Episode 255: How Kindness Works in The Scammer's Playbook

Summary

Podcast Summary: “How Kindness Works in The Scammer's Playbook”

What the Hack? – Episode 255 (June 9, 2026)
Host: Beau Friedlander
Guest: Brian Ward

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the surprisingly human vulnerabilities exploited by scammers, focusing on a personal story: Brian Ward’s elderly father being targeted—and repeatedly scammed—by fraudsters. The conversation unpacks how kindness, trust, and willingness to help are weaponized by scammers, challenging common assumptions that only the “elderly and naive” are at risk. The episode also offers actionable advice to help listeners protect their loved ones.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Myth of Age and Scam Vulnerability

• Intro Story (00:01–00:46): An 85-year-old man buys $3,000 in gift cards at CVS and reads codes over the phone to a scammer.
• Reality vs Perception:
  • Beau Friedlander: “We've all heard that older adults are more likely to get scammed. But … it's a lot more complicated. It's as complicated as human beings.” (00:46)
• Age is not the only or primary factor in vulnerability. Human factors—trust, confusion, desire to help—cut across age groups.

2. Meet Brian and His Father

• Background on Brian: Remote wine appraiser, lives in Redding, Connecticut. (02:21–05:14)
• Brian’s Father:
  • Former corporate attorney, Yale and UVA Law grad, general counsel for Madison Square Garden (including contracts for Patrick Ewing).
  • Technologically inexperienced and highly trusting—especially when someone offers to “help” with something he doesn’t understand.
  • Recently moved to a retirement community after loss of his wife (stepmom to Brian). (10:09–12:23)

3. How the Scams Worked – Three Case Studies

• First Scam: Fake Purchase/Wire Fraud (15:10–18:47)
  • Email says he made a purchase; to reverse, he must call. Scammer walks him through entering “refund details” online—tricks him into entering $42,000 instead of $420, then asks for a wire transfer of the “overpaid” funds.
  • Brian Ward: “My dad typed that in and hit submit... the person on the other end said, ‘Oh, my gosh, you put two extra zeros in there.’” (16:14)
  • Attempt stopped by financial advisor flagging suspicious transaction.
• Second Scam: PayPal Refund/Gift Card Fraud (19:36–24:59)
  • Similar scam using PayPal; the scammer claims to have “refunded too much,” asks for gift cards to cover the difference.
  • Explicitly instructs victim to buy cards from different stores to avoid suspicion.
  • Brian Ward: “He hopped in his car … went to three or four different locations and bought Sephora, Apple … gift cards, and then went and scratched them off and gave the codes…” (21:58)
  • Discovered by Brian’s brother after overhearing phone call.
  • Scammer tries to manipulate, even says, “Who are you going to believe, me or your son?”
• Third Scam: Fake Banker, Big Withdrawal (26:23–30:59)
  • Father is convinced by a “Chase Bank” scammer (actually ‘Clara Harper’) to withdraw $30,000 in cash, claiming it’s for “remodeling.” Instructed to lie to teller.
  • Family and police intervene; scammer brazenly argues with police when confronted.
  • Only the police officer is able to convince the father this is a scam.

4. The Psychological Playbook: Kindness and Manipulation

• How Scammers Exploit Normal Human Behaviors:
  • Trusted authority figures (“bank representatives”) present a problem, then offer a solution.
  • Victims’ willingness to help and their discomfort with unfamiliar technology make them prime targets.
  • Beau Friedlander: “It’s not because you're older, naive, or have some neurological problem. It really is just a question of the way humans work.” (37:23)
  • Scammers hack humanity—good intentions, trust, and a desire to fix problems.

5. Family Response and Protective Strategies

• Immediate Safeguards:
  • Phones set so only known contacts ring through; unknown numbers go silent (with voicemails checked by family if needed). (32:28)
  • Financial management: power of attorney, bank account oversight.
  • Context—loneliness and recent bereavement increased vulnerability.
  • Brian Ward: “...his, my stepmother passed away about a year ago and so ever since then he's been very lonely.” (36:50)
• Recommended Tools:
  • Kip Boga's “Serif Secure” browser extension for scam detection and prevention.
  • Open family communication and involvement as ongoing, crucial protective measure.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Scammers don't hack your weaknesses. They hack your humanity.” (Beau Friedlander, 37:23)
• “Who are you going to believe, me or your son?” (Scammer, as recounted by Brian, 24:45)
• “Your dad got kicked in the ding ding.” (Brian Ward, referencing an Eddie Murphy joke about feeling doubly victimized, 34:06)
• “The only other thing that you can do I think is really keep communication open… it's a separate and different kind of loneliness that makes them susceptible to these scammers.” (Beau Friedlander, 36:03)
• “We're all one phone call away from a scam… Our vulnerability is… safe, like an elephant tooth sitting there, sealed tight in Lucite. But that's not what the research shows.” (Beau Friedlander, 37:23)

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Key Timestamps

• 00:01 – 00:46: Initial story of $3,000 gift card scam
• 10:17 – 11:34: Brian’s father’s background: career, tech inexperience, trust
• 15:10 – 18:47: First scam—purchase email, wire fraud attempt
• 19:36 – 24:59: Second scam—PayPal refund, gift cards, family intervention
• 26:23 – 30:59: Third scam—impersonated banker, cash withdrawal, police involvement
• 32:28 – 34:06: Concrete safeguards put in place
• 36:03 – 37:23: Discussion of loneliness, psychological vulnerabilities, importance of open communication
• 37:23: “Scammers don’t hack your weaknesses…” wrap-up insight

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Actionable Security Advice

• For families with vulnerable members:
  • Restrict incoming calls to known contacts.
  • Assign financial power of attorney, ideally with bank oversight.
  • Encourage open, judgment-free discussion about finances and online behavior.
  • Consider browser security extensions like Serif Secure.
  • Stay vigilant for signs of social isolation—loneliness is exploitable.

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Tone & Style

Conversational, compassionate, and a mix of practical alarm and gallows humor. Both host and guest are empathetic: they challenge stereotypes about who gets scammed, reinforce the complexity of vulnerability, and offer down-to-earth, approachable advice.

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Conclusion:
This episode underscores that anyone—regardless of age, intelligence, or experience—can fall victim to a scam due to the fundamentally social ways scammers manipulate trust and kindness. Listeners come away with both greater understanding and clear steps to shield themselves and those they love.

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Transcript

[Beau Friedlander]

There's a CVS in Bethel, Connecticut, right next to a Chase Bank. And one afternoon last winter, an 85 year old man walked in, went to the CVS and bought about $3,000 worth of gift cards. Sephora, Apple, few others. He walked back to his car. He sat down in the driver's seat and scratched off the numbers on the back of each one and then read them one by one over the phone. Then he drove home. His son was waiting outside his apartment in a planned community with his wife, his brother, and a police officer.

[Brian Ward]

He got a call from Chase bank, and Chase bank said, there are some strange transactions going on in your account.

[Beau Friedlander]

We've all heard that older adults are more likely to get scammed. But here's the thing. When we actually look at the data, it's not that simple. In fact, researchers have found that the thing that makes you vulnerable has a lot less to do with age than any of us might assume. Truth is, it's just. It's a lot more complicated. It's as complicated as human beings.

[Brian Ward]

So, dad, you've 100% been scammed. And he still didn't believe it at this point.

[Beau Friedlander]

Today we're talking to Brian Ward, whose father got scammed three times and why none of us are immune from sitting in that CVS parking lot and scratching off numbers and reading them to somebody who told us to do that. I'm Beau Friedlander, and this is what the Hack, the podcast that asks, in a world where your data is everywhere, how do you stay safe online? Brian Ward, thank you so much for joining us today on what the Hack.

[Brian Ward]

Thanks, Beau. Happy to be here.

[Beau Friedlander]

All right, well, so listen, I hear that I. Well, I hear tell that you have a story, and it's a story that we. We've heard a few times. And it never ceases to amaze me how stubborn people can be about their scammers. Now, but before we go there, Brian, I want to just, you know, give our listeners a chance to get to know you. Where are you coming to us from?

[Brian Ward]

Right now, I am in Reading, Connecticut.

[Beau Friedlander]

Oh, my goodness, you sound like you're from the South. Am I right?

[Brian Ward]

Yeah, that's right.

[Beau Friedlander]

No, you don't sound like you're from that far south. You sound. You sound Mid Atlantic to me.

[Brian Ward]

But, yeah, I actually lived up here until I was four, and then a divorce occurred and I went down with my mother and my brother to Virginia. So I spent, you know, the majority of my life in Virginia. But my dad, he's a Yank. And then so he Was born up here, lived in upstate New York. His father, actually, not to go too far off, we were just talking about with him the other day, was an animal trader who would import animals. And they had zebras, chimpanzees, baboons, a baby elephant on their property that would often get loose and go into town. So, you know, it was. He had quite a. Quite a colorful childhood in that way. Then he went to Yale and then he went to UVA law. So there is a Virginia connection there. Right. And because that's where he met my mother, who grew up in Virginia. So that's kind of the connection of how we. I ended up in the south having

[Beau Friedlander]

a really fun time imagining growing up in a place with zebras and baboons that got loose.

[Brian Ward]

Yes, they got loose. And especially the baboons, they would go and throw things at people on the. In the town. And so it was. It was quite. It was quite a scene. I wish I was there.

[Beau Friedlander]

Me too. And so. And so is that, Is that a big part of his. His personality? I mean, does he. Does that. Is that a story that comes up a lot when he's talking to people?

[Brian Ward]

He likes to talk about it. I think it makes him happy, you know, especially as he's getting older and remembering these things, things from his childhood. I think those are some of his best memories. And they're quite honestly, some of the coolest memories. Like my grandfather, he lost his part of his ear, sadly, to melanoma, but he told us the longest time that it was bitten off by a chimpanzee. So he had this prosthetic ear. And when I found out as an adult that it wasn't a chimpanzee, it was one of the more devastating things that's ever happened to me. So it was very colorful. My dad wasn't. But my grandparents and my dad's brothers were the colorful, loud, obnoxious people. My dad is a super quiet, reserved, one of the group, so. But yeah, that. Those are some of his best memories. And he has a little baby elephant tooth in Lucite sitting on his desk from that elephant, you know, 70 years ago.

[Beau Friedlander]

Now, what do you do in reading?

[Brian Ward]

So I work for a wine company. My job remote, which is nice. So my job is basically to find clients that have wine collections and help them auction them or sell them.

[Beau Friedlander]

So is that. I don't really understand what that means. I mean, we have a few bottles of wine in our house. Would you come and get them and sell them?

[Brian Ward]

Sure. Depending on what they are. It's a bottle of wine.

[Beau Friedlander]

They're like 20, maybe 15 bucks, something like that.

[Brian Ward]

It might fall right below. Might fall right below. But basically what it means is, you know, a client. And this is very common. So say you go on a trip to Napa Valley or Italy or whatever, and you have the most amazing wine in your life, and you go, oh, my God, I gotta have some more of this. And you get on that list, and then you get on another list, and after 15 years, you find yourself with, you know, 1200 bottles because you keep every year getting a case from a wine club.

[Beau Friedlander]

Wait, so you go to these places? You're already way ahead of me. So they're. Wait a second. First of all, common people go to Italy to just visit winemakers.

[Brian Ward]

Yeah. Italy is one of the greatest winemaking regions in the world. It, you know, has the most wine varietals in the world. Matter of fact, I know.

[Beau Friedlander]

I know of one. Wait. And I know of one. One is gross. It's. Do you know which one I'm talking about? There's one where they do something and it just sits around and rots for a while. And that's supposed to be very good.

[Bill Kerr]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Beau Friedlander]

So.

[Brian Ward]

So that's. That's the Amarone. So that's the. So basically the idea is that it's, you know, the grapes are just left in the sun and it desiccates them. So it really concentrates the flavor of that grape. So it's the Amarone Valpolicella is the wine. And it's amazing. Like, you drink that sucker and it, you know, it'll get your nose hairs going because it's super powerful wine, but it's really great wine.

[Beau Friedlander]

And when you say super powerful, do you mean it gets you drunk or it just gets your. If you're a wine person, it makes you go giddy kind of a little bit.

[Brian Ward]

Both. So it can. It can load you up pretty good. It's got high alcohol content. So, you know, like, a typical bottle of wine is going to have 12 to 14%. Some of these Amarones have 17, 18%, just because they're so concentrated. And what I also say it's going to get you going is just because it's so concentrated, there's so much flavor that it's just, you know, like a nice little kick in the head, but in a good way.

[Beau Friedlander]

So, okay, I don't drink. So for me, I'm like, okay, this is all very foreign to me. Literally, it's in Italy. And then desiccated grapes.

[Brian Ward]

And then it sounds delicious, doesn't it?

[Beau Friedlander]

Yeah, it sounds fine. So now folks go and they buy these. They go to these places and they just sign up and then. And I'm just curious. I want to understand the money part. Is there, like, a case of wine from one of these places with desiccated grapes that become powerful? What does that case cost, generally speaking?

[Brian Ward]

I mean, it depends, Right? So that. That's a wide range. So, like, a nice bottle of amarone will be 100 bucks, you know, but. Yeah, so you're looking at 1200 bucks a case. But then you go, and then what? This is what happens. Right. So some people just do that and they enjoy drinking and they don't get that many bottles. But a lot of my clients get obsessed, and then they start looking, you know, to the next level, and that's when they start getting into Bordeaux with the first gross. Those are kind of like the top wines. Those are 5, 6, $700 per bottle. And then they go to the next level to Burgundy, where there's a wine called Domain Romanee Conti, which even new vintages, because it's so rare and so well esteemed that new. New bottles can sell for $20,000 per bottle. Not per. Yeah. So it's insane. So that's. That's. I don't see a lot of that. But that's when the clients. And then, you know, they get divorced and they have to pay for that divorce, or, you know, they get in some debt. And that's where I find a lot of clients that need to sell their wine or they just have too much, and they're 65 years old, and they do the math and they realize that they're not going to drink through it all.

[Beau Friedlander]

So there's bottles of wine out there that are worth as much as Nick's tickets at the Garden during the playoffs, during the finals.

[Brian Ward]

I'm not sure. Yeah, yeah, you could probably train, trade a bottle of DRC for, you know, maybe nosebleeds for this series.

[Beau Friedlander]

So. All right, I have the picture. Wine, Italy, desiccated grapes, $20,000 bottles, divorces. People should be nicer to each other, even when they're mad. Brian Ward, Reading, Connecticut. There you are. You're helping people sort it all out. Now, you told me before we started recording that you had a story, and I have a feeling it has nothing to do with mine.

[Brian Ward]

My dad, he's 85. He was a corporate attorney for a large multinational firm where he was general counsel, went to Yale, you know, really proud Kind of super smart guy, but you know, he's, he's getting older and

[Beau Friedlander]

so he's retired now.

[Brian Ward]

Your dad retired. He's retired. He's been retired for God, I want to say 25, 30 years almost. He retired pretty young.

[Beau Friedlander]

Okay.

[Brian Ward]

During a merger of companies that he was able to get the old, old fashioned golden parachute on the way out. And so he became, he started becoming very trusting and technology was really not his thing. So when someone would tell him that there's a problem with his account or you know, you over, you bought something by accident or, and they showed him the proof of it, he would tend to believe it and do whatever he thought was required to fix it. He's 85 now and technology is a pretty new concept to him. And so he used to be, you know, the big time corporate lawyer going through contracts. Speaking of the Knicks, he actually did a lot of the contracts for like Patrick Ewing. He was the head, head lawyer for Madison Square Garden back.

[Beau Friedlander]

Any chance he could get Pat on the phone right now?

[Brian Ward]

He's no longer involved. I tried, I tried with Rangers, I've tried with everything.

[Beau Friedlander]

But no, he's so, so he's, he's no stranger. So he's no stranger to that sort of thing, but he's all. But he is a stranger to the digital world, as. Did he have, did he have a secretary helping him for most of his. Or an assistant helping him? So he didn't type his own stuff? He did, he had. Okay, so he's, he's, he's not used to digital assistance. He's used to human assistance.

[Brian Ward]

Human assistance, right. So it made him uncomfortable. So when he got someone on the phone that was calling him telling him there was a problem. Yeah, you would tend to believe that and ask that, Albert.

[Beau Friedlander]

No, I understand. So, so Your dad is 85 years old. He's retired. Is, is he, does he live alone?

[Brian Ward]

Yeah, so he actually. So here in Reading, there's a great retirement community that we recently moved him into back in I guess November of last year. So he's there. It's a, it's not assisted facility yet. You know, he's kind of living alone, but he's always watched, he's always protected. I could actually walk to him through the woods, you know, like a five minute walk. So really? Yeah, he's, he does live alone, but he's not alone in any way, shape or form.

[Beau Friedlander]

So he's, he lives alone in an apartment in a community. Yes, I gotcha. Yeah.

[Brian Ward]

Yes.

[Beau Friedlander]

And, and you said that he's he's trusting? Is that what you said? Did I hear you say that he's very trusting?

[Brian Ward]

He is trusting of people that tell him they can help him with things that he's not familiar with, if that makes sense.

[Beau Friedlander]

It does make sense. Especially a person who's not used to doing things for himself. Especially if they're tedious.

[Brian Ward]

Right? Exactly. Exactly. And if it's something he doesn't understand, and they say, hey, you have a problem here, but I can help you solve that problem. But I need you to do this. That's where he becomes overly trusting.

[Beau Friedlander]

Now, let me ask you this. Is your father identifiable as a resident of the community where he now lives? If someone were to go online and Google him, would they. Would that pop up?

[Brian Ward]

God, that's a good question. Because he hasn't been involved in. I mean, like, he's been on boards and, you know, but maybe.

[Beau Friedlander]

Probably. So let's try it now. What's your dad's name? All right. And let's see. Well, well, well, well, well, well, well,

[Brian Ward]

well, well, well, well, well.

[Beau Friedlander]

That's a lot of wells. Because.

[Brian Ward]

Dun, dun, dun.

[Beau Friedlander]

Anyone Googling him is going to see that he's got ducats he can afford. Yes. Or that you appraise. And that is probably enough. And what's troubling about it is that it was that easy for me to find his name, find out how old he is, which means that he's probably going to be pretty susceptible to any number of ruses. And I found his address, and then I looked it up on Zillow, and he did okay for himself, you know, not bad. Pretty big house for one guy. And. And so. So, so this. So a scammer is going to reach out with any number of approaches. Let me guess at the one, because. I don't know.

[Brian Ward]

There were two. There were two separate ones.

[Beau Friedlander]

All right, I want to guess, though. I want to guess. Yeah, yeah. So let's just play the game. Was it. Does he have a computer?

[Brian Ward]

Yes.

[Beau Friedlander]

And was one of them related to his computer?

[Brian Ward]

Not, like, from a service standpoint.

[Beau Friedlander]

Okay, I lose. That's. That's a. What was the first one, Brian?

[Brian Ward]

The first one was someone found out where he purchases things, and he got an email that said your purchase of X from, like, I don't know, some bath store has. Has gone through. It's getting ready to ship. If this is an incorrect error, please order, please give us a call.

[Beau Friedlander]

And it was like, it was a place, and it was a place where he has bought things.

[Brian Ward]

Yes, yes.

[Beau Friedlander]

Okay.

[Brian Ward]

And so he said, oh, well, I didn't buy that. So he called the number.

[Beau Friedlander]

Huh.

[Brian Ward]

And this person said, oh, okay, no problem. We can help you with that. We'll refund you, but I need you to log in to this website to do so. And so now they saw the same thing on the screen and they asked my dad to put in, okay, I need you. I need you to type in the exact amount. So say it was $420. So my dad typed that in and hit submit. And the person on the other end said, oh, my Gosh, you put two extra zeros in there. You just typed in $42,000. Oh, no. So what I need you to do, I need you to wire me the difference of that $41,000 and, you know, $790 or whatever it is. And that's the only way they can resolve this.

[Beau Friedlander]

How was it? How much was the overage?

[Brian Ward]

In this case, it was $41,000 roughly. Okay, so he typed in two extra zeros.

[Beau Friedlander]

A mere pittance. Okay.

[Brian Ward]

A drop in the bucket. Yeah. So he actually, you know what? There were three times. This was the first time. I'm sorry. So he actually attempted to make that wire, but luckily his financial advisor saw that and flagged it and canceled it.

[Beau Friedlander]

Perfect.

[Bill Kerr]

Perfect.

[Beau Friedlander]

So that's. And that is the way it should go. Do you remember where he was shopping?

[Brian Ward]

No, but it was a bath type product like that. It was a small, kind of little place like Johnny's Bath Shop or something like that for some products for my brother.

[Beau Friedlander]

Yeah, well, that actually makes perfect sense. Now, you know, the way that scammers will typically find this kind of information out and it's really useful, as you just found out, are data breaches. And data breaches for small companies, you know, not big ones, way more common than the big ones. And they don't report them. They should. They kind of have to in a lot of states, but they don't. And. And now when that gets hacked, the real. The retailer's database gets hacked, maybe purchase history, loyalty, account details, if there's anything like that, but just who bought what. And so that is most likely what happened there. And it is why it's typical for me. And so it's super typical for older adults. Well, I am an older adult, but an older. Older adult.

[Brian Ward]

Older adult.

[Beau Friedlander]

But this is, you know, the older, older or older older, Older adult is really not going to say, I don't want to give you that data or how are you storing this or any. How do you protect my data? None of that. So it's really a typical way of people getting got. It's. It's sadly not that avoidable. You know, if you're a person who doesn't remember that you haven't bought anything there in a while, or, you know, you, you are trusting enough to believe that you actually did type in an extra two zeros when you didn't. Yes, yes.

[Brian Ward]

And that one, you're right that when he, when that one happened, you know, we said, the family said, okay, you know, hey, I get that one. The next two were the ones that really made us start scratching our heads. My dad, what he was thinking. So.

[Beau Friedlander]

Okay, fair enough.

[Brian Ward]

It gets really confusing.

[Beau Friedlander]

Okay, so there was this thing with probably a hacked store where your dad bought stuff and his information got, got stolen and somebody added some zeros and scammed him and whatever, and then the financial advisor caught it and then, then the wire never went through, so it didn't matter. And for a while that felt like the end of the story, but it wasn't.

[Brian Ward]

So this the second time. This is more recent, similar setup. Oh, this is PayPal. So this one was a little bit more, you know, large type company and you've made a purchase and No, I didn't make that purchase. Very similar setup, but the, the payoff, as it were, was quite different. So similar where he typed in again, I think he'd forgotten the first time. This one was a smaller number. Instead of forty thousand dollars, it was maybe three thousand dollars like a thirty dollar purchase. He. Oh, you typed in, I think you meant to type in, you know, 30.00, but you typed in 3,000. Oh, no. Or maybe it was actually, you know what, I'm sorry, let me take that back one second. It was the person on the other end that accidentally typed in 3,000. So they said, oh my gosh, I just refunded you $3,000 by mistake. I'm gonna lose my job. Is there any way that you can help me out?

[Beau Friedlander]

Oh, classic.

[Brian Ward]

I'm happy to help you. What, what can I do? Well, I need to refund that money, but I can't do it with cash. So what I need are gift cards. If you can get me gift cards, then, and give me those numbers, then I'm able to make this go away on my end and you got your $30 refund and we're all square.

[Beau Friedlander]

So, I mean, obviously it's this common scam, but the, the, the. Just so I understand what happened, he was told by the person who said they were from PayPal that they entered the number in wrong. Instead of $30, they entered $3,000. And because of the way that they did it, they could not fix the problem with cash.

[Brian Ward]

Right, right.

[Beau Friedlander]

They had to fix it with gift cards, which I guess would make no sense to anyone. But if you're a person for whom many things make no sense because it's a new, brave new digital world. Yeah, that might work. Oh, boy. So now is this when your father is living in this community?

[Brian Ward]

Not yet. Not yet.

[Beau Friedlander]

Okay. So he's still in, he's still in the other town. And, and he is living alone in that house, which is identifiable as like a pretty decent house. And this person, does he drive or does he not drive?

[Brian Ward]

He drives. He drives. So that's what he hopped in his car and he drove to. And the person instructed him, don't buy them all at one location, you know, because it might, they might ask questions. And we just want to make this nice and clean because apparently, which I'm sure, you know, CVS and places like that have been, you know, taught. If an elderly person comes in by gift cards, it's probably a scam. So he went to three or four different locations and bought Sephora, Apple, what have you, different gift cards, and then went and scratched them off and gave the codes to this, this individual and then they were gone. So there was no tracing. They were gone.

[Beau Friedlander]

And they literally said, do not go to the same store. Go to different stores and buy different kinds. It doesn't matter what kind of gift card you buy does.

[Brian Ward]

I think they instructed them. I think there's a pattern because in scan 3, the pattern similar of the type for some reason Sephora is a very popular one. I don't know if it was just coincidence.

[Beau Friedlander]

Apple, well, it's product, it's products that people buy that are, that are easy to turn. I bet now this happened, he's living alone and he went ahead and did that. How do you. Did you know that he did this or did you? I didn't initially. Did he tell you?

[Brian Ward]

No. So this actually happened over a two day period.

[Beau Friedlander]

Okay.

[Brian Ward]

Or possibly three. So they made this call initially, they told him what he needed to do. The next day he went out and bought these cards. And my. I have three other brothers and one of them happened to be there who's a little bit mentally challenged. But to his credit, he heard my dad talking to this individual on the phone who was telling him that that wasn't enough, he needed to go get more cards. And my brother heard him talking and Thought something's not right here because it was very heated discussion. So he called one of my other brothers, and that's when we were alerted to what was going on. And this is the part that's hard for us because my father didn't believe us that this was a scam, that, you know, this idea of giving gift cards to a complete stranger was. Was not a normal thing to do.

[Beau Friedlander]

So your dad didn't believe you, so who broke the news to him that you thought it? I mean, who said dad? Who was that? Was that you?

[Brian Ward]

My. That was. That was not me because I wasn't aware of it. My. My other younger brother was the one that said dad. And he got on the phone with this individual, and this individual is so brazen that he was trying to convince my brother that, yes, this in fact, is normal. Please put me back on the phone with. I can only talk to him about this. And then he heard this individual telling my dad, who are you going to believe, me or your son? And that's luckily when my dad snapped out of it and hung up on the guy and realized that, wait a

[Beau Friedlander]

minute, this is a scam because. Well, also, probably because he respects his son and he was like, dare you talk about my child that way? And also, you don't say that to a former general counsel attorney who went to Yale without actually incurring the wrath of God. I mean, there's a certain point where that person just has enough pride to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, excuse me. Think you're talking to.

[Brian Ward]

Yeah. And thankfully, because this individual, which we saw patterned in the next one, was going to just keep going.

[Beau Friedlander]

Okay, last story. Your dad has been scammed out of three grand. That's gone. He is still mobile. He is still scammable.

[Brian Ward]

Scammable. Scammable.

[Beau Friedlander]

That surprises me because he saw it. He saw he was being scammed.

[Brian Ward]

He saw he was being scammed, but he still wasn't convinced. And that's what kind of got reflected in this third time. And also, he. He's definitely. His memory is going. You know, he's starting to have some cognitive issues, clearly, which we're working, we're dealing with.

[Beau Friedlander]

Sure, sure. Actually, very complicating factor for sure.

[Brian Ward]

That's what happened on this third go around. This was the. The scariest of all three. You know, he. So he's in the. The facility at this point. We haven't comfortably moved in. He has the same number he's always had. So he didn't change that. He got a call from Chase Bank Chase bank said there are some strange transactions going on in your account. This is how I got alerted. I got a call from the Chase bank up the road, and they said, your father is in here. He's very confused. And it was a call from my dad's phone. And when I answered and said, oh, hey, dad, what's up? He goes, just go along with the contractor story. What? And then the bank teller gets on and says, your father's in here. He's telling me he needs $30,000 for remodeling in cash. He needs cash. It can only be cash. But he can't tell me, you know, who it's for, what it actually is for. And he seems very confused. So I got back on the phone with my dad, trying to find out what's going on, calm him down, because he's getting quite irritated at this point. And the teller says, I'm sorry, I can't. And I said, okay, dad, let's. I'm going to meet you back at your place. Let's. Let's get together and we've talked about this and figure this out. He says, okay, hangs. He goes, okay, fine, fine. I'll meet you back. I couldn't get in touch with him. I call and calling, calling. He accidentally answers. I think he meant to hit, you know, hang up. And I hear him talking to someone about Sephora gift cards. Did that one go through? Yes, that one went through. Okay, great. So I figure out right away there's a CVS right next to the Chase Bank. So I call the cvs and they say, oh, yes, he was in here, but he just left. And he. He bought about. And this is where the, you know, the CVS idea broke down a little bit. He bought about $3,000 worth of gift cards. So we called the police at that

[Beau Friedlander]

point, and CVS did not stop him from doing.

[Brian Ward]

They did not stop him. No, they did not stop him in this case.

[Beau Friedlander]

Interesting.

[Brian Ward]

Okay, so we call the. Yeah, we call the police, and they meet us at the facility. And I'm calling him, calling him, calling him, calling him, and I can't get in touch with him. So we're outside his apartment door. Finally he answers. And he says, oh, yeah, I'm almost home. And, you know, I'm telling him what's. Trying to tell him what's going on. The line goes dead. Oh, boy. And so he finally pulls in, but he had been apparently sitting in his car scratching off the numbers to give to this person. So that's another 3 or $4,000. We're not 100% sure how much because he was able to get cash from the atm, apparently. And when I see him, he knows something's wrong. He knows because I said, dad, we're all here. Myself, my wife, my brother, and a police officer, he says, oh, boy. I said, dad, you've been scammed. He goes, I don't think so. So, dad, you've 100% been scammed. And he still didn't believe it at this point. So what did sink in was that the police officer explained to him exactly what happened. My dad showed him the phone number that called. He said, look, this is a, like some random number that has no association with Chase. The woman called back.

[Beau Friedlander]

It was a woman this time.

[Brian Ward]

A woman this time. Clara Harper, I think was her name.

[Beau Friedlander]

Okay?

[Brian Ward]

She called back. The police officer answers the phone. She is so brazen that she is arguing with the police officer that this is Chase bank she can only talk with and that she would like his name and badge number. And so the police officer, you can imagine, got. Got rather upset and said they were going to do a warrant on her number and that, but they clearly know that they're not going to get caught. So that's what happened and hung up. And, you know, we put some things in place on my dad's phone and, you know, some other financial things. But he did not believe that this was a scam until the police officer showed him. So. And, and one final thing that really blew our mind is he was in Chase bank talking to what he thought was Chase bank, who was telling him to lie to the teller that it was for a remodeling. So he was lying to Chase bank while trying to deal with the Chase bank matter.

[Beau Friedlander]

And that was Clara Harper on the phone or whoever.

[Brian Ward]

Clara Harper, who was. It was clearly a call center overseas.

[Beau Friedlander]

Yeah, it was a call center almost certainly in Southeast Asia.

[Brian Ward]

Could have been, could have been.

[Beau Friedlander]

And the level of aggression is matched. And this is the part that people don't understand is there's two victims in this kind of crime. Because if this was a call from a southeast scam compound, Clara Harper, which is a kind of name you might find in a colonial African country, imagination about a good English name, you know, is almost certainly being tortured and is almost certainly there against their will.

[Brian Ward]

And as we did wonder that and felt somewhat bad about that.

[Beau Friedlander]

Well, but, you know, but, you know, as the saying goes, hurt people, hurt people. And there, there's, there's a. It's just there's in that moment where the crime is being committed. Yes, it's fine. If you have the capacity to have compassion for the person committing the crime, great. More power to you. But you must stop the crime. Yes. You must stay, you must say no. And one can politely hang up and say no. But, but, you know, may I ask, what did you put in place on your father's phone? Because I was going to get into like what, what, what some. Yeah, what some measures our people can take who have similar problems. Because what happens in this, in this, in this situation is often that the scammed identify more with the scammer than they do their own family.

[Brian Ward]

Yeah, yeah. And she was so convincing to him that he was convinced that gift cards were going to solve this problem and that it was a purely perfectly acceptable thing. So what we put in place and we'll see how successful this is because this has only been a couple of weeks on his phone we have where it only rings through contacts that he has in his phone. So if it's a non known number that he's never talked to or received a call from or made a contact, it goes silent and they can leave a voicemail and then we can kind of work with him to see if there's anything he missed. So for his phone, that's what we put in place. You know, we've also, you know, luckily he has a financial manager and those sorts of things where we can move his bank account to the them and, and we have power of attorney as myself and my brothers to be able to help him kind of manage his affairs so he doesn't have to deal with things like this. And, and I have kind of overriding power of attorney where if there's anything like that, any strange activity in his bank account, I can stop it. So those are a few of the things that we put in place so far. But I tell you what, Bo, I don't know if you've ever seen Eddie Murphy raw. There was a, there was a great line that I feel, my dad really felt. And it flashes back to when he's a little kid and he's telling a story to his family. And one of the funniest things, I don't know why I find it so funny, but then he says, and then he kicked him in the ding ding. And that is what happened to my poor dad.

[Beau Friedlander]

Your dad got kicked in the ding ding ding. Now, now, you know, there's another tool that you might want to consider using, which is something that a scam baiter. There's people out there whose bait scammers they go after them. They do. They, you know, they, okay, here's a scammer and they think it's called Serif Secure and it's an anti scam software developed by, by Kip Boga, who's one of them. And it's a browser extension that just allows you to, you can control whether, if your dad gets one of those calls and they say you have a virus, we can get it off your computer. Click this link, right? It's really a valuable tool if you have somebody who is vulnerable to scams and online because what is going to happen? Eventually he's going to click a link that sets off five alarms and then someone is, and there's going to be a phone number and he's going to call that number and they're going to offer him a remote access tool.

[Brian Ward]

Yes, yes.

[Beau Friedlander]

And then once they're in his computer, most likely he doesn't have the best cybersecurity protocols in place. His passwords are going to be somewhere easy to find. Then you got a real problem. Now, are they going to be able to wire themselves a large amount of money? Absolutely not, because banks are hip to that particular trick, but they'll be able to do some damage. I definitely want to recommend discussing adding that Serif Secure extension on his.

[Brian Ward]

He would do that because he's. Yeah, he sits there especially on his iPad, in his chair. He's on his iPad, you know, a ton.

[Beau Friedlander]

Well, I would just make sure that, you know, whatever tools you can put in place to kind of get, get him safe from the obvious ones where people are trying to get into his device or trying to get into his head. They're both, they're both a problem. You know, that's something you can do and there's not, there's, there's not. The only other thing that you can do I think is really keep, keep communication open because a lot of the time older adults, especially ones who live alone, will have all the support in the world from their family. But it's a separate, separate and different kind of loneliness that makes them susceptible to these scammers.

[Brian Ward]

Yeah, yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And I feel that because his, my stepmother passed away about a year ago and so ever since then he's been very lonely. And you know, we talked to him about making friends at this facility and he's like, I'm fine, you know, and he just says hi. He doesn't want to get involved yet. So I think you're, you're absolutely right. That could be a Big part of it, yeah.

[Beau Friedlander]

I mean, just that, you know, it's okay to talk about what's going on. Like, oh, you wouldn't believe it. I sent. I. I've typed in a number wrong, and now I gotta go get a bunch of gift cards like, yeah. Or, you know, Clara Harper needs 30 grand.

[Brian Ward]

She needs cash.

[Beau Friedlander]

I'm so. I'm so. Let me tell you. How dumb are you, Dad? I am so dumb. You know, and. And. But it's a problem when people aren't. Don't have a sense of humor about it and don't have a sense of, like, you know, no wrong. The no wrong answers version of going through life. Yeah. Yeah. We're all one phone call away from a scam. We tell ourselves that we. We've learned something. We know. We know all the signs. We wouldn't fall for this. Our. Our vulnerability is, you know, safe, like an elephant tooth sitting there, sealed tight in Lucite. But that's not what the research shows. There's a specific moment in a scam, the moment when someone says, I can help you fix this, where the brain's threat, you know, detector just turns into a sponge for attention. You know, it's like. Doesn't like the cortisol it wants to swap for oxytocin. And that's not because you're older, naive, or you have some sort of neurological problem. It really is just a question of the way humans work. We would prefer to be more open, more cooperative, more trusting. Like, it just feels better. And that's, you know, reciprocity. Right? So it's not. It's not a big weird thing that's happening. It's a feature of our operating system. I hate to say that, because we don't have operating systems, but you know what I mean, it's. It's. It's. It's what makes us awesome, and it's what makes scams suck. Because scammers don't hack your weaknesses. They hack your humanity. So at the end, you know, the. The baboons, I mean, whatever. Or zebras or whatever you want to say. You know, the. I hate to say animals, actually, because animals are usually a lot cooler than humans. The threat actors are out there, and they're always out there, and they know how to talk to you. They know how to soothe you better than you do. That's their job. But now your job is to know they're doing that and be more careful. Thank you so much, Brian Ward, for joining us this week. Thanks for your story.

[Brian Ward]

Thanks, Bo.

[Beau Friedlander]

And now it's time for a tinfoil swan. If you want to protect an older adult in your life, I do think that you want to put controls on their phone and that is one way. So make sure that their phone won't ring if the number that's calling them isn't already in their contacts. That's one thing you can do. And another thing you can do is look into Kitboga's extension extension serif secure and and and consider putting it into, you know, into the rotation on on the browser that your your older adult uses so that they are not susceptible to a scammer getting into their computer in real time and and mucking about. Okay, that's that for this week and I want you to stay safe and I want you to come back rate and review. As always, it does help people find the show. Thanks for listening. This episode of what the Hack was produced by me and Andrew Stephen, who also did the editing. What the Hack is a production of Delete Me, which was picked by the New York Times Wirecutter as the number one personal information removal service. You should be using it already. If you're not and you want to, well, you can. Here's what to do. Go to joindeleteme.com/wth, that's joindeleteme.comwth and get 20% off. I kid you not. 20%. 20% off. That's joindeleteme. Comwth now stay safe out there. See you around.

[Bill Kerr]

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