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Hearts Exposed: Navigating the Boundaries of Free Speech and Scam Crimes, with Kathy Waters, Executive Director and Co-Founder, Advocating Against Romance Scammers
461 Plays1 year ago
In this episode of Scam Rangers, we delve into the troubling world of romance scams and identity theft victims. Our guest, Kathy Waters, shares her insights into these scams and her advocacy work in supporting victims while pushing for regulatory changes on online platforms.
Key Takeaways:
1. Deception in Romance Scams: Kathy explains how scammers use stolen identities to create elaborate love stories, often set in distant locations, to manipulate and deceive their victims.
2. Kathy's Journey: Learn about Kathy's personal journey and what led her to become an advocate against scammers and a staunch supporter of victims.
3. Advocating for Change: Kathy and her team are actively working with lawmakers to change regulations and policies in the US governing online platforms to enhance user safety and protect vulnerable individuals from scams.
Explore the hidden world of romance scams, discover the resilience of identity theft victims, and understand Advocating Against Romance Scammer's unwavering commitment to exposing wrongdoers and creating safer digital spaces. Join us for a thought-provoking journey only on Scam Rangers.
Resources:
Advocating Against Romance Scammers: https://advocatingforu.com/ The petition can be found on the website.
World Romance Scam Awareness Day: https://protectingheartsday.com/
This podcast is hosted by Ayelet Biger-Levin who spent the last 15 years building technology to help financial institutions authenticate their customers and identify fraud. She believes that when it comes to scams, the story starts well before the transaction. She has created this podcast to talk about the human side of scams, and to learn from people who have decided to dedicate their lives to speaking up on behalf of scam victims and who take action to solve this problem. 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/ Also check out https://scamranger.ai if you had received a message that you suspect is a scam
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Transcript
Introduction to Online Safety Legislation
00:00:00
Speaker
A couple of days ago, the UK government announced that the online safety bill passed its final parliamentary debate and is now ready to become law.
00:00:09
Speaker
The primary focus is online safety for children with age-appropriate content. In addition, under this bill, there are laws to tackle online fraud and violence against women and girls. The biggest social media platforms will have to stop users from being exposed to dangerous fraudulent advertisements by blocking and removing scams, or they will face very significant fines.
00:00:33
Speaker
I'm wondering if we will see a day where such laws to protect us against scams are passed in the US.
Advocacy Against Romance Scams
00:00:41
Speaker
Today's guest is attempting to drive change in the US to reduce the impact of online scams and in particular romance scams from social media platforms.
00:00:55
Speaker
Scam Rangers, a podcast about the human side of fraud and the people who are on a mission to protect us. I am your host, Ayaedet Bigger Levine, and I'm passionate about driving awareness and solving this problem.
00:01:14
Speaker
Today's scam ranger is an advocate against Roman scammers. She will share her story of how she became an advocate. But one part of the story I wanted to highlight, we often talk about victims of scams, but in this story, there is a new type of victim. The person whose photos are misused to lure scam victims into the relationship. These are victims of identity theft, who are constantly approached by the victims who think they're in a real relationship with that person.
00:01:45
Speaker
Kathy Waters is an executive director and co-founder of the federally recognized nonprofit organization Advocating Against Roman Scammers. She spends thousands of hours volunteering and helping those whose identities have been stolen, as well as the women and men who have fallen victim to scammers.
00:02:04
Speaker
Kathy has a master's in psychology and a bachelor's in human services.
Personal Stories of Scam Impact
00:02:08
Speaker
Along with her colleague and co-founder, retired Colonel Brian Denny, she's traveled several times to meet with lawmakers in Washington, DC to drive change. Hi, Kathy. It's great to finally have you on the podcast. Welcome. Zane, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. I know we talked a little while ago and so it's great to be here and be able to share the word. Absolutely. So we'll definitely talk about advocating against romance scams.
00:02:33
Speaker
Before that, I wanted to ask if you can share your background and your story and how you actually got to thinking about being involved in preventing scams. Sure. So my mom was telling me about her friend that was in love with this new guy. She met him online. He was in the military. He was going to
00:02:54
Speaker
retire and move close to her. They were going to buy a house. You know, everything sounded very too good to be true. And even my mom was thinking this, you know, sounded like a scam. So her friend came over for Thanksgiving and was so excited because he had bought her an engagement ring, but he wasn't going to bring it until he moved back here after he retired. And so she showed me a picture of him. So that evening, after everybody left, I sat and I went on her profile.
00:03:24
Speaker
And I found his profile, and I noticed that he was in a military uniform, but his name was Ross Newton, whereas his badge on his uniform said Denny. And I know that on the badge is always the last name of the soldier. So I looked online under Armyman Denny, because I really didn't have anything else to go by. And Brian Denny's profile popped up from his LinkedIn.
00:03:49
Speaker
So I reached out to him, and it was about a few days later, and Brian had reached back out and said, yes, it had been going on for at least six months that he knew of. But he didn't know too much about it. He was about ready to give up on working on getting all the profiles down because he wasn't having any luck, and he kept having the survivors reach out to him and telling him they were supposed to meet, and they bought an airline ticket for him, just all the different stories.
00:04:18
Speaker
And I thought, you know, obviously there's not a whole, whole bunch being done. I mean, you hear about the scams, but I don't think very many people realize how close to home it is to, you know, their friends and family who's been affected. And so the more we researched, we drew up a report. We were able to get in contact with one of the social media companies and they agreed to meet with us.
00:04:43
Speaker
on the findings that we had. And so just from there, we built on. We weren't sure if this was one scammer or if it was a village of scammers and come to find out, you know, it was more of a number like a village. Yeah. And we've just, we've
00:05:00
Speaker
worked from then on to try and build this advocacy. So what ended up happening with your mother's friend? Did you sit down with her? How did you convey this to her? Well, Brian told me I could find his name under any name with Denny, Mike Denny, Steve Denny, John Denny. So I went online and he was exactly right. So I screenshot all of these different accounts and I text them to her and I let her... And this was before I knew
00:05:30
Speaker
um, how heavy these scams were emotionally, you know, and psychologically. And so I'm like, Hey, I just want to let you know, these are, you know, I talked to the real, um, soldier, his name is Brian Denny. These are all the different accounts that are on, um, on, it was on Facebook at that time, but on all different dating sites as well. And, um, I think you're being scammed. I don't, you're not talking to the real person. And so, um, you know, she was in denial for quite a while.
00:06:00
Speaker
but started to see what was going on, all the different accounts. But really, even a few years later, we were doing an interview. She agreed to do an interview with us telling her story. And because Brian didn't come to her home for the interview, she really started to still think that he had something to do with it and that he had connections to the scammers. So some people heal differently. Some people don't get the correct help.
00:06:30
Speaker
And I really think she could have benefited from speaking with a therapist or somebody who could have helped her realize how these scams work more. So it's just more to show that there needs to be more awareness and prevention out there. Absolutely. So this is
Balancing Work and Advocacy
00:06:47
Speaker
not your day job, right? This is something that you do on top of your job. Yes, I have a job that I get paid for. I'm a full time. I work at a hospital here in my area.
00:06:59
Speaker
And Monday through Friday, sometimes weekends, and then I come home. I do my advocacy on my lunch breaks before work. Yeah. Anytime that really we can squeeze in to provide any information is how we run this organization. Wow.
00:07:18
Speaker
So how did you realize, you know, I gotta do more. How did you transition between this happened to my mom's friend and I'll help her. And I, you know, I did some research to this large operation that you're running that is really advocating for scam victims and trying to make change, which we'll talk about in a second. How did you transition to this is my mission.
00:07:39
Speaker
Well, you know, once we realized that the problem was bigger than what we thought, we started a petition out there for safer platforms. We realized that going after the scammer was going to be very little success, I guess you could say, since they are outside of the country, it's very hard for them to be apprehended. It's a lot that goes on with that. I mean, and I'm not saying not to report because I think it's incredibly important for everybody to report the crime.
00:08:06
Speaker
What I'm saying is for us to be able to make some sort of movement faster, we had to work within the United States. So we created a petition for safer platforms to make sure that these platforms can be held responsible for these scams that are happening on their site, and especially when they're aware that these are happening. And people started reaching out more and more. And I told Brian, I said, you know, I really think that we need to think about making this as a
00:08:36
Speaker
as a nonprofit, you know, we built a website, we were getting traffic and, you know, it just, it's hearing all the victim stories and how different every story, the victim story is different. The scam is not really different. It's very much the same, you know, the scripts are the same and they have answers for every question that's presented to them. So it makes,
00:09:04
Speaker
the story even more believable, but these people that have been victimized have had, you know, some, some of them had issues from all the way when they were children and some are just lonely because they lost their loved one not too long ago and they're more vulnerable. So we had to do something and we knew that we, you know, and there are other groups out there, other support groups out there, but to get out there and go to DC and talk to our lawmakers and be an actual advocate that goes out and talks to these
00:09:34
Speaker
The lawmakers the ones that make the changes. That's what needed to be out there. Yeah
00:09:41
Speaker
And just to clarify, you talked about the questions and answers and questions. There's a question for every answer. So to clarify, you're talking about the questions that the victims that are in the scam ask their scammer to understand why they're not coming to meet them or why they can't do a video call right now or those kinds of questions that they try to get more validation, but they're making up stories to explain why they can't at this point.
00:10:11
Speaker
Right, because usually a victim has that intuition, like something's not right here, and it eats at them. And so they start questioning. And you've got to listen to your gut when you have these feelings. But when they start to question, well, how come you said you're going to be here and you're not here? Or how come you said you sent a package and I'm still sending off payments to get this package from you? They have an answer for everything. And usually,
00:10:39
Speaker
People, when they're caught in a lie, it's because they're stumbling. And these scammers, they don't stumble. They know exactly what to say, how to say it, when to say it. Honestly, to me, it's absolutely incredible the criminal mind that goes into this scam. And we're talking professionals, and these professionals are 15 years old. 15 to 30 years old is usually what the scammer ages are.
00:11:08
Speaker
So tell me about the organization advocating against Roman scans. When did you officially start? And you talked about two things, advocating for victims and supporting victims. So let's start with the supporting victims side too. So first of all, when did you start? So we became an actual federal nonprofit in 2020. And we help provide, we'll have, we have libraries of photos of identities that victims that are out there where if
00:11:38
Speaker
If survivors or victims feel that they are being victimized by a scammer, they can maybe go on there and see the picture might be there of their scammer to help show them that, you know, more than likely this person's photo was stolen that you're talking to. We have places where you can go to report. We have different tools, just like we've got scam rangers on that can recognize communication from a scammer
00:12:03
Speaker
You can do reverse image searches. We try and provide as many tools as we can that's out there that is usually for free for people to go on and try and, you know, see if that's what they're dealing with. They're dealing with a romance scam. And then from there on, you know, where to report, where to get help.
Advocacy Strategies and Goals
00:12:22
Speaker
Our main focus, however, through the advocacy is the prevention and the awareness.
00:12:27
Speaker
Right. So what are the goals that you set yourself for that part of the mission, for advocacy? You talked about going to DC, talking to regulators. So tell us a little bit about the goals and the work that you've done in that area. So I know, like I had mentioned, you know, we have gone to DC. We've talked to over 20 different legislative directors. Because we're a nonprofit, we cannot give them warning to put in a bill. But we can go and we can let them know
00:12:57
Speaker
how many of their constituents are affected, how much money is going out of their own state because of these romance scams. Over the past year and a half, we've been really seeing the numbers go up because of the pick butchering scams, which are the investment and the romance scams together. And we're talking billions, not just millions out of the United States. And not to mention globally, I can just imagine how much those numbers are globally. But we go in, we educate them.
00:13:25
Speaker
don't even know about the romance scams online, or they have no idea how prevalent it is. And so that's our job. That's our job to open their eyes and see, you know, what these victims are going through. You know, Brian goes in as the identity theft victim explains how it affects him and his family. We talked to Representative Kinzinger who is no longer in office now, but he was also an identity theft victim. And unfortunately, the offices that seem to take more interest are the ones that have been affected.
00:13:56
Speaker
So Representative Kinsinger was an identity theft victim, just like Brian. He was in the military, same type of scam stories. Women victims had met him at the airport because they thought that they were getting married. I mean, you know, and so they had a lot invested into this, into the romance scam. And so they did draw up a couple bills. And unfortunately, they got stuck in the committees and they didn't move forward. But
00:14:22
Speaker
That's not when you give up, you know, you have to continue to go in and educate. We've got more and more Representatives coming in, you know all the time and and senators and people that just don't know what's going on fortunately, there are things going on up on the hill and Things are being drawn up by different offices. So that's it. That's a huge plus and we're really excited to see what's gonna come up next
00:14:51
Speaker
The FBI reports that elaborate on the scam losses actually have state by state information. So have you seen a case where you talk to someone that was not informed enough and kind of use those FBI and FTC reports to communicate the situation to them and maybe turn around the interest?
00:15:14
Speaker
Um, so for the most, gosh, turn around the interest. I'm trying to click the more, you know, I mean, I think they, um, they have more questions and, um, they, they want to know a little bit more about the scams and they can't believe that that's just the numbers that we give them are just the romance scams alone. And then
00:15:32
Speaker
So this last March when we were out there, we also gave numbers of the pig butchering. And since then, and that's not because when we went to to DC, but since then, we've definitely noticed more people being interested in it, especially law enforcement, having more questions. How can we work together and get things done? Looking at the public sector, you know, not just the private sector alone to get some some movement, you know, some more awareness out there. So
00:16:02
Speaker
It's great to see, but as far as legislative moves and changing minds, I really think that when you go into a meeting, you can usually tell if this is going to be someone who's very interested or if they're just there to meet you and put the information on the books that they met with you.
00:16:25
Speaker
And it just all has to do with the engaging. And the more that they engage, the more excited we get and want to tell them and share everything. So we try and really latch on to those representatives and, you know, provide them more information and more information that we can keep in contact with them in case they do want to draw something up. You know, they'll think of us and and hopefully use a lot of our education and information that we provide on our website.
00:16:50
Speaker
I think you guys had a recent story about identity theft that just happened to you while you were in D.C. advocating against romance scams trying to get things done. Can you share that story with me? Well, the scammers will find anything and everything they can to build to their story. And I searched through social media quite often to see if we can find any of the fake accounts that we need to or we need to report. And I found one.
00:17:20
Speaker
where it's Brian and I in Washington DC working and it's a picture of us in front of the Capitol and the scammer had put that something about how he was with his deceased wife and something like they love to spend time together because they have a son together. The whole thing that was written on there was terrible English.
00:17:47
Speaker
Every once in a while I'll catch my picture in one of his one of the fake accounts and but this I've never I don't think I've ever been addressed is you know a part of his family and and dead so which is a very typical thing from the scammers is to say that their spouse is deceased so yeah, you know, I of course I responded to it and said that this is a fake account and I
00:18:12
Speaker
Um, and I reported it. I haven't gotten any, a word if it's coming down yet or not, but, um, I also posted it on the different social media accounts of us too. So other people can go ahead and report. But yeah, first time I've been labelized is that so. How did that make you feel? You, you do kind of feel, you feel victimized. You know, I mean, this is my first time. I couldn't imagine my photos being out there thousands and thousands of times and to hurt people.
00:18:43
Speaker
You know, women are looking at this account thinking, oh, you know, this poor man, his wife has died and, you know, and it just, it makes me sick. It makes me sick to think that, you know, these scammers emotionally, um, manipulate these people like this. And it's just, and it's the, the people with the largest hearts, you know, that end up falling for these scams. And so I'll do my darnedest to try and prove every scammer wrong and help every victim that we can.
00:19:13
Speaker
When we talk about the scam life cycle, when I talk about it on scam rangers, I talk about, you know, the initial message or phone call, and then the conversation and manipulation that happens via text or on online platforms or wherever it is. After the emotional manipulation comes to typically the money start the beginning of the money transfers in case of relationship scams, it's typically multiple. And then the,
00:19:42
Speaker
reporting if they are reporting because many victims feel shame and guilt and don't report, but then reporting and that's where law enforcement can come in and so on. So if we look at that scam lifecycle, you're really targeting the ability of scammers to reach out to victims and the ability of scammers to manipulate them. And you're basically
00:20:07
Speaker
looking to government to mandate the dating sites and social media sites to do better. And then in the US there's section 230 of the Communication Decency Act, which states that no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as a publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
00:20:33
Speaker
And that is a bit of a challenge for us fraud fighters out there who, you know, if nobody is going to take responsibility, then who's going to take responsibility? Right. And how is criminal activity not seen online, but it's seen in the real world? You know, how how is this not equal? You know, is what is what I question. You know, why is it OK for
00:21:00
Speaker
these different platforms to be an accessory to a
Legal Reforms and Accountability
00:21:03
Speaker
crime. It's exactly what they are, especially when we've had meetings with them. We tell them what's on their platform. They know about it. And it's not like these organized crime groups are hiding under a different name. They're out there with their own name, just like the Yahoo boys. They created counts.
00:21:24
Speaker
Yahoo boys. And how do these social media companies not look at that and investigate it right away? I understand that there's millions of new accounts probably daily and some that they take down. But when you know this and you're aware
00:21:43
Speaker
and they are still up and they're active and you report them and they remain active, there is something wrong there. I mean, it's just like you knowing that somebody is selling drugs out of your home, you would be arrested for that. You're an accessory to that crime. You're allowing that to happen. And that's exactly what they're doing. But because the 230 is in place, it protects them. It protects them from anything, a third party posts. So in order to break that,
00:22:12
Speaker
and have them responsible, that law needs to be amended. And the whole thing doesn't have to be. I mean, it's great. It's great for freedom of speech. It's exactly why it was created. But I don't think that those who created it knew that they were making a monster out of it. And that's exactly where we're at now. So where are we with that? Do you think there's openness to consider that? What is happening in this conversation?
00:22:39
Speaker
Well, in all of our meetings that we go to, they all agree that the 230 needs to be amended. All of them, all of them do, but nobody wants to touch it because it has so much to do with freedom of speech. Last I knew freedom of speech didn't give you rights to criminal activity or to be a criminal. And so I'm not sure why it's taking so long to find that line. I don't even, it's a fine line with freedom of speech,
00:23:07
Speaker
but there's no fine line between criminal activity to freedom of speech. I don't feel, you know, you either are doing the criminal activity, you're selling government IDs, you know, online, you're selling drugs, you're selling weapons, you're doing all this kind of stuff illegally, but opposed to, you know, saying certain things or, you know, speaking your mind or something. I mean, there's just so much difference to criminal activity to your own personal opinion.
00:23:38
Speaker
Well, I think the work that you're doing is amazing. And my next question is how can people help you? Many of the listeners to this podcast are fraud fighters and financial institutions, telcos and other areas and all share this mission. That's why they're listening. So how can people help and what kind of what organizations are you collaborating with to be able to
00:24:07
Speaker
really drive that change with government, with legislation mostly? Well, I mean, there's several different things you can do. We still have the petition that's active. You can definitely write your lawmakers, let them know what's going on. Look up your own state's numbers and put that in your letter too that you're going to write to your congressman or your senators. We have a World Romance Scam Day that's coming. It's called World Romance Scam Prevention Day. It's on October 3rd.
00:24:36
Speaker
That day is to help support all of the education out there. We've had several different anti-scam groups that have already posted about it. They've made their own personal posts on it with the emblem for the day, and it's fascinating to see. I love it. On the website, we have several videos from the different scam groups of identity theft victims that are saying, if you think you're talking to me, it's definitely a scammer. I'm not talking to anybody.
Education and Public Awareness
00:25:06
Speaker
Fantastic. So any kind of sharing of all the education that we post either on and that's protecting hearts day.com. That's that website. And then our website advocating for you.com. Everything on there is shareable. You know, download whatever you want. Take any of the information that we have on there, the PSAs, the reports that every report we've done,
00:25:30
Speaker
We've posted on there for anybody's information, education, posting if they want. Those are our main wishes. I mean, we're a nonprofit, so we don't even raise money on a regular. We don't have certain things to raise money for. And it's so hard in this realm because you're helping people who have been scammed out of money. So how do you ask them donate to our organization?
00:26:00
Speaker
It's hard for me to go that route. So I have a very hard time with that. But it's on our side if anybody did want to make any kind of financial donations. But honestly, I truly think that spreading the education is what's going to help stop this. Yeah. Congratulations, actually, for getting the date. How did this happen? Tell me a little bit about this. At the end of last year, I thought, what if we had
00:26:29
Speaker
a day to recognize this. And so I started looking, there's a few different sites to where you can apply for this day. And the more I looked, I didn't see anything. There are some things that for victims, of course, but nothing for romance scam awareness. And so
00:26:50
Speaker
We had our board meeting discussing different dates. Should we do it around Valentine's Day? You know, because that's when a lot of education is out there. But we decided to steer away from that because there's so much education out there during that time. And, you know, spread it down through the year. And so that's why we chose to do October. And October is right before holiday season where a lot of people feel lonely.
00:27:12
Speaker
Absolutely. Right before, you know, all the series of holidays starts and winter comes and that's when people are looking for connection. So that's a brilliant timing. Yeah. And October is cybersecurity awareness month. And we thought that would probably be a good time to do it then. So we chose October 3rd, do it right at the beginning of the month. And hopefully the education will continue throughout and throughout, like you said, the holidays and well into Valentine's Day, hopefully. But
00:27:42
Speaker
We're already starting to think of next year. We're hoping since this is going to be the first year that it's going to be a very receptive and we already have great sponsors like we have Match Group has sponsored us. We have Electronic Caregiver who has sponsored us and AARP. So we've got some good names behind us. They all believe
Future Vision for Online Safety
00:28:07
Speaker
in it.
00:28:07
Speaker
We're going to be hearing definitely more from Match Group. They're talking to their people about different marketing ideas. So we're very excited about it and we really hope that we can make a difference with this day.
00:28:20
Speaker
That's amazing. Congratulations for making this happen and getting those big names to sponsor. Definitely love the advocacy that, that ARP is doing in match is stepping up to, to help and make sure that their platforms are getting more and more secure. Yeah, because really they, they work off of the trust of their, of their consumers. So.
00:28:43
Speaker
If everybody thinks they're gonna be talking to a scammer, they're not going to have any business. That's not gonna help them, yes. So maybe last question I have for you is with everything that you're doing and with all the traction that you're getting, what are you most hopeful about? That one day I won't have to do this. I'm very hopeful, but scams have been around for hundreds of thousands of years. There's always been some type of scam out there.
00:29:12
Speaker
But if we can see some law changes that will keep people safer on the platforms, I mean, the UK is doing some amazing work with the platform safety and their internet safety.
00:29:23
Speaker
I would love to see the United States follow suit with that. Will I ever stop? I'm sure, you know, one day I'll have to move on and, you know, hand this over to somebody, which would be so hard, but because I feel like, you know, this is my baby and this is where my heart is. So, you know, as long as we can fight the good fight and we can make a dent in some of these victims, learning and educating and, you know, not becoming a victim, then if every second is worth it.
00:29:54
Speaker
Well, we'll put all the resources that you mentioned in the show notes for everyone who wants to help join in and learn more and for the awareness information. Thank you so much for joining us today and I really appreciate you taking the time to share and teach us about ARS and your background and what you've been doing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me, Ireland. I appreciate it.