[00:00:03] (show clips montage) Why are the police here?
We’re looking for Jen Shah.
Real Housewives star charges in massive fraud money laundering scheme.
[00:00:21] Bob: Are, are you selling many blankets?
[00:00:23] Penny Pucket: No, I didn’t sell not one thing.
[00:00:27] Bob: Oh!
$30,000 and you didn’t sell one blanket.
[00:00:29] Penny Pucket: Right.
(MUSIC SEGUE)
[00:00:33] Bob: Welcome back to The Perfect Scam.
I’m your host, Bob Sullivan.
And before we get to this week’s episode, just a quick exciting announcement.
The Perfect Scam now has its own email address theperfectscampodcast@aarp.org and we want to hear from you.
Or, just send us some feedback.
That email address again is theperfectscampodcast@aarp.org
[00:01:08] Bob: Penny Pucket has a beautiful hobby.
She makes baby blankets.
So she went online looking for help starting a new business, instead she got years of heartache.
Let’s meet Penny.
[00:01:53] Bob: I love the name Penny Pucket.
[00:01:59] Penny Pucket: I have been told that a lot.
[00:02:02] Bob: That’s maybe more than a coincidence.
Penny spends a lot of her time working for children.
[00:02:10] Bob: So, Penny Pucket, tell me about this hobby that you have.
And it would keep the blanket on the baby.
[00:02:28] Bob: What a beautiful thing to make blankets for babies and toddlers.
[00:02:31] Penny Pucket: Yeah, yeah.
Mom was a pretty special.
She’s now passed, but she gave me the design.
So they’ll stay kind of warm.
[00:03:05] Bob: Yeah, sure.
[00:03:17] Penny Pucket: From start to finish, it takes about three hours.
[00:03:21] Bob: And you do, you do all these yourself, right?
[00:03:23] Penny Pucket: Yes.
[00:03:25] Bob: Oh my God.
[00:03:33] Penny Pucket: Thank you.
I like the one with the cars myself, of course.
(chuckles) Noah’s Ark, I mean they’re adorable.
And you do, you do all of these with your own hands.
[00:03:49] Penny Pucket: Yes, yes, yep.
I enjoy making them.
It’s one of my outlets.
[00:04:20] Bob: Why did Penny’s mom get involved in blanket making in the first place?
Well, it was kind of out of necessity.
[00:04:28] Penny Pucket: My mother, she had 14 grandkids.
My sister had four kids that were a year apart, and she had a set of twins.
[00:05:02] Penny Pucket: I was in a small community in Ulysses.
[00:05:05] Bob: And you were all somewhere near the big family farm.
[00:05:08] Penny Pucket: Yep, yep, we all were raised there so.
[00:05:11] Bob: What did you grow?
[00:05:21] Bob: Just like every other farmer in Southwest Kansas, I’m guessing, right?
[00:05:24] Penny Pucket: Yep.
[00:05:38] Penny Pucket: Yes, I do.
[00:05:40] Bob: How long ago did she pass?
[00:05:42] Penny Pucket: Um, two years ago.
Um, she got ALS and was unable to do this anymore.
[00:05:50] Bob: Oh God.
[00:05:50] Penny Pucket: Um, she couldn’t even talk for the last year.
But at one point a few years ago, they represented something else to Penny and her family.
Penny hoped her hobby could help save the family farm.
[00:06:31] Bob: The farm was struggling for all the reasons family farms struggle nowadays.
So Penny settled on an idea.
She’d sell her blankets.
She’d been taking occasional special orders from neighbors for those blankets for years.
[00:07:11] Bob: Ninety-seven dollars?
That isn’t much.
I can help you do this.”
That happens right away?
[00:07:46] Penny Pucket: Yeah, yeah.
[00:07:48] Bob: Like are we talking about 5?
Are we talking about 100?
[00:07:51] Penny Pucket: I would have at least 1 to 2 phone calls a day.
[00:07:54] Bob: Oh my God.
[00:07:55] Penny Pucket: Not kidding.
[00:07:56] Bob: Wow.
[00:07:57] Bob: The calls are annoying, but Penny knows she needs a website.
[00:08:22] Bob: Oh, of course.
Remember she’s trying to save the family farm.
So it all made sense.
[00:09:35] Bob: It made sense and it cost a lot of dollars.
And they would help manage it.
[00:09:54] Bob: Sure, sure.
But how, how much are the blankets?
That sounds like a lot.
[00:10:08] Penny Pucket: Yeah, yeah.
[00:10:16] Bob: Wow.
I mean did you have, was $8000 a lot of money to you at the time?
[00:10:20] Penny Pucket: Yeah, but credit cards were readily available.
[00:10:21] Bob: Uh-huh, yeah sure.
[00:10:35] Bob: Yeah.
[00:10:36] Bob: And $8000 is just the beginning.
[00:11:05] Bob: $30,000.
[00:11:07] Penny Pucket: Yeah, over $30,000.
[00:11:13] Penny Pucket: It was over the course of three months.
So I took a course on blogging.
And that was when I realized that something was wrong.
[00:11:32] Bob: Something is very wrong.
Money is going out fast.
But nothing is coming in.
[00:11:39] Bob: Are, are you selling many blankets?
[00:11:41] Penny Pucket: No, I didn’t sell not one thing.
[00:11:44] Bob: Oh!
$30,000 and you didn’t sell one blanket.
[00:11:48] Penny Pucket: Right.
[00:11:56] Penny Pucket: I would do the homework.
I mean they, they assigned, you had a coach and everything.
And I did it all.
I did it all.
But they told that I didn’t do my homework, or I would be seeing some results.
And I said, “Well I was.”
And…
[00:12:28] Bob: But they blamed you.
[00:12:29] Penny Pucket: They blamed me for, for all of the deal.
[00:12:32] Bob: But the problem isn’t Penny’s lack of blog posts.
Something much more fundamental is wrong.
[00:12:45] Bob: (gasp)… oh my God!
You couldn’t buy anything on them.
[00:12:53] Bob: Oh my God.
Like you couldn’t add a product to cart or enter a credit card or any of that stuff?
[00:12:57] Penny Pucket: Nope.
None of that stuff.
[00:12:59] Bob: Oh my God.
And you couldn’t buy anything.
[00:13:07] Bob: Complaining to her business consultants gets her nowhere.
And I said, “You know it doesn’t work.
I went to the website.
It doesn’t work.”
And they said, “Well yes it does.”
And I said, “You go and buy something on it then.”
And I said, “No, you, you’re free to only view it.
you’re free to’t buy anything on it.”
[00:13:40] Bob: Oh my God.
Well I mean what, my heart would fall to the ground.
How, how did you react?
[00:13:57] Bob: So at that point, Penny immediately switches to recovery mode.
[00:14:03] Penny Pucket: So I started filing disputes with my credit card.
The one website company was pretty smooth.
It’s just a done deal.
[00:14:37] Bob: The money’s just gone.
[00:14:38] Penny Pucket: The money’s just gone.
And so then I started going and filing complaints to the Attorney General.
So, in my case, there was Salt Lake City, so I had to file to Utah.
[00:15:11] Bob: You put $30,000 on credit card?
[00:15:15] Penny Pucket: Yes.
[00:15:16] Bob: And then were you able to pay, pay that off?
So we ended up remortgaging our house and adding the credit cards onto our house mortgage.
[00:15:50] Penny Pucket: Right.
[00:15:51] Bob: Oh, God.
You were doing the right thing, obviously they’re doing the wrong thing.
[00:15:55] Penny Pucket: Yeah, yeah that’s how it works.
[00:15:58] Bob: And in the end, the debt burden is just too much.
[00:16:11] Penny Pucket: Um, yes and no.
[00:16:24] Bob: Right.
And so we sold the farm and moved, but we lived in Southwest Kansas for 62 years.
[00:16:46] Penny Pucket: Yes, it was, it was extremely hard.
And she tries to move on.
Several years pass, and then one day a suspicious phone call arrives which reignites the entire affair.
So I thought it was a scam.
And then they just kept calling and I thought, okay.
[00:17:41] Bob: What does ABC News want with Penny Pucket?
They want to talk to her about her baby blanket business.
Well, really about all the people who called and offered to help her with the baby blanket business.
[00:17:55] Bob: So I mean you had moved; you had put all this behind you.
You probably hadn’t even thought about it much.
[00:18:00] Penny Pucket: No, I hadnt, I hadn’t.
I still had the blankets in rubber tubs.
[00:18:28] Penny Pucket: Then they started telling me what they were doing.
And told me that Jen Shah was actually part of it.
And I hadn’t heard Jen Shah before, because she wasn’t one that I had dealt with.
It was one of the people underneath her who I had had dealings with.
And then they started telling me that he was the one that was cooperating with, with the government.
[00:18:47] Bob: Had you heard the name Jen Shah before?
[00:18:50] Penny Pucket: Um, no, I hadn’t.
I dont watch the Salt Lake City people or the other ones either.
[00:18:58] (show clip) Salt Lake City, Utah, is known for its magnificent mountains.
[00:19:15] Penny Pucket: It was kind of like I can’t imagine, you know.
You don’t put that together.
Or you’d think, right?
[00:19:52] Penny Pucket: Yeah, yeah.
[00:19:53] Bob: Yeah.
And as law enforcement closes in on Shah, the investigation becomes a plotline on the show.
[00:20:29] (show clip) Can we talk about the hundreds of lives you’ve ruined?
The US Attorney’s office is no joke.
Do we need to add Kim Kardashian to our legal team?
[00:20:48] (show clip) The only thing I’m guilty of is being Sha-mazing!
I mean how do you, how do you react to that?
[00:21:13] Bob: On the show Shah is known for living a rather extravagant life.
Here she is talking about moving from one mansion to an even bigger mansion.
So we found the next best thing; Shah Chalet 2.0.
This was supposed to be the exercise room and I turned it into a closet.
[00:21:53] Bob: It’s just the contrast is just so remarkable.
The dichotomy there is just hard to swallow.
[00:22:25] (show clip) What is going on?
Why are the police here?
We’re looking for Jen Shah.
(bleep) is going on?
They were asking about Jen.
You guys, what if she’s on the run?
How did they know she was here.
Somebody had to have told them she was here.
What are you guys doing in there?
Real Housewives star charges in massive fraud money laundering scheme.
I have (bleep) chills.
Her and (inaudible) were charged for stealing people’s money.
[00:23:02] Bob: Manhattan US Attorney Audrey Strauss makes her case to the public after the arrest.
But at the TV season plays out and the prosecution plays out, Jen Shah repeatedly maintains her innocence.
[00:23:42] (show clip) (inaudible) you’re innocent.
I am innocent, okay?
Then the ABC documentary story airs in November 2021.
[00:24:06] Bob: Now how did you react to it when you watched it?
[00:24:09] Penny Pucket: I thought they put it together very well.
She also agrees to pay $9.5 million in restitution to victims.
[00:25:29] Bob: Wow, how do you feel about that?
Is, is that a relief?
[00:25:34] Penny Pucket: Um, yes and no.
I don’t think that the sentence that they gave her was enough.
For 612 years she’s not going to be living in that house.
For 612 years she’s not going to be driving all those cars.
So why do the rest of us have to wait 612 years to get restitution?
[00:26:35] Penny Pucket: Right.
[00:26:36] Bob: Yeah.
[00:26:37] Penny Pucket: Or any of those other people.
I recognize that some of you lost hundreds and others lost thousands, and I promise to repay."
Do you want to respond to that apology?
[00:27:15] Penny Pucket: I’ll have to see it to believe it.
[00:27:27] Bob: Meanwhile, Penny is trying to move on with, well with everything.
They have to prove that they’re trustworthy before I can do business with them.
So it has left an impact and for the longest time I didn’t even talk about what happened.
My kids didn’t even know.
He, he develops websites for large companies.
Oh no, right?
[00:28:07] Penny Pucket: Yeah, but he was 7 hours away.
[00:28:17] Bob: Yeah, yeah.
[00:28:18] Penny Pucket: They just had started a family, so they had babies.
They didn’t need me as a burden, you know.
So I was trying to do it myself.
And I, and then I had a son-in-law that, that also did that.
[00:28:41] Bob: And you were going to do it yourself, yeah, I get it.
Right, I get it.
So is the dream of selling these baby blankets is, is it basically dead at this point?
[00:28:51] Penny Pucket: I sell a few off and on, but yeah, pretty much.
I know this is a lot of money but you’ve to, to spend money to make money.
It’s, it’s hard for you to talk about this, right?
And you know, it, I guess maybe it’s a pride thing.
You don’t want to admit that you were vulnerable or weak or ignorant.
Maybe that’s a better word for it.
So yeah, it, it’s been really hard to talk about.
[00:30:03] Bob: Is it getting any easier?
[00:30:14] Bob: And how is everything else going?
Is life in Independence is, is it better?
[00:30:20] Penny Pucket: We had quite an adjustment.
But we weren’t, aren’t crazy about the traffic.
[00:30:33] Bob: Yeah, yeah.
So your husband, did he find work nearby?
Again, it’s a big change, he’s not working nights and weekends on the farm.
[00:30:49] Bob: Hmm.
[00:30:51] Penny Pucket: But we’re making it.
We’re making it do.
So… so we can’t complain about the neighbors.
[00:31:12] Bob: And you’re near the grandkids.
[00:31:14] Penny Pucket: Yes.
And we’ve got five grandkids that, that we get to spend a lot of time with.
[00:31:20] Bob: Well that, that’s a pretty good trade there I would say.
Your whole life is centered around children.
[00:31:25] Penny Pucket: Children are special.
They’re the future.
So you’ve got to invest in them.
[00:31:32] Bob: After their ordeal, Penny has some advice for Perfect Scam listeners.
Victims of crimes really need to report what happened.
[00:31:41] Penny Pucket: I would encourage anybody to do whatever it takes.
It’s a quick little form.
It takes maybe 5, 10 minutes, and send it in.
And then there’s an investigation that starts.
And so your, your individual complaint might be the one that pushes it onto someone’s desk.
[00:32:25] Penny Pucket: Exactly.
[00:32:29] Bob: There is a little bit of good news for Penny as a postscript.
She did ultimately get some of her money back.
[00:32:36] Penny Pucket: I filed all these complaints.
[00:33:10] Penny Pucket: Don’t give up.
So you never know when you’re going to get a magic gift in the mail.
Yep, ‘cause they found me.
[00:34:09] Cindy Liebes: I was at the FTC for over 34 years.
But ultimately I retired as the Regional Director for the Southeast Region of the FTC.
[00:34:58] Cindy Liebes: They’re professionals.
This is their job, and they’re good at it.
And one of the tools in their toolbox is to invoke the name of famous people or famous companies.
And that makes them comfortable to either give information or give their money to these fraudulent operations.
[00:36:22] Bob: Now I think that that’s interesting and really important.
[00:36:33] Cindy Liebes: It, it really does.
[00:37:27] Bob: But what they were trading on the familiarity of the brand name, right?
[00:37:30] Cindy Liebes: Exactly.
Is that how that worked?
[00:37:46] Cindy Liebes: E–, exactly.
That law also gave us the Do Not Call List.
I couldn’t resist asking Cindy about that.
And, and how do you answer that?
Calls late at night for example, or automated robo calls.
Those are usually illegal.
[00:39:46] Cindy Liebes: Yeah, if they do it over the phone.
You know that’s a, a great thing that you brought up.
If someone asks you to pay by cryptocurrency, chances are that’s a scam.
Or a money transfer.
Not by the information that they’re providing to you.
Take the time to talk.
[00:40:51] Cindy Liebes: Resist the pressure to act immediately.
Or if your friend or family may tell you, c’mon don’t do that.
You know what, let me help you here.
[00:41:24] Bob: I think that’s such a clever and important piece of advice.
[00:41:33] Cindy Liebes: Oh yes, that’s very true.
And, and it’s really proven true when I’ve worked with consumers.
Is there a better way to do it.
And with the business coaching, what we advise you, go to a government organization.
[00:42:54] Bob: So I am not bashful about that.
I think that should be universal advice.
No one’s going to listen, so why bother?
What’s your response to that?
[00:43:26] Cindy Liebes: Well they do listen.
Call the AARP Fraud Watch web link Helpline at 877-908-3360.
Their trained fraud specialists can provide you with free support and guidance on what to do next.
Our email address at The Perfect Scam is theperfectscampodcast@aarp.org.
And we want to hear from you.
Or, just send us some feedback.
That address again istheperfectscampodcast@aarp.org.
Be sure to find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
For AARP’s The Perfect Scam, I’m Bob Sullivan.
After this initial small investment, she is flooded with calls from companies selling different website services.
