Beau Friedlander:
Adam, what I, as you know, I just took possession of where I probably will live for the rest of my life, at least. I hope so. And in the basement, in the window, in the basement, there were 60 or 70 or maybe a hundred or 90 or gazillion jumping spiders the size of a silver dollar. When he went downstairs to say hello to the equipment in the basement, they jump on you.
Adam Levin:
I will not be going into your basement.
Beau Friedlander:
I have serious arachnophobia and yeah, I am not really a killer of things, but these things have to go. And I called an exterminator and they said, it’ll cost you this and then we’ll come every month and it’ll cost you that. We need to check your credit. And I was like, I have to pass a credit test in order to get my spiders taken care of. Yes, I did. And I’d verified that I’d called the right number. This was an exterminator. They weren’t a scam artist. They just were a person trying to figure out if I could pay my bill. And yeah, anyway, thank God I have everything set up so I can just unlock it and lock it. I use the Experian lock so I don’t have it frozen. I just lock, you know what? And if you’re out there thinking you can hack me, go ahead try. But I do have that set up and it worked just fine. And apparently the spiders will be gone sometime next week and I’m going to hell for killing them all. But I seem to hear, think we had a little experience last night, didn’t we?
Adam Levin:
So we came back from a sports event right in, it was an incredibly fun sports event, and we walked into a house where the electricity was off. It blew the backup on my computer. It did a number of things. But anyway, we walked into darkness and before the lights came back on again, Beau said, I
Beau Friedlander:
Saw cricket. I said, there’s a cricket over there,
Adam Levin:
And I know you have creepy crawley things here in Arizona. And I saw something and I went, oh my God, I hope it’s not a scorpion. And we looked in, no, it was in fact a cricket. But then while we were looking at the cricket, we suddenly turned, and there on the floor was a scorpion terror.
Beau Friedlander:
You said. Does it look like a little lobster?
Adam Levin:
Yeah. There’s no question that when you see a thing that looks like a little lobster, we’re not talking about a crayfish when you’re in the middle of the desert. Hi, there I am Adam Levin, former director of the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs, founder of Cybers Scout, and author of the book, swiped How to Protect Yourself in a World Full of Scammers, fishers, and Identity Thieves.
Beau Friedlander:
Yeah, and I’m Beau Friedlander. I am currently hacking into, no, I’m kidding. I’m just a guy who’s interested in cybersecurity.
Travis Taylor:
And I’m Travis Taylor, resident tech guy. When we talk about the subject of creepy crawly things and a story that has legs, the fact is that we deal with a lot of people online that we could consider being digital scorpions. Digital spiders. And we have a really interesting story today about a guy who had dealings, unfortunate, unpleasant dealings that had ramifications with people who I consider to be digital scorpions.
Beau Friedlander:
We’re not talking about the scorpions who were funded by the ccia A, the band,
Adam Levin:
Not that scorpion band. We’re talking about scammers, hackers, fishers, those kind of scorpions.
Beau Friedlander:
Although
Travis Taylor:
Thanks, Bo. I’m now going to have winds of change stuck in my head for the next
Beau Friedlander:
Week. Winds of change, scorpions. But we’re talking about the cyber kind, the little nasties that instead of making your arm go numb, they make your bank account go numb,
Adam Levin:
The cyber scorpions. So our guest today is Larry Giro, and I was introduced to Larry by his sister-in-Law, who I know who I’ve done stories with before. A Susan Tomor who was a nationally syndicated columnist from the Detroit Free Press, who has become a friend over the years. She sent me a note and said, you got to meet my brother-in-Law. First of all, he’s an incredibly good guy and he had a really bizarre experience and maybe you can help him, but he certainly has a story that you need to hear. So Larry, you live where now?
Larry:
I live in Norfolk, Virginia.
Adam Levin:
And are you retired?
Larry:
I’ve been retired since I was 52. I retired from Ford Motor Company.
Adam Levin:
What’d you do for Ford?
Larry:
Well, I started out on the line and then I became a millwright by trade, and then I became a supervisor.
Beau Friedlander:
And what was that trade? What was the trade?
Larry:
Larry Millwright. Steelworker.
Beau Friedlander:
Oh, steelworker,
Larry:
Yeah. Awesome. So I spent 32 years with Ford’s and they paid for my bachelor’s and my MBA. It took me 22 years to get my bachelor’s and another seven to get my MBA, but I did it. And when I retired, my kids were going to the high school that I went to, and it was a parochial school, and the principal there says she needed a math teacher, and I says, well, I can fill in. That was my minor. And so she called me in August and I says, okay, I’ll fill in for as long as you want. And I filled in for 10 years. And so I taught high school for 10 years high school math, and then they closed both schools that I went to where I was teaching at. And then I went to a golf course and I was a maintenance man on a golf course for five years before I fully retired. Retired.
Beau Friedlander:
Now, are you really, really retired now? Are you holding out on us? You still got a job somewhere?
Larry:
Oh, no, no, this guy. No, I’m done, but the only job I have is watching my grandkids.
Beau Friedlander:
See, I knew you were holding out on us. We knew
Adam Levin:
That you have two things that you love to do.
Larry:
Oh yeah. I love golfing. Yeah. I go out there and then I got my two grandkids, my granddaughter, in fact, she’s coming over later. And my grandson, he plays hockey. He’s 12 years old and he’s as tall as I am. He’s like 6 1, 6 foot.
Adam Levin:
Just tell him to keep his teeth.
Larry:
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Beau Friedlander:
Are you golfing all the time, Larry?
Larry:
Pretty much. When I can get out. See, I can’t drive anymore, so I have to rely on a ride whenever I want to go anywhere, I’m losing my vision. I got glaucoma and I lost my peripheral vision years ago, so as of probably last September or so, I haven’t driven.
Beau Friedlander:
What’s your handicap when you’re playing golf?
Larry:
Oh, you don’t want to know that. I want to know. I’m 39.
Beau Friedlander:
Oh, at 39. That’s better
Larry:
Than me. Yeah, I’m not ashamed of it. I mean, the guys know when they golf with me, they got to watch my ball. I never see it.
Beau Friedlander:
Well, not only that, but you’re a 39, you’re going to beat ’em too.
Adam Levin:
Yeah, generally I get 39 on the first hole. And as a matter of fact, I once got a hole in one, but it was the wrong hole.
Larry:
Oh, that’s not uncommon,
Beau Friedlander:
Larry. That is a sharp shirt you’re wearing there. What’s on that? Is it an eagle, American Eagle? No. Oh, it’s amazing.
Larry:
Oh, this is only one of about a dozen.
Beau Friedlander:
That’s a great shirt. I have to say,
Larry:
I wear this stuff all the time. I go out for a walk. I got American flags. I save eagles, so that’s why I got an eagle on. I
Adam Levin:
Love eagles. Actually, I have a picture of a very large eagle. It used to be in the conference room over at Cyber Scout, so
Beau Friedlander:
You guys can hang out and share your eagles.
Adam Levin:
We can share our eagles.
Beau Friedlander:
So you have this innate or strong math ability, and I’m thinking that might figure into your story today. What brought you to us?
Larry:
Well, I got to preface this by saying years ago I went down to Myrtle Beach, and at that time I only used a debit card. I had no credit cards, and I used a debit card to pay for meals. And I came and stopped back to visit my kids here, and I took ’em out to dinner. And when I used my debit card, the guy said there was nothing on it. I says, wait a minute. I looked at it this morning. So when I got back, I looked at my account and two charges for $499 and 99 cents were made to my debit card. Well, there was no problem there. I called Bank of America, I got the money back. It was made to Best Buy in California. So that number stuck in my head.
Beau Friedlander:
Larry, there’s two charges. Yeah. Yes. Okay.
Larry:
So it was like $998 and some odd cents, they run my whole bank account out. So right away, that number stuck in my head. So I get a call, this was two Tuesdays ago, and I got a premise that again, I Monday, I had laser treatment on my eyes and my eyes were killing me on Tuesday. So I called my doctor and I was waiting for a call from my doctor, and I get this call and I didn’t recognize the number, so I didn’t answer it. I get a voicemail saying, yeah, $499 and 99 cents where charge to your Amazon account. And so that number that stuck in my head right away registered
Beau Friedlander:
Same exact thing as the Best Buy purchase.
Larry:
So I didn’t even question it. I called him back. So the guy gets me on the phone and says, yeah, we’re from the fraud department at Amazon, and he gave me his name and his badge number and a bunch of other things. And then he says, yeah, we’ll get it back into your bank account. He says, I’ll send you a link, click on it. And he says, A form will come up, fill it out. And he says, we’ll put it back in your account. Well, I did. I clicked on it and I filled out the form, but in the meantime, I noticed a cursor on my computer. So I said to the guy, I says, Hey, what’s this cursor on my computer? He says, I’m going to help you fill out the form.
Beau Friedlander:
Well, let me ask you, hold on a second there. Now the cursor, you mean when you’re moving the mouse around on your computer? That thing. So you put where you Yeah,
Larry:
But I wasn’t moving the mouse.
Beau Friedlander:
Who was moving it? The guy he was, yeah. So he was in your computer then,
Larry:
Right? It dawned on me after that. But what happened was once he got into computer, then he showed me my bank account or facsimile of, and he says, yeah, see the 4 99? I said, yeah, I see it in my account. He says, well, I’ll put it back in now that you filled out the form. Well, I waited a few minutes, and then he shows me the bank account again, except he put $3,499 and 99 cents into the account. I says,
Beau Friedlander:
Hey, what? Now? We’re looking at a website that he navigated you to, correct? Yeah.
Larry:
Well, no, because yeah, he sort of navigated me to it, but it looked like my real bank account,
Beau Friedlander:
But I have a feeling it wasn’t keep going. So what happened when, oh,
Larry:
Then I says to him, I says, Hey, I says, you put $3,000 too much in there. And he says, oh yeah. He says, son of a gun. He says, I made a mistake. He says, well, we’ll have to fix that. I says, okay, take it out. He says, I can’t take it out. I said, what do you mean you can’t take it out? You put it in? He says, well, he says, there’s a technical with trying to take money out of your account. He says, I can put money in, but I can’t take money out. Okay, do something. I don’t care. I’m not going to spend it. So he says, wait a minute. And he went to whatever. He put me on a phone with another guy who supposedly was his boss, and this guy gave me a name and a badge number and everything and says, yeah, we’ll take care of it. He says, I can give you a $200 convenience fee because we’re putting you out. He says, but we need $2,800. And I says, wow. Then the other guy come back on and says, is there a CVS near you? And I says, not really. I says, it’s quite a ways away. He says, well, if you go to the CVS, I says, I can’t go anywhere. I don’t drive.
Beau Friedlander:
Now, is he getting annoyed at this point or is he just trying to guide you?
Larry:
I was getting annoyed, and I think he was too. And I says, look, I says, I can’t get to the CVS. He says, well see if you can find a ride and get to the CVS and give me a call back. I says, well, hey, look, you put it in, you take it out. And then he started to guilt me. He says, oh, he says, I’m not spamming you. He says, I’m an honest American. He says, I got a 2-year-old daughter, and now he’s like, you know how you sound when you cry? That’s what he sounded.
Beau Friedlander:
And can you imagine? This is a guy from amazon.com, not your typical amazon.com behavior. He
Larry:
Says, my boss is going to fire me. I says, Hey, look, you take care of it. I’m shutting off my computer and I’m shutting off this phone call, which I did. I shut off my computer and I shut off my phone call.
Beau Friedlander:
Good job.
Larry:
Well, he called me 17 times after that.
Beau Friedlander:
How many times?
Larry:
- Obviously he’s compulsive.
Beau Friedlander:
Yeah, yeah, busy beaver.
Larry:
But what he did was by then I had talked to my daughter and she sent my son and my son-in-Law over by my house, by my apartment. In the meantime, I was on the phone with Bank of America, and they already had froze my account. They saw it and they froze it so that they couldn’t get any money. So I didn’t lose any money on this deal.
Beau Friedlander:
That’s great. Larry, lemme ask you a question. So when you called the bank, did you say, Hey, I got this really suspicious phone call I wanted to tell you about it.
Larry:
I said, oh, I told him I think I got scammed. And she says, I know she already had my account up. And she says, yeah, I know we froze your account. You didn’t lose any money. I says, oh. So we had to go ahead and process my son-in-Law, got my daughter on the phone because she’s the co-owner of the account, and we had to open a new account via Zoom or whatever it was she was on, and we got a new account opened up. So that was fine. And then my son says, Hey, we got to go in and change all your passwords. If they had control of your computer, they can get any password they want. And I said, okay. So he sat down and he started doing the passwords. Well, in the meantime, a text message comes across and it’s the same guy, same phone number, and he says, did you get a ride? And my son-in-Law, my son told him in not so many terms to F off, he says, don’t call me anymore. So I never got another call from him.
Beau Friedlander:
Well, but that is actually the technical term of art to get rid of these guys. It’s F off. But Adam, I was wondering, to me, this sounds a lot like the bad actors here, and I don’t mean a bad actor like Jim Carrey and liar, liar, I mean, bad actor, like a criminal. It sounds to me like they got Larry to do a remote access site and they did a takeover.
Adam Levin:
It certainly, they created a clone site, and they got you to believe that in fact this was the right site because they’re very good at these kinds of things. By the way, Bo, when you said bad actor, I thought Jim Carrey was a pretty good actor, and liar, liar.
Beau Friedlander:
He’s an over actor. I’m not even going to have that discussion.
Adam Levin:
But anyway, it’s time now, Larry, to bring in the voice of God, Travis and all of this, because he’s been listening. I could go on forever, but Travis can give all of us the technological spin on this. So Travis, what do you think? Well,
Travis Taylor:
I’d say first of all, the surest sign of something suspicious is that you’re actually able to speak with a human at Amazon.
That’s true. Even their employees tend to be managed by computers. But yeah, so one of the main things is that if they’re getting in contact with you and calling you, that’s usually a surefire sign. It’s something where Amazon is so ubiquitous at this point that it’s very likely that if you were to receive an email or if you were to send an email to someone, it’s more than likely that they’ve actually purchased something on Amazon or have an account with it or have done that at some point. I think one of the other things that is sort of an immediate indicator is the 499 value in a lot of states, not every state, but the line between petty theft and grand theft is $500. So that means if you ever see something at that exact number, that’s usually a pretty big indicator of some sort of someone that is committing fraud but doesn’t want to go to jail for that long. But the other thing too is getting you to go to that link. Sounds like that’s where they were able to get into your
Beau Friedlander:
Computer. And to me, I have to say, and we do Larry, we’re like the Globetrotters, but we talk about cyber. We’re the cyber globe Trotters, so we’re going to bounce this ball from each of us and tell you what we think happened. But I think that it’s quite possible that they did get your passwords while they were in your computer. Certainly.
Larry:
You’ll have to assume they did. Well, it was funny because every once in a while my screen would turn blue and it’d say updating, and then, oh boy, I would switch off. And so I just thought it was my computer updating. I didn’t think it was them doing anything until about the third time, and then it dawned on me.
Beau Friedlander:
Well, so have you spoken to an expert or, I mean, Adam, I know you were telling me that there was perhaps some help on the way on this. What have you done to try and fix your situation?
Larry:
Well, I talked to Steven Isaac. Isaac, yes, yes, I talked. He’s great. In fact, I talked to him early today and one of his suggestions was that I take my computer to Best Buy or someplace or to an expert and have it wiped and then reinstate everything he says, once they get in and get your information, they can do it anytime. I see. So I do have, what do you call it, repair insurance on my computer that I can take it into Best Buy anytime I want or have ’em come out. And so that’s what I’m going to do. Oh, their protection plan. Yeah.
Beau Friedlander:
Yeah. And that guy, Steve is Steve Isaac from Cybers Scout is a genius when it comes to this stuff. He’s really helpful. He was
Larry:
Real
Beau Friedlander:
Helpful.
Larry:
Yeah, he was. I really enjoyed talking to him.
Beau Friedlander:
So what is your game plan for getting back to a cyber secure situation in your home?
Larry:
Well, right now, I talked to my daughter this afternoon after I talked to Steve and I told her that I needed to do that with the computer. Now I got a couple of choices. First, try to get the Geek Squad to come here and see if they can do it. They do do that. If I can’t, then I’m going to take my computer out and I have a laptop that my daughter’s been one of the kids grandkids have been using for school. So I got a laptop that I can hook up here and use it as my backup until my computer gets straightened out. So I think I’m pretty well set. The whole problem with this whole thing was the trouble you have to go through after you figure it out. I’ve had to deal with social security. I’ve had to deal with my finance. Anything that was coming into my account, I had to contact and I had to change to the new account. Now, Wednesday was my social security date. It went to the old account. I had to call Bank of America fraud to have ’em transfer it over. A lot of the stuff that comes out of my account was on my old debit card. So every place that I see something come out, I got to go change the debit card. It’s just a big hassle afterwards.
Adam Levin:
No, it’s definitely a process. And that’s why taking precautions at the end of the day, however painful some people think the precautions may be in order to take ’em oftentimes saves you a great deal of grief afterwards. And these are very clever people, and they prey on people believing, and especially they come up with very logical conversations and logical reasons why somebody should do something. And people listen and they follow and they do it, and then they have to go through the nightmare that you went through. But it’s good that you’re supported by a very surrounded by a very supportive family. And certainly it doesn’t hurt to have a Sister-in-Law who was a very powerful national journalist. That’s for sure. Well,
Larry:
I didn’t tell you the part about when I did tell her, she says, didn’t you read my column last Thursday? I said, how did I miss it? I get to Detroit Free Press every day. I read it every day and I read her columns, but for some reason, last Thursday, the column she wrote on that, I must have missed it. I don’t know how, but yeah, she explained it. She had it in her column. It’s amazing.
Beau Friedlander:
Your behavior’s going to probably change now online. So what did you learn? What will you never do again? What’s the upshot?
Larry:
All this Save my passwords online. It’d say, do you want to save it in your computer, your password? So when you click on it, it automatically clicks your password and then you get in. You don’t have to keep typing in your password. Well, I take the time now and I type in my password. I changed most
Adam Levin:
Or use a password manager, get them, and then they create long and strong passwords. They can also store passwords for you depending upon,
Beau Friedlander:
Yeah, I mean you can even Larry, when the Geek Squad comes out, you might even ask them to set that up for you.
Larry:
Yeah, I’ll try it. Thanks a lot. I really appreciate that. And the thing about it is you hear stories and then you say, how do people fall for that? I had it in my mind, how do people fall for that? And now I fell for it and I’m thinking anybody can fall for it if that’s the case.
Adam Levin:
Absolutely. And the important thing, the way that these guys are able to take advantage of people is because we all have lives. We all have what we call day jobs, whether it’s taking care of your grandkids, whether it’s doing things you like to do golf or some of the other things you like to do, whether it’s working, doing philanthropic activity, going to school, whatever. We have day jobs and we are distracted because that’s what life is about. We get distracted and they prey on our distraction, and that’s what’s so tragic and unfair about this whole
Larry:
Thing. Well, you want to know an interesting thing? I had two meetings last week. I had a legion meeting, American Legion meeting and a Alhambra meeting, and I printed up Susie’s article and I took ’em to the meetings, and all of a sudden I’m hearing all these stories about people that didn’t scammed but didn’t tell anybody. That happens
Adam Levin:
A lot. That
Larry:
Happens. They feel ashamed that they got scammed. That’s not me. You did something to me. I’m going to let everybody know that you did it to me.
Beau Friedlander:
Larry, aren’t you the information officer at one of those, the organizations?
Larry:
Yes. I’m the information officer at Legion American Legion.
Beau Friedlander:
So I bet there’s nobody at that American Legion who doesn’t know.
Larry:
Right? They all know now. In fact, I didn’t run off enough copies and they wanted more copies.
Adam Levin:
No, but that’s also the critical thing is that people need to stand up. They need to speak out, they need to tell their story. And because it should be not embarrassing for them, but they should be wanting to do the equivalent of a public service for their friends and their colleagues, is that it’s important to get the story out because the more of us that know and the more that we know, the more we can help other people not have to be living through the agony that we live through with a situation like this.
Larry:
Well, I talked to one of my relatives yesterday, and lo and behold, she tells me her husband got scammed for 500 bucks. I says, well, who do you tell? She says, nobody. I says, well, that doesn’t help. You got to tell somebody so that somebody will correct it.
Travis Taylor:
Was it 500 or 499?
Larry:
No, no. It was another scam. It wasn’t one those,
Beau Friedlander:
Travis, any advice for Larry you got for him today that you’d like to share?
Travis Taylor:
Sure. I mean, I think one of the big ones is with your password. Just make sure you’re not reusing them. If you have the exact same password that you use for, say, your Bank of America account or your email and so on, that every time you reuse that, all you need to do is have someone compromise that one time, and that tends to be the big one. Also, I’m not sure if you use a cell phone or have that on you all the time, but multifactor authentication, which is just a really fancy way of just saying get a text every time you log into an account, because that means that if someone of one of the bad actors out there is trying to access your account or is trying to pull the same stunt that he did with you before, that just gives you an extra little bit of protection. I
Larry:
Do have a couple of ’em that I get a text with a code number that I got to put in to get into the account.
Travis Taylor:
Yeah, that’s always a good idea, especially if it’s something connected to your finances or social security or anything else along those lines. You really just want to make sure that you’re given the bad guys as high of a hurdle as possible to jump over to get access. Larry,
Beau Friedlander:
Always assume when you’re on a call with somebody you don’t know that they might be one of the bad guys and make them go through the hurdles.
Larry:
Let’s put it this way, I learned my lesson
Adam Levin:
And Larry living in the world we live in today. When you’re dealing online, you’re dealing with anyone who’s trying to communicate with you is never trust, always question, always verify.
Larry:
Yeah. I need to remember to do that kind of stuff. My problem is I’m too trusting. I think I don’t question a lot of things. So it is a lot of stuff that that’s the way I was brought up, and it’s kind of hard to break that. You don’t want to say, Hey, verify this.
Beau Friedlander:
Yeah, but you went to, your kids, went to the same school you went to, and it’s understandable when your world is relatively small, but the minute you open up that computer, you’re in a really big world. It’s a big world.
Larry:
Yeah. I appreciate you guys talking to me. I think more people should know about stuff like this, and that’s why when Susie said, did I want to do this? I said, yeah, that’s fine. I can tell the whole world as far as I’m concerned.
Adam Levin:
Anyway, listen, Larry, you thanked us for listening to you, but the truth is we thank you for sharing your story with us and for all of our listeners because I think this is an extremely important story to hear. And for those I’m not too far behind you in age, and I can tell you that it’s very important for those of us who are seniors to share our stories because seniors have a tendency, all of us, to be at least people try to play us assuming that we will be trusting and assuming We do like to communicate with people when they contact us. So thank you. This very important.
Larry:
And two, at our age, we’re all relying on what we made before and we can’t go out and make any more. Like if you’re young and you do something stupid, like give away $2,000, you can always make it up. You’re working right? But now at 77, there’s no way I’m going to make up that kind of money. I rely on social security and my investments. And so yeah, you got to really protect yourself.
Beau Friedlander:
Absolutely. You did a huge service to everybody in your peer group for talking about it, because that’s a hundred percent true.
Adam Levin:
So thanks again, and we appreciate it. And if you need any help or anything, you let us know. Well,
Larry:
You put me onto Steve, so he’s helping me quite a bit.
Adam Levin:
Fantastic. Well, thank you for joining us.
Beau Friedlander:
Bye, Larry. Thank
Adam Levin:
You. Thanks, Larry.
Larry:
Okay, thanks a lot. Nice meeting you guys.
Adam Levin:
What the heck is a loud tree media production in partnership with large media? That’s LARJ Media. You can find. What the heck, wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to follow us on social media and find additional information at adamlevin.com.
Speaker 5:
Loud Tree.
