Speaker 1: Episode three point eighty Love and Money Romance Scams with
Speaker 1: April Helm.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to
Speaker 2: save money, embrace simplicity, and live a life. Here your
Speaker 2: hosts Jen and Jill.
Speaker 1: Happy Gallentine's Day Frugal Frows. It is Valentine's Day, and
Speaker 1: we are so excited to hopefully you're listening to this.
Speaker 3: Her name is Jen, my name is Jill.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, I'm so certain.
Speaker 3: We're just so excited.
Speaker 1: It's actually the day before Valentine's Day, but we're so
Speaker 1: excited to do this Valentine's Day episode on romance scams.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we did something similar only different back at Halloween,
Speaker 3: where we did a departure from our typical episodes just
Speaker 3: to have some fun with money stories, and we loved
Speaker 3: it so much that we thought we got to do
Speaker 3: something around valentine Yes Day to talk about how love
Speaker 3: then interweaves with this.
Speaker 1: Yes, so we on our Halloween episode episode three fifteen,
Speaker 1: Episode through fifty my favorite money murder scams, basically, how
Speaker 1: scams are murdering your money.
Speaker 3: This is our way of generally easing into just becoming
Speaker 3: a scam podcast.
Speaker 1: Gently easing, but We had a lot of fun today
Speaker 1: with April Helm talking not just about romance scams and
Speaker 1: kind of laughing along with them, but also normalizing it
Speaker 1: and giving you some insight on how you can a
Speaker 1: avoid them and be handle or affect somebody in your
Speaker 1: life who may be part of.
Speaker 3: One, which apparently, as we see in our poll, a
Speaker 3: lot of people have been impacted by scams, particularly romance scams,
Speaker 3: either themselves or someone close to you, or just an
Speaker 3: awareness that they exist. And so I think wherever we
Speaker 3: find ourselves on that spectrum, it's important to be equipping
Speaker 3: ourselves with knowledge, know where we can be protecting ourselves,
Speaker 3: warning others along the way, because this is more prevalent
Speaker 3: than I think we want to even realize, and we'll
Speaker 3: learn that a little bit more with April. But some
Speaker 3: of you did share some of your stories about what
Speaker 3: you've heard happened to maybe family members or to yourselves,
Speaker 3: so I think it's certainly relevant.
Speaker 1: Yes, so, and yeah, I definitely stick around for this one.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a really good one.
Speaker 3: But first, this episode is brought to you by Cupid,
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Speaker 1: I just want to make that clear.
Speaker 3: Oh I'm not a baby, and I'm not a dude.
Speaker 1: I'm not a baby, all right. So, in our gentle
Speaker 1: transition to becoming exclusively a money scam podcast, we have
Speaker 1: brought on April Helm. She's the host of the show
Speaker 1: Scammer Stories, and she started this podcast because her mother
Speaker 1: was actually scammed and she tells that as one of
Speaker 1: her stories. But we will laugh, we will be sad,
Speaker 1: and at the end we'll give a few extra tips
Speaker 1: for what you can do about scammers in your life.
Speaker 1: So enjoy.
Speaker 3: Let's get to it.
Speaker 1: April Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. This is going
Speaker 1: to be a really fun show. I'm so excited.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having me on. This will
Speaker 4: be fun.
Speaker 3: We did a fun, little scary money stories episode back
Speaker 3: at Halloween and it got us thinking, oh Valentine's decks
Speaker 3: coming up, and we gotta do something good all the.
Speaker 1: Way back in October, but we did.
Speaker 3: I think we even mentioned it on the podcast. Well,
Speaker 3: part of it became a public service announcement. Honestly, we
Speaker 3: thought we were just doing something fun, and then we realized, whoa,
Speaker 3: there's some really complicated and complex scams out there, and
Speaker 3: a lot of us are more vulnerable than we think
Speaker 3: we are. And then, especially when you throw love or
Speaker 3: the thought of love into the equation, how much more
Speaker 3: is it valuable to look at? So I think we
Speaker 3: want to in part have some fun, but also PSA beware.
Speaker 3: So with that, April, this is what you do. You
Speaker 3: get to have some shock in awe and learning all
Speaker 3: the time. And we just want to hear from you
Speaker 3: your top three favorite romance money scams, whether they're the best, worst, funniest, favorite,
Speaker 3: and we're just going to talk about them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So let's kick it off. Okay, I want let's
Speaker 1: go like three two one, like what's your third favorite?
Speaker 1: His favorite? To a strong word romance, money scam.
Speaker 4: Okay, so let's start off with a fun one. Kind
Speaker 4: of a woman I called Aubrey, not her relan, was
Speaker 4: duped by a man she thought was The Rock Dwayne Johnson. Okay,
Speaker 4: for about two hundred and fifty thousand. She was married
Speaker 4: to a higher up colonel in the military and would
Speaker 4: go to White House dinners. She was married. This is
Speaker 4: a very wealthy family. Her and her husband separated. She
Speaker 4: got a message on Facebook from a man she thought
Speaker 4: was Dwayne Johnson. Now, back in the day, she was
Speaker 4: a flight attendant and she did meet him on a flight,
Speaker 4: so she thought, okay, this could be real wow, and
Speaker 4: they started a relationship. He the scammer, was so good
Speaker 4: that he would predict things that would show up on
Speaker 4: social media before they showed up on social media, like
Speaker 4: The Rock had a baby, and he just guessed that
Speaker 4: The Rock was going to have a baby, And he
Speaker 4: told Aubrey, We're about ready to have a baby. It's
Speaker 4: coming out in the news. Don't be worried. We're not together.
Speaker 4: And then it just so happened that it came out
Speaker 4: in the news that The Rock had a baby. I
Speaker 4: don't know how he was able to do that, but
Speaker 4: it was a very convincing scam who Yeah, so she
Speaker 4: was still married at the time. And then one of
Speaker 4: the Rock's best friends is a comedian and journalist in
Speaker 4: the UK, and he actually did a story on her
Speaker 4: that she was a scammer instead of The Rock, and
Speaker 4: it really devastated her, embarrassed her, put her in a
Speaker 4: deep depression, almost committed suicide. She ended up begging her
Speaker 4: husband back. He forgave her because she lost everything, didn't
Speaker 4: have a dime left to her name, so she moved back
Speaker 4: in with him.
Speaker 1: Okay, so how did it all devolve? So how did
Speaker 1: we get from I'm in a relationship with The Rock
Speaker 1: to the Rock's journalist's friend is writing a story about me? Like,
Speaker 1: how did we get there?
Speaker 4: Yeah, she was getting ready to buy a house with him,
Speaker 4: and certain things just didn't start adding. You know, of course,
Speaker 4: when you're talking to a scammer, you want to meet them.
Speaker 4: So she'd planned to meet him, he wouldn't show up.
Speaker 4: She'd you know, all the plans that they had, you know,
Speaker 4: buying a house. He never showed up to buy the house.
Speaker 4: He never showed up with any money. So finally she
Speaker 4: figured out it was a scam that way, and then
Speaker 4: the journalist did the story on her after that, but
Speaker 4: it took about two years. This whole process took about
Speaker 4: two years in twenty sixteen was when her scam happened.
Speaker 1: And so how was the scammer taking money from her? Like,
Speaker 1: what were the things he was asking for? How did
Speaker 1: he like groom her?
Speaker 4: Well, was that, yeah, there was always something. They come
Speaker 4: up with a million different ways. They need a lot
Speaker 4: of times he needed money for a cell phone, or
Speaker 4: there was a loan that wasn't going through. There was
Speaker 4: a business deal that he was getting ready to close on,
Speaker 4: but it wasn't going to make any money until the
Speaker 4: very end, and he just needed her to give him
Speaker 4: some money until he closed the deal and then he'd
Speaker 4: send it back, you know something with this family, it
Speaker 4: was just a whole multitude of things that he would
Speaker 4: go through to get money from her.
Speaker 3: So she left her husband at the time to be
Speaker 3: with who she thought was Dwayne the Rock Johnson and
Speaker 3: they had this relationship over the course of what did
Speaker 3: you say, two years? She ever ended up meeting the
Speaker 3: person behind the fake account?
Speaker 4: No, she didn't.
Speaker 1: Did they ever find anything out about this person? Like?
Speaker 1: Did the journalists who wrote this story find out anything?
Speaker 4: He reached out to me actually recently, and he said,
Speaker 4: I figured out what I did was wrong and I
Speaker 4: would like to speak with her.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Wow, And he said, I journalism, I know.
Speaker 4: No, this guy's bad news. And he said I would
Speaker 4: like to speak with her. Can you connect me with her?
Speaker 4: And I said sure. So I reached out to Aubrey
Speaker 4: and said, he's wanting to talk to you now. He
Speaker 4: realizes how wrong he was and he's wanting to make amends.
Speaker 4: And she says, I don't want to talk. We went
Speaker 4: back and forth on whether she should talk to him
Speaker 4: or not, and I said, well, how about this. How
Speaker 4: about I'm on the call with you and I'll record
Speaker 4: it and anything. He says, that's a lie. We have
Speaker 4: it so we can come back. And so I went
Speaker 4: to him and said, she'll talk to you, but I
Speaker 4: need to be on the phone call. She needs an
Speaker 4: advocate there with her. And we went back and forth
Speaker 4: for probably a year, and he said, no, no, I'm
Speaker 4: not doing that. I said, okay, Well, she's not talking
Speaker 4: to you then, and then he was like, Okay, we
Speaker 4: can do it. He was just really rude. It was
Speaker 4: just a really weird situation. So we've we never ended
Speaker 4: up doing the article.
Speaker 1: So the what is So what was the journalist how
Speaker 1: what inspired him to write the article in the first place?
Speaker 4: Him and the Rock are friends in real life? Uh huh?
Speaker 1: And how did how did the Rock even find out
Speaker 1: about this? It just seems like people scammers are using
Speaker 1: celebrity profiles all the time, right, this isn't uncommon, So
Speaker 1: how did this come to light that A this is
Speaker 1: not an uncommon scamm right, So like, why would you
Speaker 1: even think that she was the scammer? There's well how
Speaker 1: many who said.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she has a very deep Southern accent. And so
Speaker 4: in the article he said she was just a dumb
Speaker 4: Southerner and she was trying to get in with the
Speaker 4: Rock to get his money. I guess he didn't. I
Speaker 4: don't because she started messaging the real Rock on social media.
Speaker 4: This is happening to me. This guy's claiming to be you.
Speaker 4: So then the journalist says, oh, she's just trying to
Speaker 4: scam him out of get in touch with the real
Speaker 4: the Rock and scam him after she.
Speaker 3: Started to when she started to realize this isn't what
Speaker 3: I thought it was, then trying to rectify it, it
Speaker 3: kind of threw up some red flags around her. Something
Speaker 3: that stands out to me about these scams, whether it's
Speaker 3: romance involved or otherwise, is that there are a few
Speaker 3: key believable pieces to it. You know, at face value,
Speaker 3: when you just started saying this girl thought she was
Speaker 3: talking with Dwayne the Rock Johnson, I'm like, oh, brad or,
Speaker 3: who even falls for this? But then you add in
Speaker 3: these extra pieces of being in these circles and having
Speaker 3: wealth and having had met him in the past, and
Speaker 3: you start to realize, oh, okay, so she wasn't just
Speaker 3: some dumb Southerner as the journalist tried to portray her
Speaker 3: to be. There were some believable aspects, And then you
Speaker 3: add in some of these pieces that you couldn't even
Speaker 3: imagine how it came about that the scammer was able
Speaker 3: to guess that this was about to happen. Maybe the
Speaker 3: scammer was actually close to Dwayne and trying to use him.
Speaker 3: That happens too. Like I watch.
Speaker 4: Catfish, Oh I love that.
Speaker 3: Any time I'm anytime I'm in a hotel room, I
Speaker 3: love just bingeing some catfish. And so often it's a
Speaker 3: close friend who wouldn't to a close friend to the
Speaker 3: one that they're trying to use their face to lure
Speaker 3: this other person in. So yeah, there's so many potentials
Speaker 3: with it. But I think highlighting again that there could
Speaker 3: be room for any one of us to fall for
Speaker 3: something like this if given the right set of parameters
Speaker 3: and believable pieces to it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, some of the worst mistakes I've made in my life.
Speaker 4: I've never been involved, I've never been a victim of
Speaker 4: a romance scam, but I've made some really stupid decision
Speaker 4: when it came to love and ment. I mean, I
Speaker 4: look back and think, who was that person? How did
Speaker 4: I make that decision to be with that guy for
Speaker 4: that long? What was I thinking? And why didn't I
Speaker 4: see the red flags earlier? So I don't fault these
Speaker 4: and this this scam particular. I mean, it's bad enough
Speaker 4: that you get romance scam by someone who looks like
Speaker 4: a regular person. It's embarrassing. But Aubrey was so embarrassed
Speaker 4: because she got made fun of. You know, you really
Speaker 4: think that the rock would want to talk to you,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 1: But that's insane that the Rock would reach out because
Speaker 1: obviously the Rock would have had to tell his journalist's
Speaker 1: friend that this is happening. Okay, so I think he
Speaker 1: cared enough to like embarrass this woman.
Speaker 4: I think Aubrey scam was one of the first scams
Speaker 4: that for the most amount of money involving the Rock,
Speaker 4: and so that's probably how he was alerted to it.
Speaker 4: He's done several videos on social media. He's been really kind. Hey, guys,
Speaker 4: there are people using my name and my image and
Speaker 4: you know, I came from nothing. I would never ask
Speaker 4: you for money. Please, please, please do not give someone
Speaker 4: saying that they're me money. And he even went to
Speaker 4: the FBI and started working with the FBI to try
Speaker 4: and bust these scammers, to try and get people to
Speaker 4: stop using his image.
Speaker 1: Wow, so the villain of the story really is the
Speaker 1: journalist and yes, scammer is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, So what if they're one and the same.
Speaker 3: What if the journalists is the skim.
Speaker 1: If I didn't even think about like the scammer. Scammers
Speaker 1: can be close to the people who they're trying to scam, Like,
Speaker 1: it's not like the rock runs around with everybody and like,
Speaker 1: you know, everybody is a celebrity that he runs around with,
Speaker 1: like there are obviously other people to get takes because
Speaker 1: it's right. These scammers we're not. We're obviously not. Everyone
Speaker 1: is innocent, reven guilty, you know, it's just you know, run.
Speaker 1: But like these scammers will put like they will just
Speaker 1: spray and pray essentially, like that's how they get these
Speaker 1: it's the stories we hear. Those are like the the
Speaker 1: very like point zero one percent of who these caammers
Speaker 1: are targeting, and we and then we think like, oh,
Speaker 1: these people are just dumb. No, they're just being close
Speaker 1: enough to the truth for as many people as possible
Speaker 1: until they get one person that it is that it's
Speaker 1: like dinging like winter.
Speaker 4: It's all it takes. Oh, two hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 4: dollars is a lot of money.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for two years. Yeah, oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, so one down.
Speaker 1: We are off. Wow, we're number three. Wow, Okay, let's
Speaker 1: continue with story number two.
Speaker 4: Okay. Story number two happened around the same time this
Speaker 4: woman was taken for a million dollars and.
Speaker 3: Oh no, yeah, shocked faces. Okay, okay, okay, we're here
Speaker 3: for We're here for here.
Speaker 1: In April, this.
Speaker 4: Woman though her resume, you guys, she was actually a
Speaker 4: US spy. She was an Intel.
Speaker 3: We got to release the video on this podcast recording.
Speaker 3: We can't handle this. We're used to talking about money.
Speaker 3: I mean, we are talking about money. We're just talking
Speaker 3: about insane money. We're gonna okay, we're here for it.
Speaker 3: We're for it.
Speaker 1: Done. Okay, Okay.
Speaker 4: So she had recently lost her husband, went online, met
Speaker 4: a man from Britain. He had a British accent because
Speaker 4: she did speak to him. He was in the forestry business,
Speaker 4: and she thought it was interesting because she also had
Speaker 4: some forestry work down in the South America somewhere. He
Speaker 4: was very articulate. This woman was very articulate, and they
Speaker 4: talked for a long time. The first time he asked
Speaker 4: her for money, he said that his friend was trying
Speaker 4: to get online to an online dating site and he
Speaker 4: didn't have the money there it wouldn't go through for
Speaker 4: some reason because of his connection or as something was
Speaker 4: wrong with his card or something. And asked her for
Speaker 4: forty dollars and that was a test, and she gave
Speaker 4: him the forty dollars, So then the money went up
Speaker 4: because he had all this forestry land and he wasn't
Speaker 4: going to get paid until it was all cut and
Speaker 4: sent off. And she said, I realized, you know, she's
Speaker 4: a businesswoman. She actually owns a business now, a vitamin business.
Speaker 4: But she said, oftentimes you don't get paid until you
Speaker 4: deliver the product. So I thought it was real. I
Speaker 4: sent him the money thinking he would pay me back,
Speaker 4: and he ended up being fake. He was from South America.
Speaker 4: Now she realizes that in South America you can have
Speaker 4: a English accent. And he actually came clean when she
Speaker 4: started to figure out things weren't adding up, and he
Speaker 4: video chatted with her. He was a young black man
Speaker 4: and he wanted to keep the scam going, obviously because
Speaker 4: he was making so much money, so he tried to
Speaker 4: keep it. He said he wanted to keep the relationship going,
Speaker 4: and she said, no, I'm not keeping the relationship going.
Speaker 4: And she kept it quiet for a long time because
Speaker 4: that's embarrassing losing that much money.
Speaker 1: Wow, Like, I really like you giving me money, and
Speaker 1: I would love to keep this relationship going. How does
Speaker 1: that sound?
Speaker 3: Well, honestly, when you were starting to say the story
Speaker 3: you know, he's articulate and she's articulate, and they're both
Speaker 3: smart and they enjoy each other. Like, Yeah, why don't
Speaker 3: you just then get together if you just want to
Speaker 3: kind of share money and share ideas. But I guess
Speaker 3: it doesn't work if it's just a one way road,
Speaker 3: if it's just you always only giving.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, Yeah, we've all been there. Okay, was this.
Speaker 1: Guy like, was this guy well educated? Like if he's
Speaker 1: that articut, like, is he just one of those kind
Speaker 1: of guys that's too smart for his own good and
Speaker 1: it's bored by general work.
Speaker 4: Here's the scary part. They're all smart, they're all articulate,
Speaker 4: and they're all well educated. That's why they're so good
Speaker 4: at what they do.
Speaker 3: And they're just kind of using their powers for evil.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's not like the scammers in the
Speaker 4: US who don't have college degrees. I mean, these people
Speaker 4: have gone to school. School is a big deal. So yeah,
Speaker 4: that's why they're so articulate. They know a lot about it,
Speaker 4: a lot of different things. If they would put their
Speaker 4: mind to something legitimate, they could actually make money, not
Speaker 4: as much as they're making scamming people. It's easier.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to know more about this call. Does
Speaker 1: she describe like the call in full, like facetiming her scammer?
Speaker 4: Yeah, she was pretty horrified because the guy that the
Speaker 4: picture he used was very good looking, probably you know,
Speaker 4: fifty year old white man. And then when she saw this,
Speaker 4: you know, probably twenty year old with this really wide smile.
Speaker 4: Here I am and she was like, oh, I mean.
Speaker 3: Not who he portrayed himself to be.
Speaker 1: Not for twenty years old.
Speaker 4: Probably just a kid, Yeah, just a kid.
Speaker 1: And did she say how he wanted the how he
Speaker 1: envisioned the relationship continuing? Yeah, what was what were his
Speaker 1: reasons and rationalizations?
Speaker 4: She Now, she didn't say that originally the plan, the
Speaker 4: plan was that he would move to Houston and they
Speaker 4: would be together. So I don't know if he wanted
Speaker 4: to actually move to a lot of the scammers from
Speaker 4: South America and Nigeria were they try and marry the
Speaker 4: person and move to the States. Now, I don't know
Speaker 4: if he wanted to do that or just continue living
Speaker 4: down there and take our money and be friends. I
Speaker 4: don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, have a sugar mama. Yeah, so this woman was
Speaker 1: did they meet like on a legitimate dating site is
Speaker 1: that where? Okay, so this is you know, a dating
Speaker 1: site where they have like commercials and they're like fine, love.
Speaker 4: And we're we're working. I'm on a scamboard, a national
Speaker 4: scanmboard where we're actually working with the with the dating
Speaker 4: websites to try and get them to crack down on scammers.
Speaker 4: The only one working with us right now is Match,
Speaker 4: which does tender?
Speaker 3: Interesting?
Speaker 1: Okay, so Match and Tender And then what all the
Speaker 1: other ones say, they're just like.
Speaker 4: They're not what there's no incentive for them to create
Speaker 4: a system. I mean they're doing find the way they
Speaker 4: are what they're not getting.
Speaker 3: People are Match.
Speaker 1: Are finding harmony, just not in the way that you
Speaker 1: just might be one sided.
Speaker 3: And then the what what stands out to me in
Speaker 3: this story is just the vulnerability. I think that's what
Speaker 3: makes the romance scams all the more difficult, or layered
Speaker 3: that additional layer of wanting love, wanting partnership, wanting a companion,
Speaker 3: and for this particular person, after being widowed in a
Speaker 3: very vulnerable place, now trying to see can I start over,
Speaker 3: could I find love again? And then to have this
Speaker 3: happen and be swindled from all this money. I'm also
Speaker 3: still real at how much money she had to give.
Speaker 3: I know she still want she's not broke, okay, yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: so it's win win.
Speaker 1: It's truly like a right place, right time too, like anybody,
Speaker 1: no matter how intelligent you are or how much money
Speaker 1: you've been able to amass, like when a scammer seeks
Speaker 1: you out at that right place, right time, which was
Speaker 1: the legitimate dating site in this vulnerable place in her life,
Speaker 1: and also having the business acumen to say things to
Speaker 1: her where she believed enough that this guy knew enough
Speaker 1: about business and specifically a business she was familiar with,
Speaker 1: like new enough to coax that amount, like and a
Speaker 1: million dollars. It had to have been Yeah, sure, forty
Speaker 1: dollars was the first amount, but the subsequent amounts had
Speaker 1: to been like what six figure like sums? Yeah, they
Speaker 1: were like how many? How long was the relationship?
Speaker 4: I think it lasted a couple of years as well.
Speaker 4: And you got to remember this lasted a couple A
Speaker 4: couple of years doesn't sound very long, but you got
Speaker 4: to realize how much the scammers communicate with their victims
Speaker 4: all day, all night. I mean hundreds of messages throughout
Speaker 4: the day. I mean, she says that it's like a high.
Speaker 4: She would they would talk on Yahoo Chat, and she
Speaker 4: said she'd be sitting in her living room and she'd
Speaker 4: hear the computer from across the room and she'd hear
Speaker 4: that ding from that message coming through on Yahoo Chat,
Speaker 4: and she'd get this high, this excitement. Oh we just
Speaker 4: messaged me again. You know, I can't wait this. What's
Speaker 4: you talk about now? I mean, I mean that their
Speaker 4: whole life, that's their whole social life, is talking to
Speaker 4: this scammer for two years.
Speaker 3: It's such an investment on the scammer's part.
Speaker 1: Well, if you're making that much money, we're at your
Speaker 1: full time job.
Speaker 4: Well it's not your relations That's why they have multiple scammers,
Speaker 4: because they want to keep you up all day and
Speaker 4: all night to keep you delirious. So you're not thinking clearly.
Speaker 4: So a lot of times you think you're talking to
Speaker 4: one scammer, but you're talking to multiple They take off
Speaker 4: in shifts.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, Oh I didn't even.
Speaker 1: It's a team.
Speaker 4: Yeah wow?
Speaker 1: What will you dated a team and everybody could give
Speaker 1: you the thing you wanted? Well, you know, you could
Speaker 1: just just get you know, if you didn't like something
Speaker 1: you didn't have to deal with that person, like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're the complain theme of a team boyfriend boyfriend team
Speaker 1: is that I don't want to go down Valentine's Day,
Speaker 1: Happy Gallantine's Day.
Speaker 4: That's too many toilet seats left up for me. Okay,
Speaker 4: I can only deal with one.
Speaker 1: A Yeah, what if they all had their own bathroom?
Speaker 1: They shared one.
Speaker 4: Bathroom and bedroom and everything possibly.
Speaker 3: Moving on.
Speaker 1: That's an Actually that's a TLC show. I think what
Speaker 1: is it where she has multiple husbands?
Speaker 4: Oh? I don't know that one. I know the multiple wives,
Speaker 4: but not the husbands.
Speaker 1: Oh. I'm going to look it up.
Speaker 3: Okay, keep going, Okay, April, Okay, we're right.
Speaker 1: We're wady for it.
Speaker 3: The third and final, which is the first the top okay.
Speaker 1: Number one story. Okay, call me about it.
Speaker 4: This one's not. This one's a little bit more deeper.
Speaker 4: This one's mine. I wasn't scammed, but my mother was.
Speaker 4: In twenty sixteen is when it started. What's so crazy
Speaker 4: about her scam? She was She gave away three hundred
Speaker 4: and fifty thousand dollars. The weirdest part, the most terrifying
Speaker 4: part about her scam is I think it led to
Speaker 4: her death. She remember how I said, the scammers will
Speaker 4: keep you up all day and all night, so you're delirious.
Speaker 4: We hadn't really spoken. We'd been fighting about the scam,
Speaker 4: and finally my aunt went to get her. She lost
Speaker 4: her home, her house, I mean, she lost her house
Speaker 4: or car, everything. Moved in with my aunt because I
Speaker 4: wouldn't let her live with me unless she stopped talking
Speaker 4: to scammers. And so one day we finally went to
Speaker 4: get her to go move her into with my brother,
Speaker 4: and my aunt found her dead on the floor. She
Speaker 4: was delirious and had rolled out of bed and caught
Speaker 4: her head between the bed and the night sand and
Speaker 4: broke it. So she was on her way to me.
Speaker 4: I was going to see her in four hours, and
Speaker 4: I never saw her again.
Speaker 3: Oh April, Oh wow, devastating.
Speaker 4: Yeah that was so when she died.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. So what was that? How did it begin?
Speaker 1: How did it go?
Speaker 4: And yeah, okay, so she again a widow, and she
Speaker 4: told me she was going to get online and start
Speaker 4: dating and I said that's fine, just be careful. So
Speaker 4: she sent me a picture one day like I'm talking
Speaker 4: to this guy named Jared, and I want to meet him,
Speaker 4: and I said, Mom, I think that's a scam. Mom
Speaker 4: was seventy years old. This guy was like forty okay,
Speaker 4: very good looking in forty what you know, it's just
Speaker 4: and she said, I'll just be careful. And I said,
Speaker 4: just don't send money. And she said, I promise I
Speaker 4: won't send money. That's you, you and your brother's money,
Speaker 4: that's your kids's money. When I'm gone, okay, fine. So
Speaker 4: then one day I get a text message I've given
Speaker 4: him two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I'm so ashamed,
Speaker 4: come get me. And I'm like, oh my god. Well
Speaker 4: it turns out it wasn't two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 4: We got her phone after she died, it was three
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Because she became addicted to
Speaker 4: his attention and moved on and talked to other scammers.
Speaker 4: She ended up talking to three. I actually, before her death,
Speaker 4: interviewed her for my podcast, and I had to pay
Speaker 4: her because she was asking me for money. I knew
Speaker 4: she was asking me for money to send to the scammers,
Speaker 4: so I told her, I won't send you money unless
Speaker 4: you give me an interview. So I gave her two
Speaker 4: hundred dollars for the interview, And when I was interviewing her,
Speaker 4: I said, okay, I want you to fess up finally,
Speaker 4: because they the scam victims lie to their family members,
Speaker 4: I said, I want you to tell me how many
Speaker 4: scammers were you talking to? And did you stop when
Speaker 4: you say you stopped? And she said, I was talking
Speaker 4: to three giving money to three.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, because she was lonely and she wanted
Speaker 1: people to talk to me.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 3: Do you think that she believed these were the only
Speaker 3: people who would talk to her, because it sounds like
Speaker 3: she knew these are scammers she did, continuing to maybe.
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, she was battling ovarian cancer at the time,
Speaker 4: so she she wasn't able to get out much. So yeah,
Speaker 4: I do think so they were. And she thought that
Speaker 4: she was a good person, so she deserved someone who
Speaker 4: was wealthy. I haven't told you the crazy story about
Speaker 4: what her scammer told her. Okay, he told her that
Speaker 4: he owned a diamond mine in Turkey and he wasn't
Speaker 4: able to make it home to Christmas to meet her
Speaker 4: because he ran into emeralds, as she believed. I said, Mom,
Speaker 4: there aren't emeralds in a diamond mind. But he had
Speaker 4: her convinced that he was rich and he was going
Speaker 4: to come home and she was going to have I
Speaker 4: remember her going like this, I'm going to have diamonds
Speaker 4: and emeralds.
Speaker 5: And I was like, Oh, there's nothing more addictive than hope.
Speaker 4: Exactly hope.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't hope his hope is good.
Speaker 1: I hope hope can be good, but it can also
Speaker 1: I've placed in the right things, Yeah, is great, but
Speaker 1: right misplaced can be.
Speaker 3: So April. It sounds like you, as family members on
Speaker 3: the outside, could see clearly what's happening trying to talk
Speaker 3: to your mom and lead her towards well being for herself.
Speaker 3: What do you think were her biggest barriers to listening
Speaker 3: to you?
Speaker 4: I think hope. I think she just wanted it to
Speaker 4: be real so bad. I mean, look back on the
Speaker 4: bad relationships we've had. You hope. You're hoping, Oh this
Speaker 4: could be, It'll get better. It'll be true if I
Speaker 4: just hang on. And then once she realized that he
Speaker 4: was a scammer, she told me that she was going
Speaker 4: to get her money back, that's why she was talking
Speaker 4: to him. Well, that doesn't happen. Scammers are never sending
Speaker 4: you money back. Ever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, now that you're sunk so deep into it,
Speaker 3: now you feel like, well, I just have to stay
Speaker 3: in it. Otherwise that means I am relegating myself to
Speaker 3: the entire loss, the loss of the relationship and the
Speaker 3: loss of.
Speaker 4: The money, and it's like a death cost.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And she became a money mule, which a lot of
Speaker 4: them do. She would go from bank to bank and
Speaker 4: they would put money in her bank account and then
Speaker 4: she would send it back out and the banks started
Speaker 4: kicking her out. She was going to six different banks
Speaker 4: and money laundering money for these scammers. And I told her,
Speaker 4: you could go to jail. The federal government is starting
Speaker 4: to send money mulers to jail, not much, but they
Speaker 4: are starting to to help crack down on these scams.
Speaker 4: And I said, do you want to spend the rest
Speaker 4: of your life in a jail cell? And that would
Speaker 4: be crazy?
Speaker 1: Well, this is something that we talked about in our
Speaker 1: Halloween episode on scams, is these money mules. And I
Speaker 1: had not heard about it, but it was like a
Speaker 1: bank teller who cracked, who told this guy that he
Speaker 1: was being scammed. He didn't realize it. But when the
Speaker 1: bank teller figured out what he was doing, she is
Speaker 1: who told him.
Speaker 3: I think that's what makes the romance and love part
Speaker 3: all the more complicated, because I think you hear this
Speaker 3: a lot more often. Once they realize they're being scammed,
Speaker 3: they may not get out of it. And the ones
Speaker 3: that we talked about at Halloween, it's they're thinking that
Speaker 3: they are saving a family member or getting themselves out
Speaker 3: of debt, and then when the light comes in, they're like, oh, Okay,
Speaker 3: what do I got to do to backtrack? But when
Speaker 3: you have this relationship at whether real or perceived or whatever,
Speaker 3: you're intertwined for years talking with this person NonStop. The
Speaker 3: second it's pointed out to you, and whether or not
Speaker 3: you believe you're being scammed, it's harder to remove yourself.
Speaker 3: You're not immediately going to say, well, why don't I
Speaker 3: get out of this? Because you've shared stories with each other,
Speaker 3: you've talked like you're in a relationship.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's that teller telling that victim that you
Speaker 4: were talking about that they were money muling. Normally they
Speaker 4: won't stop. My mom didn't stop. And the banking industry
Speaker 4: can't really share a lot of information with family members.
Speaker 4: They're trying to change that. They're creating new laws and
Speaker 4: stuff so the banking industry can stop because they're losing
Speaker 4: money too. And another thing that a lot of these
Speaker 4: victims don't realize they may be talking to a human
Speaker 4: trafficking victim as their scammer. There's phone banks where people
Speaker 4: are being held hostage to scam other people, and that
Speaker 4: is financing terrorism. I mean, this is scary stuff.
Speaker 3: Wow, whoa I didn't I mean, hearing you say it, it
Speaker 3: makes sense, but I didn't realize all of the tendrils
Speaker 3: and how deep this goes and potentially how many people
Speaker 3: are caught up in it. And I'm so so sad
Speaker 3: to hear of where it then led for your mom,
Speaker 3: for you, for your family, April that you didn't get
Speaker 3: to see her come into freedom. And on the other
Speaker 3: side of that, after her passing, were you able to
Speaker 3: have any sort of retaliation towards her scammers? Were you
Speaker 3: more like, let's move on help closures? Yeah, where were
Speaker 3: you left post twenty twenty?
Speaker 4: Well, they tried to scam me next, Yeah, go oh,
Speaker 4: tell us about that. So because I had Gerald's number
Speaker 4: saved in my phone, so it was only a couple
Speaker 4: days after her death and he sends me a message
Speaker 4: and he said, I've got a video of you with
Speaker 4: another gentleman and I'm going to release it unless you
Speaker 4: send me money, which you know, basically we were doing
Speaker 4: the naughty and I started laughing. I was like, if
Speaker 4: you got a video of me doing something like that,
Speaker 4: let me see it.
Speaker 1: Oh, please share it, it'll help me. I was like,
Speaker 1: my reputation, there.
Speaker 4: Is no such video of me. So he moved on.
Speaker 4: But the thing is, you can't convict that. You can't
Speaker 4: go after these scammers and arrest these scammers because they're
Speaker 4: in another country and it crosses jurisdiction jurisdictional lines. The
Speaker 4: only time really that these scammers can be caught is
Speaker 4: once they've moved to the US or there's a few
Speaker 4: that have been busted because the governments will get together
Speaker 4: and say, Okay, we're going to go do a bust
Speaker 4: on this call center or whatever.
Speaker 3: But yeah, are you learning anything through your own experience,
Speaker 3: through knowledge of all these other scams about how people
Speaker 3: can protect them? And it sounds like once you're in it,
Speaker 3: there's going to have to be a journey to getting
Speaker 3: out of it, but even before you find yourself there,
Speaker 3: like what to be aware of before you step into
Speaker 3: an online relationship? What would you say to people to
Speaker 3: protect their vulnerability?
Speaker 4: Okay, well there are some red flags. Number one, they'll
Speaker 4: ask you for money fairly quickly. Don't ever give anyone
Speaker 4: money online. I mean, I know that sounds obvious, but
Speaker 4: when they have a sob story, you know, tugging at
Speaker 4: your heartstrings. They also profess their love for you fairly quickly.
Speaker 4: Their grammar sometimes is bad because you know they're it's
Speaker 4: a different language. And also, i'd say a fourth one
Speaker 4: is they want to learn everything about you, and you
Speaker 4: think that's flattering. I remember my mom saying, he wants
Speaker 4: to know every single one of my favorite songs, and
Speaker 4: she would come up with these nineteen sixties songs and
Speaker 4: he would act like they were his favorite too. I
Speaker 4: was like, right, he was just trying to c Yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm just trying to learn everything about her so he
Speaker 4: could act. He would act like, you know, like, whatever
Speaker 4: your religious beliefs are, they're going to act like those
Speaker 4: are their religious beliefs too. Whatever your music tastes are,
Speaker 4: that's gonna be their musical tastes. Too. That's just so
Speaker 4: they can learn how to get in good graces with you.
Speaker 4: That's that's not the flattering things I would say those
Speaker 4: four things. Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And when you're dealing with a loved one who you
Speaker 1: believe is in a romance scam, how should we best
Speaker 1: approach that is?
Speaker 3: How?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is.
Speaker 4: The most difficult question throughout this whole thing. Most scam
Speaker 4: victims don't get out. They continue. They become addicted to
Speaker 4: the attention and the companionship. I get so many questions
Speaker 4: on how can I stop my loved one from being scammed?
Speaker 4: There is no answer. Some people have tried an intervention
Speaker 4: that works maybe two percent of the time, but these
Speaker 4: scam victims. I have one lady who's living in a
Speaker 4: trailer because she's lost everything. There's another woman I talk
Speaker 4: to who's a scam victim's daughter. Like me, she's worried
Speaker 4: about They think that her mom is poisoning her dad,
Speaker 4: trying to get rid of the dad to be with
Speaker 4: a scammer. I mean, that's how deep this scam goes.
Speaker 3: Wow, WHOA. So there's obviously more at play here than
Speaker 3: just oh, someone thinks that they're in a relationship. There
Speaker 3: the attachment to it. There's the what they're receiving from it.
Speaker 3: There's whatever it's doing to the neurological pathways and their
Speaker 3: brain and what they're believing that that means about them
Speaker 3: and their experiences. And there's so much intertwined here. It
Speaker 3: almost sounds Jenna and I also like to watch cult documentaries. Oh,
Speaker 3: like someone's experience exiting, you know, and you're exact support
Speaker 3: and knowledge is needed exactly to move through that.
Speaker 4: That's a great comparison. And I've talked to others like
Speaker 4: me who think the same thing. Some people think it's
Speaker 4: like a domestic This is the domestic violence situation of
Speaker 4: the seventies, because these victims will go to the police.
Speaker 4: I had an FBI agent go to my mom, still
Speaker 4: didn't stop her. And once these victims do realize that
Speaker 4: they're being victimized and they go to police, police say,
Speaker 4: that's not a crime. You gave your money away. So
Speaker 4: that's another reason why they're not prosecuted, why they don't
Speaker 4: go after these people even if it's even if they
Speaker 4: are in the US.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's complicated for sure.
Speaker 1: Ah, well, you know it's not complicated.
Speaker 3: Not No, it's vague.
Speaker 1: It's vague, but it's not complex'd not complicated.
Speaker 6: The hell of the week.
Speaker 7: That's right, it's time for the best minute of your
Speaker 7: entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name
Speaker 7: is Williams. Maybe you paid off your mortgage. Maybe your
Speaker 7: car died and you're happy to not have to pay
Speaker 7: that bill anymore.
Speaker 1: Duck bills, butfalo bills. Bill Clinton, this is the bill
Speaker 1: of the week April. Every week we asked our guests
Speaker 1: and our listeners to share with us their favorite bill
Speaker 1: of the week. Maybe it is a bill who is
Speaker 1: a scammer who maybe you know, got what was coming
Speaker 1: to him. Or maybe it's a bill you saved money on.
Speaker 1: We don't care. It's bag but not complicated.
Speaker 4: So my bill of the week would be I recently
Speaker 4: saved money by going to Amazon, which I don't recommend,
Speaker 4: but I did, and I bought exercise equipment, and I
Speaker 4: got read of my gym membership, and I put the
Speaker 4: exercise just some weights, put them in my put them
Speaker 4: in my garage, and I'm not going to the gym anymore.
Speaker 4: Saves me time, saves me money.
Speaker 1: Yes, I wish that I had space to be that person,
Speaker 1: but going to the gym is my escape from my home.
Speaker 4: Oh you like it? I want to love.
Speaker 1: Going to the gym. I love going to the gym. Yes,
Speaker 1: it is an escape for me from my two small
Speaker 1: children's toys and the home renovation. So well.
Speaker 4: A lot of people like running too. You see people
Speaker 4: running and they just look like they're just enjoying it,
Speaker 4: and I'm like, I want to be that person.
Speaker 3: That's her too, that's me too. Yeah, she does, April,
Speaker 3: I'm here with you. We're doing that. She out with
Speaker 3: whatever we can find around the house. Sometimes it's just
Speaker 3: water bottles. Sometimes it's not even something we got off Amazon.
Speaker 3: We're just filling off water bottles and lifting them. That's amazing.
Speaker 3: We've been talking. We talk a lot about looking at
Speaker 3: your subscriptions and are you really using them? Is there
Speaker 3: another way to get what you need without paying for
Speaker 3: those subscriptions if it's something people value. We're here for
Speaker 3: the gym membership. But if you can get the movement
Speaker 3: that your body needs without it, you find it actually
Speaker 3: creates more room for consistency. It's fantastic. I love that bill.
Speaker 3: If you all listening, have a bill about spending money
Speaker 3: to save money or saving money to spend money or
Speaker 3: just say men, or just spending or just being bill
Speaker 3: for old Friends podcast dot Com, slash Bill And now
Speaker 3: it's time for.
Speaker 1: Politely around pew. All right, so let's talk about our
Speaker 1: vulnerability around what type of scam would you most likely
Speaker 1: fall for? Like if the scammer like came to you
Speaker 1: and said this, you would be like, mm hmmm, yep,
Speaker 1: scam me.
Speaker 4: All right, I baked a scammer a cake once.
Speaker 1: What makes found say more? Okay?
Speaker 4: So I was a journalist making little money and at
Speaker 4: the time I was married to a man who was
Speaker 4: a gambling at it and I was desperate for more money.
Speaker 4: So I went on Craigslist and I found a service
Speaker 4: that would find you a better job and double your pay.
Speaker 4: So I went to his office brought baked him a
Speaker 4: cake the night before because I was so excited about
Speaker 4: the prospect of making more money. He felt guilty when
Speaker 4: I gave him the cake.
Speaker 5: I was like, here's a cake, and he was like,
Speaker 5: h I don't know if I could take this, and
Speaker 5: I was like, now I know that he that's why
Speaker 5: because he knew that he was trying to scam me
Speaker 5: out of money and I'm giving him this cake.
Speaker 4: It was rum cake.
Speaker 3: By the way, I love that he feels worse about
Speaker 3: receiving a cake than taking your money.
Speaker 1: Okay, how was he gonna so what was the scam
Speaker 1: going to be?
Speaker 4: Okay? So he said that if I gave him three
Speaker 4: thousand dollars that day that he would find me a
Speaker 4: job that would make me double and pay. But if
Speaker 4: I didn't sign to it that day, and I waited
Speaker 4: until the next day, it went up to four thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: And what do you do with that cake?
Speaker 4: I left it because I went home. I didn't realize
Speaker 4: that it was really a scam until I went home
Speaker 4: and I started thinking about it, and I was like, okay, wait,
Speaker 4: this is this is not right, this is no I
Speaker 4: never gave able to do.
Speaker 1: People do pay for services like headhunting services exactly, and
Speaker 1: they can make it sound like that.
Speaker 3: You pay for career coaches. Yeah, that's the thing. It
Speaker 3: sounds wild, but people will pay for.
Speaker 1: A little bit true. It's just a little tread of normalcy.
Speaker 1: But I think or even a reason. What we talk
Speaker 1: about too before making purchases. We talk about those with
Speaker 1: small burches, but absolutely big purchases too, creating that pause
Speaker 1: not just to pause yourself to say is this what
Speaker 1: I really want? But to also do that run through
Speaker 1: of how do I feel about this? Does this sound accurate?
Speaker 1: Is it possible that this person is for real?
Speaker 3: Is it fake? To give you that time to think
Speaker 3: it through, because as you're describing April, scammers are going
Speaker 3: to feed off of the sense of urgency, creating some
Speaker 3: level of delirium, not giving you that space to think
Speaker 3: and use your brain. So all the more that we
Speaker 3: practice creating our pauses will build up a muscle of
Speaker 3: protection against some of these tactics of scammers.
Speaker 4: Wow, that's wild.
Speaker 3: I bet that cake was good. Hopefully, hopefully that cake
Speaker 3: was the thing that happens like that?
Speaker 4: What was so nice? I can't do this to anyone else.
Speaker 3: I can't do the same.
Speaker 1: You should reach back out, see if you still have
Speaker 1: the email?
Speaker 4: Jen.
Speaker 1: See this is a hard question for me. I I
Speaker 1: don't know. I I am I'm a cynic, and I can't.
Speaker 1: I maybe if it was like a friend, like a
Speaker 1: really old friend reaching back out to join her girl
Speaker 1: Boss team.
Speaker 4: I might.
Speaker 1: Sorry, But like I really love connecting with people and
Speaker 1: I'm so bad at doing it. So if somebody connects
Speaker 1: to me, I like, I'm so excited that sometimes I
Speaker 1: will uh think fast and not slow. So I think
Speaker 1: it would have to be like one of those scammers
Speaker 1: that recreates your friends per file and reaches out to
Speaker 1: you for bitcoin.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like promise of money or better business from someone
Speaker 3: you think you know. Yes, for me, I would one
Speaker 3: fall for a hot dog scam. Like they're promising free
Speaker 3: hot dogs, so I show up hungry and really they're
Speaker 3: just passing out warm puppies.
Speaker 1: I'd be devastating if you showed up to a place
Speaker 1: and they promise hot dogs and there were puppies.
Speaker 3: Like warm puppies hot dogs, that would be right. But like,
Speaker 3: that's the scam. You know, it's not actually hot scam.
Speaker 1: That's a beautiful thing. It would be a scam for
Speaker 1: beautiful thing.
Speaker 3: I'm getting an American delight of cuisine. It's just puppies scammed.
Speaker 3: I'm scammed.
Speaker 1: We're not. I'm not even a pet person, and I
Speaker 1: think seeing puppies is great.
Speaker 4: Oh and the puppy scams are hard. I could I
Speaker 4: could get scammed with a puppy scam easy.
Speaker 1: Oh and those are real. We didn't even go over
Speaker 1: those in our Halloween, like you're you put down a
Speaker 1: deposit for a puppy and you never get the puppy.
Speaker 1: That is a that is a common thing that happened
Speaker 1: a lot during the pandemic whenever you get dogs dogs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that happened a lot. Man Ah wow, Well that's uh.
Speaker 1: You know, everybody is susceptible to scammers. It is literally
Speaker 1: right place, right time.
Speaker 3: All find our area of vulnerability, and if.
Speaker 1: It's not you, it's somebody you love. So everybody is
Speaker 1: susceptible and probably in your time will be impacted.
Speaker 3: Your areas of vulnerability and work to protect it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's I think it's a relief that you don't
Speaker 1: have to be smarter than anybody in order to just
Speaker 1: just take a enough pause to think slowly.
Speaker 3: April, thank you for sharing all of these stories, your
Speaker 3: own story. This has been a fun, little bit of
Speaker 3: a departure from what we normally do. And if people
Speaker 3: like this departure and they want to go down more
Speaker 3: of the rabbit trail with you, where can they find
Speaker 3: more from you?
Speaker 4: Scammerstories podcast dot com, on iTunes or on Spotify, anywhere
Speaker 4: you get your podcasts Awesome.
Speaker 1: Thank you, April, Thank you it's been well, I found
Speaker 1: that show. It is having multiple husbands. It's seeking brother husband.
Speaker 1: So I don't like it. You could have a team
Speaker 1: of brother husbands, Jill.
Speaker 3: Don't like Okay those pairing of words.
Speaker 1: Well, TLC DIDDLC is unhinged.
Speaker 3: I did not realize it until later in adulthood. TLC
Speaker 3: is who raised me.
Speaker 1: On my sad says a lot. I guess all right, yeah,
Speaker 1: but this was a really this was a really good one.
Speaker 1: One thing that we learned after the episode is that
Speaker 1: if for some reason the scammer is in the US,
Speaker 1: one way that you could possibly get them is tax evation.
Speaker 1: So we all know that these like big gangsters from
Speaker 1: the big gangster times whenever that those decades were didn't
Speaker 1: actually get arrested because of any of their murders. They
Speaker 1: got arrested from tax evation. That's how That's how they got.
Speaker 3: After the blue the white collar crime.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because there's actually a reward. The IRS will give
Speaker 1: you a reward, it says uh. At least fifteen percent,
Speaker 1: but not more than thirty percent of the proceeds collected
Speaker 1: attributed to the information submitted by the whistleblowers. So if
Speaker 1: somebody in your life is scammin' or trappin'. Wow, we
Speaker 1: actually learned this from a TikTok from our friend Vivian
Speaker 1: at your rich BFF. And they are no longer in
Speaker 1: your life or you don't want them to be in
Speaker 1: your life anymore. Make sure they truly are evading taxes,
Speaker 1: and if they are, you can report them and you
Speaker 1: will get a reward so you can maybe recoup some
Speaker 1: of your money or some of somebody else's money.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Wow, so that's a little uking.
Speaker 3: Some level of recourse, but really the best recourses getting
Speaker 3: out and finding real belonging and companionship.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think real in life because that way, if
Speaker 1: you do get scammed, you can whistle blow them to
Speaker 1: the irs. I think that is the lesson we've learned here.
Speaker 1: Make real relationships with real in person American scammers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you can whistle well, yeah, I think that's what
Speaker 1: I've learned. And if you can create a team of boyfriends.
Speaker 3: And beware of the internet.
Speaker 1: Yes, thank you, thank you so much for listening. And uh,
Speaker 1: I'm very excited that you guys hang out with us,
Speaker 1: even when we do something that's a little offbeat. Please
Speaker 1: let us know if you like it by leaving a review,
Speaker 1: and please let us know if you don't like it
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Speaker 1: Give these ladies five stars. That's it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so our kind review can also be shortened. Yes,
Speaker 3: and we'll read it and love it. Thanks everyone for listening.
Speaker 4: Again.
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Speaker 1: It all we are up fully closed. Frugal Friends is
Speaker 1: produced by Eric sirianni Okay Jill So. This release is
Speaker 1: on two thirteen, day before Valentine's Day. Uh two days ago.
Speaker 1: Two days preceding this, the super Bowl happened.
Speaker 3: Ooh ooh.
Speaker 1: Yes, and we do know that the forty nine ers
Speaker 1: in the Kansas City Chiefs will be playing the Super Bowl.
Speaker 3: Oh, we do know that, we do know that Hey, yep,
Speaker 3: that's knowledge we both have.
Speaker 1: We both have that knowledge. Now, Previously, I thought I
Speaker 1: was going to have to obligatorily root for Detroit.
Speaker 3: Because thought Detroit was Chicago.
Speaker 1: Correct. No, I didn't think Detroit was Chicago. I just
Speaker 1: thought Detroit and Chicago were the same for one minute
Speaker 1: that I spoke out loud. It's fine, but not regularly
Speaker 1: so as I have already. I have already apologized to
Speaker 1: everybody in both Chicago and Detroit. But thankfully they didn't win,
Speaker 1: so I can forget that all ever happened. But I
Speaker 1: think there's only one correct answer to who everyone in
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl will be rooting for.
Speaker 3: Right, Oh, because who's playing? Oh, Kansas City.
Speaker 1: And the forty nine ers, San Francisco and Kansas City.
Speaker 1: You're tracking, you're tracking, keep going.
Speaker 3: They're not the Bills.
Speaker 1: No, I know it, they're not the Bills.
Speaker 3: Chiefs.
Speaker 1: Uh huh? Who plays for the Chiefs? You don't know?
Speaker 1: Who's dating somebody that plays for the Chiefs?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Taylor Swist Yeah and the Okay, so that's
Speaker 3: what we're doing. Yeah, okay, it has nothing to do
Speaker 3: with Bill.
Speaker 1: I got excited.
Speaker 3: Bill's got to be a part of this not Taylor Swift, because.
Speaker 1: I never talk about Taylor Swift. But ultimately, also I
Speaker 1: just think Kansas City is a better city than San Francisco.
Speaker 1: Like it's just never been. Nobody has ever told me
Speaker 1: they've found human feces on the ground in Kansas City,
Speaker 1: just like on the street.
Speaker 3: That's true. San Francisco. I didn't love it. Never been
Speaker 3: so many people, but maybe I can't agree.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so many people have just told me about the
Speaker 1: human feces on the ground in San Francisco. And so
Speaker 1: I just feel like there's only one right answer, and
Speaker 1: I hope that I hope that they win, and I
Speaker 1: can't wait to see all the memes of Taylor Swift
Speaker 1: if they do it. Another reason I see what happens.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, we're just going to sit back and watch.
Speaker 3: You know, there's a lot of people going to cheer
Speaker 3: for the forty nine ers because they're the underdogs. But
Speaker 3: all this is old news. We're talking about it like
Speaker 3: it's fresh hot takes. But Super Bowls over by the time.
Speaker 1: Right, I just I want to know, Like apparently since
Speaker 1: September she's made like millions of dollars for the Chiefs,
Speaker 1: Like there's been Do.
Speaker 3: You think that's a scam. Oh, I don't think this
Speaker 3: is a scam. You know how people thought that they're
Speaker 3: romance their romance was a scam. I think people are
Speaker 3: still saying that.
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know what, they're both funny? Okay.
Speaker 1: Swift has been worth over three hundred and thirty million
Speaker 1: dollars for the Chiefs. That's how much her relationship with
Speaker 1: the how with the with the man.
Speaker 3: I don't I don't think I understand Travis Kelsey works
Speaker 3: all of a sudden.
Speaker 1: So apparently it's just in kind of like marketing and
Speaker 1: merch sales. But I think most of it is.
Speaker 3: Oh my word, this is okay. This is perfect when
Speaker 3: it comes to romance stuff. This is the title of
Speaker 3: the article, Taylor Swift's romance with tight End Travis Kelcey
Speaker 3: is worth three hundred and thirty one million to kill
Speaker 3: the Kansas City Chiefs and NFL. Could you imagine if
Speaker 3: our romance, if our companionship with someone meant three hundred
Speaker 3: and thirty one million dollars, my romance is worth about
Speaker 3: ten I think dollars. Yeah, I think because of our.
Speaker 1: Love, my romance, my romance with Travis has cost him money.
Speaker 1: It is an expense, not an asset.
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, I don't I don't understand. I don't
Speaker 3: think I get it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, apparently airline marketing teams are capitalizing adding flight numbers
Speaker 1: inspired by their but flight numbers inspired by the pair?
Speaker 3: Is this like modern day arranged merit like reasons? You
Speaker 3: know when kings yeah, married daughters of other nations to
Speaker 3: have alliances? Is that? Is that what's happening? Like we
Speaker 3: need this alliance because of what it means for football
Speaker 3: from the American public.
Speaker 1: This is not a joke. American Airlines the flights from
Speaker 1: Kansas City to Las Vegas, which is where the Super
Speaker 1: Bowls was held. Essentially, the flight there is nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: nine and the flight back is eighty seven, which is
Speaker 1: Travis Kelsey's numbers. The world has lost.
Speaker 3: It it's mind.
Speaker 1: So this is part of the money, right, people pay
Speaker 1: for these big faces, cardboard faces of Travis Kelcey and
Speaker 1: Taylor's with Yeah.
Speaker 3: But how is how's how's the NFL making money.
Speaker 4: Off of that?
Speaker 1: I don't know, but here, here you go, here you go, folks,
Speaker 1: that's how could your romance be worth three hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty million dollars.
Speaker 3: Just to just to Kansas City. Imagine what their romance
Speaker 3: is worth to get airlines to Staples to clear these
Speaker 3: large heads. Yeah, oh my goodness, I don't need to stop this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we need to stop. We'll just do another episode
Speaker 1: on this