The Perfect Scam

After a long day as a school bus driver, Nate checks his voicemail and finds a message from "AT&T" offering a discounted rate and a new phone. He has been a loyal customer and is looking for ways to lower his expenses, so he calls them back. The agent already knows all of Nate's information and walks him through the process of picking out his new phone on the AT&T app. When the phone arrives, Nate...

In part 2, nearly a decade after Pat received the first phone call from a woman believing to be in a relationship with him, he continues to receive regular cards, gifts, calls and visits from scam victims. Criminals have hijacked the pilot's identity to facilitate hundreds of romance scams, turning Pat's life upside down in the process. Around this time, a police detective in South Carolina begins...

When Pam decides it's time to find love again, she signs up for a dating site and soon meets "Pat." He's charming and very kind; they hit it off right away. "Pat" works overseas and can't tell Pam much about his high-security job, but when he needs help getting back into the country, she lends him $20,000. This all sounds very suspicious to Pam's son-in-law, who does some digging and tracks down a...

Beloved Vermont children's entertainer-turned-filmmaker Mac Parker has been raising funds for his film Birth of Innocence for nearly a decade. The film has yet to be completed, and what investors were promised — a three-year, $1 million project — has ballooned in both time and cost. When the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation steps in to investigate irregularities in Mac's fundraising prac...

Malcom "Mac" Parker aspires to be a filmmaker. In Vermont, Mac is known as a beloved children's entertainer, appearing on public television and performing around the state. Mac is so well respected in his community that when he begins to raise funds for his film Birth of Innocence , investors are quick to jump on board. His promises of high returns and a chance to be a part of the film industry sw...

Bill and Allison are devoted to their dogs, so when they discover their 11-year-old beagle mix Archer missing one evening, they are distraught. They spend hours searching the neighborhood and start putting out alerts online, including their contact information and photos of Archer. Then a late-night call comes in from someone claiming to be from a veterinarian's office. Archer has been hit by a ca...

After escaping the Palisades fire in January of 2025, Ellen doesn't know if she and her husband Steve will have a home to return to. Miraculously, their house is still standing, but it needs extensive cleaning and repairs. They move into an apartment and begin working with insurance and contractors. In March, Steve is diagnosed with cancer and passes away just a few months later. Displaced, stress...

Fed up with the rising cost of electricity, Steve shops around and switches to a new provider in his Boston neighborhood. The process is simple, and Steve thinks the matter is settled until a week later, when he receives a call from his previous provider claiming he is in danger of having his electricity cut off. Steve initially dismisses it as a scam, but the caller seems to know all about his re...

Jeanette moves back to Vermont, expecting a peaceful retirement in a beloved community, but a tech support scam upends her life. She reaches out to her local police, who advise her to report the incident to the FBI. Now faced with an empty bank account, Jeanette starts making drastic changes to her lifestyle. She unplugs appliances to save on electricity and sets her thermostat to 58 degrees throu...

In this bonus episode, Bob meets some Fraud Fighters working to make their Nebraska community a little bit safer from scammers. When Omaha passes a city ordinance requiring all crypto kiosks to display a scam warning, local law enforcement teams up with AARP volunteers to ensure that every kiosk in the county has the necessary sticker. Along the way, they hear fraud stories and learn how looking o...

Dr. Maurice Sholas, a pediatric rehabilitation specialist based in New Orleans, discovers that his likeness is being used in an ad when a friend sends him a TikTok clip that looks convincingly like him. It's an AI-generated version of him selling vitamin supplements, something he has never done. Feeling violated, Sholas must now defend his reputation, and attempt to protect potential victims from...

After taking a break from her tech career to care for her aging mother, Dawn is reentering the workforce in her mid-50s, and she isn't having much luck. She takes a chance on an offer for a new kind of job at "Facebook." Guided by a "mentor" through an onboarding process, she learns that her new role involves placing Facebook ads as part of an AI testing initiative. Dawn will have a digital wallet...

It's tax time, and that means it's also tax scam season. The Federal Trade Commission warns about a recent surge in fake IRS calls to taxpayers. Personal finance columnist Michelle Singletary joins host Bob Sullivan to discuss how AI might be supercharging these age-old scams, how recent changes in the way the federal government issues refunds could create new opportunities for scammers, and some...

When Anola returns home from a picture-perfect trip to France, she finds an unexpected flirtation with a man who reaches out to her on LinkedIn. He showers her with love and attention, and over time, he steals thousands from her.  When she discovers the deception, Anola reaches out to the real man behind the photo the scammer used, drawing her into a second betrayal. Criminals have figured out how...

Richy and Terri send a check to their son and daughter-in-law for their anniversary, but it never arrives. After a tough year of medical issues and the death of a close friend, they open a bank statement to see that their account is $10,000 short. They learn that a criminal has stolen their check from the mail, "washed" it, and fraudulently cashed it for big bucks. This sends the couple on a month...

When Brian receives an email from "PayPal," he thinks it must be the refund he's been waiting for, but he is instead drawn into a scam that has him running all over town feeding money into crypto kiosks and exchanging cash for gold coins to hand off to a courier. Brian soon grows suspicious, but he resists the urge to confront the criminals and goes directly to the police. Brian helps detectives s...

Patricia is enjoying a quiet night babysitting when she discovers that her phone has no service. When she switches to Wi-Fi, a sudden barrage of notifications shows that someone is moving money out of her accounts. This sets Patricia off on a race against time to save her assets from criminals who are even cashing out her stocks. Bob talks with Rachel Tobac, CEO of SocialProof Security, about prac...

Eric's day-to-day interactions at the gas station where he works have taught him to recognize when something isn't quite right with one of his customers. He's also aware that the crypto kiosk in the store is a tool that is used by criminals to steal money from fearful victims. So one day when Ellen enters the store, talking on her cellphone while frantically looking for the store's crypto kiosk, E...

Joyce is a retired teacher who works part-time with special needs kids. She's recently divorced after a long marriage, facing a cancer scare, and acting as the primary caregiver for her 96-year-old mother. With all of this weighing on her, she becomes the target of a tech support scam. Over months of instilling fear, the criminals steal more than $1 million from her retirement savings. Kathy Stoke...

Josh loves his job as a full-time novelist, but writing and working from home don't give him many opportunities to meet people. So he decides to try a dating site and connects with a woman named Hannah. After months of conversation and growing closer, Hannah tells Josh about her cryptocurrency investments and encourages him to invest as well. Over time, he puts in more than $100,000 and watches hi...

When Manny,   an Air Force veteran living in Las Vegas, loses his wife of 62 years, he turns to playing Publishers Clearing House online games to help ease his loneliness. He is thrilled when, one day, he receives a call from Publishers Clearing House informing him that he has won a $7.5 million prize. Manny dreams of finally replacing his old water heater, fixing up his house, and leaving a subst...

David is a retiree who remains active in his Florida community, but he would like to have someone to share his life with. When an Indiana woman named Bonnie strikes up a friendship with David on Facebook, he is delighted but cautious. A video call is reassuring, and their relationship deepens over several months. They make plans to move in together after Bonnie completes a large interior design jo...

Employment scams are one of the fastest growing types of fraud. The recent surge can be traced to several post-pandemic factors that make these crimes even easier for criminals. In this episode, we will hear from a job seeker and an employer who've both been affected, as well as an expert who shares the red flags job seekers should be on the alert for.

Have you ever thought about who might be on the other end of those scam calls and messages we all receive? The answer could be far more sinister than you might imagine. The "scammer" may also be a victim of human trafficking. These people are lured by the promise of well-paid jobs to travel to countries in Southeast Asia and are then forced to work in prison-like scam compounds. A BBC journalist a...

Remote work, which was a necessity for many during the pandemic, is now commonplace. While it's hard to beat the commute, criminals are paying close attention to this trend too. In this episode, a recent MBA graduate lands what feels like her dream job at a start-up that advocates for women's empowerment. The company culture is great and the job is interesting. But when her paychecks never show up...