On this episode of Looking Forward Our Way, we examine the issue of BBB scams with guest Lee Anne Lanigan, Director of Consumer Relations & Investigations - Better Business Bureau Serving Central Ohio.

You are going to hear valuable tips on how to avoid scams and warn against buying into products and services that are "too good to be true." We urge listeners to use secure payment methods like credit cards instead of unconventional methods like wire transfers and prepaid money cards.

We also discuss the BBB Scam Tracker website, which allows consumers to report scams they have experienced and read about.

In addition, Lee Anne explains the process by which scammers convince victims to purchase gift cards and provides tips on how to block spam calls and report them.

Finally, you will hear insights into customer reviews and how to use them to make informed decisions.

In the last year, April 2022 - April 2023, the BBB office received 655 scam tracker reports from Central Ohio consumers who also reported losing $600,000 to scams. 

Online purchases were the number one scam for Central Ohio consumers as well as nationally. 

Nationally, online retail fraud losses approached $380M in 2022. Online purchases include everything from puppies, trademark merch like MLB jerseys, women's clothing, CBD products, and weight loss products. Here is that study. 

Resources mentioned in the podcast.

Scam Studies

BBB Scam Tracker

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Email us at hello@lookingforwardourway.com.

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And of course, everything can be found on our website, Looking Forward Our Way.

Recorded in Studio C at 511 Studios. A production of Circle270Media Podcast Consultants.

Copyright 2024 Carol Ventresca and Brett Johnson

BBB scams

We are Looking Forward Our Way from Studio C in the 511 Studios. We're in the Brewery District just south of downtown Columbus, Ohio. Hi, this is Brett. Carol and I have discussed this topic in the past. However, since it is literally spiraling out of control, we thought it would be a good time to review the issue. We're talking about scams and how we're affected by those trying to fraudulently take our finances and really ultimately our self esteem. Right.

Right. You know, Brett, we I don't think we could say enough about this. And we just want to make sure that we brought to our listeners an incredible resource. Today's guest is Lee Ann Lanigan, who is the director of consumer relations and investigations for the Better Business Bureau serving Central Ohio. Lee Ann, thank you so much for coming to see us today.

Hello.

So before we dive into this, let's hear more about you. Give us some of your background and how you joined the B-b-b.

Thank you for inviting me. I'm a certified legal assistant and I've been with the Better Business Bureau for 22 years, and I'm ready to talk scams. Oh, my gosh. After 22 years, you probably.

It's been bottled up in her for this long.

She's ready to go. I'm thinking we could be here all day listening to stories. Right? Great.

Gosh.

I have a bachelors from Otterbein College. See, I knew we knew each other. Lee Ann. We're both from Otterbein. This is going to drive Brett crazy.

She knew that already. And she was just pulling it out of you.

No, no, no, no. And my certified legal assistant degree is from Capital University Law School. Oh, my gosh. And I have many library science courses from Ohio. Dominican University. Wonderful, Wonderful. You know, Lee Ann, we have this joke. Brett went to Miami and he has not been able to convince anybody except one person from Miami to join us on a podcast where I have Otterbein and Ohio State folks here all the time. So go Cardinals. Go Cardinals. Yes. Yes. So Lee Ann, now the Better Business Bureau has a long standing reputation in our community. Tell us about the mission of the Better Business Bureau. So the mission is to be the leader in advancing marketplace trust. And we do this by setting standards for marketplace trust, encouraging and supporting best practices by engaging with and educating consumers and businesses. We celebrate marketplace role models through our Center for Characteristics Our Laws of Life, which is a student essay contest focusing on life laws to live by, and that is for middle schoolers. And we give scholarships. So the Spark Awards celebrates new businesses where the entrepreneurs are 35 years and younger. And then we have the torch awards, which are for businesses who maintain high standards of character, culture, customers and community. Some of the other things we do is we call out and address substandard marketplace behavior, and we do that through our press releases.

Mostly you'll see it right in the B-bbee business profile for the business. We'll tell the consumers up front. If we see a pattern of behaviour, it may be a failure to deliver. It may be misleading and deceptive sales practices, but we'll put that right in their business profile. We serve consumers by building trust, and trust is a function of two primary factors integrity and performance. And we ask consumers to always look for the sign of a better business, and that is the B-bbee torch logo. And many businesses will have it as a sticker on their window. It could be on their contract, it might be in their email. You may find the dynamic Seal, the Bpb's logo, which is on a website or a Facebook page and clicks through directly to their b-bbee business profile. So you can read more about the business there. And to go back to to what Leanne just said too, when you're talking about those profiles of businesses, you know, for folks who have are trying to find a construction company, remodeler, whatever the vendor they're looking for, this is a great place to start. So we haven't even gotten to the point of scams yet. We're talking about when you're looking at businesses that you want to do business with, this is a great place because those profiles are really good.

When the tree branch falls in the yard, Right. When the basement is full of water. Yes. When you want to add a deck, when you want to buy a car, when you want to pick an insurance agent, find a mover. If you want to find a mover, if you want to find any thing across the spectrum of consumer services, we always suggest you start with b-b-b dot org. The service is free. Consumers are you go to the website, you read the business profile, it will tell you on the business profile whether or not the business is accredited. It will explain why each business has the rating that it has. It will give you the business start date. It will give you owner's names. It should give you emails, phone numbers, websites, Facebook. It also notes if there has been complaints, we will publish any complaints that have we have received and have closed. And we will also publish customer reviews. Right? So customers can go to the website of anyone who's done work for them or that they've purchased from that they've had a marketplace interaction with and they can click to file a customer review. And the customer review can be positive, it can be neutral, it can be negative. But but it's just an honest opinion of how it went when you worked with the business.

And it's free and it's free. This is not a membership that you're paying for. It's not blind. We share that customer review with the business. We say, This is what your customer said to us about you, and we give them 72 hours that they can go in and they can write a reply to it. They can say, Thank you so much. It meant a lot to us that you chose our business. We appreciate the positive feedback or we appreciate you taking the time to give us a good review. They can say something like, Oh my gosh, we had no idea our customer service team is reaching out to you to resolve this immediately and then that gets published. Whatever the business comment is, it gets published along with the customer's review so that the next person who pulls up that business profile, they can see this customer wrote a bad review and the business looks like they responded to it and got on it right away. They can also see if a complaint was filed. This is what the complaint was and they can see how the business responded to it. So often we tell customers while they're always looking for, I want someone with no complaints, we're like, You want someone who responds well to a customer who's having an issue.

There's no perfect, there's no perfect.

Business, there's no perfect business. There's always a mistake someplace. Sure, sure. And you. You're looking for. If I have a problem, how will I be treated respectfully, professionally? And will they take care of it? Right. And if the answer is yes, if that's how when you're reading that complaint, then that's a good thing for you to know as a customer. Right, Right. Right.

Exactly. Well, the Better Business Bureau is protected individuals from various issues. We always think of the contract signed for the home renovation, and then the contractor never shows up. But the B-b-b is dramatically increase their efforts in helping to avoid scams. All of us to avoid scams. Can you give us an overview of how the B-b-b got into tracking and fighting against scammers?

So are less romantic here in central Ohio.

Or we're shy about or we're It's true.

Fascinating report it good point. Did get fessed up. That's a good point. Okay okay. Okay. Okay.

That's good. So the biggest dollar loss we had last year, it did involve a an individual move their retirement account money into a cryptocurrency account. And she lost her her savings of $200,000. So that's really what. So if you took her out of the equation, that was 150,000. Among the other 593 people. The top means where consumers are getting scammed the most locally and nationally is on the website because everybody's shopping online. 26% of the consumers who reported to us said that they did lose money nationally and locally. More women report than men. It's like 70, 30, really interesting. And 38% of the people who reported scams to us were over the age of 65. That's critical. So do you think that that more women. Are are being counted because women tend to tell their story and men sit back and say, oops and don't tell anyone. I think that, yeah, we're more likely to get out there and beat the bushes and try to, you know, figure it out. If you're already online shopping and you're already online, engaged perhaps on Facebook with grandchildren, perhaps you're on a marketplace kind of website anyway and you get scammed. I think it's you're easier to just do another mouse, click, find b-b-b and report it.

So it's not always easy to detect when someone's being scammed. Can we provide some warning signs that individuals should be aware as they indicate they or someone they know are being scammed? And I realize it's probably a million answers to this, but maybe some general general this and this and this are kind of common themes.

I'm going to try to unpack that. When should you suspect someone is being scammed? So what the people who have reported to us are telling us that people who reported losing money three or more times I've been scammed three or more times are more likely to say that they panicked during stressful situations, that they felt some financial stress hard pressed during the past year. And they are more isolated, meaning that they live alone or they have fewer friends then those who reported that they didn't lose money to the scam, or that they have only lost money once or twice. So withdrawal from family and friends, multiple financial withdrawals, purchasing unusual amounts of gift cards at a time, falling behind in bills and other necessary payments. There's a sudden lack of necessities. There's a change in the appearance or the demeanor, and they're evading direct questions. Many victims are reluctant to share their situation, and oftentimes they feel ashamed. And all the while, they're hoping they might recover the sunk losses with a quick fix. And this does nothing but dig them deeper. And we b-b-b always tells people there's no reason to feel shame. Anyone can be easily scammed.

You wouldn't feel ashamed if someone stole your wallet, if someone stole your purse. This is no different. They just did it virtually. Instead of an actual physical altercation. An snatch and grab. Right? Yeah. So there are lots of people in the community who we look to to help us watch for scam victims. A bank tellers are taught the signs. Social workers retirement facility staff will flag and intercept scams for their consumers. Often grocery and pharmacy checkout clerks are taught to question peculiar purchases, especially the hundreds in gift cards at one time. And this can be especially helpful when there's community around these places where people know the usual habits of somebody and they can spot anomalies. And then we move to the second part, which was the scam warning signs. And many people have told B-b-b they did not get scammed because they had heard about the scheme. So let's review some red flags, sketchy information which includes imposter websites. Emails, unsolicited emails, unsolicited texts, any high pressure tactics. And these can be not just in person high pressure tactics. These can be through a text or through an email.

And as simple as final warning, exactly where it's like, where did I miss the other warnings? You're like, Come.

On, your account will be charged. You know, if we do not hear from you within the next hour, that kind of thing. Unusual methods of payments and repeated requests for unusual reasons to pay again, unrealistic result promises too good to be true. Deals, information requests that are unsolicited and not directly originating by the consumer themselves. We're always telling people, If you didn't ask for a call from this place, be very suspicious that they're reaching out to you. Right? You know, when we would have older adults come to us looking for work, you could kind of see if they were in a panic, needing extra cash very quickly and would come in and say, I need to go to work tomorrow. I need, you know, then you start asking them questions and you start wondering, okay, were they scammed? Did somebody take money? Is there a is there a relative taking money from them? Those kinds of things. So for listeners who have particularly older adults, that they are connected to parents, older aunts and uncles, grandparents, and if somebody's acting peculiar, don't assume it's just they're old and they have Alzheimer's. There really could be something behind their behavior that's critical that you look into. Okay. So, Leanne, we all complain about spam phone calls, and I always sort of laugh when people answer spam phone calls. I'm like.

That's boggles my mind, too. So are you that don't. Yeah, it says potential spam on your phone. Yeah right, right exactly.

So do scams usually start with a phone call or have other methods become more predominant? And what can we all, all of us, particularly seniors, do about getting rid of those pesky phone calls? So what we have found in talking to the consumers who call us and want to report a spam phone call or say to us, I keep getting these phone calls and and I it's a waste of my time to walk across the room and answer it or or I'm ill and I need my rest and things like that. And we say to them, you know, why are you not letting these calls go to your voicemail? Do you not have a voicemail? Do you do you do you not have a thing on your your television that tells you when an incoming call is a spammers or scammers? And they the they say we simply can't take a chance because our doctor's offices have so many phone numbers. And I'm never sure if it's the MRI or if it's the breathing test or if it's the psych evaluation. It seems like in our medicine these days, it's all become more complicated. It's no longer that your, you know, doctor, general practitioner, his name appears in your caller ID and you always know it's him because he's referred you to a specialist who's referred you out for some testing.

Yeah. Plenty of places to tell your story. You know, at least. And maybe possibly get more information while you're telling your story as well, too, that you're not alone. You know you're not alone.

One thing that and this would be to take planning and thought ahead of time. But if somebody only has a landline right now and they intend to get a like a cell phone for older adults, there are a couple of companies, I think AARP sponsors a phone that you can get and it's for minimum minutes and all to think in terms of if I'm giving my number out to a doctor or medical person, give them one particular number and nobody else. So, you know, if somebody's calling on that phone, that's who it is. And then hopefully all the spam comes someplace else. I'm not sure if it'll work and I'm not sure I have friends who have said, oh, you know, if if I have to give out my phone number, I always give my home phone number and then basically ignore what's coming through because it's all junk, not just spam, but just but solicitations and then important calls that they need to definitely talk to somebody. They give those out to the doctor's offices or the school, their kid's school or whatever. So kind of think in terms of not always giving both of your phone numbers out, but giving out a phone number for a particular reason. Right? So I feel.

Like, you know, and I'll get the spam calls or potential spam and it feels kind of satisfying when you hit that phone number or swipe left or right, whatever. And it says, you know, report junk or, you know, block thinking, yeah, there's something a little satisfying about blocking and blocking. It's a robo call. No call again on a different number, but it is a little satisfying, at least, that the smart phone is getting smart about that number. At least that number's never going to come through again because I told it not to go right. It is kind of satisfying.

Oh, absolutely. And then you get and then you get a call five minutes later from the same person at another number.

I know. Exactly. Exactly.

Well, the B-b-b has developed new resources that we can utilize to protect ourselves. And you mentioned scam Tracker. Can you talk a little bit more about that, where individuals who are scammed or believed they were scammed can submit information that's open to the public? I mean, how does it work? I know they can go to the b-b-b. Org backslash scam tracker as you mentioned, but can you walk through the process of how that what they'll see when they go?

So the scam tracker gives once you're on the site, it gives consumers an opportunity to read the scams which have been reported as well as report their own experience. So once you're on the page, that's the first thing it asks you. It says, Do you want to report a scam? Do you want to read about scams? And if you say, I want a report about scams, it takes you immediately to a very simple online form that asks you to give us as much or as little information as you have about the scammer. And there's a paragraph or a block, a big block where you can actually write in and say, Yesterday I received a call from or I received a text from it asks me to do A, B and C, I did a, you know, and from there it escalated. They may say that the caller told them that they had won a prize, that there were fees to pay. This caller told them to verify their legitimacy by calling their supervisor back at a different number. And of course, that phone number is answered by the name of the prize company, whatever that is. And that person says that, yes, I'm verifying that you've won. And yes, there is a fee. And if you pay the fee, then we can have your prize delivered in person by Fedex tomorrow at noon and your vehicle will be delivered on a truck, you know, and it will pull up in front of your house.

This person is going to be very persuasive. This person is going to be very professional. They're going to ask you things like, did you want to keep it private? Do you want it to be publicized? Do you have any plans for the money? Are you excited about winning? They may, you know, let's throw God under the bus. They'll say, oh, your prayers have been answered. Oh, the blessings are raining upon you. God has answered your prayers. And the more they're having this conversation, the more the listener feels engaged and feels heard and feels like this is so real. And so the next thing when they say now to pay the fee, we'd like you to buy a gift card. And I see you live in whatever suburb you live in, city you live in, there's a pharmacy. Around the corner. You can go there and buy and they want a brand name gift card. And I'm going to stay with you on the phone. I don't want you to ever feel alone or afraid or have a question. So listen to me on the phone and don't talk to the clerk. They will stay on the phone with them through the whole. They will say, Can you go right now? Can you go right now? They'll get in.

They'll they'll be on the phone while they're in the car. They'll stay on the phone. They'll be on the phone when they're standing in front of the clerk giving the thing. And they'll say, okay, now. Now the the clerk is going to there's going to screen is going to come up and it's going to say, do you know about gift card scams? And I want you to say, yeah, you know about gift card scams and this isn't one of them because you've won the prize, remember? So this isn't a scam. So the people agree that they understand that gift cards are not refundable, that nobody can get your money back, that they're often used in scams. They click, yes, they understand all of that. They make the purchase and the person says, okay, are you back in your car? Yes, I am. All right. So take out your cell phone away from me right now. And I want you to take a picture of the front of it. Take the picture and send it to me and they text it to them and now scratch off the security number and they scratch it off. Now take a picture where you've scratched off the security number. Scratch it, take the picture. And they say, Now read me the security number. And they read it to them and they say, now, this is fantastic.

Your prize money is on your way. We'll be calling you back in a half hour to let you know you head home right now. Okay, so the person goes home. There's no pride. Hours pass, Days pass. The noon deadline passes. At this point, they may go to Gpb.org, go to Scam tracker, say, I want to read about scams and they'll put in the name of the price company and they'll see how many people this happened to. They may put in a keyword search like gift card. They may put in a keyword search like scratch, like security. If they're talking to a specific person who said that their name was. Savannah Evans. They may put Savannah Evans in there to see if there is anybody else has had an interaction with somebody with that name because we want to have as many key words, make it as easy for the person looking to match it to somebody else's experience so they can see. And at that point they're like, Oh, okay, so I'm out the 250. It's gone. And they go at the bottom of the read about scam. It says, Do you want to report a scam? Click, report a scam, come back, fill out the online form. Some people. Get the follow up phone call that says so about your price. We were totally wrong. You didn't win $800,000. You were actually the first place winner and you won 1,000,005 or you won 2 million.

They say, well, can you get us this one? Can you get us that one? And they'll choose other gift cards that they know may be available. And they and it's like a whole conversation. And never does the person say to themselves. Why am I paying with a Sephora gift card for a prize like the kind of gift card doesn't register to them? That it's odd. They they they love steam cards. They love Google play cards. They love Apple cards. Target is super popular, you know, And recently we've been seeing Sephora come into the mix and some of the other designer cards. And it the person who is buying the card it never seems to. They're so involved in it, they're so far deep in it that they never say to themselves, It seems very odd that a business wants me to pay them with a gift card, which is really something more than a gift card traditionally is what we give our friends and loved ones as gifts, not as I can't go to my dentist and hand him a gift card I can't go to. A you know, the tow truck company. When he takes my car away, I'm not giving him he doesn't want Victoria's Secret. Want my Victoria's Secret gift card.

But but they don't seem to there's a disconnect. But when you go back to that notion that chances are pretty good that the folks who have. Gone through this three times or more are possibly panicked, may be in need of financial support so badly that it's worth the try. They're isolated. They may not have family or friends nearby, anybody to talk to, anybody to like. Does this make sense? There's nobody the. So one of the things I forgot to mention was that during the phone call, the person is usually saying to them. Do not tell anybody about this prize. If you tell somebody about the prize, they'll only want to take your winnings. You know, when you get your money, they're going to expect you to give them some. They give them lots of those reasons not to talk to other people about it. And the other thing that we have found is that oftentimes it touches back on what you said, Carol, which is these people are hard pressed and and hard and don't have a lot of money anyway. They are, in fact, borrowing money to make these purchases. So they're telling somebody something. They're saying things like, I've got a really good deal going. And if you give me the 200 or the 250 today, I'll be able to pay you back tomorrow or the next day. So they're not saying to people, I've won a prize, give me 250 to buy a gift card.

And they are enlightening and they are very helpful because it gives you an idea of what scams were out there in the past year. Who got scammed, how much money they lost. But the the ways that people were contacted, men versus women we have we break it down into age ranges. It. We have stories in there where we'll pull out specific stories from individuals who were victims of specific kinds of scams. If one scam appears to dominate the year, we'll go in depth on that scam and talk about how it was perpetrated, where it was perpetrated, who who were who the victims were, what saved the people from it if they didn't lose any money to it. All of the reports, all of the information in the scam tracker is shared with law and law enforcement. The Sentinel. So law enforcement gets to see all of that, too, and it helps them decide where they want to focus their efforts. It helps be. Decide, determine where we're going to focus our efforts. If any one thing sticks out, then we then we make a big push to do smaller micro studies on something and really go in depth on that. So we have the scam tracker risk report is at b-b-b Marketplace trust.org risk report and the micro sites on scam research, scam studies, scam news and scam tips are all accessed from gpb.org.

Okay. Well, it seems important that individuals, especially older adults, have an understanding of what scams are and what they should do to keep themselves safe. Can we talk about some tips on things like financial fraud, cybercrime and other Internet scams, How to avoid the social media platform scams? But really, I guess overall, we're talking about how to stay safe on our computers and phones.

Everybody wants to see Taylor Swift. Well, you go to Bebe Scam Tracker and you put in Taylor Swift. You can read lots of ticket scams. Isn't that something? So so that's why we tell people, be very careful if it's something that's hard to get or very sought after. Lululemon was was big for a while where people and that's just another scam word that you can put in and you can read about all the people who have lost money that way before you buy, invest or sign up, do your research with a trusted source. And of course, we say go to Gpb.org. We have a big robust business profiles that will help you make purchasing decisions that are in your best interest. Avoid making the quick purchase on social media. 25% of the people who talk to us about being scammed reported that they were targeted while they were browsing social media. Um. Use secure and traceable transactions. Don't pay with wire transfer. Don't pay with prepaid money cards. Don't buy with. Don't pay with gift cards or other non-traditional payment methods. B-b-b encourages you to use your branded credit card. Your branded credit card has safeguards built in for you because you're their customer. So that if you were to make a transaction and you paid with your branded credit card and you either don't receive it or it's of poor quality, you and the merchant will not help you.

You can contact your branded credit card and say, I am disputing this purchase and your branded credit card will help you. This is not true of your debit card. Your bank treats your debit card like cash. They will tell you your debit card is your debit card, and that's cash. Your credit card is your credit card. That's where your protections are. Cashapp, Venmo, Zelle, same thing. They will tell you we are cash and we have fine print and warnings that you've agreed to to use our service, that you understand that this is cash, that you know the person that you're giving the money to and that we're not helping you if you run into trouble. The gift cards will say many times this gift card is only to play online games like the steam cards, like the Google Play cards. Many gift cards will say do not share the security number with anybody. We will not help you once that security card. But number has been scratched off and you've shared it. That money is gone. But but all of those warnings are you need a magnifying glass to read. Absolutely. Absolutely. Use your magnifying glass because there's no just reading them. Exactly.

Yeah.

Um, we ask people to be very careful about believing what they see. A lot of people say seeing is believing, and I tend to say believing is seeing. Because if you believe that you're seeing a real website or a real email address, then that's what you'll say, You'll see. So be more cautious. Website names can look very similar to a website you're used to. The same goes for email addresses. They're just changing 1 or 2 letters, just changing it just enough so that you think you're on the site but you're not, or that you're getting that email. That's legitimate, but it's not. Let's put two ends at the end of Huntington. Let's put an extra K at the end of of bank. Let's put two O's in Capital One and your I will read Capital One, but it will it will not be Capital One. And so we tell people, just take an extra second to to re to reread it. We say don't be pressured to make quick decisions because scammers capitalize on the do it now or if you don't do it now you'll lose it approach. Be skeptical about anybody who reaches out to you unsolicited. You didn't call them to check on a car warranty. So when they call you if you want to buy a vehicle service contract, just tell them that when you're interested in a vehicle service contract, you will research it on Borg and and choose your own vehicle service contract.

That's what we tell everybody. If an offer comes to you over the phone, do you want to buy life insurance? Do you want to buy a vehicle, vehicle service contract? Do you do you want to buy a knee brace or a neck brace? Do you want to try this or that treatment? Tell them you want to donate to this or that charity. We say thank you for giving us a call. When I'm ready to make a purchase like that, I'll do my own research and I'll make my own phone call and hang up. And I find that giving people a polite way to hang up a phone call is more effective than when I tell them to just hang up your phone. We still have a lot of polite people in central Ohio, especially our seniors. They were raised to be polite and they're going to be polite until the end. So making people who who it is ingrained in them to be polite, trying to make them something they're not in their old age is not going to work. So we have some strategies that we share with the with people to say, you don't have to be rude, just say I'll make my own purchasing decisions, thank you and hang up.

So then these episodes always go so fast. You have great information. First, I want to make sure that we have contact information from you. For our listeners, just verbalize how to, you know, get a hold of you again as well as any some last words of wisdom.