Adam Levin:
I’m going on vacation soon. Are you? What are you doing this summer?
Beau Friedlander:
I’m going to go up to Vermont. I’m going to just chill out in the woods for a little bit, and then hopefully do a little swimming, fishing, and that’s about it.
Adam Levin:
You’re going to put your Paul Bunyan shirt on, get out there and chop a few trees attack a few termites.
Beau Friedlander:
I prefer the Brawny towel guy. Yeah, pretty much. What are you doing?
Adam Levin:
Unlike you, I’m not a tick wrestler, because I know that that you are a tick wrestler and it’s quite a career that you’ve had and tick wrestling. We’re going out of the country. We’re going to a place that we normally go every year. We know the people, we rent a place and we go and we go with a bunch of different families and it’s a lot of fun. The kids have a blast. The parents have a blast watching the kids have a blast. Everybody gets slightly hammered. It’s one of those great things that you do when you go on vacation. Travis, what are you doing this summer?
Travis Taylor:
I am actually going to be renting a house with my wife, kids, and in-laws in central Oregon later on in summer.
Beau Friedlander:
Is that good or bad, Travis?
Travis Taylor:
Take your pick. We haven’t seen them in over a year and a half, but everyone, all the adults are vaccinated, so it should be nice. I’m looking forward to it, but it’ll be a lot of noise and people hugging and distraction.
Beau Friedlander:
I’m going to be tick wrestling, he’s going to be kid wrestling, and sounds like you are to Adam.
Adam Levin:
Absolutely. Isn’t it great to use the magic words, hugging. We haven’t done that a long time. It’s wonderful that we’re coming out of this mess. Although we still have to be a little bit careful and keep our eye on the variant bouncing ball. The truth is that I think we’re all blessed that we are transitioning from what was a very, very dark time.
Beau Friedlander:
Well, I thought the variant you were going to talk about was actually vacation scams.
Adam Levin:
Golly, gee. Vacation scams are the just Legion. Everything from, here’s the best possible deal you’re ever going to make from a third party travel site, or you’re approached by someone who’s renting vacation homes and this is your chance to get the deal of the century, but you got to lock it in right now.
Beau Friedlander:
Hundred percent, or you go to your house that you rented and there’s five more people in the driveway because they all rented it for the same time.
Adam Levin:
In one sense, it gives you a community spirit, but in another sense, it’s really sort of disconcerting and gets a little crowded there, especially with people you didn’t know and you had no idea that you were spending the next two weeks with.
Beau Friedlander:
The scammer does pretty well with that.
Adam Levin:
That’s why it’s very important that people really pay attention. The first thing is, if something sounds too good to be true, it absolutely is. Be careful. Vet the people from whom you rent your home, make sure the hostel you’re going to is actually the hotel that you’re going to.
Beau Friedlander:
That means call them. It means actually call them.
Adam Levin:
Call them. Use a reputable travel agents, hopefully with whom you’ve had prior, good experiences. Also read reviews before you do anything or go anywhere to make sure that you’re not walking into vacation hell as opposed to a good time.
Adam Levin:
I’m Adam Levin and welcome to what the hack, where you can come and well, you can get your weekly cyber snack. I’m the former director of the New Jersey division of consumer affairs, founder of CyberScout and author of the book Swiped: How to Protect Yourself in a World Full of Scammers, Phishers, and Identity Thieves and Beau.
Beau Friedlander:
I’m Beau Friedlander, and I resemble that comment. I love cyber anything. I love stories about scams and fraud.
Travis Taylor:
I’m Travis Taylor, resident tech guy and occasional voice of God.
Beau Friedlander:
Sometimes we rent these houses just from people we know. That actually is a good segue for our guests today because it’s a lot like buying something. Oftentimes when we’re looking to buy something, whether it’s a car, a bike, not usually a house, but you know, those kinds of smaller items, we might go on websites to do that, and they’re fraught with scams and fraud.
Adam Levin:
Absolutely. When you arrive at your vacation destination, a lot of people have this vision that their hotel room is their castle and it’s not. It’s more like a Swiss cheese. Make sure if you have valuables, you put it in the hotel safe, as opposed to the safe in your room. Make sure you don’t leave important documents or valuable digital devices laying around in your room. Because remember, an awful lot of people go through your room who are transitory by nature. They could be engineers, maids, they could be bringing or taking away the food trays. You don’t know how long they’d been at the hotel, if they’ve had any issues with stuff disappearing. When you hook into the wifi system at a hotel, always be mindful of the fact that it may not be secure.
Beau Friedlander:
Assume that it’s not. Assume that it’s not. Also my favorite that I always tell people is, if you find a menu in your room, call up the restaurant because there is a scam out there where thieves will slide a menu under the door and it’ll look like you’re ordering pizza and you order the pizza, but you just gave a thief $20 and there’s no pizza.
Adam Levin:
You become dinner, basically.
Beau Friedlander:
That’s right.
Adam Levin:
At least you’re paying for their dinner when you were thinking that you were paying for your dinner.
Beau Friedlander:
If there’s an activity, there’s a scam attached to it.
Adam Levin:
Hey, there campers. If you have a story about being a victim of a hack, we’d love to hear about it. Give us a call at (623) 252-1828. That’s (623) 252-1828. Or email stories@whatthehackpod.com.
Adam Levin:
Another thing that people should keep in mind. Everyone loves social media. We just got to share everything, every moment, of our trip. Just the danger, if you share everything from your trip at the moment you’re doing it, by de facto, where if people know where you are, they also know where you’re not.
Beau Friedlander:
Trust me, I’m totally attached to social media to find out what you’re doing.
Adam Levin:
I view it so I can figure it out what my wife is doing even when we’re on the same trip.
Beau Friedlander:
100%.
Adam Levin:
Yeah, It’s a such a shortcut oftentimes, using social media. It’s kind of like, “I didn’t want to bother you. At least I knew what you did, and I sent a few likes and smiley faces.”
Beau Friedlander:
I know, but the thing is like-
Adam Levin:
Everybody could see it.
Beau Friedlander:
A hundred percent and that is the problem. The same goes with purchases and if you get it wrong, when you’re going to buy something, especially from somebody you don’t know, your money is going to set off into the sunset and you’re never going to see it again.
Adam Levin:
Yeah. I’m all for sunset cruises, but not for my money.
Beau Friedlander:
No, you don’t want to see it sailing like that. There are some things that you can do. We’re going to be talking about them today, but we should just kick straight to our guests who, by the way, Adam, I have known since kindergarten.
Adam Levin:
Oh My God. I didn’t know you knew anyone. I didn’t even know you remembered way back to kindergarten.
Beau Friedlander:
Indeed. And with that here’s Noah.
Adam Levin:
Okay. So Noah, this is Adam. Thank you so much for coming on our show today. To start, we always like to get to know a little bit about you, like where you live, what you do, before we get to your story. Where do you live?
Noah:
I live in East Norwalk, Connecticut.
Adam Levin:
It’s a beautiful town.
Noah:
It’s a great little spot down here, we’re down by the water. We like it a lot.
Adam Levin:
That’s perfect. What are some of the things you do in East Norwalk?
Noah:
We’re very involved in tennis and the waterfront community where we are here. A lot of sailing, a lot of boating, the kids can walk to school here, which is really great. My wife works from home and I work in advertising, usually, but I’ve been taking a bit, a little bit of time off to with the kids during the pandemic and sort of thinking about what I’ve done. We’re enjoying ourselves right now, it’s a good time.
Adam Levin:
It’s a period of reflection?
Noah:
Yeah, for sure.
Beau Friedlander:
Noah, you and I have known each other for a while. Do you remember where we met?
Noah:
Where we met? Beau, I’ve known you so long, elementary school.
Beau Friedlander:
I think it was kindergarten. I think it was kindergarten.
Noah:
That long ago?
Beau Friedlander:
Yeah. I remember you as somebody who enjoyed to make rivers in the woods, out of things that were barely rivers. I know that you’re a super creative guy. How has that morphed in your adult life? Are you doing that kinds of stuff with your kids down there on the beach?
Noah:
It’s funny, I know exactly what you’re talking about, and I know the streams that you’re talking about, and building dams, and doing that kind of stuff.
Beau Friedlander:
Yeah.
Noah:
My mother still has that house and my kids still play in those streams and brooks and do the same stuff that you’re talking about right now. It’s pretty cool. They do spend a lot of time at the beach, digging everything up. My son likes to rescue horseshoe crabs when they wash up, he started a little rescue community with other kids down there. They look for the tagged horseshoe crabs, they report them, they send them back out, they make sure they don’t get disturbed. There’s all kinds of stuff like that going on down here to sort of carry on that love of playing around in the water.
Adam Levin:
That’s good because it sounds like, when you were younger, you were involved in sort of environmental disasters, damming up little rivers and endangering species and all that stuff. It’s good that you’ve seen the light, and your kids are now on the road to an environmentally purer life.
Beau Friedlander:
In our defense, in our defense, we were making rivers where no river existed, and then we were making dams, and then we would make them again.
Adam Levin:
In other words, you were drowning ants?
Beau Friedlander:
Maybe. I don’t think so.
Noah:
Maybe. Beau, if your memory is that good, I’m almost afraid to go forward with the rest of this conversation.
Adam Levin:
You said that your wife works at home. What does she do?
Noah:
Rita works for a company called Experian, which is a large credit reporting agency if you didn’t know that.
Adam Levin:
We know them well.
Noah:
She is a director of sales for them. She brings in clients, very basically, so she can work at home. Otherwise, she would be traveling all the time. Since we’re in this pandemic situation, she’s home all the time now.
Beau Friedlander:
If Rita works for Experian, that means you have… Probably, the whole family has a really good sense of cyber security, and the scams that are out there, and various kinds of online crime. Experian is one of the gatekeepers, they try to be, when they’re not leaking our data, no offense to Rita’s company. Is that a fair assumption?
Noah:
I think so. It was Rita was the first one that looked at this thing, saw where this conversation about the boat was going.
Beau Friedlander:
What happened, Noah?
Noah:
I don’t know where to begin.
Adam Levin:
At the beginning.
Noah:
We belong to a club that has a marina. My son has an unbelievable love for the ocean and for boats. My wife told him that if he got straight A’s, we would get a boat. So he’s been on high honors for the last nine months. Now we have to get him a boat. The window to do that is very tight because you have to get a slip, and pay for the slip at the marina, and then you have to produce the boat, and put it in. If you don’t have a boat, you have to give up the slip and it gets very stressful.
Noah:
Coincidentally, this is the worst time in history to buy a boat because there’s a pandemic going on it. Everybody wants a boat, you can’t get a new boat and you can’t get a used boat of any kind. It’s just a brutal market to do this. Since I’ve never really bought a boat before I have gone into this feeling like, “What can go wrong? I just want to get a boat, no big deal.” I went on to Craigslist where I have had success, buying other things. I’m sure you have too. I actually found about, it was perfect. We went up to the boat yard, looked at the boat, made an offer, and set up a sea trial. Then I was looking at the boat a little closer and it turns out that that boat had some super duper fatal flaws and it fell through. I went back to Craigslist and now the clock is really ticking and I need to find a really good boat. I’m not talking about like a huge boat. I’m talking like a 15, 17 foot little boat that my son and I can kind of putz around in- [crosstalk 00:13:43]
Beau Friedlander:
Would you kind of think like a Boston Whaler to go fishing or whatever?
Noah:
Exactly.
Adam Levin:
This week, we would not say this was Noah’s Ark?
Noah:
No, nothing. We probably name it something like that, just because that’s the kind of corny people we are. I reached out about this boat, it was perfect. There were only two pictures of the boat and the boat as advertised was very close by, it was like 10 miles away. I said, “Hey, this boat’s perfect. Super interested in buying this boat. Can you send me a couple more pictures because I’d like to see it before I drive up there, but when you do that, let’s set up some time. I’ll come and check out the boat.” So this person got right back to me with a name. Her name was Ann White, and she attached like 15 pictures of this boat. It was great. The boat looked great.
Noah:
She sent me an email and said, “The boat is in great condition and there’s nothing wrong with it. My husband passed away. We’re not using the boat anymore. I just want to get rid of it. If you’re still interested, please let me know. I want it to be super easy.” I was like, “That’s great. I want it to be super easy. When can I come and see the boat?” Because when you’re buying a boat, number one, you go see the boat. Number two, you make an offer on the boat. Number three, you put the boat in the water and you do a sea trial. This is a lot of money. There’s a very established process. I was super psyched. I was like, “We found our boat. I have a slip and the pictures really looked good.” Then she got back to me and she said, listen-
Beau Friedlander:
She sent you more pictures when you asked for them?
Noah:
She did.
Beau Friedlander:
She did, okay.
Noah:
Quickly.
Beau Friedlander:
Wow.
Noah:
Then she gets back to me and says, Noah, as I mentioned, I’m a widow. I’m actually living with my parents in Pittsburgh right now so I’m not able to show you the boat. The boat is also in Pittsburgh and it’s shrink wrapped, and ready to ship. Don’t worry, I have an arrangement with E-bay and I can put you in touch with them, and I have worked out all the details for shipping just give me your address…
Beau Friedlander:
All right, stop right there. Stop there, stop there. At this point, you’re like, this is cool, this is normal, the boat’s shrink wrapped in Pittsburgh.
Noah:
Totally not. I’m absolutely… All the bells are going off.
Adam Levin:
Is that like Sleepless in Seattle? Frank wrapped in Pittsburgh.
Noah:
Yeah. I was immediately just like, “Oh Jesus Christ.” That email is a lot longer, I actually have it printed out, but it goes on to say, how she can’t possibly show me the boat, but everything’s totally legitimate. She’s talking about eBay. I have come to this boat on Craigslist. Let me know how you want to pay for the boat and let me know where to send the boat. We’re talking about like a $20,000 Boston Whaler. It just absolutely collapsed all around me. I said to my wife who had called this out earlier, she was like, “Why would she tell you she’s a widow? What does that have to do with anything?” I’m like, “I don’t know. It sounds really weird.”
Beau Friedlander:
Go back to when Rita asked you, why would she tell you the widow thing.
Noah:
Yeah. Why would she tell… I’m like, “Yeah. Why would she tell me she’s a widow?” I know this sounds completely… This was unraveled and become revealed as the fraud that it’s going to be.
Beau Friedlander:
Sure.
Noah:
In my morbid curiosity, I have got to find out where this is going. I got back to her again and I said, “That sounds a little unusual to me, but what would the next steps be like, how can I see the boat, or how are you going to get the boat here, can I send the boat back if I don’t like the boat, what are the guarantees?” She said, “Absolutely. If you don’t like the boat, you can send the boat right back. That’s part of the eBay program.” I was like, “All right.” I just wanted to keep it going because I was so curious and angry. I was like, I’m determined to find out where this is going and how is she going to do this, and also reveal you. I want to reveal this person’s scam and beat her at this game. It has nothing to do with the boat anymore. I’m just so pissed off at this person for doing this.
Beau Friedlander:
Play for feelings.
Noah:
I’m like, “Yeah. How dare you?” Unfortunately, I think, in my response to her, I was probably not that cool and didn’t sound as stupid as somebody she was hoping would be. I didn’t hear back from her again.
Beau Friedlander:
You never had to reach out to eBay or…
Noah:
No, that’s where it dead ends. It was just very interesting that you know that these scams happen, you know that these things go on all the time.
Beau Friedlander:
Yep.
Noah:
Then there’s such a response time to these scam artists when they see an opportunity. I never thought this would happen in this space, and like the boat market space on Craigslist, where someone could see immediately there’s a window of six weeks where the boat market’s really hot and it’s impossible to find one, and then seize on that opportunity and hope that somebody would be so stupid as to fall for that and go through with it. I would add also, we Googled the boat, we Googled Boston Whaler 17 foot boat for all the images we could find. Sure enough, this person simply cobbled together a bunch of images from Google that looked like this thing, and made this beautiful ad, and I completely fell for it.
Beau Friedlander:
Yeah. That’s sort of you’re the anti-unicorn, anti-unicorn of these scams. Because I mean… Adam, how many people fall for that scam every day?
Adam Levin:
Every day. Every day. The people who perpetrate these scams are people who, they understand it’s tracking how well they understand, but whether it’s a holiday, whether it’s some disaster, whether it’s something that would be meaningful to people-
Beau Friedlander:
Or just vacation time.
Adam Levin:
The timeframe, they pay attention because they realize that no one else is paying attention to the fact that somebody with bad intentions would be paying attention.
Beau Friedlander:
Or they have a slip, and they have a kid who’s waiting for the boat, and they’ve got a little bit of a rush in their sole.
Adam Levin:
Yep.
Beau Friedlander:
Yeah, and they’re going to make a mistake. She, whoever this was, he or she, lacked the imagination to get you completely on the hook, but that’s all that happened there because had you met somebody who was a better writer who could think of a better scenario, you may have gotten got. It’s just luck, dumb luck that you were smarter than your scammer in this case.
Noah:
It doesn’t make me feel a lot better.
Beau Friedlander:
Did you get the boat?
Noah:
We’re boat-less, and we had to give up the slip for the season. We’re still looking for a boat, but it’s not easy. I live in an area replete with marinas and boat dealers. It’s an unbelievably difficult situation to find a boat right now.
Beau Friedlander:
I will tell you, Noah. Noah, I’ll tell you, there are two, I kid you not, there are two 17 foot long Boston Whalers sitting in the Brooklyn Navy yard right now by the [crosstalk 00:21:33] street entrance, and nobody’s using them. [crosstalk 00:21:38] They’re mine, and I will sell you one. It’s $25,000, but I will let you put it in the canal right there. You just have to send me an advance of $5,000.
Noah:
That’s it?
Beau Friedlander:
Just to make sure that I don’t… I needed a deposit.
Adam Levin:
To make you feel better, Beau also has a few shares in a bridge that he’ll throw in to this deal.
Beau Friedlander:
Right.
Noah:
Yeah.
Beau Friedlander:
Cheaper if you buy them with Ethereum.
Noah:
Adam, it sounds like, you know and have done a lot of research about the people on the other end of this industry, for lack of a better word.
Adam Levin:
Beau and I wrote a book about it called Swiped: How to Protect Yourself in a World Full of Scammers, Phishers, and Identity Thieves. We talk about all sorts of different scenarios where hackers, scammers, and phishers have just touch the right strain, have gotten people to respond to a situation because they know people are busy, they know people are distracted, they know people are focused on one thing and are not really focused on everything else around it, because they’re just, this is it, they have blinders on.
Adam Levin:
You were looking for that boat. They knew there was a certain period of time where someone would be looking for a boat. They knew you were from the Northeast and this was their moment, and they struck, and they are sophisticated, creative and persistent. They know there’s a pot of gold at the end of their rainbow, about the concept of pot of gold can be relative, based upon who it is and the size of the gold. The fact of the matter is that with not a lot of effort, you would be shocked at how many people fall for these kinds of scams and end up giving these scammers pretty decent payday.
Beau Friedlander:
Three cheers for Noah. Take a victory lap, man.
Adam Levin:
Well done. Well done.
Noah:
It was a close call, guys, but it’s just goes to show you like the different spaces that these people will permeate.
Beau Friedlander:
Speaking of which, in the opening, before you came on, we were talking about vacations, because it’s vacation time, and this boat thing is no different from the menu scam it hotels where someone will go through the whole hotel and slide a menu under the door, and you’re hungry, you just got there, you just want to go to get some pizza and go to sleep, you ordered the pizza, no pizza, just a $20 charge on your card, bye-bye. The scams, whatever the scam is, the smaller, the easier. You have to at least admire the enterprise of this boat salesperson. It’s pretty impressive that they’re going to ship a Boston Whaler from Pittsburgh to East Norwalk, Connecticut.
Adam Levin:
Oh, no. Again, these are enterprising people who, whether it’s a catfishing scam, where they’re trying to get someone to get caught up emotionally with them because they want money, or it’s a hotel scam of one sort or another, or one of my favorite vacation scams, and we always warn people against it is, it’s you check into a hotel, the middle of the night, you’re kind of half awake phone rings, front desk says, “We encountered a problem with your credit card. Could you please give me the credit number of the credit card number of another credit card?” A lot of people go, it’s the middle of the night and I want to get up, go downstairs, hey, whatever. Here’s the number. They essentially just gave away their credit card. You’d be surprised at how many vacation scams they really are and how successful they really are.
Beau Friedlander:
You got it right, Noah. If there is a place where money is changing hands, scams are happening around it.
Noah:
Yeah.
Beau Friedlander:
Thank you. It was really nice to see you again.
Noah:
It’s really nice to see you and I hope to see more of you as you come up to Connecticut, as I heard you might be.
Adam Levin:
This has been gratifying for me, Noah, because I thought Beau was basically born at age 30. The fact that he has a childhood that we’re dying to find out at some point later, you can tell us all about, thank you for enlightening us and thank you for really staying sharp and avoiding what could have been a not inexpensive experience for you.
Beau Friedlander:
Noah, I will be sending you a check to not tell him about my childhood as soon as we get off this call.
Noah:
Going to have to be a big check. It’s wonderful to talk to you guys. I think that the subject you’re exploring is really a good one. Happy to join you.
Beau Friedlander:
Thank you, Noah.
Noah:
All right, guys. Have a great weekend.
Adam Levin:
Bye now.
Beau Friedlander:
Bye.
Adam Levin:
Thanks.
Noah:
Bye bye.
Adam Levin:
What The Hack is a Loud Tree Media production and partnership with Larj Media. That’s L-A-R-J Media. You can find What The Hack, wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to follow us on social media and find additional information at adamlevin.com.
