World-famous wildlife photographer Paul Nicklen is fighting his own battle against scammers impersonating him on social media.
Hisimpostorshave stolen thousands of dollars from fans who think they aredonating to his causesor carrying on aromantic relationshipwith him.
(MUSIC INTRO)
[00:00:18] Bob: Welcome back to The Perfect Scam.
Im your host, Bob Sullivan.
It’s easy to pretend you’re something or someone you’re not online.
Social media has made becoming an impostor even easier still, and impostor accounts are often used for crime.
[00:02:18] Bob: Why is the problem of impostors so hard to solve?
It’s certainly not new.
How does that make you feel?
[00:02:34] Paul Nicklen: Yeah, it’s, I just don’t know.
I mean the checkmark was supposed to help, but obviously it’s not.
I mean these scammers should get flagged the second that something comes up.
Instagram does seem to be floundering a little bit.
It’s just but I’m, I’m not a tech guy.
I’m an artist.
I’m a photographer.
We’re not going to get it 100% right every time, obviously.”
They happen online and offline and across the entire technology industry.
I mean it’s just, come on.
Like why can the tech giants not get a handle on it?
I don’t know.
But that is only the beginning of the problem.
And we go, “Yeah, we already know.
Uh but just start reporting.”
So that’s when we started putting out the mass thing to support our Pew report.
That’s not a pet name we use.
And I was blocked, and I am still blocked.
I can’t see anything going on which makes this even harder.
I can’t monitor what’s going on.
But she hears about it from plenty of friends.
The criminal has reached out to almost all of Ryan’s friends within a day.
Uh, it was, “Hey, can you do me a favor?
I need $100, um, into, like, just until my paycheck.”
But I was getting sent screenshots, and they all were very, very predictable script.
Um, it, luckily the, the hacker was not doing anything unusual as far as hacking.
I need 100 bucks.
Can you spot me until payday?"
Can you send me Apple gift cards?
Uh, but it definitely got back to, “Hey, I need 100 bucks.”
Not direct messages, public postings.
[00:09:33] Bob: And then the hack becomes even more personal.
Your account is, is texting me."
So that was really scary.
So he doesn’t actually have a full Facebook account.
It’s kind of an offshoot from mine.
But yeah, that was, that was not a comfortable feeling.
[00:10:39] Bob: I, I can’t imagine that it wouldn’t be just incredibly disturbing.
[00:10:42] Kelly Anderson: It was.
It, it was very, very disturbing.
What does that feel like?
Continue to not engage with my husband’s account because it, it’s still taken over."
It’s been probably a month and a half at this point.
[00:12:39] Kelly Anderson: Oh yeah, yeah.
Things like selling old cars.
One of them that stood out to me was vintage Singer sewing machines.
This person is, in all likelihood, a, a victim of hacking.
And their account has been hijacked, and they’re, they’re going around doing this.
They are, they are probably another victim.
They’re very well aware.
They have a dedicated URL to Facebook.com/hacked.
[00:15:48] Kelly Anderson: Exactly.
They were like 4 and 8 years old.
They were the scammers themselves.
I was going, oh, these people are, they don’t even care.
But now I’m, now I’m aware.
You just went through it, it’s very real.
[00:18:02] Kelly Anderson: It is a very real threat.
And the um, the kind of faceless crime that you know internet hacking is, has become tangible.
[00:18:50] Bob: She feels like someone is breathing down her neck.
But she also feels like she isn’t getting the help she should with this impersonation nightmare.
[00:19:01] Kelly Anderson: Yeah, absolutely.
Um, it, it, which is kind of untrue.
Right now, they’re just not trying.
[00:19:42] Bob: Kelly feels like they’re just not trying.
Kevin Long, who you also heard from in the first part of this episode, agrees with Kelly.
[00:20:03] Bob: Here’s my question for you and your business.
I mean your business exists because they’re not doing enough to remove impostor accounts.
[00:20:10] Kevin Long: Yes, absolutely.
Especially, Kevin says, because of recent changes at Meta that involve the use of artificial intelligence.
And they don’t.
You know they just, it doesn’t work.
And very rarely, I should say.
And it’s unfortunate.
They don’t like the picture and the profile.
We should get rid of this.
And those are the types of accounts that they’re using.
And they put that somewhere in the about section that no one ever reads.
And therefore, it doesn’t violate the terms of service anymore, the community guidelines of the networks.
[00:27:35] Kevin Long: Absolutely they do not do enough.
We need $500.
Can you help us out?"
And that this is why you think this account is fraudulent.
[00:29:56] Bob: So celebrities are obvious targets for this kind of impersonation.
So this, the crime scenario is a little bit more true to life.
hey don’t send it in."
It doesn’t necessarily show up in their feeds.
[00:31:39] Bob: Those warnings are not very viral.
[00:31:41] Kevin Long: Yeah.
So it’s just, it’s all about revenue generation for the networks.
They weren’t, they weren’t getting revenue from ads.
In your work, are the social media companies allies or foes or, or both?
My clients are the ones paying.
The networks aren’t paying me.
And…
[00:33:19] Bob: Yeah.
[00:33:32] Kevin Long: They it’s uh, yeah.
I mean…
[00:33:36] Bob: (chuckles) You don’t have to answer that question.
[00:33:47] Bob: Especially because clearly the criminals are doing more.
Aren’t we already friends?
But I’m not really sure.
It’s kind of a lot of trouble to figure that out.
Um, so maybe you just hit accept and then things, things go from there.
Um, why is it so easy to, to do this?
Why is it easy for the criminals to do this?
And they then send, you know it’s a coordinated effort.
They, they spend, they’ve got programs where it’s automated.
[00:35:18] Bob: Can you tell me how you do what you do?
And you know they, I do that every day.
Seven days a week.
[00:36:03] Kevin Long: Yep, that’s exactly right.
It also depends on your location in the country as to what accounts show up.
So you know I, I always tells my clients, I’m not 100%.
I’m about 99.9% on finding and removing them.
And they’re very understanding of that.
[00:37:04] Bob: That sounds a little bit on the maddening side, I must say.
[00:37:07] Kevin Long: Yeah, it is.
Facebook ended up paying a record $5 billion fine to the Federal Trade Commission after that.
[00:37:37] Kevin Long: Yes.
And it would return all of the accounts that came back under that username.
So what do you do now?
I didn’t need the stuff that you could ask for now.
I didn’t need that stuff.
It was irrelevant to what I needed to be able to perform my task.
I’m helping your community; I’m helping the victims in your community.
And I just, it was spinning my wheels.
I got nowhere with them.
They weren’t going to make an exception for it.
So now everything’s done manually.
[00:40:15] Kevin Long: Yep, that’s how it’s done now.
And that’s why it takes longer.
[00:40:19] Bob: Oh my God.
(laugh) And this is the age of artificial intelligence.
And it um, you know it made, it made the job a lot harder.
It didn’t make it impossible; it just made it a lot harder and a lot less effective.
But I mean effective from our perspective in that from a time perspective, from a time usage.
[00:41:02] Bob: Yeah, sure.
Well, the criminals have automated tools, but you don’t.
[00:41:05] Kevin Long: Right.
[00:41:07] Bob: Why does Kevin take on this job which feels basically impossible?
[00:41:44] Bob: So this isn’t just a company for you.
[00:41:47] Kevin Long: It’s a passion.
Activists create these fake accounts to just cause problems for people.
And I know that for them it’s frustrating beyond belief.
It’s shocking to me that they don’t stop a crime in progress.
The little guy is not important to them.
Uh, but the system’s not set up to help the little guy.
[00:45:26] Bob: You’ve been doing this now for a long time.
Has this problem gotten worse or better?
Now they’ve got computer programs that do it for them.
So it’s, it’s an uphill battle, and it’s become more challenging to do it.
[00:46:28] Bob: Okay, so what do you want Facebook to know about this?
And … making it so easy to cut somebody off from all of that is inexcusable really.
[00:48:14] Bob: But there is real consequence.
I was thoroughly distracted at work for the first couple of days.
So that was definitely, uh, that was definitely difficult.
Um, we’ve kind of given up on any sort of recovery options.
You know so it’s, it’s tricky, and that’s how we do our conservation work.
So I don’t want to give it up.
Thirteen years ago, I’m like, I’m never going to get into Instagram.
Well I got 48,000 new followers in an hour.
And that’s when I was like, oh my goodness.
Well 3,000 people showed up.
You know we were in violations of fire code and people were out in the street in the rain.
I’m like, these are real people at the end of this.
These are not just numbers.
And just like a, a social media number or anything.
These are real people who really care.
People came in crying.
People who wanted to give a hug.
People who had questions.
People who wanted to relate.
So if something even remotely sniffs or smells a little bit odd, know that it’s a scam.
But scams are getting worse and on every platform, on the phone, on email, on text.
You know we’re, it’s, it’s become obviously a massive industry.
[00:52:16] Bob: For The Perfect Scam, I’m Bob Sullivan.
Call the AARP Fraud Watch connection Helpline at 877-908-3360.
Their trained fraud specialists can provide you with free support and guidance on what to do next.
That address again is: theperfectscampodcast@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.
