Episode 333: Protecting Your Family From AI-Powered Scams and Fraud With Patrick Coughlin

AI has made everyday life more convenient, but it has also given scammers a powerful new set of tools. In this episode, Melissa Joy, CFP®, is joined by Patrick Coughlin, CEO of Savi Security and author of the new book The Dark Side of the Boom: How Scammers Hijacked the AI Revolution. After building and selling a cybersecurity company to Splunk, Patrick shifted his focus to protecting everyday families following a deeply personal experience: a sophisticated AI voice cloning scam that targeted his own mother.

Patrick walks through how AI tools are supercharging scam operations around the world, why imposter scams have become the most reported fraud type in the country, and the practical habits families can build to protect themselves, from creating a family code word to running a second channel check before sending money. Melissa and Patrick also discuss the role financial advisors and trusted contacts can play in catching fraud early, and how parents can talk to kids and teens about digital safety without shame.

What You'll Learn

• How an AI voice cloning scam targeted Patrick Coughlin's mother, and what helped her recognize it in time
• Why digital fraud now costs Americans almost $200 billion a year and has grown eightfold since the launch of ChatGPT
• The "five families of fraud" and how scam organizations around the world specialize like businesses
• Why imposter scams are now the number one reported fraud type, making up 33 percent of all scams in 2025
• What a "hot zone" moment looks like, and the three ingredients scammers rely on to pressure victims
• How a family code word and a second channel check can stop a scam before money changes hands
• Why caller ID can be faked, and what to do instead if you get a call from your bank's fraud department
• The role trusted contacts and financial advisors can play in catching fraud early
• How to talk with teens and aging parents about scams without shame, and why younger generations are targeted more often than they realize
• How free tools like ScamWise can give you a fast second opinion on a suspicious text, email, or piece of mail

Download the Digital Fraud Protection Guide

Connect with Patrick: LinkedIn

Follow Patrick: Instagram

Savi Security: Website

Savi Security LinkedIn: LinkedIn

Savi Security Instagram: Instagram

The Dark Side of the Boom: Book

The previous presentation by PEARL PLANNING was intended for general information purposes only.  No portion of the presentation serves as the receipt of, or as a substitute for, personalized investment advice from PEARL PLANNING or any other investment professional of your choosing. Different types of investments involve varying degrees of risk, and it should not be assumed that future performance of any specific investment or investment strategy, or any non-investment related or planning services, discussion or content, will be profitable, be suitable for your portfolio or individual situation, or prove successful. Neither PEARL PLANNING’s investment adviser registration status, nor any amount of prior experience or success, should be construed that a certain level of results or satisfaction will be achieved if PEARL PLANNING is engaged, or continues to be engaged, to provide investment advisory services. PEARL PLANNING is neither a law firm nor accounting firm, and no portion of its services should be construed as legal or accounting advice. No portion of the video content should be construed by a client or prospective client as a guarantee that he/she will experience a certain level of results if PEARL PLANNING is engaged, or continues to be engaged, to provide investment advisory services. A copy of PEARL PLANNING’s current written disclosure Brochure discussing our advisory services and fees is available upon request or at https...

Transcript

Why Modern Scams Feel So Real

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome to the Women's Money Wisdom Podcast. I'm Melissa Joy, a certified financial planner and the founder of Pearl Planning. My goal is to help you streamline and organize your finances, navigate big money decisions with confidence, and be strategic in order to grow your wealth. As a woman, you work hard for your money, and I'm here to help you make the most of it. Now let's get into the show. And if you're not, you probably are going to listen to this episode and both perhaps have a little more anxiety, but also have more confidence that there could be solutions to help protect you from scams and frauds in the digital age. I'm joined by guest Patrick Coughlin. He is the CEO of Savvy Security and also the author of The Dark Side of the Boom, How Scammers Hijacked the AI Revolution, which is a brand new book issued this year. And after building a set and selling a cybersecurse company to Splunk, Patrick shifted his focus to protecting everyday families because of a deeply personal story. And I'm going to let him tell the story, but Patrick, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Thank you for having me, Melissa.

SPEAKER_03 1:31

I'm so glad that you're here. You are a cybersecurity expert and were a security expert before that, right? And has spent a lot of time protecting big assets and companies from um scams and fraud. But today you are going to market with a product that's here to help people like me and our listeners. Can you tell me a little bit about that evolution and what brought you to where

A Cybersecurity CEO Gets Personal

SPEAKER_03 1:58

savvy is today?

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Yeah, absolutely. Um, so if you if you sort of look back at my career, there's there's really one thread that that runs through the whole thing, which is trying to understand how bad guys, as my five-year-old son would call them, bad guys, uh uh use technology to do harm. And in the early days of my career, I was focused on national security threats. Um, I spent a lot of time in places like Iraq and Afghanistan and all over the Middle East looking at how um different groups were using technology then. Um I pivoted to uh focused on enterprises, large Fortune 500 companies, and how they use how we can how we can better defend their digital networks from cyber criminals and hackers. About two years ago, my mom, little old Beth Coughlin from from Kansas City, got uh a very sophisticated uh fake kidnapping scam that was targeted at her. And so essentially what happened was she answers the phone one evening. It looks like my sister, her daughter, is calling her. It says Courtney is calling, just like it always did. She answers the phone, she hears what she swears was my sister's voice say, Mom, they've got me help. I'm at the local Walmart in Olatha, Kansas, which you may know, Melissa.

SPEAKER_03 3:19

We're both from Kansas City, so Olatha's right down the road, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Um and um and then a man's voice comes on the phone and says, We've got your daughter, and we're gonna we're gonna kill her in the parking lot of Walmart if you don't have money right now. And so my mom, the way my mom tells the story is she immediately goes into protector mode. Um, as I imagine, you know, many in your audience know what that feels like going into protector mode. And she, you know, grabs her pillar, starts to put on her coat. The the man is yelling at her PayPal instructions for how to send money. And she turns and looks uh on the dining room table and sees her iPad. And so, lucky, luckily enough, she picks that up while she's on the phone, texts my brother-in-law saying, Where's Cordy? What are we gonna do? Still thinking the ruse is completely real.

SPEAKER_03 4:10

Right. The element of surprise really helps, right? To just you're you're you're an animal with instincts, your mother protecting her the herd.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Yeah. So um, yes, and that's that's and we'll talk a little bit more about this, but that's exactly what scammers are targeting in those moments, is is your emotions and how do they overwhelm logical and rational thinking by triggering other parts in your brain that drive these emotional responses and sort of crowd out the rational. Um, but luckily, my my my brother-in-law responds immediately and says, What are you talking about? Courtney's here, she's in the shower. And so in that moment, my mom gets this sort of second opinion, something that breaks the scammer spell, and she's able to sort of step away from it, recognize this may not be real, hangs up the phone, calls my brother-in-law, makes him put Courtney on the phone, um, and then realizes something's not right, she calls me. And what's going through my mind in the moment, Melissa, is one, how do we sort of calm down my mom? Because this is totally traumatic. And a very, from her perspective, everything on that call was fake, but but the emotion so personal. Yeah. And and so calm down, mom, you know, make sure she's feeling okay. But then as the cybersecurity researcher in my head, I'm thinking, what has fundamentally changed here? That that the sophistication that I used to see was was reserved for three-letter government agencies and large Fortune 500 companies in terms of how they personalize and target these attacks is now happening to to little old Beth Coughlin from Kansas. And what does that mean about who else is being targeted and where this threat is going over time?

SPEAKER_03 5:51

Yeah, so so much to ponder. And I've heard of these scams and so many others nowadays. And so with your expertise and your entrepreneurial skill, what what is next? How can we protect Beth

The $200 Billion Fraud Explosion

SPEAKER_03 6:10

and all of our, you know, loved ones, including ourselves?

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Yeah, yeah. And so I mean, that question is what is what ultimately led me to to write the book Dark Side of the Doom, which captured a couple of years of research into how these scam groups are operating, what are the tools that they're using? How are they doing each stage of their campaigns now with more AI weaved into uh the the operations that they're running? And what does that mean for victims and everyday people? And what can we expect in terms of how scams and fraud are going to continue to evolve? And what I learned was impossible to ignore the the data is off the charts. Digital fraud is now estimated to cost Americans in this country almost $200 billion a year. Wow. The number of attacks uh that have resulted in over $100,000 losses in a single incident, those have grown by eightfold since the launch of Chat GPT just a few years ago. We are in a an epidemic here of scams. It's now the fastest growing crime in the country. It's also the largest economic crime in this country when we think about that $200 billion number. So we have so much work to do for the consumer around how do we how do we bring more tools to this problem to this problem so that we can arm the consumer, we can arm families with more sophisticated cybersecurity in the face of this changing and increasingly sophisticated cyber threat. So for me, it wasn't enough just to write the book. Uh we started the company called Savvy Security with with my brother, keeping it in the family. Uh, my brother has a great background in consumer products at places like Apple and Spotify. And I've got I've got expertise in cybersecurity. So we figured if we could bring those two things together, we can build better products and better protection for families in this in this AI era that we're living in.

SPEAKER_03 8:18

Well, I'm curious before we get into some of the ways you can protect yourself. I mean, first of all, I know as a small business owner, a significant part of my technology budget is toward protecting our company and our clients, and especially because we deal with personally identifiable information. Um and, you know, the gap knowing, you know, like the training we have to do every month, that I have a 24-7 team who calls us if somebody clicks on the wrong place. Um, you it's so easy to recognize that gap. And we're going to talk more about how you can protect yourself on the personal level because, you know, there's no, there's no technology budget for cyber in grandma's retirement accounts or your own, because there's not an age, um an age minimum for you to be um vulnerable.

unknown 9:11

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 9:11

But before we go there, I was just curious, you know, in

Who Runs Scam Groups Worldwide

SPEAKER_03 9:15

your research, like who's on the other end of the line? Obviously, it's a computer simulating some of the things that reaches out to Beth. But is this a a state actor? Is this a criminal enterprise? Like who is who is out there on the other end and targeting Beth in Kansas City?

SPEAKER_01 9:34

It's a really good question. And and it was a key part of my learning as I sort of went to the CD underbelly of of the internet and where these scam groups and cyber criminal organizations are operating and trying to understand the who is behind this. And there's a chapter of the book that we call the five families of fraud to try to uh and using sort of like a sopranos or reference there to um help bring to life uh the different types of organizations here. Uh it's it's a bit of a um uh a trick that we use. Of course, there's more than just five of these types there. But um, we essentially travel around the world in the book and we look at uh prototypical scam groups in Eastern Europe, in Southeast Asia, in West Africa, which was the original home of the of the Nigerian prints email scams from the early 2000s, if you remember. And we also look at homegrown threats uh that are coming out of organized crime groups in in North America. And what we find is is each of these uh geographical locations uh typically has specialties and the types of scams that they will do. It's not always true, but it's helpful to think about how these groups operate and and they specialize just like uh you know any other business would specialize in in a service offering, except their customers are victims. They really do run these organizations like a business where uh there are humans behind it, of course, just like there are humans behind every business here in in the US, but increasingly those humans are using technology to make their scams more personalized, more convincing, more sophisticated, and more scalable.

SPEAKER_03 11:28

Right. It's increasing the at-bats, right? Like they if if Beth figures it out, that's okay because they she's not their only victim that day.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

That's right, that's right. And and you know, we have to be right every time, but they only have to be right once to get paid. And and and so what we found is is you know, this this generation of of

Voice Clones And The New Trust Crisis

SPEAKER_01 11:48

AI tools that is taking the markets by storm. I'm sure you as a financial planner are following all the markets around AI and the boom that we're living in.

SPEAKER_03 11:55

Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Um these tools are incredibly good at at talking like us and and and behaving like us. Um, if you've played with them, you've got to see. And in some ways, it they're they're almost magical and and kind of how they can they can speak and talk like us. Well, that makes them useful for things like like taking actions on our behalf for sure, and can make us more productive. Uh, they're also incredibly useful for deceiving us because they can act and behave and sound like us. And so that makes them uh the the dream tool for cyber criminals, for con artists, for the imposter scammers that are out there who are essentially trying to convince you they are somebody that they are not in order to get you to do something against your financial interests.

SPEAKER_03 12:45

Well, I'm gonna just pause there. Like we're both recording a um video podcast where for listeners that are only on audio, there's also a a YouTube video version. And we're using our, you know, voice, image, likeness in here with that knowledge. What makes you comfortable? Because I have friends who are like, I will not record anymore because I don't want to be lost, but um, it's it would be very difficult to erase your digital, you know, thumbprint. Um are you still willing to do this? Obviously, you are.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

Yeah. And and I mean, look, there is um at this point, you can you can clone a voice, an AI clone voice, off of just a couple of seconds of audio.

SPEAKER_03 13:31

You don't need I mean, we all leave voicemails. There's uh you you answer a phone and don't know who it is, like there's all sorts of things.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

So somebody's you know, you can't hear anybody, you say, Who is this? You ask a few questions. Um, you today that's already enough to clone a voice. Uh-huh. So so the technology is getting so good that you don't even need these sort of long-form content out there to to create an avatar of Patrick and his voice and his likeness. And so that's why we focus at Savvy on how do we sort of detect scammer behavior rather than trying to put up more walls around all of us in the digital universe, which you know, we have to be smart, we have to be aware of how we engage online and recognize the the threats that are out there. But I think the the worst outcome from all of this scam behavior and and spam and AI slop that's out there would be that we all just kind of throw up our hands and throw our devices in the trash and and retreat and isolate ourselves. Because the the power of technology and the promise of technology is that it can it can connect us better, it can it can make us more productive, we can communicate in new ways, we can be entertained in new ways. And some of those are incredibly valuable to moving society forward and to giving us a different kind of quality of life. I mean, I think about things like FaceTime. I live in Los Angeles, my mom still lives in Kansas City. Um, what FaceTime has done for our relationship, for her relationship with her grandson in terms of connectivity is super powerful, right? It's an upside to technology, and we can't let the bad guys win, the scammers win, if we just say, well, they're flooding our channels too much and we're going to throw these things in the trash. And so that's why we wrote the book to raise awareness around the issues. And that's why we're building new tools and better solutions to help protect families.

SPEAKER_03 15:30

I mean, I think about it, and Beth was both a victim because of access to technology, but she also used technology to protect herself by immediately being able to reach out to family members. So it works both ways.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

That's right. That's right. And and there are things we can do here. This is not a whole hopeless story. The the book is not a diatribe against technology. While we do, I like to think, take a hard look at the AI builders, the telecommunications infrastructure, the social media platforms that are often complicit or at least look the other way at times, as to see tickets trafficked to our front door, to our phone, to our inboxes, to our DMs. And we do take a hard look at that. And there are things that we can do from a policy perspective and a responsibility perspective as citizens of this country, I think,

Hot Zone Signs And Second Checks

SPEAKER_01 16:28

to do better there. There are also things we can do in the family. We can create new rituals. We can we can create a family code word, for example, is something that we recommend in the book, which is a you know a secret word that is only known to you and your family members. Um what that does is it starts a conversation around there, maybe scenarios where we need to verify who we are that we can't anticipate right now. And then you start talking about those scenarios. What might that be in practice where you might need to use this with your with your kids, with your aging parents, with your partner, and all of a sudden you're talking in a new way about this new world that we live in and that and the realities of the technology today? And so sometimes just little steps like creating a family code word can start the conversation making for sure.

SPEAKER_03 17:20

But there's so the family code word is one good like hygiene or you know, kind of preparedness, I'm assuming, for like, hey, is this really you? Like, can you give me the family code word? Whatever, you know, what's our code of arms? And then yeah, everybody's decided what it is. What are some of the other um, you know, things you could be doing as a human? And then also technology solutions, since you know that's one of the areas that you've kind of pivoted to solve for.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Yeah. And I I also think it's you know it's important to do it in family. It's important to do in in the places where trust exists for the family. I think about financial planners and the role that you all play in so many families around the country and around the world and really being a trusted advisor to folks in retirement. And so um, you know, I think it's a super relevant conversation for uh not just the family, but the people that interact with the family.

SPEAKER_03 18:17

And for sure. And if I could just interrupt there, you know, having a conversation with your financial professional about who is a trusted contact that if I so I I haven't had this situation for my own clients, but I have a friend who is an advisor and her client was getting romance scammed. And she knew it because of a change in behavior in terms of how he was asking for money. Um, and if fortunately had had gotten permission to have a trusted contact and who is this, where we don't give that person authorization to act on their behalf, but they are someone that we have permission or she had permission to reach out to and say, you need to investigate because this strange behavior is occurring. And in fact, um the securities industry is going further to have um, especially for seniors, uh, the ability to not take client instructions if you believe that there is they've been compromised and are being um having fraud occur. So, you know, the human element comes with a cost. So most financial advice from a human also has a price tag that is um certainly worthy of, you know, assessing the value, but it also does come with years in many cases of knowledge of customer, consumer, client behavior that can be protective as well as policies and procedures where you know you can't, you're not just calling an 800 line in order to ask for some money to be sent. There's there's um some human knowledge of your behaviors and who you are and how you operate.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

That's right. And I think what you just identified is a great example of the other behavior that we really recommend, which is around a second channel check. So if you find yourself in in a situation that we call a hot zone situation, which typically includes some sort of unfamiliar contact or out. Uh it it includes the extreme sense of urgency around, you know, a real fear, you're gonna lose money, you're gonna miss an opportunity to make money, somebody's going to get hurt that you love, uh, combined with an ask for money. And those three things are the ingredients of a hot zone moment that scammers you, regardless of what the scam type is, regardless of where it emanates from in the world, it typically includes that combination of ingredients.

SPEAKER_03 20:47

And so Yeah, with often a trusted, like, you know, yours was a family member as a um employer, like something that looks like it came from your manager, where especially if you're a newer employee um, where you don't know their behaviors and you're looking to impress, you know, and like, oh, I'll hop to it and and get it done.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

That's right. And and these these imposter scams, as we call them, which are which uh went from being just a blip on the radar a few years ago in terms of the type of fraud that were out there, to now being the number one officially reported scam and fraud in this country hitting consumers in 2025, making up 33% of all scams out there, is these imposter scams, where they pretend to be somebody that you trust, fuck, or care for, or or or may fall in love with, to your point around a romance scam. Um, and and the role that AI plays in making that more convincing. So when you find yourself in those situations, if you get a call from your bank's fraud department, as we we tell the story of Daniel, who's uh in the book, who you know, who's a young, talented, brilliant software engineer working in tech, who's also you know, a committed saver building up. Wants to retire early, um, doing everything right. And then, of course, when his phone rings and it looks like it's coming for his bank's fraud depart department, and they tell him that there's been suspicious activity in his account. The one thing he hasn't put into his savings model is this is some sort of big fraud incident. And he immediately panics and complies with every instruction that they say on the phone.

SPEAKER_03 22:22

What are the next questions? Like, can you give me your username and password so we can fix this? Or what are they? Okay or go to this link and log in.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

That's right. Or you may get a code now. I want you to read to me the code, but what the what that person's actually doing is then using that to get into your account. And so um um, we have to we have to have new ways to verify in this new world. We have to build new ways of trust and your point around leveraging relationships with with financial planners and wealth advisors and what they bring to the table in terms of trust and second opinions that can really be helpful in these moments that matter. But there are other ways too. When you get that call from your bank, flip over your card and call the number back that's on the back of your card, right? Just trusting what came in and what the caller ID said. Because let me tell you, caller ID is an editable field. Yeah, it is not to be trusted. We've done a ton of work on the telecommunications infrastructure. We know how easy it is to fake that. So uh, you know, flip your card over, call the number that's on the back of your card for your bank. Um, turn to somebody, ask somebody you trust,

Scamwise Plus Family Protection Tools

SPEAKER_01 23:30

ask somebody you love, saying, Does this sound right to you? Uh have a look at this. Or if if if if none of those are a really clear option, or you don't know what the second channel verification may look like, that's why we built a free product called Scamwise, which is available at scamwise.com. It's a website, you don't have to pay for it, it's totally free. It's a free scam checker. Uh, you don't even have to put in an email address so you don't have to worry about user data or things like that. You can submit a screenshot of a text, you could forward an email to it. It's submit at scamwise.com. You could take a picture of physical mail, we get a lot of that. Uh, this traffic citation doesn't look I don't I don't remember this. Or this is yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_03 24:12

The toll text, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:14

The toll text, the jury summons is a big one going around right now, the a fake jury summons, and then a fee or a fine associated with not showing up. Um, that that turns out to be completely bogus.

SPEAKER_03 24:26

Retaption scams too nowadays. Like I my IT company is telling us that they're getting those weekly summons in the clients.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

Ads that show up on Instagram for a cool product that looks like it's an extreme discount that's too good to be true. And you click on it and you get sent to some shopping website, those URLs. So you can submit all of this to scam wise and get a quick second opinion, and we'll tell you what you know what makes it suspicious or or legit looking. And then we'll also recommend specific steps that you can take to verify. Uh, and and so we put that out there four months ago um in March, and you know, we're getting tens of thousands of submissions a week from all over the country of people who are looking for a second channel check, a second opinion about a particular message. And that's fantastic. Finding ways to build into your behavior new rituals around verification and trust checking is going to be so important to our success in this AI era.

SPEAKER_03 25:27

So tell me a little bit more if people are interested in protecting themselves at a higher level. Is there anything more they could be doing?

SPEAKER_00 25:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

Yeah. And of course, we you know we're we're putting out more products from from Savvy. Uh so SAVI security.com. If you're interested in doing more, you can visit us there. Uh, we've got apps now in the app store for um Apple and Android Android phones that provide text message filtering. So interestingly, SMS and text, you mentioned sort of the toll scams. SMS and text messages just surpassed email for the first time ever as the number one most popular phishing vector for consumers.

SPEAKER_03 26:09

I'm surprised it took that long, to be honest.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

Yeah, well, forever it was email, and email still is is right up there. It's it's a huge, huge problem. But but text is now the number one, and so we've got to do more to filter out suspicious-looking text messages. We offer call protection features. Um, so the ability, like I don't know about you, but my voicemail is like a mess uh on my phone. Um, so we do analysis of what gamers love to hide in in voicemails, particularly for senior citizens, and sort of claim, you know, leave a very urgent sounding message from the IRS or from somebody that you trust saying you got to call back now. And of course, once they got you on the phone, um, they start to put their emotional hooks into you. So cleaning up voicemail, um, we've got you can add savvy to a call now. So if you find yourself on a suspicious call or something that just doesn't sound right, like my mom's call or any call, by the way, they they all get through these different platforms, and you will find yourself on a on a suspicious sounding call. You can add savvy to the call. It will listen for the first 30 seconds and it will send you a verdict about the suspiciousness of that call and recommend next steps, just like we would on ScamWise. So we've got capabilities. If you want to take more steps around securing not just yourself, but your loved one, your aging parents, your teenage kids who are onboarding to the digital digital world, we believe it's savvy that security is a shared experience. My exposure is no different than than my wife's, who's got the same access to my bank account. If my mom had been scammed for a lot of money, that would have had a big impact on my financial future. For sure. You know, and and and the caregiving role that so many people play for our aging parents. And so our mission, it's that is not just how do we build better protection for the individual and people who, you know, unfortunately, all too often look like me and have a background like mine in cybersecurity, but how do we break build it for a broader tent of people that need protection in this new era?

SPEAKER_03 28:17

I before

Teens, Seniors, And Shame-Free Talk

SPEAKER_03 28:18

we wrap up, we're running out of time, but I wanted to ask, you've mentioned your five-year-old. And I find um in some ways, so I have uh two teenagers, had to change that. The tween turned into a teen recently. And um, in some ways, they're so much smarter than us. And in other ways, they still have a you know undeveloped prefrontal cortex and their impulse control is low. So how do you protect an emerging adult or someone who now maybe have access to funds, but also, you know, like may more easily fall for the trick of like, hey, give me some information about you, you know, for a free coupon or we'll send you something cheap or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

Yeah, I it's you know, the data about this generation of teenagers and young people coming online in terms of the volume of scams that they're getting is off the charts. You know, we always think about senior citizens. That's because they're the ones losing the most money.

SPEAKER_03 29:20

Right. There's a smaller bank account attached. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:23

Uh but if you look at the volume stats in terms of where where scams are actually happening the most frequently, it's in the younger generations. Uh they just don't have as much money to lose typically. Uh, but they're getting hit on on their messaging platforms, on Snapchat, on gaming platforms like Roblox, as they get a little older on dating platforms. Um, so so it's it's everywhere for the digital native generations that that come online. I would say my point about family rituals applies here, which is it starts with talking about this and and removing this concept of shame from being scammed, because the reality is the scammers are really good at their jobs and we need to get them more credit and more blame and start talking about the scenarios that are out there, so that in the hopes of that young people recognize the threats that are out there, but more than that, that they're not afraid to talk to you about it when something may seem off, or if they have gotten themselves in a difficult situation in a scam. And so, you know, talking about these things, saying to our kids, you know, look, uh, there's a rule in this house, we never send money to a stranger that we've never met online without talking to each other about it, you know, and I'm never gonna do that, leave lead with the behavior. I'm you know, I make a promise that I'm not gonna do that. And so we're not gonna do that as a family. And and and and why? Why aren't we doing that? Well, here's the kind of threats that we're finding out there. So I find that just starting the conversation, making this what used to be an issue that was only talked about in windowless conference rooms in DC or in and boardrooms of the Fortune 500, how do we make this a living room and a kitchen table issue is going to be the way that we build better protection for families.

SPEAKER_03 31:16

So true. Talking about like, hey, mistakes happen, get raise your hand earlier if you don't, if and also I I think like once they figure out that you're a vulnerable person who's willing to click, then you become more vulnerable. So, you know, if you're listening, ask your parents, do you think you've fallen in? Has something happened that, you know, like you don't you don't want to tell me about? Like would be good normal conversations to have and say, it's okay if, you know, even if it's in the thousands, if you lost some money, like let's I want to know because then we can help protect you from the next thing. And I think it's so important. I heard some that someone mention recently that we did more to overprotect our children in the physical world than like you and I probably grew up with. And then we left them uh open in the digital world, and it should have been reverse where there's more chances to skin your knee in the actual, you know, actual playground and um in that digital playground that there that we need more safeguards.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

That's right. I mean, I think about when I was growing up, and you may have had something similar, you know, in in in in Kansas City. You know, my parents told me, look, if you ever find yourself when I was a teenager, if you find yourself at a party and you don't know how to get home, yeah, you can always call us.

SPEAKER_03 32:34

You can always call it like no questions asked, we'll pick you up. We may have a conversation later, but conversation later, which we always did.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

Uh because I did make a few of those calls, but but um, but you know, those kinds of conversations introduced the topic and the and the concern around things like drunk driving or or uh fears. And now you're talking about it. How do we have similar conversations in digital spaces and in the online world where we are doing so much communication, entertainment, and commerce today? We've got to find ways to talk about it. And then hopefully the book, the work we're doing with Scam Wise and Savvy helps give parents new tools to

Book Links And How To Support

SPEAKER_01 33:10

do that.

SPEAKER_03 33:10

I love that. So tell us, um, Patrick, well, first of all, congratulations on all the work that you've done so far. Where can people find the book? Um, remind us where to go if you're vetting a scam, and then tell us a little bit more about where to find the savvy apps.

SPEAKER_01 33:26

Yeah. So uh the books available anywhere books are sold. You can go to darkside of the boom.com or you can just go to Amazon or bookshop.org, wherever you wherever you like to buy books. Um the scamwise is available at scamwise.com. Bookmark it, show your parents how to use it. We've we received so much feedback from sandwich generation folks who said it's been really helpful with my parents and giving them a tool to check their own scam. So so use scamwise. It's totally free. You know, you don't have to worry about uh um privacy or protection around the user data because we don't even ask you for an email. Um, so check that out. And then uh if you want to do more, go to SAVIsecurity.com, savvy security.com, and you can find more information about the apps that we launched there.

SPEAKER_03 34:17

Well, thank you for this conversation, Patrick. Um, I think it's just another great discussion, just like you said, for that sandwich generation. When you're in the messy money middle, the um, you know, the the obligations, responsibilities, and things you just want to do to protect yourself and the people you love um often grow. And this is a great um was a great discussion as far as I'm concerned for exactly that.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

Thank you, Melissa.

SPEAKER_02 34:52

Thank you for listening to the Women's Money Wisdom podcast. If you found value in this episode, the best way that you can support the podcast is to forward an episode to a friend or leave a review. Go to ProPlan.com and the podcast link to get all the resources and links mentioned. This presentation by Pro Planning is intended for general information purposes only. No portion of this presentation serves as the receipt of or substitute for personal investment advice from ProPlanning or any other investment professional of your choosing. Copies of Pro Planning's current rent and disclosure brochure and form CRS discussing our advisory services and fees are available upon request or on our website platform at ProPlan.com. The information that we share is meant to educate and inspire, not serve as personalized financial advice. Everyone's situation is unique, so be sure to consult with your own financial professional for guidance that fits your life. And just so you know, the opinions shared in this podcast are Melissa's own and those of our guests. They don't necessarily represent any organizations with which Melissa is affiliated. For more important disclosures, please go to our webpage at proplan.com.