I’m a pastor at a small isolated church in a rural community which itself is rather isolated and small. Even in this little microcosm in which I dwell I have members who come to me in tears about some email, text, etc., that they have received and are scammed or don’t know what to do. Many times at the start of church I try to educate them on either the latest scams (I actually try to keep up with this stuff) or how to identify a scam, just to try to help. It’s insane how much is going on. Many are trusting older folks and are not as jaded as I am at the state of our world today. Believe it or not I pick up on a lot of this stuff from you Steve!
That's a good idea to go over it at the begging of your church service... scammers hook you with your own greed. They put free money or something on a hook, and reel you in.
Good for you. I'm a retire grandpa and I get Facebook invitations from time to time from girls in their 20's, sometimes in bathing suits. They always say something like, "I think you and I have a lot in common. Can I message you?" Well, I wasn't born yesterday and I know no girl in her 20's wants to be friends with someone in their 70's, so I delete them immediately. People need to know that these types of requests are always fakes with the ultimate goal of getting money from the victim. It's a good idea to warn people in your church so they won't be drawn into a scam which could clean out their savings and leave them homeless.
The most shocking part of this video is not the scam nor the Facebook's poor customer service. No, no, no. It is the fact that the woman did not talk to Steve in High School and still does not talk to him today. What's wrong with this woman? Stay strong Steve! 😃😃
i wouldnt be worried, the idiots can usually be worked out well before high school, there was this one girl who wouldnt give me the time of day in school and only 26 years later did she ask a friend request on facebook. turns out her claim to fame was marrying a sportsman... thats it... i felt very sorry for her and her shallow life, her fb page was so vacuous and sad.
My poor cousin has been taken advantage of so many times. Her side of the family doesn’t have many offshoots but rather intertwined on itself. She’s fallen for the “Have you heard…”, a military member stuck in Syria and needs to get a ticket home and a few others. She hasn’t had the best of luck with husbands so if someone pays attention to her she falls for it hook line and sinker. Her son does it as well.
So rather than looking like a tree, her side of the family looks more like a DNA strand? Does her side of the family follow the philosophy of "if you can't keep it in your jeans, you might as well keep it in your genes?"
I strung along a "have you heard the news" scammer for well over an hour. They were pretending to be my aunt, and when I asked who they know that owns a particular antique car, they guessed a name at random, instead of naming her husband, or her daughter, or me. Ok then, game on. After a while I started mentioning things like Sandra getting her fingers reattached (there is no Sandra), and attempting to pay Sandra's hospital bill with 176,000 chickens, and "hold on, the dog is barking, I think Timmy is down the well again". After well over an hour I finally called them out point-blank, and they immediately blocked me.
This is why I refuse to use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc,etc. It's amazing how hard these people will "work" to scam folks. My favorite is the extended warranty fraud, I tell them I own 30 cars and ask them which car are they referring to, they usually hang up after I waste 15 or 20 minutes of their time.
Oh the car warranty scam. Love it when they call. I love to give them a year and model say something like a model T ford it perfect Then blow them out of the water. By saying do you really want a blind man driving. Which I am legally blind. Go a friend who is totally blind that likes to screw with them as well.
Lol kept one on the phone for 45 min one time while waiting in an airport. Finally he demanded to know what car I had so I told him a model T. He immediately slammed the phone down😂
Scam attempts are so prevalent these days in virtually every medium: email, phone calls, text messages, UA-cam comments, even the UA-cam ads themselves, and more, that it has rewired my critical thinking analysis. My new step one when I get any message is, "Does this sound like something a scammer would say?" It's frighteningly rare for me to get to step two.
thank you Steve!!! notifying us about these scams might be the most valuable information you dispense for free. I never miss your uploads but rarely post a message and I just wanted to let you know how important and valuable the information you dispense is. Again, thank you so very very much!!!
I’ve gotten the same. One was from my “aunt”. This was in February a few years ago. I asked her how her recent trip to Alaska and if she got to see the penguins on the north slope. This turd said yes. Asked him why would anyone travel to Alaska in the winter to see penguins that ar in the southern hemisphere. What a clown. 🤣🤣🤣
Best thing happened to me was when fb banned me. 5 years later I received an email from fb saying if I want back on we need a state issued ID and a 180 degree video of my face. So I replied with a 180 degree video of my middle finger. Haven’t heard back from them. 😂
That’s very disturbing if FB truly requested a 180 degree view of anyone’s face, plus gov’t issued ID! Sounds more like a new-age arrest. 😂 I’m surprised that FB didn’t ask for fingerprints and and a retinal scan too! So I’m guessing that it was just a scam to get your info from a fake FB.
lol that's a good one! or tell them you aren't interested, because you have a better money making scheme, and all they'd have to do is send you some gift cards... ^_^
I do not condone fucking with them but I have done it myself. Somebody told me that how beautiful I am and he's right. He said he wanted to give me some money. It's the scam were they want to give you a check to deposit in your account. When the bank doesn't accept the check they say take a screenshot of your account and show me. You will end up giving them your login info.. He sent a photo of a bogus check. I told him my bank pre clears checks and it cleared. He said now send 1000. I said you didn't tell me that. I pissed him off so bad.
Many years ago, I got a phone call from a woman offering to evaluate and, ultimately, help me reduce my energy needs. She asked me how I heated my home. Having nothing better to do that evening, and looking for some amusement, I answered : "I use candles." There was a bit of a pause. Obviously, she was taken aback by my answer. Then she asked : "How does that work ? " Without skipping a beat, I replied : "Quite well. I burn them at both ends." I don't think 10 seconds passed before she hung up. :)
I had a "Windows Tech Support" guy on the phone once a few years ago. I'm a Windows programmer and am very cynical, I knew he was a scammer from the first second, but I had nothing else to do and was curious. I was literally laughing at him the whole time, calling him a scammer, telling him I wasn't going to go through with this but I am curious about how this scam works so let's keep going on your script. He was adamant the whole time that it was NOT A SCAM. He did stuff like bring up the Windows system log and "every one of those yellow triangles means it's a virus infection, you have hundreds of viruses!" I laugned and said "No they're not, what crap. I use the system log every day to debug code." Finally he got to where we had set up the remote access and it was ready to go, he said "Now click OK" and I said "Nope, that's where we end this. Thanks for the education." I was able to waste his time for another 2 or 3 minutes. Maybe I kept him from scamming one other person by taking up his time.
I have a relative struggling with dementia. She gets bombarded with all kinds of scam calls as if the scammers share her info flagged as a vulnerable target.
My mother in law was a favorite target. She could always be tricked into giving her debit card info on the phone, no matter how many times we told her not to give number on the phone. Her bank finally quit giving her a debit card, and I dont blame them.
While not Facebook, I have “Lenny” configured as my diversion number when I select decline call (my normal voicemail is set for unanswered so I can differentiate between spammy calls and friends I just can’t answer atm). Lenny is just a set of recordings that loop and wait for the other side to stop talking before playing the next audio file. I also have mine set up so it will record the call. The longest Lenny has wasted a single spam caller who called me was about 25 mins… All the benefits of wasting their time and none of wasting yours (apart from setting it up)
The only one I’ve gotten a few times is the profile of an attractive woman sending a friend request, and they’d usually come as a Facebook friend of a friend in a big group we’re in (who clearly approved the friend in the first place). Our usual protocol was to screenshot the request and post it in the group with the line “not today, ISIS.”
As soon as I see a 'clickbait' title for one of steve's videos, I KNOW it's gonna be good. The 'cool teacher' vibes Steve gives off makes all his content great though. Like it's the class you can't wait for!
Watch out for the “You failed to show up for jury duty and there’s an arrest warrant for you.” Of course if you send them several thousand dollars on PayPal,etc, then they can clear the warrant. My friend, who’s in her 50s and I thought was savvy, almost fell for this and literally was about to send them the money when she called me to check if it was legit😮😮😮
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't fall for that one, as you don't GET a notification that there's a warrant out for you like that, certainly not via social media LOL. But if DID fall for it, all they would get is my panicked replies about how I never got the jury duty notice and how unfair it is and blahblahblah, because I don't HAVE thousands of dollars to foolishly give to a scammer! I think there's $192 in my checking account, and that's basically spent already for upcoming bills.
@@audreymuzingo933 My fault for not mentioning it wasn’t a digital scam. They called her and had lots of info. She had also missed her jury duty a few months earlier and so it might be an insider selling info too. However, they wouldn’t be doing the scam if nobody falls for it. I could see my elderly mother falling for this.
The last sentence is important, if something is fishy you can always ask someone! And if you are the person asked, show understanding! Scammers are relying on their victims being ashamed and not telling anyone.
"there’s an arrest warrant for you" People need to realize that if there really is an arrest warrant, the police do not make a courtesy call to let you know before they show up to arrest you.
@@WheatGrinding Absolutely true! They are smart though and advise in the most stern terms that, “ This is your only chance to avoid arrest. If you hang up then we’ll send the deputies out to arrest you.” She was lucky that she had a second cell phone to call me on. I’ve even heard of cases where they keep you on the cellphone all the way to the ATM and then off to buy gift cards.
The saying “ if it sounds too good to be true “ is also universally recognized ! I think this scam is going to effect the older generation who may not be aware of how insidious these amoral scammers are while appearing as an opportunity ! ✨🙏🏼🇺🇸✨
Or people that just aren't as spry as they once were. Someone posed as the FBI and tricked my mother into sending them a few thousand dollars in the form of crypto currency under threat she'd be arrested if she didn't pay them. "Mom...for your *entire life* the US Government has *only* accepted cash and bank checks as legal tender. Why *the Hell* would you think the FBI wanted Bit and Doge coins...?"
it is funny / sad that the older generation doesn't recognize a scam on the internet, but they can usually spot them in the US mail. Course the younger generation is too naïve and arrogant about it being naïve, in the world of politics these days, thinking that just because they know how to use the internet they are smarter then the older generation.
Good info! A bit about cloning accounts: You're absolutely right, it's really easy to go to an account, download the profile picture and open a cloned account. The next step however, the person cloning the account will go to the original account's Friend list to generate a list of people to send friend requests to. If you change your privacy settings so that only friends of yours can see your friend list, that should make it *much* harder to successfully clone your account. Hope that helps!
I like to mess with the scammers as well. I was once contacted by someone that I suspected of hijacking an account of a former female friend from high school. We had a falling out during our junior year and have never spoken since, so I replied with the question "Do you remember the time we made out in the principal's office our senior year?" (Which we never did.) They replied "yeah, that was sooo cool." HA HA, GOTCHA.
I've had so many "have you heard" messages and ads about free stimulus money, dead relatives left me stuff, checks in my name ready to send, etc. 😂😂 I know all the scams because my cousin, the psychic Nigerian Prince, keeps me current. 😅
What a coincidence and there was a Saudi prince trying to get ahold of me to keep his money safe and all I had to do was give him five hundred bucks😂😂😅
@seanmaury7844 I've been on that list, and I've had people call me saying they can help me get the money for a fee. They seem very disappointed when I tell them that I've already claimed the money, and that I didn't need anyone to help me. One guy actually expected me to pay him for having informed me of the existence of the money.
i am 60 and i am hearing " Have you heard the news " for the first time now. It might be an old trick, but new to me. Thank You for letting us know about this scam.
My wife got a call the other day from a "police sergeant". He said she was supposed to have been in court as an expert witness. They'd served her with a notice to appear a month ago (at an old address) and they had her on bodycam signing for the service, and it included a sensitive (because a juvenile was involved) package of evidence. Something about a contempt charge and fines. And they were recording the call to listen for signs that she was sharing information with anyone unauthorized, because that would be a felony. (I farted rather loudly at that point. He didn't say anything about it.) After a little more, my wife called him out and he hung up. Thing is, he had an address that we used to live at and an actual name of a police sergeant (no longer at the department, my wife called the department). It was pretty bizarre.
Steve, A real service to many of us, thanks. I have a close friend who passed a few months ago and recently got a “friends request” from him last week. Of course, I know that can’t be real (unless there are Face Book terminals up there…)
You are probably under the mistaken belief that Facebook doesnt want scammers on their site. In fact, scammers are very good customers for Facebook. They buy ad services from them. If you ever see ads selling stamps or coins or other products from legit sounding pseudo businesses, know that Facebook got revenue from that scammer.
---- true: open facebilk and you will quickly be hit with ads to purchase new Silver Eagles at 1/3 to 1/2 the value of silver and 1/8 what they are legitimately selling for - obviously a scam - but they do send you the coins which are such good fakes they will pass most home tests for real silver - worse is that you can go to Chinese sites and buy them for 1/10 the value of real silver - 90% of the ones sold on e bay are these fakes - I just wonder why the US government isn't shutting them down for counterfeiting US currency
You can get genuine coins from legitimate companies in FB ads. They’re companies known for offering coins at way more than they’re worth, but, technically, they’re legit.
@@evilsharkey8954 ---- yep" Littleton is right there selling coins for much more than even their book value - but that has been Littleton's business model from day one: bilking the ignorant till they get some knowledge and figure out they have been screwed: his brother does the same with stamps over at Mystic -- meanwhile, you can also get all the "genuine 2023 US Silver Eagles" on this final day of sale ( which has been on its final day for weeks now" ) from multiple ads for the low "last day only" price of $6.98 - as many as you want ( lowest you'll get those from coin shops and bullion dealers is about $36: if you buy 500 ) - it's obviously a scam since the value of the silver in a Silver Eagle is currently about $23 and no one's going to take a 75% loss to sell them to you -- those are counterfeit and they are near perfect copies
I agree If I want a thing, I will go to a local store and buy it. I buy nothing that someone offers me at my front door (and by extension email or other electronic contact method)
Steve, I regularly get emails from my sister who has been dead for the last 14 years. Some people just do not have any scruples. Fortunately, there are people out there that go and screw with the scammers and get into their computers to delete their files and save victims thousands of dollars that they might've lost to the scammers. The scammers are based in India primarily and they like to pass themselves off as reps from companies like PayPal, GeekSquad, MicroSoft, etc. The UA-cam page I like is Scammer Payback - this guy and his team are very good at turning the tables on the scammers. He speaks their native language too!
I love that genre of video! It's especially funny when they hack into the office cameras in the scam sweatshop and you get to watch people on that end freaking out.
In Germany, that is illegal. So here the channels only can waste the time of the scammers. Kitboga also would be great if his thumbnails weren't so horrible.
A few years ago, when I still had Facebook, I get a PM. It's supposedly a girl I scarcely knew in high school ( which was in 1973 or so...), and she had a horrible story to tell : she was essentially a prisoner in an African nation which will go unamed. (Pretty sure they were innocent...) But Suzie was jammed up, and needed $5000 to pay off corrupt local officials. To be able to escape. Normal, right? At first, I reacted sensibly: I asked: have you contacted the US embassy or consulate? If you are being illegally held, they will drop down on these guys like a piano falling from a fifth story window... Well, I kept hearing explanations as to why the normal authorities could not help her.... Then, it gets funny... I had spent SEVERAL years in high school chasing this woman, with poor results...she was the homecoming gueen, I was the guy with long hair, guitars, and a motorcycle... So when, in the course of further messaging, "Suzie" revealed that she always had "lustful" thoughts( yea...that's the actual language used!!!) concerning me...well , not very freaking lightly...big fail, scammers!!!
I remember early on in FB that there were many "I'm stuck in a foreign country" scams, and a dim-witted FB friend was really concerned about a common friend who was "stuck". I had to explain to the DWFBF what the scam was.
@azmax623 Happened to an older friend of mine. He got an email from his cousin claiming he was stranded in Miami and needed 2K to get home. He was getting ready to go to the bank when it dawned on him that if his cousin would go on vacation, he'd tell him, so he picked his phone and called him. That's how he was saved from a scam.
Most often, people's accounts are not hijacked on Facebook. Usually, the scammer impersonates someone with a new account. The scammer creates a new account using the same name. The scammer then copies information from the original page, including photographs. The scammer then begins sending messages to anyone who is remotely connected (even friend of a friend) with the scam notes. Most people have their Facebook account's security set to "Public" - anyone can see all of their info. Setting the account's information to "Only Friends" will block the scammers from impersonation.
The ones I like are the Debbie Darlings (made up name, hopefully) from Minnesota, don't cha know, but all of Debbie's friends are from a small, West African country. Poor Debbie is whiter than Lizzy Warren, but all of her friends spend too much time in the sun, apparently.
That's why I say ".......or otherwise compromised" when I think a friend's account (or the account of a friend of that friend) is compromised. Because actual hacking or hijacking aren't the only ways to do it.
I once had a series of short emails back and forth that sounded at first like a friend of mine but when he said the magic words "GIFT CARDS" , I knew it was fake. I asked him a question that only my friend would know the answer to and the scammer went away.
@apextroll Both. I haven't watched it, but apparently the "story" is, Harrison Ford goes back in time and dies or some shit, so all of the Indiana Jones movies never actually happened, and they made it a black woman now. Basically this movies specifically written to cancel out all of the originals, and create a new one with a black female lead. We all know they're doing it because they're racist.
Had a couple of those. The last one I played with for a while and then noted that I was sorry that they had recently passed away (which they had). Heard no more from them.
I used to get stuff like that on occasion when I participated on Facebook. I don't mess with it anymore, and have somehow managed to go on with life without it.
"Have you heard he news"? Steve has produced another great video. Greetings from Australia.Another scam I've received will say something like" I think you're in this photo"
It's quite common for inactive social media accounts to be hijacked. And the news I heard is that there's good rockin' tonight. Steve, your scam videos are among your most enjoyable. Keep'em coming!
I had one call me. I asked him which service center he was calling from ... of COURSE it was Wash D.C. I asked him which office he was in, as I was visiting my cousin, the service center director. We could go together and you can meet him. The line went silent.
I keep getting a "Look who just died" notification from Facebook. I've never heard specifically but it just looks like a come on to draw me into a scam.
LOL I love that way Steve calls out popular the girl that wouldn't give him a second thought back in the day. Way to keep the bitterness and animosity going after all these years Steve, I can appreciate your midwestern resentment.
One news story that I saw that is particularly scary is that now there is enough voice cloning tech that allows scammers to call and claim that a loved one has been kidnapped and then they play back what sounds like a voice recording of that loved one generated by AI
Lol my response would be If I give you money or such then I and my children won't have as good of an economic life. If I don't there's life insurance on her in which case I and the children will have a better economic life. Lol um logically what would you choose? Lol
That's an oldie but a goodie. I had somebody try that on me in the days of the land line, except without the voice cloning. I said "keep 'em," and hung up.
One thing you are missing is do not accept these clone accounts as friends. When you do that the scammers suddenly have access to all your friend's names including their friends list and photos. Once you accept their friend request then they can automatically create clone accounts for all your friends and send your friends messages. Don't play with them. Just report them to Facebook and block them immediately or the cycle continues. This type of cloning appears to be automated. Some of this can be dialed back if you visit your Facebook accounts and change your settings so that your friends list and images are visible only to your friends not friends of friends.
When I receive an email, I look at the subject line very carefully and sometimes I click on the "View Source" to see if the email has any Readable Text. If it's just gibberish representing image files, I don't open it. Fortunately, the Thunderbird email program is very good at rejecting 98% of the scam email.
At the age of 72, several times a year someone actually does die - so people our age are vulnerable to that line. I have also heard the bait about a "bad credit check report" - ignored it. I DISABLED MY FACEBOOK ACCT.
I'm officially starting all correspondence (and ending it) with "have you heard the news?" once word of this gets out. Great way to put unbearble conversations to bed.
Yep. Happened to me on a couple of occasions. I led them on by pretending to stupid and divert the conversation then watch them trying to get things swung back to the scam.
That's terrific fun, isn't it? And the more time of theirs that we can take up, the less they have left to spend going after vulnerable sitting ducks. Not a whole lot in public service can be that much fun.
Pretty sure India will switch to ai and it wont be humans doing scams anymore, so it wont be wasting time anymore, except yours. An ai could make 500k calls at 1x probably
Another time I got one of those messages from a person who I knew had passed away several years earlier. I asked, "Is this a hijacked box, or am I really talking to someone from beyond the grave? If it is the latter, what a fantastic story this will be." I never heard back from the person.
" Did you hear who died? I'm so sorry for your loss" is another one. Edit sorry i wrote this before i got to the part were you talked about a similar one
if I was a regulator, I'd require every bank to maintain a list of dedicated account numbers, so people recognizing scams could request one of these numbers, pass it to the scammer, and then a hacker would watch for it to be used, and exploit all the data they could get. (and of course, the scammer would fail to get anything)
To limit the possibility of your Facebook account being cloned, set your Friends list to private. It's useless to a scammer to copy your picture and create an account pretending to be you if they can't contact any of your friends.
@@ronjones-6977 That's lousy advice. Social media is extremely useful to many people for many different reasons. If YOU disagree, or you know you're stupid enough that you'll probably fall for a scam, by all means, stay off social media. But most people have more than one brain cell and can handle it.
Steve, love the tee shirt. I actually clicked on the video because of it - thought maybe you were going to talk about the Western Maryland! But the real topic was great and well worth the listen.
There's an awesome former cyber criminal named Brett Johnson who was on the FBI's most wanted list and now does his own podcast (The Brett Johnson show). You should consider having him on your show, you going on his, or doing a collaboration. He's very active on LinkedIn, and now uses that platform to try and help people with cyber crime problems. Thank you for your show, I almost always learn something new when I watch!
What timing! someone purporting to be my aunt sent me a message similar to this yesterday but "she" opened up with "How are you? and when I replied she said "Have you heard anything about department of health and human Services dhhs program?" so I sent her a link to your video and told her I had heard about it
The best is the call scammers. I’ll either act completely insane or I’ll play dumb and then after about 10-15 minutes I’ll just pause and say “we got a lock on the address yet? Ya? Ok, we’ve got everything we need. Thanks for keeping the line open and your cooperation. The department really appreciates your help” then hang up 😂
I accepted a cloned account request once. When they hit me with the money stuff, I reported them as fake. Ever since then I automatically report accounts sending me friend requests from people I’m already friends with. I’ll occasionally accept the randos and when they start trying to scam me then I’ll start messing with them.
There's an old saying "You can't con an honest man". All these scams rely on the fact that the prey wants something they haven't earned, or want to hide something they have done. The best protection against scammers is to keep greed and fear out of your heart.
I just had this….a girl I knew in high school, we ran in the same circle but haven’t talked since HS graduation. I accepted the friend request and then immediately got this message……I then went back and unfriended. Never opened the message!!!
I remember when I was younger…there was a phrase that was often spoken when people would complain about being conned….something about fools and their money?
My grandparents got a call from a scammer who acted like one of their grandchildren. They knew lots of personal things and were extremely good. They told our grandparents that they were in huge trouble with a car accident and were going to jail. They said they needed 10k sent to them ASAP for bail and pleaded to not contact their parents for various different reasons. My grandparents, despite all the warnings I give them, thought this might be real. Thankfully they decided to hang up after 20 minutes and call our parents and eventually discovered it was a scam. Whew. They will never stop trying because the truth is they are successful. You mentioned how people say "how can people fall for that", but these scammers are so cunning and conniving. They have all kinds of tricks to gain trust from people who aren't internet savvy (like the elderly).
Thank you for making this video. I'm a computer technician and I have multiple calls every week of people who got their account hacked, or they got a message asking them to call somewhere, and they did and gave their information, because the big bad scary message told them their computer was locked because they were infected (and all they had to do was restart the computer). I would say, do not click on any link you get from anyone on messenger, even if they are your friend or brother, sister, because their account could have been hacked and it's the hacker sending you those link from the hijacked account. If your brother sends you a link, call him and ask him if he really did.
Steve, for about a decade i have explained to my children, friends, family members, when it comes to facebook, " Beware, a friend of a friend is an enemy". Two, all of your advice you've given in this video is excellent. I would say this though, don't play with these scam artists, at all, just cut them off, block them, see somethibg, don't make any contact. Last, this third item is a bit different. Around herein NH when adeath notice of a spouse appears in the paper, you may know the paper (weekly, small towns) has literally come out because you'll get unsolicited calls from people that speak poor english claiming you owetge IRS x amount of money abd they can stop an arrest warrant from coming to you, and on and on. The callers are very persistent. I had to block lots of numbers when this occurred. The State Police are very aware of this and I'm guessing give out the same, sound advice, but there are many victims of this I am oretty sure. Thanks for your videos. Watch them a lot. Don't think I've ever written before, sy
Steve I literally just saw a UA-cam ad for the first scam you mentioned just prior to this video. It was an auto ad! Supposedly this is for a government program that gives you $1160/month (they're unclear about whether they're talking about insurance or cash.)
It was a year or 2 ago Steve did a similar video. I sent him a Facebook friend request. He accepted. I sent a messager message saying hi. He replied hi. I thought have you seen the news would be a funny next line so I typed it. He insta blocked me. But Steve if you read this I just wanted to say im a big fan! Still watching your videos. Love the work.
I recently got a friend request from a _relative_ with whom I wasn't very close. I thought she was reaching out because of a recent death in the family, so I accepted the request. Then she asked, "Have you heard the good news?" peppered with religious undertones. I said, "No," and thought she was going to simply tell me about something personal and _non-commerical_ that recently lifted her spirits, like maybe she'd gotten engaged. I checked my messages this morning to find her talking about the Community Service Block Grant. I may not be close to this relative, but I know her well enough to know she wouldn't bring up something like that with me. Only then did I look at her profile and see that there is zero activity or information, aside from being "friends" with two of my other relatives. I sent this video to them.
One I've had recently "Mom, I lost my phone, using a friend's to send this, call me on my new phone" followed by a number. Truly shocking! I didn't know i had any kids. Even more shocking, I don't remember ever having had a womb, let alone giving birth...
When somebody asks for help like that, tell them to come on over to your house or that you'll be happy to help a neighbor since you know them, and you'll be right there.
It is sad to see how greed can decrease your awareness of scams. More than once I have gotten messages telling me I have won a prize from “Publishers Clearing House”. Never once did I respond.
"The IRS has too much money, they're just giving it away"
I laughed so hard at this my sides hurt. Thanks for the free ab workout.
Yeah, I know if the IRS has extra money, they're not giving it to me. I'm not rich.
"We, the IRS, would like to have less money" this and many more could be yours in: "the big book of things that will never actually be said".
I’m a pastor at a small isolated church in a rural community which itself is rather isolated and small. Even in this little microcosm in which I dwell I have members who come to me in tears about some email, text, etc., that they have received and are scammed or don’t know what to do. Many times at the start of church I try to educate them on either the latest scams (I actually try to keep up with this stuff) or how to identify a scam, just to try to help. It’s insane how much is going on. Many are trusting older folks and are not as jaded as I am at the state of our world today. Believe it or not I pick up on a lot of this stuff from you Steve!
That's a good idea to go over it at the begging of your church service... scammers hook you with your own greed. They put free money or something on a hook, and reel you in.
Shouldn't we pray for no more scams?
Good for you. I'm a retire grandpa and I get Facebook invitations from time to time from girls in their 20's, sometimes in bathing suits. They always say something like, "I think you and I have a lot in common. Can I message you?" Well, I wasn't born yesterday and I know no girl in her 20's wants to be friends with someone in their 70's, so I delete them immediately. People need to know that these types of requests are always fakes with the ultimate goal of getting money from the victim. It's a good idea to warn people in your church so they won't be drawn into a scam which could clean out their savings and leave them homeless.
“ the begging of your church service.”
Nice Freudian slip about scams.
God bless you, sir!
The most shocking part of this video is not the scam nor the Facebook's poor customer service. No, no, no. It is the fact that the woman did not talk to Steve in High School and still does not talk to him today. What's wrong with this woman? Stay strong Steve! 😃😃
Steve was a dick in High School….
i wouldnt be worried, the idiots can usually be worked out well before high school, there was this one girl who wouldnt give me the time of day in school and only 26 years later did she ask a friend request on facebook. turns out her claim to fame was marrying a sportsman... thats it... i felt very sorry for her and her shallow life, her fb page was so vacuous and sad.
And there is that.
I had a call about a week ago, grandma? Nope, no kids, so that would be impossible.
My poor cousin has been taken advantage of so many times. Her side of the family doesn’t have many offshoots but rather intertwined on itself. She’s fallen for the “Have you heard…”, a military member stuck in Syria and needs to get a ticket home and a few others. She hasn’t had the best of luck with husbands so if someone pays attention to her she falls for it hook line and sinker. Her son does it as well.
So rather than looking like a tree, her side of the family looks more like a DNA strand?
Does her side of the family follow the philosophy of "if you can't keep it in your jeans, you might as well keep it in your genes?"
@@DarkWolfsDenthat's so messed up, I love it 😂
If she hasn't learned by now she never will. I feel bad if it happens once but if it's on going their is no help for her.
I strung along a "have you heard the news" scammer for well over an hour. They were pretending to be my aunt, and when I asked who they know that owns a particular antique car, they guessed a name at random, instead of naming her husband, or her daughter, or me. Ok then, game on. After a while I started mentioning things like Sandra getting her fingers reattached (there is no Sandra), and attempting to pay Sandra's hospital bill with 176,000 chickens, and "hold on, the dog is barking, I think Timmy is down the well again". After well over an hour I finally called them out point-blank, and they immediately blocked me.
lol... an hour they couldn't scam someone else.. well played.
When a scammer calls me, I speak softly until they turn up their headset. Then I scream at them, because I can be very loud when I need to be....
@@davidhollenshead4892 I love this.
Ha-ha! "Timmy is down the well again"!! Now that brings back some fun memories.
Way to go👍👍👍👍👍
Make no mistake, Facebook has absolutely no intention of protecting its users from anything.
Of course they don't. Their user's data is their product. They don't want to protect anyone's data, they only want to sell it.
I suspect they are in on the scam and get a %
EXCEPT PROTECTING THE TRUTH!!! THEY GO WAY WAY WAY BEYOND ANY POSSIBLE REASON TO KEEP THE TRUTH FROM YOU!!!
EXCEPT PROTECTING YOU FROM THE TRUTH!!!!!
too true. they serve me up scam ads on every page
@@ssnerd583 Calm down and look for a key that says caps lock then press it and never touch it again.
This is why I refuse to use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc,etc. It's amazing how hard these people will "work" to scam folks. My favorite is the extended warranty fraud, I tell them I own 30 cars and ask them which car are they referring to, they usually hang up after I waste 15 or 20 minutes of their time.
Oh the car warranty scam. Love it when they call. I love to give them a year and model say something like a model T ford it perfect Then blow them out of the water. By saying do you really want a blind man driving. Which I am legally blind. Go a friend who is totally blind that likes to screw with them as well.
Lol kept one on the phone for 45 min one time while waiting in an airport. Finally he demanded to know what car I had so I told him a model T. He immediately slammed the phone down😂
They won't warranty my 65 C10. Bastards! 😂
I don't use them because I don't have any friends. 😢🤣
the censors lately have become real bad, although facebook gives me ADs that if shared will get me banned
Scam attempts are so prevalent these days in virtually every medium: email, phone calls, text messages, UA-cam comments, even the UA-cam ads themselves, and more, that it has rewired my critical thinking analysis. My new step one when I get any message is, "Does this sound like something a scammer would say?" It's frighteningly rare for me to get to step two.
The youtube add scams are legal because Google gets payed for it. Anything is legal if you pay for it.
thank you Steve!!! notifying us about these scams might be the most valuable information you dispense for free. I never miss your uploads but rarely post a message and I just wanted to let you know how important and valuable the information you dispense is. Again, thank you so very very much!!!
I’ve gotten the same. One was from my “aunt”. This was in February a few years ago. I asked her how her recent trip to Alaska and if she got to see the penguins on the north slope. This turd said yes. Asked him why would anyone travel to Alaska in the winter to see penguins that ar in the southern hemisphere. What a clown. 🤣🤣🤣
Best thing happened to me was when fb banned me. 5 years later I received an email from fb saying if I want back on we need a state issued ID and a 180 degree video of my face. So I replied with a 180 degree video of my middle finger. Haven’t heard back from them. 😂
LOL!!
That’s very disturbing if FB truly requested a 180 degree view of anyone’s face, plus gov’t issued ID!
Sounds more like a new-age arrest. 😂
I’m surprised that FB didn’t ask for fingerprints and and a retinal scan too!
So I’m guessing that it was just a scam to get your info from a fake FB.
Lucky it was a finger.
@keithgriffith6002 its a mistake to send them video of middle finger, now they have your fingerprint
@@gavnonadoroge3092 lol. Gives them something to do
I always tell them I got my check already and it changed my life. 😂😂😂
lol that's a good one! or tell them you aren't interested, because you have a better money making scheme, and all they'd have to do is send you some gift cards... ^_^
I do not condone fucking with them but I have done it myself. Somebody told me that how beautiful I am and he's right. He said he wanted to give me some money. It's the scam were they want to give you a check to deposit in your account. When the bank doesn't accept the check they say take a screenshot of your account and show me. You will end up giving them your login info.. He sent a photo of a bogus check. I told him my bank pre clears checks and it cleared. He said now send 1000. I said you didn't tell me that. I pissed him off so bad.
Many years ago, I got a phone call from a woman offering to evaluate and, ultimately, help me reduce my energy needs.
She asked me how I heated my home. Having nothing better to do that evening, and looking for some amusement, I answered : "I use candles."
There was a bit of a pause. Obviously, she was taken aback by my answer. Then she asked : "How does that work ? "
Without skipping a beat, I replied : "Quite well. I burn them at both ends."
I don't think 10 seconds passed before she hung up. :)
I had a "Windows Tech Support" guy on the phone once a few years ago. I'm a Windows programmer and am very cynical, I knew he was a scammer from the first second, but I had nothing else to do and was curious. I was literally laughing at him the whole time, calling him a scammer, telling him I wasn't going to go through with this but I am curious about how this scam works so let's keep going on your script. He was adamant the whole time that it was NOT A SCAM. He did stuff like bring up the Windows system log and "every one of those yellow triangles means it's a virus infection, you have hundreds of viruses!" I laugned and said "No they're not, what crap. I use the system log every day to debug code." Finally he got to where we had set up the remote access and it was ready to go, he said "Now click OK" and I said "Nope, that's where we end this. Thanks for the education." I was able to waste his time for another 2 or 3 minutes. Maybe I kept him from scamming one other person by taking up his time.
It’s very kind of you to try and educate your viewers and prevent more scam victims
I'm glad someone is
I appreciate it.
Kind but futile. Waaaaaaaaaay too many halfwits in the world that are happy to fall for it.
I guess he must have some really stupid viewers.
I have a relative struggling with dementia. She gets bombarded with all kinds of scam calls as if the scammers share her info flagged as a vulnerable target.
PSAs like this are absurdly important. Sadly a huge amount of people (particularly the elderly) fall for these scams every day.
I 100 percent agree. These types of scams almost exclusively target and antrap the elderly.
Not all of “the elderly” are gullible fools.
@@shoechewhe didn’t say ALL
@@shoechew Thank you. I am 83 and never fell for one.....YET
My mother in law was a favorite target. She could always be tricked into giving her debit card info on the phone, no matter how many times we told her not to give number on the phone. Her bank finally quit giving her a debit card, and I dont blame them.
While not Facebook, I have “Lenny” configured as my diversion number when I select decline call (my normal voicemail is set for unanswered so I can differentiate between spammy calls and friends I just can’t answer atm).
Lenny is just a set of recordings that loop and wait for the other side to stop talking before playing the next audio file. I also have mine set up so it will record the call.
The longest Lenny has wasted a single spam caller who called me was about 25 mins…
All the benefits of wasting their time and none of wasting yours (apart from setting it up)
The only one I’ve gotten a few times is the profile of an attractive woman sending a friend request, and they’d usually come as a Facebook friend of a friend in a big group we’re in (who clearly approved the friend in the first place). Our usual protocol was to screenshot the request and post it in the group with the line “not today, ISIS.”
As soon as I see a 'clickbait' title for one of steve's videos, I KNOW it's gonna be good. The 'cool teacher' vibes Steve gives off makes all his content great though. Like it's the class you can't wait for!
Accurate
My thoughts when I saw the title was "that's clickbait", but after watching the video, I can't call it that.
@@AvgDanit worked😅😅
Watch out for the “You failed to show up for jury duty and there’s an arrest warrant for you.” Of course if you send them several thousand dollars on PayPal,etc, then they can clear the warrant. My friend, who’s in her 50s and I thought was savvy, almost fell for this and literally was about to send them the money when she called me to check if it was legit😮😮😮
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't fall for that one, as you don't GET a notification that there's a warrant out for you like that, certainly not via social media LOL. But if DID fall for it, all they would get is my panicked replies about how I never got the jury duty notice and how unfair it is and blahblahblah, because I don't HAVE thousands of dollars to foolishly give to a scammer! I think there's $192 in my checking account, and that's basically spent already for upcoming bills.
@@audreymuzingo933 My fault for not mentioning it wasn’t a digital scam. They called her and had lots of info. She had also missed her jury duty a few months earlier and so it might be an insider selling info too. However, they wouldn’t be doing the scam if nobody falls for it. I could see my elderly mother falling for this.
The last sentence is important, if something is fishy you can always ask someone! And if you are the person asked, show understanding! Scammers are relying on their victims being ashamed and not telling anyone.
"there’s an arrest warrant for you"
People need to realize that if there really is an arrest warrant, the police do not make a courtesy call to let you know before they show up to arrest you.
@@WheatGrinding Absolutely true! They are smart though and advise in the most stern terms that, “ This is your only chance to avoid arrest. If you hang up then we’ll send the deputies out to arrest you.” She was lucky that she had a second cell phone to call me on. I’ve even heard of cases where they keep you on the cellphone all the way to the ATM and then off to buy gift cards.
The saying “ if it sounds too good to be true “ is also universally recognized ! I think this scam is going to effect the older generation who may not be aware of how insidious these amoral scammers are while appearing as an opportunity ! ✨🙏🏼🇺🇸✨
Oh Kimberly...HOW DARE you bring common sense into this conversation !! LOL
@@Sondan1988
I know I know I just couldn’t help myself Lol ! 👍🏻
Or people that just aren't as spry as they once were. Someone posed as the FBI and tricked my mother into sending them a few thousand dollars in the form of crypto currency under threat she'd be arrested if she didn't pay them. "Mom...for your *entire life* the US Government has *only* accepted cash and bank checks as legal tender. Why *the Hell* would you think the FBI wanted Bit and Doge coins...?"
it is funny / sad that the older generation doesn't recognize a scam on the internet, but they can usually spot them in the US mail. Course the younger generation is too naïve and arrogant about it being naïve, in the world of politics these days, thinking that just because they know how to use the internet they are smarter then the older generation.
People didn't just become mysteriously bad overnight, it's always been that way.
Good info! A bit about cloning accounts: You're absolutely right, it's really easy to go to an account, download the profile picture and open a cloned account. The next step however, the person cloning the account will go to the original account's Friend list to generate a list of people to send friend requests to. If you change your privacy settings so that only friends of yours can see your friend list, that should make it *much* harder to successfully clone your account.
Hope that helps!
I like to mess with the scammers as well. I was once contacted by someone that I suspected of hijacking an account of a former female friend from high school. We had a falling out during our junior year and have never spoken since, so I replied with the question "Do you remember the time we made out in the principal's office our senior year?" (Which we never did.) They replied "yeah, that was sooo cool." HA HA, GOTCHA.
I've had so many "have you heard" messages and ads about free stimulus money, dead relatives left me stuff, checks in my name ready to send, etc. 😂😂 I know all the scams because my cousin, the psychic Nigerian Prince, keeps me current. 😅
my real aunt sends me a message every year that i have unclaimed money on the state comptrollers website and i should look into it.
What a coincidence and there was a Saudi prince trying to get ahold of me to keep his money safe and all I had to do was give him five hundred bucks😂😂😅
Hahahaha!
@seanmaury7844 I've been on that list, and I've had people call me saying they can help me get the money for a fee. They seem very disappointed when I tell them that I've already claimed the money, and that I didn't need anyone to help me. One guy actually expected me to pay him for having informed me of the existence of the money.
I respond with "Let me talk to my financial advisor and lawyer about this" and that has always worked for me to end the conversation.
"Trying to get hold of someone at Facebook is like trying to get good customer service at Wells Fargo" LOL too true...
I am not sure there is anywhere you can get good customer service anymore.
@@mikepalmer1971 Too true!
At least Facebook probably won't start opening up extra bank accounts in your name:)
i am 60 and i am hearing " Have you heard the news " for the first time now. It might be an old trick, but new to me. Thank You for letting us know about this scam.
My wife got a call the other day from a "police sergeant". He said she was supposed to have been in court as an expert witness. They'd served her with a notice to appear a month ago (at an old address) and they had her on bodycam signing for the service, and it included a sensitive (because a juvenile was involved) package of evidence. Something about a contempt charge and fines. And they were recording the call to listen for signs that she was sharing information with anyone unauthorized, because that would be a felony. (I farted rather loudly at that point. He didn't say anything about it.) After a little more, my wife called him out and he hung up.
Thing is, he had an address that we used to live at and an actual name of a police sergeant (no longer at the department, my wife called the department). It was pretty bizarre.
Steve, A real service to many of us, thanks. I have a close friend who passed a few months ago and recently got a “friends request” from him last week. Of course, I know that can’t be real (unless there are Face Book terminals up there…)
Zuckerberg is probably working on that!!!
You are probably under the mistaken belief that Facebook doesnt want scammers on their site. In fact, scammers are very good customers for Facebook. They buy ad services from them. If you ever see ads selling stamps or coins or other products from legit sounding pseudo businesses, know that Facebook got revenue from that scammer.
---- true: open facebilk and you will quickly be hit with ads to purchase new Silver Eagles at 1/3 to 1/2 the value of silver and 1/8 what they are legitimately selling for - obviously a scam - but they do send you the coins which are such good fakes they will pass most home tests for real silver - worse is that you can go to Chinese sites and buy them for 1/10 the value of real silver - 90% of the ones sold on e bay are these fakes - I just wonder why the US government isn't shutting them down for counterfeiting US currency
You can get genuine coins from legitimate companies in FB ads. They’re companies known for offering coins at way more than they’re worth, but, technically, they’re legit.
@@evilsharkey8954 ---- yep" Littleton is right there selling coins for much more than even their book value - but that has been Littleton's business model from day one: bilking the ignorant till they get some knowledge and figure out they have been screwed: his brother does the same with stamps over at Mystic -- meanwhile, you can also get all the "genuine 2023 US Silver Eagles" on this final day of sale ( which has been on its final day for weeks now" ) from multiple ads for the low "last day only" price of $6.98 - as many as you want ( lowest you'll get those from coin shops and bullion dealers is about $36: if you buy 500 ) - it's obviously a scam since the value of the silver in a Silver Eagle is currently about $23 and no one's going to take a 75% loss to sell them to you -- those are counterfeit and they are near perfect copies
@@bonesrhodes3762"Perfect copies" minus the "silver" part. 😉
@@wildgoosedreaming1 ----- they have a little of that too - seems they actually clad them with a thin layer of real silver -
My default position when anybody wants to sell me something is to say "No." It's a habit I cultivate and it is serving me well in my old age.
I agree If I want a thing, I will go to a local store and buy it. I buy nothing that someone offers me at my front door (and by extension email or other electronic contact method)
Thanks Steve! You fid the m public a great service today. Sharing this on Facebook now.
"The IRS has too much money, they're just giving it away" . . . I laughed my ass off.
Steve, I regularly get emails from my sister who has been dead for the last 14 years. Some people just do not have any scruples. Fortunately, there are people out there that go and screw with the scammers and get into their computers to delete their files and save victims thousands of dollars that they might've lost to the scammers. The scammers are based in India primarily and they like to pass themselves off as reps from companies like PayPal, GeekSquad, MicroSoft, etc. The UA-cam page I like is Scammer Payback - this guy and his team are very good at turning the tables on the scammers. He speaks their native language too!
I love that genre of video! It's especially funny when they hack into the office cameras in the scam sweatshop and you get to watch people on that end freaking out.
Kitboga (I think) just loves to drive them crazy
In Germany, that is illegal. So here the channels only can waste the time of the scammers.
Kitboga also would be great if his thumbnails weren't so horrible.
A few years ago, when I still had Facebook, I get a PM. It's supposedly a girl I scarcely knew in high school ( which was in 1973 or so...), and she had a horrible story to tell : she was essentially a prisoner in an African nation which will go unamed. (Pretty sure they were innocent...)
But Suzie was jammed up, and needed $5000 to pay off corrupt local officials. To be able to escape. Normal, right?
At first, I reacted sensibly: I asked: have you contacted the US embassy or consulate? If you are being illegally held, they will drop down on these guys like a piano falling from a fifth story window... Well, I kept hearing explanations as to why the normal authorities could not help her....
Then, it gets funny... I had spent SEVERAL years in high school chasing this woman, with poor results...she was the homecoming gueen, I was the guy with long hair, guitars, and a motorcycle...
So when, in the course of further messaging, "Suzie" revealed that she always had "lustful" thoughts( yea...that's the actual language used!!!) concerning me...well , not very freaking lightly...big fail, scammers!!!
I remember early on in FB that there were many "I'm stuck in a foreign country" scams, and a dim-witted FB friend was really concerned about a common friend who was "stuck". I had to explain to the DWFBF what the scam was.
@azmax623
Happened to an older friend of mine. He got an email from his cousin claiming he was stranded in Miami and needed 2K to get home. He was getting ready to go to the bank when it dawned on him that if his cousin would go on vacation, he'd tell him, so he picked his phone and called him. That's how he was saved from a scam.
The unAmerican English always gives them away.
Most often, people's accounts are not hijacked on Facebook. Usually, the scammer impersonates someone with a new account. The scammer creates a new account using the same name. The scammer then copies information from the original page, including photographs. The scammer then begins sending messages to anyone who is remotely connected (even friend of a friend) with the scam notes.
Most people have their Facebook account's security set to "Public" - anyone can see all of their info. Setting the account's information to "Only Friends" will block the scammers from impersonation.
I get it all the time from friends, my account has been hacked. No your account has been cloned or you couldn't tell me it's been hacked lol
The ones I like are the Debbie Darlings (made up name, hopefully) from Minnesota, don't cha know, but all of Debbie's friends are from a small, West African country. Poor Debbie is whiter than Lizzy Warren, but all of her friends spend too much time in the sun, apparently.
That's why I say ".......or otherwise compromised" when I think a friend's account (or the account of a friend of that friend) is compromised. Because actual hacking or hijacking aren't the only ways to do it.
I once had a series of short emails back and forth that sounded at first like a friend of mine but
when he said the magic words "GIFT CARDS" , I knew it was fake.
I asked him a question that only my friend would know the answer to and the scammer went away.
"Hey, by the way... are you still going to the Homeland Security alumni dinner next week?"
I got a call from my "grandson" today. He had been in a terrible accident. I thanked him for making me laugh.
Had this happen with a friends mom. Her 2nd son had passed and I asked how he was. Risky, but I knew it was fake when she said he was fine. 😢
I did hear the news this morning.
Indiana Jones is getting killed at the box office 😂
Is this good or bad or both?
Indiana Jones and the box office of doom!
@@apextroll it’s really bad for Disney. 😂
Good for us.
@@opinionrat That’s a good one 😂
@apextroll Both.
I haven't watched it, but apparently the "story" is, Harrison Ford goes back in time and dies or some shit, so all of the Indiana Jones movies never actually happened, and they made it a black woman now.
Basically this movies specifically written to cancel out all of the originals, and create a new one with a black female lead.
We all know they're doing it because they're racist.
Had a couple of those. The last one I played with for a while and then noted that I was sorry that they had recently passed away (which they had). Heard no more from them.
The only proper and correct thing to follow "Have you heard the news?" would be
"There's good rockin' tonight!"
I use to be one of your FB 'buddies' but quit FB. Been FB free for 3 years now. Thank you for your video.
I used to get stuff like that on occasion when I participated on Facebook. I don't mess with it anymore, and have somehow managed to go on with life without it.
If someone sent me that "Have you heard the news?" message, I would expect them to try to proselytize me. At that point I would not take the bait.
Thanks, Steve. Been enjoying your content for a few years, much appreciated, from SW Virginia!!!
"Have you heard he news"? Steve has produced another great video. Greetings from Australia.Another scam I've received will say something like" I think you're in this photo"
Thank you for putting this video on these phishing scams. Another on is "Is that you in this picture?"
Thank you Steve, for this most important information! Appreciate you and your channel!!!
It's quite common for inactive social media accounts to be hijacked. And the news I heard is that there's good rockin' tonight. Steve, your scam videos are among your most enjoyable. Keep'em coming!
Facebook, rife with old people who will hand over their entire life savings to the Indian IRS agent who needs it all in giftcards.
Don't forget about all the young tokers who will hand over their lives to the latest Darwin award challenges. Gullibility has no age restrictions.
I had one call me. I asked him which service center he was calling from ... of COURSE it was Wash D.C. I asked him which office he was in, as I was visiting my cousin, the service center director. We could go together and you can meet him. The line went silent.
I keep getting a "Look who just died" notification from Facebook. I've never heard specifically but it just looks like a come on to draw me into a scam.
LOL I love that way Steve calls out popular the girl that wouldn't give him a second thought back in the day. Way to keep the bitterness and animosity going after all these years Steve, I can appreciate your midwestern resentment.
One news story that I saw that is particularly scary is that now there is enough voice cloning tech that allows scammers to call and claim that a loved one has been kidnapped and then they play back what sounds like a voice recording of that loved one generated by AI
Lol my response would be If I give you money or such then I and my children won't have as good of an economic life. If I don't there's life insurance on her in which case I and the children will have a better economic life. Lol um logically what would you choose? Lol
That's an oldie but a goodie. I had somebody try that on me in the days of the land line, except without the voice cloning. I said "keep 'em," and hung up.
Yes, very disturbing! Scammers are going to make millions by using AI technology, unfortunately.
That scared me too!
Love the shirt. My grandfather retired from the Western Maryland Railway.
One thing you are missing is do not accept these clone accounts as friends. When you do that the scammers suddenly have access to all your friend's names including their friends list and photos. Once you accept their friend request then they can automatically create clone accounts for all your friends and send your friends messages. Don't play with them. Just report them to Facebook and block them immediately or the cycle continues. This type of cloning appears to be automated. Some of this can be dialed back if you visit your Facebook accounts and change your settings so that your friends list and images are visible only to your friends not friends of friends.
“Just like in real life.” Yup. That’s straight up truth.
When I receive an email, I look at the subject line very carefully and sometimes
I click on the "View Source" to see if the email has any Readable Text.
If it's just gibberish representing image files, I don't open it.
Fortunately, the Thunderbird email program is very good at rejecting 98% of the scam email.
Have You Heard Steve is a good guy that helps people. I bet everyone he was a lawyer for got great service
At the age of 72, several times a year someone actually does die - so people our age are vulnerable to that line. I have also heard the bait about a "bad credit check report" - ignored it. I DISABLED MY FACEBOOK ACCT.
'I heard the news today, oh boy, about a lucky man who made the grade'
That was on the news this morning after I got up and got out of bed
And though the news was rather sad, well I just had to laugh, I saw the photograph.
@@Bob-Lob-Law I bet you live on Penny Lane
"I'd love to tell you all..................."
I'm officially starting all correspondence (and ending it) with "have you heard the news?" once word of this gets out. Great way to put unbearble conversations to bed.
"Have you heard the news" is a great subject line. It got me to watch YOUR video FIRST! 🙂
My favorite is,”Your subscription runs out today. Please re-new.” I haven’t ordered a magazine in 30 years.🤪
Ben hanging ten off the edge of the shelf, Steve's RHS
Finally, one I can see on a tiny screen at a low resolution.
@@tactileslut 👍
Have you heard the news?
We love your UA-cam channel😂
Facts ! LoL
Testify!
Yep. Happened to me on a couple of occasions. I led them on by pretending to stupid and divert the conversation then watch them trying to get things swung back to the scam.
That's terrific fun, isn't it? And the more time of theirs that we can take up, the less they have left to spend going after vulnerable sitting ducks. Not a whole lot in public service can be that much fun.
Pretty sure India will switch to ai and it wont be humans doing scams anymore, so it wont be wasting time anymore, except yours. An ai could make 500k calls at 1x probably
Another time I got one of those messages from a person who I knew had passed away several years earlier. I asked, "Is this a hijacked box, or am I really talking to someone from beyond the grave? If it is the latter, what a fantastic story this will be." I never heard back from the person.
This makes me so much more glad that I don't use social media I think I'll keep doing that
Since UA-cam is also considered social media, we're going to miss you!
" Did you hear who died? I'm so sorry for your loss" is another one. Edit sorry i wrote this before i got to the part were you talked about a similar one
I think you knew him?!
The link always seems to be a video link, not the expected obit
if I was a regulator, I'd require every bank to maintain a list of dedicated account numbers, so people recognizing scams could request one of these numbers, pass it to the scammer, and then a hacker would watch for it to be used, and exploit all the data they could get. (and of course, the scammer would fail to get anything)
Easier said than done.
Plenty of banks have a way to easily report phishing.
@@karlrovey but not a way to directly punish it.
@@kenbrown2808 Most of them are outside the US and can't really be punished in the US anyway.
To limit the possibility of your Facebook account being cloned, set your Friends list to private. It's useless to a scammer to copy your picture and create an account pretending to be you if they can't contact any of your friends.
Take the next step. Delete your Facebook account.
@@ronjones-6977 That's lousy advice. Social media is extremely useful to many people for many different reasons. If YOU disagree, or you know you're stupid enough that you'll probably fall for a scam, by all means, stay off social media. But most people have more than one brain cell and can handle it.
Oh, you hadn't heard? I was under the impression that everyone had heard.
wellllll, bbaababababird bird bird, bird is the word!
Steve, love the tee shirt. I actually clicked on the video because of it - thought maybe you were going to talk about the Western Maryland! But the real topic was great and well worth the listen.
There's an awesome former cyber criminal named Brett Johnson who was on the FBI's most wanted list and now does his own podcast (The Brett Johnson show). You should consider having him on your show, you going on his, or doing a collaboration. He's very active on LinkedIn, and now uses that platform to try and help people with cyber crime problems.
Thank you for your show, I almost always learn something new when I watch!
What timing! someone purporting to be my aunt sent me a message similar to this yesterday but "she" opened up with "How are you? and when I replied she said "Have you heard anything about department of health and human Services dhhs program?" so I sent her a link to your video and told her I had heard about it
They send these phishing links to thousands of people. Just one person clicking on the link is considered a win.
The best is the call scammers. I’ll either act completely insane or I’ll play dumb and then after about 10-15 minutes I’ll just pause and say “we got a lock on the address yet? Ya? Ok, we’ve got everything we need. Thanks for keeping the line open and your cooperation. The department really appreciates your help” then hang up 😂
I accepted a cloned account request once. When they hit me with the money stuff, I reported them as fake. Ever since then I automatically report accounts sending me friend requests from people I’m already friends with. I’ll occasionally accept the randos and when they start trying to scam me then I’ll start messing with them.
There's an old saying "You can't con an honest man". All these scams rely on the fact that the prey wants something they haven't earned, or want to hide something they have done.
The best protection against scammers is to keep greed and fear out of your heart.
I just had this….a girl I knew in high school, we ran in the same circle but haven’t talked since HS graduation. I accepted the friend request and then immediately got this message……I then went back and unfriended. Never opened the message!!!
I remember when I was younger…there was a phrase that was often spoken when people would complain about being conned….something about fools and their money?
Trust no one….but me my dad said to me when I was 10 years old……good advice!
My grandparents got a call from a scammer who acted like one of their grandchildren. They knew lots of personal things and were extremely good. They told our grandparents that they were in huge trouble with a car accident and were going to jail. They said they needed 10k sent to them ASAP for bail and pleaded to not contact their parents for various different reasons. My grandparents, despite all the warnings I give them, thought this might be real. Thankfully they decided to hang up after 20 minutes and call our parents and eventually discovered it was a scam. Whew.
They will never stop trying because the truth is they are successful. You mentioned how people say "how can people fall for that", but these scammers are so cunning and conniving. They have all kinds of tricks to gain trust from people who aren't internet savvy (like the elderly).
Thank you for making this video. I'm a computer technician and I have multiple calls every week of people who got their account hacked, or they got a message asking them to call somewhere, and they did and gave their information, because the big bad scary message told them their computer was locked because they were infected (and all they had to do was restart the computer).
I would say, do not click on any link you get from anyone on messenger, even if they are your friend or brother, sister, because their account could have been hacked and it's the hacker sending you those link from the hijacked account.
If your brother sends you a link, call him and ask him if he really did.
My sister's no longer send me any blind links without some friendly introduction.
Steve, for about a decade i have explained to my children, friends, family members, when it comes to facebook, " Beware, a friend of a friend is an enemy". Two, all of your advice you've given in this video is excellent. I would say this though, don't play with these scam artists, at all, just cut them off, block them, see somethibg, don't make any contact. Last, this third item is a bit different. Around herein NH when adeath notice of a spouse appears in the paper, you may know the paper (weekly, small towns) has literally come out because you'll get unsolicited calls from people that speak poor english claiming you owetge IRS x amount of money abd they can stop an arrest warrant from coming to you, and on and on. The callers are very persistent. I had to block lots of numbers when this occurred. The State Police are very aware of this and I'm guessing give out the same, sound advice, but there are many victims of this I am oretty sure. Thanks for your videos. Watch them a lot. Don't think I've ever written before, sy
Money comes straight from a Nigerian Prince.
The other one that should get your guard up is when anyone on Facebook sends you a message that just says "Hi"
Real friends don't just say "Hi"
Always interesting, thanks.
I always get the emails saying that I have a parcel and I need to click on the link to track it!😂 I’m friends with you on Facebook Steve.
Steve I literally just saw a UA-cam ad for the first scam you mentioned just prior to this video. It was an auto ad! Supposedly this is for a government program that gives you $1160/month (they're unclear about whether they're talking about insurance or cash.)
I first thought of Peter Griffin when I read this: "Have You Heard ?!?"
I thought everybody heard, Bird is the Word :p
It was a year or 2 ago Steve did a similar video. I sent him a Facebook friend request. He accepted. I sent a messager message saying hi. He replied hi. I thought have you seen the news would be a funny next line so I typed it. He insta blocked me. But Steve if you read this I just wanted to say im a big fan! Still watching your videos. Love the work.
Thank you for the PSA! Report the scammers too!
I recently got a friend request from a _relative_ with whom I wasn't very close. I thought she was reaching out because of a recent death in the family, so I accepted the request. Then she asked, "Have you heard the good news?" peppered with religious undertones. I said, "No," and thought she was going to simply tell me about something personal and _non-commerical_ that recently lifted her spirits, like maybe she'd gotten engaged. I checked my messages this morning to find her talking about the Community Service Block Grant.
I may not be close to this relative, but I know her well enough to know she wouldn't bring up something like that with me. Only then did I look at her profile and see that there is zero activity or information, aside from being "friends" with two of my other relatives. I sent this video to them.
One I've had recently "Mom, I lost my phone, using a friend's to send this, call me on my new phone" followed by a number.
Truly shocking! I didn't know i had any kids. Even more shocking, I don't remember ever having had a womb, let alone giving birth...
Well these days, you just never know....................
Lol, love the Wells Fargo reference at the end! Didn’t see it coming. 😂
When somebody asks for help like that, tell them to come on over to your house or that you'll be happy to help a neighbor since you know them, and you'll be right there.
It is sad to see how greed can decrease your awareness of scams. More than once I have gotten messages telling me I have won a prize from “Publishers Clearing House”. Never once did I respond.