Scammers Are Getting Smarter! Tips To Protect Yourself | Biz to Biz Podcast

Yo, what's up everybody? It's Justin live from B2B Vault, the biz to biz podcast sponsored by Nationwide Payment Systems, hosted by this guy, the Bob Eucher of payment processing himself, Allen Kopelman. And we'll be providing you educational information about fintech, small business payment processing, and the technology businesses use in the world today. In today's podcast, we're going to be talking about some scams that have been going around. Uh, Allen recently learned of something new and thought he would, uh, make an announcement. I've actually heard about it before, so it's no big deal news to me, but I don't necessarily like to announce these type of things so that we can make them people aware of it. But I understand where he's coming from. Uh, knowledge is key. So, uh, yeah, sit back, relax, and listen to Allen tell some stories about Scams. Besides that, um, it's pouring rain.

It's pouring thunder.

You might hear some thunder, some very loud rain. Uh, and yeah, so how you doing, bro? Doing good.

How you doing? You getting ready to head out for a little, uh, R&R?

Uh, yeah, making a quick, uh, trip to Ashland, Oregon. It is, uh, there's— it's a, a wellness retreat happening this weekend.

Nice. Um, what time's the flight?

I leave today at 6:30.

I hope so.

I hope so too. Um, but it— I, I mean, I just— it's a weird, you know, getting from here to the West Coast. Oh yeah, it's very easy.

No, it's like 2 planes.

So right now I'm taking 3 planes to get there. On the way home, it's not as bad. I'm just taking 2. Um, so yeah. Um, I'm not looking forward to part of that of the trip. So getting to Ashland, Oregon, and, you know, hopping into these, you know, like, what, hot springs is— I'm really looking forward to that.

Yeah, we have a bunch of clients out in Oregon because I have a referral partner.

Oh, nice.

There. And so they refer me quite a few. We have quite a few clients out in that, in that part of the—

so get this area— tomorrow, tonight, I get into Vegas. I'm flying from Anyway, I get to Vegas tonight and then I gotta wait until 8 o'clock tomorrow morning.

Wow.

To fly out to Portland. I was just, I was about to ask, like, the Larry Reid Airport, Harris Reid Airport?

No, Harry Reid.

Harry Reid. Yeah. So is that close to stuff or?

It's right on, dude, it's like 15 minutes from the Strip.

So I can leave the airport. Yeah. Walk around and make my way back into Vegas.

You could go to Vegas, go hang out in a hotel.

I was thinking about trying to find a place to get some sleep.

You probably should find some place before you leave.

Like while I'm in the air or something?

Yeah, like hotels.com and see if there's a— see if there's a—

I don't know if that's worth it for me. But I mean, so this is the other thing, what time is it really going to be when I get there?

No, that's probably Vegas time.

So right, so it says I arrive at 10:50 5.

Yeah, Vegas time.

But so is that— is that— no, on the plane ticket it says 10:55 though. Is it really going to be 1:55? No, it's whatever the time— whatever.

No, no, they put the time that it's going to be there.

I hope so. Okay, because I'm always confused with that. Always, that always messes me up.

I mean, sometimes you can find hotel rooms there for like $40, $50.

I was reading yesterday morning that they actually have sleep pods at the Vegas airport.

Oh, I don't know.

Maybe check that out. I am definitely going to.

I would do that before you leave though.

Oh yeah, no, I mean the whole time. I mean, I have until midnight.

No, no, I'm just saying like sleep.

Oh yeah, that's right. You might, you know, I get there and everything's closed.

Yeah. So I would definitely look into that before we're done with recording the podcast.

Rocky is not too happy with this. Rocky is not doing good with the thunder right now.

Come here, buddy.

It's okay. It's going to be all right. Yeah, man. So I'm really looking forward to that. I really appreciate Allen. My wife and a couple of my bros, actually, I learned they pitched in as well. So this is just a, I guess, a testament to taking care of your mental health and people, you know, acknowledging and seeing that I'm doing good and wanting me to continue to do good. And yeah, man, take care of yourself, man. That's, you know, I guess—

Definitely, it's true. You got to take care of yourself. Fill yourself with positivity, positive people around you. Yes. Mind over matter. You can do this.

There's one, there's one thing I really want to say to it. Be careful of the stuff that you're consuming. Like, uh, I'm not just talking about food. I'm talking about entertainment. I'm talking about the music. I'm talking about the shows you watch. I mean, even if you're to the point where news stations are triggering you, man. I really, I would really, I really suggest to limit that stuff. Social media is another one of them. You know, if you're dealing with something, man, and just, just be careful of what you consume. Like, seriously.

No, it's definitely like that can, that can affect you, you know, whatever you're consuming.

Yeah, I was telling somebody yesterday, like, the music that we grew up to is like It's like murder music, right? Like, it's really depressing because, you know, if you grew up in this life or, you know, in the neighborhoods and you hear these songs, you know, you relive these experiences. And so, like, every time you hear this song—

Well, people talk about those video games too, you know.

I mean, I'm not— I get it, but I'm just saying, like, stay away from video games too if you're dealing with, you know, this— Just, just be very careful of the stuff that you're consuming.

But it's always good to surround yourself with people who are positive and giving you positive reinforcement and pumping you up and not, you know, putting you down. Absolutely.

Well, so what's the new scam, bro?

So I found out this is like not a new scam, but I, you know, cause I looked at it, I Googled it, but when I was talking, so I'll tell, let me jump into the story. So I go to the grocery store.

Wait a second. Story time with Allen.

So I jump into the— I go to the grocery store. I need to purchase a gift card. I'm looking and I go, I look and I see they move the gift cards. They must have moved them strategically. And when I go, there is a big sign. It said Visa, MasterCard, and Starbucks are all sold at the front at the customer service area. So I'm looking all over the rack and then I see that So I go to customer service and I go, okay, I need to get a Visa gift card. And I said, by the way, why?

Right?

So the guy starts to educate me on the whole thing. So if you're listening, go to YouTube so you can see the video, right? So I'm going to show— so what the guy was explaining to me at the grocery store was he said it was happening like in 2022. A little bit. He said it started ramping up around the end of 2022.

That's what I started hearing about it for the holidays.

It really, really ramped up. And then he said it got about a month or two ago, he said it got completely out of control.

So what are they doing?

So what are they doing? People are making fake gift card, the packaging, right? And then this barcode on the back. I learned what this does, and that freaked me out. So what happens is when you go to the, like, you know, where do you buy these? Publix, CVS, Walgreens, Walmart, right? So what happens is you go in and you see it looks like the Amazon gift card, the Visa gift card, and all that. So You go and you take it, you go up to the counter, and then they peel off this piece that exposes the barcode in the back. In the back, they scan the barcode. When they scan the barcode, they say to you to run your card. So now you're putting your chip card into the thing and you tell them how much you want to put, and they could know, well, oh yeah, this one says 25, or let's say—

I forget that they're like that now.

Yeah, most of them have a have a dollar amount that says $25. And for— I, I don't know why, but this barcode tells them where to send the information, your credit card information. So now this is a scam card. The scammer has my— now has all my credit card information, full credit card data. Yep, not just the last 4 digits, they got the whole thing.

So they have your name.

Yeah, and your name. They have your credit card data, right? Because they have everything that's on the front and back of your card. Now they have it. You have this gift card. So now I take the gift card, I give it to Justin. Justin takes the gift card, and maybe, you know, I don't give Justin the gift card receipt, or I don't have the regular receipt, right? Or whatever, I don't give him, or he throws away the gift card receipt, and he goes on Amazon He goes to use the card and they go, no, we need— no, it's no good, it's not a good card because it's counterfeit. Yep. So they started keeping these behind the counter. Also, they don't give people their money back unless they have a copy of the receipt that they bought it with, or the gift card receipt.

Well, that's tragic.

Yeah, it's a gift card. Yeah, but they don't know how you get it.

Most people don't get it. Well, they can't.

Yeah, you get it, you get it.

I'm saying the people who's getting the gift.

I give people the gift card receipt. They give you one, Allen.

Okay, well, you're definitely an exception. I'm not giving— like, if I give a gift card, I guess if it's for my kids, I'll give it to like my daughter, right? Like, my— I'm like, okay, this is the gift card, this is for you, Ellie, here's the receipt, here's for you, Mom, right? Yeah, I guess I would consciously try.

Or let's say I'm giving it away in a giveaway. You know, I put that receipt in there, the gift receipt. It doesn't—

I mean, you've been in this payment processing game for, you know, 22 dinosaurs walking around. No, I'm joking.

No. So the— so now I'm— I've heard like people saying, oh, my credit card data got stolen, my credit card data got stolen. And I was talking to one of my friends this morning after I found out about this. I said, you know, recently you told me your credit card got used, blah, blah, blah. I said, did you buy any gift cards recently? And he goes, yeah. He goes, yeah, and I had a problem. I bought a $500 gift card at the grocery store to give my daughter who was going to college, and then she went to college and they said it was no good. And then thank goodness I had the receipt, blah, blah, blah.

Which grocery store did he buy?

In Publix.

Okay, I'm going to tell you a little bit of something that's happening with my dad. I told him, I said, I think something's wrong with the way that you— I think there's something up with the security system at Publix.

I don't think it's the security system, it's these cards.

That's because he always goes— after he goes and uses his card at Publix, yeah, he's always got some sort of random charges on his card the next day.

That's weird. I would report that to the credit card.

He is— he has been working on it every time. He— it's, it's hilarious to me, man.

He—

somebody could have— tech is like water and milk. Milk and, uh, what is it, milk and oil?

I mean, I find it hard to believe, but it's crazy because this barcode, you would think, goes back. So the two largest gift card companies are Incomm and Blackhawk. They're the ones who supply most of these gift cards you see in the stores. Okay. And, um, but the ones being targeted the most are the Visa Vanilla card the Visa cards and the Starbucks cards, not so much anything else. But the guy says what's going on is the scammer comes into the store, goes over to the rack and just puts a couple around and they don't know whether that's a customer or not. And the next unsuspecting customer goes and grabs that, makes a purchase.

Yeah, it was before— not only when Allen brought this up, I was telling him that I had heard about it because I watched there was literally the guy— I forget, this was a long time ago, this is at least a year ago, right? Um, how the guy would walk into these stores basically like the delivery guy. He would have his whole box.

Yeah, but then he—

I understand what you're saying, sir. This is a year ago, like a year ago, uh, when I was watching this, they would deliver— like he came into the store, delivered it, and put it on the shelf like he worked for the company. Right. And so it was non-suspecting, and the store would have no clue that this guy was in there. The one person even came up to him, said, hey, what are you doing? He's like, well, we got to take all these old ones off and put the new ones up. And they just let him go.

Wow, that's crazy. So, I mean, so I was asking the guy at Publix, like, what have they done besides that to secure the gift cards? He says, oh, now the gift cards get delivered to them. Well, that's at Publix, and they stock them. No, they used to not do that.

No, I'm saying that's at Publix.

They're stocking it, so there's no reason.

Wild thing, man. Scammers are scamming, dude.

Yeah, and then we heard about another scam where people— happening in Jacksonville, Florida, with all these ATMs getting robbed.

That's not really a scam. Well, it's just a crime.

Yeah, to me. And I, and I, and I, and I'm gonna post the information about it, but it's hard to believe that robbing an ATM is not the same crime as robbing a bank. Needs to become a federal crime.

I don't know if I agree with that.

I don't know. Federal money. It's not. It's money. It's money. Okay.

And you're right. Is it a felony?

It's not a felony.

Well, then it should be a felony.

Okay. That's what I'm talking about.

I don't know. Oh, a federal crime.

Yes, I guess.

I understand what you're saying.

Yeah, it needs to have more consequences so people stop.

I mean, it shouldn't be a misdemeanor if that's what it is.

It's not a misdemeanor, but you know, it's a felony. Yeah, but I'm just saying if there's $5 grand in it, it's like a— it's not a felony. It should just be a felony because they're destroying a $3,000 to $6,000 piece of equipment, and then they're, you know, absconding with the funds. And it needs to have— it needs to be more of a—

I love absconding with funds.

It needs to be more of a crime. There's a bill in Congress and they need to pass it. It's ridiculous.

I mean, if someone is getting caught stealing an ATM and there's no real repercussions, then yeah, there should be some changes to the law. But I mean, if it's already a felony and blah blah blah, it's not really a felony.

That's the problem.

I don't see how it can but can't. It's not like it is or it isn't.

Okay, there's not a strict— there's not a specific law about stealing.

So it's up to the state and location to press felony charges against the criminal?

Yeah, there's not a specific law attached to robbing ATMs.

I guess because I understand it, because an ATM isn't a person, so you can't harm the ATM. It's just the machine.

Well, you can't, right? But I'm just saying, I think there needs to be more repercussions than just what there is.

What would your repercussion be?

Uh, if they made it a federal crime and you were going to do some like 10 years in jail, that's too— stop. Okay, 5 years in jail.

That's too much.

Why? They're breaking into a business.

It's too much.

They're—

I mean, they're It depends on the situation then. Like, if it's an ATM outside of a place and I break into it, that's stupid for stealing. I mean, because then that's arguing, oh, the guy broke, stole, uh, whatever from outside of the gas station, then he gets 5 years too.

Well, no, I'm just saying, you gotta, you gotta be—

that's why, you know, writing laws is so hard, dude. Like, I mean, you're stealing, you're stealing. Stealing should be against the law. I'm one of those people, you steal a grain of rice from my house, I'm going to cut off a finger.

So, well, I'm just saying the penalty needs to be specific and because it needs to stop, because there's been a lot of these ATM robberies lately. These people are getting really brazen with, with these ATM robberies.

I get that. You know, it's hard. That's a, that's a— when you're, when you're talking about a legal thing, right?

Yeah.

That's a tough— that's all it's got to be. A hard pill to swallow.

I think, like, the DA is like, How are we going to charge this guy?

Right?

What I'm saying is there's no specific law against it.

That needs to be changed. I agree.

That's, that's the problem.

Yeah. And then that is a problem.

And then I hear this crazy story the other day, right? So, and this is like a scam that I couldn't even believe. So let me explain this one to you.

Story time with Allen.

I come, I come to you, Justin. I say, Justin, you know about the ERC money, the employee retention credit.

Oh, I can't stand that. Those right robocallers.

So, oh, Justin, I can get you a lot of money, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I convince you and you say okay, and I do all the paperwork and I tell Justin, oh, you're going to get like, you know, $200,000 because you have a bunch of employees here at your restaurant, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So this restaurateur is telling me this story. Right, that he did it, right? And then the guy says to him, right, and he didn't realize how much commission the guy was taking on it, 20%, which is way out of control. Should just be a flat fee, not a 20% fee. Should be something very— a reasonable fee, you know. That's way too high. So the guy was taking 20% of the money, okay? And he says to the restaurateur, oh, would you like to get some of that money upfront? So the restaurant owner says, sure, how much can I get?

This sounds so sketchy.

The guy says $100 grand. So he sends him some paperwork. The guy doesn't read it, which I was like, you've got to be kidding me. How did you not read the paperwork?

It's a recurring thing on the show, right?

Not reading paperwork. So he sends me the paperwork. I was like, wow. You signed for a cash advance that says that you had to pay the money back in 90 days and they were going to charge you like 10% interest. If you didn't pay it back in 90 days, they were going to start collecting 20% of your, of your funds from your deposits daily to collect this $100 grand. And then the interest rate was going to be 35%. Which on $100, you're going to pay back $135,000. The guy says to me, he goes, are you out of your mind? I said, I'm telling you, that's what this paper says. So he tries to call the guy on the phone. The guy does not answer the phone. We go to find out the next day his credit card processor gets a letter and they want all their money. They want all his deposits held and they want all their money, $135,000. And they filed a UCC against this business that he wasn't aware of. This is why you need to have Credit Karma. And for your business, you need to go to a website called nav.com. I tried to make a partnership with them, right? But they—

I think it's funny because a long time ago they were offering some— they had like an affiliate.

Yeah, they have an affiliate program, and I tried to up it Right.

Same kind of deal as you, because I have, like, I've always been into opportunity.

Yeah.

And seeing, uh, you know, oh, this is definitely, you know, saying a game changer for, for businesses. Yeah, they weren't going.

Yeah, they didn't want to have that. And I didn't even really want much from them. I just said, hey, we want to be able to advertise your thing and we want to promote like business credit cards and business, where businesses can get loans from, you know, specific things from their website and not everything that's on their website, because obviously they have competing products on there, right? They advertise a bunch of different credit card processors. So we don't want our customers looking at that. But with this NAV product, you can look up your— you can look up your business credit. And if someone— and if someone filed a UCC against you, you would get an email saying, hey, a UCC is filed against your business. Otherwise you have to go to the state and you have to go find the Secretary of State and see where they list their UCC filings. But they usually don't have any kind of, any kind of like monitoring service that goes with that.

That's going to say that's going to probably cost you some money too.

Well, no. So now, so I told the guy what to do and he called the, the cash advance company up and negotiated with them for a lower percentage, which they agreed. And he's— they sent him a paper and he signed it. He gave it to the credit card processor. Now the credit card processor has to send about 10% of his money to these people until it's paid back. And then he goes to find out from the ERC, instead of getting this— I think it was about $250 grand almost— it's only going to get like $150.

So they audit it.

So they audit it. And then the guy already took out of the $100 grand he got from the cash advance, 20% of the $200-something grand. And that guy doesn't answer the phone. And people wonder why people are going to jail with— from PPP money, you know, with fake businesses, overstating the PPP.

And I mean, if you did that to that guy, how many guys did he do it to that day?

Yeah. How many people has he done it to in the last few months? I mean, I probably changed his phone number.

Rolling in dough right now. I can't do nothing to him.

No. And I put— and I looked up the phone.

He's not doing anything illegal.

No, I looked up the phone number and it was like a Google Voice number.

I'm saying, but he's not doing nothing illegal.

No, it's not illegal. He's just being, uh, overzealous. Yeah, it's being a scammer. Sheesh. So I was like, wow. I was like, that's really crazy. I'm like You didn't even know what you signed. I had another guy who used to be a client of ours a few years ago. I got into a huge deal with two of the guys that work for me and my business partner over this. They all told me I was wrong and I said there's no possible way that the guy's paying 20% on the cash advance through this company. Every cash advance company back in those days was charging 30 to 35%. Right. Nowadays you see 40%, 50% interest on those cash advances. You know, it's future delivery of sale of your sales. Yeah, you're selling off. And they made a bet with me and they all reneged on the bet because I bet them all $500 apiece. 4 people. I said, I'm completely confident. And when the guy sent over the paperwork, I showed it to him. It was 20% a day they wanted to take out and the total payback was 38%. So the guy borrowed $100 and he had to pay back $138. And the guy flipped his lid on me and I said, oh, well, we had a bet, you know, you know, I bet 4 people $500 each. I said, each of you owe me $500 now because I know that. I said, I know what— I know what the prices are in this business.

That is insane, you know?

And I tell people all the time, read the paperwork you are signing.

If you're not sure. You've said that so many times on this podcast, dude. Like, there's so many instances that we've, there's a lot of stuff that could have been avoided for you guys out here, man, if you would just read.

Even your lease for your space. Even your lease. Like, I don't wanna say where my office is, you know, specifically. Well, people could look it up to see where it is. But I know people who didn't read their lease, right? And they didn't read the lease.

And they're repairing their air conditioner.

Yeah, they had to pay for, their air conditioner broke and had to buy a new air conditioner. Somebody in an office complex near here.

I mean, South Florida is like that. When I moved down here in my first, uh, the first, you know, property management company or whatever, the first lease that they tried to have us sign was that we were responsible for maintenance and repair of the, of everything, like the washer, the dryer, the everything, like appliance-wise. Yeah, water heater was included in that.

That's crazy.

And the, uh, AC and the AC.

No way.

And I said to this woman, I said, literally, this is ridiculous. Like, I don't own any of these things. I didn't purchase them. I don't know when they were bought, right? Like, how— why would I agree to maintain them or repair them if they go? And she just looked at me like, I guess we'll take that out. Yeah, it's like, I guess you will, because I'm not signing that.

Yeah, but how many people just sign an agreement and they never read the agreement? You can't do that. Oh yeah, your agreements.

It's here. I'm telling you, especially down in South Florida.

So here's why.

I, I've never experienced the shadiness of, of real estate. Yeah, except down here. Like, there's some scumbag, you know, landlords up north where I'm from. What do they call them? Slumlords. Slumlords. But it is no comparison.

I know someone who just—

there's no comparison to South—

I know someone who recently rented an apartment. The air— the place has, um, these like split units.

They're like wall—

they're like sort of like a wall air conditioner but much bigger. And then the lease was in the lease that the guy doesn't have to repair the air conditioner. I was like, why would you sign a lease that says the guy doesn't have to repair the air conditioner? Like, who— what are you doing? Like, you can't do that. You can't— I don't know, you know, like the air conditioner broke at the office a couple of weeks ago. Justin was out of town. He He would have loved it because it was really warm in here. Justin's always got—

I got the hoodie on right now.

He's got a hoodie. He's always staying warm. And, you know, the landlord, you know, they're like, oh, we have to check your lease. I'm like, okay, check the lease. Okay, we'll send the repair guy out. Whatever. Took 2 days and repair guy came and fixed everything. But I'm just saying, you got to read all your paperwork.

See, you read your documentation.

Buy a gift card, keep the receipt and keep the gift receipt. Please. So the person uses it. Put it somewhere safe. So God forbid you bought a counterfeit gift card and make sure— like, I was reading in the article, don't take the ones from the front. I'm sure the scammers read that and they put them in the middle.

So that's what I'm saying. Like, I, I don't know. I— the whole gift card, I've never been a fan of that, that transaction. Like, that process. No, I'm the guy that I would rather just wire you.

Gift card, literally gift card. Is the— it's crazy, but gift card is a multi-billion dollar industry.

I can't believe it.

It's insane how much— like, I have people all the time—

I bet you the cartels love gift cards.

Oh yeah, I want to sell— like, somebody gives me— oh yeah, gives me a referral, right? So yeah, it's easy. I go on Amazon, buy them a $50 gift card, email it to them, boom, they stick it in their Amazon. That's cool.

I'm talking about those type of— right, but I'm saying, like, even these, let's say we're doing the cards E-gift cards, I'm doing— I'm down with those.

Yeah, but I'm saying let's say we go to an event, we want to give— we give away these gift cards all the time. So, you know, keep your receipts from your gift cards just in case this happens to you. Otherwise you're going to lose the money. And also monitor your credit, your personal credit and your business credit. You can get free monitoring from Credit Karma. Usually banks have a free credit monitoring option. I know I bank at Truist, and they have Equifax, and it's free. So get you some free credit monitoring. The second scam, the ERC. Please be careful with this stuff. Go to your accountant.

Yeah, stop.

Don't go to these companies who are going to charge big fees.

Yeah.

What was the other scam we were talking about? Uh, the ERC, the, the cash advance scam.

Cash advance. Yeah, no, no.

So be safe out there. Check your emails. Don't answer scam calls. Yeah, the other crazy thing is this AI.

Talking about the ATMs.

Yeah, the ATM. Keep your ATM safe.

Put it inside of your business, I guess.

I don't know.

But yeah, man, follow up the podcast Biz to Biz Podcast on YouTube. Smash that subscribe button. Hit the like button a thousand trillion times for us. Uh, leave any comments if you want us to cover anything, or if you just want to yell at us, I guess that's cool too. We love the trolls because we can troll just as well. That's about that. Peace out, everybody.

Everybody have a great day and stay safe and don't fall for scams.

Peace.