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00:00:01
Slam the Scam: Inside the SSA’s Fight Against Government Impersonation, A conversation with Rebecca Rose, Senior Public Affairs Officer Social Security Administration Office of the Inspector General
150 Plays2 days ago
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. Rebecca shares how government imposter scams work, why they continue to grow, and the patterns behind them, including the now well-known “4 P’s”: person, problem or prize, pressure, and payment.
We also explore the growing sophistication of scams, from long, multi-stage attacks designed to drain victims over time, to impersonation across social media and digital channels. Most importantly, we discuss the emotional and psychological toll scams leave behind, and why prevention, education, and awareness are more critical than ever.
This conversation highlights the mission behind Slam the Scam, a nationwide initiative to raise awareness and empower individuals to recognize scams before it’s too late.
Because by the time someone reaches the point of payment… the damage has often already begun.
🔗 Show Notes & Links
- Social Security Administration Scam Resource Page
https://www.ssa.gov/scams
(Learn how to recognize and report scams, and protect your identity) - Report a Scam to SSA OIG
https://oig.ssa.gov/report
(Report suspected Social Security-related scams) - Slam the Scam Day (SSA OIG Initiative)
https://oig.ssa.gov/scam
(National awareness campaign to combat scams) - FTC Scam Reporting & Data
https://reportfraud.ftc.gov
(Report scams and explore trends) - Identity Theft & Scam Resources
https://www.identitytheft.gov - AARP Fraud Watch Network
https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud
(Hotline and education resources mentioned in the episode)
Rebecca Rose: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebexrose/
About the Host
Ayelet Biger-Levin is the Founder and CEO of RangersAI and the host of Scam Rangers, a podcast exploring the human side of scams and the people working to protect consumers from financial and emotional harm.
Through her work at RangersAI and her leadership within the Global Anti-Scam Alliance, Ayelet partners with financial institutions, policymakers, and advocates to elevate scam prevention beyond controls and technology toward trust-based, customer-centric protection.
Be sure to follow her on LinkedIn and reach out to learn about her additional activities in this space:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ayelet-biger-levin/
RangersAI: https://www.rangersai.com/
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Transcript
Understanding Scam Dynamics
00:00:01
Speaker
There's four P's. So there's a person that's pretending to be from a government agency or Amazon or PayPal. Then they also say there's a problem or a prize. So they'll say, oh, there's something wrong with your social security number. It's been used in a crime. They'll say, oh, you want a cruise. We just need to verify so or something like that. And it's going to be something that you haven't heard of or you're not familiar with. It was very unexpected.
00:00:26
Speaker
So that that's the key there is that it's an unexpected problem or unexpected prize. And then also they're going to pressure you. That pressure that you mentioned is key, that escalation, because it elicits that psychological response in you. And like you said, you you weren't even giving your correct information. But it does give you that fear because, you know, most of us are, or I would say at least want to be law-abiding citizens and, you know want to do what we perceive as a government authority entity telling us, you know, that we did something wrong. We want to fix it, right? That's our instinct is to fix it. And it really does create this fear and this, you kind of, we call it getting lost in the ether. You get lost in the ether of the pressure and you almost lose like your logic and your senses. And then you know, they'll tell you to pay in a specific way. They'll say, we want, you know, gift cards, we want cryptocurrency, Venmo, PayPal.
00:01:20
Speaker
What you just heard isn't just a tactic, it's a system. That pattern of person, problem, pressure, and payment, that's not random. It's an engineered system designed to create urgency, trigger emotion, and override judgment in
Introducing 'Scam Rangers' Podcast
00:01:35
Speaker
seconds. In this episode, we break down the anatomy of modern scams from impersonation and social engineering to long, coordinated attacks that drain victims over time.
00:01:45
Speaker
And more importantly, we explore how awareness, education and timing can interrupt that pattern before it turns into loss.
00:01:56
Speaker
Welcome to Scam Rangers, a podcast about the human side of fraud and the people who are on a mission to protect us.
Role of SSA in Scam Prevention
00:02:03
Speaker
I'm your host, Ayelet Bigger Levine, and I'm passionate about driving awareness and solving this problem.
00:02:16
Speaker
Today's scam ranger is also a scam slammer. Rebecca Rose from Social Security Administration and yesterday they had Slam the Scam Day. So I'm really excited to have you on and share planning the day and your role in general with Social Security and Administration. So welcome Rebecca. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to talk about all of our Slam the Scam efforts. Great. So let's start with if you could share your role with the Social Security Administration, what you do, what your focus is throughout the year. And then we'll obviously focus on slam the scam date. But it's really year long effort. It's not about one day only. Absolutely. I live and breathe those. So I've been at the Social Administration Office of the Inspector General for the last four years. And I focus on putting out information to the public on how to spot and avoid being scammed. We mainly focus on Social Security-related government imposter scams, and we have our National Outreach Day, as you just mentioned.
Evolving Scam Techniques
00:03:14
Speaker
But we love to talk about how you can and protect yourself and your loved ones from scams every day. And yesterday was our seventh National Slam the Scam Day. It's an initiative that started in March 2020 to try to combat these Social Security-related... But, you know, we had to expand our focus because we noticed that the trends were staggering. Every year, the number of losses was increasing. You know, for example, in 2024, the losses to government imposter scams are around five hundred and seventy seven million dollars. And then last year, that number went up to seven hundred and thirty eight million dollars. And this is just government imposter scams. Wow. So we'll we'll definitely unpack that and what brought you know what the scope is and what you've done through the day. I did want to share my personal story real quick. So in 2015, I got the IRS scam. So not pretending to be social security initially, but I got a phone call. It was then robocalls were very, ah very, very proliferated. i would say that was the main avenue of scamming where it shifted significantly into text and email. But then I received this call. We have you know you owe taxes to the IRS and I click one to talk to our representative. And I knew it was a scam, but I've been you know in the industry for a long time. So I wanted to better understand how they act. So I clicked one to talk to the agent.
00:04:32
Speaker
ah Very, very heavy accent, but said a very, very American name. So that was really interesting. um And then he started with, and some of the listeners may have heard this story before, but I think it's really, really relevant to our conversation. So he started with, you owe some money.
00:04:47
Speaker
And he asked for my information. Of course, I gave a fake name, a fake address, not even in the state that I lived in at the time. um And then he said, oh, yes, I can see you owe us. I don't remember the amount of money and you need to pay to me. And I said, no, I i don't owe owe any money. we What happened was he escalated the the significance of what I owe um and the gravity of the situation very, very quickly from you all with some money to the police, the FBI is on their way to your house because you're you wanted for drug smuggling and money laundering. um And it was so scary that... My heart rate ratet went up, although I gave him fake information and I knew it was a scam. So I could just imagine the impact on individuals that are not familiar with these types of scams and don't know what's going on. So how have you seen the shift since 2015 to now in these impersonation scams, be it so Social Security or or other government authorities? Well, so I'll say and what you just described is pretty textbook. And as far as the scammers playbook goes, it's pretty textbook. As far as the scammers playbook goes, we do see different variations of the same scam, but we have noticed and I say we
Recent Scam Trends and Precautions
00:06:01
Speaker
as an FTC, all the the government entities that are involved in trying to prevent you know scammers from taking advantage of people. is that there's four Ps. So there's a person that's pretending to be from a government agency or Amazon or PayPal.
00:06:17
Speaker
Then they also say there's a problem or a prize. So they'll say, oh, there's something wrong with your social security number. It's been used in a crime. They'll say, oh, you want a cruise. We you just need to verify so or something like that. And it's going to be something that you haven't heard of or you're not familiar with. It was very unexpected.
00:06:33
Speaker
So that that's a key there is that it's an unexpected problem or unexpected prize. And then also they're going to pressure you. That pressure that you mentioned is key, that escalation, because it elicits that psychological response in you. And like you said, you you weren't even giving your correct information, but it does give you that fear. fear because, you know, most of us are, or I would say at least want to be law-abiding citizens and, you know, to what we perceive as a government authority entity telling us, you know, that we did something wrong. We want to fix it, right? That's our instinct is to fix it. And it really does create this fear and this you kind of we call it getting lost in the ether. You get lost in the ether of the pressure and you almost lose like your logic and your senses. And then you know, they'll tell you to pay in a specific way. They'll say we want, you know, gift cards. We want cryptocurrency, Venmo, PayPal. Cash in a box, gold bars, I mean, you name it, they will literally try any method to get you to pay that money. and And that pressure, I think, should be a huge red flag for people because the government's not going to threaten you. and They're not going to pressure you to pay immediately. They're going to give you a specific time frame. They're going to say, you know, you have to pay it by this specific date.
00:07:46
Speaker
Here's the the source where you're going to pay it. And it's going to be a legitimate, you know, government source. So there are a lot of ways you can you know take that step back, take that pause. And I'm glad that you knew and you didn't get scammed. I will say, unfortunately, i hear stories of the opposite nature where people are you know unfortunately falling victim to these scams.
00:08:05
Speaker
And we can talk a little bit more about this, but we do monitor the reports and the trends of what's happening so we can try to put out scam alerts proactively.
Reporting and Awareness Strategies
00:08:13
Speaker
There's one that I just put out and it was about um download your social security tax statement. And it's not from social security administration. And we warn people, you know, don't click the link. We tell them type, don't tap. That way, you know, go to your trusted source, go to your My Social Security account. And if you don't have a My Social Security account, you should absolutely set one up because you can track all the transactions there. And it can really help you lock in your identity and prevent other people from changing your address, doing any other weird things like that.
00:08:42
Speaker
That's really interesting. So my dad just received an email like that. And it honestly, he sent it to me to ask, which is great. And it looks legitimate. And I i honestly believe that it's legitimate. I looked at the domain. I looked at the url They look legitimate. I hovered over the link to make sure it's really the link. But I still told him, don't just, you know, if you're interested, in seeing the statement, then go in directly to the website. Don't click the link because it's and it's honestly because I had a conversation with you a few weeks ago. It was fresh in my mind. It sounded so familiar. And this question and suddenly he got this email. So that was really, really interesting that it happened when a few weeks between our our conversations. But i think that's great advice. Generally, don't click the link. Verify. So we're dealing, I think, you know, with this new era in the past, it was mostly IRS and now Social Security. What other types of stories besides, you know, you walked us through the common steps of the script. But what what have you seen that's different in the last few months or a few years that you want to call out specifically that you think is a little different from what you've seen as a common pattern or trend in the past?
00:09:51
Speaker
Yeah, so recently there have been um what we call long cons and they are compounded scams and they are frightening because they are designed drain somebody of all of their assets. I mean, they they could be it could be a romance scam, it could be social security, but the way it usually starts out is something seemingly minor. So, you know, yeah there's something wrong with your Amazon or your PayPal. So I need to log on your computer. I need to take a look. And then while this supposed tech support person is looking in your computer, they say, oh, I came across your social security record and there's something wrong with it. And then now, you know, they're funneling in to your identity. They get your bank accounts and it just all spirals from there. So that is something that we're seeing. And we do see tactics where scammers will try to use fake credentials. They'll try to use the name of an employee to try to legitimize themselves and seem, you know, that they're an official with the government when they're not. And that is something else that Social Security or any other federal agency, they will not do. They will not send you credentials. They will not send you documents or anything like that to try to legitimize who they are. So be wary if you see that happening. and there's another ah a scam, and I'll be putting out a scam alert later ah next week about this, where businesses are charging people to replace their Social so Security cards, which is a service that Social so Security provides for free. And this is particularly concerning because you say, OK, well, I'm going to pay $65 to get this car. It'll be expedited. you know And you think, oh, what a convenience. Well, no, it's actually not a convenience because now they have all of your personal information, including your social security number. So not only did you potentially pay for something that you may never get, but now they also have your identity information. So definitely be wary of providing any personal information to anybody on the Internet.
Community Outreach and Education
00:11:42
Speaker
And then the third, i would say another, I mean, there's so many, but the the ones that really stick out to me, there's one on social media that's happening too. So if you're on, let's say you're on Social Security Administration's official social media channels, you say, I'm trying to get help with, you know, something for Social Security. You have a legitimate need for help. You post it.
00:12:01
Speaker
People who are pretending to be from the Social Security Administration will message you. They're like, hey, Sarah, I'm Tom. I'm with Social Security. Let me DM you. i can help you. That is something that they will never do. You have to go official channels and you will not be contacted by somebody on social media who is from SSA. And I bet if you go into their profile on social media, it will look like SSA because they change it and adjust it and they actually will copy. That also happened to me, but not with Social Security. It happened to be with a um an airline company where we had posted something online about flight cancellation. And someone reached out to me and I almost essentially at some point asked for Bitcoin to verify my Bitcoin details, even not for money yet. That was just so weird. Yeah, it is weird. And and I looked at the profile and it it looked legitimate. It looked like this person has copied a lot of content from the airline social media. And so they really work hard to make it look legitimate. And they're very targeted at a certain agency or a certain ah to build rapport with the consumer when when interacting.
00:13:09
Speaker
So I wanted to shift and talk about Slam the Scam Day um and also kind of maybe before that talk about, first of all, the goals for Slam the Scam Day. What are you looking to achieve? And then I wanted to talk a little bit about the work that went into it. um Of course, you it you know builds up to this every year, but this is a year long process of really getting prepped for it and getting the word out there. And I also want to touch at the end about financial institutions, where which are typically our listeners are mostly financial institution fraud community and untying it into that. But let's let's leave that to the end. So walk me through the goals for Slam the Scam Day and work into it. And then let's talk about what happened yesterday.
00:13:52
Speaker
Absolutely. So, you know, our main goal with Slam the Scam Day is to raise the public's awareness. And I think most people have either seen a scam or know someone who has been a victim of a scam. And unfortunately, you know, scam Scams are a pervasive part of everyday life. You know, people have, I would call it scam fatigue. They're just like, oh, right, another scam. But we have to be you know diligent. We can't give up.
00:14:17
Speaker
Scammers are constantly changing their tactics, as you mentioned. And especially with AI and the new technologies that are coming out, it makes it easier for them to copy logos, images, create fake credentials, create fake documents. I mean, it's really gotten very, very sophisticated. And as you mentioned before, you know, it's hard for people to tell.
00:14:38
Speaker
So what I would love for people to take away from National Slam and Scam day is, you know, pay attention to those four Ps, learn how to protect yourself and your loved ones, take that pause, you know, stay calm. Don't give anybody money or personal information if you feel threatened or pressured.
00:14:55
Speaker
You know, ignore those messages and then also report them. i think people feel like they're throwing the reporting into the void, but it actually does help us. As I mentioned earlier, we do look at every single allegation and we do try to investigate what information we're given. So if people know a phone number that's calling you and you suspect it's a scam, send that to us through our um reporting portal, which is on oig.ssa.gov slash report. short And just don't be embarrassed either if you you're like, hey, I, you know, I was taken in by the scam because it does happen. It is unfortunately very common because they do seem very legitimate in some instances. So we tell people, you know don't be embarrassed, you know, protect yourself, protect your loved ones, take that pause and report. And we put out scam alerts all the time. So if people are interested, you know, sign up for the scam alerts.
00:15:47
Speaker
And the best thing that we can do is, you know, take care of our people in our communities, tell other people. i you know, I I'm a little of embarrassed kind of to admit this, but, you know, when people ask me what I do. I tell them, you know, very excitedly, very passionately, because I do feel very passionate about this. But I'm just like, man, you know, people, they've heard so much about scams, you they're over it. They don't want to hear it anymore. That is not true. It is such an information-rich environment. And I am constantly surprised by how many people are, you know, telling me, oh, I didn't know that, or I didn't realize, or... oh, I saw that scam and I was a little suspicious, but I you know i wasn't sure. and so I feel that it it's just something that we have to be a broken record about. We have to keep repeating. We have to share the messaging. And I try to get the message out in as many ways as possible. I mean, we're um doing digital, we're doing print, we do
00:16:42
Speaker
have flyers in the library and post offices. We go to community centers. We partner with Walmart, CVS. I mean, we really try to leave no stone unturned in our messaging. And we would love to hear from any of your audience or listeners if they have ideas on places. and We probably have done outreach to them. But if there are communities where they feel particularly that are not getting enough attention, we'd love to hear that. We have other special initiatives where we reach out to you know veterans because they are one of the most targeted communities that we see. And we would love to partner with some financial institutions to try to help out you know service members to make sure that they're not taken advantage of.
00:17:21
Speaker
And the other thing I'd say, um scamming is affecting our you know younger population a lot more as we're seeing in the data. And we have to talk kids, our friends' kids, everybody. And we've even started an initiative on that too around back to school time because teens have you know cell phone technology and they need to know that these scams exist and that they need to be wary if somebody is asking them for money.
00:17:48
Speaker
It's just it's something that we just can't let up on. We have to, you know, keep spreading the word. And, you know, we we were growing up. It was the knowledge is power. Right. I think that's still true. You have to tell everyone and not be, you know, like, oh, yeah, it's just the same old story because it does change every day. I see a new scab.
Technology's Role in Scam Prevention
00:18:08
Speaker
So I think that's a good point and a good question to follow up on that. um To those who are worried about education fatigue, um and I can attest to my own kids saying, oh, mom, stop it already. Like, we don't want to hear about it anymore. That's all you talk about. So what do we do with that? um and And again, thinking about financial institutions continually send out alerts to their customers, some read the email, some don't. Have you found any effective ways in communicating these alerts and best practices to the population? and and
00:18:42
Speaker
you know, what have you found more effective than other things? Yeah, I would say, um well, I think consistency and messaging has been really key for us. And, you know, keeping on top of what the latest scams are, or the scam trends, having all of that data and monitoring where we're able to say, here's what we're seeing. I think that, you know, helps keep people ah informed and it you know, not only does it keep them up to date, but then it's OK, here's a scam. Try to avoid, you know, this scam, but also, you know, look out for this scam. And I do think that um our community partnerships have really helped a lot and partnering with other, you know, federal and state law enforcement agencies as well has helped. And I mentioned, you know, our partnership with the post office. We, you know, partnered with so many people, Veterans Affairs. I mean, we
00:19:30
Speaker
really do extensive outreach. FTC is the leader for all things scams in the government. And we work very closely with them. Just yesterday, I was on a roundtable talking about how to protect you know older adults. And it was a lot of financial institutions and people who work for them on that call.
00:19:48
Speaker
And they had these similar questions. you know How do we talk to them, especially when they think that the person that they're talking to um is real and they're not and they're being taken advantage of And I will say that AARP had fantastic resources. They said that they have a a fraud watch hotline that people can call. or we're going to have them on the podcast very soon, too. Yes. Oh, my God. I hope you talk to Liz if if that's who you're talking to, because she was on this call yesterday and she had such great tips and she said compassion.
00:20:18
Speaker
and You know, coming from a place of concern and compassion in any situation will really help you. And, you know, it's not about blaming because we want people to come to us. We want them to, you know, tell us what happened. And, you know, again, not to be embarrassed. I think that messaging has really helped. And we're also putting stuff out, you know, again, on every single channel, TV, social media, social And with the scam alerts in the you know emerging trend stuff, I would definitely recommend that financial institutions subscribe to get our scam alerts so they can see real time. And we try to put those out within a week of you know seeing this trend.
00:20:55
Speaker
um And we have a whole team, internal team that works and they um work on not only ai and emerging technology, but they also monitor all of this, the scam reports. I mean, we have a very, it's a small team, but we have them looking at this all day, every day, 24 seven. And we're, you know, really trying to be extremely proactive. And then um we're going to be putting out scam alerts also regularly because we have noticed certain trends throughout the year, you know, right now is tax scams, right?
00:21:23
Speaker
Around the holidays, it's gift card scams. Then I mentioned back to school. There's back to school scams. There's even scams related to jobs, job offers where they say, hey, you got to send us $2,000 to get your computer set up, which that should definitely raise anyone's red flag. You should not be paying to work for a company that maybe says that there may be not a reputable company to begin with. um But as far as, you know, the financial institutions go, another one of our partners is the Noble Network. I'm not sure if you're familiar with them. Absolutely. A lot of outreach as well. And I think a lot of it is just, you know, coming together, like putting all of our resources together and trying to figure out, you know, how can we get into spaces that we haven't been or we can see that, hey, we're not reaching. Like I mentioned, the veterans community. We have a very difficult time reaching out to them despite, you know, our best efforts. But you know what? We keep trying. We keep pushing. We forge new partnerships.
00:22:19
Speaker
And, you know, we hope every year that we can reach just one more person.
00:22:26
Speaker
In an active scam situation, by the time someone reaches a point of payment, they often cannot stop. They're not making a rational decision anymore. They're in the middle of emotional manipulation.
00:22:38
Speaker
Fear, urgency, and trust take over. And even when a bank steps in, many customers will still go through with the transaction.
Economic and Emotional Impact of Scams
00:22:46
Speaker
That is why traditional friction at the point of payment is not effective. Scams do not start at the payment. They start much earlier, in the moment a message is received and the manipulation begins. At Rangers AI, we help financial institutions stop scams at that moment.
00:23:03
Speaker
We give customers real-time tools to recognize and verify suspicious messages before they are manipulated. And now we are working with banks and credit unions on focused micro pilots to protect customers and reduce scam losses quickly. If you're interested in learning more, reach out to us at info at scamranger.ai.
00:23:26
Speaker
So yesterday, I think you shared already that you had the conversation with the FTC and financial institutions participated as well. So let's talk about other activities through Slam the Scam Day, March 5th.
00:23:38
Speaker
Yeah, Slam the Scam Day. It's I always say it's it is one day a year technically, but it's every day for me. And I i live and breathe this. ah But yesterday we had um this roundtable with the the older adults that i mentioned with the financial institutions. I also had several TV interviews in different um outlets. I recorded a podcast previously that aired yesterday with the identitytheft.org, which is an organization that you know is focused on protecting um your identity.
00:24:08
Speaker
And we talked a lot about you know the different tactics and and things like that. And I would say, you know, yesterday, particularly, it's an interesting day because it's a day when we not only highlight all the efforts that we're doing, but we urge people again to tell their friends, their loved ones, share the message far and wide. We even um had the Senate put forward a resolution officially declaring yesterday's Slam the Scam Day. And that's something that we hope is going to get passed unanimously today. it usually does get unanimously passed.
00:24:39
Speaker
I think that it's ah kind of hard to say that there's anything wrong with fighting scams. I think it's something that we can all agree is something very important that we must work together to fight.
00:24:50
Speaker
And, you know, not to go down this rabbit hole too far, but it's a $12 billion dollars problem. And that's, I'm being conservative in that estimate. And that's, you know, scams as a whole. So we're talking about, you know, corporations and other entities, not just government imposter scams. And that's an alarming problem, I would say, for the American economy as a whole. like We should all be concerned because it is massive.
00:25:13
Speaker
Yeah. And I would say, you know, we we at the 12 billion dollars is the reported losses, but it's not necessarily actually the size of the problem. Right. Is that the FTC? That's the FBI number? Yeah, that's the FTC.gov number. FTC number. So that is the reported to the FTC and maybe combined data. But I think there's um an assessment of maybe um I think they estimated $195 billion in one of the elder fraud reports extrapolated but because the of the assumption that it's completely underreported. So what's driving this growth in scale? And it's much larger than the number reported in previous years, too. Right. Oh, yeah. Every year, the number we see, the number it goes up every single year.
00:25:58
Speaker
and And that's why I was saying, you know, it's our seventh year. We can't let up. We got to keep, you know, staying on top of this and pushing the the education aspect. And I would say that number, that 12 billion that we were talking about, that's 2024's number because the FTC hasn't even put out the the numbers yet. Yeah, yeah so so we're not even talking about, you know, the current figure. And I do think that it's underreported. I think that people feel a little bit of shame and embarrassment that they, you know, but got taken in by a scam. But it again, it's so important to have these conversations, to have this dialogue. And, you know, we're seeing also scams where people are having, we call it the grandparent scam, but it could really be any relative where they're getting calls or texts from a person that they know that's in trouble in another country Or, you know, there's just so many variations of this. And it's just really something that we have got to continue, you know, to to be aware of, to like tell people, here's what we're seeing. Here's what's going on. i just can't stress that enough. Right. And so congratulations for for Slam the Scam Day and all the activity. And again, i know that this is every work all building up to that moment in time. And then now we're ready for next year's Slam the Scam Day prep. I wanted to stop and talk about the emotional toll of scams for a little bit. I think it's really under discussed. And this is a crime that is from a financial perspective, crameless. You know, it's very, very severe. It's stealing generational wealth from individuals in Western countries, going to national crime organizations abroad.
00:27:37
Speaker
And yet, even those who are not victims of scams in the financial manner, meaning they some point stopped from transacting or their financial institutions stopped and they still suffer that emotional impact of, oops, I almost did this. And definitely those who who went through the whole process. So I wanted to talk about that for a second. and What are you seeing in terms of the emotional impact, fear, shame around that?
Prevention Through Education
00:28:05
Speaker
The emotional and psychological toll is massive. And I think that that's something that is not discussed. You know, we talk about financial losses. We were just talking about that huge, you know, billion dollar figure of economic losses. But people are afraid to pick up their phone. You know, they don't.
00:28:22
Speaker
There's this distrust of your caller ID, which is, i would say, healthy. It's a healthy skepticism. But, you know, if you're somebody who, you know, gets calls, let's say you're dealing with a medical issue or you have something going on where you would get calls, right? You might be missing out on important calls, important information because you're terrified that, you know, someone's trying to take advantage of you. So there is that real psychological fear and not being able to trust what you're seeing and not you know trusting your caller And would say to tell people that that fear is very normal and feeling you know if you did lose money that it's very normal to feel embarrassed, but not to be afraid to talk about it and take it as a ah lesson, right? And then focus on not getting scammed. Focus on what you can do to protect yourself. Focus on the things that are within your control. And again, I'm sure I sound like a broken record, but I have to say, you know, education is really key here. Knowledge is really key. We used to have this agent that worked for us and he would say, we're not going to prosecute our way out of this. This is something that is all prevention focused. And that we have had successes. SSA OIG is fortunate in that regard that we have actually been able to successfully prosecute and get some of the money back. But that I say some because it's very hard to recover the money once it's gone. And if you think about it, the way the judiciary system works, it takes a really long time. So we need people to have these open and honest discussions with their friends, their family, and in just communities in general and and talk about it and not, you know, let it be something that keeps us, you know, in fear. Let's take some empowerment. Let's take the steps to protect ourselves, protect our identities. I think that it's easy to feel overwhelmed, to feel afraid, to you know feel very emotionally vulnerable. But there are lots of things that you can do. We have a fantastic joint resource page. It's ssa.gov slash scams. It talks about all the different tactics. It talks about you know ways to protect yourself.
00:30:24
Speaker
I mean, there's just a lot of really good information. And I would tell people... You know, take a look at that page. Get involved, too. You know, there are ways to get involved in your community, to get involved in Slam the Scam. And I think that really does help sort of alleviate the the psychological, emotional toll.
00:30:41
Speaker
What is one thing financial institutions do today that unintentionally adds shame to the process and how can they fix it? One thing that I could say is that I would encourage financial institutions to you know partner with SSA. And we have seen a huge increase in the number of financial institutions that are increasing their scam messaging. So I track The financial institutions that I i work with or I have ah you know accounts of personal vested interest in and I've seen usaa has done a really great job. So I had been trying to find really good, shining examples of what they should be doing. So that way we can share that broadly and say, here's an example of what financial institutions can do and should be doing. Same Capital One. um There's a lot I have thankfully seen. I mean, we have, again, it's our seventh year. In the beginning, we felt like being so hard to get other entities to adopt this, you know, scam, anti-scam messaging. And now we're kind of seeing it everywhere. And I i would love to see it, you know, everywhere I look, there's anti-scam message. You know, Walmart has it on their registers where it says, if somebody is asking you to pay with gift cards, like you might be getting scammed. And saw that and I was said, oh, my gosh, like our efforts are are working, you know, that it's not, you know, it's not futile. Like things are happening. Progress is being
AI and Future Scam Strategies
00:32:03
Speaker
made. But I would say try to have these institutions be proactive. You know, I would think that they would want to focus on protecting their, you know, consumers, their clients, customers, and making sure that the money is staying in their account.
00:32:19
Speaker
And i I remember I was at ah a dinner party and I met this woman who worked for Bank of America. and she told me she was, i want to say a disbursement officer something like that, but she had a regular customer and she noticed that they were asking to send $50,000 in a wire transfer and it raised her red flags. And she said, Hey, you know, what is this for? i hope you don't mind me asking, but this just seems like an unusual amount. You know, where are you, so you where are you sending this money? And She asked the right questions and she prevented this customer from being scammed out of $50,000. It turns out this customer who was a little older was being scammed by somebody on the phone and was saying, oh, I need you to send me this money and do this and do that. And all the scam tactics were there. And she stopped and she asked herself, you know like, do evolve? Do I say something? And I would hope that the answer will always be yes. That would be my one thing to say to you know, financial institutions. Let the answer always be yes, that you should ask the questions. You should get involved because at the end of the day, you're protecting your customers. You're doing what's in their best interest. And I think that should be at the core of this.
00:33:28
Speaker
100%. Yeah. And I've i've heard a number of stories where financial advisors or people at financial institutions who are in charge of helping the money movement in some um payment rails or so some channels are really the ones who are the last line of defense here. So ah definitely important to educate the staff, educate. And I'm sure most financial institutions today are doing that, but there's all always more that can be done. Absolutely.
00:33:55
Speaker
So I wanted to ask you about something really interesting. And so your office is standing up an interagency task force and exploring ai fraud issues. And we've definitely seen change where criminals are leveraging AI. We see deep fakes. So what are you most concerned about in the next 12 24 months? And, you know, what is this team focused on?
00:34:17
Speaker
Yeah, this team is fantastic. They are on the cutting edge of what emerging trends are happening in ai And part of it is ah we as a government agency and in government as a whole is really focused on how to leverage AI to help prevent people from being scammed. And how can we use that technology for the good, for the better, right? And um we've we've also used it in different ways. AI has been used in helping service at SSA. It's being used um with SSA OIG for the reporting and the reports hotline. And we're seeing that there is a significant improvement, not only in service there, but you know we're also able to understand this technology and again, how to implement And they're always looking at these trends and and trying to figure out you know what can we do. and I think something that concerns me about AI as a whole on the other side of the coin is just that it has made um scams more sophisticated and it's really hard to differentiate a scam now where before it was a little bit easier because, you know, the images maybe didn't look quite right. But because of AI, you have deep fakes, you have, you know, documents that look legitimate and all these different technologies have just gotten so great and so incredible that, you know, people are having a hard time. i would say on the internet as a whole differentiating is this AI is this real and so there's a lot of you know questioning our reality and questioning you know what is legitimate what's not legitimate and I think that that's what that AI task force is really focused on is you know trying to help people moving forward
00:35:55
Speaker
and distinguishing. So it's it's a two full it's like two sides of the same coin, right? We're we're trying to leverage ai to make improvements in customer service and, you know, stay up with technology, which is something that I will say, you know, the government as a whole really does struggle with, but they're working on it. So I hope that's reassuring to the public that it is being worked on. It's being addressed.
00:36:16
Speaker
And this AI working group, I mean, they're doing really great things. Like I said, we're already seeing the improvements in customer service and in scams reporting. And we just hope that that will continue to improve and that we'll be able to eventually stop. I mean, that would be my dream, right? If I could wave my magic wand, it would be to just use AI to stop scammers first from taking advantage of people. So I hope to see. I might have a product that can help with that. Yeah, I was going to say we have to have more conversations with people like yourself to try to figure out, you know, how to get the right, you know, people together and have the conversation. That's one of the the greatest challenges um with government as a whole. And I've been in government for almost 20 years now. so I've seen it and, you know, it is getting a lot better. We are really working hard to try to break down those silos and share information and get it, you know, so so we're all having the same conversations together. and pooling our resources. So that I will say it makes me very hopeful that we have this AI work group because they are pooling the resources and talking and trying to figure it out together.
00:37:22
Speaker
So actually, you kind of started to answer my closing question that I always ask the scam rangers who join the podcast. So zooming out. So definitely the AI working group is one piece of it. But zooming out a little bit with everything you know you see on your in your day to day in terms of our future. We talked about the fact that this number of financial impact is growing year over year. What are you hopeful about in our ability as a, you know, the side of good trying to prevent, stop, educate our way out of this? You know, I think it's really a we need to look at the scam lifecycle and and put controls at every point in time. But I agree it all starts with education. What are you hopeful about in us being able to bend the curve and see a reduction in the impact of scams in the next few years?
00:38:10
Speaker
I am hopeful that we will be able to reach as many people as possible and that, you know, we will all as a community, as the, you know, just a people, right, be able to come together and realize what a big problem this is. And I i hope that one day, you know, I talk to somebody and they tell me, oh yeah, I saw your scam alert or I heard about that scam and I didn't get scammed, right? That's my my goal is to you know hear fewer of these scam stories, to hear you know less of this happening, less of people being taken advantage of.
00:38:44
Speaker
And hopefully that you know we're able to make it easy for people to understand the scams. We try to communicate in a way that is really approachable, conversational, and not very government-like on purpose because we want, you know, people to understand that. So I hope that trend continues. I hope that we continue to promote and tell people about, you know, Slam the Scam Day and what we're doing.
00:39:07
Speaker
And we do, ah last i think it was last year, i did some very fun skits on, you know, scams to try to illustrate, you know, what a scam could look like. And it was somebody, one of my colleagues asking, hey, I got this letter. It told me that I needed to, you know, click this link to get my cost of living adjustment.
00:39:25
Speaker
And I'm like, oh, no, don't, you know, don't do that. So I think if we could get people to bring some, you know, i don't want to call it the entertainment factor, but I do think that social media people's attention spans have gotten a lot shorter and that we need to make it engaging and interesting content and it reflects real world examples. I think that's what we need to keep doing going forward. And I'm hopeful that that messaging will, you know, reach people and we will or of scams. And if not, you know, the number of scams at least reduce the dollar losses. I think that's something that, you know, we would like to see and,
00:40:00
Speaker
SSA has been the number one government imposter scam for the last five years, with the exception of last year, where the tolls DMV scams dethroned us. And that, you know, that's something that everybody that had a record breaking year in 2025, for sure. Yeah. And so I hope to never see any scams like that again. and ah that was i even I was questioning myself going, wait, because I have an easy pass, you know, and I'm like, but why is my easy? but The first thing I said to myself is, why is my easy pass not working? Let me go look at that account. Let me log in to my account from my, you know, source. And good yeah, never click the link. I mean, that's
00:40:39
Speaker
Yeah. Unfortunately, a lot of people that I yeah even personally met, quite a few people who paid that the toll, quote unquote, paid, gave you their personal information and didn't know that that was a scam until we talked about it. So, yeah, it's more than once. And that was a sneaky one. um But yeah, definitely, hopefully we can bend that with education awareness. And, you know, to their point about skits and from the beginning of time, stories are how we pass knowledge on that sticks. So definitely that's the best way to do that.
00:41:09
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we are even looking at my typically is looking at how to tell these stories in a really interesting way so that people care and then want to share the information. Because I think that's important, too, you know, is we only have a few seconds to grab someone's attention in this, you know, economy of content. Right. And we've got to be able to tell that story quickly and why it matters and the impact. So I think I just want to keep making sure that that resonates people.
00:41:43
Speaker
Well, I wanted to thank you so much for joining the podcast, for sharing your goals and everything that happened yesterday. And thank you so much for your time. And I'm really looking forward to, you know, having hearing stories about how financial institutions reached out to collaborate with you and to get more partnerships going. And good luck with everything that you're working on. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.