エピソード

  • Family Fights to Disentangle Father from Romance Scam, Part 1
    2025/02/21

    When Alfred's sons notice unusual transactions on their dad's bank statements, they start asking questions. But Alfred's reaction tells them that there is much more to the story than he is letting on. The family spends the next several years trying desperately to disentangle their father from various scams, one even involving an online romance with an impostor posing as WWE wrestler Alexa Bliss.

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    37 分
  • Archive Episode: Woman’s Inheritance Wiped Out in Crypto-Dating Scam
    2025/02/14

    After 25-year-old Niki Hutchinson loses her mother, she uses some of her inheritance to start fresh in California. Not knowing anyone, she does what many people do today and joins a dating app to make connections. She develops a friendship with a man named Hao and, in time, he offers to teach her how to invest in cryptocurrency. With some small successes and lots of encouragement from Hao, she dives in and invests her inheritance, plus some of her dad’s money as well. That’s when her friend becomes less helpful.

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    58 分
  • Job Seekers Targeted by a Work-From-Home Reshipping Scam
    2025/02/07

    When Cathy's disabled husband loses his Medicaid coverage, she must look for a job to help pay the rent. The retired Army Reserve veteran has impressive work experience, so when she puts her resume online, she almost immediately gets an offer. The job is for a shipping company, receiving, inspecting, and forwarding packages, and it allows her to work from home while caring for her husband. It seems like the perfect job for a while, but when they offer her a promotion to purchasing agent, it could end up putting their home in jeopardy.

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    41 分
  • Phony Home Contractors Steal Over $450,000
    2025/01/31

    80-year-old David lives in a tight-knit community, frequently helping his neighbors with yard care and other tasks. So when he gets a knock on the door from two brothers claiming they are working on his neighbor's home, and noticed a hole in his roof, David agrees to let them fix it. But one repair turns into many as the brothers find more and more work that needs to be done on his house. David's daughter is suspicious, and when she finds out that the work has cost her father over $450,000, she jumps into action to help catch the criminals.

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    50 分
  • Minnesota Man Caught in Blind Mule Drug Trafficking Scam
    2025/01/24

    Rodney Baldus, a retired truck driver from Minnesota, believes he is the recipient of a large inheritance belonging to his late wife. The inheritance is in Italy, but he is told he must first fly to Africa to sign papers before going on to Italy. Since his travel expenses are all paid for, Rodney is not suspicious of criminal activity. Unfortunately, Rodney is now sitting in a crowded jail cell in Mozambique with little hope of ever getting out, and his daughter, Nicole, fears for her diabetic father's life. Rodney is what is sometimes called a blind mule, a victim who was persuaded to transport money or contraband for a criminal gang, an unwitting participant in a serious crime. Journalist Mariana van Zeller, host of National Geographic Television's Trafficked, tells his story.

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    49 分
  • Whiskey Investment Scheme Goes Barrel-Up
    2025/01/17

    Ray is retired but always looking for interesting opportunities. So, when he gets a cold call from a whiskey brokerage firm asking if he wants to invest in some of the world's rarest whiskeys, he's intrigued. He meets with a wealth manager, Casey Alexander, who is well-mannered and professional. Ray feels confident investing over $300,000 in whiskey, although around this time, the investment scheme catches the attention of a U.S. attorney and the FBI.

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    54 分
  • Archive Episode: YouTube Star Kitboga Fights Fraud With Humor
    2025/01/10

    In this 2023 episode, YouTube star Kitboga has turned scam baiting into performance art, delighting his 3.6 million followers with his many characters and laughs at the expense of online criminals. It started out as pure curiosity, and a way to avenge his grandparents who'd been victims of scams, but along the way, he's helped return money and hijacked accounts to victims, and he's taught a lot of viewers how online scams work. Bob sits down with Kitboga for a humorous and enlightening conversation.

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    57 分
  • Archive Episode: Scams, Magic and the Art of Deception With Alexis Conran
    2024/12/20

    In this 2022 episode, host Bob Sullivan welcomes special guest Alexis Conran. Conran’s insight into the mind of a con man comes from acting as one on the popular BBC show The Real Hustle. On the series, Conran, an actual trained magician, and his team perpetrate scams on unsuspecting consumers and then reveal the crimes to the victims (now in the hundreds), all in the name of educating the public. Conran discusses what he’s learned about the criminal mindset and what he has identified as the elements of deception.

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    30 分