Welcome, everyone, to Midday Magazine for this April 25th, 2024.
Have your host, James J. Mailoff here, and welcoming into the studio are our great friend,
Jackie Carantini, human development and relationship educator with UW Madison Extension Wood County.
Jackie, thanks so much for being here.
You're very welcome.
Always love talking with you, Jackie.
I joke with our audience all the time.
I turn your mic on and get out of your way, but I really do love the interacting in the conversation we have.
And especially because you take the time to focus on subjects,
we don't always get a chance to in our busy lives.
Today, no different.
We are going to be talking about April being financial literacy month,
talking about protecting yourself from scams in our pregame.
You were telling me about something so exciting.
I'm really looking forward to diving into this, Jackie, but this is a big topic.
It's huge.
So I think it's always been huge.
You and I have talked about this before, but during COVID,
the amount of scams just went through the roof,
like just astronomical, and then it's just kind of stayed there, right?
And lots of different reasons.
They can pinpoint a couple different things,
but it's just so many things that blow our minds,
and you have to be vigilant.
And I know even in our work,
we have all these different companies that train us on,
and we still on a weekly basis, false, fatal.
And we still are fall victim to different things because they're so creative.
And there's so many things that are out there.
So it's definitely one of those that we want everybody.
I don't care how old you are.
I just had this conversation with my 19-year-old, like,
okay, please look at this.
Like, let's pay attention because there are just so many things.
And specifically older adults are targeted for a lot of reasons.
One, because they're good.
They believe in people.
They believe in the good of people.
And they really don't think someone's going to call them out of the blue
or send them an email just to steal thousands of dollars from them.
So I think that's part of it.
The second piece is that you just don't know.
I talk a lot about most of my work.
This whole section of you don't know what you don't know.
So how do you even try to protect yourself if you don't even know that that exists?
Like, so that happens a lot with older adults, right?
So we see things point blank, black and white.
I get an email or something pops up on my computer screen as I'm playing solitaire.
And it says, oh, your computer was hacked.
Call this number.
And you're like, oh, okay, or you know, and you're like, oh, I better do this, right?
And then come to find out that the scam actually was that, right?
You know, and by the time you've already called, now they have all your personal information.
They're charging you $199 to, you know, clean it, you know, but it's all a fraud.
Like, yeah, that's all phone scams are huge.
Lots of phone things folks are really, really good because I mean,
it's great that we live in a day and age of technology, but then it's also not great
that we live in a day and age of technology because so much stuff is out there, right?
So they can get, you know, the last four digits of your social security number,
they can have your account numbers.
They can have, they can look up what your children's names are.
So they can look up your grandchildren's names.
So that they can call you and make it sound so legit because they know all
of this personal information because it's all floating out there.
It's there.
It's very, very easy for folks to do.
So this is why we're talking about it.
Like you said, April is Financial Awareness Month.
And the federal government really wants us to hone in on identity theft, fraud scams.
Just talk about it.
I think that's the other thing that makes us so rampant is that people
are then ashamed when they found out that they actually did give someone
whether it's $100 or $1,000 or lost their retirement.
I have some just amazing examples.
And so they don't tell people.
They don't tell their family and friends.
They don't call the police department.
They don't report it on their credit reports.
And if we get nothing else out of today, I want you to know that that's not what we want, right?
We want you.
If you care about your family and friends, if you care about your neighbors, tell them
because more than likely, they go through communities as they do this.
Call the police department, report it on your, for credit report, we'll talk about that
in a second.
But you know, again, just to have conversations because more than likely, if you were called,
someone that you go to church with was called someone in your family was called because
they pulled the information regionally and they go through communities.
So this is not something to be ashamed of.
This isn't something that we don't talk about or we keep secret.
The more that we can be open with it, the more you're preventing other people from making
the same mistake that happened to you.
It's one of the bravest things you can do.
As a kid growing up, one of the first things I remember seeing of scams or hustling is
three-card money.
Seeing people being hustled on three-card money, losing a couple of bucks here or there
or whatever, and most people had the same reaction once they got hustled.
They'd walk away with their head down and not making eye contact in these things.
We've always kind of done that.
We've always had these things happen to us and kind of reacted that way.
With something like this, we're pushing our brains and our society to go a different
direction and have your head up because for one, Jackie touched on it right away.
They put a lot of effort into hustling you.
They are doing what they know what you care about and by that, I don't mean maybe the specifics
of that, but hey, if you're an older person, chances are you have grandchildren.
If you are a younger person, chances are you might have student debt or something like
that.
These are taxes.
I don't know.
Taxes another one right there.
All of us are on laptops and computers nowadays and oftentimes they will hit you with
what you might think is a virus on your computer and you have to call this number to
get help with it or something.
All of these hustles, all of them start the same in similar ways.
There's something in you that tells you this doesn't feel right.
There's something in your gut that's telling you it's not right.
Now that doesn't mean that it might be.
There is something legitimate there, but no thing that you, none of these things, if you
have questions, ask before anything is else is done.
I always tell folks and I've seen presentations like from the police departments too.
They'll say, literally, especially if it was on the phone, if it was on the computer,
hang up, walk away and then literally look up the real number and call back and say 99%
of the time, it's not legit.
They're not going to call you.
They're not asking for your bank account information.
They're not asking for your social security number, never give that stuff out.
Even if it seems completely legit, like maybe you do have something, you're expecting
something from the IRS or student loans, still don't give out that information because
they are not going to contact you that way.
They will not.
Laws state that has to be by mail and so they will not.
If you do get that call, you're feeling something fishy or maybe you're like, well, maybe
it is legit.
They give you enough information, literally hang up the phone, look up the real number and
call them back.
Call your grandchildren, ask, hey, are you something wrong or call your kids and say,
hey, it's blah, blah, blah, okay, yeah, because they do.
They make it sound so convincing, but never ever, ever give out any information whether it
is on the phone.
Computer scams is huge, don't respond if it seems like not legit.
Look at who it came from and so if it says it's from the IRS and then you look up there
and it says it's at yahoo.com, then it's not legit.
You know it's not legit, right?
Look for spelling errors, look for other, like, strange little, like, asterisk or different
numbers that might be in there that kind of throw it for a loop, but yeah, absolutely.
Like be vigilant.
I'd rather have you on the side of the fact that it's not and then if you do find out that
yes, it was something, but again, 99% of the time they're not going to reach out to
you.
So that's huge.
Be Colombo.
Be Colombo on these.
Look at the details.
Look for the little things here and there that might stand out.
One of the things that bothers me the most about these scammers, these cowards out there,
Jackie, is first and foremost, of course, taking things from people that they have hardly
earned, that they have worked for and everything.
That certainly hurts.
But another thing that I've noticed that really bothers me too is the idea of so many people
pulling away from technology because of the fear.
It's understandable, completely understandable.
But at the same time, these are people that are missing out on a lot of the joys that technology
can bring, being able to see relatives from out of state and some of this other stuff.
So this is another big reason why we want to help people with this.
Not being aware of something, not being afraid.
I think there's a big difference there.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think the other thing is that you might think you're reducing your risk, but here's
the thing, folks, even if you've never even been on a computer, you can say, I don't even
own a computer.
I've never owned a computer.
Your information is still out there.
Your information is out there.
If you had your child or your grandchild, their great-grandchild, the Google you, I'm telling
you your information, they're going to know every place you've ever lived at.
They're going to know every relative of yours.
It is out there.
So even if you don't think that I have, you know, I'm not active, you know, on the internet
or whatever it is, it is still out there because that is just our society.
So know that you're right.
Don't shy away from the good stuff because of that, because it is out there anyways.
So I think one of the cool things that has really happened in the last couple of years,
again, coming out of COVID, is we really have ramped up resources and a lot of resources
specifically for older adults, right?
So the first and foremost one, you and I have talked about many, many times, is I think
everybody should check their free credit report, okay?
First and foremost, check your credit report.
Now I know some of you are immediately saying, well, no, my credit's fine.
I'm not buying anything.
I don't need to do it.
Nope.
Not why I want you to check your credit report.
This has nothing to do well.
It may eventually down the line, affect your three-digit credit score, but I'm not talking
about your three-digit credit score.
I'm talking about your report.
So since pre-COVID, you could get one report from each of the three bureaus every year.
So not a lot, right?
They wanted you to check it every, you know, four months.
Yeah, that was intentional, I believe, yeah, yeah.
To see if there was any issues to check for identity theft, to see if there was any mistakes.
How often can you do it now?
You know?
I know, I don't.
Since COVID?
Weekly James.
Really?
You can get one free credit report from each of the bureaus every single week.
Excuse me a second.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's awesome.
Because that's how high the scams are.
So that started during COVID and it's going to kind of been extended extended and now it's
just indefinite.
We are, you can get a free weekly credit report.
Where do you go for this?
It's annual credit report.
I will repeat it a couple of times.
So if you want to go get a pen in a paper, I'll give you the phone number.
Three ways you can do it.
You can do it on the computer and you get it immediately.
You can call the phone number, which is super easy to, I'll give that out in just a second.
Or if you want, if you want to call me, I can give you a paper request form and then
it comes back within 14 days.
So there are super easy ways to do it.
But we do encourage you to do that.
First and foremost, and then there, I won't go into all of them, but there's six different
categories in your credit report.
And the first one is the one that most people skip over and they think, oh, it's not important.
It's personal identifying information.
For me, as far as if I'm talking to you about identity theft and fraud, that is the most
important, right?
It's going to ask you, it'll tell you your name.
It'll tell you any aliases you've ever had.
So it might be James, Jim, Jimmy, you know, whatever it is, that will all show up.
It'll give any address that you've ever lived at.
So if it says you lived in Boulder, Colorado, and you're like, yeah, no, I've never been
out of Wisconsin.
What does that mean?
I mean, someone stole your identity, someone, and you might say, well, my credit, again,
my credit score is fine.
Nope.
There, especially again, in the last couple of years coming out of COVID, it's so many more
things.
Someone might have used your social security number to get insurance.
Somebody might have used your social security number to get a job, because you don't
have to have that to get a job.
It might have been to claim unemployment.
I probably shared this before, but a colleague in my office, him and I started the same year.
So over 20 years, about 25 this year, actually.
And he, during a, towards the end of COVID, last fall, he had gotten a thing that said,
he, his unemployment was denied.
And I'm like, what, hey, it's just someone that used the social security number to claim
unemployment.
The sad part is they had gotten unemployment the year before, and you didn't even know
it, right?
So things like that, and again, that doesn't show up on your three-digit credit score.
So if you're following your score, that doesn't correlate, right?
So you can only find these things out by pulling your credit report, right?
And then I want you to be a super sleuth detective, like you said.
Be Colombo, I want you to go through every section and look for errors.
On the bottom of each report, it tells you if you find errors, who to contact, and how
to take steps to, to move forward.
Other things you can do, there is a great resource from the federal government called Identity
Step.gov.
And it's got, again, great, it walks you through step by step one to do.
So if you think that you have been the victim, again, it'll walk you through, you know, pull
your credit report, see what's on, freezes, this is something newer that has changed again
since COVID.
There used to be a limitation on how often, how long you could put a freeze on your credit
that has all been lifted, right?
So there's no fees for it anymore.
You could put it on and take it off.
And it's a lot of times for older adults, we recommend you put on a freeze.
If you're not looking at making a major purchase, if you're not buying a car or a house or
anything like that, and you don't think you're going to need your credit, put a freeze
on.
It's not going to hurt anything.
And then if you do decide that you want to take it off, like, okay, I hit a deer and
I do need to, you know, get a different car.
It takes one hour for it to be unfrozen, right?
So you have access to it fairly quickly when you do the unfrees.
So you know, especially if you're like, oh, I don't know, I can't be vigilant on all
this stuff.
It's too much for me.
Look at putting a freeze on because that is definitely very easy.
And then that does protect you from someone trying to open an account or accessing credit
in your name.
So that's definitely something, again, a resource that has come out since COVID, that is great.
And you might have still be thinking some of the old laws, like, oh, no, there was fees
for it or there were limitations on how many times you could do it.
And like, yeah, no, that's all changed right now.
So one of them might be something you might consider is looking into, well, maybe I'll just
put a freeze on it because I don't plan on doing anything, you know, any time soon.
And then that way I don't have to worry about as much and trying to be thinking about it.
So that's really, really helpful.
We're speaking with Jackie Carantini from UW Medicine Extension and Jackie, that website
that you had mentioned there, and we were talking about in our pre-game a little bit.
That's a really unique site or have you mentioned it yet?
No, I didn't get to that.
So the two that I talked about so far know you're going to leave.
Yeah.
So annual credit report is where we can get our free credit report.
That one is the only one everybody that is backed by the government, okay?
You can do it three ways.
It's annualcreditreport.com.
You can call the 1-800 number.
So if you got your pens and pencils out and I'll give you the 1-800 number, it's 8-7-7-3-2-8-2-8.
I'm going to do it one more time.
This is annualcreditreport.com.
It's 8-7-7-3-2-2-8-2-2-8.
So that's to get your free credit report.
And like I said, you could do it three ways.
You can either go on the computer, you can call the 1-800 number.
Or you can request a form and it'll just be mailed to you.
The second one I mentioned is identity theft.gov.
So that is the federal government.
They have some again great toolkits, step-by-step guides.
So if you're just thinking this is overwhelming, I don't know where to start.
Identity theft.gov has some great things for you.
It walks you through step-by-step what you need to do.
Great checklists.
It's really helpful.
The third one that I didn't mention yet that is new for me that I thought is fantastic.
It's ARP.
So some of you may be members of ARP.
You might have just resources that you're like, oh, I see it.
You know, I don't know.
Maybe I, you know, I don't, I'm not involved too much right.
Oh my gosh, you guys.
They have great stuff for scams.
So one of the things that's new that I personally had not seen before is you can actually
put in your area code and then you put in like so many miles.
So I put in my home area code and then I put in 200 miles and it actually shows a map.
And then all you can either put reported by ARP members or you can put reported by law
enforcement.
And then it'll bring up all the scams that have been filed.
So I just did this year.
So I did from January 1st until April 25th.
And you guys, there's a map.
It's so cool.
It's all, you know, dotted all over the state of all the scams.
I, if you're nerdy like me, super cool because it's visual, you can see it.
The other thing is is you can actually then pull up those scams and people put in what
it was, right?
You know, they call and say that I have money and I need to give them my info so they can
send it to me.
Received an email claiming to come from Social Security saying my Social Security number
was suspended because of suspicious and illegal activity during an investigation gave a
case ID number and a PDF attachment of the notice.
I didn't open it, but they told me how I should respond and move forward, right?
Publishers clearinghouse.
Here's one.
Girl contacted me, got my number off of Facebook and started a very lengthy conversation like
she actually knew me.
She wanted to meet up, then requested money for gas to get their PayPal and gift cards.
Right?
Yep.
I page upon page upon page, you guys of different scams that people have actually reported.
So again, if you're not sure if something is and you got some free time, go to the AARP
website and pull this up because there, again, you can just read through what are some
of these other scams that folks have reported.
So yeah, that's, you know, that was suspicious.
Yeah, that looks really interesting.
There's some relateability for I think a lot of people on those.
So some great knowledge to give you a heads up of some things that if they may come down
the pipe, you know, so to keep an eye out for.
That was exactly what my thought process was when I was reading them is like, oh, yeah.
Because again, I know them, but there are still so many things like I, I just can't imagine,
right?
Like you just don't even know.
Lastly, before we end today, I want to talk about two of the most common that are
targeted are by hackers.
And I'll say why in a second are social security and veterans, okay?
Can you guess why social security and vets would be the two most targeted for scammers?
I have some thoughts, but yeah, yeah, we're hackers because it's the federal government.
And so if you are a hacker to be able to hack in to any federal government site as like
the cream of the crime, it gives you clumps and it makes you a better hacker.
So they are constantly being hacked.
So if you are happened to be a vet or you are getting social security, I do encourage
you to be vigilant, pull your credit report check because you might have had your identity
stolen and you didn't even know it.
And again, remember, it doesn't always correlate to showing up on your credit, your credit score
because they could use your identity for other things.
But yes, constantly.
So those if you are receiving any kind of federal benefits connected to the federal government,
I need you to be super vigilant because they are the most frequently hacked.
And so they're very, very targeted.
So it's nothing that you did as a person or you were not, like I didn't even follow, it's
just that you have a target on your back because you're connected through the government.
And that that irritates a lot of people, right?
Our veterans gave up and did so much for us, like they should not be targeted, right?
But yeah, and it doesn't make a difference like how old you are or whether we're talking
about, you know, recent events or someone who was, you know, Vietnam that it's still the
same access, it's in the same database.
So I do need you to check on that.
Again, the best start is to use the annual credit report, pull your free credit report.
We do encourage you to pull from all three bureaus.
So there's aquafax, experience and transunion because each of them shows a little bit different
information.
So and again, they're all free and you can do them weekly.
So if you think you've been a victim, we do recommend you pull them and pull them all
at once.
If you are not and you're just trying to be vigilant, we still use our campaign is the double digits.
So 2, 2, 2, 6, 6, 10, 10.
So that three times a year quarterly still pull them up and just check, you know, just get
a random check.
So.
Always appreciate the time and the conversation, Jackie, we just never have enough of it.
I know.
People have thought questions one and no more about some of what we talked about today.
How can they get in touch with you?
Yeah.
So you can contact me at the extension office.
So Jackie, and our number is 715-421-8437, I forgot my own phone number.
And again, it's annualaccreditreport.com or like I said, there's some AARP if you just
go to the AARP website and there's some great resources.
Looking forward to talking again real soon, Jackie, say hi to all the extension family for
us.
We'll talk to you soon.
We'll have more Midday Magazine for you tomorrow right here at WFHR, locally grown radio.
