The New Senior Scams That Even Smart People Fall For And How to Fight Back

ClearPath Retirement Planning's Stewart Smith, LUTCF®, RICP®, and Mitch Davies break down the fastest-growing threat to retirement security in 2026. AI-powered scams that are so sophisticated that even financially savvy people are falling for them.

In 2024, seniors lost nearly $5 billion to fraud. That number is probably much higher because most victims never report it, out of shame.

And the old red flags are gone.  No more obvious tells. AI has changed everything.

On this episode of ClearPath Retirement Radio, Stewart and Mitch walk through exactly how these scams work and what you can do right now to protect yourself and your family:

→ The grandparent scam 2.0 — how scammers clone your grandchild's actual voice from a 10-second social media clip and why you can't trust what you hear 

→ The imposter advisor call — what your real financial advisor will never ask you over the phone 

→ Fake investment opportunities — how a wrong number text can lead to losing your life savings 

→ The $250,000 real estate scam — a real client story about a savvy businessman who never saw it coming 

→ Email phishing scams — why you should never log into a financial account from a link in a text or email 

→ The three red flags that apply to every scam — urgency, fear, and secrecy 

→ The never pay rule — the four payment methods that mean it is always a scam 

→ The ClearPath Protection Playbook — family safe words, credit freezes, multi-factor authentication, and more 

→ Mitch's Market Minute — where the markets stand and what the new Fed chairman means for retirees

If you are retired or approaching retirement, this episode could be the most important one you listen to this year. These scams happen every day to people who never thought they would happen to them.

Reach out to the team at ClearPath Retirement Planning to make sure your retirement assets are protected with a plan built around your full picture.

Ready to stress-test your retirement plan?

ClearPath Retirement Planning helps retirees and pre-retirees in the Upstate SC and Columbia areas create tax-efficient retirement income strategies. 

📍 300 Executive Center Drive, Suite 104 | Greenville, SC 29615
 📞 (864) 775-5033

Schedule your complimentary consultation today at www.clearpathretirement.com

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Important Disclosure:

Investment advisory services offered through Alphastar Capital Management, LLC, a SEC-registered investment adviser. SEC registration does not constitute an endorsement of the firm by the SEC nor does it indicate that the adviser has attained a particular level of skill or ability. Fixed insurance products are offered through Clearpath Retirement Planning, LLC and Alphastar Capital Management is not involved in the offer, recommendation, sale or management of commission-based fixed Insurance products. Alphastar Capital Management and Clearpath Retirement Plannin...

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to ClearPath Retirement Radio. From retirement income and tax planning to protecting the savings you've worked a lifetime to build. This is Real World Financial Talk designed for real people. People who want clear answers, not sales pitches, so you can make informed decisions and plan for retirement with confidence. Now, here are your hosts, Stuart Smith and Mitch Davies.

SPEAKER_02 0:24

Imagine this. It's 9:30 at night, your phone rings, it's your granddaughter. She's crying, she's saying she's been in a car accident and she needs $5,000 wired right now to get out of jail. You recognize her voice, every inflection, every breath. There's just one problem. It isn't her. It's artificial intelligence.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

That exact scam happened to a retired couple in our region just last year. They lost the money within 40 minutes. And the scariest part, the voice that they heard was cloned from a 30-second Instagram video. Welcome back to Clear Path Retirement Radio. Today we're going to talk about something that is changing faster than most financial planning conversations can keep up with. And if you've got retirement assets, you're the number one target.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

Yeah, Mitch, Americans over 60 lose more money to fraud than any other age group. And the rise of AI generated videos, deep fake videos, and perfect grammar phishing emails has turned what used to be a clumsy, obvious scams into something your own family members can't catch. So today we're going to talk we're going to talk and do something practical. We're going to teach you and your family exactly how to fight back.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Two, what we call the Grandparent Scam 2.0, the voice cloning, essentially. Three, we'll do, you know, talk about how retirement accounts specifically are being targeted. And four, we'll talk about the Clear Path Protection Playbook, a set of habits that can stop nearly all of these right in their tracks.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

Yeah. So let's just talk about this for a minute, man. I tell you, it has been really interesting to see how quickly this stuff has, you know, come into fruition as far as the scams are just getting better and better and better. And, you know, we've had um quite a few clients either fall for these scams or call us in the middle of these scams and try to get advice from us. And I tell you, it's just it breaks my heart every time. We had an incident last year where one of my clients who's been with me for 23 years, you know, I got to his house for a review to just sit down and go over the plan and talk to him. And, you know, he stepped out of the room for a second and his wife started in with, you know, hey, he's too embarrassed to tell you, but let me tell you what happened. And they divulged to me that they got a phone call from what was purported to be an attorney that was representing the uh the person that was that apparently their elderly uncle, who they look out after because he had no family, they look out after him. He lives about 45 minutes away from them, and they got a call that he had been in a car accident, and the attorney representing the people that that he had gotten in an accident with was calling them and telling them, listen, if you just take this money and you go deposit it into a ATM, mobile deposit into an ATM, we can, you know, keep him from going to jail and we can we basically can can bond him out or whatever it is. And they without even thinking, and they didn't even pick up the phone and try to well, they actually did pick up the phone and try to call him, and it went to voicemail, which even made them more confident something was up. And then they got in the car, they went and deposited the money, $3,000, and come to find out that when they finally got a hold of the elderly uncle, he had never been in a car accident. He was literally outside in the yard doing yard work when they called and missed the phone call. And my client was so embarrassed that that had happened that he really didn't even want to tell me about it. And this kind of stuff is happening every day, and it's just it's unreal. You know, seniors reportedly got scammed out of nearly five billion dollars in 2024. And, you know, what I would say about that is the numbers probably much higher because a lot of them don't report it like he didn't because out of embarrassment. And this is something that we've got to to talk about, we've got to get this out there, and we've got to, you know, help people understand that that these scams are getting better and better, and with artificial intelligence, you're not gonna be able to tell whether that's your granddaughter on the phone or not, because they can pull, like Mitch said, an Instagram video that they did where they're talking for 30 seconds. They can clone that voice and they can make that voice say just about whatever they want to. So they can have, you know, what sounds exactly like your granddaughter on the other line crying and begging you for money and telling you they're in deep trouble. So listen, if you get these calls, even if you get a video, you can't trust it. You cannot trust it. You need to hang up immediately and call that person directly on their number and make sure that that whatever you're being told is true and and more than likely it's not.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

That's right, Stuart. And you know, it's we used to have good rules, good fail-safes for this. You know, we used to say, hey, watch out for the commentels, right? Watch out for broken English, watch out for look to make sure you can hear their voice, look to make sure all the things that we would look for for proof are gone. The three biggest things that have been introduced by AI that are gonna really make this difficult as we go on is voice cloning, like we've talked about, deep fake video. I mean, Stuart, these AI videos are almost indistinguishable in 2026. I mean, in two, three years it's gonna be, right? And we might see video proof as a concept of it proving anything, be you know, struggle to even hold up at that point. And three, the generative text. You know, these we used to rely again on broken English and clear misspelling and that sort of thing, but AI has eliminated that. Anybody in the world can have perfect English that's indistinguishable from anybody else. So with these things, it's it's very difficult. And we're gonna talk about today some strategies to get around that. And like Stuart said, you know, calling the number directly, anything you can do. We're we're gonna talk about these strategies today, but with those three things introduced, it's gonna be a very different environment than we're used to.

unknown 7:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:37

Yeah, I had another incident last year where um, you know, I do payroll, I do payroll for for the firm myself, and um I got an email from uh directly from one of our employees um from their email account saying um that they, you know, wanted me to change the bank account that I deposit their paycheck into. And, you know, I was literally in the software changing the bank account, and it just something, some little voice said to me inside, like, this seems weird because this person never said anything to me in the meeting that we were in that day, or or the several times I had come across them that day. They never mentioned this, and they're the type of person that I think would if that if that were the case. And so I just picked up the phone and called that employee directly on their cell phone and they answered, and I asked them about it, and they said, No, I haven't changed bank accounts, I did not send you that email. And I think about how close I came to just going ahead and changing that bank information and having that check deposited into, you know, God knows what account. Um, but that is the kind type of stuff that's going on, and I'm a pretty bright guy and pretty up with technology, and they almost got me with that one, right? So this you listen, if you get taken with this stuff, if this has happened to you, don't feel this can happen to the best of us. This can happen to the brightest and and the most, you know, up-to-date technology people on the planet. It has gotten really, really good. And we just want to make that very clear that there's no shame in this type of thing. But what we're gonna talk about today is to, you know, ways where we can try to maybe help you just think twice, just a little bit, just take that extra second to think through this and maybe determine that this is not legitimate and save you from making a major financial mistake. So, you know, again, big, big changes in in with artificial intelligence, and you know, we've got uh lots going on with that, and like Mitch said, the the old red flags that you look for, like misspellings and weird accents and you know broken English and and you know a rushed caller who doesn't know your name, you know, that that that's all gone away now. Right. And and now, you know, it can be um it can be someone who knows exactly what your name is, someone who is again, it can be a voice that you recognize that you've heard for years, it can be even be video that you're seeing that's that's definitely, you know, your niece or your your grandson or your you know, whatever the case is, and you just can't trust that stuff anymore. It has gotten way too um difficult to determine the difference between the the fake stuff and the real stuff nowadays. So, you know, be be very, very careful with this stuff, guys. And you know, when we get back from the break here, we're gonna go into a lot more detail on you know ways that you know you can think through this stuff and actions that you can take to possibly avoid you know some real financial damage and you know also a a lot of shame because when you this does happen, you it is it you you know you do go through a lot of shame. So we're gonna talk about that in the next segment, guys. Stick with us, we'll be right back. Hey, are you approaching the distribution phase of life where it's time to turn the assets you've worked so hard to accumulate into a reliable retirement income? And are you unsure how to do that in the most tax-efficient way possible? At Clear Path Retirement Planning, we help retirees and pre-retirees design income strategies that aim to reduce taxes, manage risk, and create confidence in retirement. Visit ClearpathRetirement.com to schedule a complimentary consultation.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

Thanks for tuning in to Clear Path Retirement Radio with Stuart Smith and Mitch Davies. Let's get back to the show.

SPEAKER_02 12:18

Hey guys, welcome back to Clearpath Retirement Planning. This week we are having a very interesting conversation about senior scams and the proliferation of technology and how it is being used to scam in 2024 five billion dollars of money out of people 60 and over. And that is just what was reported, Mitch. Right. You know, that is a huge number. And, you know, I'll start this segment off by sharing another personal story here where we did have a client who who came in and was sharing a story about her brother-in-law, who is a real estate guy, very savvy real estate guy, had been, you know, had a lot of success in the real estate um over the years and done quite well for himself. And she was sharing with us that he had recently been contacted by some gentleman with one of those real estate deals where, you know, it was just too good to be true, and w, you know, had dollar signs in his eyes, and that's typically what these scammers do is they're going to play to your greed. And he saw an opportunity to make a quick, you know, nice chunk of change there, and got got a little greedy, and what had had happened is these gentlemen had hacked into his computer and already had basically everything they needed from him to be able to get into his accounts except for like one key password. And the way that they positioned the real estate deal to him was, you know, hey, somehow, and I don't, you know, we didn't get exact details, but somehow, if we can just get this one password, we can make this deal happen and and and make it happen really quick, and you're gonna make a lot of money. And he just, you know, got complacent for one second and gave these guys the the password, and these guys made off with over $250,000 of out of his account before he could realize what was going on. And, you know, it was such a tragic event because, you know, she was sharing with us that he was so embarrassed about letting this happen because he felt like he was, you know, a really savvy guy. He felt like he was really on top of things, and how in the world could he let these guys do this to him? And it was to the point where, you know, he was feeling such shame and embarrassment that he was actually, they were they were worried that he might, you know, harm himself. And, you know, I can certainly understand that. So we're gonna go through some common scams that we see here real quick. Let's talk about just, you know, we're we we'll just go through and and talk about some of the main ones that are out there, and hopefully this helps you. But the number one one we see is the grandparent scam. And the grandparent scam, we're gonna call it the grandparent scam 2.0. You know, the old version used to work like, you know, the phone would ring and a muffled voice would say, Grandma, grandma, it's me, and it wait, you know, wait for the grandparent to say the grandchild's name. And then the scam kicks in. You know, most people saw through it, but now the scammer has already scraped a 10-second clip of your grandchild's voice from TikTok or Instagram or YouTube, and they've cloned it. And when you pick up the phone, you hear your grandchild crying and their actual voice saying your actual name. So it changes it quite a bit, makes it a lot more personal, gets to the heart really quick, and then you know, it's going to often, you know, basically there's gonna be some sort of scam involving a lawyer, a bail bondsman, a police officer, and you know, every sentence is designed to push three buttons urgency, fear, and secrecy. And so, you know, hey, it they're gonna want you to really do something quick, they're gonna really play on your fears, and you know, they're gonna really kind of want you to keep this on the down low, so to speak. And all of those should be huge red flags. Yep. Because if your grandchild is really in that kind of trouble, then none of that should really be a factor, right? So be extremely careful, very careful, grandparents out there. We know you love your grandkids, but understand that this scam is out there and it is a killer one because you know, grandparents typically are are madly in love with those grandkids and will do just about anything for them. We've seen it over and over again. They just light up when the first mention of a grandchild comes in. If you wanna, you know, you want to have a great conversation with a grandparent, just ask them about their grandchild.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

That's all you got to do. And these and you know, and these scams, that's a great story, and all these scams, again, follow this same framework. There's a million different ways they do this now, and we'll talk about some other ones that are even more complex. You know, that's an example of a five-minute phone call. Some of these gone for weeks at a time. They're so complex, but they're all gonna follow that same framework. They're trying to pinpoint some emotion, they're trying to create that urgency. You know, we always say now, Stuart, like there's really not many situations where you need to drive down anywhere and send money through anything these days. There's so many the financial system just doesn't work like that anymore. There's not gonna be a situation where someone's in a pinch and they need you to drive down to the gas station and send 5K. You know, that just doesn't really happen these days, but they're playing on that and they they need that. They know that they are gonna try to heighten your emotion and capture any amount of urgency they can in that time. So they're all gonna follow that framework. So absolutely, Stuart. Those three things are the huge red flags that we look for. No matter what type of scam it is, that's what we're trying to pinpoint.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

Yeah. The next scam that we see a lot is something called the imposter advisor call. And that is one that I take very personally because that is one where you are supposedly being contacted by your financial advisor. And as a financial advisor, of course, that hits home to me very, very hard. And I can tell all of my clients that, you know, if if you get a call from me and we need to verify, you know, a large transaction that looks suspicious on your account, um, and in order to verify that, we need you to, you know, share with us, you know, uh very, you know, vital information that you shouldn't have to share with anybody over the phone. Please hang up the phone immediately. You know, if if it's a two-factor authentication and I'm asking you for the code, I will never do that. And your financial advisor will never do that. As fiduciaries, we do not operate in that manner. And so please, guys, you know, you you want to protect your nest egg as much as possible. You know, retirement is hard enough, and making sure that you have the money to live the retirement that you want is a big enough task for a financial advisor to take on without having to worry about some of that evaporating because you got you fell victim to this imposter advisor phone call. So I can tell you myself personally, and I can think I can speak for most financial advisors out there. I will never ever call you and ask you for, you know, your code or your passwords or, you know, anything like that. I don't need to do that. I have access to that information on my end as the advisor and should never ever have to ask you for your kind of retail version of that stuff, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:16

We'll also never ask you to, another easy one is we'll never, there's never really gonna be a situation where we need you to send money to some banking instruction. We're never gonna send you, we're never gonna send you a wire instruction saying say, hey, why are this money here? Like on your own, right? Like any transactions that we need to do, we're gonna handle. We have advisor access to a lot of things. We're gonna handle things on a back end. So if you ever get a random email from an advisor saying, hey, you need to send a wire transfer to this, we're never gonna do that.

SPEAKER_02 21:41

Yeah. Yeah. So another one, you know, that you need to be real weary of is fake investment opportunities. And you know, we've seen this quite a few times where and this usually starts in a really weird place, Mitch. This usually starts like on a dating app. A dating app, maybe on LinkedIn, maybe on Facebook, or a wrong number text. How many times have I been sitting at my desk and gotten a text on my phone that's like, hey, I'll meet you at three o'clock. Are we still on? Happens every day. And they're just praying that you'll answer it so that they can start this weird, oh, I'm sorry, I have the wrong number. I must have texted the wrong number. And then it starts into this friendly conversation out of nowhere. Like, hey, I yeah, I just moved to the area. I'm trying to get to know people. You know, what do you think of this beautiful day we're having? Like, and they're just fishing for you to just start this weird relationship with them. And, you know, they're gonna present you with a lot of um fake information about who they are and where they are and and and that sort of thing. And it even if it's a local number, you can't trust that because that can be easily um, you know, manipulated electronically to show a local number. But yeah, I mean if you just get a weird text that says, you know, hey Michael, about our tennis lesson, like or something we like, just ignore that stuff, guys. If it's not someone that you know, you do not want to be starting, you know, some friendly conversation with a stranger because what it's eventually gonna lead to is hey, want to tell you about this, you know, the great returns that I've been getting on this investment platform or um, you know, some other variation of that that they're gonna try to start, you know, slowly but surely kind of getting you acclimated into their world and and talking to you about this stuff. And it is amazing to me how many people get sucked into this. Yeah. And, you know, so be very, very careful of that one. And guys, I'll tell you, well, when we get back, we're gonna talk about three or four more of these you need to be looking out for, guys. We will be right back. Retirement planning isn't just about growing money, it's about using it wisely, generating income, managing taxes, planning for health care costs, protecting your legacy. At Clear Path Retirement Planning, we specialize in helping retirees and pre-retirees transition from accumulation to distribution with confidence and clarity. If you're approaching retirement and want to plan, not just opinions, discover the Clear Path difference. Visit ClearpathRetirement.com today.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

Welcome to Clear Path Retirement Radio. From retirement income and tax planning to protecting the savings you've worked a lifetime to build, this is Real World Financial Talk designed for real people, people who want clear answers, not sales pitches, so you can make informed decisions and plan for retirement with confidence. Now, here are your hosts, Stuart Smith and Mitch Davies.

SPEAKER_02 25:04

Welcome back in to ClearPath Retirement Radio. It uh today we're talking about senior scams, and we're gonna get back into that in just a second. But first I want to break just for a minute for Mitch's market minute. Mitch, take it away.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

Thank you, Stuart. I'm excited as always. Yeah, this is a great discussion today, man. Uh this is really important stuff to talk about, but we'll just take a minute, as always, and just you know, figure out where we're at. So we'll keep the same structure. We'll talk about where the markets are at, and then just a couple key things that we're watching this week. Uh it's an important week. It's an important week. So, you know, the markets, again, we talked about it last week, are back into that all-time high territory. They're a little bit down from that from last week, but we've still seen a full recovery of the March dip from the you know, war overseas. We're still waiting on some clarity there. They keep throwing around ceasefires and different, you know, words that are making the market react. But where we're at right now, oil's still high. Uh, the volatility index is still high. And again, what that means for you is right now oil in the markets are trading inverse, where when oil continues to spike up, the markets are running down in fear. The markets are dropping. So we're seeing still that bit you know, push and pull there. Um we're waiting for this to finally be settled out completely, and we think we're pretty close to that. So we're uh happy to be through most of that. It's still, again, it is a volatile time. So you're gonna still see big headlines, you're gonna still see big swings, you know, one, two percent on the SP NASDAQ uh on any given day. But a couple key economic things that we're watching this week is this is we've got the um federal the Federal Reserve meeting uh today, and this is Jerome Powell's last meeting as you know, chairman. So we're gonna have a new the new chairman come in. And you know, a lot of people think that that's gonna be some dramatic change. And while it will on the front end, it's still a voting board. A lot of people, you know, assume people don't understand. They think, oh, he decides everything. He's one of 20 members that are voting, or maybe it's fifteen, somewhere in that range, that are voting on these decisions. So while he's the speaker and he's the chairman of the board, we're still gonna it's still generally the same board. So wanna you know taper expectations there. We're not gonna see him come in and just start making crazy cuts. We're still gonna have to play this inflation game, right? We're also watching the inflation numbers tomorrow. We've got GDP and PCE, which are two, you know, GDP is extremely important. It's what the country produces uh within our borders, and we need to see that continue to climb. Uh we have seen slightly declining numbers. We want to be, you know, at that 3% level all the time, and we haven't been there. So we want to see GDP continue to climb, and we want to see inflation come down. So we're looking for two different outcomes there. But until that inflation starts to come down, we're not gonna get the cuts. Um and we're all waiting for those rate cuts to hopefully bring down interest rates so we can refinance our homes and that sort of thing. So a couple key things there. Biggest takeaway I'd say is don't expect when the new chairman comes in, you're gonna see the announcements. Don't expect that we're gonna see sweeping changes, right? He might have the new chairman might have some more pressure from the current administration, but that doesn't mean he has the ability to go in and just completely rewrite the you know Federal Reserve. It's still uh, you know, voting party and they decide on everything together. So heightened volatility for now. We're still waiting for this war to clear up. We got some key economic reports coming out this week, and uh we'll keep watching and waiting for volatility to come back down. But that's what I got for today, Stuart.

SPEAKER_02 28:26

All right, good deal. Thank you very much. So getting back to the topic of the day. So we're talking about senior scams, we're talking about how technology has just gotten to the point where, you know, these these scams are just unbelievable nowadays. And, you know, we kind of talked about the grandparent scam, you know, we talked about the the fake advisor scam where, you know, supposedly your financial advisor is calling you and asking you for um information that you should never need to share over the phone, especially. Um so let's let's continue down this road. So, you know, the the the last one we were on was kind of this fake investment opportunity from a stranger that just kind of texts you out of the blue. And I can tell you that, you know, I have had I get texts on pretty much a weekly basis from people that I have no idea, don't know the number, don't know the people, and it's just this weird, you know, fishing type of expedition where they're just trying to get me to respond so they can start a conversation with me. And, you know, I I recognize it pretty quickly. But you know, a lot of seniors out there honestly, you know, they get lonely, Mitch. Yeah. And sometimes I think these conversations are sparked at, you know, where they're caught at a kind of a weak moment where they're feeling kind of lonely, and it's kind of nice to have someone to talk to. Yep. And, you know, I would just say, hey, listen, there's much, much better ways to interact with others and and just be real careful. And and if you are having these conversations with complete strangers through text or or DMs in your Instagram or whatever it may be, and the even the hint of some sort of investment opportunity comes up, that's when you need to cut that conversation off immediately. Um and a lot of times this would involve like crypto. Yep. And you know, we've seen that a lot where, you know, there's kind of this crypto angle and and there, you know, everybody kind of has this, you know, Bitcoin or or some other crypto source where, you know, they kind of have FOMO based around that, fear of missing out on an opportunity that others, you know, they've seen others make money on. And I can tell you, unless you are really deep into the crypto game and you're really deep and doing research and really following everything and understand, you know, the cycles like Mitch does as far as all of that. You know, I don't even really um do much with crypto anymore because I just don't have the time and energy to follow the stuff the way that you need to. And I do have some that I just bought and hold and and just full disclosure, but that is, you know, for a long term, um, ten years or more, and so I feel okay with that. But I can tell you that like for seniors, this is probably not a game you want to play at all. Right. Probably just want to stay away from it. And um, you know, the next the next thing that we'll talk about is you know the the fake annuity website. So there are just endless amounts of fake websites out there, and these websites are designed, you know, they're polished sites, they have logos, they have testimonials, they have headshots from advisors, they you know, they basically, you know, you maybe you did a search on Google for the best IRA rollover, and you know, you came upon one of these sites, you know, offering like a fixed annuity or an indexed annuity with unbelievable rates on it. And, you know, just listen, guys, if you're going to do these types of transactions, you want to, you know, you probably want to have a licensed financial advisor involved in this. And this is why having an advisor is so critical because a lot of times people fall victim to these type of sites just out of pure, you know, they see returns, they see, you know, uh fake in this case, fake returns and and things that, you know, are very, very attractive looking. And again, they're playing on kind of that greed element in in people where it's like, oh my gosh, you know, I can get a guaranteed, you know, whatever, 10% for the next three years um or five years or whatever the case may be. And listen, guys, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. How many times have we said that? So, you know, what you can be sure of is that if you are working with a licensed insurance agent or you're working with a licensed financial advisor, you're you whatever rates you're given, whatever you at least you can trust that that is a legitimate product that you are purchasing. And, you know, um, so i you know, you don't want to roll, you know, $100,000 into a fake annuity that doesn't exist only to find out that your money has gone and you will never see it again. So there's a lot worse things than getting, you know, a bad rate. There is.

SPEAKER_00 34:12

And we always say, you know, we're big proponents of in retirement working with a local firm, right? We're a local Greenville, South Carolina. We're both from South Carolina, we're a big fan of that in general. But today, even more important than ever, if you come across a website and you know, you go on their website, it looks good. Again, these AI can make these in two seconds now. If it looks good and you can't go in and sit down and talk to them, you can't go in and sit down and have a consultation and talk to this team. You know, they want to do everything just over the phone and they're trying to sell you real quick, run away. Right. This is where it's so important to have a firm you can drive over to and sit down and talk to real licensed advisors and discuss through these things. So that's more important now than it was ten years ago, is to make sure you have people that you can trust, especially in retirement.

SPEAKER_02 34:53

Yeah, I mean you can't even trust a Zoom call, right? Nowadays, no. You just can't. And so I think the the value of that face-to-face interaction is just cannot be understated. No. And just being able to shake hands and look somebody in the eye when you do business with them is is very, very important. And we are a local, you know, veteran-owned and operated um Greenville firm here in the upstate, and we would be happy to have you in and sit down and shake your hand and look you in the eye when we talk business. And I think there's a lot of value in that, guys. So just be real careful. Again, if it's too good to be true, probably is. So the next scam we want to talk about is the Social Security Medicare IRS impersonation. So AI has gotten made a big upgrade on this one. And you know, basically you might get a call that's a record of voice that says something to the to the effect of your social security number has been suspended due to suspicious activity, or a text, the IRS, your 2024 refund, has been flagged. Those type of things are very, very common nowadays. And you know, what they're trying to do is get you to basically uh make a phone call um to a number that is not what you think it is, it's not Medicare, it's not Social Security, it's not the IRS. And they're gonna you sometimes you get like an AI voice agent that's going to be conversational and and have your real name and your real address, and it feels real to you, but it's absolutely not. And what they're doing is they're trying to get important information by representing themselves as one of those agencies, whether it's Medicare, the IRS, or Social Security. And I can tell you, we've dealt with those, all three of those, for many years, two and a half decades, and they will not contact you in that manner.

SPEAKER_00 37:13

They will not call you.

SPEAKER_02 37:14

And if you think they have for any reason whatsoever, you hang up the phone and you pull the legitimate phone number for any of these agencies, go to their IRS.gov or Medicare.gov or SSA.gov and go ahead and contact them directly and and ask them if they what you're getting, if it's legitimate or what it is, and they will tell you. But I can tell you more than likely it's not. Right. They don't text you.

SPEAKER_00 37:46

These government offices will not text you and not call you to tell you that something's suspended, you need to pay now to unlock it. They're gonna mail you, and you're not gonna get anything like that.

SPEAKER_02 37:56

Yeah. So, you know, the next one, and we're gonna take a quick break here, but then we're gonna get into a few more of these that we are seeing on a regular basis, and just make sure that you guys are prepared for this stuff. Stick with us, guys. We will be right back. Are you a business owner with an email list you are not sure is actually growing your business? Most business owners are just guessing, sending emails, hoping for a click. At Kathy Farah Consulting, we take guesswork out of your email marketing. We help you identify what's working and fix what's broken, turning your list into a reliable engine for better leads and consistent sales. Stop wondering, start growing. Visit KathyFara.com to book your free email clarity call today. Let's make your email marketing work smarter.

SPEAKER_01 38:45

Thanks for tuning in to Clearpath Retirement Radio with Stuart Smith and Mitch Davies. Let's get back to the show.

SPEAKER_02 38:52

Welcome back in to Clear Path Retirement Radio. Today we are talking about senior scams, and we are bringing some things to light for you guys to think about. Hopefully, this information helps at least just one person. If we help one person avoid these scams, then we have done our job today. Um we've been through quite a few of them. We're gonna just finish out this list here, but the last one that we've seen a lot of is something called an email phishing scam. And basically what it is is you get some kind of alert, maybe it's from your custodian that where that has your money, like a Fidelity or a Schwab or one of those guys, and it's basically some sort of a alert saying unusual login attempt. If this wasn't you, tap here to secure your account. This one is deadly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:53

Yeah, this is and you'll also see it's also often like a receipt, and it'll say it'll be a PayPal email. I get this one all the time. It'll be a PayPal email, it'll say, you sent $400 to this person, it'll send you just a receipt. And then it says, if you have questions, call this number. It's not real.

SPEAKER_02 40:08

Yeah, be super careful with that one. I get that one all the time. You just uh thank you for your $445 that you can use. Yeah, for McAfee on your PayPal account and you freak out and go, Well, I didn't know. And then you they want you to click a link, they want you to put in your login information to secure the account, then they want the six-digit code that your phone just buzzed with, and then you know what's happened is you just handed over full control of that account to them, and once in they can initiate external bank transfers or wire to an account that they control. And guys, this happens every single day. This is one of the deadliest ones that people get, and I can just tell you this is be super careful. Don't ever log into your financial accounts from a link in a text or an email. That's the key. Okay, don't ever do that, guys. That is not the real login. It may look just like the login, it may feel like the login, but you are taking your life into your own hands if you do that, because you are handing the keys to the kingdom to some devious person out there who is going to use that information and take every penny they can from you on the other side of that. So be really careful. So let's talk about some things you can do, Mitch, that can help you to maybe kind of avoid these type of things. And I would say the first one would be for this grandparent scam, establish a family safe word. Yeah. So what we mean by that is get with your grandchildren and come up with a safe word, a code word that only you guys know. And that way, if you are ever approached by what it looks like your grandchild, sounds like your grandchild, you can just very easily ask, what is our safe word? What is the code word? And if that child cannot give you that word immediately, that is a scam. So establishing a family safe word that you can use in any type of emergency call.

SPEAKER_00 42:33

Make it something weird. Make it something obscure, right? I mean super weird. Super weird.

SPEAKER_02 42:38

And um that that is a great thing to do. And then adopt what we call the verify don't trust rule. So anyone calling you, your bank, your advisor, social security, a utility company, hang up immediately and call back on a number you already have on file, not the number they give you, not the number on your caller ID, the one you already know, right? The one habit that neutralizes caller ID spoofing and imposter advisor scams immediately. Go and get the real number and call them directly. If there's a problem, you'll know. And do not use the number on your caller ID or a number that's been provided to you. The next thing is, and I've done this and I think this is everybody should do this. Go and freeze your credit on all three credit bureau sites. So create your cell phone account on TransUnion, on Equifax and Experian. And which I have done, and they have a mechanism in there where you can go and freeze your credit. And what you know, what happens is excuse me, if you ever need credit You can unfreeze it. You can j jump on your phone and you can go to the site and you can just click log in and click a button and unfreeze it real quick while they run the credit report to get whatever credit you're applying for and then you can refreeze it. But to me, I keep mine frozen 24-7, seven days a week, all throughout the year, unless I need very specific credit for something. And at my age, I don't need a mortgage, I don't need a car loan, I don't need any of those things very often. So I it was very easy for me to do. So go in and freeze your credit, and you will thank yourself because it definitely um protects you um from a lot of these type of scams. Turn on multi-factor authentication, but not via text. So, you know, multi-factor authentication, I can tell you, has saved a lot of people from losing a lot of money in this country. That is something that that you can fairly easily do. If if you log into your account and it asks you, you know, your legitimate account and it asks you to establish multi-factor authentication, don't just click through that and say no. Go ahead and do that. That extra step can be the difference between losing money and not losing money. Certainly. And so we we do use that on everything that we have in the office. Every app I I have that I can have it on, I have it on. It does, it can be a little bit of a pain.

SPEAKER_00 45:45

Yeah, it adds an extra step.

SPEAKER_02 45:46

It adds an extra step, but it is so worth it when it comes to your money and time and sanity and everything else that that these scammers can can get to. So, you know, another thing is is add a verbal password to your brokerage accounts. So most major custodians like Fidelity, Schwab, and Vanguard, let you add a voice passphrase required before any transaction is processed over the phone. Um so you can call your custodian and set this up, but this is highly recommended, man. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:23

This is a good one. You don't have to do this every time you log in. But to verify a transaction, I'm gonna ask you again for this kind of niche phrase that you have to say, and it can really increase the safety of the account. It's not gonna add a bunch of extra steps to log in, but it's little things like this. And you can do something similar with two-factor authentication. One of the oldest tricks in the book, one of the oldest scams is sim swapping, is where they can get your text message, right? So you can, you know, these apps like Microsoft Authenticator and Google Authenticator, they're a pain. They add an extra step, but it's very easy for people to use those phishing emails that we talked about, get access to your text, you know, to get access to your number, receive all your text, and then get your two-factor there. So if you want to take it even a step further, ma maybe on the most important things, maybe just on your custodian account or your bank account, but on the most important things, take it a step further and use one of these authenticator apps.

SPEAKER_02 47:13

Yeah. Yeah. Not a bad idea. And then, you know, the the never pay with rule is is also an important one. And that is, you know, to say that no legitimate organization, not a government, not a utility, not a bank, or an advisor is ever going to be asked to be paid in gift cards, a wire transfer under time pressure, cryptocurrency, or cash, if the payment method is any of those four, it's a scam full stop. For sure. Right? For sure. So be careful with that. If if they're asking, again, I'm gonna reiterate, if they're asking to be paid in gift cards, a wire transfer under time pressure, cryptocurrency or cash handed to a courier, the payment method is a scam that you are being scammed. And so be very, very careful of those. And the final thing that we would say here is shrink your public audio and video footprint. You know, this is a difficult one to do, especially once it's out there, it's kind of out there. But what we mean by that is, you know, consider setting your social media content to private if it's not already. Just share that with only people that you want to see that. Don't make that public knowledge. So, you know, think twice before posting a video of grandkids giving a speech, singing, or narrating a video. A 10 second second clip is all it takes to clone a voice.

unknown 48:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:55

Those things are extremely important to understand. And I do I will say that that these are all very important things to help you avoid being scammed. And, you know, a lot of people out there are have fallen victim to these types of scams. You know, for them it is too late. We you can, if it's done very quickly, sometimes you can call your bank or brokers directly and request an urgent reversal and flag the account for monitoring. Sometimes you can do things like that, but you have to do it very quickly. If you have been scammed, you want to report that to the FBI or IC3.gov, which is the official federal clearinghouse for internet enabled crime. So that is that is something you want to do. You can report it to the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov and that that'll help, you know, to get it on the radar as a scam and help maybe help other folks. There's a lot of things that you can do to prevent, and once these things have happened, to help prevent it for others. The main thing is, you know, listen, life goes on. Don't feel so much shame. Make sure you report this stuff and and help others to make sure this, you know, if it happened to you, help make sure it doesn't happen to other people because they're gonna feel the same way you do. They're gonna feel full of shame, and that is just an awful place to be in. So we hope all this advice helps you guys today. Thank you for tuning in to the show. Watch out for those senior scams out there, and until the next time, until next week, I want everybody to have a happy retirement. We'll see you next week, guys. Are you anxious to see what retirement might look like for you? Do you feel like you have the pieces of the puzzle, but you're not sure how they fit together or where to start? At ClearPath Retirement, we help you bring clarity to retirement by organizing your income, taxes, healthcare decisions, and legacy planning into one cohesive plan. Retirement doesn't have to feel uncertain, it just needs a clear path. Schedule your complimentary consultation at Clearpathretirement.com.

SPEAKER_01 51:17

You've been listening to Clear Path Retirement Radio with Stuart Smith and Mitch Davies, helping you make informed decisions so you can plan for retirement with confidence. To learn more, visit Clearpathretirement.com. That's Clearpathretirement.com. Investment advisory services offered through Alpastar Capital Management LLC, a SEC registered investment advisor. SEC registration does not constitute an endorsement of the firm by the SEC, nor does it indicate that the advisor has attained a particular level of skill or ability. Fixed insurance products are offered through Clearpath Retirement Planning LLC, and AlphaStar Capital Management is not involved in the offer, recommendation, sale, or management of commission based fixed insurance products. AlphaStar Capital Management and Clear Path Retirement Planning LLC are separate and independent entities. This is for informational purposes only and is not intended as legal tax or investment advice or a recommendation of any particular security, investment product, or investment strategy.