[00:00:09] How does that get on there?
[00:00:10] It’s from the internet, sir.
You just don’t have malware protection.
[00:00:15] Everybody knows what you’re doing is completely asinine.
You’re just trying to make as much money as possible.
The whole thing was manipulation.
[00:00:26] Julie: Welcome back to AARP’s The Perfect Scam.
I’m Julie Getz, and with me is Fraud Watch connection Ambassador, Frank Abagnale.
It’s great to have you back.
[00:00:34] Frank Abagnale: It’s great to be here, thanks for having me.
[00:00:36] Julie: Today we’re talking about tech support scams.
I feel like we hear about tech support scam busts pretty regularly in the news headlines.
Will this bang out of scam ever go away?
They operate out of more than 115 countries.
Then we’d have to extradite them back to the United States.
That would be extremely difficult to do.
So I think uh you’re dreaming if you think the scams will go away.
They’re only going to get worse and more of them.
You have to be a little smarter and a little wiser consumer today.
You have to learn these things; educate yourself about these things.
And that’s why education is so important.
[00:01:52] Julie: Thanks, Frank.
We’ll be back to talk more with you later.
But now we’re going to move onto today’s story.
It’s about a brazen tech support scam that originated in South Florida.
The company targeted the elderly and ultimately bilked more than 40,000 consumers out of more than 25 million dollars.
He’s going to help us dig into the details of this story.
[00:02:20] Julie: Good morning, Adam, it’s Julie Getz with The Perfect Scam Podcast.
[00:02:23] Adam Latham: Hi, Julie, I’m doing just fine.
How are you doing?
[00:02:25] Julie: Good.
[00:02:48] Adam Latham: That’s correct.
What does a US Postal Inspector do?
So we investigate uh drugs through the mail, child pornography through, through the mail.
We also investigate mail fraud, and that’s my specialty.
Um, and also, they need to pay money for extra virus protection software.
[00:04:22] No.
[00:04:32] Julie: Okay.
So after you receive the notification from the FTC, what do you and your team do next?
Many of them are in India.
[00:05:18] Julie: The company that Latham and his colleagues focused on what called Client Care Experts.
They operated out of Boynton Beach, and the scam sounded a little bit like this.
[00:05:44] Because…
[00:05:46] Did it get on there by my computer?
[00:05:48] It’s from the internet, sir.
You just don’t have malware protection, sir.
That’s really what it comes down to.
[00:06:30] Adam Latham: They had an entire floor of a very large business park building.
It was just tables and tables of little cubicles with phones and computer monitors.
And they were probably 150 employees.
[00:07:31] No, it would not go away.
The message would not go away and your rig would still be at a security risk.
[00:07:44] Well I don’t have a problem possibly, just that I don’t have malware.
But I have absolutely no–, nobody’s attacked it yet or, or corrupted me.
[00:07:55] No, you’re able to’t, you’re able to’t confirm that.
No, that’s not correct.
So you don’t receive this message for no reason on your box.
[00:08:02] Julie: Client Care Experts has victims in all 50 states.
Many of them are in Latham’s territory.
[00:09:43] Chris Nagus: Can you tell us what’s going on up there?
[00:09:44] Yeah, they just got raided.
Some of them told us, you know, they were worried that they were working at a scam.
[00:10:01] Chris Nagus: And how do you know that?
[00:10:16] I’m like freaking out right now.
It’s my third day in and like my husband, he told me to, to quit.
Imagine going to work and being in the middle of something like that.
[00:10:39] Julie: Adam, we just heard about what the scene was like outside the building.
What was going on inside?
[00:10:44] Adam Latham: This was what we kind of call a soft entry.
[00:11:07] Julie: The owners, how did they respond to this?
[00:11:17] Julie: Did you find anything surprising in the raid?
[00:11:50] Julie: Wow, that must have been a huge help.
[00:12:07] Sir, I would never lie on the phone.
I don’t think God wants me to do that.
Did any of the victims question what Client Care Experts was telling them?
My computer didn’t cost this much."
[00:12:55] Julie: Got it.
[00:13:02] Adam Latham: All right, thanks Julie, I appreciate it.
Assistant Attorney Nathan Stump helped prosecute the case.
Can you take some of these cases for us and start working on it?"
[00:13:49] Nathan Stump: It’s an interesting question.
I guess I’m surprised at this level of sophistication.
This tech support fraud is very sophisticated and very involved.
[00:14:26] Julie: Wow, that is a lot of moving parts.
And in this case, Client Care Experts even had an offshore office, correct?
So it was really just sort of amazing to me how sophisticated and well-organized this fraud scam was.
[00:14:56] Julie: So who are the masterminds behind this whole thing?
[00:15:24] Julie: And this case didn’t go to trial, correct?
[00:15:27] Adam Latham: That’s right.
It did not go to trial.
[00:15:37] Julie: And with confessional tapes like these, they sure sound guilty.
[00:15:44] Yes.
[00:15:45] How could you tell?
[00:15:47] Their voices, on the phone, um, it was just very obvious.
[00:15:52] Okay.
[00:16:02] Right, and those were the ones that you pretty much took advantage of.
[00:16:28] Would you have sold this to your own grandma?
[00:16:30] Absolutely not.
[00:16:31] Why not?
[00:16:32] Because it’s completely wrong.
And it makes me sick to my stomach about it.
[00:16:39] Julie: And what about the sales managers and other key players?
Now those are the people who were actually lying and misleading consumers over the phone.
And that’s wire fraud.
[00:17:21] Adam Latham: Right, I mean that’s the hope anyway, right.
But Frank, what do you do if you get one of these scary pop-up messages on your rig?
Do you have any suggestions for our listeners?
[00:19:30] Julie: And don’t give remote access to anyone.
And sometimes you get it back, sometimes you pay the money and they never send it back.
In most cases, it’s very simple to just power cycle your gear and clear out the problem.
[00:19:59] Julie: Yikes.
All right, well, Frank, thank you once again.
[00:20:04] Frank Abagnale: Thank you, Julie.
Thank you to the show’s Associate Producer, Brook Ellis, and Audio Engineer, Julio Gonzalez.
Be sure to find us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.
For The Perfect Scam, I’m Julie Getz.
(MUSIC OUTRO)
END OF TRANSCRIPT
A pop-up appears on your rig screen, freezing the online window.
But the person on the other end of the line is no expert.
This may sound like a typical IT scam.
