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Business, the network more businesses

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0:46

on What the Hack, join us as we

0:48

unravel the mysteries of deception and the subconscious

0:51

tendencies that make us all vulnerable. We

0:53

talk to Dr. Daniel Simons, co-author

0:55

of a new book called Nobody's

0:57

Fool, to learn why we get

0:59

scammed. And learn how to stay safe by

1:01

thinking the way a scammer thinks. Welcome

1:03

to What the Hack, a show about hackers, scammers,

1:06

and the people they go after. I'm

1:08

Adam Levin. I'm Beau Friedlander. And

1:11

I'm Travis Taylor. Today

1:23

we have one of the co-authors of the book,

1:25

Nobody's Fool, Why We Get Taken In, and What

1:27

We Can Do About It. Please welcome Daniel Simons.

1:29

Thanks for having me on. Oh, thank you so

1:31

much for coming. We're delighted to

1:33

have you here, and we're particularly excited to

1:35

talk to you about your new book, The

1:38

Psychology of Scams, and How People Can Better

1:40

Insulate Themselves from Falling for Scams. Dan, I

1:42

am interested in the nature of deception as

1:44

you discuss in your book. I mean, I

1:47

guess it can range from everything. There's a

1:49

wide, there's a

1:51

kaleidoscopic selection of

1:53

things that can happen, from

1:55

Ponzi schemes to political misinformation

1:58

to disinformation. What exactly? is

2:00

a scam? And is it different

2:02

from a con or, you know, other negative

2:04

things that can happen in the realm of

2:06

information? There's a wide

2:08

range, as you say, and what we're

2:10

more interested in broadly is the nature

2:12

of deception and how we get deceived.

2:15

And that can take the form of cons,

2:17

which we think of as sort of the

2:19

more grand sort of impersonation or pretending to

2:21

be somebody that you aren't or pretending to

2:23

do something you aren't. Scams

2:25

which might be much more

2:27

simplistic, trying to take people in in lots

2:29

of different ways, as well

2:32

as just deception, which might be completely inadvertent

2:34

where somebody might mislead somebody without even realizing

2:36

they've done it in the first place. So

2:39

I view cons as kind of a combination of scams

2:42

that last over a long time that are much

2:44

more complex. Okay, so what's the most common thing

2:46

that you come across in Nobody's Fool?

2:48

What do you really... What am

2:50

I going to walk away and say, okay, I

2:52

really understand blank. Okay,

2:55

so I think there's a key principle that we are trying

2:57

to get at in this book that we

2:59

think is missed by a lot of the

3:02

other coverage of scams, cons, deception, which

3:04

is that the vast majority of the

3:07

movies and podcasts and stories and articles

3:09

about scams focus on

3:11

the dynamics of the scam itself.

3:14

Right? So if you watch a con movie, you

3:17

are following the action almost as

3:19

if you're watching a narrative and a storyline and you know

3:21

from the outside what it is. What

3:23

we're trying to do is gather

3:25

information about deception in a wide,

3:27

wide range of contexts to

3:30

see if there's any commonalities about the people

3:32

who fall for it, not just in their

3:34

personality, but in terms of their thinking and

3:36

how they think about scams. So I

3:38

think the one... If there's one

3:40

big point here, it's that it's

3:43

really easy to look at a scam

3:45

from the outside and say, yeah, the

3:47

person who fell for it, they were gullible, they didn't

3:49

spot the red flags they should have, but

3:51

in reality, we all can be targeted

3:54

because all forms of deception take

3:56

advantage of how we think and reason by

3:58

default in naturally good ways. So

4:00

I think one thing that

4:03

we try and focus on is what is it

4:05

that leads us to be deceived by looking at

4:07

commonalities across many forms of deception as opposed to

4:10

going into depth and looking at why

4:12

somebody fell for a particular scam. So

4:15

is there a particular kind of person who falls

4:18

for things like this? Well,

4:20

it's a good question. There's certainly going

4:22

to be a range of skepticism versus

4:25

sort of openness or willingness to believe things,

4:27

right? And some people are going to be

4:30

more willing to fall for things than others

4:32

or more willing to accept as true something

4:34

that's not. But I

4:36

think one of the key insights here is that we

4:38

all can be targeted by scams and cons,

4:42

more often by scams and just deception. We all

4:44

can be targeted if they happen to tap into

4:46

the sorts of things we're interested in or that

4:48

we want. So any of us

4:51

can recognize something is too good to be true

4:53

if it's kind of implausible to us. But all

4:56

of us can also find something to be just good

4:58

enough to be plausible if it's framed

5:00

correctly. So what I'm hearing is

5:02

there is no like this. There are a panoply

5:06

of situations, and depending on where you are

5:08

in your day or your life, you may

5:10

or may not be susceptible. Exactly.

5:12

I mean, most people, for

5:14

example, are not going to respond to an email from

5:17

a Nigerian prince promising a share of their inheritance. Most

5:19

people won't. Some people will. I

5:21

always do, no. Yeah. Some

5:24

people will only because they want to kind of scam the

5:26

scammer. But a lot

5:29

of times, those sorts of scams, it

5:31

might appeal to somebody and they might

5:33

respond to it. But that same person, under

5:36

different conditions, hours later or a day later,

5:38

might not. And it really depends

5:40

on whether it catches people at the right moment

5:42

in the right way that they respond to it. Some

5:44

people will never respond to that sort of email because

5:46

they recognize it immediately as too good to be true.

5:50

But those same people could

5:52

be victimized by something that seemed completely

5:54

plausible to them and implausible to somebody

5:56

who would respond to a Nigerian prince

5:58

scam. In

6:02

terms of the research for the book, I'm wondering what

6:04

surprised you the most. For me

6:06

it was how consistent, across

6:08

all of these forms of deception, over thousands

6:10

of years, right, everything from the Trojan horse

6:13

on up, that they

6:15

all rely on a small set of principles

6:17

that are pretty consistent. So

6:20

I think that's a

6:22

positive, right? It means that if we can understand how

6:24

these sorts of deceptions take advantage of the

6:27

way we think and the way we reason

6:29

and the kinds of information we find appealing,

6:31

then as new variants of these things emerge,

6:34

we'll be able to better spot those consistencies. So

6:37

I think that's something that for me

6:39

was a bit surprising how well it holds

6:41

together when you look across everything from art

6:44

forgeries to chess cheaters, that

6:47

they all kind of rely on a similar

6:49

set of tactics. And the big ones, like

6:51

the long-running sort of scams and cons, rely

6:53

on a lot of them, whereas other

6:56

sorts of deception might just rely on one or two

6:58

at a time. Now, are we talking about hope, despair,

7:02

love, all the Shakespearean and

7:04

or Greek tragedy type stuff,

7:06

or what are we talking

7:08

about? I think hopes

7:10

and wishes and fears have to underlie most

7:12

of these sorts of things. They put us

7:15

in the right mindset to

7:17

be targeted. But what

7:19

we're talking about more is what leads us

7:21

to say, yeah, that's appealing.

7:23

Yes, I'm going to believe that and

7:26

not ask another question or check it out. So

7:28

we're focusing more on the thinking aspect of

7:31

it than on the motivation. So

7:33

we're not so much interested in the personality

7:35

of a con artist or of the victim.

7:37

We're interested in the cognitive mechanisms, how we

7:39

think, what our habits of thought are, and

7:43

what sorts of information we inherently find appealing,

7:45

often for really good reason. So can you walk

7:47

us through that small set of principles that make

7:49

scams work? So we divide

7:52

these sort of cognitive principles into what we

7:54

call habits, which are cognitive

7:56

tendencies, things we do really well

7:58

and they're really useful most of the time. the time,

8:01

but that can be turned against us, and

8:03

hooks, which are kinds of information that we find

8:05

inherently appealing, and that most of the time that's

8:08

a good thing. They draw our attention to the

8:10

things we care about, but that

8:12

again, if somebody's looking to deceive us, they

8:14

can present information that we find appealing when

8:17

it shouldn't actually be trustworthy. And

8:19

all of these sorts of cognitive

8:22

tendencies, habits, and hooks are

8:24

premised on the idea that we mostly accept what

8:26

other people are telling us as true.

8:29

We by default assume that we're interacting with people who are

8:32

being honest with us, that the things

8:34

we encounter in the world are truthful, and

8:36

it takes effort to stop

8:38

and think to yourself, well,

8:40

maybe I shouldn't believe that. Maybe that's

8:42

not true. Okay, so the first principle

8:44

is that the person we're

8:46

talking to or communicating with is for

8:49

real, and what they're saying is true.

8:51

Exactly. And we tend to do that by

8:53

default very quickly. And it takes effort

8:56

to kind of say, oh, wait a second. They're

8:58

potentially lying to me. And this

9:00

is true not just of other people, but of

9:02

everything we encounter in our daily lives. Dan,

9:05

it's true that this morning there was a

9:07

coyote in my upper field, and

9:10

he was limping with his back leg. And

9:13

when I got out of the car, he took off not limping. He

9:16

was trying to con me out of the car.

9:18

A little jerk. Yeah. So

9:21

we see it in wildlife all the time.

9:23

Scams have bruises in order to

9:26

get something to happen generally in

9:28

the terms of hunting. And I guess

9:30

scams are a form of hunting, aren't they? In

9:33

a lot of ways, yeah. And the key

9:35

element of that is that it makes sense to believe

9:37

it's true most of the time because cons

9:40

and deceptions and scams are relatively rare.

9:42

Most of us are never going to be a victim of a

9:45

large con. Most of us are

9:47

never going to fall for a Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme.

9:50

Most of us can't afford to fall for them. Sure.

9:53

A lot of us don't have that opportunity.

9:55

I don't have the ante. Yeah, exactly. I

9:57

mean, most of us are never going to try and purchase.

10:00

you know, really expensive fine art and buy a

10:02

forgery by mistake. And most of us aren't going

10:04

to invest in Theranos. That's right. Yeah. And most

10:06

of us don't have the opportunity to be scammed

10:08

in those big ways. We

10:11

have plenty of opportunities to be scammed in small ways, but

10:13

this idea that we accept as true, what we see

10:16

and what we hear makes

10:18

a lot of sense because we

10:20

can't go around our daily lives

10:22

constantly double-checking everything. We can't go

10:25

into the grocery store and disbelieve everything on

10:27

the packaging of a product. I mean,

10:30

we could, but we'd never get out of the grocery store. If

10:33

you go and buy some fruit and it says that it's

10:35

organic, you're probably not going to

10:37

go out to the farm and monitor the farmer

10:39

24 hours to

10:41

make sure that there's no pesticides being used. We

10:44

have to just accept that some of these things are true

10:46

and they might not be. And most of

10:48

the time it doesn't matter. So it's a

10:50

really good default assumption to have because it allows us

10:53

to have a conversation and it allows us to interact

10:55

with other people and be a part of a

10:57

community. It does mean that somebody

10:59

who's looking to deceive us, whether

11:01

it's a con artist or a magician,

11:04

will say things that simply aren't

11:06

true in order to get you to believe what

11:08

they want you to believe, to focus your attention where they want

11:10

to focus it. So that's a precondition

11:12

for any act of deception, is this willingness

11:15

to believe. Okay. So I'm hearing one principle.

11:17

There has to be more to it though.

11:20

Yeah. I think that's the underlying principle that

11:22

affects everything. You can't have deception without

11:25

a willingness to take what

11:27

people are telling you as true. And

11:29

when people are deceiving you, they're presenting something as

11:32

true that's not. That's kind of

11:34

the fundamental aspect of it. But

11:36

the cognitive tendencies are a bit different. There are things

11:38

that we do all the time that

11:41

most of the time work great. So for

11:43

example, we have a cognitive tendency to focus,

11:47

which is to pay attention to the information we have right in

11:49

front of us and often to

11:51

not think about the information we don't have in front

11:54

of us. And most of the time

11:56

that works great because what we actually want to do is

11:58

focus on what we're dealing with. and not

12:00

be distracted by irrelevance. But

12:03

that means that if somebody wants you to believe

12:05

something in particular, all they have to

12:07

do is put that information in front of you and keep

12:09

you busy with it and have you

12:12

not think about what you're missing. Can

12:14

you give us an example? Here's one

12:16

example. Imagine you're at a psychic performance.

12:18

You've gone to see the psychic who

12:20

helps people commune with the dead,

12:22

right? Well, what do they do in that

12:24

performance? They rattle off a whole

12:27

bunch of things at once until somebody in their

12:29

audience says, oh yeah, that was me. That fits

12:31

me. And then they zero in on

12:33

that person and talk about nothing but that person and

12:35

how they were right about them. What

12:37

does that do? It draws the audience's attention

12:39

just to that one case and not all

12:41

of the guesses that they'd missed up to

12:43

that point. So if they say, is there

12:45

a Rob, a John, a Frank, a George?

12:48

Oh yeah, there's a George, right? That's

12:50

all they focus on at that point. And

12:52

it's a great tactic. And

12:54

magicians essentially do this all the time,

12:57

right? They're directing your attention. So a lot

12:59

of magic works by misdirection. Well, that's really

13:01

just focus. They're focusing your attention

13:03

on one thing and you're not being

13:05

asked about anything else, right? And you don't think about those

13:07

other things. It comes out in

13:09

other contexts where people aren't trying to deceive, but they might

13:12

inadvertently do that. So a lot

13:15

of business books are about successful leaders,

13:18

right? Well, what are those books

13:20

gonna talk about? They're gonna talk about all of

13:23

the things that preceded that person's success, right?

13:26

And all of the things that they do as

13:28

a successful person. And we

13:30

focus in on those success stories and

13:33

only think about those. We don't think

13:35

about all of the people who

13:37

might've done exactly the same thing and didn't become

13:40

successful leaders, right? We don't think

13:42

about all of the other things that that same person could have

13:44

done that would have led to success or

13:47

all the other things they could have done that would have led to failure. We

13:49

don't think about the information we don't have. We

13:52

only think about that set of successful things and

13:55

we don't stop to ask, hey,

13:57

do those things have anything to do with why they were successful?

13:59

Or were they just... lucky. They could be lucky

14:01

or they could have done some homework and

14:03

picked something or represented themselves in a way

14:05

that makes someone more likely to be deceived.

14:08

One of the hooks that we talk about

14:10

is the hook of familiarity and having

14:13

a familiar name, having something we've encountered before

14:15

makes us somewhat more trusting of it, right?

14:18

And most of the time that's

14:20

a great thing because most of the time the

14:22

people we're really familiar with are people we have

14:25

known for a while, we've grown to trust and rely

14:27

on them because they haven't mistreated

14:29

us in the past. But

14:31

these days what counts as familiar, what

14:33

counts as a close friend, might

14:36

be somebody you've never met before, right? It

14:38

might be somebody you just know on social media and

14:40

have interacted with virtually and you've never actually met them

14:42

or interacted with them in person. And

14:44

that can lead to a lot of problems. I'm

14:47

sure you've encountered a lot of romance scams. The

14:50

victims of those romance scams have never actually

14:52

met the person that they have been in

14:54

a long relationship with. It's only been virtual,

14:56

right? And the person might not look

14:58

or be anything like what

15:00

they think they are because they're they

15:02

gradually build up this sense of familiarity which

15:04

leads to a sense of trust. Lauren.

15:13

Mike. So we host a podcast for

15:15

Wired called Gadget Lab. We do. We

15:18

do. Yes, that is correct. Tell

15:21

the good people some more about it. Well

15:23

I think the good people should definitely

15:25

tune in every week because they get

15:27

to hear me roasting you. I know.

15:29

Alright. No, really what Gadget Lab is

15:31

is Mike and I tackling the biggest

15:33

questions in the world of technology. I

15:36

like to think of it as the

15:38

best of Wired's journalism but in audio

15:40

form. We cover the big news of

15:42

the week in Techland but we also

15:44

offer our expert analyses and opinions on

15:46

all things consumer tech. Whether that's mobile

15:49

apps, hardware, startups, cryptocurrency. Mike, what's been

15:51

a recent highlight episode for you? We

15:53

did a deep dive on the group behind the

15:55

massive Okta hack. We also had a great conversation

15:57

about web 3 and the Metaverse. What

16:00

stands out for you? Never met a verse you didn't like.

16:03

I really enjoyed our recent podcast about

16:06

Peloton. And recently, the legendary

16:08

tech journalist Kara Swisher joined us to talk

16:10

all about Elon Musk and the future of

16:12

Twitter. So I guess we should tell people

16:14

how they can listen to our pod. We release a

16:16

new episode of Gadget Lab every week. And

16:18

you can listen and follow us on Apple

16:21

Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you pod. So

16:27

what is HelloFresh? Farm fresh, pre-portioned ingredients and

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breakfast for life. hellofresh.com/hackfree

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with code hackfree. So

17:31

in your book, you talk about what's

17:33

called the possibility grid. And

17:35

I thought that was fascinating. Can you tell our listeners

17:37

a little bit about that? Yeah,

17:40

so this is a tool that's designed

17:42

to just help us realize when we're

17:44

focusing and not thinking about missing information,

17:46

right? So the possibility grid's a

17:48

simple idea. It just takes a little effort

17:50

to implement it for yourself. So

17:54

imagine a two by two grid, right? So

17:56

we can use psychic predictions since we've already

17:58

talked a little bit about psychic. The

18:00

top row would be predictions that the psychic

18:02

made, and then the top

18:05

left column would be predictions that were

18:07

true. So the

18:09

psychic predicted that there would

18:12

be a hurricane that would hit Miami in this

18:16

year. Right.

18:20

And it did. So that's

18:22

the top left cell of that

18:24

grid, the top left box. That's the one

18:27

we tend to focus all of our attention on. That's

18:29

the one with the success

18:31

stories of a successful leader, the activities

18:33

of a successful leader. But you

18:36

can also look at what are the

18:38

predictions that psychic made that didn't come

18:40

true, that a hurricane would

18:42

hit Galveston. We

18:45

need to know how many of those also

18:48

failed, those failed stories, those cases

18:50

where they predicted something that didn't come true. We

18:52

need to know about those in order to know whether they're any good at

18:54

making predictions. We also need to

18:56

know about the things that they didn't predict that

18:59

did come true. And there's

19:01

a great project out of Australia, Richard Saunders

19:04

helped lead this, where they cataloged

19:06

a whole bunch of world events. Everything

19:08

from the Indonesian tsunami to 9-11 to

19:11

a whole bunch of international world events that

19:13

you'd think if psychics were able to predict

19:15

the future, they should predict. They then looked

19:17

at all of the prominent psychics in

19:20

the Australia area, in the media, in

19:22

television, YouTube, and looked to see

19:24

if any of them actually predicted those things. And it turns out,

19:27

no, they hadn't. So those are

19:29

the ones that would go in that

19:31

bottom row of predictions that weren't made,

19:33

but things that actually happened. And

19:36

then there's all the predictions that weren't made and that

19:38

didn't happen, which we just don't know about.

19:42

So if you want to understand whether

19:44

or not the information you have is complete, you

19:46

have to look at all four cells. And

19:48

the idea of the possibility grid is not to

19:51

necessarily make you kind of calculate all the numbers

19:53

and figure out all those details. We can't do

19:55

that for anything most of the time. But

19:57

what you can do is say, okay, all I've got are things

19:59

that are saying, success stories? What

20:01

about the people who did

20:03

the same thing and failed? What about

20:05

people who did something different and succeeded?

20:07

And that will tell you that those,

20:09

say, executive leadership stories might

20:12

just be stories. It might turn out that all

20:14

of those things that were in that top left

20:16

part of the grid were

20:19

there but arbitrary, and that if you took the same

20:21

people and had them do those things, had them do

20:23

those things again, they might fail. And

20:25

maybe those things actually hurt your performance, make

20:27

you less likely to succeed. It's hard to

20:30

know. But in order to know there's

20:32

any pattern at all, you have to have all of that

20:34

information. No, we do live in a world where you have

20:36

people that have made a fortune teaching

20:38

other people how folks succeeded.

20:41

But they never talk about, well, these

20:43

are the folks who didn't succeed, and maybe

20:46

we should also look at what they might

20:48

have done wrong as to why they didn't

20:50

succeed. Yeah, absolutely. There's

20:52

a real danger in case studies of

20:54

success, in that you can fool

20:56

yourself into thinking that the things that happened in

20:59

that one case are representative

21:01

of all people or that

21:04

they're even associated. It may turn out that those

21:06

things are antipredictive of success. It may

21:08

turn out that they actually are worse for you to

21:10

do. And it might be that that person just got lucky.

21:13

Are these case studies universal or are these

21:15

tendencies limited to the US or Western culture?

21:18

I think we're trying to focus on

21:20

cognitive tendencies that are fairly universal, that

21:22

are just a process that we need.

21:26

None of these things like focus are inherently a bad

21:28

thing. So there

21:31

are things that we need in order to be able to

21:33

function effectively. Some of the other hooks that we talk about

21:35

are things like prediction, kind of

21:37

anticipating future events. That's something

21:39

we have to do all the time. We

21:41

can't function effectively without being able to anticipate

21:43

what might happen next. And we

21:47

have to form expectations and that governs

21:50

how we act. So if you expect

21:52

that it's going to rain tomorrow, you

21:54

will take an umbrella with you. And that's

21:57

going to be true anywhere. You'll adapt to

21:59

the environment appropriately. based on your expectations.

22:02

The same principles will apply in our

22:05

interactions in social media, right? So if

22:08

you expect or

22:11

believe some pattern to be true, and

22:13

you predict an outcome, you're going to

22:16

be more receptive to things that are consistent with

22:18

it. You're not going to question them as much as

22:21

you would if something were completely opposite

22:23

of predictions. So we tend to challenge

22:25

things that counter what

22:27

we believe pretty effectively. We're all pretty good at

22:30

this, right? We're all pretty good at shooting down

22:32

that claim that we just don't agree with. And

22:35

the problem is we're not as good at shooting down claims

22:37

that we agree with. We don't tend to do that as

22:39

much. I think that's probably

22:41

something that's cross-culturally universal, right?

22:44

We all are going to have to make predictions. We

22:46

have to do this. Same thing with commitments, which are

22:48

just basically strongly held assumptions that

22:50

we really can't discount, right? Once

22:53

we've made this strong assumption, we're not as

22:55

likely to challenge things that are consistent with

22:57

it. That's going to be

22:59

true for anybody who makes an assumption anywhere. It

23:02

doesn't have to do with individual differences

23:04

in that way. Some people are going to be more

23:06

committed to their beliefs than others. Of

23:08

course, yeah. And there might be some cultural variation in

23:10

that. Yeah,

23:12

absolutely. But is it something

23:14

that's going to be true, at least in some cases,

23:16

for everyone? Yeah, it kind of has to be.

23:19

Because we have to be able to do these sorts of things.

23:21

We have to be able to focus. We have to be able to

23:23

make predictions. We have to be able to form

23:25

commitments and stick to them. And efficiency

23:29

is the last of the hooks. We have to kind

23:31

of try and act efficiently because we have limited time,

23:33

limited capacity. So we have to act

23:35

in ways that allow us to get things done

23:37

effectively. And scammers really

23:40

prey on people, in particular,

23:42

where they have an opportunity to make

23:44

you make a snap decision. Yeah,

23:47

absolutely. Because they create this urgency.

23:50

And that almost kind of fits in with the

23:52

whole concept of the efficiency of the thought process.

23:54

You want to be efficient. And

23:56

something happens. You want to move immediately because

23:58

you think the world... was about to end if

24:01

you don't. Yeah, exactly. And that

24:03

works in both a positive way and a negative

24:05

way, right? So offers

24:07

that are expiring in the next hour, or there are

24:09

only two left, right, are attempting

24:11

to get you to act with efficiency to

24:13

kind of pick up on that deal, which

24:16

is almost never necessary, right? It's almost never

24:18

that urgent. But in the same

24:20

way, it can work as a negative, right? So there

24:22

are scams right now that are fairly

24:25

pervasive that involve calling up parents

24:27

or grandparents or cousins and saying,

24:29

Hey, this kid has been arrested,

24:31

we need you to send over money to get them out

24:33

of jail, right? There are lots of variants of these, some

24:36

of them more horrific than others. But

24:38

all of them are preying on that

24:40

immediacy, we need you to respond right

24:42

away. It's an urgent situation. Even

24:45

the call center scams where you people will call up

24:47

and say, you made a mistake on

24:49

your visa application, the police are coming to arrest you

24:51

and deport you right now, right? That

24:55

same sort of scam is putting people under

24:58

immediate pressure to say, if you pay it off, you

25:00

can make this go away. And we

25:02

really like that sort of efficiency, making it go

25:04

away quickly when you're under pressure to deal with

25:06

something that takes you takes your

25:09

opportunity to say, wait a second, this doesn't make

25:11

any sense, and takes away your

25:13

ability to check on it really quickly. As

25:15

far as that's concerned, what advice would you have

25:17

just for a layperson in terms of how to

25:20

avoid that tendency to just jump to that action?

25:23

Yeah, it's really hard because that's that is our

25:25

natural tendency to try and resolve a problem. And

25:29

one thing that I think helps is seeing a whole

25:31

bunch of examples of how that sort of time pressure

25:33

works in settings ranging

25:35

from terrible to completely innocuous. So

25:39

magicians use that all the time, right? They put you under

25:42

pressure to make a decision right then. And you don't think

25:44

about it when you're doing it. And that forces you to not

25:46

think about the other things they're trying to hide from you. Anything

25:49

where it's kind of a rapid decision, you have

25:51

to decide on this right now, almost

25:54

never the case that you need to decide on something right now.

25:57

For things as specific as the sort of call center

25:59

scams or the or the kidnapping or

26:01

your kids in jail for bail

26:03

scams. There are a couple of things you

26:05

can do, and the best way I think

26:07

to handle those is to make sure that you put

26:09

yourself in a situation where you

26:11

can counteract that time

26:14

pressure quickly. And one

26:16

of the things that we do is kind

26:18

of like what growing up I had with

26:21

my family, which was when there was a big

26:23

scare about stranger kidnappings. We all had a family

26:25

passphrase, so that if somebody came up to you

26:27

in a car and said, hey, your mom asked

26:29

me to take you home, you

26:32

could give them the passphrase, and if they didn't ask

26:34

my passphrase, and if they didn't know it, you run,

26:36

right? Right. Same principle applies, right?

26:38

Scams really haven't changed all that much. If you

26:41

have a family passphrase and somebody calls you up

26:43

and says, hey, your cousin's been arrested, or

26:46

your kid's been arrested, what's the

26:49

passphrase? And they'll try and dodge that

26:51

and get away with it, but it's a way of getting

26:53

out of that scam and getting rid of the time

26:55

pressure preemptively, right? Being aware of

26:58

what you could have happened to you. But

27:00

that's a really specific solution to a specific

27:02

kind of problem. I think the

27:04

bigger thing is just to recognize that time

27:06

pressure almost always is a bad thing. Right,

27:09

when somebody's putting you in time pressure, it's

27:11

almost always a sign that you don't

27:13

want to rush. So being able

27:15

to stop and say, okay, wait a second, I need to think about this

27:17

a little longer, is a good mode, a

27:19

good move to make. Asking a couple

27:21

of additional questions can

27:24

really make a difference there. So how

27:26

do you strike a balance between trust

27:28

and skepticism? Because if

27:31

you trust too much, you're in trouble.

27:33

If you're too skeptical, you have no

27:35

life. Yeah, exactly.

27:37

And I think

27:39

that's one danger that I think you

27:42

commonly see among people who are kind of contrarian

27:44

is that, well, I'm a skeptic, I'm a contrarian,

27:46

I'll never fall for any of this. And it's

27:48

like, well, no, that's not true either. If somebody

27:50

targets your skepticism, you could absolutely fall for it.

27:53

There are probably good, fake skeptic organizations

27:55

out there catering to people who believe

27:57

they're skeptics. Right, but... We

28:00

can't be skeptical of everything all the time or we'd never

28:02

get anywhere. We have to be able to trust other people.

28:05

And I think, again, it's important

28:07

to keep in mind how rare big

28:10

cons are, how common probably

28:12

small forms of deception. And

28:15

those small forms of deception most of the time don't

28:17

matter enough to most of us to worry about

28:19

them. So for example, if

28:22

a grocery store happens to scan prices

28:24

slightly higher than they were marked on

28:27

the shelves. For

28:29

some people that really matters and they have to

28:31

check every penny that they're spending. But if you

28:33

can afford to lose a couple of dollars here

28:35

and there when you go grocery shopping, it's probably

28:37

not worth your effort to cross check every receipt

28:39

against every price in the store because that form

28:41

of deception just isn't a big deal. But

28:44

if you are investing your retirement, it

28:47

probably does make sense to double check,

28:50

especially if you're planning on investing your retirement with a

28:52

money manager who reaches out to you, it probably

28:55

makes sense to check them out really thoroughly. I

28:58

think there's some ways you can kind of think about

29:00

this thinking about the big risks are going to be

29:03

for things that are relatively unregulated.

29:07

So if you're making decisions about things that

29:09

are relatively unregulated and involve the potential

29:11

for identity theft or large amounts of money. And

29:15

those are cases where you can be extra cautious.

29:18

If you're investing your retirement savings with

29:20

a giant bank or Vanguard or something like

29:22

that, those are fairly

29:25

well regulated industries. They've been around a

29:27

long time. The odds that

29:29

Vanguard is pulling a massive scam on

29:31

the whole world is probably pretty low.

29:34

You probably don't need to spend a lot of time checking

29:36

out the company itself in this

29:39

context. But if it's just a money manager who a friend

29:41

of a friend recommended, you probably do want to

29:44

check them out. And one

29:46

thing that we found reading through scams in

29:48

all of these fields is it's remarkable how

29:50

often people who are pulling off

29:52

scams and cons have done it before and been

29:54

caught for it. They've

29:57

actually often been convicted or

29:59

charged. with scams and

30:01

fraud, and then they pull it off again.

30:04

There's a great example of this, a relatively

30:06

recent example of this, of an Orlando

30:08

art museum that had an

30:10

exhibit of Basquiat paintings that

30:13

had been provided to them. And the FBI relatively

30:15

recently raided the museum and took all of the

30:17

paintings because they suspected almost all of them, if

30:19

not all of them, were forgeries. The

30:23

Orlando Museum of Art fired its

30:25

director after the FBI seized 25

30:27

possibly fake paintings on display. The

30:29

paintings were said to be works

30:32

of the late artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.

30:34

But there are authenticity. It's now in

30:37

question. The New York Times reports a

30:39

man who initially said he bought the

30:41

paintings from Basquiat, told federal agents he

30:43

never met the painter. It's not the

30:46

OMA's job to authenticate art. They

30:48

came to us authenticated by the top

30:50

specialist on Basquiat. FBI

30:54

officials now plan to forensically examine

30:56

the paintings. And the

30:59

people who provided them to the museum claimed

31:02

to have found them in a storage locker. And

31:05

so they were newly disfigured and

31:09

worked with the museum to have an exhibition, and they were planning

31:11

on selling it for millions of dollars, selling these

31:13

paintings for millions of dollars. Possibly

31:16

if the museum director had checked out the backgrounds

31:18

of the people who were selling them the Basquiat's,

31:20

they might have been a little less likely to

31:22

work with them because among the several of them,

31:24

they had about seven convictions and a couple of

31:26

them for fraud. So this is

31:29

not an unusual pattern. But that brings me to

31:33

another wishy-washy part of this world, which

31:35

is in the art world,

31:37

for example. Yeah. It's a very thin

31:39

line between a fraud and business

31:42

as usual. And so,

31:44

you know, when you look up somebody,

31:46

let's say you look up a contractor.

31:48

Let's make it a little more run-of-the-mill.

31:51

You go online and you need some work done

31:54

around your house. Now, chances are that

31:56

at the moment you need that work done, you

31:59

really need it done. So you're in a

32:01

bit of a rush, you got some stress about

32:03

it now. No one's available, no

32:05

one's available, no one's available, that person's

32:07

available. Oh my gosh, that person's available.

32:09

You look them up and you see

32:11

there's a couple of court dates in

32:13

there that have been made the

32:16

public record and you think, hmm, you

32:18

know, and you ask them about them and

32:21

they say, oh, you know, that was just,

32:23

you know, people can be really unreasonable. That

32:25

was one of those, that was an unreasonable

32:27

person. You still

32:30

might go for

32:32

it. Yeah, you might if you're out

32:34

of options. That's also a good

32:36

example because what are the, what

32:38

is the information you have in front of you? Right.

32:42

You have the information of what they've done in the past and they

32:44

might tell you about all of their successful contracting

32:46

projects, right? And

32:48

you have the information about a couple of

32:50

cases where people filed suit against them for

32:53

not coming through. And

32:56

what you should think about then is what

32:58

information do I not have? So

33:01

one question you can ask is how

33:04

likely is it that somebody would

33:06

actually follow through and sue

33:08

somebody as opposed to just giving up on them and

33:10

moving on in a court

33:13

case? So the odds are good that

33:15

if there are a couple of court cases, there are a lot

33:17

more cases that didn't make it to court. So

33:22

that's something to keep in mind. There might be a lot more cases where they

33:24

did a great job too, but the ones you

33:26

care about are the ones where people were

33:28

upset enough to follow through. And

33:30

the thing is, it's just like

33:33

three-card Monte or any other trick

33:36

where I might say, Dan, Dan, Dan,

33:38

you know, yes, that woman sued me,

33:40

but I will give you the number

33:42

of six people who didn't sue me.

33:46

Yeah. And

33:48

you call them up and they're like, oh,

33:50

Bo, he's great. You know, and they're all

33:52

people who are on the take. Yeah,

33:55

exactly. And I was just

33:57

out in LA a week or so ago and

33:59

watching. somebody doing three-card monty on

34:03

Venice Beach. And if you

34:05

watch long enough, I was just kind of, I had nothing else

34:07

to do for an hour or two, so I was just wandering

34:09

back and forth, and the three-card monty setup would just move down

34:11

Venice Beach. And every single

34:14

time it was this same woman who didn't

34:16

look anything like the person who was doing

34:18

the moving the caps around, same

34:21

person would be the first one to pick

34:23

and would win like a hundred dollars. Every

34:25

single time, it's the same woman walking

34:28

down the block. I was in

34:30

Paris, same situation, same game, and

34:33

I was watching, and I figured out who

34:35

the players in the scam were. So I

34:37

went over and I said, I

34:40

totally know what's going on here,

34:42

and without missing a beat, he

34:45

showed me a knife. And

34:49

that was the end of the conversation. Yeah,

34:51

I often feel that way too, but you

34:53

know. No, but I mean, and that is

34:55

part of it. It's like if you do,

34:57

if the veil trembles and you look on

34:59

the other side of it, be

35:02

careful. Yeah. Sure. These

35:04

are criminals who choose to make

35:07

money through trickery, which means they're not the ones

35:09

who probably, probably not the ones who are throwing

35:11

you up against a brick wall, but

35:13

it's unreasonable to believe they don't know

35:15

someone who will do that. Yeah,

35:18

exactly. And the other thing to watch when you're watching

35:20

three-card Monty is you should have your hand on your

35:22

wallet at all times. Yeah. Because that's a classic

35:26

place where pickpockets work, and they work in

35:28

tandem with the people doing three-card Monty. Yeah.

35:30

So I have a friend, Paulo

35:32

Robbins, who's a professional thief, right? He's not

35:34

in the negative way. He's a gentleman's thief.

35:36

He's a Vegas performer. He'll take your watch

35:38

off your wrist. He'll take your glasses off

35:40

your face. He won't notice. Oh, really impressive.

35:42

But he carries a business card around. And

35:44

sometimes if he sees people pulling this three-card

35:46

Monty, he has a fake wallet, and he'll

35:48

position himself so that they'll try and take

35:51

it. And they'll take it and he'll have

35:53

him, he'll hand them his business card. He

35:55

says professional thief. That's

35:57

funny. Yeah. Then there's the the

36:00

folks who bury you in facts. Because

36:04

they figure that the more professional

36:06

they sound, the more successful they

36:09

sound, the more they can be

36:11

very specific about what they're doing, the more you'll

36:13

buy into it. I guess

36:15

an analogy of that might be Theranos,

36:17

right? I mean, this was some impressive

36:20

operation. And when you talk about high

36:22

profile people who can be scammed, uh,

36:25

that was the list of who's who of the

36:27

Western world who got scammed by that. I

36:30

think it's a fascinating case because it highlights,

36:32

first of all, that highly successful people who

36:34

might view themselves as very good, critical thinkers

36:36

were taken by that one, right? That,

36:39

that board of directors had retired generals

36:41

and admirals that had a, you know,

36:43

prominent secretary of state who were major

36:45

leaders in world world figures. Right.

36:47

And they were taken by it. They weren't

36:49

necessarily biotech experts and a lot of biotech

36:52

experts didn't want anything to do with Theranos.

36:54

It was a lot of California tech money

36:56

and not as much sort of biotech money.

36:59

For, I think for good reason, that people

37:01

wanted to kind of have a feel for

37:03

this. They had, it seemed really appealing. The

37:05

idea of it was a really

37:07

compelling narrative. And that, that

37:10

was one of those sort of big cases

37:12

that used all of these sorts of principles,

37:14

um, to good effect. The idea

37:16

that you were talking about a very rapid banter with a

37:18

lot of facts thrown at you, sometimes

37:20

that plays into what we call the hook

37:22

of precision, where people will give a concrete

37:25

specific number associated with something that doesn't actually

37:27

have any bearing in reality. So we can

37:29

do over a thousand tests with

37:31

this single drop of blood. Never could.

37:34

Right. But that concrete number instead of saying,

37:36

Oh yeah, we have a lot notes, like

37:38

we can do 1000 and whatever. That

37:41

precision is something that usually is great.

37:44

If it's not true, that's a problem.

37:46

So precision, if somebody can actually genuinely

37:48

give you a number to a great

37:50

degree of precision, and it's based on

37:52

a good understanding, that's really cool. Right.

37:54

So physicists can measure a constant down

37:56

to, you know, however many decimal places

37:59

and the. Precision they're fighting with there is maybe

38:01

the eighth decimal place or something. For

38:04

most human behavior, we don't have that level

38:06

of precision, but if you give people precision,

38:08

they tend to assume that there's something underlying

38:10

it. And this can be for something as

38:12

dumb as the price of a house

38:15

listing. If you give it

38:17

to a concrete number like it's 378,500 as opposed to 380,000, the

38:19

more precise number

38:26

will lead people to negotiate less and end up

38:29

paying a higher price because they

38:32

kind of intuitively assume that if

38:34

there's that much precision, there must have been a

38:36

reason for it. There must have been something behind

38:38

it. Maybe the comparables were more precise and more

38:41

detailed. And we don't tend to think

38:43

about the way that that influences us, that we just jump

38:45

right in and say, oh, that's precise. And it just keeps

38:47

us from thinking about it more critically. I'm

38:54

CBS News correspondent Major Garrett, host

38:56

of the podcast, Agent of Betrayal,

38:58

the double life of Robert Hanson.

39:00

During the Cold War FBI agent

39:02

Robert Hanson traded classified secrets to

39:04

the Kremlin in exchange for cash

39:07

and jewels. In the podcast, you'll

39:09

hear from Hanson's closest friends, family

39:11

members, victims and colleagues for the

39:13

most comprehensive telling of who Robert

39:15

Hanson really was. Binge the entire

39:17

series now, Agent of Betrayal, the

39:19

double life of Robert Hanson is

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available wherever you get your podcasts.

39:24

Hey, Brad, you know nationwide is

39:26

more than an insurance company. Yeah,

39:28

they're one of America's largest financial

39:30

services companies. We get that in

39:32

a song like business life retirement

39:34

or nationwide there to protect. I'm

39:36

kind of the jingle guy. Not

39:38

sure I agree with that. I'm

39:40

not sure I like your hat.

39:43

Well, it would never fit on you. Products

39:45

issued by Nationwide Life Insurance Company or

39:47

Nationwide Life and Annuity Insurance Company, the

39:49

general distributor for variable products is Nationwide

39:51

Investment Services Corporation member FINRA Columbus, Ohio.

39:57

So just to zoom out here a little bit for our

39:59

listeners. if they are considering playing 300 mod

40:02

D, which they shouldn't. Don't. Or if

40:05

they're looking for a contractor looking to buy

40:07

a house or invest in some big new

40:09

stock or something like

40:11

that. Crypto. Yeah, don't. Yeah,

40:13

don't. Outside of just

40:15

don't, is there one piece of advice that you would

40:18

give to avoid falling for a scam? You

40:21

know, I'm not sure that there's any single piece

40:23

of advice that works well for everything, but

40:26

there are a lot of questions you can ask yourself

40:28

that if you take a step and take a step,

40:31

pause and ask yourself a question. One

40:34

way to think about whether you might be in a

40:36

situation where you're at risk of being scammed is, if

40:39

I were a scammer, what would I do? Right?

40:42

If I were a scammer trying to fool me,

40:45

what would I do? How would I do it? And

40:48

often if you ask that question, you'll realize I

40:51

couldn't tell. Right? The things

40:53

you'd come up with doing would be very similar to what

40:55

was happening right then, and you wouldn't be

40:57

able to tell if it was a scam or not because

40:59

you're not thinking in the way that they would. So as soon

41:01

as you start thinking the way a scammer would, then

41:04

you realize what they might be up to. Right?

41:07

So if somebody were hiring a contractor and say,

41:09

okay, if I were a scamming contractor, if I

41:11

were somebody who was trying to scam somebody, take

41:13

their money and then not complete the work, what

41:16

would I say and do? Well, I'd tell

41:18

people all of my success stories. I would tell

41:20

people to ignore the cases that were, you know,

41:24

negative cases and they were just disgruntled people. I'd

41:28

say all of those sorts of things. And

41:31

if they're saying all those sorts of things, it's like, okay, maybe these

41:33

are red flags. Maybe they're not,

41:35

but maybe they are. So that's

41:37

one of my favorites. They're more subtle

41:39

ones you can use that are simple in

41:41

other contexts. One of my favorites is, is

41:44

that really true? Just

41:46

asking yourself, is that really true? And

41:49

I think this is one of those

41:51

things that can help us from accidentally

41:53

sharing information that is not true. It

41:55

can help us avoid spreading disinformation. Most

41:58

of us don't want to spread disinformation. We don't

42:00

want to mislead people, right? But

42:02

we have a tendency to sort of share

42:05

or forward things that align

42:07

with our beliefs. So you get information

42:10

that kind of aligns with your beliefs. It sounds kind of cool. It's

42:12

like, oh yeah, I want to share that with all my friends. You

42:14

repost it. Just pausing for a second,

42:16

saying, is that really true? And if

42:18

it weren't, how would I know? Can

42:21

cause you to take a step before

42:23

you share it with other people and

42:25

potentially spread misinformation. Well, that's great advice.

42:28

My daughter, who is at

42:30

University of Michigan and studying neuroscience, so

42:32

she's sort of in the bucket you

42:34

would appreciate, her favorite thing to

42:36

say in the face of things

42:38

that are patently false or perhaps a little

42:40

squishy, she will say, but

42:43

that's not true. And then if

42:45

you continue, she'll say, yes, but that never

42:47

happened. And

42:52

it works for the high functioning

42:54

Rain Man guy in Utah making

42:56

the 7.6.1, whatever, return

43:01

on your dough to a lot of things. I

43:03

think that it comes down to, for

43:06

me, hearing you talk today,

43:08

what it comes down to is listening for

43:11

the many different ways in which people

43:14

say, how does that sound to you?

43:18

And you have to answer the question

43:20

thoughtfully and say, that sounds like a scam to

43:23

me. I

43:25

know there's no contractor available for three

43:27

months, but I can do it next

43:29

week. The only thing is, I need

43:32

to know that you're actually down, so you're going to give

43:34

me a $500 deposit. How

43:38

does that sound? It sounds terrible. Get out

43:40

of here. Yeah. So in

43:42

other words, what you're saying is one of the

43:44

greatest contributions that any of us can make to

43:47

society is not to

43:49

pass something along unless we

43:51

feel comfortable that it's the

43:53

real deal. And

43:56

the real question is, can I tell that it's the real deal?

43:58

Right? I think

44:00

people are too quick to kind of share things because

44:02

it's fun to share things and you get approval for

44:05

sharing things and people like it, right, when you share

44:07

something cool. And

44:09

if it's just something cool, if it's just, you know, a cat video

44:11

or something, it's like, okay,

44:13

fine. But if it's something

44:15

political or something about science or

44:18

some radical claim, taking a second

44:20

and saying, okay, is that really true? And

44:23

how would I know? What would I

44:25

need to know in order to know that that's true? Can

44:27

stop a lot of stuff, right? So you

44:30

get a crypto offer like, well, is that true?

44:33

No, I don't know. How would I know? What would I

44:35

need to know in order to verify this? And

44:37

I think we often don't think about

44:39

how much information we really should have

44:41

before forming an opinion and before actually

44:43

having an idea about whether something is

44:46

worth doing or not. Crypto

44:48

is one of those classic cases that it taps

44:50

into all of these sorts of hooks. It

44:53

uses celebrity endorsements. It promises outlandish returns

44:55

on short investments. It promises these underlying

44:57

formulas or models that are supposed to

45:00

be amazing and defeat all of

45:02

these sort of standard approaches. It

45:04

tells you you're going to be able to get these

45:06

returns really quickly, right? It has all of the

45:08

hallmarks of classic Ponzi schemes, you know,

45:10

guaranteeing big returns in short windows. But

45:13

how many of us actually understand how

45:15

blockchain works, the math of it behind it?

45:18

How many of us could actually explain one of

45:20

those models to anybody? Now I'm going to step

45:22

in like the big bad scammer and

45:24

say, you know, you can listen to

45:26

Dan sounds reasonable

45:29

or you can

45:31

make $100 in the next 10 minutes. So

45:35

it's up to you. You listen to Dan sounds

45:37

reasonable or you make a hundred bucks in the

45:39

next 10 minutes. Totally up to you.

45:42

Now listen, the 10 bucks that you need to give

45:44

me in order to make that $100 in the next

45:47

10 minutes, isn't a very high

45:49

price. And if I'm a scammer, you only lost

45:51

10 bucks. I'm going to get that

45:53

10 bucks, Dan. A

45:55

lot of people will pay that 10 bucks. A lot of people also

45:57

will play the lottery even though they're never going to win it. Any

46:02

parting words for us, Dan? I

46:04

think one of the things that we should do

46:06

is be more kind in thinking about people who

46:08

have fallen for these sorts of scams. It's very

46:10

easy to look at somebody who made a mistake,

46:13

fell for a scam, and as

46:15

a result of that, you know, within

46:17

dire straits, it's easy to look at them and

46:20

say, oh, yeah, they were just clueless. They were

46:22

just gullible. I would never have fallen for that.

46:25

And I think that's an uncharitable way to look at

46:27

things. I mean, yes, sure, some people are going to

46:29

be more gullible than others, but everybody

46:31

can be fooled if they're not careful and

46:34

if they're not, if they're targeted in the

46:36

right ways. We all can be

46:38

taken in, even if we view ourselves as

46:40

very skeptical. So I think

46:43

treating other people the same way that we would want to

46:46

be treated if we happened to fall for something like that

46:48

is something worth considering. I think the

46:50

optimist in me would argue that

46:53

over time, we're going to be aware that it's

46:56

so much easier to create fake information

46:58

and every student going through high school

47:00

and college right now is, I mean,

47:02

so many of them are using things

47:04

like chat GPT already. That

47:07

it becomes apparent that, you know,

47:09

you can't tell whether something was

47:11

AI generated or human generated, which

47:14

means that maybe people will become a little

47:16

more skeptical and look for validation of

47:18

what they're reading before they believe it. And

47:21

the optimistic view is that maybe people

47:23

will be more willing to look when they realize how easy it

47:26

is to fake things. And we're

47:28

only now kind of entering that territory where

47:30

fake images and, you know, fake

47:32

pros are becoming more pervasive,

47:35

right? It was always possible to do

47:37

fake images. You know, politicians have done

47:39

that forever, but it's

47:41

now much easier to fake things

47:43

that look pretty close to genuine.

47:46

So my hope is that maybe people will realize,

47:48

okay, I can't trust things just because

47:50

somebody's sharing them and they match my beliefs.

47:53

And maybe we'll go back to

47:55

having some sort of verification before people

47:57

will, you know, pass it along, because they'll recognize it.

48:00

Hey, this could very easily be fake. And I had an easy

48:02

way of knowing. That's the optimist view. Dan

48:06

Simons, we can't thank you enough for

48:08

talking with us today and your book,

48:10

Nobody's Fool, that you co-read with Christopher

48:12

Shabrie. It's available anywhere books are sold.

48:15

So everyone go out there and buy

48:17

it. Just make sure you go

48:19

to the right places where books are sold.

48:21

So you really buy the book. Not

48:26

amazon.com. That's right. All

48:29

right. Thank you, Dan. It was very nice to meet

48:31

you. Thanks, Dan. Great to meet you. Thanks for having

48:33

me on. Now

48:47

it's time for the 10 force one. Our

48:50

paranoid takeaway to help keep you safe

48:52

online. Travis, you

48:54

said you got something kind of upsetting by

48:56

email or I don't know, is it snail

48:58

mail? It was snail mail. Yeah. Um,

49:01

I got a letter in the mail saying that

49:03

my daughter's information had been compromised for data breach.

49:05

What kind of information? Well,

49:08

they always use the term may have been

49:10

compromised, but it sounds like it's the full

49:12

rundown, including name, address, social security number. It's

49:14

not great, but do you know who was breached?

49:18

I was actually her pediatrician. It does bring

49:20

up the potential for a kind of identity

49:22

theft that people might not be fully aware

49:24

of, which is medical identity theft. And when

49:27

you're talking about the kind of identity theft

49:29

that can flow from that, you're talking about

49:31

everything from account takeover, opening new accounts, getting

49:34

medical treatment in your name, committing

49:37

criminal acts, your children

49:39

becoming victims of identity theft. I mean,

49:41

it is the full montage. Yeah.

49:43

And the other thing is because your

49:46

family member was, uh, compromised, you might

49:48

think, well, you're safe. You might not

49:50

be because that information can be a

49:52

foothold to your information. And it might

49:54

be that your child's granular

49:56

information might be the very way you

49:59

get into someone. gets into your mortgage, not

50:01

theirs, because they don't have one, but you do,

50:03

and it's worth a lot of money. We could

50:05

all be compromised with everybody. Yeah, I mean, it's

50:07

one of the most, if not the most expensive

50:09

form of identity theft. The statistic I looked up

50:11

said that the average cost to the victim is

50:13

over $22,000. Well,

50:16

it's not just financial though, because if somebody goes

50:18

in and gets something fixed or checked or worked

50:20

on or whatever you want to say, you

50:23

could end up not being able to get

50:25

that very same treatment because your insurer is

50:27

going to be like, you just got, you

50:30

know, an appendectomy. You can't

50:32

have two. Yeah,

50:34

and it also depends on what or

50:36

how someone's using your plan. But for instance,

50:38

I was just reading about a woman who

50:41

had her purse stolen, including your driver's license

50:43

and her insurance card. And

50:45

she went through all the right steps. She canceled

50:47

her credit card. She got no identification. But two

50:49

years later, she was arrested because the thief in

50:51

question used her medical plan to get over 1,700

50:55

opioid prescriptions. Listen, even

50:57

if you have a different blood type showing up

50:59

in your medical record, that simple

51:02

stupid little difference, it could kill

51:04

you, unless you're a universal

51:07

donor, I guess. So a

51:09

lot can go wrong. And you know, doctors

51:12

may not know that it's

51:14

wrong. So you really have to take care of yourself

51:16

here. It goes back to

51:19

what we talked about with David Mayman. The

51:21

thief isn't just limited to your social

51:23

security number anymore. Your driver's license, medical

51:26

card, anything connected, you can be used

51:28

to commit identity crimes. Right.

51:31

Okay. Enough of this scare tactics here.

51:33

What can people do? Well, the

51:35

first thing is to protect your medical information,

51:37

like your insurance number as carefully as you

51:39

would your social security number. Wait,

51:42

fine. But that can be pretty

51:44

hard. Unlike your social security

51:46

card, you need to carry your driver's

51:48

license and insurance information in case something

51:50

happens. Right? Yeah, totally. But monitor

51:52

your health care too. And that of your kids or your other

51:55

dependents in the same way you would check your credit. So

51:57

my daughter's in elementary school and if I happen to look up here, I'm going

51:59

to her records and find out that

52:01

she has Vicodin prescriptions in her name. I'll

52:04

know something, so. You should also, every time

52:06

you get an explanation of benefits statements from

52:08

your health insurer, look at it and

52:11

make sure that the person who got

52:13

that treatment, who had that appointment, was

52:16

actually you. Right. And if you see

52:18

something that was, you know, in your

52:20

name, but wasn't, you didn't get it,

52:22

that's another kind of fraud. Absolutely.

52:24

And if you have your wallet or purse stolen,

52:26

ask your health insurer to provide a new

52:28

account number in addition to a new card. Listen,

52:31

most doctor's offices are going to make

52:33

sure that your information is up to

52:36

date, and they'll give you an opportunity

52:38

to verify that. Don't

52:40

blow them off. Just take a look, make sure it's right. And

52:43

that's our 10-4-L-1. What

52:53

the heck with Adam Levin is a production

52:55

of Loud Tree Media. You can find us

52:57

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52:59

Facebook at Adam K. Levin.