How to avoid being a victim to fraud

All right, Jacqueline Steve, thanks so much. Fraud is evolving and artificial intelligence gives scammers new ways to deceive. Kevin Brassler is here now, Executive Editor of Washington Consumers Checkbook. It's so good to have you. Before we get to your tips and information, which we certainly need this day and age, let's start with artificial intelligence and how it's actually making scammers jobs easier. Yeah, I mean, it's a big problem. I've been doing consumer advocacy now for 30 years. And fraud, in terms of the number of losses, the amount of losses American consumers are suffering, are giving up to scammers, basically. It's never been this bad. It's never been close to this bad. Last year, the FTC said that about $16 billion were lost to scammers just in the US. And that's just fraud that was reported to it. I mean, that's probably a small share of actual losses. Scammers can now use AI. It used to be you'd get an email or a text or a letter and it just didn't look right. There are a lot of grammatical errors. Well, they can clean all that up with AI. They can even impersonate people's voices. And they're really using these AI tools, and this is what I'm really worried about, to break into accounts. It's just making it easier for them to crack security codes, to guess passwords. It used to be they'd have to write their own programs to do this. Now, anyone can write, can code in AI. And I really worry about people, especially vulnerable people, and I especially worry about people's retirement accounts, which are often pretty much unprotected in terms of guarantees that you get. If fraud occurs in your retirement account, you may not get the money back. We hear about the voice cloning, but being that it can actually break into your accounts, I mean, that's definitely unfortunate and very scary. So what can we all do to avoid those scams and also the traditional ones that we often see? Yeah, I mean, the number one thing, and this kind of relates to several of the 12 top tips we have here, is you have to be skeptical. You have to take your time. Really be cynical these days in terms of don't trust any emails you get. Don't trust especially texts and calls you get. And you really have to guard your personal information. Don't give up your user names. Don't give up your passwords. Monitor all your accounts. I mean, I would say these days almost every day you should monitor your bank, credit card, and retirement and investment accounts for fraud, for loss. Because the sooner you realize that problems have occurred, the better. But the main thing you can do, again, is to be skeptical. Pretty much every victim of fraud says, look, I really wish I had trusted my gut. It didn't seem right. The person was very convincing. These con owners, they're very good at their jobs. And often what they do is they attack the weakest security link in the chain. And often that weakest link, it's us, that we just kind of unwittingly give up passwords. A lot of times these days they're using IT scams. They're telling you something's wrong with your computer. Just click this link and I'll fix it for you. And now you've given them access to your device. That's a big problem also. You all also encourage people to open their postal mail. Still open the mail. And hopefully we can put that graphic back up so our viewers can list those tips. But we still have to do that, Kevin. You do. And the reason is that sometimes you'll get notices from a bank or the IRS, legitimate notices, that say essentially, hey, somebody has requested to withdraw money from this account. You have seven days to let us know whether this is accurate or not, whether this is really you. And so don't let mail pile up. Kind of be conditioned, especially for our retirement accounts, investment accounts. Just let the money grow. You'll get a quarterly statement. Maybe not even open that. No, I think these days you really have to track your physical mail. But even then, be careful. There used to be scammers kind of avoided sending stuff through the physical mail because they were worried about federal laws. The post office would come after them. It's a felony to do that. But now we're seeing mail coming in from Canada. I mean, the scammers really are emboldened these days. And they've become, again, quite sophisticated in their attacks. And you still want us to use our credit cards primarily, you know, online. I think, you know, unless you're worried about racking up debt, especially if you're paying kind of a new company or an unknown person, use a credit card. And the reason is, is that's one way to where fraud occurs, you can get your money back. There's something called the Federal Fair Credit Billing Act, and that gives all consumers in the US enormous protections against fraud. So fraud occurs on your credit card. Somebody steals your credit card number, racks up a bunch of charges. You can contest that charge. You'll get your money back. If you pay for goods or services and they weren't delivered as promised, or the stuff doesn't arrive, or you got scammed, you have a way to get your money back if you pay with a credit card. You might not necessarily get that protection if you pay with a debit card. And you certainly don't get any protections when you pay by these, you know, peer-to-peer apps, right, Venmo and things like that. If problems occur, you're very likely not to get your money back. Cash up. And that's why they always have that sense of urgency when they're messaging you. So you'll kind of bypass a good judgment and make that payment. And it's a lot harder to get your money back. Kevin, thank you so much for joining us on behalf of Washington Consumers Checkbook. That was great, great critical information that's needed. It is 920, the biggest names in sports.