Safeguard Against Scams, Fraud, and Identity Theft

If you could have a candid conversation with financial advisors who have decades of experience helping professionals, business owners, and families just like yours plan for their financial future, what questions would you ask? I'm Chip Munn, financial advisor, author, host, and CEO of Signature Wealth Group. For decades, my partners and advisory teams have had the opportunity to answer the tough questions for hundreds of our clients. Now we want to do the same for you. On the Signature Life Show, you'll hear answers to your burning and most perplexing finance, investing, and retirement questions from our Chief Investment Officer, Senior Wealth Advisors, Certified Financial Planners, and more. We aren't just financial advisors. We're parents, children, community leaders, and entrepreneurs with a passion for helping empower our clients to live life intentionally. What we call a signature light. John Tate, what's up, man?

Chip Munn, happy Friday to you, sir.

Fridays are always good, man. Wrapping up, I'd like to say it's starting to cool down. In my head, I think it should be starting to cool down, but dog days of summer, man.

It is hot. Kristen went outside to read. She likes to read books outside on the weekend when it's nice, so she went out there and she was reading her book in the pool while she was reading it on the side. And then the dog had jumped in the pool and was swimming around in the pool, doing laps behind her. So it was too hot for anybody to be outside and not be in the pool this weekend.

Yeah. I saw, might've been like a social media post that said, you know, it's too hot when the dogs won't go outside and play. I think we finally got in there. Speaking of dogs, John, we've got our dog Zach Hearn. Zach from Greenville, South Carolina, joining us today. Zach, welcome.

I appreciate it. Thank you for having me.

Yeah, man. So John, today we're going to get into a topic that I actually had some, thankfully not personal experience with last week, but I did have a conversation with a client about it. And that is getting into identity theft. And it's one of those things that I think over the last however many years has certainly become a lot more prevalent.

I mean, you talk about things evolving over time and it's usually in a positive context. Things get better, but this is certainly something that has evolved over time into something that is much, much, much, much worse than it used to be. You know, there's all these new phrases and terms that talk about all the different ways that people can try to get your personal information and take advantage of you. And Zach is clearly the youngest of us here on this call today, so he probably knows all these terms, but us old farts don't really know all the new things that are going on.

Yeah. And Zach, I don't know if any of these ring a bell, but I'll touch on them real quick and maybe you've got some insight. Anybody who's listened for a long time knows John Shears, uh, an outline with me to help keep me straight. And one of the things that was included this time was some basic terminology. So the first one I think that most of us have heard of is phishing. Which is essentially fake emails. I don't know, but I assume that's kind of the Arabian prince who is wanting to email you, you know, if you'll send him certain information, he'll be happy to share his soon-to-be-gotten fortune with you. But you talk about evolution, gotten into— and again, I didn't know there was a term for this— called smishing, which is actually fake text messages. Now I get a bunch of those. So just from random, again, I don't know who these people are fooling. It must work because they continue to do it. But sometimes I find it really difficult to understand why. And then John, vishing, which is like fake calls and voicemails. So it's really fascinating how it has started out as simple as just an email that if you click on the wrong thing, but now they've migrated, Zach, into every form of technology.

Yeah, they have. And they're pretty convincing, especially with the smishing. I got a text probably 2 weeks ago and it had my name in it. So it was somewhat personalized and said, Zach, sorry, didn't get that email that you sent last week. This is what it looked like when it came through. And then it had a link that it wanted me to click. It was from an unknown number. So obviously I didn't click the link. But if you're in a hurry and, you know, everyone's busy running around town and you see that pop up, it's not hard for you to imagine clicking that thing and that it could have been a client or a friend or, you know, whoever. So they're pretty convincing for anybody.

Yeah. And then you've even got kind of spoofing, right? Which is them basically spoofing a phone number and trying to make it look like for your caller ID that they're coming from somebody, you know. And so I find it really fascinating, the lengths that people will go to, to steal from us. It's pretty amazing. I don't know what they would do with all that ingenuity if they use their powers for good, But I even got an email last week that was, I forget if it was from Amazon or somebody, somebody I do regular shopping with. And it looked like a customer service email. And if you're out there and you're wanting to like send me fake emails and steal my identity, I'm going to be honest with you. Amazon is probably the way to do it because somebody from my house has something coming from Amazon. It seems like almost every day since the pandemic. And so I got this email and it was like, click here. And it was like, no, it just didn't look right. And of course it wasn't. And so somebody's always trying to get in through there. John, if you've researched this kind of thing, why do they do it?

It's funny to me. We're only a few minutes into this call and already, you know, you can kind of put your finger on a couple of different things. One, they take advantage of your trust and it's our trust of our mobile device, the thing that we carry around in our hip pocket with us everywhere we go. And they also are taking advantage of the fact that they know that every person is involved in their own lives. There are things going on all the time. So, you know, the one thing that I can come up with so far is if it has to do with clicking on a link from an unknown number or anything, just take a minute, slow down. Don't just react to something because that's what they're playing to. That's what they expect us to do, just to react. But why do they take all the time to do this? I think the Federal Trade Commission reported last year that U.S. consumers lost something between $5 and $6 billion in fraud just in 2021 alone, and that was up 70%. So almost doubled over the previous year, just over 2020. And about a third of that comes from imposter scams, these phishing, smishing, vishing, spoofing, all these things that we just talked about. That's where it comes from. And so there is money to be had for those that take the time to do it. But as complicated as it's gotten, And as technologically savvy as these people are, I think the only thing that we can do just off the bat is just to slow down and not try to do everything in a hurry and just not blindly assume that everything that comes in on our phone is trustworthy. And so you talked about the Arabian Prince, but you know how they do it. They come in offering a free prize. Who doesn't like a free prize? They might offer some form of low-interest credit. We all like to spend money we don't have. In some cases, we try to talk our clients out of that, but sometimes more effectively than others. You know, they might alert you to allegedly suspicious account activity that an account that you don't really pay attention to or might not know of. They might say there's a problem with your payment information, try to get you to give them information about your card or your bank or something like that. And then of course, you know, sending you a fake bill for something that you don't even know that you paid for, which I've gotten via text a couple of times. They send me a, you owe us this money. We can't get your payment to process. And I'm like, oh no. Because, you know, nobody likes to have unpaid bills and make people upset. But then you look into it further and realize that none of this makes any sense. But I don't know, Zach, what are some of the telltale signs that it's a trap? And I know you've talked your clients through some of this stuff, just like Chip and I have.

Yeah, I mean, I think if it's email, the main thing is if it's a sender you don't recognize or company you're not affiliated with and you've got no business opening that email to start with, I think that's probably one of the biggest signs that there's a scam. With the text messages, same way. It's a number that's unrecognized. I mean, why click the link? There's really not a whole lot for you to gain inside of it. Chances are, if it feels too good to be true, if there's some crazy offer that somebody has all of a sudden sent you, it probably is too good to be true. And you've got no business clicking the link.

Yeah. And I think that that's a good point that a lot of it for me goes back. We've used this word a lot is intention, right? Is that they're wanting you to want something for nothing. Different example. If I could take it offline just for a minute. Because my wife and I went on a cruise with the kids for vacation, and I may or may not have played a little bit of cards on the ship. May or may not. But now they mail me something 3 or 4 times a week, like every other day I'm getting something— free cruise, $100 credit— and all they want me to do is come back and take advantage of that idea of you're going to get something for free. They'd like for me to come back and maybe play cards again or play the slot machines or whatever. And I'll be honest, complete like vulnerability here among friends and all of our listeners, I think about doing it. I know what they're doing. I know they just want me to come back and spend more money, but I think about it because it seems like it's free. And I think that it's even more, John, going to your point earlier about people being busy these days and just kind of rushing through your phone. You think about how many times, if you have an iPhone, it tells you how much screen time you've had, which is embarrassing, but it's one of those things that they assume that we're just busy and not paying attention and that we would like to get a refund, or maybe there was something that we didn't know about. And so they're playing to a lot of behavioral things that make a lot of sense, but then they also are kind of tricky, right? Because they'll use like fake links, so it'll link out to some IP address, just kind of a string of numbers that if you're not paying any attention to— by the way, important to note that just because something, even if it says a website in an email, suchandsuch.com, if you hover over that link, you need to make sure that when you hover over it that the link that it's going to matches the words, because you can hyperlink in an email. And so the words that you're clicking on may have absolutely nothing to do with the site that it's actually going to take you to. So that makes a big deal. But I've also, John, told me earlier about Amazon. I've gotten lots of things wanting me to confirm orders I didn't purchase. And again, the surest way to deal with that is to say, why would I need a size small anything? And so it's kind of one of those go to your orders and check and make sure And again, don't make assumptions, right?

You know, assume nothing. And I don't know how many people are out there like this, but I created an Amazon account for myself a long time ago. And then when Kristen and I got married, she didn't have one and she was like, well, I'll just use yours. So now she and I both use one Amazon account to order everything. And so she'll go in there and order stuff and I didn't order it. So I'll get these fake confirms for items that I have no idea. And so sometimes I'll almost want to just click and just assume that, yeah, that was something Kristen ordered and I didn't. But these days you just have to go through and check everything. They'll try to trick you on anything, anything at all.

Yeah. And it's not just exact purchases, right? I mean, updating your payment information, it's always something, just trying to get a little bit more information. What are some other things that you can think of?

One thing that I always suggest to folks is if you're comfortable with a credit card and not a debit card, always use a credit credit card when you're paying for anything online, even if you're at a restaurant, at the gas pump. For one, if you're using your debit card, someone steals your information, that's your money they're taking. You might get it back, but the bank's not going to be in as much of a hurry to get you your money back as a credit card company would be to get their own money back. So that's kind of like one safeguard that I always just throw out there and suggest to folks. And like you mentioned, with the updating your financial information, I mean, a lot of people just have it auto-saved in the computer because it's easiest. But you really have to be careful if you're especially in a public Wi-Fi, if you're at a coffee shop and you're just managing some of your bill pays and things like that, checking accounts, never do that kind of stuff in a public internet because it's so much easier for people. I mean, we can't even imagine all the ways that they can have some little device that's out there scanning whatever information's being put in around them via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. And I think that's one that a lot of people get taken advantage of with.

That's good advice. So anytime you're in a public, on a public Wi-Fi, anytime you can use, and we'll talk about this in a minute, but anytime you can use a VPN or something like that, you want to, and there are plenty of services out there that'll allow you to do that. But you just want to be careful what information you're using in a public setting.

Yeah. And you want to make sure that you check. It's ironic. Again, the links that folks will go to, to steal from you and then make very bad typos or use just completely random words that don't make sense in context, or it's from Microsofty, something that looks close, but it's not quite. And again, they're counting on us to be in a hurry. And so again, I think a lot of it is particularly from any email that's not specifically personal from somebody you know and know well. And even then, If your friends are asking you for any kind of personal information via email, my assumption is if you're listening to this show, you have smart friends. And so that is probably not your friend. You know, it's kind of like that Facebook message that you get from somebody you haven't seen since high school or somewhere you used to live that just says, "How are you doing?" Man, that's random. And so again, I think a lot of it is just paying attention, and I do think that Many of, not all of, because there are certainly some sophisticated ones and some of the ones that we've talked about where they're pretending to be a company that you would use and trust, or they're sending you a QuickBooks link to pay an invoice or some variation of that. Some of them are very sophisticated, but I do think that just slowing down and paying attention can make a big difference. John, what are some other ways that people can protect themselves?

Well, you know, those license agreements or software agreements that we just click through and we don't ever read. A lot of those have to do with privacy information and what companies like Apple or Facebook or Google or whatever can collect, what information and data they can collect about you and then either sell that data or use to populate your Twitter feed or whatever ads that they target to you for things that you've either searched for or talked about or messaged your friends about or things like that. Again, we're in a hurry and that's what they want us to be is in a hurry. But if you take time to look at those license agreements, those software agreements, and look through and see how that company is using and sharing your data, you can actually go in most of the time and opt out of what you don't want them to share or collect and then share with others. So there are specific companies like DuckDuckGo or Opera or things like that that you can use that don't allow companies like Google or Facebook or Twitter to collect that information and then distribute it. But if you're not going to use one of those services, at least when they send you those annual privacy updates, go through and opt out of the things that you don't want them using.

Yeah. Zach, any other tips as far as protection?

Yeah, I think John mentioned it earlier, but the VPN. So that's a virtual private network. There's a lot of them out there that are free or pretty cheap to get. But essentially what that's doing in real-world terms, think of it like a burglar trying to break into your house. What the VPN does for your computer is imagine that your home address is constantly changing and moving around. So it's pretty difficult for a burglar to break into your house when your house is moving constantly. And that's essentially what the VPN does for your computer. It's changing the address of where your computer's accessing the internet from constantly and moving that around. So it's really hard for someone to tap in and get access to all the information, guess all the passwords that you have before it moves to another destination. So that's a really easy, simple trick that I think probably provides the most protection.

Yeah. And again, I think that being particularly careful, right, with your email passwords, because your email is your gateway to a lot of things. I actually heard, and I was thinking earlier, John, that phishing, smishing, vishing, and spoofing might be a t-shirt of some sort. Or if people just ask me what I'm doing on Friday, I'm just going to say phishing, smishing, vishing, and spoofing. That would confuse a lot of people. But one of the things that I've heard of lately is when folks can get access to your email, a lot of us do mobile deposit. And so you get a copy a lot of times of the check. And I've heard tale of people actually who were able to get into other people's email and recreate checks. And so that's a pretty elaborate and scary thing. Had a client call me on Friday. Because they wanted to make sure that their account was secure because their checking account had a bunch of unknown charges and they were working through that with their bank. Now, fortunately, it really doesn't work like that with us. Somebody has to call me to get your money. And that's going to be tough because we deal with few enough people that we know who our clients are and their voices. And we confirm all those things. But that also goes, John, to your friends and family, right? If they're asking for something, Pick up the phone. I mean, if you send me an email as a client of mine, I'm going to pick up the phone and confirm that that's something that you want me to do and that it came from you and things like that. The same is true, not only with your financial professionals, but with your friends and family, because people will certainly take advantage of that.

There is no circumstance that I would receive an email from somebody that specifically says, I'm sorry, I can't talk on the phone, but you have to send me $20,000 or whatever it is. There's no way I don't pick up a phone and try to call them anyway. And if they don't answer, they're not going to get the money. I don't know what to say. There's just no way we would do that. I mean, that's standard practice in our industry, but it's also standard practice in our house. And none of my brothers would call me or email me and expect me to send them money if I can't talk to them on the phone.

Yeah. I don't think my brother would call me and expect me to send him money regardless. You know, that's just kind of how brothers are. Yeah. It's funny, John, when you were saying, yeah, and they couldn't get on the phone, I hear the kind of the Liam Neeson, like, I have a specific set of skills. You know, it's like, put him on the phone. Can't put him on the phone. Just send the money. It's like, no, I will find you and I will kill you. So again, that's kind of what it reminds me of. But that's true. I mean, somebody who wants money from you is going to get on the phone. And if not, again, some things are simple. Whether they're easy or not is completely different. And so when we look at all these things, there are lots of things that we've kind of covered. Don't click on unknown links. Don't fall for— and Mom, I'm sorry if you're listening— for the "something's wrong with your computer, click here on this link and let me remote into your computer and I can help you fix it." There are a lot of those kinds of things. And then also just basic password protection and username and passwords, keeping things safe where you can. Opt for two-step authentication, and that, for anybody who doesn't know, is where They also then text you a number or call you on the phone to make sure that in addition to logging into the computer, you also have access to a phone, a physical phone that they have on file. Zach, anything else kind of as we begin to wrap up that you can think of that folks ought to know about CYA?

I say another one would be, and this is particularly for older people, fake calls claiming they're from the IRS saying that you owe this money and you've got to pay it now or they're going to come put you in jail. And that is not how the IRS does business. If they're at the point where they would potentially put you in jail, they will just show up at your house or they may send you a letter, but they don't conduct that type of business over a phone call and make some type of immediate threat. So that would be a big one that people need to look out for. Another easy trick that I do, if there's some kind of— you're online shopping, I was doing it this weekend, looking for a new pair of shoes and I'm going between several different websites, You get a popup, put in your email address for $25 off orders over $100. I have a dead email address that I don't use for anything except for offers like that, because those kind of walls that pop up, they're not very secure. So I don't use the same email address I might log into my banking with or my Amazon account that has financial information to claim those kind of offers. So I would say create a dead email address that you use for all that kind of popups for those types of things. Then Google Authenticator is an app for multi-factor authentication. Most websites today will have an option if you want to opt into that. What that does, it's free. The Google password can only be created from my phone device and no other device, and it resets that password every 60 seconds. I put in a password, a popup comes, it's a 6-digit number. You type in your Amazon password and then the Google authentication password. That's going to change every 60 seconds. It's another layer of protection that someone's not only got to guess my email address, my original password, but now also this password, and they only have a 60-second window. If you're using the VPN, you're being smart, updating your passwords often, and using a Google Authenticator, it's going to be pretty tough for someone to break through that.

Yeah. And it seems like a hassle, right? But my guess is that it's a lot less of a hassle than trying to get your money back from Saudi Arabia or to change over your entire bank account or your credit card and all the things. That are associated with that. So if you're listening and you're a client of ours, one of the things that we've done is partnered with a company called Eversafe. Now, this isn't a commercial. In fact, if you're a client of ours, it's available for free. Just email me or John. We have a corporate license that's available, but it's for credit monitoring and just kind of keeping an eye on things, making sure that your passwords aren't on the dark web, whatever that is. I still hadn't figured out what the dark web is, but it sounds really scary. So I don't want my password there, especially not alone and with nobody looking for it. But that company's called Eversafe, and it's a credit monitoring service similar to maybe a LifeLock or something like that. That, that's one of the things that we've done in addition to all of the stuff that Raymond James does to try to really be super secure when in doubt about protecting data. And if you have a question or a concern, reach out to us, shoot us an email, We're always here. We're here also to be a resource to you, to your friends and family, colleagues, coworkers, anybody that we can serve or help. Don't hesitate to let us know. John, anything else as we wrap up?

The couple of things that I've learned today. One, I've learned that if I have a poker game at any time, I want Chip at my table playing because if the casinos want him playing, so do I. So the next time I have a game, Chip, you're invited. And then the other thing I learned today is that I finally learned that this is the email address that Zach has where He gave me the address, his dead address, to send all the emails that I send him to. That's why he never responds. But anyway, that's fine. That's no big deal. But I don't know if we want to teach people about the dark web at some point, but I don't know anything about it. That would have to be something that I would learn all about, and then we could have another episode on that. But for the most part, I think if you take away that just you need to slow down, take a few extra steps to verify all the information that's coming into your trusted phone that's on your hip, uh, those are Two of the best things you can do to start, and then everything that Zach and Chip have mentioned after that will keep you safer and keep all your assets secure.

Zach, thanks for joining us.

Thank you for having me.

John Tate, let's do it again next week.

Until next time.

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