Easy Prey31 Aug 2022

Fighting Against Fraud with John Breyault

With financial payment platforms used more regularly to exchange cash between individuals, scammers have become more creative in using them to defraud users. Today's guest is John Breyault. John is the National Consumers League Vice President of Public Policy, Telecommunications, and Fraud. As the director of Fraud.org, John is a nationally recognized expert in fraud, with more than 17 years of experience in educating consumers in advocating for stronger consumer protections at the federal, state, and local levels. He is the author of Fraud.org's monthly Fraud Alert emails and NCL's bi-weekly Data Insecurity Digest. He has testified before Congress, federal regulatory agencies, and state legislatures dozens of times about fraud related topics. He is quoted regularly in the press about fraud including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post.

Show Notes:

[1:10] - John shares his background and current roles with the National Consumers League.
[3:02] - John has been working in consumer advocacy for over 20 years.
[4:27] - What are peer to peer payment platforms? Venmo is the most commonly used.
[5:53] - The features of peer to peer payment platforms that are attractive to users are also attractive to scam artists.
[7:46] - John shares the trends in what scammers have been using to get money through Western Union, Green Dot cards, and gift cards.
[9:32] - More needs to be done to make security a priority.
[11:09] - John explains the difference between credit card transactions and peer to peer payment platforms.
[12:16] - With peer to peer platform fraud, banks can't do anything about it due to a loophole in the law.
[13:38] - When this type of fraud is much more painful to experience than credit card fraud.
[14:44] - A huge appeal to these platforms is that they are free. But security needs to be improved.
[17:09] - There are a couple of regulations related to the connection of Venmo to a bank account.
[19:19] - The responsibility has been put on users and victims to monitor and fight back against fraud.
[21:47] - Scammers are very adept at creating a sense of urgency.
[23:38] - John shares an example of how this sense of urgency can fool anyone.
[24:34] - Cryptocurrency is the next focus of attention for those trying to prevent fraud.
[26:40] - These trends tend to follow a pattern.
[28:09] - One of the problems in tracking scam trends is the way data is collected.
[29:23] - We need to change how we talk about fraud victims.
[31:28] - Scams are run as a business these days, which make them much more convincing than in the past.
[34:15] - With most overseas scams, the likelihood of getting your money back is slim.
[35:50] - As a business, think about how you can make peer to peer payment apps as safe as possible?
[37:35] - John shares an example of Venmo transactions that are protected and those that are not.
[40:07] - A legitimate business will accept payment in other ways than only peer to peer apps.

Thanks for joining us on Easy Prey. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes and leave a nice review.

Links and Resources:

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(329)

Job Recruiter Scams

Job hunting is hard enough without having to stop and ask whether the recruiter in your inbox is even real. My guest today, Jay Jones, ran into that problem firsthand after being laid off in December ...

24 Jun 35min

Bail Bonds Scams

Getting a call that someone you love has been arrested is scary enough. Getting that call from someone who sounds official, knows just enough to seem credible, and says you have to send money right aw...

17 Jun 36min

Confessions of a Fraudster

Technology keeps changing, but many of the most effective scams still come down to something very human: trust. My guest today is Tony Sales, co-founder of We Fight Fincrime and Underworld TV. Tony ha...

10 Jun 54min

Personal Safety

Scams and safety threats don't always announce themselves. Sometimes they start quietly, with a moment of distraction, a strange feeling you ignore, or a situation that shifts just enough to test whet...

3 Jun 43min

Data For Sale

Everyday conveniences ask for tiny pieces of information all the time like a phone number at checkout, a zip code at the register, an email address for a receipt, or a loyalty account for a small disc...

27 Mai 43min

Exploiting Psychology

Scams are often explained as a failure of judgment, but the truth is far more human. People are not fooled because they are foolish. They are manipulated at the exact moment emotion overrides logic, w...

20 Mai 45min

Investment Traps

Investment losses can be confusing because they do not always tell the whole story. Sometimes money is lost because the market has changed. Other times, an investor was sold something they did not und...

13 Mai 47min

Elder Exploitation

Aging parents often rely on the people closest to them for help, but what happens when that help becomes a way to take control? For Charles Wallace, the warning signs started small. His mother's fridg...

6 Mai 39min