the fraud stuff so reported by the ftc and the fbi there was 1.5 billion dollars in reported loss of romance scam um it's really 50 50 between men and women so it's there is no you know a real target demographic okay um we found that you know women are typically more cautious so a lot of times those scams are kind of less prevalent um where a lot of times males because they think that you know they wouldn't be frauded you know they wouldn't get taken advantage of um typically has a higher dollar amount um that usually happens and that's kind of the fraud side the risk side what we're seeing is a lot of public safety problems so especially to women gay males um

seeing is that you know there's a lot of people with you know serious criminal backgrounds you 25% of convicted rapists are online dating, 42% of people are married or a serious relationship on social media. And we see this in there's roughly about 70 to 80% of people, especially women and gay males before they go out on a date, they're basically petrified before they go out on a date because they don't know if possibly they're putting themselves at a public safety risk. So we're seeing, you know, again, with my fraud background, seeing all these public safety issues uh there's just a lot that can be solved and really nobody is doing much around this space so we just said you know what we need to do something and this is where me and my team we

kind of developed over this product of the last year um deciding let's let's really change the industry and start protecting people that's uh yeah we definitely need that um and especially with your background you've been able to kind of see where the holes are in like you said something as big as this you know online dating is um yeah that's that's amazing so can you describe um this is your company called bright swipe and how does it how does this work is it to the direct to the consumer or are you going to work with dating apps how does that how does this work and what is it okay um so to answer your question uh all the above so we're right now um so we are coming right out into the market um we're actually just launching into the app stores now which is very

exciting um we are a direct to consumer app so you don't have to have a dating app there is right now you know no requirements to have in there you just have to download it through either the apple or google play store um you just have to have little bits of information first name last name city state and year of birth what you can do with that information then is what we have three different checks so we have first which is called anti-calfish check so this one does verify who the person is is where they live their age a lot of people do lie of course about their age and even marital status so we're able to see so one start gaining a picture of you know is this person real you know and are they who they say they are and again age and marriage kind of stats the next is

the criminal check so taking that same information what we do is we run a you know criminal check across, you know, the entire United States. We have 99% coverage in the entire United States, except for South Dakota. They have funny laws. Other than that, we're able to see, you know, if they have any criminal serious checks, any kind of that information, pull it back, and a really kind of easy to read kind of report. Sometimes background checks and criminal checks can be kind of difficult to understand. So we make it really kind of kitchen table language to be able to read it. And then the last is what we have is a social check. So just with an email and or phone number you can actually see the top 20 social media platforms that somebody is on

what this does help is identify you know is this a real person is this you know do they have a social media presence that's out there and just kind of be able to see so using these three different checks and coordination we all see again is this a real person is this not a fraudster um and you know verifying they are real do they not have a serious criminal background or if they do have a criminal background to be able to kind of what are those charges to kind of make your own determination if somebody wants to move forward with you know meeting them in real life continue a conversation to just really give them a bit of a safety net okay so there's three different levels you can use all three or you can just use one of the three or two of the three

okay just depending on and each each one you said requires a certain bit of information right so if you just do um say the to see if they're an actual person you just need like a name and email or a name and phone number or does it it tells you what you need what input you need for each each one exactly yeah so we're pretty uh we're pretty blanket as to what we cover so the main items gets first name last name city state age that'll that'll run the anti-catfish that'll run the whole criminal check um the social check all you need is just email or phone number just for that particular one just to see if it ties in um this is really kind of our you know our initial product that we're putting out into the market. We will be continuously evolving it, adding risk

scores, additional solutions in there. But we're really, really pleased with what we're putting out there. To answer what you're saying is that integration, what we are looking for as we're launching out in the consumer market, we're doing major campaigns out there. So hopefully you will start seeing us all over social media, various different influencers, et cetera. But we are already in conversations with a number of the dating apps. Our goal is to have the ability to make it so you know a user doesn't have to input this information it can come directly from the dating apps um our big goal is to have kind of like you have like the twitter blue check mark um have kind of that bright swipe you know they've been verified they've been authenticated to who

they are um to again just kind of give a little bit more um safety and security to the person and kind of an easy click an easy way to view it um to really save that hassle of them trying to research and find this person and do all that detailed and some people do i love that i love that you could possibly interface with the dating apps or just have them do the actual input as you're building a profile or or whatever that's amazing and yeah that something about saying that blue check verified you know just makes things a little bit more comfortable um but yeah i mean okay so uh question as a um parent of a teenager i know that this obviously is probably for 18 and above. But what if, you know, say my daughter's talking to somebody online and I'm like, you know

what, I don't know, this just doesn't sound right. Is there any way that I can actually, you know, take that information that she has to verify if that's someone who is legitimately a teenager? So good question. Actually, this has come up again a couple times recently. So if they're under 18, you know, just because of, you know, various different privacy laws, we don't return that. But if there is suspicion that the person maybe is an adult, you could put their information in, you know, see at least at the age 18 to see what they do come back with, which is unfortunately kind of prevalent that, you know, there is, you know, people who are lying, who they're older, they're talking to younger, you know, younger women. And it does become an issue. Similar as

well, what we see a lot of our use cases, especially, you know, let's go on the way other side of the spectrum um you know those older parents maybe recently widowed new to the dating world you know are very very kind of um unfortunately naive as to the bad actors that are out there what we have found is actually a lot of times the children of the parents are are using our product to help verify for their parents because a lot of times where the romance scam is kind of happening is usually between 40 to 65 is where the the bulk of all this kind of bad activity is kind of happening as well so we see people using on behalf of other people as well just to help kind of again protect their loved ones oh this is so needed this is

great um because yeah i was just doing a video an article yes working on an article about catfishing and and you know it's interesting you say it's 50 50 because there's such a i'm finding more numbers on the men's side right a little bit older men um probably like 45 and up or whatever and of course it's because you know they want to connect with someone who's beautiful or whatever and i'm just like if it's too good to be true most chances are it is but you know um i don't know obviously i don't have like exact statistics and they're constantly changing um but like you said it's nobody really does yeah nobody really does that's the problem because there's a lot of embarrassment and shame around reporting this stuff unfortunately yeah okay you want to tell

their families they don't even want to tell their friends i mean there's stories that i hear especially typically from men what's interesting is that you know i've presented this a couple times and a lot of times men kind of be like oh this would never happen to me you know it's on there and then after i've spoke spoken um i've been pulled aside to be like yeah you know i mean this happened. I got taken for a few hundred dollars. I thought it was real. And these are good looking guys. These are very successful guys. And I think, again, more they kind of feel that they have this own personal brand of this cloud. They don't want to tell people. And again, it doesn't get reported. It doesn't get on there. So it's kind of a very kind of hidden problem,

hidden secret that we're trying to put a lot of light on. Yeah. No, that's a good point. Now, there's all different ways of fraudulent happen. What do you find that or do you know of any like common ones or they're getting more and more creative with it it's like you know they're building like a little bit of a trust level and then they're like oh you should invest in this company i've heard of those yeah yes um you hit it on the head and so historically um romance fraud stuff has been you know i'm either which is so crazy i'm in the military i need money to help move me back and i want to marry you which military pays for everything i'm on an oil rig i need money to you know they're not letting me come back again just these kind of

very odd stories that you know i mean most people wouldn't believe um you know unfortunately i've seen to the point where people have given up almost their life savings on the wait and hope that this person is going to come home and marry them um you know it's just very bizarre but you hit it on the head the evolution of the frauds now is because now because of you know in media tinder swindler inventing anna um they've learned is that you know now this kind of romance stuff is becoming a little bit more um public public knowledge so now the new scam is what's called it's such a terrible name it's called pig butchering and pig butchering scam is usually associated to crypto and exactly that they befriend them they try to have a romantic kind

of relationship but very early on they say they're not hey give me money to help me move move back or anything. They say, I have this great investment opportunity for you in crypto. I'm making 20% return, especially in this market. That's an amazing claim. Invest with me and I'll use these cryptos exchange. And what they do is they say, they start with a couple thousand dollars, sometimes 10, 50, 100, $200,000. The person says they want some of their money back, they'll pay it. They keep kind of pulling them up, basically fattening up the pig. And then as soon as they know the point and then this person says okay well i want my two hundred thousand dollars back i've made you know fifty thousand dollars money's gone this person disappears so they're actually

getting some return so it's almost like no it's all fake it's a fake crypto site it's fake returns it's fake numbers the person can log in and it looks like you know it looks like a crypto exchange because there's hundreds of cryptos that are out there so they fake all the numbers it's just a dummy site um and it's actually it's it's really really kind of um going up in in prevalence that this is happening and and so now between like the fbi and ftc the same romance scam and this kind of crypto scam they're kind of blending together so that's what's really starting to move the numbers up even further so they've they found a new way to to kind of steal money and it's really effective man okay so that just taking like you know with bright swipe you'll just be able to see

if this person is kind of legit if they have a you know uh if they've had a criminal background but what if this person's never been caught you know what well typically what's happening is that so a good point you know if i put freddie fraudster for criminal background check yeah he's got no criminal background because it's not a real person so typically what they're doing is that they're using just completely fake person information so the good indicator again is the anti-catfish check so basically what we come back with is the first name the last name the city the state the age we put verified or not verified and basically if this stuff comes back it's not verified people should be extremely cautious of this person and you know maybe there's a reason

they they just moved in the area they were out of state and it's just maybe you know someone's not being able to find them. But typically what we're finding, especially if they're asking for funds, these kinds of things we found is that, you know, they're never using any person's real name. It's usually a total fake identity. You know, it's a last name that matches to a different year of birth or a different state. So usually it just looks suspicious. If it is a real person, you know, majority of the time, everything's going to show that they're verified. It'll be all nice little green flags that we put up, say, look, they're verified on there. And if it comes back to something doesn't look right, is that we're trying to do is to say, look, this is kind

of an early warning detection. And to say, if this doesn't look right, you know, they're probably already using our product because they're already suspicious about something. It's really kind of follow your gut. And so they're just kind of really these kind of these breadcrumbs to be able to help figure that out. I love that. So what, when will you be launching to the public officially? So we're looking at an early March launch of the product. We're actually just going into the app stores um right now so congratulations around with all the data and the testing um but we're ready to rock but we're hopefully big brah brah um social media marketing campaign hopefully uh the beginning of next month yeah more than better um i will definitely um i'd love to have

like a little you know blurb or a thing on my website because i think this is amazing i think it's absolutely uh paramount to to not only your funds but for your safety and especially you know as a woman dating it's like yeah if i can just have so many more boxes tick that i know that i'm actually meeting said said joe if you will and um that just gives me a little bit more comfortability like going out and actually like you know really opening up and being vulnerable is exactly what you want to do in a new relationship so um that's great what is um what's the cost of that so um as the different checks are all a cart um in total if you buy all three checks um it's only $7.99 um so we keep it kind of easy simple we we got away from things

like you know subscription models or what's called negative equity like you sign up for 99 cents and then you know it's 30 a month usually those are very painful to to cancel um you know we keep it kind of very cheap um and why we kind of really did it kind of pull report is because you know yeah is there other background check companies that are out there and doing this kind of stuff i say yes but it's kind of more of a sort of because the reason why is that a lot of these companies that are out there what they're doing is one their data of their information are pulling sometimes two three four five years old especially criminal background check so it's very very very inaccurate ours is you know um it's basically we pull very real-time records so if somebody got

arrested a couple weeks ago we can find out see that information and the other is that the reason why they don't really care about the data they're providing is that they're only caring about you so if you were trying to look up scott um they're saying what's your email what's your phone number And basically, the majority of their revenue goes to selling that person information to marketing companies and third parties. We have a very hard stance here. We are, you know, it's honesty, it's transparency, and ensuring that we are providing a fair product that's not selling user information.

We're providing the product and services that people are looking for. They try to make it up as, you know, as accurate as possible. Data is messy. So, you know, we're always kind of working through it. So this is why we try to provide, you know, the most up-to-date information, provide just really kind of a solid service that nobody in the industry is really doing wow yeah that's that's a really good point because you know getting five-year-old data and two weeks ago is completely different um and but who but you wouldn't know as a consumer you know you would think that no

you know so and so was arrested a year ago that should be on there so and yeah that's crazy i i just think to myself yeah um well i love that you've kept it public awareness i need it i mean it's part of our campaign it's to make aware like you know it's it's it's not it's not as straightforward as people think you know that's out there and that's where again my expertise you know coming from the banking industry and doing these kind of verification system and stuff you have to know accurate information because you know there's there's um you know u.s patriot act laws there's some land security stuff so it's just very important to have that timely critical information and that's where again so but there hasn't been those requirements sitting in this kind of space

because it's just direct to consumer stuff and unfortunately a lot of these companies and a lot of the rules and regulations that are out there they don't care about direct consumers that much about that so they you know they care about finance and banking but now it's taking kind of these expertise taking these really tools and you know these solutions that you know that are out in banking and i've now i've taken it through our team is to now kind of retrofit it to really this online dating space and just make it so it works and give the same protection that banks are getting give it to online daters yeah that's it's amazing oh you did make a a point there that a lot of a lot of my friends who maybe are lawyers or people that are just you know a little bit more

paranoid with like oh my god everybody it's too much information everybody can find more stuff out about me but you did make a point that you're not here to sell your information you are it's it's to find out if you're a legitimate person so what do you don't do anything with that data other than verify a person is that correct exactly we use it to verify you know we follow under um a number of um state level regulations making sure you know the data is protected everything is you know submitted um you know specifically even like our terms and conditions we're very explicit that you know we're not selling this data to you know to third party like marketing companies we only to use it for safety and security um as well as so when the user even when a user is signing up

we're not asking for all this information to enroll for bright swipe it's just an email or phone number that's it we just keep it real simple we just have that information you know we're not trying to build profiles on people it's just in there just look we want to provide that protected solution and the same thing on the other side is that the information that we do pull on somebody that they're looking so you know pulling the background on scott you know the person verification You know, we keep that information very sensitive. We do regular purging of the data, just make sure it's not just sitting in a database. I think where some of the challenge people need to understand is that some of these companies

is that, you know, if a site like mine is providing, you know, and showing this information, they're thinking that, you know, we're retaining all this information. This is public record. So this is coming from, you know, hundreds of different data sources in full. So basically what we're doing is taking instead of it being, you know, somebody to find this information takes hours, we do it in a few seconds. And we're just pulling this together. really just kind of pulling that data together from the different sources is there inaccuracies

is you know sometimes things misreported absolutely all the time you know we're only as good as the uh the federal or state level uh reporting this information as you can imagine government data is probably not the cleanest but this is where we use a lot of our own kind of proprietary logic we're hitting many many sources so we're not just trusting one thing we're rolling in just to make sure that we are as accurate as possible and you know it's going to be exciting over this next year is that we're going to continue to make the data better, our access better, you know, new information and put new tools and solutions against making just really the best product that's out there.

Yeah, this is just I when I, you know, was in contact with you in the beginning, I was just floored about how much money is literally taken from people every year. I couldn't believe the numbers. and then when i found out that you'd created this it's just like genius literally genius because you know the other like you said the other sites are not only not real time but um they're not they don't really care about you they don't really care about you as a consumer they just want your information to sell to third parties so um this is actually for you and for your protection and anybody that out there that is dating or knows of someone that's dating which

is a huge number right um you really look into bright swipe and it's a very inexpensive way to make sure that you're somewhat protected exactly and i think what's nice too is to understand is that and why we didn't just want to have you know just just to the dating apps provide access this in real life. I mean, yes, there's 45 million online daters in the US. There's all these people who don't use it. And there's people who just, you know, meet, you know, who are online daters, but meeting somebody randomly in a bar at a friend's house, the information. So this is something as well. It's in real life. They can use this information to help kind of verify really quickly. I found it a little funny is that, so now Melissa, my beautiful fiance, you know,

kind of go out with some of her girlfriends and they do have this product and they started passing it around like oh i'm dating this guy oh let me look at this guy so it's kind of almost a like cocktail party thing where they're kind of passing around um and most of it's pretty you know oh yeah he is who say is no criminal background uh but a couple of big eyes on a couple of the people that they pulled seeing that oh this guy actually this guy's was married this guy actually has a criminal background so things that they think oh he's fine he's fine but there's a little bit of moment of pause and it was interesting and exciting to see that in real time um seeing that you know, okay, this is, you know, potentially protecting somebody. And that's what makes me

feel good is that, you know, if I could, you know, potentially help save a life, if I can help potentially, you know, save somebody from getting, you know, money stolen from them or thrifted or putting in a bad scenario situation, um, to me, that's, that's why I'm doing it is to really just help, you know, put this public safety and just, you know, really save these people kind of one swipe at a time. Yeah, that's great. Well, I can't wait to see, um, I, I feel like it's going to go like wildfire. I really do. I think it's just going to grow. It just one person. It's just going to be like, why didn't anybody else come up with this? This is what, this is genius. It's great. It's such a, everything is, uh, you know, and I love that you have that passion behind that

because it really, it really does say something about you and the product. So, um, I can't wait for it to be launched. Cause I definitely will be using that as well. Um, okay. So, um, a little bit of just, you just said you have a beautiful fiance and I've seen some great photos of you guys and wine country and whatever. So just to get a little bit to know about you, what is your, or what has been one of your favorite dates and what was it? Well, probably the easiest of my favorite dates, um, was that, so I, um, well, first I started, I took my fiance to a nice, beautiful uh french restaurant on valentine's day last year um and where i actually uh proposed to her or no i'm sorry i i gave her the gifts of taking her to paris um where i kind of stacked

over there so i was already starting to preface it what i wanted to do to propose to her so very kind of romantic you know lots of uh you know gave her the plane tickets a beret uh have them stocked up in these like parisian boxes um which was it was just a beautiful time me knowing it this next couple of months where you know definitely kind of sweaty palms probably the next two months um then proposing to her um near the eiffel tower which she absolutely loves paris i had actually never been um hired a photographer kind of got on there and it kind of gave her the the real kind of quintessential um engagement so oh that's super beautiful yeah so now valentine's day kind of sits real nice um with me just knowing that i was you know

I was taking that lead buffet, you know, originally from Miami. I moved out here in the Bay Area roughly about five years ago and really inspired her and finding, you know, the love of my life just was, was really special. That's so beautiful. How did you guys meet? Just one last quick personal question. It actually was through, I had just moved out here. I met her through just actually a former work colleague.

she's my uh my my head of um risk and compliance now on my team um so now we're good again um she introduced us um they worked at the same company and we met each other and it's just sparks right away that's so good i'm so happy for you both paris is wonderful it's my favorite city yeah it's pretty awesome i didn't know what to expect i've traveled a lot to europe yeah through work and reasons but never really kind of paris i was like and it was nice for she she had been a couple of times so she was kind of showing me all her her special spots everything she wanted to go and that's where if it's nice um hiring a photographer to capture the whole engagement um he had this like it's a very uh very instagram kind of street that was

far enough away from the eiffel tower so you can see all the crowds but it was all kind of in fact he did it so it was it was cute so it was super special i love that i love that well i appreciate you sharing that because i love to give everybody a little bit of like ideas of what you know everybody has fun favorite things um okay so um everybody this is going to be hopefully launching you said in march and um so people can just go to the app store the google store and look for bright swipe download the app okay um if anybody wants to find out a little bit more information about you, about the company, where can people find you? Super easy. Just go to brightswipe.com. Also, as far as you can go and get the links to download. But if you want to learn more about

the product, you want to learn more about us, we have a full robust website that people can poke around. And even if you have any questions, there's contact forms in there. So please, I know people are just always lots of questions around the product. So we're always open book. so feel free to reach out to us awesome is there anything that i left out that maybe uh you wanted to share with anybody and if not if we covered everything i think you covered everything pretty good i think the the only thing that i would just say it's kind of general um to your audience is that you know what what is interesting is that with online dating um this is actually considered the year of security within the online dating app industry okay and you know be in the reason

wise because there is just a lot of risk so i just say you know people out there just be cautious you know there is love out there there's a lot of legitimate people out there so we're not trying to be kind of doom and gloom with the whole thing out there but it's just you know just need to be aware need to be aware and follow your gut so i think that's why it's exciting um to see all this kind of come out there that there is kind of a shift in the industry everything's happening but i think you know there is love be cautious um but just you know keep your heart open a lot of this uh Thank you for sharing that. Yeah.

You're a security, everybody. So get on it. Protect yourself. Have fun. But make sure that you're, you know, you're dating who you say, who they say they are. Awesome. Well, Scott, thanks again so much for taking the time. And we'll talk soon.

I appreciate it. Yeah. When we're fully in the stores, everything on there, I'll drop you a line. You can start playing around with it as well. Please do. That would be amazing. All right. Take care, Scott.

Okay. Thank you. Bye. Thanks for tuning in to today's episode. Come and hang out with me on Instagram at Celeste Moore image. Let me know your thoughts on today's episode, because I always love hearing from you all. You can find all the links and resources in the show notes of the episode on my website, Celeste more.com. Okay. That's all for now. I'll see you in the next episode. See you next time, friends.