Scam Rangers

What happens when people looking for work become targets for organized fraud? In this episode of Scam Rangers, Ayelet Biger-Levin speaks with Jay Jones, known as The Profiler, an investigator exposing fake job postings, fraudulent recruiters, and hijacked professional identities. After being laid off from an advertising job, Jay encountered a fake résumé-writing operation targeting job seekers. In...

Scam signals exist across telecom networks, messaging platforms, and financial institutions. Why aren’t they translating into stronger protection? In this episode of Scam Rangers, Ayelet Biger-Levin speaks with Ian Matthews, founder and CEO of Strata Labs and former founder and CEO of WMC Global, about the limits of message filtering, the changing role of carriers and technology platforms, and the...

What happens when people stop trusting their phones? Scammers have made calls, texts, and messaging platforms central to the way they reach and manipulate victims. And as scams become more targeted and move across multiple channels, the challenge is no longer simply blocking spam or stopping robocalls. In this episode of Scam Rangers, Ayelet Biger-Levin sits down with Jaime Zetterstrom, VP of Prod...

What happens when someone is so deeply caught in a scam that facts and logic no longer reach them? In this episode of Scam Rangers, host Ayelet Biger Levin sits down with Dr. Trina Clayeux, CEO of Give an Hour, to explore the emotional and psychological impact of scams and why empathy is so important in prevention, intervention and recovery. When someone is in the middle of a scam, they may be und...

What happens when investigators follow a scam all the way to the people behind it? In this episode of Scam Rangers , host Ayelet Biger-Levin sits down with Erin West , founder of Operation Shamrock and former prosecutor, and cybercrime researcher Paul Raffile to hear the incredible story of their investigation into financial sextortion. Erin and Paul created a decoy social media profile posing as...

What if one of the biggest reasons we’re struggling to fight scams is that we don’t fully understand the scale of the problem? In this episode of Scam Rangers , Ayelet Biger-Levin welcomes back Ken Westbrook, founder of Stop Scams Alliance and former CIA analyst, to discuss why scams should be treated as a national security threat, and why doing that starts with better data. Ken shares the story b...

For years, the banking industry focused on one goal: reduce friction. Every extra interaction with a customer was viewed as something to avoid. But scams have changed the rules. When criminals manipulate customers into authorizing payments themselves, transaction monitoring alone can't tell the whole story. The missing piece is context—and the only person who has it is the customer. In this episod...

Most of us believe that if someone is being scammed, all they need is proof. Show them the evidence. Point out the red flags. Explain the facts. But what if that's not enough? In this episode of Scam Rangers, I sit down with Ayleen Charlotte, survivor of the Tinder Swindler and founder of SAFE (Scam Awareness & Fraud Education), to explore what really happens when someone isunder the influence...

What does the future of fraud prevention look like from the perspective of someone who has spent two decades helping scam victims? In this episode of The Scam Rangers Podcast, Ayelet Biger-Levin sits down with Amanda Shute, Senior Risk Manager, External Fraud Oversight, whose career began on the front lines as a bank teller helping customers after devastating scams. That experience shaped her beli...

What makes someone vulnerable to a scam? Many people assume scams only happen to people who are uninformed, careless, or less tech-savvy. But what if the real attack surface isn't technology at all? What if it's trust? In this episode of Scam Rangers, Ayelet Biger-Levin sits down with Tracy Hall—author, advocate, and survivor of one of Australia's most notorious romance fraud cases. After losing h...

In this episode of Scam Rangers, host Ayelet Biger-Levin sits down with Charles E. Wallace Jr., author of The Caregiver's Game: The Caregiver's Game: Unraveling Financial Deceit in the Shadows of Dementia. Charles turned into a fraud investigator after his mother fell victim to financial elder abuse. Together, they pull back the curtain on the subtle, malicious ecosystem of caregiver grooming, whi...

In this episode of Scam Rangers, Ayelet sits down with fraud researcher and professor David Maimon to unpack some of the most alarming scam trends emerging today,  from abandoned identity fraud and synthetic identities to AI-powered romance and investment scams. They discuss how criminals are targeting former immigrants, children, and deceased individuals whose identities are no longer active...

In this episode, Ayelet Biger-Levin sits down with Jamie Simmons to explore how scams have evolved from traditional fraud into a global, AI-driven threat rooted in human psychology . From his early days as a park ranger to leading fraud prevention at Capital One, Jamie shares why fighting scams today requires a shift toward prevention before manipulation happens and not just stopping payments afte...

Scams don’t start with transactions. They start with trust. In this episode of ScamRangers, Ayelet Biger-Levin sits down with Amy Nofziger , Senior Director of Fraud Victim Support at the AARP Fraud Watch Network , to explore the human side of scams, and what’s changed over the past two decades. Amy and her team receive ~450 calls a day from victims and concerned individuals. And what they’re seei...

In this episode of Scam Rangers , Ayelet Biger-Levin sits down with Rebecca Rose from the Social Security Administration’s Office of the Inspector General to unpack the reality of scams today, and why they are far more than just a financial problem. Scams have evolved into highly coordinated, psychologically-driven attacks designed to manipulate people in moments of fear, urgency, and trust. Rebec...

In this episode of Scam Rangers , Ayelet speaks with Ari Redbord, Global Head of Policy at TRM Labs and former U.S. Department of Justice prosecutor, about the rise of crypto investment scams and the global infrastructure behind them. They break down why these scams are growing so quickly, how financial grooming works in the crypto era, and what makes these schemes so effective at scale. Ari share...

In this episode of Scam Rangers , Ayelet Biger-Levin speaks with Nils Mueller , Director of the North America Chapter of the Global Anti-Scam Alliance and former USAID Foreign Service Officer. Nils shares his unique path into the world of scam prevention after spending more than two decades working in international development and governance. During his time in Southeast Asia, he witnessed the rap...

In this episode of Scam Rangers , Ayelet Biger-Levin joins Kate Griffin , Director of Inclusive Finance at the Aspen Institute , to discuss the monumental work of the National Task Force on Fraud and Scam Prevention . Over the past year, Griffin has led a diverse coalition of 80 institutions, ranging from financial giants like JPMorgan Chase and Capital One to tech leaders like Google , Meta , and...

Fraud prevention is often framed as a battle against criminals, but what happens to the customer along the way? In this episode of Scam Rangers , host Ayelet Biger-Levin sits down with Marti DeLiema , a researcher at the University of Minnesota, to explore the human impact of scam prevention and fraud interventions and the unintended consequences that can emerge when protection efforts aren’t desi...

Investment scams are no longer clumsy or obvious. They’re professional, polished, and engineered to look legitimate. In this episode of Scam Rangers , we’re joined again by Jim Browning, renowned scam investigator and YouTuber, to unpack how modern investment scams scale online, why even smart and cautious people fall victim, and how platforms, ads, and recovery scams fuel a devastating cycle of h...

In this deeply personal and moving episode of Scam Rangers , Ayelet Biger-Levin sits down with Beth Hyland , a romance scam survivor who has transformed her experience into a powerful mission for advocacy. Beth shares the intimate details of how a sophisticated criminal operation exploited her emotional vulnerability following a divorce, leading to over $26,000 to be stolen from her through Bitcoi...

In the final Scam Rangers episode of 2025, Ayelet Biger-Levin is joined by industry veteran Ken Palla for a deep year-in-review of the global scam prevention landscape. This conversation examines what actually happened in 2025 across regulation, enforcement, and industry action, and why 2026 must move decisively from research and recommendations to urgent execution. From mandatory reimbursement in...

In this powerful episode of Scam Rangers , Ayelet Biger-Levin sits down with scam psychology expert Martina Dove to dive deep into the psychology of scams.  Martina shares her insights on the psychological tactics used by scammers and the most effective methods for prevention and intervention. The conversation dives deep into the origins of Martina's research, which began with her interest in...

In this powerful episode of Scam Rangers , host Ayelet Biger-Levin speaks with Sarah Ralston, online safety expert, fraud investigator, and mother of five, about the hidden dangers lurking in online ads. We dive deep into how scam ads are hyper-targeted using the same ad tech that powers legitimate marketing, exploiting trust, grief, and even childhood curiosity. From cloaking techniques that evad...

In this fascinating episode of Scam Rangers , host Ayelet Biger-Levin interviews renowned scam investigator Jim Browning , whose YouTube channel has over 4.4 million subscribers. Jim has made headlines for infiltrating scam call centers, exposing how large-scale fraud operations really work—from pig butchering scams to telco account hijacking. We explore: How Jim first gained access to scammer com...