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I was scared to leave the house because it reached a

1:02

point where I know that there is somebody out there that

1:04

is completely obsessed with me and using my

1:07

image. How do

1:09

you stay safe when you put yourself out there

1:11

online? Nobody came to the rescue.

1:13

There's no endgame. The catfish

1:16

is still running. What do you

1:18

turn to for help? And what happens

1:20

when you become unwittingly involved in

1:23

scamming others? That's what

1:25

we're talking about today on What the

1:27

Hack, the true cybercrime podcast. I'm

1:29

Adam Levin. I'm Beau Friedlander. And I'm

1:32

Travis Taylor. Presley

1:45

Rhodes, welcome to What the Hack. Where

1:47

are you coming to us from today? I'm

1:50

in West L.A. I am in Venice. Tell

1:53

us a little bit about yourself. Yeah,

1:55

so I'm a military brat. Born in

1:57

San Diego. Raised in South

1:59

Texas. until fifth grade. And then

2:01

fifth grade, I moved to the Bay Area

2:03

of California, went to

2:05

Butte College, which is in Chico.

2:08

And then I went to school

2:10

at Santa Barbara Central

2:12

Coast for about a year and a half,

2:14

got my associate's degree. And then

2:16

I got accepted to ASU, went to ASU

2:18

for a year and a half. And that's

2:20

when my modeling career kind of started. I

2:23

worked at a restaurant called Tilted Kilt. It's

2:26

English, Irish, Scottish themed, kind

2:28

of like Hooters, but not. And I made

2:30

it into their calendar. And shortly after that, I moved

2:32

to LA. And here I am. I

2:35

know from social media that you're an artist.

2:37

Yeah. So I'm an artist. I do, it's

2:40

mostly acrylic on canvas, but it just kind of

2:42

started as a therapeutic hobby. And essentially, I got

2:44

into a relationship and a boyfriend opened up one

2:46

of my closets and all of my art was

2:49

in there. He was like, what is this? Why

2:51

are you hiding this? And I

2:53

guess as I painted more, I developed a

2:55

skill. And so it's something I've just been leading

2:57

into now. What's the primary

2:59

way you showcase your paintings? Is it

3:01

social media? Well, that kind of

3:04

ties into my whole situation is you

3:06

would think that that would be the move. But

3:08

because I have the fear of somebody stalking me

3:10

and I believe

3:12

it was 2018, I started to

3:16

try to sell my art. And I believe

3:18

that I sold a piece of art to

3:20

my stalker. And it kind of prevented me

3:22

from wanting to give out my art to

3:24

anybody else. Is it a

3:26

piece of online harassment or something?

3:29

Yeah, it's this fear that because essentially I said,

3:31

I'm ready to sell my art, I need to

3:33

monetize what I'm good at and what I love.

3:36

People are proceeding my art in the way they

3:38

want it in their homes. So I

3:40

decided to sell two of my

3:42

favorite pieces of art for I

3:44

think I charged like $300 for

3:46

two very large pieces. And

3:48

I believe that I spent it to my stalker

3:50

because as soon as it was sent, I

3:52

never got a confirmation. The page

3:55

that I was communicating to via

3:57

Instagram disappeared. I never got confirmation

3:59

that they were going to be there. received it, no picture

4:01

of it in their house, and it was heartbreaking for me.

4:03

And also kind of scary because, you know,

4:05

they're able to track me in a way. So

4:14

Presley, you had an impersonator online, but it sounds like

4:16

they were also stalking you. When did you find out

4:18

about this? Yeah, so it was 2019 and

4:21

a random person reached out to me on

4:23

Instagram and said, hey, I think this person

4:26

is using your images pretending to be you.

4:28

And at the time, I was, I thought it was

4:31

kind of funny because it was 2019. This

4:33

page had started in 2018 and

4:36

the catalog of content that they were using,

4:38

you could tell that they had been taking

4:40

everything I had ever posted on my Instagram

4:42

story on my wall. And I remember

4:45

seeing it and thinking, wow, this is ridiculous.

4:48

Who has the time and energy to

4:50

pretend to be me? This is so silly. They're going to

4:52

get caught at the end. And that

4:54

just wasn't the case. When this was going

4:56

on, how often had you been posting? Was there

4:58

like a lot of content for someone else to

5:00

be kind of scraping or was it just a

5:03

smattering of posts? So at the

5:05

time, influencer marketing was blowing up and

5:08

I was posting every day from what I was doing,

5:10

how I was feeling, I was crying, I was laughing.

5:13

That's how I drew my audience was just being

5:15

incredibly vulnerable and just me. So

5:17

that actually is an important point

5:19

here, right? You

5:22

were starting to monetize in

5:25

a sense your vulnerability. Is that correct? Yeah.

5:28

And more than just my vulnerability too. I

5:31

mean, that's what an influencer does. I

5:34

looked at your Instagram account and there was

5:36

a picture, a video of you on the

5:38

beach shooting over your back and

5:40

it for all the world looked like the focus was

5:42

your bottom, but there was an

5:44

ocean behind you. And you said, do

5:47

you see those? Do you see those? And

5:49

I was like, uh, yeah.

5:54

But you were talking about boats, right? Yeah.

5:57

I mean, there's the subtle art of a thirst trap. And

6:00

you got to utilize your assets. And it's kind of

6:02

something I've always been naturally good at. And I know

6:05

that I have way more to offer than my outward

6:07

appearance. My whole goal was

6:09

I was trying to grow my platform and

6:12

grow my brand and obviously monetize the following

6:14

that I had already kind of accumulated. Once

6:16

you get into followers, brands see your numbers.

6:18

And then they want to work with you

6:20

because they're not only getting you that they're

6:22

able to shoot and use on their content

6:24

page, but they're able to access

6:26

your audience as well. Well, you

6:29

were sharing pictures of yourself like most people do

6:31

on social media. Yeah. It's

6:34

a fine line to walk because I'm running

6:36

it like a business, but the reviews in

6:38

my business does so well is because I'm

6:40

vulnerable and I'm me. But I am very

6:43

good about, you know, when we're having a

6:45

chat and the guy goes, oh, can

6:47

I take you out or I can't wait to

6:50

do this to you in real life one day? That's

6:52

when I'm able to say, whoa, buddy, this is

6:55

a fun fantasy land. This is a safe space

6:57

where we're able to play out these fantasies. This

6:59

isn't what we're ever actually going to

7:01

do. And just for our older listeners,

7:04

what is a thirst trap? Are

7:07

you one of our older listeners, Travis? Yeah,

7:09

I've heard the term before. I have no idea what it

7:11

means. So a thirst trap is essentially

7:13

a picture or a video or some sort

7:15

of content that is, you

7:17

know, forward, a little bit sexual,

7:20

sexy, but it's meant to kind of

7:22

draw you in and make you want more. So

7:25

was Instagram your job? Were you making enough

7:28

money this way to survive? I

7:30

mean, I was working full time as a server. So

7:32

this was my side hustle. That was the dream. It

7:34

was how can I monetize my following so I don't

7:36

have to show up and wait

7:38

tables anymore. So it's totally

7:41

burnt out and expressing myself online

7:43

and the pandemic hit and went

7:46

on unemployment. And that was

7:48

when the rest of it started. Suppressively,

7:52

at some point, you ended up moving over to

7:54

OnlyFans. Why did you make the switch? During

7:56

COVID is when OnlyFans pretty much blew up.

7:58

Everybody was talking. about it, everybody's wanting to

8:00

do it, but it had such a negative

8:03

stigma around it. And I'd been

8:05

shooting sexy, beautiful, a lot of nude

8:07

content for years that I wasn't able

8:09

to even share on Instagram. And it's

8:12

it's truly like an art form for me. And so I

8:14

got to a point where everybody's like, you

8:17

got to do what you got to do with the stigma kind

8:19

of slowly started to change. And

8:21

I was able to launch it in my new way.

8:23

While knowing that

8:25

there was somebody watching my every

8:28

move, taking everything I posted online.

8:30

And the fear that, oh,

8:32

they're going to probably use my OnlyFans content. Okay,

8:36

we're getting a little ahead of ourselves here. Before

8:39

we get into what may have happened

8:41

here, let's talk about OnlyFans, since it

8:43

may not be familiar to everybody listening.

8:45

I don't know if you've been on my

8:48

OnlyFans, but on my wall, everything that is

8:50

public and free, it's all basically Instagram safe.

8:52

But I put it in black and white.

8:54

Because in my head, I knew

8:56

that that would be accessible to

8:58

more people. And it would be

9:00

easier for men or people

9:03

to see that it was a red flag. I

9:07

did look, you know, just for work, I

9:09

got permission from my wife. That's that's sweet.

9:12

That's adorable. Your

9:16

OnlyFans is, you know, in the

9:19

realm of quote unquote

9:21

sex work is sex work, right? Yeah. So

9:24

I was new to OnlyFans when

9:27

we started working on this episode.

9:30

And I logged on

9:32

and I was struck by the fact that

9:34

pretty much everything everywhere

9:37

you click requires

9:39

a payment of some kind. Yeah,

9:42

the paywalls. I imagine you

9:44

can make a decent living with an

9:47

OnlyFans account. Is that the case? That

9:50

has been the case. Yes, it was either

9:52

go back to serving or lean into OnlyFans

9:54

full time. And that's what I've done. I've been able

9:56

to do it. Which one pays better OnlyFans

9:58

1000% I was an after actually making enough

10:02

money to live on Instagram. That

10:04

was the goal of growing. But

10:06

yeah, OnlyFans is just doing it for me.

10:10

Presley, does sex work or even sex work

10:12

light as we talk about it? Does that

10:15

open you up to outside dangers? Yeah,

10:17

it seems like a creeper's paradise. Yeah.

10:20

Has that been the case, Presley? I

10:23

mean, for

10:25

the last, I'd say all of 2023, I

10:28

was scared to leave the house because it reached

10:30

a point where I know that there's

10:33

somebody out there that is completely obsessed with me

10:35

and using my image. I

10:37

found multiple fake accounts of people pretending to

10:39

be me. I even found one where they

10:41

were using my actual name. And

10:43

I scrolled, scrolled, scrolled, and they had posted

10:46

a picture from my OnlyFans wall, a sexy

10:48

black and white picture. I

10:50

was scared and I limited my life in so

10:52

many ways because I knew that this was happening

10:54

and I wasn't able to get relief. So,

10:58

Bo and Adam, you guys know I'm a bit

11:01

of a privacy geek, if

11:08

you will. Oh yeah, yeah, you are.

11:10

Yeah, totally. I really just don't like the idea

11:13

that just about anyone can find you online, can

11:15

find out where you live or your email address,

11:17

your phone number, anything. I just think that entire

11:19

idea is super creepy. There's so much of my

11:22

data already out there, but is there something that

11:24

you can do? Yeah, actually you

11:26

can use delete me. Delete me is a service

11:28

that pretty much does the heavy lifting for you,

11:30

where they go to all the data brokers that

11:32

they have on file and just

11:34

pull your data and delete it on a regular

11:37

basis. I use it, I like it, and they

11:39

make it quick, easy, and safe to remove your

11:41

personal data online. We have with these data brokers,

11:43

they can accumulate huge amounts of your personally identifiable

11:46

information. And if all that information gets into the

11:48

hands of a bad actor, that opens you up

11:50

to a lot of risk. And

11:52

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11:54

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12:01

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drive safely. Presley,

12:58

someone finally reached out to you. How did

13:00

they find you? He

13:03

found me on Instagram and he said, hey

13:05

I found this page that looks like they're

13:07

using your images and pretending to be you.

13:09

They had me tricked for either a number

13:11

of days or a number of months and

13:14

I just wanted to let you know and a

13:16

lot of these victims either found me because they

13:18

reverse Google search me. They got smart. Some

13:21

of them claim that I popped up on their explore

13:23

feed. Yeah there's a lot of different

13:25

ways that guys have found me over the years. Give

13:28

us an example. In December of

13:31

2022 a victim came forward and he's an

13:33

older gentleman and he was catfished

13:38

by an account pretending to be me and

13:41

this person created a whole life with him. They

13:43

were planning on moving into a house together and

13:45

starting a family and she sent him contracts

13:47

about renovating their house and for him

13:50

to review with my name Presley Rhodes

13:52

in it. When these victims

13:54

find me I just feel so bad for how

13:56

in love they think that they are with me starting

13:58

a life with me. But I

14:00

said, I'm so sorry for going through. I have

14:02

not been able to do anything. If you're able

14:05

to get a phone number, get a Venmo, tell

14:07

her you want to send her some money. And

14:10

I was thinking maybe he would just, you know,

14:12

Venmo her $50, $100, maybe $1,000. Two

14:16

days later, he came back to me and

14:19

he negotiated sending her $60,000. And

14:22

she provided him with bank wire

14:24

information with a name. Her name

14:27

was Lori Everwine. And it was a Bank

14:29

of America with a swap code and everything. She

14:31

said, this is my manager's account. Send the $60,000

14:33

here. The

14:35

second I got that message, I went to

14:37

LAPD. I filed a police report

14:40

and they essentially said, well, there isn't much we could

14:42

do. And they said, well, if

14:44

you take this police report to Bank of

14:47

America, they'll be able to do something. So

14:49

that's just what I did. I went to Bank

14:51

of America, showed them the police paper and they

14:53

said, well, we actually can't even do anything. We

14:55

can't freeze the account. We can't flag the account

14:58

unless we have subpoena from an attorney. Now,

15:00

the problem here is, uh, chicken

15:03

and egg sort of problem. The

15:05

police and the bank are not going

15:07

to pursue anything and they certainly aren't

15:10

going to disclose anything without a crime

15:12

actually occurring. And so

15:14

the money wasn't sent, no crime,

15:16

no foul, no

15:19

information. So you don't get to know

15:21

who's who in this situation, unless you

15:23

get tricky. I'm curious, did you get

15:25

tricky? I'm

15:28

not a young guy by any stretch of the

15:30

imagination. Like my first job was working in a

15:32

VHS video rental store. That's

15:34

Jerome talking. He reached out

15:36

to Presley after being targeted by

15:38

the woman we're calling Emily Thaw.

15:41

But I was on Tinder and

15:44

matched with somebody

15:47

named Emily Thaw. And they

15:50

sent me a message like right off the bat

15:52

and was just like, Hey, these are really

15:54

cute. You know, you have a dad by

15:56

which Oh my God, I'm so into and

15:58

they're normally not that. And

16:00

then this person was very, very aggressive. It was

16:03

like, oh, what's your snap? And I'm like, and that

16:05

was like right away. It was like, what's

16:07

your snapchat? I gave it to her. I'm

16:10

like, all right, let's look into the, you know, and

16:12

then she starts sending me all different kinds of pictures and

16:14

stuff like that and starts asking for ones and her.

16:16

And I'm like, this is so freaking weird. Now,

16:19

the images that she sent you, were they nude

16:21

or not nude? Started off as not, and then

16:23

went to, started to get

16:25

nude. They would use

16:27

all of my Instagram stories safe stuff. She's

16:30

like, send me a picture of yourself. I'm like, okay,

16:32

so I'm standing in a doorway like this, right? I

16:35

send her a picture. And she

16:37

sends me back one, and it says like in the caption, with

16:39

like her arm up, and she's like, oh, here's, you know, arm

16:41

up for arm up. That

16:43

kind of pulls you into a little bit

16:45

of the realism. You're like, oh, wow. So,

16:47

you know, in retrospect, like this girl literally

16:49

has probably every picture the

16:51

press has ever taken. It sounds like, you

16:54

know, she had such a list to pick from.

16:57

But yeah, start with just

16:59

like stuff in her underwear, and then just started

17:01

like blasting nude them, and then asking for stuff

17:03

in return. Pressly, it sounds

17:05

like deep fakes, or maybe deep fakes

17:07

light are being deployed. In

17:10

the sexting, they would provide porn, essentially

17:13

videos of females masturbating, and

17:15

nude pictures, and at the

17:17

time, I did not have an OnlyFans

17:19

yet. So, a few of the

17:21

guys were able to send me, or show

17:23

me what they received, and it clearly was

17:26

not me. It was just another

17:28

white girl with no face. And

17:31

that's why I stopped texting her. I'm like, this

17:34

is, alright, this obviously is not accurate.

17:37

This is not a real person. Next

17:39

day, I don't hear from her, and

17:41

I'm like, alright, that's obviously a fake person. So, I go

17:43

through and I block, you know, I report the profile to

17:45

Tinder, and block it on

17:48

Snapchat, and all that stuff, and I'm

17:50

gonna say probably that, you know,

17:53

that's it for maybe a month,

17:55

I wanna say. But then all of a sudden, she

17:57

popped up on Instagram, and she sends me an Instagram

17:59

message. And it's like, hey, it's

18:01

been a while, how you been? Like

18:03

nothing ever happened. And I'm like, oh, hey, how are you?

18:06

And at this point, I'm totally suspicious. And

18:08

I'm wondering, like, okay, what

18:10

is this? Is this AI? So

18:14

she starts sending me more pictures on Instagram,

18:16

right? And now I'm

18:19

zooming in on every single thing. And

18:21

I'm looking at the edges. I'm looking at the stuff in

18:24

the background. I'm staring at

18:26

these pictures because I'm just thinking it's like

18:28

AI. Like this is just some fake person

18:31

with fake pictures. So I'm really, really, really

18:33

staring at the details of these pictures. And

18:37

she starts aggressively asking for dick pics. And

18:39

I'm like, no, man. At this point, I'm

18:41

like, is this a dude? Like, what is

18:43

this? And so using the

18:46

pictures that were on this fake Instagram,

18:48

I screenshot them and I go

18:50

and do a reverse Google image

18:52

search. I get a

18:54

hit that take me to Pressly's Instagram.

18:57

And so I hit her up and I'm just like, hey,

19:00

I just want to let you know somebody's out there using your

19:02

pictures and, you know, catfishing people and

19:04

stuff like that. I thought it was just going to be like,

19:06

oh, oh, my God, that's crazy. Like, thank you

19:08

for letting me know. She didn't know that

19:11

he had found me. And I let him know

19:13

there was a fake account. And I said, try

19:15

and get any information, get a phone number or

19:17

Venmo account. Maybe Venmo will be able to do

19:19

something. And she's like, we could probably use this.

19:21

And I was like, all right, what do you think? What

19:24

do you think? And she goes, well, you

19:26

know, what would really help is just try to

19:28

get as much information as possible. So I would

19:31

start reaching out on Instagram to this fake

19:34

Emily saw page. Like, hey, hey, beautiful. How's

19:36

your day going? You know what I mean?

19:38

Like really trying to push it and

19:41

make this person engage. And

19:43

we were getting hit like little hits here and there,

19:46

nothing big, just like just small

19:48

talk back and forth and stuff like that. I think she

19:50

might have sent me one or

19:52

two pictures and I would just

19:54

grab what they were to press. And she's like, oh,

19:56

my gosh, yeah, those are my pictures from OnlyFans. And

19:58

so he's talking to her. She's sending

20:00

him videos that I had on my Instagram

20:02

story four years prior saying

20:04

that she was in Vegas and so I said

20:06

tell her you want to send her a drink

20:09

and He

20:11

tried and at first she denied she

20:13

was saying no, that's okay. That's okay

20:15

And so he really pushed for it and

20:17

she kind of resisted at first was like, oh, I don't

20:19

know I was like, no seriously. I said something like let

20:21

me spoil you or some shit like that and And

20:24

she goes, alright fine send me your

20:26

Venmo and she sent Venmo information and

20:29

I said I sent him $25

20:31

and Then because I

20:33

didn't want him to think I was scamming him and

20:36

then he sent her $25 per drink So

20:38

we did that and I have the whole

20:40

it was I gave got all the screen grabs and got that

20:42

over her So

20:44

she has that now and and so

20:46

now I have her Venmo information, but I haven't been able to

20:48

get the Venmo taken down So

20:53

what's going on here? Well, I mean it sounds

20:56

like a few things but I'm

20:58

still curious about the impersonator same

21:01

What's your theory Presley? I Truly

21:05

believe that this is somebody who found me on

21:07

social media and Kind of

21:09

took on my identity as a video game

21:11

So then they're taking everything talking to men

21:13

loving the way that men respond to me.

21:15

It's been five years This is somebody

21:17

who has submerged themselves in pretending to

21:20

be me speaking like me Talking

21:22

about the struggles of being a model and an

21:24

artist and trying to get by and wanting to

21:26

find a good man And all

21:28

things that you know, I internally

21:30

have thought to myself as well

21:33

And so it's mentally hearing this and seeing

21:35

this it just really put me into a

21:38

hell Criminals

21:40

can run many different kinds of scams using

21:42

that content There are boiler

21:44

rooms dedicated to just that but

21:47

Presley you don't think that it's a them.

21:49

It's not a plural You

21:51

think it's one person? Who

21:53

do you think it is? so

21:57

About exactly a year ago. I had

21:59

a victim come forward and say, Hey,

22:02

do you know this person named Tracy Sperling?

22:04

And I said, No, why? And he said,

22:06

Well, on her Facebook, I'm friends with her,

22:09

I'm the heist with her, she's posting nothing

22:11

but pictures of you. And I think it's

22:13

a little odd. And

22:15

so he sent me screenshots. And

22:17

on her private Facebook page, she

22:19

was uploading pictures with captions pretending

22:22

to be me. And so then

22:25

my logic goes to Okay, this person

22:27

is my impersonator. And in making yet

22:29

another fake account, they have accidentally

22:32

connected her personal Facebook to this

22:34

new Instagram page and didn't realize

22:36

that it was uploading. And

22:38

so as soon as this happened, I was

22:41

able to find a lawyer and send her

22:43

a cease and desist letter. And the reason

22:45

I felt confident in doing this is because when I

22:47

researched this Tracy Sperling, she

22:49

meets all the teeth for somebody that would

22:51

be so obsessed with me using my image

22:53

pretending to be me want like loving that

22:55

attention. So when you Google her name, she

22:58

has an extensive track record online of trying

23:00

to be a model and an artist.

23:03

And she also has blogs kind of

23:05

talking about her delusions of what if

23:07

what you post online becomes your own

23:09

reality, some people live double lives and

23:11

that's okay. And then on top of

23:14

that, she has videos on her Facebook

23:16

and her YouTube of her and her

23:18

friends acting out murder scenes with her

23:20

friends, and including pictures of her covered

23:23

in blood. And she just it's

23:26

that's really my mental health had been

23:28

pretty poor. But once I connected the

23:30

dot that this is probably most likely

23:32

her. I completely lost it. It

23:36

was a strong like this person's

23:38

unwell kind of vibe. Do you

23:41

decide to just get offline entirely? Did you

23:44

consider just completely disappearing from

23:46

online? That

23:48

was a very possible thing that

23:50

I sat down and said, to

23:52

be online and putting

23:55

myself vulnerable, maybe I should just quit. Maybe I should

23:57

not do this. Maybe I should lean into something the

23:59

real world and not exist online. But

24:01

at this point, this person has

24:03

such a catalog of enough

24:06

content to where I don't need to create new

24:08

content for them to do what they're doing. So

24:11

if I disappear from online, then

24:13

they're just going to take over. And they're not going to

24:16

be able to find me to know that this is fake.

24:19

Because a lot of the guys realized it was fake and then

24:21

found me some of them questioned it and

24:23

found me and then I would tell them hey,

24:25

these pages are fake and they still had a

24:27

hard time connecting the dots that they were being

24:30

catfished. So getting offline

24:32

is not an option for me. The

24:36

other part of it is, it's

24:38

a legitimate way to make a living

24:40

and in your case a rather good

24:42

living and therefore why should one person

24:44

be allowed to destroy that for

24:47

you? I

25:00

have reached out to Tracy Sperling, the

25:04

person who Presley thinks is her

25:06

impersonator, through LinkedIn

25:09

and also through two different accounts on

25:11

Instagram. And she did get back to

25:13

me in the comments on an Instagram

25:17

ask, but then she disappeared. And

25:20

she's gone silent so I don't think she wants

25:22

to talk to us. Sadly.

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place for a happy

25:57

price. Happy

26:00

price taking. I

26:34

found that meta really didn't care. They didn't

26:36

take any urgency to take care of the

26:38

problem. Yes.

26:44

And if I was able to get a page taken

26:47

down, another one would just pop up. I'd say every

26:49

couple of months, I have at least one or two

26:51

guys reach out to me saying, hey, this page is

26:53

pretending to be you, or hey, you,

26:56

good to see you. How have you been?

26:58

You know, Emily or Kendall, whatever name they

27:00

use. You got

27:02

no help from the platforms. You got no help

27:04

from the bank. No help from the police. What's

27:08

next? By

27:10

luck, Jerome reached out to me and

27:12

he said, you know, the whole spiel

27:15

time, time again, same conversation.

27:18

And he said he had connected with a woman on Tinder

27:20

named Emily Thaw. So I Googled her name. She

27:23

looks legit. There's, you know,

27:25

it looks like she owns this company. She

27:27

has, you know, a LinkedIn account.

27:31

Yeah. Even a quick Google search makes it look

27:33

like this Emily Thaw person is all over TikTok

27:35

using your likeness. Yep.

27:37

I still have not been able to

27:39

get those TikToks removed. And there's currently

27:41

an Emily Thaw Instagram that is still

27:43

up. And I utilize my verified

27:45

Instagram chat and I was talking to somebody and

27:47

they are unable to take it down unless I

27:50

can prove that this person is being malicious. Yeah.

27:53

Thirteen out of the first 15 search

27:56

results here are you. Typically,

28:00

victims find me, they might be looking for help,

28:03

they might see something I've said on a news

28:05

segment, but this one was different. That's

28:08

Theresa Payton. She's the Foreign Chief Information Officer

28:10

for the White House under George W. Bush.

28:13

She's currently CEO of a company

28:15

called Fordless Solutions, which is a

28:17

cybersecurity company. Pressley,

28:19

having been the victim of

28:22

ongoing impersonation for

28:24

over five years, she's

28:26

searching online and putting in different

28:29

combinations of the impersonator's

28:31

stage name, if you will, that they were

28:33

using, and different combinations of

28:36

words. All of a sudden, my

28:39

first edition of Manipulated,

28:41

a book I have on

28:43

deepfake identities and impersonation, how

28:46

deepfake technology is enabling that,

28:49

popped up and she read it and she thought, oh

28:51

my gosh, maybe, maybe this woman

28:53

will believe my story and maybe she can help

28:55

me, because the reason why she

28:57

found me there was

28:59

we actually, around the same time,

29:01

had somebody impersonate

29:03

being an employee of Fordless

29:07

online using the same name, Emily Thaw,

29:09

with the same exact, just sort of

29:11

unique tweak to the spelling of the

29:13

first and last name. Yeah, so while

29:16

I'm googling Emily Thaw, I find a

29:18

link to an excerpt from a book

29:20

from Theresa Payton, a book called Manipulated,

29:22

where she referenced Emily Thaw, essentially

29:25

targeting her cybersecurity company.

29:28

And at this point, my brain is like, this

29:30

is, I'm making all this up, maybe I'm the crazy

29:32

one. So I reached out

29:34

to Theresa, I sent her a message on

29:36

LinkedIn, and I said, I'm desperate. I've reached

29:38

out to everybody, nobody can help, I can

29:40

see that you reference this impersonator

29:43

who's using my image in your book, can

29:45

you help me and can we change

29:47

what's going on? Because at the end of the

29:49

day, it's not just me experiencing this. We

29:52

talked to Theresa in a previous episode. So

29:55

what happened when you reached out to her? So

29:57

she replied immediately. and

30:00

said, I'm so sorry for what you're going through, let's

30:02

hop on a call. And I said,

30:04

I absolutely do believe you. And

30:07

so we talked about how hard this

30:09

is for victims to get help. Oftentimes

30:11

victims are blamed for having

30:13

an online footprint. So somebody says, well,

30:15

stop posting pictures, stop posting videos. And

30:18

that doesn't work for her in the line of work

30:20

that she's in and how she chooses to live her

30:22

life. I was finally

30:25

heard. I feel like the

30:27

luckiest person in the world to be connected

30:29

to her, because everybody that I

30:31

have reached out to that hasn't been able to

30:33

help me, out of everybody and anybody I could

30:35

dream of, other than an attorney, that I would

30:38

have to spend my whole life to pay off,

30:40

this woman I was connected to. And she's

30:42

so well connected and versed in this world.

30:44

So if anybody can help me, it's Teresa.

30:47

And how was she able to help? Being

30:50

heard was step one. Step

30:52

two was sharing the story on kind of a

30:54

bigger scale. So she was able to have the

30:56

story aired on a network and

30:58

in the morning, a WBTV investigation is digging

31:01

deeper into what happens when someone goes online

31:03

and pretends to be you. That's what

31:05

happened to one woman who was sharing her experience.

31:07

And since that story came out, a victim Googled

31:09

the name Emily Zox. He was thinking of her

31:12

one day and found me. And

31:14

he didn't know that that was a catfish account

31:16

until he saw that story. Step

31:18

three has been reaching out to kind of

31:21

my local government. I've emailed them, found them

31:23

on social media, asked for help, sent them

31:25

snail mail, heard nothing. Nothing back

31:27

from any of them. And so

31:29

once that kind of failed, I

31:32

was talking to Teresa and I said, you

31:35

know, through me sharing the story, I had

31:37

been connecting so many other influencers and

31:39

people online who are dealing with this all

31:41

in different degrees, but it's really

31:44

affecting our lives. I've been able to bond with

31:46

people who our lives are kind of, I

31:49

don't want to say ruined, but incredibly

31:51

tainted in a way. And I said, these stories

31:53

need to be heard because if they're heard, then

31:56

things need to be changed because this is the

31:58

universal thing. Somebody

32:01

should not be allowed to masquerade as you

32:03

on a social media platform. Period. And stop.

32:05

And when you report it and say they're

32:07

doing that, she

32:09

sends me. And so I've been telling her,

32:11

keep documentation. And they

32:14

tell her time and time again, this

32:17

is not, thank you for reporting this.

32:19

This is not in violation. This

32:21

is the biggest point here is these

32:23

are all monolithic companies that are looking

32:25

at profits that we can't even imagine

32:28

and they happen on a scale where

32:30

we don't even matter. Here's,

32:32

here's where I think we can get them. All

32:36

of these platforms now process

32:38

payments. They take payments. They

32:41

let you do consumer to consumer, business

32:43

to consumer, consumer to business payments. You

32:46

are now acting like a financial institution. Well,

32:55

I know that Presley thinks it's just one

32:57

person, but I know you don't

32:59

believe it. You think it's more than one person.

33:02

Why? Uh, I just,

33:04

I think it's really likely given the number

33:07

of stories that she told me. And also

33:09

just given the amount of material she has

33:11

out there and her profile that I don't

33:13

think this is just one person. I think

33:15

this is a lot of different scammers using

33:18

her images to do a lot of different

33:20

crimes. So I reached

33:22

out to an FBI agent, a retired

33:24

FBI agent. She sent me on to

33:26

a fellow who works for

33:28

the secret service. I can't name him, but

33:31

the, the man I reached

33:33

out to is a criminal investigator

33:35

for the U S secret service

33:37

specializing in financial and cybercrime. And

33:39

he and I are on the same page. Six

33:43

torsion has mainly been committed by individuals.

33:46

Unlike with BEC fraud and romance

33:49

scams, that is mainly committed by

33:51

groups. But the individuals

33:53

who's doing six torsion is not necessarily

33:55

part of this groups. They might be

33:58

members, but they don't operate. in

34:00

unison to commit the six-stortion

34:02

crimes. One of the things that I

34:05

have been hearing, especially in the interview with

34:07

Jerome and the other older gentleman that she

34:09

was talking about, is we're looking

34:12

at six-stortion scams. And if we're talking about

34:14

six-stortion scams, we're not talking about one player.

34:17

From the multiple arrests and cases

34:20

I've been involved, I do see that

34:22

locking credentials being used

34:24

across multiple different platforms

34:26

to either do open-source

34:29

intelligence to obtain material,

34:31

for example, through OnlyFans or

34:34

from other platforms or start

34:36

communicating and building it up all with

34:39

the potential victim. And

34:42

it's quite interesting that the dialogue is

34:44

usually exactly the same. It's almost a

34:46

copy-paste exercise. You will

34:48

also find with these bad actors that they

34:51

actually exchange these dialogues. But it certainly gels

34:53

with our theory that a lot of criminals

34:56

operate online using lots of different, nearly identical

34:58

accounts. And we know from our episode with

35:00

John DeMeay that some of these six-stortion operations

35:02

are operating out of the continent of Africa.

35:05

You know, Adam, I noticed you said the

35:07

continent of Africa, and I guess that's something

35:09

we learned this episode, that they're not all

35:11

working from Nigeria or Ghana or other countries

35:14

that we might name. Well, I think the

35:16

reason why they moved to South Africa is

35:18

because of all the infrastructure. Internet

35:21

speeds are fast. It is easy to

35:23

obtain technology that's actually needed to commit

35:25

these extortion crimes. It's

35:28

not very difficult to actually obtain a visitors

35:30

visa for South Africa and just overstay. And

35:33

I would say recent developments in deepfaking,

35:36

one doesn't necessarily need specific

35:38

material outs in the

35:40

public to be used for sextortion.

35:44

But yes, I do see

35:46

actors obtaining OnlyFans material and

35:48

using that to extort the victims.

35:51

And ultimately, these bad actors are

35:53

using basic open source intelligence techniques,

35:56

much the same as what we are domesticators to

35:58

a reality basis. to link

36:01

that person to their personal, for example,

36:03

Facebook or Instagram profiles, and

36:05

then using that platform to

36:07

directly contact the potential victim

36:10

to, of course, extort them. So

36:13

Adam, this sounds

36:16

like once again, you're right

36:19

in only posting one picture

36:21

of the interior

36:24

of your car where there happens to

36:26

be a water bottle. That's the only way to

36:28

live is invisibly. And

36:30

Travis, you too, you recently just started posting

36:33

on Instagram and I think, I feel like

36:35

I've been a

36:38

bad influence on you. And

36:41

so here's the deal. We come

36:43

back to the same thing. Open source is

36:46

still a real source of problems

36:48

for anybody who happens to fall

36:51

into the sights of a criminal.

36:53

And the more out there you are, the

36:56

more your material might get used, but

36:58

it doesn't mean that you should stay home and

37:00

hide. I don't think it does. I think it

37:02

just means that you have

37:04

to deal with, this is the same way as

37:07

like tick season. This is about to start in

37:09

Connecticut. And like you walk outside, you might get

37:11

Lyme disease, but I'm not gonna stay

37:13

inside all summer. That makes

37:15

sense. I think just one of the things

37:17

is if your livelihood is dependent on a

37:19

social media platform, then that social

37:22

media platform does have a responsibility to

37:24

actually help you maintain your identity on

37:26

it. But Adam, this

37:28

makes me think of your friend and

37:31

favorite lawmaker, Elizabeth Warrens, did to

37:33

create the digital or cyber equivalent

37:36

of the CFPB because this is

37:38

a case study. And it may

37:40

not be the Brady Bunch version

37:43

of the case study because it

37:45

involves sex work light and

37:48

nobody wants to talk about it. But the fact

37:50

of the matter is, this is exactly where the

37:52

government needs to either protect or outlaw, protect

37:55

or outlaw. If you're gonna like make it

37:57

legal, protect them. And if there's any

37:59

kind of... gray area in there, figure it

38:01

out. It's black and white. I

38:04

totally agree with you. Of course, the issue right now with the

38:06

government is you have a Congress that can't agree on the day

38:08

of the week. So the

38:10

prospect of actually having some

38:12

legislative action on this in

38:15

the next few years is somewhat

38:17

remote because there's such division of

38:19

Washington. This is an area where

38:22

there has to be protections and

38:24

we just have to take a harder look at

38:26

what's going on in the social media platforms and

38:28

ways to protect all kinds of

38:31

people against what's happening on these platforms.

38:34

And that is where I think Senator

38:36

Warren and like-minded people

38:38

in Congress might be able to affect

38:40

change. And that's where I think Theresa

38:42

Payton was right. Get in touch

38:44

with your lawmaker. Because even if they

38:46

don't get back in touch with you, Presley, you

38:49

have created a record of a

38:51

problem and that

38:53

institutional memory is going to start remembering the fact

38:55

that this problem has come up. Oh, that came

38:57

up in 2024. Well,

39:00

now it's 2031 and it's all regulated. You

39:04

were part of that happening, the tip

39:07

of the spear, and it's important work.

39:09

So, bravo. Well, I think

39:11

things can get done. I mean, the Consumer

39:13

Financial Protection Bureau created by Senator Warren, it

39:15

took years to get it done, but she

39:17

got it done. So it

39:19

can get done if

39:21

the right people continue to push for

39:23

it, even in the face

39:25

of pushback and opposition, it can

39:28

get done. And it is in the

39:30

interest of the social media platforms at the end of the

39:32

day to get this done, because

39:34

there are too many horrible things going on

39:36

in a lot of these platforms or as a

39:38

result of things that are happening

39:40

on those platforms. Your

39:45

livelihood really just by definition depends

39:47

on consenting adults, being able to

39:49

do things. As we've mentioned before,

39:52

there's a bit of a creep factor there. How

39:54

do you stay safe? So my

39:56

tactic has always been never posting in real

39:58

time. I never post from where

40:00

I am, I always wait either hours or a

40:03

day later. I never post where

40:05

I am, when I am. And

40:07

then I also don't leave the house without

40:09

a weapon, which may sound a little paranoid,

40:11

but when you're a single female like me

40:13

and you have a dog and you have

40:16

to walk them three times a day, and

40:18

you have people who are obsessed with

40:21

you forwardly online. But then I also

40:23

have an impersonator stalker who just really

40:25

wants to be me and has no

40:27

boundaries or limits. I'm always

40:30

very vigilant, very aware of my surroundings.

40:33

And I just don't put myself in situations where

40:35

I'm alone with strangers. I

40:37

live in an apartment complex with, I

40:39

don't wanna say five or six of my friends,

40:41

like we all have units in the same complex.

40:43

So you feel safe? I

40:46

feel safe knowing that I can scream and somebody

40:48

will most likely hear me. I have a girlfriend

40:50

who lives directly above me, has the same unit

40:52

as me just above me. But my

40:54

biggest concern has been, and this was

40:56

right before the news story

40:58

came out, in October, I

41:00

wanted to move because I'm very cautious about

41:03

posting the car that I drive, where I

41:05

live, my neighborhood, the color of my building,

41:08

it's always a thought that they are following me, that they're

41:10

gonna find me. But my friends,

41:12

they don't live that way. They're posting

41:15

everything. If this person, which

41:17

they watch my every move, every single

41:19

day, what I do, they

41:22

know who I'm associated with and they're probably

41:24

stalking those people and they probably already know

41:26

where I live. Every single

41:28

time I leave the house, I have a taser

41:30

or pepper spray in my pocket and my hand

41:32

is in my pocket. Every time I

41:35

go on a first date, it's

41:37

always a thought in my head that this is either

41:40

my, I accuse my little brother of being

41:42

my impersonator because he's that

41:44

age, they're all little computer trolls and they

41:46

like to do scams and stuff. And

41:49

there was a point where I was convinced that

41:51

my little brother was doing this. And

41:54

that's not a good place to be. I

41:58

hope Tagati isn't and I have evidence. proving

42:00

that it's not him. I thought

42:02

it was one of my aunts. It's

42:06

the mental places that I've gone on this

42:08

journey has been incredibly

42:11

terrifying. What message

42:13

or advice do you give other people

42:15

that are facing online impersonations like you've

42:17

had a live through? Just

42:19

documenting it. The reason I've been able to connect

42:21

all these dots and find somebody who I even

42:24

is a lead to who could be responsible for

42:26

this is because I have taken

42:28

screenshots of every single interaction. I've been

42:30

able to connect dots of words. They've

42:32

said stories that they've said the kind

42:34

of content they're using, how they're using

42:36

it in order to kind

42:38

of create a web and kind of

42:41

be my own detective in it because

42:43

ultimately nobody's going to help you. But

42:45

the way that AI and technology is

42:47

advancing, these things are going to get

42:49

serious and they're going to get even worse and

42:51

they're going to get very scary. And unless

42:53

we do something to prevent that from happening,

42:55

it is going to happen. So yeah, just

42:57

documenting it. So you have your own back

43:00

and then being proactive and having

43:02

conversations like this because the more we

43:04

talk about it, the more people will

43:06

hear, more likely things are

43:08

to change hopefully. You're highlighting a

43:10

lot of what we talk about here, which is

43:13

when we go online, our

43:16

ultimate guardian is ourselves. That

43:20

as much as we would like to hope that others

43:22

would be there to protect us, they're

43:24

just not there. Presley,

43:38

we can't thank you enough for spending your time

43:40

with us, sharing your story with us, and

43:43

having the courage to do what you

43:45

do in order to protect yourself. Thank you very much.

43:47

Thank you for having me. I appreciate you guys. Okay,

43:59

now if It is time for our tin foil

44:01

swan. Our paranoid takeaway to keep

44:03

you safe on and offline. Did

44:06

you guys get that meeting invite I sent

44:08

out? I'm not sure, they just automatically pop

44:11

up in my calendar. Ditto. It's

44:13

a socially acceptable way for me to ignore communications.

44:16

You are so good at that. I am.

44:19

I pride myself on it, I'm always the last to know when

44:21

I have something I'm supposed to be doing. Well

44:23

Bo, your, um, let's call

44:25

it laissez-faire approach to email and now calendars

44:27

per usual is keeping you safe. Scammers

44:30

are using calendars. Of course

44:32

they are Travis. Of course they are.

44:35

How so? Well, Google Calendar

44:37

automatically accepts invitations sent by email

44:40

from anyone. So,

44:43

someone can send you a spam or

44:45

malicious email with a calendar invite? And

44:47

since you can add links to calendar

44:49

invites, you can redirect somebody to a

44:51

clone website or get them to click

44:53

on a malware infected link. Oh brother.

44:56

Right. You can send

44:58

someone a meeting invite saying call with bankrupt

45:00

with an actual phone number and give away

45:02

your information. Come on, that's not

45:04

gonna work. Like many other people,

45:06

I rely strongly on my calendar to help

45:08

keep things from slipping through the cracks. So

45:10

if I see something on there, unless it

45:12

looks extremely shady, I'm more likely to trust

45:14

that than a text or an email. Wait,

45:17

have we just figured out Travis's security

45:20

kryptonite? Ha, listen,

45:22

I kinda say I don't think that you would fall

45:24

for it Travis. Does the same

45:26

thing happen with Apple or Microsoft? I'm just curious.

45:29

Uh, no, it's uh, auto accepting invites is

45:32

disabled by default on both of those. Can

45:34

you disable it in Google? Yeah, just go to

45:36

your Google Calendar and click the little gear icon

45:38

in the upper right, then go to settings. There's

45:41

a section called events from Gmail.

45:43

Now uncheck the box that says

45:46

show events automatically created by Gmail in

45:48

my calendar. But you might not

45:50

want to do it. Well, it sounds like a bug

45:52

and a feature. It does open you up

45:54

to scammers, but it's convenient. If say my wife schedules

45:57

a dentist appointment for one of my kids and sends

45:59

me a calendar It's nice to

46:01

have that automatically show up. All right,

46:03

but can't you just like set it to

46:05

favorites like in iOS, which that certain people

46:07

break through focus mode and stuff? You can

46:09

set it to accept incoming calendar invites from

46:12

people that you've interacted with. But

46:14

if you think about the sheer number of people

46:17

you've gotten emails from, even if you get a

46:19

email one day just reply, not interested, then that

46:21

sender will still be able to add things to

46:23

your calendar. Oy vey. And

46:25

that's our 10-4-0s 1. What

46:35

the heck with Adam Levin is a production

46:37

of Loudree Media. You can find us online

46:39

at adamlevin.com and on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook

46:41

at Adam K. Levin. Loudree.