Beau Friedlander:
Hi, Travis.
Travis Taylor:
Beau.
Beau Friedlander:
Adam. (Singing).
Travis Taylor:
(Singing.).
Adam Levin:
(Singing).
Beau Friedlander:
It’s the Beau Show.
Travis Taylor:
I think you just heard all of our subscribers quit.
Adam Levin:
So, Travis, what do you see as the [foreign language 00:00:45]?
Travis Taylor:
Well, it’s actually an article I just put up on your website, Adamlevin.com. College scams. So, all the acceptance and rejection letters have gone out, and applicants have until May 1st to decide where they’re going to be going to school. So, if you wait listed, that it can still last until like right before I think the first day of school, I believe.
Beau Friedlander:
Wow. So, it’s like-
Adam Levin:
Agony.
Beau Friedlander:
So, wait. Agony.
Adam Levin:
Agony.
Beau Friedlander:
But also a really ripe time for scams.
Travis Taylor:
Exactly. As we know that with scammers, they really depend on distraction, they depend on people being worried or overwhelmed, and they jump to any opportunity for people to be sending in information or if they’re eager to hear a notification from a school or an institution.
Beau Friedlander:
So, I happen to have a child who just got into a school. We’re going to leave it at that because we are not going to open her up to identity scam.
Adam Levin:
[inaudible 00:01:40] applause.
Beau Friedlander:
So, she just accepted into a great school, one of the public Ivys, but we’re going to leave it there because we don’t want her to suffer an identity-related crime. Now, what does the crime look like? It could be… No, you’re giving it away.
Adam Levin:
Oh, sorry.
Beau Friedlander:
Hey, knock it off. Go blue. Anyway. So, the… I did just buy a T-shirt that says Michigan dad and I bought her some Michigan sweatpants, and I’ll buy anyone else Michigan’s swag if they want it.
Travis Taylor:
On Wisconsin [inaudible 00:02:15].
Adam Levin:
I’m a Michigan guy. I’ll take the swag.
Beau Friedlander:
You got it. You got it. Listen. So, now is the time people are finding about financial aid, scholarships, what’s going with their FAFSA applications, and dorm assignments could be happening now, packages. You have to send money to hold your spot. There are so many openings for a scammer right now up until May 1st, and after May 1st it’s even worse. Because pretty much everyone applies to more than one school, and this year, the best schools had the lowest acceptance rates ever, which means that there are wait lists. And even if you got rejected, imagine you applied to Harvard. Now, Harvard has a 0% wait list acceptance rate because everyone accepts when they get an offer from Harvard. But you might not know that and you might have applied and you might get a letter saying, “Hey, just want to let you know that a spot has opened up for you at Harvard,” you’re going to click the link.
Speaker 6:
A new scam is targeting students who are looking for help to pay for college. The Lee County Sheriff’s Office now stepping in with some stiff warnings. [inaudible 00:03:22] reporter John [inaudible 00:03:23] letting you know how to keep from being a victim. John?
John:
Yeah. And Lee County deputies tell us they’re getting reports about a scam that’s turning students into play for scammers. Authorities saying they got a call into their fraud line from a college student who was reportedly scammed out of nearly $1,000 for what she thought was a legitimate grant program, the scammer telling her that she qualified for financial aid.
Beau Friedlander:
They know this because this generation is on social like no generation before, and all it takes is for a scammer to sit there and wait for some hapless 18 year old to say something about the schools they applied to. It’s an open door from there.
Adam Levin:
And the secret, again, with scammers is, they’re hoping that you’re distracted and yet focused at the same time. You’re maniacally focused on one issue, which is college, and therefore, they’ll send you something because you’re hoping, you’re praying, you’re expecting to get something. And then it shows up, except it’s not it.
Beau Friedlander:
Or you’re panicked, too. Remember, there’s a lot of panic that goes around this stuff.
Adam Levin:
Tons of panic.
Travis Taylor:
Right. Even if you got accepted into the college of your dreams and you post that on, say, Instagram or either a social media thing of, “Yay, I got into Harvard”-
Adam Levin:
Stanford.
Travis Taylor:
… that can be a signal for someone just to send an email on behalf of-
Adam Levin:
Stanford.
Travis Taylor:
… Harvard or Stanford, just saying, “There’s a problem with your application.”
Beau Friedlander:
Well, they’ll be more specific than that, I think. They’ll say there’s a problem with your financial aid package or there’s a problem with a very specific thing, or you haven’t yet chosen your dorm assignment. It’s going to be specific. Anyway. So, yeah, I think that’s probably the scam. I can’t say what you said, but that.
Adam Levin:
Welcome to What the Heck, a show about hackers, scammers, and the people they go after. I’m Adam, cyber goalie.
Beau Friedlander:
I’m Beau, cyber stick.
Travis Taylor:
I’m Travis, cyber puck.
Adam Levin:
And today we’re talking with someone who assumed they were scam proof. Well, that’s until a Craigslist scammer got the better of him.
Adam Levin:
Hi, Bill Whalen:. Welcome to What the Heck.
Bill Whalen::
Yep.
Travis Taylor:
Where are you calling us from today?
Bill Whalen::
I’m based out of the Minneapolis area in the frozen tundra of Minnesota.
Beau Friedlander:
Wait, before you go any further, Minneapolis, did you see the news from your local news yesterday?
Bill Whalen::
I’m sure I did. So much [crosstalk 00:06:16].
Beau Friedlander:
They discovered tape of Prince at the age of 11-
Bill Whalen::
I watched [crosstalk 00:06:22].
Travis Taylor:
Oh, I saw that.
Beau Friedlander:
… in your hometown.
Bill Whalen::
Yeah. I was actually in an archive of, I think, the WCCO archives.
Speaker 9:
If serendipity was a story, then you are about to watch one of the most fortunate strokes of luck ever here at WCCO.
Speaker 10:
A mysterious gem unearthed on accident, giving people a glimpse into Minneapolis history through the eyes of a young musical icon. While we all had a feeling who this young boy might be, we knew we needed help from those who knew him best. It’s a journey and story you’ll only see here on WCCO.
Travis Taylor:
And what do you do for your living?
Bill Whalen::
I am actually a principal technical specialist for Microsoft, so what that entails is demoing products to customers, focused on the business applications segment, which is like Dynamics and Power Platform. So, it’s usually to do with anything from automating particular business functions, to providing an entire business system for sales, marketing, customer service, and beyond.
Adam Levin:
So, when the podcast ends, then, we can call you and ask for technical advice on a variety of [crosstalk 00:07:23].
Bill Whalen::
There you go.
Adam Levin:
… product?
Bill Whalen::
Yeah. I’m the tech support guy for the family. That’s for sure.
Beau Friedlander:
I’m seeing behind you now. This is audio so you can’t see this, but behind Bill is a wall of amazing guitars. Well, one question mark, but three yahoos. In that SG, I have to ask you, have you discovered that your SG doesn’t require any kind of bar to bend the neck, you just can just push it forward and get… Do you know that trick?
Adam Levin:
That’s a very personal question, Beau.
Beau Friedlander:
I need to know-
Adam Levin:
I would not talk about any man’s SG.
Beau Friedlander:
… is he pushing that neck?
Bill Whalen::
I’m just I’m not going to share which direction it bends, but I’ll share the bend technique. But any guitar without a whammy bar, which is usually they’ll attach this device to the bridge of a guitar towards the bottom where you can make the sound go really wonky, but you can press on the neck in opposite direction and get a little bit of that effect. Kind of like a [tremble 00:08:22].
Beau Friedlander:
Yeah. I discovered that you can’t push it too hard, though. I snapped the head stock off of mine when I was 14.
Bill Whalen::
Yeah. I can’t say I’ve done that before.
Adam Levin:
I may I make kind of whammy sounds when Beau presses on my neck, too, so I get that.
Beau Friedlander:
All the time.
Adam Levin:
Yeah.
Beau Friedlander:
Hey, so, but I was just making small talk on our way to hearing about your scam talk. What happened to you?
Bill Whalen::
Honestly, this is the first time ever that I’ve been scammed this way, so I thought it was impressive enough to share it with the world. And no shame. Realize that anybody, no matter how technical they are, can get scammed. So, on a whim, I wanted to take one of my four kids to a hockey game, a Minnesota Wild game. So, that’s our local pro team. And they had a game going on that day, so normally in the past I’ve gone on Craigslist and searched for tickets. You typically find people with season tickets that are just looking to get rid of them. And I contacted somebody that I thought looked legit and I got scammed.
Travis Taylor:
What did the message look like?
Bill Whalen::
So, the initial message was just a basic post. There definitely was some red flags in the posting itself, mainly because it was cheaper than face value, there was a picture of the arena, but there was some other language in it that didn’t make a ton of sense.
Beau Friedlander:
What sort of language, Bill?
Bill Whalen::
Well, it was things like these are… describing like the quality of the seats was using adjectives and verbs that didn’t quite make sense, so their use of language, some of their location-based things, it might have been clear in hindsight that they didn’t know as much about the Minneapolis/St. Paul area as they should have if they’re selling tickets. So, things like that.
Beau Friedlander:
But you’re moving fast, you want to get tickets.
Bill Whalen::
Yep. Yeah. One of the common themes of getting scammed is sense of urgency. So, “Hey, I need this now. The event’s happening. I need to get the tickets,” so there was a built in sense of motivation.
Adam Levin:
So, is that why you used Craigslist as opposed to, let’s say, an authorized reseller or went to the Wild reseller section on their website?
Bill Whalen::
Yeah. They typically use, I think, Ticketmaster for resale, and Ticketmaster’s fees are so dang high. You pay for a $50 ticket and you’re paying $80. So, I was just looking for decent seats in a decent price range. And I’ve unloaded tickets myself when I couldn’t use them and it was last minute. What I should have done is looked up phone numbers and done some things that I ended up doing later to prevent and protect myself from being scammed.
Beau Friedlander:
Well, in the interest of no shame zone, Bill, I actually was at a concert in New York City at the Beacon Theatre at a show that I thought was really a hard show to get tickets for, and we lost a ticket, like just lost one of the tickets. What do you do? It turned out the tickets we bought were sold at a price so far higher than what was available at the box office day of. I thought, “No, there’s not going to be any tickets available.” There were plenty of tickets available. It was literally $150 versus $500 to see. So, there’s a lot of gouging out there, but that’s not a scam. That’s just somebody who’s an opportunistic.
Adam Levin:
That’s just someone being greedy.
Beau Friedlander:
What are the hallmarks of this scam that happened to you? Because it doesn’t sound like you were hit by a greedy person.
Bill Whalen::
Well, it was… I would say your example was more, I’ll call it, enterprising or entrepreneurial in nature. Right? I think what I could tell is that this is probably a large group of people that are not located in the US, that it’s all about volume. They’re just trying to get as many people to hit these ads as they can because they’re offering good seats for a good price and that attracts of people, especially because they post them on the day of the event.
Beau Friedlander:
And they’re venues all over the United States, most likely.
Bill Whalen::
Most likely. I haven’t gone out and looked, but one thing I did to try to understand what’s the scope in Minneapolis was I set up a Craigslist alert that triggered on the keywords I used. So, every time post hits, I see a link to it, and it’s always the day of a hockey game. I took my kids to see Billie Eilish a couple weeks ago, they were posting like crazy for that.
Adam Levin:
She’s had a good week, that’s for sure.
Bill Whalen::
Yeah. Pretty good week.
Speaker 11:
Billie Eilish stuns with her performance at the 2022 Grammy Awards.
Bill Whalen::
And at the end of the day, I started getting emails from people because I would create a post on Craigslist that says, “These are scammers watch out,” and it would have a number of tips on what to look for in their posts. And I was getting several folks reaching out saying, “You saved me money because I avoided these people because of your note.” So, that was pretty exciting to see.
Adam Levin:
All right. So, Bill, let’s just back up for a minute. So, how and why did you start investigating these scammers, and how did you determine that there was a large group of them?
Bill Whalen::
I wanted to first find out like… When this kind of thing happens to me, I’m very, very curious why or what. Like who, what, where, why? How are they doing this? Is it one person locally, or is it a group that’s scamming a ton of people? So, the first thing I did is I really started looking at the Venmo accounts that they used. And they claim their business accounts so you’ll get reimbursed if you pay it, and it goes nowhere. So, I think that’s their safety net for the people they’re scamming. Because at the end of the day, I reported it to Venmo and several other authority bodies and it ended up getting refunded. They gave me my money back. But at the end of the day, it looked very apparent that they were taking my money or other people’s money and I could see who else had paid them because of how Venmo works because it shows who’s sent them money.
Adam Levin:
So much for consumer privacy.
Bill Whalen::
Right? Yeah. I could see the individuals, I could find them on Facebook because I reached out to a few of them just to say, “Hey, just so you know, I did this and I’m going to get my money back.” And then I could see how many account they were filtering the money through, so it was very apparent to me that they were laundering money through Venmo. So, it would hit the main account that they sent me, which was some random “Sandra Shop,” and the dude texting me was not Sandra. It was some guy in… “Oh, it’s my wife’s account.” Right? So, then I would see that money instantly get sent to like three to five other accounts that had similar names, and eventually that money trail would end up in something that looked like an end account, but I couldn’t for sure tell because I don’t have enough data.
Beau Friedlander:
How did you trace it? I am curious about how you actually tracked that money and where it was moving in the various accounts.
Bill Whalen::
So, essentially, I opened up a spreadsheet and I would have a link to the first Venmo account and I would document some of the data around it like what location it said to have be set up on. In one case it was Fletcher, North Carolina or whatever. And then I would see the names of people that had paid them and then where they were paying. They were distributing money from that point to other account. I sent money to Sandra Shop. Well, Sandra Shop sent money to Angie Shop, Delia Special Shop, Super Quality Low Price Shop, like these random account names that at some point it would eventually just end in a dead end.
Beau Friedlander:
It’s so weird that they didn’t make it private. It’s strange that they didn’t have their transactions private.
Adam Levin:
Well, that’s like the hacking group that got nailed recently, the folks that got into Microsoft and Okta and a whole list of companies, and it turned out they were able to trace it back to them because they never covered their tracks. And a bunch of them were teenagers.
Bill Whalen::
Well, and Venmo specifically is built to be more open and has very little protective measures unless you have a business account set up, which is why they put that in their ploy because they’re like, “Yeah, we’re going to get paid and you’re going to get your money back, so we don’t care if you get scammed.” I think that, at the end of the day, that’s their goal.
Bill Whalen::
I mean, a great example, you look at my profile, I’m paying somebody once a month through Venmo, it’s to tutor my kids for school. Well, you could see the person’s name I’m paying, you could figure out where they live based on their name. There’s very little protection when it comes to places like Venmo and Cash App and these non-closed platforms that are meant to be paying between friends. The intent of them is to pay somebody you know.
Adam Levin:
But you can set it so only the sender and recipient can see a transaction.
Travis Taylor:
I wonder if that leads to a false sense of security to a certain extent, too, because if you were to see something that’s completely locked down, that might raise a few more red flags for folks, whereas if they’re actually able to see exactly if it looks like it’s open and it’s a lot more likely to seem like it’s on the level, potentially.
Beau Friedlander:
I think that’s right, Travis. So, here’s the thing, you can set Venmo so that all your transactions are private. I have it set that way myself. So, when I send my kids money or my partner money for… We sometimes figure out our bills that way.
Adam Levin:
Or send me money.
Beau Friedlander:
Never.
Adam Levin:
Never.
Beau Friedlander:
Now I’m going to do it soon as we finish the show today, I’ll send you $3. But you don’t have a Venmo account, which is an even better way to avoid getting scammed on Venmo.
Adam Levin:
It’s true.
Beau Friedlander:
But the best way to not get punched, what is it?
Adam Levin:
Not be there.
Beau Friedlander:
Correct. So, I think that Venmo… Travis, it’s a fantastic point you make. Venmo is a great place for scammers because it gives the appearance of openness, but it isn’t open at all. And you can set it tight as a tick so that nobody can see what you’re doing.
Adam Levin:
See what’s happened? Beau’s living in Connecticut now and now we’re picking up New England phrases like tight as a tick.
Beau Friedlander:
And I can’t bear you. Growl. Anyway. So, yeah.
Adam Levin:
That was pretty squirrelly [inaudible 00:19:10].
Travis Taylor:
I’m wondering, too, since Craigslist seems to be the main platform for these guys, did you try reporting it to Craigslist? And I’m guessing you already know the answer, but did they reply?
Adam Levin:
Do fish swim?
Bill Whalen::
Yeah.
Adam Levin:
[inaudible 00:19:40].
Bill Whalen::
I will say I did report it. I mean, I like the postings and they were taken down. The thing I did, I didn’t go to contact me through Craigslist, I went to LinkedIn and I looked for people with fraud or anti-money laundering in their titles that work at Craigslist-
Travis Taylor:
Oh, that’s clever.
Bill Whalen::
… and I sent them messages directly because I was like, “This is happening and it’s probably everywhere, and you need to be doing a better job sniffing and sussing these out.”
Adam Levin:
Did they respond?
Bill Whalen::
Fish swim, right? No. Didn’t hear back.
Adam Levin:
So, Bill, you sent us over, really, some very impressive documentation. What motivated you to track this the way you did, and why have you continued to follow the scam even after the event?
Bill Whalen::
Well, like I said, I am super curious how this stuff works and why they’re doing it and who’s involved. So, I’ve personally done cybersecurity training on platforms like Hack The Box and Try Hack Me. Those are websites that you can use, in some cases, free of charge to learn different penetration testing and OSINT tactics. OSINT stands for open-source intelligence gathering. So, my first thing is to understand who are these people, so I start to dig into the accounts, what data I can glean. I run password resets to figure out what their email addresses are. I’ll look up phone numbers to find out if they’re actual phone numbers or if they’re voiceover-based phone numbers that are hosted on platforms like TextNow. They’re using these voiceover systems to essentially create a false sense of security where you’re like, “Oh, this is a real person, they’re texting me,” but they’re just using some software platform to interact with you.
Bill Whalen::
If you dig into it, you can figure out very quickly that they’re just a front and they likely have tens and hundreds of numbers they’re scamming thousands of people with. So, of course, what I did is I set up a TextNow number and I started contacting multiple of the postings, even the ones that scammed me, to figure out a little bit more data about them. Part of it’s curiosity, part of it’s understanding how and why it works. My personality is very driven towards justice. I want these people to stop. I don’t want other people to be scammed as a result of what they’re doing, because there’s lots of people that aren’t quite as technology advanced as I am that very easily can fall victim to these things no problem any day.
Beau Friedlander:
I had a Facebook Marketplace scam happen to me today, actually.
Adam Levin:
Do tell.
Beau Friedlander:
Well, I’ve been looking for a tractor, and I went on there and someone had listed a tractor that I really want for $1,000.
Bill Whalen::
Oh, wait a minute. What the heck do you need a tractor for?
Adam Levin:
Well, now here’s the other part [crosstalk 00:22:26].
Bill Whalen::
[crosstalk 00:22:26] I’d love to know why. You don’t strike me as the farmer type.
Beau Friedlander:
I need the front loader so that I can carry my… We have a bear around the property because he’s very lazy, so I need to carry the bear around, I need to dig holes every once in a while for the bear to sleep in, stuff like that.
Bill Whalen::
You have a tractor need and a bear?
Beau Friedlander:
Well, we have a bear. I need a tractor so that it can make the bear’s life better.
Adam Levin:
In fact, we spent a great deal… We made several cyber presentations discussing at length Beau and the bear and the need for Beau not to get eaten by the bear.
Beau Friedlander:
Yeah. And if you’re listening and this doesn’t get cut from the show, we will post a video of said bear minus the tractor because I still don’t have one. No, I go on every day and I look on Marketplace for a few things that I need because I’m renovating an old farmhouse, and a tractor’s on the top of that list. And so, today, I looked and there was a tractor for $1,000. Now, that’s about 15 to $20,000 less than it should be. Now, it’s a typical example of if something is not priced right, it’s wrong.
Adam Levin:
The old, if it sounds too good to be true. But Bill, you said something which I thought was very interesting and I think it would be very helpful for our listeners, so some of the techniques that you used to follow up on these guys that listeners might be able to do to keep them safe, as well. You mentioned TextNow. What is that?
Bill Whalen::
Yeah. So, TextNow is a platform for provisioning or requesting a phone number and then using TextNow, either the web app or their phone application on your mobile device, it allows you to send a text message, make phone calls. So, it’s not too indifferent to things like Facebook Messenger or email, with the exception is that you’re using a TextNow phone number to communicate. And the reason that might be smart, so if you’re going to purchase things from someone, use an email address or a phone number that’s not yours, that’s not your daily use email or phone number, because then you put a layer between yourself and the scammers so that they can’t then share that phone number with all their buddies and put you on all sorts of other fun scam lists.
Adam Levin:
So, is that why Google Voice is all the rage now, or certainly the reason why a lot of people are getting scammed?
Bill Whalen::
Yeah. I mean, any of these voiceover-based IP services… So, what I mean by that is a company like Google is providing a telephony service to the public that you can use to message and make phone calls. It not only allows you to protect yourself to create a layer between your actual phone number and the scammer or other people, but it also allows the scammers the same luxury. One of the things I did through this process was I went and got that TextNow phone number and I sent the guy that scammed me, or gal or group or whoever they are, a message from that other number, and he or they engaged me.
Bill Whalen::
Well, there’s a thing I created called a canary token, and this is through a buddy of mine that’s involved in cybersecurity. I was like, “How can we figure out where these people are located?” So, a canary token is the ability to create like a URL or a web link that basically will capture of their IP address, and if you capture a person’s IP address, it’ll tell you where they’re physically located, or at least where the server is that they’re bouncing off of. That was another reason why I believe that this was a bigger operation, is the IP that bounced back was located in a Google virtual private cloud, and you’re only going to pay for something like that if you got some bank roll behind it.
Beau Friedlander:
Google Voice scams are one of the most common things out there right now, and one of the reasons, Bill, if you’re going to be doing a lot of scamming, you need phone numbers to use.
Bill Whalen::
Yep. And I will tell you, so the first thing I’m doing now on these is I take the phone number and I punch the number into a website called numlookup.com.
Beau Friedlander:
Oh, me too. Yep. See if it’s [crosstalk 00:26:39].
Bill Whalen::
And that tells you, is it a actual… If you look up my phone number, it says it’s a T-Mobile number. Like they provisioned it so you know it’s an actual cell number, or a landline. In the case of these scammers, those phone numbers belong to voiceover IP hosting providers that are not the carrier, so that’s a huge red flag.
Travis Taylor:
You said you try to teach your kids how to avoid scams or how to recognize those. What are some of the things that you let them know?
Bill Whalen::
Yeah. So, many times… My kids are between 12 and 18. I have four of them. And there’s a particular few that are a little bit more susceptible to things, and they’re looking for anime-related products or clothing that would very much land you on websites that likely are hosted by Chinese companies or non-US entities. So, many times I’m like, “You know what? Be a little bit careful about that website because it doesn’t quite look legit. Or if it’s not located or has a presence in the US, steer clear.” So, a lot of times I’ll redirect them to Amazon or other sites that are more reputable that will deliver consistent service. And they’ve experienced it through ordering things that don’t show up. They ordered a product and it wasn’t the right thing, so they start to feel that experience by not getting what they expected.
Travis Taylor:
Yeah. I think one of my favorite things I’ve seen is a friend of mine tried ordering a Lego Millennium Falcon from Star Wars off of a ad he saw on Facebook, and what he ended up getting was a box that was called Lela Star Wart [inaudible 00:28:17]. It was pretty awesome.
Beau Friedlander:
That is kind of great.
Bill Whalen::
Yeah.
Travis Taylor:
Yeah.
Bill Whalen::
If you’re buying the $800 Death Star for-
Travis Taylor:
Yeah, for 20 bucks.
Bill Whalen::
… 50 bucks, it’s not legit. And we talked a little bit about earlier about how to spot these. It’s like high value item at a cheap price, phone number is not legit, or it’s obvious the English is messed up. There’s a short-term sense of urgency. Hey, this deal’s now. If you don’t buy in the next hour, you’re dead in the water.”
Adam Levin:
Or the game is in an hour. Yeah.
Bill Whalen::
Yeah. They reference things as like fresh and great seats with good views [crosstalk 00:28:53].
Beau Friedlander:
It’s just fresh. A fresh, fluffy seat. Yeah.
Bill Whalen::
Tix, T-I-X, or T-I-C-S instead of tickets. You’ll notice things in hindsight, “Man, that was not legitimate.” Like putting dollar signs after through the number versus in front. So, these are all signals that say, “Hey, this individual is either not here like they say they are, or it’s just a complete bogus thing where they’re trying to get money out of people.”
Adam Levin:
So, Bill, after everything we’ve talked about here with your experience with Craigslist, do you think they should be more involved, less involved? Do you think should they should be more responsible for all of this? Or is it really between the buyer and the seller?
Bill Whalen::
So, I personally feel like if they’re going to allow people to sell tickets for sporting and other events, they need to put some controls in place to validate and verify that who’s selling these items is legit. So, for example, when you sell an item or a ticket back, like I purchased a seat for a venue recently and I can’t go, so I was going to resell it, you do that through the Ticketmaster app. Right? So, it’s verified, it’s validated, it transfers through the payment process. Same thing, I recently sold piece of music gear on a site called Reverb, which is built for selling musical equipment, and the way the process works is you list it, somebody buys it, they don’t send you payment until you ship the item, and it actually is confirmed that it arrives. So, they’ve put controls in place to make sure that both ends of this are going to get what they expect.
Bill Whalen::
Craigslist could very easily for things like tickets contact Ticketmaster, and through a couple of calls, technically through APIs where their systems could talk to each other, they could validate that it’s legitimate by somebody putting in like a barcode number. So, there’s lots of opportunity for Craigslist to tighten this up. My concern or worry is that this isn’t just an issue in Minneapolis, it’s all across the country and there’s tens and thousands of scammers out there doing this exact thing, and the impact financially is probably fairly significant.
Beau Friedlander:
So, but there’s not a lot of incentive, and that’s what it comes down to at the end of the day. If Craigslist is like, “Well, for every Bill, there’s a Bob and a Harry who aren’t complaining when they get scammed out of 100 bucks, we’re good.” Because they get a [VIG 00:31:34] on everything. I think that it really does come down to de-incentivizing scams, which means that a lot of people like you, Bill, have to stand up and say uh-uh (negative).
Adam Levin:
Listen, you have to be impressed by all the things that Bill did. I mean, this is like a chronicle that he created. It’s very impressive. But it’s a staggering amount of work and it’s work that he needs to be done by somebody who’s a real professional. But guys, listen, for the rest of the human race, is there an alternative to what he just did?
Beau Friedlander:
I don’t know. My two cents is that expecting a company that is engineered to make money spend money so that you don’t get scammed on the site that they created just to make money, it’s not going to happen. Not going to happen without a lot of pressure anyway. And the Bills of the world are few and far between. Most people when they get taken for the kinds of money that these scams target, just-
Adam Levin:
Shrug it off.
Beau Friedlander:
Yeah.
Travis Taylor:
Right.
Adam Levin:
That’s why it’s helpful that there are organizations out there that you can get to through your insurance company or financial institution or your employer that will help you through situations like this and try to help you recover or your money. And sometimes they build relationships with people on unnamed, fabulously wealthy, successful social media platforms that will pay attention because of relationships that were built with these organizations.
Beau Friedlander:
Well, I don’t know about that, but I do know something that we’ve talked about since we’ve started working together, which is the only person you can really count on in this situation, if you don’t want to get scammed, is yourself.
Adam Levin:
Just look in that mirror and realize you are standing between you and some very bad people.
Beau Friedlander:
And no one else, and Craigslist, for sure, isn’t anywhere in that picture.
Travis Taylor:
Well, the thing about Craigslist is it’s convenient for buying things and it’s convenient for selling things, and that makes it extremely convenient for scammers.
Beau Friedlander:
Yeah.
Adam Levin:
Convenience versus security, my friends. That’s the ongoing debate.
Beau Friedlander:
But Bill’s particular case, it did pivot around being in a rush. He decided day of that he wanted to go to an event, and that put him in a position to be compromised.
Adam Levin:
But yet, if you go to legitimate resale sites, you will pay more, it will be painful, but at least they’ll make sure that you get what you pay for.
Beau Friedlander:
True. I mean, you may pay a premium, but at least you will be getting what you paid for. Well [crosstalk 00:34:49].
Adam Levin:
Well, think about the trade off between a good deal that is actually too good to be true, followed by hours of agonizing investigative work in order to try to get to the bottom of it, versus dealing with a reseller, paying more, but getting what you want.
Beau Friedlander:
No, 100%. I’m like, “Yeah, I’ll give you 100% more than it’s worth because I won’t have to do all that.”
Travis Taylor:
Well, the thing, too, that makes tickets and the like so ideal for scams, too, is that they have no real intrinsic valve in and of themselves. Beau, what you were talking about before with having a tractor being sold for $1,000, you can immediately smell a rat on that because you just say, “I know a tractor costs this much.” If you’re going to see Bob Dylan or if you’re going to go see a hockey game or something like that, some people might be willing to pay 10 bucks, some people might be willing to pay $1,000. You just don’t know, and as far as that’s concerned, that makes it a little bit harder to have a red flag show up because you really don’t know what the overall value of something is. The ticket cost can vary, the availability can vary, the convenience fees that Ticketmaster charges can vary. It makes it a lot harder to smell a rat there.
Beau Friedlander:
Yeah. I mean, I also think that… He brought up Reverb.com, which is a place where people sell instruments. They have an escrow model. They hold onto the money, it doesn’t get delivered until the goods get delivered, the goods get plugged in or played or whatever, and they check out, then money changes hands. So, it does exist out there, but it doesn’t exist everywhere. eBay certainly does not have that model, but they have other safeguards. The bottom line is buyer beware.
Adam Levin:
Always has been, always will be, unfortunately.
Adam Levin:
So, listen, folks, thanks so much for listening, and if you like what you heard, we would really appreciate it if you would help us help other people hear what you liked. So, please give us a review and give us five stars. It’s such a nice number, of five. It all also means change if you’re a numerology person.
Beau Friedlander:
Oh my gosh, Adam. Give the guy five stars.
Adam Levin:
Yeah. It’s a spiritual thing. Right?
Beau Friedlander:
All right.
Travis Taylor:
Deeply.
Adam Levin:
It’ll change your life. It’ll change our lives.
Beau Friedlander:
It will change our lives because we’ll get to stop hearing Adam ask for five stars.
Travis Taylor:
I don’t know if that’s going to happen.
Adam Levin:
Probably not.
Beau Friedlander:
What the Heck with Adam Levin is a production of Loud Tree Media.
Adam Levin:
It’s produced by Andrew Steven, the man with two first names.
Travis Taylor:
You can find us online at loudtreemedia.com and on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook @AdamKLevin.
