Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast. Mama Maya acknowledges
Speaker 1: the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast
Speaker 1: is recorded on.
Speaker 2: We don't have time. That's not going to work. We
Speaker 2: need to do this immediately. We have to act quickly.
Speaker 2: You are in danger. Your son is in danger. We
Speaker 2: do not have time to explore other.
Speaker 1: Options from Mamma. I'm Meya Friedman, and this is no filter.
Speaker 1: It's a normal, boring weekday morning at the end of
Speaker 1: October twenty twenty three, and you're a busy working journalist
Speaker 1: who writes a financial advice column for New York Magazine.
Speaker 1: You have a two year old child and a busy
Speaker 1: day ahead of you. Your husband's already left for work,
Speaker 1: and you've dressed your son up as a slice of
Speaker 1: pizza because it's Halloween. Your plan for the rest of
Speaker 1: the day is to drop him at daycare, come back
Speaker 1: to the apartment and work, and then pick him up
Speaker 1: in the afternoon to take him trick or trade. And
Speaker 1: then the phone rings. Just a few hours later, you
Speaker 1: will be alone in your bedroom in shock. After handing
Speaker 1: over your life savings fifty thousand dollars in cash to
Speaker 1: a stranger in the back of a car on the
Speaker 1: street outside your apartment, begging him not to hurt your family.
Speaker 1: That could never happen, Right, it's the plot of a thriller.
Speaker 1: I can almost see Julia Roberts looking confused and then
Speaker 1: panicked as she realizes what's happened. But it wasn't a movie.
Speaker 1: It really happened to Charlotte Cow's last year, and you're
Speaker 1: about to hear how it happened. What was said to
Speaker 1: her on the other end of the phone that made
Speaker 1: a young, smart, Internet savvy, highly educated and accomplished journalist
Speaker 1: who's written about money in finance for The New York Times,
Speaker 1: what made her hand over all her money to a stranger. Well,
Speaker 1: here's Charlotte Cows, who has been generous enough to share
Speaker 1: her story in the hope that it won't happened to
Speaker 1: anyone who hears it. Because this isn't just a story
Speaker 1: about a scam. This is a story about psychological warfare
Speaker 1: and how it can be used on regular people like
Speaker 1: you and me. I want to ask you, Charlotte, where
Speaker 1: you were in your life before October of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: You're pretty successful, You are pretty successful.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you. I was and continued to be a journalist.
Speaker 2: I had worked for a New York magazine for The Cut.
Speaker 2: I was an editor there for a number of years,
Speaker 2: and my old boss there asked me if I would
Speaker 2: be interested in writing about personal finance for them and
Speaker 2: doing a column. Before then, I really I had no
Speaker 2: experience writing about money. She thought to ask me because
Speaker 2: she remembered from various ideas meetings that I was always
Speaker 2: really interested in the dynamics that money introduced to relationships
Speaker 2: and really how people navigated it. And it's sort of
Speaker 2: a rich topic, no pun intended. It shapes people's relationships
Speaker 2: to work, to their coworkers, to their peers, to their
Speaker 2: spouses and significant others and their friends. Especially in a
Speaker 2: place like New York where it is so expensive and
Speaker 2: there is a lot of money. It's sort of this
Speaker 2: like veil over everything. So she knew that I had
Speaker 2: been interested in that before, but also that I am
Speaker 2: a lay person because I don't have a huge background
Speaker 2: in personal finance. I would be approaching the topic from
Speaker 2: the same place as most readers. So the idea was
Speaker 2: never that I was going to be giving my own
Speaker 2: personal finance advice. It was that I would be reporting
Speaker 2: it out and talking to experts and sharing that advice
Speaker 2: with readers. So I've been doing that ever since, and
Speaker 2: I've also reported on a lot of financial topics for
Speaker 2: The New York Times. Something that I think I have
Speaker 2: developed a niche for doing is sort of explaining financial
Speaker 2: topics in ways that normal people can understand. Yeah, you
Speaker 2: know a lot about it, and I think that, again
Speaker 2: that stems from the fact that this isn't like my
Speaker 2: native language either, So if I can understand it, then
Speaker 2: I can hopefully explain it in a way that other
Speaker 2: people can understand.
Speaker 1: From a personal standpoint, You're married, you live in Brooklyn
Speaker 1: with a young son and an old cat. Yes, and
Speaker 1: you describe yourself as someone who is maddeningly rational and
Speaker 1: certainly not someone who fits the profile of a scam victim.
Speaker 1: But then everything changed on Halloween, ironically, October thirty first,
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three. How did your day begin on
Speaker 1: October thirty first?
Speaker 2: In many ways, it was a very normal day. I
Speaker 2: had a deadline for work. It was also Halloween, and
Speaker 2: I have a two year old, so that, you know,
Speaker 2: sort of added a little a little extra.
Speaker 1: His first real Halloween that he was kind of ware.
Speaker 2: Exactly. There was a Halloween parade at school, so you.
Speaker 1: Know you dressed him up like a pizza.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Then the phone rang while you were working. It was
Speaker 1: around lunchtime. Who was on the phone.
Speaker 2: The first caller was a woman who said she was
Speaker 2: calling from Amazon. She was calling to ask about suspicious
Speaker 2: activity on my account. And I think everyone has received
Speaker 2: calls like this from a car. I certainly have, and
Speaker 2: Amazon does in fact, or at least at the time,
Speaker 2: they did make outgoing calls of this nature. So at
Speaker 2: first I really didn't think anything of it. If anything,
Speaker 2: I was grateful to her for reaching out about this.
Speaker 2: I'd seen headlines about scammers and Amazon, so I kind
Speaker 2: of like seem implausible. She was very professional. She said
Speaker 2: all of the normal things that you would hear on
Speaker 2: a call like this, like this call is being recorded
Speaker 2: for quality assurances. She asked me about some charges that
Speaker 2: were absolutely not charges I had made. It was thousands
Speaker 2: of dollars worth of electronic equipment. She said that they
Speaker 2: had been made under my business account, and I don't
Speaker 2: have a business account, so that's what I told her,
Speaker 2: and she said, well, it looks like several have actually
Speaker 2: been opened under your name, so we should report this
Speaker 2: as an identity theft. All flag those accounts will shut
Speaker 2: them down. And this has actually been so prevalent lately
Speaker 2: that we're working directly with someone at the federal level
Speaker 2: who is helping us to investigate this. Would you be
Speaker 2: willing to speak with him? And it seemed odd to me, obviously,
Speaker 2: But I did know and do know that scams were
Speaker 2: proliferating rapidly, and it didn't seem entirely out of the
Speaker 2: realm of possible that there would be some kind of
Speaker 2: special investigation or you know, Amazon is huge, It's an
Speaker 2: enormous retailer and millions of people use it, and if
Speaker 2: there was, you know, something happening at large scale, I
Speaker 2: don't know it just sure. It was just like who knows.
Speaker 1: And also it's like it's annoying at this point, like
Speaker 1: you're busy, you've got a deadline. It's like, yeah, I'll
Speaker 1: talk to another guy. Can we just saw like you
Speaker 1: weren't worried that money had come out of your account.
Speaker 1: It was more like, oh, identity fraud, Like that's annoying,
Speaker 1: let's just quickly sort this out. And the government agency
Speaker 1: that she mentioned, the federal government agency was one that
Speaker 1: you were familiar with, and it all you know, it
Speaker 1: all checks out.
Speaker 2: It didn't seem crazy, like no one came out of
Speaker 2: the gate asking for money. That part didn't actually come
Speaker 2: until hours and hours and hours later.
Speaker 1: And that's when you were introduced to Calvin Mitchell. He
Speaker 1: was the guy on the phone who purported to be
Speaker 1: from the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission. How did he
Speaker 1: convince you of his authority?
Speaker 2: He convinced me of his authority by immediately telling me
Speaker 2: all of the information that he knew about me. He
Speaker 2: knew my name, obviously, but he knew my address, He
Speaker 2: had my social Security number, he knew who I lived with,
Speaker 2: my husband and son, and he knew the names of
Speaker 2: my family members. And he told me that we were
Speaker 2: being investigated, that I specifically was being investigated for fraud
Speaker 2: and money wandering, among other things. And he told me
Speaker 2: that we were in danger and that we were being
Speaker 2: watched by a criminal organization that had stolen my identity
Speaker 2: and was using it for these crimes.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about the social security number,
Speaker 1: because we don't have those in Australia. I suppose the
Speaker 1: closest we would have would be like a tax file number,
Speaker 1: but it's not the same a social Security number. Can
Speaker 1: you explain the kind of what it means a social
Speaker 1: Security number in America?
Speaker 2: Yes, you're assigned one at birth, and it encapsulates your identity.
Speaker 2: It is sort of the most basic form of identifying
Speaker 2: who you are.
Speaker 1: So you would need it if you were seeking medical care,
Speaker 1: or if you were just applying for a driver's license,
Speaker 1: or because for us, a tax file numbers just connected
Speaker 1: sort of to tax and things like that, but a
Speaker 1: social Security number is more broad, it's more right. Yes,
Speaker 1: I assume that your Social Security number is not something
Speaker 1: that you kind of share widely. So for someone to
Speaker 1: know your Social Security number without you telling them, it
Speaker 1: would seem that they were part of a legitimate government agency.
Speaker 2: Definitely. Yes, it's not something that you just throw out.
Speaker 2: Willy Nelly and I know a lot of people who
Speaker 2: never put it in an email. You know, they'll only
Speaker 2: share it over the phone. It is considered something that
Speaker 2: is confidential.
Speaker 1: CAW it informed you that you had twenty two bank accounts,
Speaker 1: nine vehicles, and four properties registered in your name, and
Speaker 1: that you'd wired more than three million dollars to Jamaica
Speaker 1: and a ruck, and that a car had been rented
Speaker 1: in your name and been linked to drug trafficking in
Speaker 1: New Mexico, and that you had warrants out for your arrest.
Speaker 1: Now when you list those things, it sounds like a
Speaker 1: Quentin Tarantino movie, right. Can you explain what your emotional
Speaker 1: state was at this time and how Calvin managed to
Speaker 1: sort of drip feed these things in a way that
Speaker 1: didn't make you go, oh, well, this is bullshit.
Speaker 2: So I think by starting with the very specific information
Speaker 2: that he did have about me, he had me on
Speaker 2: the defense from the beginning. And also by leading with
Speaker 2: the fact that we were in danger and that we
Speaker 2: were being watched. I think that really made me sit
Speaker 2: up and listen. And while the rest of that information
Speaker 2: seemed so ridiculous, Like I was laughing as he was
Speaker 2: saying it, I was like, this is absurd. It's a
Speaker 2: tactic of snowing you with information so that you can't
Speaker 2: get a word in, and every time you're like, well
Speaker 2: that's ridiculous, they just give you more information. So you're
Speaker 2: already back on your heels. You know, when someone accused
Speaker 2: me of having twenty two bank accounts and you know,
Speaker 2: nine cars. I'm like, I don't even know how to counter.
Speaker 1: That because it's so implausible that like it's laughable. But
Speaker 1: then what if it's not right?
Speaker 2: I mean, like if someone accuses me of plagiarism, for example,
Speaker 2: then I could defend myself against that. Whereas like this
Speaker 2: was just like so entirely outside of my realm of
Speaker 2: experience and understanding that I didn't really know where to start.
Speaker 2: But I was very nervous. I also very much felt
Speaker 2: that this was all some kind of misunderstanding, right.
Speaker 1: And I imagine he kept saying that right to Calvin.
Speaker 2: Yah when he just had to clear it up, Like,
Speaker 2: what are the next steps? Let's just get through this.
Speaker 2: Obviously this is absurd, and how do we clear this up?
Speaker 1: What was Calvin's domeana? And did he sound like a
Speaker 1: regular government official? Often with they scams and I've had
Speaker 1: many scam calls myself the law and is very bad.
Speaker 1: They speak in broken English. It doesn't sound in any
Speaker 1: way professional. Sometimes you can tell they're reading from a script.
Speaker 1: As a journalist, you've interviewed many, many, many many people
Speaker 1: over your career. What was Calvin's vibe, For want of
Speaker 1: a better word.
Speaker 2: It was very authoritative. He spoke with a lot of confidence.
Speaker 2: The line was clear, It did not sound, you know,
Speaker 2: like he was calling from.
Speaker 1: A call center.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And he had a vague accent, but his
Speaker 2: English was otherwise perfect.
Speaker 1: One of the most significant features of this was how
Speaker 1: he managed to keep you on the phone. And you've
Speaker 1: since discovered that in the psychological warfare, that this already
Speaker 1: had become and would continue to be until you finally
Speaker 1: got off the phone. How did he keep you on
Speaker 1: the phone? How did he stop you from like hanging
Speaker 1: up and saying can I call you back? Because there
Speaker 1: were many points in which you were like, I'm suspicious,
Speaker 1: and you even said it. What were those points and
Speaker 1: how did he respond?
Speaker 2: I told him that I a was busy and didn't
Speaker 2: have time to keep talking to him, and also that
Speaker 2: I had no proof that he was who he said
Speaker 2: he was, and that I didn't believe him. The initial
Speaker 2: phone call had come through Amazon, and it had shown
Speaker 2: up on my caller ID as being from Amazon, and
Speaker 2: he told me to go to the main FTC homepage
Speaker 2: and look up the tip line number and then to
Speaker 2: hang up and he would call me from that number.
Speaker 1: Then he did that, so you felt that you'd independently
Speaker 1: verified it.
Speaker 2: Well, I still wasn't sure. I mean, I wasn't sure
Speaker 2: about any of this, and I was still extremely skeptical
Speaker 2: throughout the entire thing. You know, I said, well, couldn't
Speaker 2: you have just spoofed this number? And he was like,
Speaker 2: government numbers cannot be spoofed, and I, of course now
Speaker 2: know that they can be. But he was so confident
Speaker 2: and authoritative in everything he said. Usually whenever I did
Speaker 2: stop and ask a question, he would just answer it
Speaker 2: with great self assurance and then move.
Speaker 1: On and hit you with more information.
Speaker 2: Exactly, And sometimes he was just repeating the same things
Speaker 2: that he was saying before. But I just sort of
Speaker 2: couldn't get a word in edgewise, and I felt very
Speaker 2: much that I was reacting to everything he was saying.
Speaker 1: You texted your husband, didn't you? While you were on
Speaker 1: the phone, yes, what did you say?
Speaker 2: He called me several times, was texting me asking if
Speaker 2: I was okay? What was going on? And at that
Speaker 2: point Calvin told me that I could not tell anyone
Speaker 2: what was happening, and that if I did talk to
Speaker 2: my husband about what was happening, my husband would then
Speaker 2: be implicated in the investigation. You know, at that point,
Speaker 2: I'm sort of like, I'm like, well, if we're both
Speaker 2: like arrested, Like who's going to put my kid to bed?
Speaker 2: You know, like you kind of start like going through
Speaker 2: all of these things where you're just like, but wait,
Speaker 2: if this happens, then what happens?
Speaker 1: And you're like, even if it would take a couple
Speaker 1: of days to clear up, like how do you prove
Speaker 1: that you haven't done something? And maybe yeah, and you
Speaker 1: were very vulnerable because of your child and they knew that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that they found my weak point and
Speaker 2: they pressed on it, and they realized that I responded
Speaker 2: to that specific threat. And whenever I started kind of
Speaker 2: backing up and being like I don't know about this,
Speaker 2: or like this just doesn't sound right, or I'm going
Speaker 2: to call a lawyer, or I'm going to talk to
Speaker 2: the police.
Speaker 1: About this, all of which you said yes.
Speaker 2: Or is there like some kind of office that I
Speaker 2: can go to where we can sort this out in person.
Speaker 2: I'm very uncomfortable with doing this all over the phone.
Speaker 2: They would say, we don't have time. That's not going
Speaker 2: to work. We need to do this immediately. We have
Speaker 2: to act quickly. You are in danger. Your son is
Speaker 2: in danger. We do not have time to explore other options.
Speaker 1: After the short break, the Scammers Book only exits, and
Speaker 1: Charlotte finds herself deep into the most terrifying day of
Speaker 1: her life. Charlotte, this must have been surreal because it's
Speaker 1: still a regular day. You're in your own home alone,
Speaker 1: your son's at kindy, everything around you looks normal, and
Speaker 1: yet this thing is unfolding in your ear with this guy.
Speaker 1: It must have felt like you'd just fallen into some
Speaker 1: kind of weird vortex of hell.
Speaker 2: That's exactly how it felt. It kind of felt like
Speaker 2: I was just like walking along and suddenly like a
Speaker 2: trapdoor opened and I fell through it. It was incredibly bizarre.
Speaker 2: And my instinct, which I think would be anyone's instinct,
Speaker 2: is just how do I get out of this? Like
Speaker 2: what do I have to do to.
Speaker 1: Make this stop and go away and just sort this out?
Speaker 1: So as Calvin kept escalating it, as you wrote so beautifully,
Speaker 1: there was nothing so far that you could see what
Speaker 1: his angle was. Because he hadn't asked you to do anything.
Speaker 1: He kept making it seem like he was saving you
Speaker 1: and he just wanted to help you. Clear this up,
Speaker 1: and he was the one that was standing between you
Speaker 1: and all these bad people and bad things.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. Yeah. What happened next was that he connected
Speaker 2: me with another one of his colleagues, which I've now
Speaker 2: learned is actually a very normal part of these more
Speaker 2: intricate scams. They have a number of different people and
Speaker 2: they kind of pass you in between them, which creates
Speaker 2: this aura of like there being a group of people
Speaker 2: who you're working with, so that it kind of adds
Speaker 2: to their authority. So he passed me to one of
Speaker 2: his colleagues who said that he worked for the CIA,
Speaker 2: and the CIA investigates international crimes. They don't operate on
Speaker 2: American soil, and so I was like, why is the
Speaker 2: CIA working on this? And they're like, well, it's because
Speaker 2: there's international money laundering and internet drug trafficking, and so
Speaker 2: you're caught up in a CIA investigation. Again. It all
Speaker 2: truly sounded crazy, and I knew how crazy it sounded.
Speaker 2: It almost sounded so crazy that I was like, they
Speaker 2: couldn't have made this up. It's like too wild to
Speaker 2: just be a fabrication.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, So it's almost like if that have said, hey,
Speaker 1: there's been this mix up. Can you just give us
Speaker 1: your bank details? You to be like, this is such
Speaker 1: a scam. But because it was like it's the CIA,
Speaker 1: it's money laundering, it's drug lords, suddenly it's like no
Speaker 1: one would make this up. It's crazy, so it must
Speaker 1: be real. I totally get that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean I don't entirely know if I ever
Speaker 2: fully believed it, But I was so frightened that it
Speaker 2: didn't feel like I could call their bluff, Like I
Speaker 2: didn't know what else to do, you know, like if
Speaker 2: I went to the police, they wouldn't have known what
Speaker 2: to do either.
Speaker 1: Right, because it felt so big.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and also on how everyone's trigger treating and people
Speaker 2: are coming in and out of your building, and I
Speaker 2: live in a big apartment building, and I was just thinking, like,
Speaker 2: there's just going to be hundreds of people walking in
Speaker 2: and out of this apartment building all day and all
Speaker 2: night tonight. There was just a profound feeling of not
Speaker 2: being safe and wanting to do whatever I had to
Speaker 2: do to keep my family safe.
Speaker 1: The first time the idea of you withdrawing money from
Speaker 1: your account came up, what was your immediate impression and
Speaker 1: how long would you been on the phone by that time.
Speaker 1: By that time, it had been several hours without a break,
Speaker 1: without food.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He told me that the next steps for the
Speaker 2: investigation would be that they needed to freeze all of
Speaker 2: my assets, everything under my name, so that they would
Speaker 2: be able to catch the people who had stolen my identity,
Speaker 2: and that they weren't sure how long that was going
Speaker 2: to happen, how long all of my assets would be frozen,
Speaker 2: that if I needed to be able to have money
Speaker 2: to live, I should withdraw that in cash from my
Speaker 2: accounts because I may not have access to it for months. Again,
Speaker 2: it seemed weird, but there was a certain sort of
Speaker 2: logic to it that I was like, Okay, if you'd
Speaker 2: freeze all of my accounts, then I guess I better
Speaker 2: get some cash out.
Speaker 1: Calvin asked you how much money you'd need to live
Speaker 1: for a year if it took a long time to
Speaker 1: go through the courts and the process, and you estimated
Speaker 1: around fifty thousand dollars, and you had a savings account
Speaker 1: that you'd squirreled money away in for emergencies, and over
Speaker 1: years and years and years you'd saved this money. So
Speaker 1: he said, you have to go and withdraw that, which
Speaker 1: is how you found yourself at a bank with him
Speaker 1: still in your pocket on the phone. What did the
Speaker 1: bank teller do when you said, I want to withdraw
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars in cash.
Speaker 2: I was really surprised that they let me do it, Like,
Speaker 2: I just wasn't sure if that was gonna fly.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I can't even think of when I've withdrawn more than
Speaker 2: like a thousand dollars from the bank. And she kind
Speaker 2: of raised her eyebrows and she looked surprised, but she
Speaker 2: didn't ask me what it was for. She just went
Speaker 2: into the back and got out like a big box
Speaker 2: and counted out the money and she gave it to me.
Speaker 2: She also gave me a sheet of paper that was
Speaker 2: sort of like a watch out for Scams one page,
Speaker 2: and I did look at it. I mean, it had
Speaker 2: certainly not escaped me that this might be some kind
Speaker 2: of elaborate thing. I was worried that maybe someone was
Speaker 2: following me and was going to take the money from
Speaker 2: me when I was walking home. I didn't know where
Speaker 2: this was going, and I was very concerned.
Speaker 1: How did Calvin convince you to keep him on the
Speaker 1: line while you were doing all of that? What reason did.
Speaker 2: He give He told me, And again it was bizarre,
Speaker 2: but he told me that because I was being investigated,
Speaker 2: there needed to be a continuous connection. I needed to
Speaker 2: stay on the line with him in order for that
Speaker 2: money to not be part of the investigation. I don't
Speaker 2: even know if I'm like explaining this point.
Speaker 1: So I understand. It's like he needs to almost be
Speaker 1: a witness on the phone to everything that was happening.
Speaker 1: I get it. And he still hadn't talked about you
Speaker 1: needing to give the money to anyone at the stage.
Speaker 2: No, No, it really wasn't until the final moment when
Speaker 2: a man came to my house, which was terrifying that
Speaker 2: he said, walk out to his car, put the money
Speaker 2: in the backseat, don't say anything to him, and the
Speaker 2: car drove away. He told me that it was being
Speaker 2: brought to a safe house where it would be secured,
Speaker 2: and then I would receive a Treasury check, and because
Speaker 2: my identity had been so compromised, I would receive a
Speaker 2: new Social Security number and have to sort of like
Speaker 2: rebuild my whole identity, and that once I did that,
Speaker 2: I could deposit the money into a new bank account
Speaker 2: and go from there.
Speaker 1: Over this period of time. How long had you been
Speaker 1: on the phine.
Speaker 2: We'd been on the phone for over five hours, probably
Speaker 2: closer to six.
Speaker 1: You went trickle trading with the phone still on and
Speaker 1: in your pocket. Is this after you'd given the money
Speaker 1: to the car and they're driven away? How did you
Speaker 1: feel when you handed over the money? Did you feel
Speaker 1: oh shit? Or did you feel relieved? How did you feel?
Speaker 2: I felt pretty numb. I mostly was really nervous to
Speaker 2: be out in the open like that. I felt very
Speaker 2: exposed just to be out on the street meeting a
Speaker 2: stranger with that amount of money, especially after he had
Speaker 2: told me so many times that I was under surveillance.
Speaker 2: So I was mostly just eager to get back inside. Really,
Speaker 2: I was really terrified that the man was going to
Speaker 2: get out of the car, or that he was going
Speaker 2: to try to come inside with me and my son
Speaker 2: was at home. I just wanted him to leave as
Speaker 2: quickly as possible. I didn't know what he was going
Speaker 2: to say or do, and I was mostly just at
Speaker 2: that point just trying to get it over with any
Speaker 2: sort of resolution was better.
Speaker 1: Than being in that state of fear and penny. Yeah,
Speaker 1: once you'd handed the money over, did Calvin's domain a
Speaker 1: change on the phone.
Speaker 2: Not really. No. He told me that he was going
Speaker 2: to be in touch with next Steps. He sent me
Speaker 2: a picture of the Treasury check and said that it
Speaker 2: would be delivered to my home in the morning. And
Speaker 2: he said that he was getting me an appointment with
Speaker 2: the Social Security Office to go through everything and they
Speaker 2: would help me get a new Social Security number in
Speaker 2: the morning. And that was a big relief to me.
Speaker 2: And he said that overnight my social Security number would
Speaker 2: be deactivated and I would.
Speaker 1: Essentially, like, you know, get a new identity.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And at that point my husband knew that something
Speaker 2: weird was going on, but I wouldn't tell him what
Speaker 2: it was.
Speaker 1: You had mentioned something about identity theft to him in
Speaker 1: a text, which he then deleted because Calvin said, don't
Speaker 1: involve him, don't tell anyone. That's called blocking the exits,
Speaker 1: isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah, it's a specific technique to make you really
Speaker 2: feel like you have nowhere to turn. And that's also
Speaker 2: because as soon as you get a gut check from
Speaker 2: someone else, it breaks the spell. I've since interviewed a
Speaker 2: number of people who study scams, and that is one
Speaker 2: of the biggest factors in whether or not people actually
Speaker 2: go through with losing money is if they are interrupted
Speaker 2: by someone in their life, then even if they don't
Speaker 2: tell that person what's going on, just having that sort
Speaker 2: of like bringing you back to earth and pulling you
Speaker 2: back into your own life, it can be incredibly effective.
Speaker 1: After these break the moment the penny drop and Charlotte
Speaker 1: realizes that she's been scanned and what she did next.
Speaker 1: In a story with so many incredibly difficult moments in it,
Speaker 1: or a day with so many difficult moments in it,
Speaker 1: the most difficult must have been the realization that you'd
Speaker 1: been scanned. Did it happen quickly or over time? Both.
Speaker 2: There was a moment when the phone went dead and
Speaker 2: I called back and they picked up, and I said,
Speaker 2: you know, I lost the connection. I'm still waiting to
Speaker 2: hear back for confirmation about the appointment with the Social
Speaker 2: Security office, and the woman who answered, who said she
Speaker 2: was sort of part of the team, so that they
Speaker 2: hadn't been able to get one tonight, but that they
Speaker 2: would call me in the morning, and that was the
Speaker 2: first time that they had been inconsistent with their information.
Speaker 2: They got sloppy at the end, and yeah, they had
Speaker 2: no motivation to keep up. The first time I suddenly
Speaker 2: realized it, you know, like the room went blurry and
Speaker 2: I was like, oh my god. Because the whole time
Speaker 2: I was always pretty aware that there was a possibility
Speaker 2: that maybe they were the identity thieves. Yeah, and that
Speaker 2: this was sort of like part of the larger scheme
Speaker 2: that had definitely occurred to me. It didn't occur to me,
Speaker 2: I think, because I was so afraid of it being true.
Speaker 2: It didn't occur to me that like the entire thing
Speaker 2: had been made up, like starting with the Amazon stuff.
Speaker 2: Like I think the first thing that I realized was
Speaker 2: the money is gone. And the second thing I realized
Speaker 2: was I still thought that my identity had been stolen
Speaker 2: and compromise. It took a few hours for that part
Speaker 2: to kind of fall away and be like, oh, actually,
Speaker 2: so on the one hand, I've lost fifty thousand dollars,
Speaker 2: but on the other hand, were much safer than I thought.
Speaker 2: I was, well, yeah, we're not being surveiled, my identity
Speaker 2: hasn't been stolen, So it was sort of this like
Speaker 2: horrible swap.
Speaker 1: It must have been very intense, all of those rushing
Speaker 1: thoughts and untangling everything that had happened and through the day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, who.
Speaker 1: Was the first person you told?
Speaker 2: My husband? Immediately, I was just sobbing, and I ran
Speaker 2: out and told him, and he was really concerned. We
Speaker 2: put my son to bed, and then my brother is
Speaker 2: a lawyer, and so I called him and we conferenced
Speaker 2: in my parents and I told them what had happened,
Speaker 2: and they encouraged me to call the police. So I
Speaker 2: called the police and they came right over and they
Speaker 2: took a report. But they were like, you are so stupid.
Speaker 1: Oh, that must have been awful.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was also just so clear that they
Speaker 2: were unequipped to do anything about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: They sort of like had all this standard lines like
Speaker 2: no government agent will ever ask you for money, and
Speaker 2: I was like, well, they weren't really asking you.
Speaker 1: Never felt like you had a choice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And of course I know, I know that
Speaker 2: government agencies do not ask you for money. I know that,
Speaker 2: but under this particular circumstance, it felt different.
Speaker 1: Because it was incremental because they weren't asking you for money.
Speaker 1: At first, they were trying to protect you. They were
Speaker 1: trying to protect your money. Right when you told people
Speaker 1: the story and slowly you told friends and people close
Speaker 1: to you, you say, most of them say the same thing.
Speaker 1: You don't seem like the type of person this would
Speaker 1: happen to. What do they mean by that?
Speaker 2: So this is really interesting because this is when I
Speaker 2: started finding out how incredibly prevalent these scams are. So
Speaker 2: first of all, people are like, oh my god, you
Speaker 2: really don't seem like the type of person this would
Speaker 2: happen to. And what they mean is, I'm not old.
Speaker 2: I know how to use the internet. I'm you know,
Speaker 2: relatively savvy and can deploy critical thinking.
Speaker 1: And you're ivyly educated. You write about personal finance, you're
Speaker 1: a reporter, you're a journalist, so you've got a sort
Speaker 1: of a skeptical, quizical mind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and people think that this is something that just
Speaker 2: happens to Dottie Grandma's who don't know how to open
Speaker 2: their email, you know. But the more that I did
Speaker 2: talk about it, the more people were also like, Oh,
Speaker 2: that happened to my sister, or that happened to me,
Speaker 2: or that happened to a friend of mine who lost
Speaker 2: four hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which was the case.
Speaker 2: So that's when I started realizing that this was happening
Speaker 2: all the time and to people who you really wouldn't expect.
Speaker 2: And also the fact that there is this stigma that
Speaker 2: it doesn't happen to young people who are well educated,
Speaker 2: or it doesn't happen to people who are smart enough
Speaker 2: to know better, actually makes people much more vulnerable because
Speaker 2: they think that they're not going to be targeted, or
Speaker 2: they think that if they are a target, they'll see
Speaker 2: right through it and that they're not vulnerable. That really
Speaker 2: started to make me think about writing about it.
Speaker 1: Also, your brother, who's a lawyer, as you said, noted
Speaker 1: that what you experience sounded a lot like a coerced confession.
Speaker 1: What does that mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was really interesting to hear. And I wound
Speaker 2: up reaching out to a man who studies coerst confessions.
Speaker 2: He's an academic, he's written a book about them. His
Speaker 2: name is Saul Cassen, and he at first was sort
Speaker 2: of skeptical about the connection, and as soon as I
Speaker 2: told him what had happened to me, he was like,
Speaker 2: this is exactly the same. Even the amount of time
Speaker 2: that I had been on the phone. He said that
Speaker 2: coerst confessions or false confessions are much more likely to
Speaker 2: happen when interrogations start to take longer than a couple
Speaker 2: of hours.
Speaker 1: So Cole's confession is when someone I assume confesses to
Speaker 1: something they haven't done. You didn't confess to doing anything.
Speaker 1: How is it the same?
Speaker 2: So it's similar in that I complied with something that
Speaker 2: I knew to be wrong and that made no sense
Speaker 2: to me, and I followed directions that I knew were
Speaker 2: ridiculous against my better judgment because I was just trying
Speaker 2: to fix it. I was like, all of this can
Speaker 2: surely be sorted out. If we just get to the
Speaker 2: end of this, then like, yeah, it would be fine. Right.
Speaker 2: It's one of the reasons why innocent people often wave.
Speaker 2: In the US, we have something called Miranda rights. It's
Speaker 2: your right to an attorney. It's one of the reasons
Speaker 2: why a lot of innocent people wave their Miranda rights
Speaker 2: because they're like, well, I'm innocent, so I don't need
Speaker 2: a lawyer, and so everything's going to be fine. So
Speaker 2: you actually put yourself in a more vulnerable position when
Speaker 2: you're innocent, because you assume that everything's going to work
Speaker 2: out and it's going to be okay, and this will
Speaker 2: all get sorted out and you've to and go along
Speaker 2: with what people want, then everything will work out.
Speaker 1: I want to unpack what they did, how they actually
Speaker 1: executed this psychological warfare, which is what it was. What
Speaker 1: have you learnt about what they did and how long
Speaker 1: it was planned for.
Speaker 2: So I've since read a bunch of books. I've talked
Speaker 2: to a lot of people who have been scammed. There's
Speaker 2: sort of a playbook that they followed, and there's even
Speaker 2: an actual book that I recommend that everyone read. It's
Speaker 2: called Influence by Robert Chaldini. He wrote it over twenty
Speaker 2: years ago, and it's fascinating. It's basically about the psychology
Speaker 2: of influencing somebody or deployed in the wrong way, coercing
Speaker 2: someone into doing something that you want them to do.
Speaker 2: So they're known as Chaldini's seven principles of influence, and
Speaker 2: they are reciprocity, so basically like I'm helping you, so
Speaker 2: you feel like you owe somebody something. Commitment or consistency,
Speaker 2: So the people on the phone with me were very
Speaker 2: committed to quote helping me and very consistent in their stories.
Speaker 2: Consensus or social proof, which is like when you see
Speaker 2: other people doing something, you're like well, I guess that's
Speaker 2: what I'm supposed to do. Research shows that people are
Speaker 2: more likely to follow social cues when they are in
Speaker 2: a situation that they're unsure about. So if I'm very
Speaker 2: confident in a situation and I see a bunch of
Speaker 2: people doing something else, I'm like, well, I already know
Speaker 2: what I'm doing, so I'm not going to do that.
Speaker 2: But if you're really out to see and you see
Speaker 2: a bunch of people acting in a certain way, or
Speaker 2: you have someone with great authority telling you to do something,
Speaker 2: then you're much more likely to follow along.
Speaker 1: I guess since I have someone on the back foot
Speaker 1: and they're much more easily persuaded exactly.
Speaker 2: The fourth one is authority, and that's very authoritative. The
Speaker 2: fifth one is liking, so being nice, and he kept
Speaker 2: sort of alternating between being quite threatening and then also
Speaker 2: having these moments of kindness, like asking me about my
Speaker 2: kid and my family and my work and trying to
Speaker 2: emphasize the fact that he was trying to help me.
Speaker 2: The sixth one is scarcity, which is in this case,
Speaker 2: there was the time scarcity. He was giving me an
Speaker 2: exploding offer, like he could help me, but we had
Speaker 2: to move really quickly, and time was short, and I
Speaker 2: couldn't to anyone else because you know, we had to
Speaker 2: keep the scope very new. And the last one is unity,
Speaker 2: which is the sort of element of like we're working together,
Speaker 2: we have your back.
Speaker 1: How did they get the information in the first place?
Speaker 2: That is another really good question. I have since learned
Speaker 2: that we all, I think know in the abstract that
Speaker 2: our personal information is out there, Like if you are
Speaker 2: a person online, your data is sort of like floating around.
Speaker 2: I think like most people, I've always assumed that that's
Speaker 2: just sort of the cost of like being online. I'm
Speaker 2: not doing anything bad, so I figured who cares? And
Speaker 2: also like I'm not interesting enough for anyone to single
Speaker 2: me out as when target right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like when some people go, oh, but the
Speaker 1: government if you put aland the government's going to survail you,
Speaker 1: and you're like, well, it'll be pretty boring for the
Speaker 1: government because I go to work and I go home.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like I don't really know what's in it for them. Yeah,
Speaker 2: to you know, not even the government, but just like
Speaker 2: anyone anyone like go after me and like living my
Speaker 2: mom life with my husband and kat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you wouldn't see yourself as a target because like
Speaker 1: you're not ail On Musk or Jeff Bezoso, right right,
Speaker 1: Avanka Trump kind of vibes yeah.
Speaker 2: Right, Like I'm not someone who has that kind of
Speaker 2: like exciting profile.
Speaker 1: So why did they choose you?
Speaker 2: I interviewed someone at Finra, which is basically like a
Speaker 2: sort of consumer watchdog. They work with the government on
Speaker 2: protecting consumers and they do a lot of work around
Speaker 2: scams their nonprofit. And I interviewed someone there who investigates
Speaker 2: scams and studies them, and she said that what usually
Speaker 2: happens is every time there's a data breach, and you know,
Speaker 2: I get letters like every week and it's like the
Speaker 2: Vets Office had a data breach or you know, the
Speaker 2: whatever random hospital that I went to one time to
Speaker 2: get like my toe x ray had a data beaty.
Speaker 2: You know, like like it happens all the time, and
Speaker 2: I always kind of figure like, well, there's nothing I
Speaker 2: can really do about it, and who cares. Someone has
Speaker 2: my phone number.
Speaker 1: Yeah, someone has the x ray of my foot. Good luckily, right, yeah, yeah, right.
Speaker 2: But what happens is every time there's a data breach,
Speaker 2: you know, they sort of comb through it and that
Speaker 2: data gets scraped and sordid and repackaged and sort of
Speaker 2: bundled and sold exactly when there is a big enough bundle,
Speaker 2: it gets sold, and so essentially like it's kind of
Speaker 2: when your numbers up. I don't think that I was
Speaker 2: specifically targeted because people were like, oh, she must have
Speaker 2: fifty thousand dollars. I think it was just that they
Speaker 2: had enough information about me that they felt pretty confident
Speaker 2: that they could make a go of it.
Speaker 1: How long do you think they prepared and where do
Speaker 1: you imagine they even were?
Speaker 2: They were almost certainly overseas.
Speaker 1: Have you found out which countries these things happening and
Speaker 1: how they work?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really devastating. A lot of the people who
Speaker 2: conduct these scams are actually trafficked. They're victims themselves. So
Speaker 2: I don't think that these people were even necessarily like
Speaker 2: malicious psychopaths who were trying to torture.
Speaker 1: Me, like Calvin and the other people that you spoke
Speaker 1: to on the find that day.
Speaker 2: They may very well have been truly desperate.
Speaker 1: When you say trafficked, like in what kind of situations?
Speaker 1: Because these are seemingly well educated people that can think
Speaker 1: quickly on their fate, you know, the English is outstanding.
Speaker 1: They can work and you know, spontaneously improvised. That takes
Speaker 1: a lot of skill. And when you think of people
Speaker 1: that are trafficked to usually think of people that are
Speaker 1: really disadvantaged, not educated.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of times what happens is there's actually
Speaker 2: a big report on this in the Wall Street Journal
Speaker 2: that just came out. A lot of times what happens
Speaker 2: is these are people who are well educated and they
Speaker 2: respond to fake job listings that say, you know, like
Speaker 2: here's this great job, you get interviewed for it, and
Speaker 2: then you get the job, and here is where you'll
Speaker 2: be picked up to go to the call center or whatever,
Speaker 2: like the campus of this company where you're going to
Speaker 2: be worked. And then they get whisked off instead to
Speaker 2: these sort of camps essentially where they are forced to
Speaker 2: work and force to meet these phone calls.
Speaker 1: Countries does this happen, It.
Speaker 2: Happens a lot in Southeast Asia. It's heartbreaking and really awful.
Speaker 1: Is it your understanding that Calvin and the people that
Speaker 1: you spoke to on that day, of which there were
Speaker 1: probably about four or five people, do you believe that
Speaker 1: they were actually physically in the same space.
Speaker 2: I really don't know. I wouldn't be surprised if they were.
Speaker 2: I mean I was never like on hold for any
Speaker 2: period of time. Like I was transferred very quickly. It
Speaker 2: was very sophisticated, and.
Speaker 1: I didn't get the money presumably.
Speaker 2: Well another thing, because I was curious about that, I
Speaker 2: was like, how did they how did they get this
Speaker 2: guy to my apartment? Like how did this even work?
Speaker 2: The woman from FINRA told me that often in these situations,
Speaker 2: first of all, it is unusual for there to be
Speaker 2: a physical money pickup. That was a pretty unusual scenario,
Speaker 2: but in this case it really fit. I mean, it
Speaker 2: was just very effective. Like I think if they told
Speaker 2: me to wire money anywhere, I would have hung up right.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But the fact that I was feeling so vulnerable because
Speaker 2: my family was inside, just the physical presence was so
Speaker 2: terrifying that I mean I would have done anything. I
Speaker 2: would have been like, do you also want my passport?
Speaker 1: Here you go? Like I just make it stop?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Who is driving that car?
Speaker 2: So it could have either been just a courier that
Speaker 2: they sent who thought he was just picking something up,
Speaker 2: or it also could have been what's called a money mule,
Speaker 2: which means that it's someone else who was caught up,
Speaker 2: who's also a victim, who was caught up in some
Speaker 2: sort of scammer being blackmailed in some way themselves by
Speaker 2: the same organization.
Speaker 1: Who's running this stuff? Who's the big boss?
Speaker 2: I don't think anyone knows. I certainly don't know. I
Speaker 2: wish I did, But they seem sort of like Medusa,
Speaker 2: like they shut down one and another one grows up
Speaker 2: in its place.
Speaker 1: You know. I just finally I wanted to ask you
Speaker 1: about how you've feign It's been nearly a year since then,
Speaker 1: since it happened. Two things. Firstly, why did you decide
Speaker 1: to write about it, because that is a big deal,
Speaker 1: like the shame, I imagine would have been huge and potentially
Speaker 1: the biggest thing that you've been grappling with. How have
Speaker 1: you metabolized that? And what's happened since you've decided to
Speaker 1: publish that story which went viral internationally.
Speaker 2: I was pretty shocked by how viral it went. I
Speaker 2: don't think anyone can fully anticipate.
Speaker 1: Because that's the whole thing in itself, the experience of
Speaker 1: going viral.
Speaker 2: It really is, especially like I've written a lot of stories,
Speaker 2: some of which have gone pretty viral, but nothing that
Speaker 2: was ever personal and very vulnerable like that story was.
Speaker 2: So that was, I mean totally terrifying.
Speaker 1: Were you worried that people would think that you is stupid?
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, and I know that many people do, but
Speaker 2: I mean there's nothing I can really do about that
Speaker 2: besides just keep doing what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: How do you feel about the whole experience now? Almost
Speaker 1: A ye, Laida.
Speaker 2: First of all, one of the reasons that I really
Speaker 2: wanted to write the story was that I also read
Speaker 2: studies that showed that the psychological aftermath of being scammed
Speaker 2: is devastating. I mean, it's devastating to lose any amount
Speaker 2: of money, but especially for many people, especially things like
Speaker 2: you hear with these they're called pig butchering scams, but
Speaker 2: just like they take place over months or even years,
Speaker 2: they happen a lot with romance scams just creates this
Speaker 2: like incredibly trusting relationship and just like takes everything that
Speaker 2: a person has. That's financially devastating, but psychologically, I mean,
Speaker 2: people never recover, and even people who lose much less
Speaker 2: money than I did and much less money than other
Speaker 2: people do the sense of vulnerability and it's such a
Speaker 2: violating experience that a lot of people have real anxiety depression,
Speaker 2: like paranoia afterwards, and they feel really ashamed and really isolated.
Speaker 2: And scams are wildly underreported as a result, and a
Speaker 2: lot of people just feel like there's something wrong with them,
Speaker 2: like they must have done something wrong, and they pathologize
Speaker 2: it is that.
Speaker 1: What you did well?
Speaker 2: Luckily, because I'm a journalist, my instinct is to research
Speaker 2: things when I'm trying to understand why they happen. And
Speaker 2: so as soon as I started researching, and as soon
Speaker 2: as I started talking to people, and people just came
Speaker 2: out of the woodwork telling me that the same thing
Speaker 2: had happened to them, I was maybe uniquely vulnerable to
Speaker 2: this scam. I didn't tell the story because I believe
Speaker 2: that what happened to me could happen to anyone. But
Speaker 2: I do think that there is a scam out there
Speaker 2: for everyone, and it's not a matter of you being
Speaker 2: so smart that you can out with them and stay
Speaker 2: ahead of this. It really is kind of a matter
Speaker 2: of luck and a matter of hopefully being prepared so
Speaker 2: that you can maybe avoid it.
Speaker 1: You had some people reach out to you and say
Speaker 1: that they were in the middle of being scammed when
Speaker 1: they read your story and what was it about your
Speaker 1: story that made them realize, Oh, my god, that's me.
Speaker 2: There was a study that came out about people who
Speaker 2: had been targeted by scammers, and it looked at what
Speaker 2: was the difference between people who lost money and who didn't,
Speaker 2: who somehow managed to figure out what was going on
Speaker 2: and disengage. And they found that the people who managed
Speaker 2: to disengage, the difference wasn't age, wasn't like they were
Speaker 2: younger or savvier, or more well educated, or had a
Speaker 2: higher socioeconomic status. It was actually just that they had
Speaker 2: heard of a similar scam happening to someone else. People
Speaker 2: think that there are all of these protective things that
Speaker 2: they can put in place, but actually the best thing
Speaker 2: that you can do is reduced the stigma around scams
Speaker 2: so that people talk about them more.
Speaker 1: That's incredible. So when you think about, like, I hope
Speaker 1: that the story that you tell yourself about this now
Speaker 1: and your role in it is this happened to you,
Speaker 1: And by being generous enough to share your story, you
Speaker 1: have saved tens of thousands of people, no doubt, because
Speaker 1: your story has been read by tens of millions of
Speaker 1: people around the world. You've probably saved tens of thousands
Speaker 1: of people from being scammed. That's a pretty phenomenal legacy.
Speaker 2: It is very gratifying. I get emails every day from
Speaker 2: people who say that they were targeted and because they
Speaker 2: had read the story, they hang up. I also get
Speaker 2: emails almost every day from people who were scammed and
Speaker 2: have never told anyone and live with this incredible wheat
Speaker 2: and guilt and shame, and reading the story made them
Speaker 2: seek help and seek support or helped their spouse understand
Speaker 2: what happened to them, and that's also very gratifying. It's
Speaker 2: really humbling. I mean, it was still one of the
Speaker 2: worst days of my life, and I don't wish it
Speaker 2: upon anyone. And this is, you know, this sort of
Speaker 2: small thing that I can do to try to fight back.
Speaker 2: It's weird when you write something like this and it
Speaker 2: becomes much bigger than you. So there's an element of
Speaker 2: it where I am also just very eager to move
Speaker 2: on at this point.
Speaker 1: I am sure you are. I look forward to you
Speaker 1: being able to close the chapter and move on, and
Speaker 1: I'm just so grateful that you agreed to take the
Speaker 1: time to talk to me before you did close that
Speaker 1: chapter and move on. Charlotte, Thank you phenomenal, Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. The thing about this story and why you
Speaker 1: need to hear it, is that Charlotte does not fit
Speaker 1: the profile of someone we think of when it comes
Speaker 1: to scams. As she said, you think of an old person,
Speaker 1: your grandfather, your mom, maybe someone who's not hugely Internet savvy,
Speaker 1: someone who might live alone, someone who might be easily
Speaker 1: confused or gullible. But as you heard, this was no
Speaker 1: ordinary scam. It was all that psychological warfare, because that's
Speaker 1: what scammers do. And there's so much victim blaming and
Speaker 1: shaming when it comes to these kind of crimes, because
Speaker 1: there is that perception that we should know better, or
Speaker 1: that if you fall prey to a scam, it's because
Speaker 1: your naive or stupid or ignorant. And Charlotte experience that shaming.
Speaker 1: The story that you just heard is one that she's
Speaker 1: still grappling with, and I'm sure you could hear that,
Speaker 1: and she's chosen to share it because if she can
Speaker 1: help other people, then she can make meaning from the
Speaker 1: most terrifying and bewildering day of her life. But she
Speaker 1: doesn't want to be known just for this story, and
Speaker 1: nor should she be. What struck me so much is
Speaker 1: what she said about the scammers finding her weak point
Speaker 1: and then pressing on it, because we all have a
Speaker 1: weak point, right For her, it was her son and
Speaker 1: the idea that he could be in danger. Who can't
Speaker 1: relate to that that someone that you love could be
Speaker 1: in danger if you don't do what someone tells you
Speaker 1: to do. After our conversation ended, Charlotte was telling me
Speaker 1: about how AI is now making these scams even more
Speaker 1: sophisticated so they can mimic the sound of your loved
Speaker 1: one's voice. So imagine that you picked up the phone
Speaker 1: and it was your partner or your friend, or your
Speaker 1: mother or your child saying that they needed money desperately.
Speaker 1: Imagine that. And she said that families need to have
Speaker 1: a password in case something like this ever happens, because,
Speaker 1: of course, in the moment you're so panicked, it doesn't
Speaker 1: occur to you that it's going to be a scam,
Speaker 1: particularly if it's the actual voice of someone that you know.
Speaker 1: So she said, if you agree with your family, and
Speaker 1: maybe you know your parents as well, that there's a
Speaker 1: password that you use and before you do any thing
Speaker 1: you say, what's the password? If anything just seems confusing
Speaker 1: or really highly charged and emotional in that moment. Now,
Speaker 1: Charlotte's moving on, and she continues to write prolifically. She's
Speaker 1: a beautiful writer. She has so many other things coming up.
Speaker 1: We've popped a link in our show notes so that
Speaker 1: you can follow her, because she is so much more
Speaker 1: than this story, just like we're all so much more
Speaker 1: than the worst thing that's happened to us. The executive
Speaker 1: producer of No Filter is Niama Brown, and she and
Speaker 1: her husband are currently arguing about what the family password
Speaker 1: should be. Our audio production is by Leah paul Just.
Speaker 1: She doesn't have a family password either, but she and
Speaker 1: her partner will have one by the end of the day.
Speaker 1: I'm Meya Friedman. We've had family passwords for years, but
Speaker 1: it was more when the kids were little and it
Speaker 1: was about, you know, there was that scam or that
Speaker 1: fear going round that someone would come up to your
Speaker 1: kid after school and say, Hey, your mom's in hospital.
Speaker 1: You need to come with me. She sent me to
Speaker 1: come and pick you up. So we had a password
Speaker 1: back then, but it hadn't occurred to me to have
Speaker 1: one now. But oh my goodness, guess what we're going
Speaker 1: to be discussing over family dinner tonight. Go do it
Speaker 1: right now, and I'll see you next week.