 Okay, so it's one o'clock. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. My name is Lisa Wellell. I work here at the Maine Library in the bridge at Maine, our Learning and Literacy Center. I wanna welcome you all to our program today, how to identify and avoid scams with our partners, Marisol Ferante and Bridget Brown from the Independent Living Resource Center of San Francisco. So welcome Bridget and Marisol. Why don't you go ahead and take it away? Hi, my name is Bridget Brown and I'm the Economic Empowerment Coordinator here at Independent Living Resource Center. I do workshops about financial literacy. I also help people to navigate when they are newly disabled. I let them know how to navigate the benefits system with social security benefits, workman's comp, state disability insurance, just letting people know what's out there and their options. And I also do benefits counseling when people are on social security benefits and wanna return back to work. I let them know how their benefits will be affected. What I forgot to say is ILRC, Independent Living Resource Center San Francisco is a disability organization. And we do a lot of advocacy. We have an attorney who helps with landlord tenant disputes, also helps people through the process initiating an application with social security if they feel that they are disabled and would like to apply for benefits. We have an attorney that helps with that. She also helps with housing, landlord tenant disputes, if I'm sorry if I said that already, but she also helps with immigration, letting you know how to get a green card and stuff like that. We also have Marisol who helps with assistive technology. We have a device lending library with assistive technology. And if you need assistive technology you can borrow it from our agency if we have it. If we don't have it, we'll give you options the way you can get it. We're starting up a new program where if you had a device and you wanted to buy it yourself and you couldn't afford it, we have options about how you can go about getting a loan or using our program to save for it. And we pay a portion of the device that you're trying to get depending on what the device is and what you need it for. We can probably help with that. We have a community activities program where we get tickets for baseball games, movies, plays, all kinds of activities. Even we have movie night here at Independent Living Resource Center or do it via Zoom. We also have counseling in different languages, Spanish and Mandarin and Cantonese. That's a little bit about Independent Living Resource Center. We do more things, but whatever you would like to know about just call our agency. We're here in San Francisco and we serve San Francisco residents. Our number is 415-543-6222. Leave a message and someone will call you back. Okay, go ahead Marisol. Hi, this is Marisol Ferrente and I am the assistive technology specialist here at Independent Living Resource Center San Francisco. And today we're going to talk about various types of scans and how to avoid them. And also we'll give you what to do if you are scammed. You know, with the holidays coming up, scammers are becoming more and more clever about trying to fool us into falling for them. And as we develop ways to combat these scams, they're coming up with new ways, even better ways to trick us. And so I'm going to talk about the more common types that we see often. Like you could get an email and it tells you, click on this link to get whatever it is or to avoid, like they could say, we're from your local what do you call it? Utility, we're from your utility company we see that you have an outstanding balance you need to pay it right away or your utilities are going to be cut off. They always use a sense of urgency so that you don't have a chance to think. And then they'll tell you to pay by wiring the money or get gift cards and pay. So anytime they do that, you know it's a scam because the utility company will never ever tell you to do that. And so there's also, they will try it with a phone call and they have started using the AI technology. So if you get a mobile call and they say, is this so-and-so, don't say yes. Because if you say yes, they can clone that voice and add it to something else that you're saying yes to which you really did not say yes to. And so they also will have for phone, they're using AI technology. They have ways of having a voice that sounds like they're relative. And I don't know how they do this but they have started doing it. So you'll get a call, like if you're a grandparent you'll get a call from one of your grandchildren saying, I'm in trouble, please don't call my parents send money to the jail at blah, blah, blah. At this, they'll give you a link to click on to send the money to. And it sounds like the person, so you think it is. So what I suggest you do is say, wait a minute, hang up and call that person. And if that person doesn't answer, call their parents to find out if it's really true because most of the time it is a scam. And that's what they call imposter scams. They'll be calling from like your bank the social security office. None of these entities will ever ask you to pay rapidly by credit, I mean by gift cards or wiring the money. Because once you wire the money or get gift cards there's no way to recover it because that's just like cash out the door. So if anybody ever does that, that is definitely a scam. And they've also found new ways of getting your identity. They steal your identity and they do that so they can open credit cards in your name, open credit in your name. Or if they get arrested they can give your name and then you'll have the record and not them. So when you get those pre-approved credit things in the mail, shred them, tear them up or wait until the expiration date happens before you throw them away. And you can have that stopped. And so it's called off out of pre-approved credit offers. So you can go to optoutpre-screen.com and there you can fill out a form so that you can opt out of it. And they'll have instructions that tells you what to do. And so there's also the type of scams where you're on your computer and suddenly a pop-up comes up and says you have a malware on your computer and you need to contact this number or click on this link and we'll help you fix this problem. Now, if you really are having a problem with your computer you might fall for it and think that they're trying to help you. So don't fall for it. That is never ever a way to get your computer fixed. So what you should do is just get out of there, restart your computer and then see if there's still a problem because most problems are solved by restarting the computer. If however you start the computer and the problem's still there I would contact from your phone, from your actual phone contacts your local tech support place, whether it's at the good guys at Best Buy or Apple or whatever, I will contact them. You don't wanna contact anybody through any links that you get through a text or an email, never do that. And now they have, well they've been having this but it's becoming more and more common where they have what's called card skimmers at ATM machines. So when you go to use an ATM machine, thoroughly inspect the machine. There shouldn't be anything on the machine that's loose or poorly aligned when you type in your information like when you type in your security code when you put your card in. If anything's loose or it doesn't look right let the person at the place that you're using the ATM machine know that there's something wrong with it. It should be solid and unable to be moved. Because when they, if you do put your things in those card skimmers will track everything you do and then they will have all your input so that they can go ahead and use that card number and your special pin number and then just drain your account. Also when you go to buy gift cards you should check the gift card packaging because what they've been doing is they go get, they just grab a bunch of gift cards, they open them up, they get all the numbers off of it then they replace the strip over the code then they glue it back together with a hot glue gun. So you can tell usually by looking at it because it won't be aligned perfectly like the machine does and you'll see like residue of like hot glue gun glue sticking out somewhere. It's not perfectly aligned in the back and if you decide you want to buy a gift card you're not sure you could always have the clerk check to see if this card has been tampered with and this is one that just came out like it was in the last six months. People who've had their airplane ticket they purchase an airplane ticket and they're ready for the flight and they get a notice that their flights will be delayed. Scammers have found a way that if you go on Google search to search the number for your airline instead of going to the airline it'll go to the scammer. So you have to be careful. So one guy that I know he called, he did the Google search he found the number for United Airlines. So he called them up and he said, well, I want to change my flight since it's going to be delayed I want to change it to another number. They started asking him for his credit card number which they should already have and asking him for his credit card number asking him his name and social security number and they don't do that. So then he started to think something's wrong here and he realized it was a scam. So he had to go look in his own context and I think it's on your ticket the number for the airlines and if you can't find it I would just go to the airline and find out because you don't want to be taken by a scammer because they're getting so clever. And then they have those companies that are questionable that give you free trial offers and those are mostly online. So when you get those do your research and check to see if that company has been linked with any complaints or scams. Did I talk about imposter once like a few months ago I got an email supposedly from my boss. I spent money so I can't, I don't have time right now. So could you please go to do this for me really quick and that's all it said and I'm like what? So I knew that it wasn't from my boss because she would be specific to tell me what she wanted. So that was a scam. Some people have said that they even have asked them can you go to get gift cards for my coworker because I can't do it. So anytime someone asks you to get gift cards that's a scam. And if you get a phone call, a text or an email never give out any personal information. Only give out personal information if you initiated the call yourself because no legitimate company will ask any of that information. And so just delete the email, the phone call, the text message and then call the company yourself to find out. I got a text six months ago telling me that I needed to update my Medicare card. And so I called my insurance company and said did you guys send a text asking me to update my Medicare card because I think they're trying to scam me. And they said no that was really us. So sometimes it's good to check even if it turns out to be true just to make sure you don't get scammed. Let's see what else. The best way to avoid getting stuck with a scam is if you do pay something, pay with a credit card because credit cards offer you protections and they have, you're not liable if you can prove that it was a scam. So you just contact your credit card company and tell them that this happened and this amount on this date and then you'll get your money back. But if you use gift cards or wire the money, that's it, there's no way to get it back. And so for a lot of our devices, they always try to get in with malware, viruses. So the best way to protect against that is to keep them updated because updates are to keep the security at the highest level. Also change your passwords regularly. And now we have like, most people have about 200 to 300 passwords they have to remember. So they tend to use the same password for a lot of things and that is not recommended because if the hacker breaks into one, they will try that same password on all the other things. And you can get a password manager and some of them cost about $8 or a little over that. But what I do is I just have a thing that I wrote like I make a sentence out of it, but I don't put all the letters and I put dots in between so that I know what the sentence is but it's not easy for other people to guess. So I keep that as a running record so that I just go look to see what the password is. And also if you forget a password, they do give you the opportunity to say you forgot your password and then they'll send them your email and they'll email you awaited to do your password again. And also if a hacker happens to do it, they will also email you and say, did you request a new password? If you did not, you need to get in there and change your password immediately because someone else has hacked your account. So you have to watch out for stuff like that. And so if you shop online, shop with trusted companies that you know like Amazon or Best Buy dot com. If you get an email from them saying there's a special deal that looks too good to be true, look at the email address. Cover your mouse over the address because you will see instead of saying amazon.com, it'll say Amazon and then I'll have a bunch of X, Y, Z, Z, Z, Z, all these weird letters in there that then you'll know it is not really from Amazon. And also in the email, look for grammar and spelling mistakes because these guys are in a rush. They send these out to thousands and thousands of people thinking that at least 10 will bite or maybe 20 will bite. So check for grammar mistakes and spelling mistakes. And the old adage, if it looks too good to be true, then that's probably what it is, too good to be true. The FTC, which is the Federal Trade Commission, they are trying to crack down on these scammers. So they want to know if you've been scammed. And so I would say, even if it's so embarrassing, it's still worth it to send it to them so that they can try to stop these guys. So one place is, this is the website, report fraud.ftc.gov. So when you go there and follow the instructions on how to report a scam that has happened. And we also suggest that you check your credit report regularly. You get a free annual report once a year. And so you can call or go online and you fill out the form. So the phone number to check your credit report is 877-322-8228. And the website to fill it out online is annualcreditreport.com. And so if you want to opt out of these pre-approved credit offers, did I ever give you guys that? You can do it. Well, the phone number is 888-5OptOut. And so the opt out turns into the number 888-567-8688. But if you remember 888-5OptOut, that way you can call and follow the instructions on how to opt out. Or you can go to optoutfreescreen.com. And so if you're sick of those robocalls and you can't tell if it's a scam or not, you can get on a do not call list. So you can go to donotcall.gov. And they'll help you fill out, I mean they'll give you instructions on how to fill out the form to be on the do not call list. Or you can call 888-382-12222. Also the Better Business Bureau has a scam tracker so that you can check to see if any of the companies that you're dealing with is involved in a scam. So that would be bbb.org forward slash scam tracker. That way you can track, you can check to see if whoever you're dealing with is involved in a scam or fraud. You see that's it. I just remember when you go, when you get calls, telephone calls, that sometimes there'll be, I think you did this one, they do voiceovers, record you when you answer the phone. Yeah, that's why I said don't say the word yes. So someone called me the other day and they go, who's calling? Because if you say yes and they're recording it, then they could put it into a thing like, do you agree to pay $500 a month for a blah, blah, blah, blah. And then they put in your word yes in your voice. Do we have any questions today? Yeah, so we have one question in the Q&A box here. Someone is asking how can you find out if a mortgage company is legitimate? Two people I know have got a notice that their mortgage company, Wells Fargo, got taken over by a quote, Mr. Cooper mortgage and to send payments to Mr. Cooper, which has a website. Well, first of all, they would never do that. They would never have you send it to a personal person. So that's definitely a scam. So if you're in doubt, I would just call Wells Fargo, get the number off of your statement or your bill. Don't use the one that they provided. And if anybody has any questions, you can raise your hand and ask your question. We can unmute you. I guess everybody's ready for the holidays. This is a time of giving. And sometimes the scammers really come out this time of year. So hopefully everybody's ready. Oh, I see we have a question from Lauren. Let me. Where are you? Trying to unmute you. Okay, go ahead. Hi, yes. What can be done about phone scammers besides using WWW. Do not call that GOV. If you get on the phone. If you, if you get a phone call, it's a scam or just hang up. Okay. I don't, unless you are unless you are. I don't know. I don't know. Really, really good at this. I wouldn't advise you to be engaged with them, but I like to play around with them. Because I know they're scamming me. They called me and told me. We're going to come repossess your car. Because you owe $1,000. On your car insurance. I said, Oh yeah. You want to come get my car. How do you, how do you know you're going to like my car? You know, I play around with them. And then they get mad and hang up. I don't even have a car though. But I don't suggest you do that unless you are really, really good at avoiding them. So you don't slip up and say something. That could get you into trouble. Thank you. Thank you. We also have a William wants to thank you for all this information. And it's a lot of information. I've tried to keep up with your information and put in some of the links and phone numbers in the chat. And we will have this. This program will be uploaded into our YouTube so that people can get a chance to rewatch it and re listen to all the information that's being given here. I'm wondering if you guys can answer this other question. About crypto. What can I do if, what can you do if you're scammed. By crypto investments, which can delete one's life savings. The unfortunate thing is that. Law enforcement and laws about. Scamming have not caught up to the crypto world. So. I think that if that happens, the people that I know, we're out of luck. And that's why I just don't get involved with it until it. Starts to be more lucrative and laws get written about it. And that's why I just don't want people to get their money back because that's just like handing cash over. And they usually say if it sounds too good to be true. It usually is. Oh, here's a question. I don't know if you guys can answer this, but there was a question about. A malware software that you could recommend for seniors, especially for, for people for people's computers. That one. There's one that I have been recommended, but I can't remember it offhand. Let me see. Let me look it up. Hold on. I don't know if it's a viral or a viewer, I don't know how you pronounce it, but it's a V is Victor. I are a. That's one that I use. On my Mac. It's for Mac and I wish for Mac. And iOS. I don't know if it looks like PCs. And they also have VPNs for it. A lot of people use. Norton, but that costs. I think they have a free version. And that could see is pretty good. There's a lot of other ones, but I guess I would call like. The Apple store or best buy to find out which ones they recommend. So it looks like this might be going back to that crypto. A scam question. And they were wondering if the FBI is able to help. Is that an entity that like, can you report to, to them? I would report them to the FTC because they deal with. Any kind of like consumerism type scams. That's the federal trade commission. And that would be that report fraud.ftc.gov, right? Yes. Great. Great. I'm going to check in with my colleague over. In the learning studio. I don't know if there's any questions. Live today. Maybe. I don't see the hands up. And the, the video will be available on the library's YouTube page. I will put that in the link again. In the chat. Lisa. Oh, yes. Hey, this is us in the learning studio. We do have a question here from Christine. Give me one moment to give her the mic. Here you go. Okay. Thank you so much. I see that this came very important. I yesterday I started today teaching scan. So I make a mistake. Sorry about today. I delay. I have questions for you. We call this desk. I watched you. You too. Again. Through a, I. Through a, I take technology. You know, again, they can imitate the human sounds and the human picture. And the through through cell phone. So everybody watched the cell phone. That is video cell phone can what can see that the sound and that the picture. I think how, how can we avoid this kind of happen? And the, and got a scan from, from big guy. Can you understand my question? AI, AI right now is very, very popular. But I use the skin is very, it's really terrible. And the offer. Can you avoid this kind of case to happen in the future? So Christine, let me make sure I understand. Are you talking about concerns about AI scamming you when you're online? Yeah. Okay. Through the cell phone. Yeah. So the question is about artificial intelligence scamming people online. So, do our presenters, Marisol, and do you have any information about how to avoid AI scams? Never give out your personal information. If they contacted you and you didn't contact them. All that makes a difference. It's just sometimes you just have to use common sense about things when people ask you about things. If it gets too personal, and you don't feel like you initiated the call or you didn't initiate the questions that they're asking you. Like your social security number. Everybody knows don't give that out. If they ask you who, who is this? They called you. Why don't they know who it is, you know, things like that. Just an artificial intelligence. It's getting. There's always going to be a scam. When it comes to any kind of new technology, just use. You just try to use your best judgment. That's what I can say about that. That's why I said don't say yes, because they will use that. That AI technology to put the yes onto questions that. You didn't even answer. And they have ways of making it sound like it's your daughter calling. And it really isn't. So that's when I would say, Oh, I got to go. Let me call you back. And then you go and call that person that way you will know if it's really them or not. And as far as like videos and. Like on your social media. Be very careful about what kinds of. Pictures and videos you put on social media because. The laws have not caught up to this AI technology. Like recently there was a picture of. The Barbie movie came out. There was a picture of LeBron James and a pink skirt and pink sneakers and a pink sweater. And that was all done by AI. That wasn't even real. But it looks so real. So unfortunately. The law has not caught up to this part of the. The AI scamming. You know, the way they do it. And so. Like basic photos up. Maybe just your face. And I wouldn't even put videos on anymore because of the way these things are going. And then also put your social media. Settings put to private so that only. Your friends can see and not other people, not good. Some people, a lot of people don't know this and they just have it free that anybody could open it up and look. Then they can take your photos, even if you have something on there where they can't. We copied a photo they can do a screenshot and get the photo that way. Unfortunately, this is the world we live in and that's this. The law just has to catch up to that AI technology. And that's why it's so real. And that's why it's so real. San Francisco was the first city. In the United States to ban facial recognition because of this, because it was scanning the wrong. I mean, it was scanning people, but identifying them incorrectly. So one guy who was a law enforcement officer was. Thought to be a criminal who robbed an old lady. So San Francisco banned that technology, which is part of the AI movement. Yeah. That sounds, that sounds really good. Oh, and we have another question. What is the track record when you report fraud and that kind of thing. What is the track record for getting your money back? Getting your money back from the bank or getting your money back after it's been after you've been scammed. That I don't know, you would have to talk with the FTC. About that. Yeah, once you've given out your credit card number. And, uh, you know, you debit card number. Sometimes if you act quickly, you can stop things from happening. If you're a car, if like, if your credit card has an alert, like if anything is charged over 50 bucks, a hundred bucks, you get an alert when it comes in. If you if it's fraud against you that way, maybe you could dispute it. But if you're giving it away freely and you're, and you're approving of it, it's kind of hard to get your money back from the banks and the credit cards. But if you use a credit card and report it to FTC, you have a good chance of getting it back. I don't know how long it takes though. That's why they say credit card is the best way. But if you are scammed, you do have a good chance of getting it back. Okay, we have another question from Felipe. Go ahead. What about you buy a gift card and there is a hack or scam, and there is no fountain you give car. Well, if you if you buy a gift card, save your receipt. So if you get there and there's no things you could take it back to the story where you bought it and tell them, then they can see where the card was, where the money was spent, because I had received a gift card for Christmas, like three years ago. And when I went to open, I went, I went to purchase something and said, you have zero funds on this card. So then we tracked it down and said, the cart was used in LA on such and such a date. And I said I was not even in LA that day I was here in San Francisco. And so the lady who bought the card was they gave her a new gift card. She was able to get it back. Because she saved her receipt. But now when you go to buy it, have the clerk check the card before you even leave the store. Yeah, but sometimes somebody gave you the gift card and there was already there is no phone because you know, like yesterday I saw in the news, a lot of people, a lot of cards in the target was a switch it for somebody and they discovered to them. And there was a thousand so cars. Yeah, so if that happens, if the person who gave you the part doesn't have a receipt, then it's just unfortunate. That's money gone. No, okay. So everybody from this day forward if you buy this part check the gift part packaging because when they put it back together they cannot put it back the way because those are machine facts machine factory sealed those cards. When they put it back together, there's going to be indications that it was open and put back together. So check those cards. And if you're unsure, you can have the clerk check them. I have a question. Go ahead. You know, you would say when they call you never answered. Yes, I am, because they can record it to you. I didn't got it. Exactly. How is it. Excuse me, repeat the question. When they call you and the funny you say yes, I am using they will say that because they can record that you and put like you on that them some money. I think he's saying why do you say not to say yes and I think he needs to understand that if you do that, you could use that recording to say yes to other things, but you elaborate on that is that tickets is question. Yeah, you don't say yes to things. When you answer the phone is this like if they say this Felipe Martinez. You say who's calling you don't say yes, because if you say yes and they record that yes. You owe me. Are you going to pay me $1,000. Is this or they can call up your bank. And they can say, is this Bridget Brown. And you say and they can just use the recording to say yes, how can I help you. You owe us. Can you give us, they can, they can just identify themselves as you just by you saying yes. Okay, thank you. They go my pair of transit just came. It came early today so I have to leave, because if I if I if I don't get on it they'll give me a no show. I'm sorry. Okay, well, thank you, Marisala. And Bridget, did you have anything else you wanted to. If you want to pop on and and let us know anymore about I LRC. Just that we're disability organization located here in San Francisco. Most of our work that we do is by appointment only. And yeah, if you ever need anything have any disability questions, or your new newly disabled, trying to navigate the system. Just give us a call. We're here independent living resource center, San Francisco. Thanks everybody. Yeah, you guys are a wonderful asset. Thank you. And thanks for everybody for joining us today and thanks to all the people in the learning studio. And we hope to have you guys back again sometime.