299 – More sales equals more potential fraud: Tom talks Scams

Episode 299 - Scams
[00:00:09] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey, everybody. It's Tom here with episode two hundred and ninety nine of Screw the Commute podcast. Today, we're going to talk about scams. This is a special episode where I'm taking some of my knowledge from my TV show I have in development in Hollywood called Scam Brigade and where they show you some of the scams you must watch out for if you plan on doing business online. I mean, I really could go on for days talking about scams, but in the short time I have in this episode, I want to open your eyes to some of the major concepts to keep you from getting taken by scammers now near the end of this episode. I'll tell you how hysterically fun time messing with some scammers who are trying to get me. They came off of Craigslist is hysterical. All right. Episode 298 was Mind Games for Success. It was my Monday training session, and this is Wednesday, which is normally an interview, but I thought I'd do this scam thing because it was on my mind with these Craigslist people up. So anyway, two ninety eight, I gave you a mind games that bunch of mental techniques that can help you in your path to success. I've been using them for years and I gave you links in the show notes of that episode to ninety. So you could see a lot of the other ones other people use find ones that work for you. And boom, you're off to greater success. Now how would you like to hear your own voice here on screw the commute? Well, if the show has helped you out at all in your business or giving you ideas to help you start a business. We want to hear about it. So visit screwthecommute.com and look for a little blue sidebar that says send voicemail. Click on it and talk into your phone or computer and tell us how the show has helped you and also put your Web site in there so you get a big shout out in your own voice on a future episode of Screw the Commute while you're over there. Our podcast app is available. Go to screwthecommute.com/app. You can download it. There we have screen captures on how to use it and video on how to use it so you can take us with you on the road. Now make sure you check out our distance learning school with the only license distance learning school in the country. It's called the Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia. But you can live anywhere and take online classes with all this stuff. I have been using and doing for twenty six years straight. So this is hard core skills to get you an online lifestyle business, to give you lots of security for you and your family. So check it out at IMTCVA.org. And it's also a great gift for your kids, your grandchildren, your nephews and nieces. I mean, they would you would be doing them one of the best favors you could ever do and their entire young lives getting them into this early so they don't end up with tons of debt and learning how to protest at traditional colleges and then compete for jobs at Starbucks. So call me about that, too. So check it out at IMTCVA.org.

[00:00:24] Let's get into the main event. Let's talk about scams. Now, when doing business online, you will be spending lots more time on the computer and using lots more email. And yeah, I know some of you folks out there want all the riches from an online business, but you don't want any more email. You got to get over that and concentrate on the good part of email, which is when you get an order notice or when you get notice, you just earn an affiliate commission and you have more money in your PayPal, your bank account than you had the day before that support that you got to concentrate on not crying and whining about a few more emails. That's ridiculous.

[00:04:21] Now, with more e-mails going in and out of your email account, there is no doubt you will be subject to lots of scam emails, but it doesn't stop there. Your shopping cart on occasion will be under attack for fraudulent purposes. And I'll explain what to watch for and what to do about it when you are making sales through a shopping cart. You also need to monitor closely all your credit card bills each month. For my various cards, I go line by line and put a question mark next to anything I don't recognize. And I have tons of line items because we pay everything possible with credit cards so that I get points that I mean, I think I have a million and a half at any one time.

[00:05:06] The best deal, by the way, the sidebar here is to use them for travel by an electronics and other kind of junk. You can even use your points. A lot of times on Amazon to buy stuff, but usually travel is the best deal using your points.

[00:05:20] But anyway, I then get with the bookkeeper to track down what exactly a charge was for that I didn't recognize. And sometimes my employees need to use my credit card and occasionally I'll have to ask them about a charge. Now this serves two purposes. I want to announce out loud I trust my employees and contractors because they're going to be to this.

[00:05:45] Anyway, the first purpose is to find out what the charge was for. And the second purpose was to let the employees know that I watched the money around here like a hawk. Now I trust them. But it's a good habit to get into it. It's my responsibility to teach you the best practices, because some of you may have employees or contractors that aren't as great as mine. And they need to know you watch your credit card accounts very closely.

[00:06:14] All right. I'm done sucking up to my own employees. Now, another thing to watch out for are small charges.

[00:06:21] Now, I was at the office of the famous Starlee Murray, famous red carpet lady and an image.

[00:06:31] You know, well, I know what she calls herself now. Anyway, she's all about image. And I was in her office and she got a package delivered and it was a bunch of face cream stuff. And that wouldn't be weird for Starlee Murray, whose does used to be a makeup artist and all kinds of stuff. But she called her husband and said, hey, did you order this face cream? He said, no. And she said, Well, neither did I. And here it is. And so.

[00:07:02] I said, get your pass credit card bills out. So she got him out and we went through and there was a charge on there for like thirty nine ninety five for this face cream. I said, get the other bills out from before. And there was little tiny like one or two dollar charges she didn't even notice. And that was the test to see if they could just sign her up for something and maybe she wouldn't notice it is they. So you got to watch your credit card bills like a hawk. All right. Now, let's talk about your shopping cart and some of the things you should watch out for and why it's happening and what to do about it. Well, one of the things that will inevitably happen to you if you sell on line long enough is you will start to get a bunch of declined orders. Maybe the first couple, you try to call the buyer to see if they're having trouble with your shopping cart. I've saved many a sale that way. But if declines keep coming in, it means a scammer is running an attack on your shopping cart. They're running a bunch of stolen credit cards, usually with some kind of robot against your shopping cart to see which cards would clear. And it's not because they want to buy my Antion Success Principles MP3 files. Trust me. All right. It's because they're using me to find the good cards quickly so they can either sell them to other scammers for a higher fee.

[00:08:29] And or use them to buy something expensive. Or maybe get a quick cash advance before the card is discovered is stolen or canceled. Right. So another thing that will happen is that you see a weird order come in that's usually pretty large and you get all excited about it. Well, what's a weird order? Well, maybe the order was for a couple products that usually don't sell together, like my pro speaking system. And then something else in the cart is a gld Bichon Frise dog pendant. OK, well, that looks weird as things don't go together. So when I see a large order come in, the first thing I look at is the email address. Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail or any free account starts me to suspect fraud. The next thing I do is attempt to call the phone number. Usually it doesn't work at all or goes to voicemail. Now, if it's a physical product, I do not ship until I talk to the buyer to confirm the order is real and rarely it is. Now, if it was a digital product, they most likely got the product, but probably don't even want it. And for expensive online courses, you can just go in and lock that person out. See, legitimate buyers will call saying they're having trouble getting in. Scammers won't call you. I mean, for this purpose anyway. Again, they probably don't even want the product. So you say, well, why would they bother using a stolen credit card in order a product they don't even want?

[00:10:07] Here's the reason for many of these products. When you look a little deeper, they were referred by an affiliate. So if you have an affiliate program, what they're hoping is you will pay the affiliate with your good money. And several weeks later, you get charged back because the credit card was stolen and no good. Let me repeat this. You paid the affiliate who referred the sale, which probably is the same scumbag who placed the order, and you find out later the sale was no good. So you've lost the amount of the affiliate commission. Now, in this case, you don't give access to or ship the product and you don't pay the affiliate. So by knowing this, all you suffered was a little hassle, but you didn't lose any money.

[00:10:58] Now for the scam I mentioned before about running a bunch of credit cards through your card to see which one was good. The way to stop that is to install what is called a captcha. Now, this is usually some kind of way to prove it's a real person placing the order. It could be one that says I am not a robot, or it could ask you to add up to simple numbers and put the total in a box before the order can be placed.

[00:11:28] Are really pain in the neck. One might have a series of pictures and you have to click on ones that I don't know, let's say have a picture of a bus in one of the little blocks. Now, here's the deal and captures. I turn them off normally if I start seeing a scam or running credit cards against my card.

[00:11:47] I turn on the capture and then the scammers robot that's attacking my car, it pretty much moves on to somebody else's card because there's not getting anywhere with my. Then I turn the capture back off. See, I want it off most of the time. So real customers don't have to go through an extra step to finish off their order. All right. Now let's talk about e-mail scams. Now there are many, but why did they happen? Well, usually a scammer wants to get your personal information. Sometimes they just want to wreak havoc and cause damage. And sometimes they want to trick you into giving the money. Now, one thing they want to do is install a Trojan horse, which can grab information off your computer and do all kinds of nasty things. I don't pretend to be any expert on any of this stuff, but I am pretty expert on not getting them because I'm careful with what I do, which we will talk about today.

[00:12:43] Now, with Trojan horses, you have to help the scammers install it. You click on a suspect link, you download something or you just visit a sketchy Web page and that it can even do it. And I apologize for using this stupid analogy with Trojan. Horses are one trick ponies get.

[00:13:07] They normally do one thing like grab your personal information and send it to the scammer, usually for identity theft or to wipe out your bank account or destroy your hard drive. A Trojan horse can even use your computer to attack other computers.

[00:13:25] Now, you help install the Trojan, usually by being tricked into it, which is called social engineering, as opposed to the social distancing we're doing. Now, there are many ways to trick you. One type of e-mail I get regularly says here's your purchase receipt. And it just has a link in it. Well, if you didn't buy anything and you weren't expecting a receipt. Don't click on it. In fact, be highly skeptical before you ever click on anything. Some supposedly come from somebody you know, again with a link that says something like Tom. Check this out. See, they're hoping my curiosity gets me to click and bam, damage is done. And it might take me to some spam Web site to keep my mind off the fact I just installed a Trojan horse on my own computer. And if I know you, your name might be the one that sent it to you. They spoof that's called spoofing. Now, even Facebook has delivered Trojan's to people. Never click on a link that says something like, you won't believe what Joe said about you and Joe's probably in your address book or your likes, your friends. If you click the link, you're screwed. Just be darn careful by clicking on anything or anything that's generic. I mean, I click on lots of stuff, but I know that they're coming. I'm expecting them to come. And I know they're from a trusted source. That's different than just getting something in the email and clicking on it. And then you're your three days trying to get your computer fixed. I just got one this morning, as is working on this podcast. It came in and said good morning. Please familiarize yourself with the attached file reply here if you have any questions.

[00:15:17] And then it was a link attachment download that was a zip file of who would probably self extract and screw up everything. So. So no, don't ever click on stuff like that. And you might get asked to download a screensaver or a game. I mean, you're just asking for trouble. Wait till I tell you about drive by viruses in a couple of minutes. All right. So let's switch. Gears switch horses. If so, if Trojan horses are one trick ponies, viruses are not one trick ponies, they can replicate themselves and do all kinds of damage to your computer. And worse than that, they can take admin control of your computer and steal your sensitive user data and take control of your Web cam. That's why we tell you to put a little piece of paper on a flap on a piece of tape. So when you're really using it, you can use it. But other than that, it's covered. But anyway, don't click on stuff unless it's from a trusted source, and you can be sure I won't say anything to you. If I e-mail you, Hey, please familiars, rise yourself with this attached file. Oh, I won't send you an attachment on announced. I won't do a broadcast email. Nobody with any brains. It's an email or would say so don't do it and don't download stuff either unless you're absolutely sure where it came from. Now Apple and Mac users never used to worry about this stuff. Well, that's no longer the case. They're so popular they became a good target for scammers. So the same principles apply. Don't click on or download stuff or visit sketchy Web sites.

[00:17:02] All right, now here's something you might not have thought of. Let's talk about cell phone viruses. Now, fortunately, viruses on iPhones are really rare, but not unheard of. See, a lot of times people use what they call a jail broken iPhone, which allows them to download apps from all kinds of places. Those are very susceptible to viruses. Androids can have tons of trouble with this. But see, iPhones, if you haven't messed with them, have a function called sandboxing, where if one app is bad, it can't infect the other apps.

[00:17:39] Now, sometimes you'll download an innocent looking app, even from Apple or Google, and you might think everything is fine. The game you're play and works fine. The app works as described. Whoops. They tell you you need to do a security update, so you do it. And bam, again, you just downloaded the bad part of the app. And as you go about using the app behind the scenes, it can be doing its secret tasks epic. And unless someone is planning a surprise party for you, secret tasks are rarely a good thing. And don't get sucked into downloading a free, normally paid app off some cheesy foreign Web site. Chances are you're downloading something bad. And don't think you're home for ages because you're careful on the apps you download. Drive by downloads, sites can and do download malicious files that just by visiting them. So keep your darn nose clean, stay away from sites that aren't well-known and reputable. So how do you protect yourself from these malicious apps that you could actually get from the normal, you know, App Store and so forth? Well, only use apps that have an enormous numbers of downloads and tons of positive reviews and take the time to read the reviews, see many scammers.

[00:19:07] I went after that guy in Las Vegas that, you know, just plastered the Internet with false positive reviews of himself. You know, I pointed it out. Of course, he went and crawled under the rock that he came out of.

[00:19:19] But but the thing is, is it works on people. They see loads, a numbers of reviews, and they don't look closer, say, well, you got to look closer. So many scammers just flood the review section with very short, fraudulent, positive reviews to trick you into downloading. Again, that's social engineering, a form of it. Now, avoid urgent security updates. You know, look at the app. Does it work professionally? Does it look like it was just slapped together to cheat you? You know, so. So all those things add up to you. You've got to be careful. Does it have misspellings and grammar problems, all those things? Now, here's some things that can get your cell phone affected, infected, see clicking a link in a bogus text message or e-mail or on a dubious Web site. Remember I said, don't click on things. We talked about downloading apps, downloading message attachments from an email or text message, downloading content to your phone from the Internet if it's a sketchy site and connecting your phone to another device means that it could come through the connection and infect you from some other infected computer.

[00:20:31] Now, if you do think your iPhone or Android device has been compromised, it's doing weird things, getting weird ads, which is, moreover, ties, mints.

[00:20:41] They're called instead of advertisements, malware. You probably need to perform some type of virus check or put some virus software on your cell phone. Avast has some, Norton has some. And and also keep your phone software up to date because a lot of these things. Attack security flaws. And as soon as iPhone or Android, it learns about some flaw in the security, it updates the software. And so that helps you avoid these bad things.

[00:21:15] Now, there's other famous scams like the Jamaican lottery scam. Listen, folks, if you did play a lottery, it's for sure you ain't going to win one. All right. In this case, they tell you you won a lottery, but you have to pay the taxes before you can get your money. And of course, there is no lottery. And you just said good money to scammers. I mean, it's bad enough pay in real taxes, let alone pay and fake ones. All right.

[00:21:43] Now, before I tell you to the hysterical way I messed with Craigslist scammers, let me remind you about my exclusive mentor program. I mean, it's the longest running ever online in this. I mean, actually in person and online about online business and Internet marketing. It started well before the year 2000. It got really formalized around 2000.

[00:22:06] That's 20 years. And then the retreat center started in 2002 as part of it. And the joint venture program, all that's been, you know. Seventeen hundred students over 20 plus years. No lawsuits, no buddy chasing me around doesn't mean they all did the work. And there they wish they had their money back because they didn't do the work. But, you know, I didn't let them down, that's for sure. But lots of successes out of out of this program. And it's very unique. You have an immersion weekend at the retreat center. This, which is my biggest stay at home. You have. We shoot video for you. We teach you video every aspect of online marketing. We have subject matter experts plus myself that help you. And this is the big kicker, one on one. We don't 4chan two groups all the time where if you're a beginner, you're lost. When we're talking to the advanced people on a very advanced your board, when we're talking to the beginners, know all of the people that work here. Schedule one on one, tutoring sessions with you and you can make enormous progress really fast.

[00:23:14] And also, you get a scholarship to my school that I talked about. For that, you can either use yourself or gift. And one guy gifted to his daughter, she's now making six thousand dollars a month on the side and she's not even done with the school.

[00:23:28] And he had spent eighty thousand bucks on a crap education for and she couldn't get a decent job. Is so very, very powerful of unique, highly in demand skills that allowed me to live this lifestyle business for 26 years now. So. So anyway, check it out at greatInternetmarketingtraining.com and call me.

[00:23:52] All right. Now, I gotta tell you this hysterical way I messed with Craigslist scammers, and this will also tell you about some other scams to watch out for. So, anyway, I'm selling some office furniture on Craigslist. And if you list your cell phone number in the ad within minutes, you will get a text asking you if the item is still available. And of course, you say yes. And then they say they've gotten scammed before and they want you to prove you are real.

[00:24:27] Okay. They say they're going to send you a code and you click a link or some variation of that. And that supposed to be proves prove you are real. All right. So what they're trying to do is steal your Google Voice account. Now, many times these people were foreign. And they used misspellings and wrong usages of words. So I mess with them all the while, stringing them along and wasting their time so they can't be, you know, screwing over other people.

[00:24:58] And also, I get a lot of entertainment value.

[00:25:01] So what are the ways I mess with them is I say things using more obscure words and references that would be hard for them to understand or to simply look up in a dictionary if English wasn't their first language. Here's how it went yesterday. So. So this is a scammer. Hello, H.A. l l o. Are your three bookcases still available? Me. Yes. Scammer. I've gotten ripped off in the past and need to know you're a real person.

[00:25:36] I massaged you a code. Tell me what it is.

[00:25:42] So I know you're real. So now I'm ready to go. Me. I don't have any massages available. I get them at the Sunrise Spa at three a.m.. After a table shower and then a happy ending. And then I go and I say, I also have a hot air balloon, a moped and a unicycle avail. Are you interested in any of those pristine items, camera comes back after a delay? I had to figure this out. And he just says, I sent you a code.

[00:26:27] Please send it back then.

[00:26:31] So for me, I. I write back.

[00:26:34] What kind of transport do denizens of your fair country use when traversing Hill and Dale? Now, you young people won't recognize this. Look to older people. And then I said also, I'm glad I gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.

[00:27:04] There's a longer delay that says, please check your code. When I come back with will all of these three bookcases.

[00:27:20] Fit in your rectum. They are large and it will take a large rectum to carry the. You may need some petroleum jelly products to help with the inserts. You. You may also need some bewhiskered muscle lumberjacks to do the insert.

[00:27:50] And we only accept gilded bullion, gold bullion as payment. What Zulu time will you appear?

[00:28:02] Is another big, long delay that says, please send your code. I think we're both laughing so hard. Of us hurt myself.

[00:28:14] So so I don't suggest you do that unless it goes on the Craigslist that it did have my address. But we're moving. It didn't matter then if they decided to come to America and attack the building or be there.

[00:28:33] So so I gave away, folks. I'm laughing real hard, but the scam world is really bad.

[00:28:39] These people are taken the enormous amounts of money, especially older people, I think. Twenty thousand people last year. Older people lost their homes from just the lottery type scams. And it's a billion dollar business. And you got.

[00:28:54] Oh, one other one I'll tell you about while we're here is usually, if you put something, a big ticket product like a flat screen TV or a car or something, you'll get somebody that offers to buy it and they're going to send you a cashier's check. They're never going to meet you in person. If they never gonna meet you in person. That's a red flag that ninety nine point ninety nine chance. This is a fraud. So anyway, so you're selling your car for fifty five hundred. They send you a check for seventy five hundred and you get it. You say, wow, it was they was Buzby. Fifty five hundred. You contact them and they say, oh well please send in the transport company to pick the car up. Would you please pay them the two thousand for the transport of the car. So if you fell for that you would pay them two thousand bucks with real money. That's yours. And then that cashier's check was fake. And the banks are so damn slow, they wouldn't catch it for a while. And then you ended up. I mean, the car never disappears because of the transport company never shows up. I mean, if they did, that would be really bad. But anyway, you sent the two thousand bucks to a transport company, which was probably the scammer with just the different addresses are for. And. And that's the the overpayment scam. So they were there's loads and loads of these. And hey, check out the trailer to ScamBrigade.com. I'm hoping it sells one of these days so I can help a lot, lot more people not get hurt with these things and educate them about it scambrigade.com. The Hollywood people said we love the show, Tom. But don't quit your day job.

[00:30:37] So we shot two or three different trailers out there and I've been on TV all over the place promoting it, but hasn't sold yet. So anyway, that's the story. So stay away from keeping being scammed. You're going to get a lot of this stuff and that hopefully this will save you from not recognizing something and being to click happy and you click and boom.

[00:31:00] All of a sudden you're you're calling some 800 number because they claim to be Microsoft on your screen and your computer's all locked up.

[00:31:08] That happens. Do you take it to a computer repair shop, let him help you fix it because you just got screwed. All right. So that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Next time is Episode three hundred. We're going to have some big deals and big sales Friday for that. So catch y'all then. See ya later.

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