Stand Up Speak Up Podcast Transcript

March 31, 2022

Time & Who Is Speaking

00:00:01 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

It’s a Beautiful Day in paradise.

00:00:03 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

And I’m saying that again for my Canadian friends ’cause I talked to a few last night and it was pretty nippy up in Canada so I’m down in South Florida.

00:00:11 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

My name is Debbie Montgomery Johnson and.

00:00:13 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

I am so excited today because.

00:00:16 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

We’re doing a wrap-up.

00:00:17 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Of what’s new in the scammer world this?

00:00:20 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Quarter and so much is going on.

00:00:23 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

I must admit I do have Google alerts for romance scams and the woman behind the smile and I’ve been getting incredible numbers of articles written from.

00:00:34 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Around the world.

00:00:35 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

On scammers and scamming and online romance and social.

00:00:41 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Relationship scams and you name it.

00:00:43 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

It’s popping up and so I’ve gone to my go-to person Doctor Tim McGuinness, the founder of SCARS, the Society of Citizens Against Relationship scams and I’m asking him the questions today about these articles that were getting, uh.

00:00:58 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Around the world.

00:00:59 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

So, Doctor McGuinness you coming to me from South Florida?

00:01:02 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Are you there with me today?

00:01:04 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

I am.

00:01:06 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Good morning Sir, how are you doing today?

00:01:09 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Doing good it’s it’s a good day in the neighborhood.

00:01:12 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

That’s great, I love to hear that.

00:01:14 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Well, Tim, you and I’ve been working with SCARS.

00:01:16 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

You’ve been with SCARS for many years and for the folks that don’t know who you are, can you just kind of give a quick explanation of how you’re affiliated with the Society of Citizens against relationship scams?

00:01:28 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

I began educating about the topic of online crime about 31 years ago in the old AOL and CompuServe days.

00:01:37 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

I did this in my capacity as an executive of a major electronic retail organization that I grew to about $3.6 billion in annual.

00:01:47 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Sales about 20 years ago I created a standalone website called Romance Scams.

00:01:54 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Now com.

00:01:55 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

To focus more on what I was seeing because quite honestly, I was recently divorced and I was out in the dating world and it was C.

00:02:04 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Seeing a constant flow of fake profiles and online scams coming from both Africa, Latin America and Europe as well as Asia.

00:02:17 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

However, realizing that the focus on the mechanics of scanning wasn’t really the answer.

00:02:25 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

About seven years ago, actually about eight years ago made the decision to fund the creation of a true nonprofit organization to focus more.

00:02:36 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

On the after scam experience that victims face created SCARS, the Society of citizens against what was then romance scams. But we changed the name at the beginning of 2019 to relationship scams. Because relationships.

00:02:56 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Scams are a unique thing.

00:02:57 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They’re not just romance.

00:03:00 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Our relationship scam is a scam in.

00:03:03 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

That there is a trusted relationship between the victim and the criminals involved in grooming, manipulating, exploiting the individual victims.

00:03:16 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And this has been growing steadily, so as the founder and original funder.

00:03:23 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Of the organization?

00:03:24 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

That’s my relationship.

00:03:26 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

I play the role of Chief educational officer for SCARS, Chief Cook, and bottle washer, so to speak, in many respects.

00:03:36 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And I’m proud to say that we are the only organization worldwide.

00:03:41 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

That is, providing trauma-informed recovery program services for scam victims literally worldwide.

00:03:52 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

We have victims that we care for in over 60 countries.

00:03:56 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

We have partners similarly around the world that follow our model.

00:04:02 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Both in terms of avoidance discovery and recovery education.

00:04:08 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

We also play an active role as a crime prevention organization, both collecting crime reports through our antianyscam.com. We are a partner with.

00:04:23 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

In Homeland Security for victims assistance were registered through the US Department of Justice as a victims assistance provider, and we’re also partnered with the Federal Trade Commission as a Sentinel reporting partner, facilitating reporting of what we refer to as.

00:04:44 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Cyber-enabled or online?

00:04:48 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Frauds, scams etc.

00:04:50 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

We also work with agencies around the world to provide them with intelligence that they can act on to effectively perform arrests and investigations etc.

00:05:04 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

So in a nutshell, that’s who I am and what I do.

00:05:08 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Tim, how many scam victims do we think there are every day ’cause I could put it in?

00:05:16 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

We could say year.

00:05:17 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

How many a year?

00:05:18 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

How many a day do we really know?

00:05:20 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

And if so, how?

00:05:21 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

How many do you think?

00:05:22 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

There are, yeah, we we.

00:05:24 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Do but the information is fragmented because it comes from a variety of agencies.

00:05:30 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

So the first fundamental problem is the lack of reporting. Best estimates are that firmly below 3% of victims of financial fraud will report these crimes. That means that.

00:05:45 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

97 to 99% of all financial fraud is not reported, so governments have no clue and governments do not extrapolate or project.

00:05:58 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They report only on what is reported to them. So when the FTC says that there’s been 450,000.

00:06:07 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

You should multiply that by 100 to get the actual number. Now according to the financial Money Transfer services folks, their estimate is that 18 million US victims were created in 2021.

00:06:27 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Alone through the use of services like Zelle and MoneyGram and Facebook pay and Apple Pay and all of these other services.

00:06:36 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

But in general, we believe the run rate to be around 30 million relationship scam victims in the US per year right now.

00:06:46 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Now the truth is.

00:06:48 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

This was about a million.

00:06:51 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

In 2018

00:06:53 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

So think about that contrast and how much the pandemic has exploded.

00:07:01 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

This aspect of crime.

00:07:04 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Every 15 seconds there’s another relationship scam victim.

00:07:09 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

With an average financial loss of depending on who you listen to, either 9000 per the FTC or 13 fourteen, $1000 per the FBI.

00:07:23 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

That’s unbelievable, I mean, and I know we’re in the business.

00:07:27 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

I know that.

00:07:28 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

So Tim, why aren’t we getting the word out in a bigger way?

00:07:32 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

What’s prohibiting the information getting out there to everyday people?

00:07:40 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Unfortunately, and this is going to sound blaming and derogatory, but people don’t listen.

00:07:48 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Everyone believes that they are immune.

00:07:50 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Everyone believes it’s never going to happen to them.

00:07:53 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Everyone believes that they’re in control of their situation and they don’t.

00:07:58 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Have to worry.

00:08:00 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The fact is.

00:08:02 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

We live in a world where.

00:08:06 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

According to some estimates, for example in Africa there’s a lion family every square mile.

00:08:13 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

So if you happen to be a gazelle and you’re going through that square mile, there’s going to be a team of lions that are going to be there to eat you.

00:08:22 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The reality of today is that everywhere online.

00:08:28 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Completely saturated with scammers, there is no place where there are no scammers.

00:08:33 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

This is an ecosystem and the scammers or predators and they will go wherever there are people that they can prey upon.

00:08:40 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Now, why don’t people learn?

00:08:44 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

We as a.

00:08:45 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Society made a unique decision about the Internet.

00:08:50 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

You may recall of course I’m old enough to remember, but in the early days of automobiles, there were no driver’s licenses.

00:08:59 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

But people were killing themselves in accidents.

00:09:03 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Traffic was out of control, so the world decided that there needed to be regulation of this activity.

00:09:09 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

So they established drivers licenses.

00:09:12 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They established regulations and laws for conduct in an automobile, and this required training.

00:09:20 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

So you had to learn to drive safely.

00:09:23 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

We don’t require that anybody learn to be on the Internet safely and as a result, people have a false sense.

00:09:30 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Of confidence about their knowledge and their skills when it comes to being online now that’s one issue.

00:09:38 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The other issue is that, generally speaking, going back to this.

00:09:43 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

I’m immortal, I’m in immune, I’m invincible.

00:09:48 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

This is never going to happen to me.

00:09:50 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

This is the prevalent mindset.

00:09:53 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

I’m sorry to say it’s just part of being human.

00:09:57 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

We haven’t had lions eating us for a really long time, so.

00:10:01 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

People have evolved.

00:10:04 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

What are?

00:10:06 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Nonsurvival instincts.

00:10:10 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And as a result.

00:10:12 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

People do not have the ability to properly evaluate risks to the extent that maybe our grandparents or great grandparents had when every day on the Prairie or wherever they happened to be, was a survival exercise.

00:10:30

What he?

00:10:30 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

You learned very carefully how to avoid risk, but the thing about scams is.

00:10:35 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It’s also hardwired in our brains.

00:10:38 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

We’re wired to be scanned.

00:10:41 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

OK, So what age group is most vulnerable?

00:10:46 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The truth is everybody, but it is a bit of a bell curve in that people who are most risk-averse tend to be in their late 30s and their 40s.

00:10:58 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

These are the people that are spending most of their days being very analytical and working in industry.

00:11:06 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And they’re trained to think.

00:11:12 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

To avoid risks to make more informed decisions so the age group below that, particularly teens, because we know that people below the age of 21 their brains have not fully developed specifically the frontal cortex and their analytical.

00:11:32 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Aspects of their brain.

00:11:34 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They’re driven heavily by their emotions, the amygdala, the cerebellum, etc.

00:11:39 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And also people in their late 50s, sixties, 70s and 80s because.

00:11:47 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They believe that they live in a world that actually doesn’t exist.

00:11:53 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

There are predators everywhere, and it’s very difficult for people.

00:11:58 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The truth is, it’s very difficult for people at every age to accept the reality that evil exists in the world and it’s.

00:12:07 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

No more than one email click away.

00:12:13 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The problem with education is that fundamentally it’s all failed.

00:12:17 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

All anti scam education has failed all anti-cybercrime and cyber security education has failed.

00:12:27 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Aspects of it.

00:12:30 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Are succeeding.

00:12:33 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

But in general, our focus has been to try to help people discover the fact that they’re in a scam so that they can begin to accept it and get out of it, and then how to properly recover from the experience with as little residual damage as possible.

00:12:51 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

So we know it’s best to.

00:12:53 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Prevent it from happening.

00:12:55 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

How can we?

00:12:58 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Short of the public service announcements.

00:13:01

How do you?

00:13:02 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Protect your buddies from getting taken.

00:13:05 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

What’s the first step that you would say for your social media?

00:13:10 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Talk about it.

00:13:12 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It’s as simple as that.

00:13:14 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Uhm, we’re going into April right now.

00:13:16 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Which is which?

00:13:17 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Is online crime Victims Awareness Month and our message?

00:13:22 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

During the month of April is a very simple one.

00:13:27 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

No April fools online.

00:13:31 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

In other words, talk to just two friends.

00:13:36 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

If all you’ll do is talk to two friends and they talk to two friends, the world will become aware in one year.

00:13:43 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Of course, we know that’s not going to happen, and that sounds cynical, but it’s also realistic.

00:13:49 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

But if everybody listening to this would simply talk to two people that they know seriously and openly about what the risks are.

00:13:59 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

But you have to remember.

00:14:02 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

That when you’re talking to people, it’s like talking to a 16 year old girl.

00:14:08 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Or a 16-year-old boy.

00:14:11 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They’re going to hear the words.

00:14:14 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

But they won’t register unless you make it personal.

00:14:20 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And being able to say I was scammed.

00:14:26 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

You don’t have to talk in deep details.

00:14:30 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

You don’t have to dredge up trauma and the.

00:14:34 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The difficult psychological aspects of the experience, but just tell people I was the victim of online financial fraud.

00:14:42 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And by the way.

00:14:44 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

People need to stop using the word scams and all of the cute little phrases.

00:14:49 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

These are crimes, it’s fraud.

00:14:54 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

When we hear the word scam, we tend to think about it in a different context.

00:15:00 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Then the word fraud is a very blunt object.

00:15:05 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Scam is kind of like a feather, and when we talk about.

00:15:10 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Scammers and fraudsters.

00:15:12 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Oh, that’s a good little scammer.

00:15:14 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

That’s not as serious as when we say they are organized professional criminals.

00:15:22 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The words in the terminology that we use when we talk about these subjects is really important in properly characterizing the seriousness of this scam.

00:15:35 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

As the number of victims have increased, so have the number of fatalities.

00:15:41 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Online fraud is a homicide.

00:15:45 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It kills people every single day.

00:15:48 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

I saw a new estimate.

00:15:51 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

From suicide lifeline.

00:15:54 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

That said that they believe that victims of financial crimes take their life at a rate of around 100 individuals a day in the United States.

00:16:08 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

This is vastly more than we thought.

00:16:11 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The number was of around 20 worldwide.

00:16:15 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

But it makes sense, consistent with the elevated numbers of actual crime victims that are in the United States and then when you compound that through the rest of the world and the explosion of the new pig butchering scams as a technique.

00:16:33 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It stands to reason that more P.

00:16:36 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

People are giving up hope and opting to take their lives because they can’t face or confront the reality of what happened to them.

00:16:46 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

OK, that’s a great segue into what pig butchering is.

00:16:50 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

It’s and when I mentioned that.

00:16:51 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

To folks I always say it’s a.

00:16:52 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Terrible term, but it’s very descriptive, so can.

00:16:56 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Let’s just jump into that.

00:16:57 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

What is pig butchering and who’s being taken by this technique?

00:17:02 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Alright, so pig butchering is an evolution in relationship scams.

00:17:09 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It isn’t necessarily a romance scam because it can evolve and begin like any relationship scam.

00:17:17 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Someone contacts you online.

00:17:20 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

You begin chatting with them.

00:17:21 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

You develop a.

00:17:23 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Uh, like a friendship and then at a certain point, instead of asking you for money because they’re a soldier stationed in Zimbabwe or they’re an oil rig worker working in Antarctica.

00:17:38 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Or they’re a truck driver in Estonia.

00:17:45 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They simply develop a friendship without talking about money until a certain point they introduce an investment opportunity and it’s brilliant in the way it’s done because it eliminates all of the challenges of traditional romance scams.

00:18:03 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They introduce a investment opportunity.

00:18:06 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They endorse it.

00:18:09 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

So you’re already trusting them because you’ve got this chat relationship going on.

00:18:14 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They endorse it.

00:18:15 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They share with you the app or the website.

00:18:17 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They suggest being very conservative, investing $100 fifty dollars, some small amount that nobody would worry about if they lost it.

00:18:28 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They see in the app that their money has grown.

00:18:34 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

So all of a sudden

00:18:37 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

I’m sorry to say this, but greed kicks in and then they’re encouraged to invest a bigger amount.

00:18:45 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The scammers will suggest, well, if you don’t have the money available, maybe you can put it on your credit card.

00:18:50 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Or maybe you can take out a small loan.

00:18:52 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

I hate to see you miss out on.

00:18:54 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

This opportunity, so there’s a.

00:18:56 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Variety of manipulative techniques that are taking place there as well as.

00:19:01 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Addictive techniques that the victims develop within themselves.

00:19:05 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

There’s a thing called chasing the money that.

00:19:10 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

You’d think that even if you lost, if you do just one more investment, one more roll of the dice, you’ll get your money back.

00:19:19 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Another aspect of it is that it’s very compelling.

00:19:23 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It’s very seductive, but because the scammer isn’t asking for the money and what the victim sees is a very well designed website or web app they feel completely comfortable doing it because they’ve never.

00:19:39 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Investigated it because they have the stranger trust that was developed initially and then the endorsement.

00:19:47 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Of their new trusted friend.

00:19:50 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Recommending this, they make the second large investment or sometimes 3rd and then all of a sudden everything shuts down.

00:19:59 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It goes away, they lose access to the app, they lose access to the website, they lose access to the scammer.

00:20:07 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Is there a way at the beginning it?

00:20:07 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

This is what?

00:20:09 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Is there a way at the beginning though too as you’re doing?

00:20:11 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Your due diligence.

00:20:13 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

If you are is.

00:20:14 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

There are some telltale on the website.

00:20:16 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Or on the app.

00:20:18 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Phone number or something that you can say.

00:20:20 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

No, and when you get to that point, no.

00:20:20 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

This is a little fishy, or they’re very good.

00:20:23 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And when you get.

00:20:24 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

To that point, you’re already lost.

00:20:26 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The the simple reality is we all have to operate from a point of extreme skepticism for everything. Now there was a recent study that showed only 12% of Americans, and again I’m using this.

00:20:45 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Because the data is accessible.

00:20:48 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

We’ll answer an unknown number on their phone.

00:20:52 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Now think about the inverse of that.

00:20:54 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

That 88% of Americans don’t answer unknown phone numbers when someone calls them. This is an incredible degree of extreme skepticism, and it’s the right thing to do. Let it go to voicemail.

00:21:12 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And then you can screen it properly appropriately but.

00:21:16 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Unfortunately, when it comes to online, people do not operate with the same level of skepticism.

00:21:24 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

If a stranger contacts.

00:21:27 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

10 people

00:21:28 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Seven of them will begin to talk with a stranger.

00:21:34 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It’s do what I say.

00:21:36 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Don’t do what I do.

00:21:37 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Kind of a mentality.

00:21:39 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

We tell our children not to do this, but we don’t do it ourselves as a society.

00:21:45 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

So the very first avoidance principle is don’t talk to strangers.

00:21:56 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Since people are not going to listen to.

00:21:57 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

That there’s basically 5 simple things that are true of all scams.

00:22:04 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It’s going to be a stranger is going to contact you.

00:22:08 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Shouldn’t talk to him, but you’re going to next.

00:22:13 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

A relationship is going to be developed that will result in the victim trusting the stranger.

00:22:22 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Don’t do it, but they’re going to.

00:22:25 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The third thing.

00:22:27 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Is that some conversation about money will ultimately take place?

00:22:34 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Don’t listen to strangers that you’ve never met in person about.

00:22:40 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Money shouldn’t actually listen to very many people about money unless they’re professionals.

00:22:48 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Debra is a good example of someone that is worthy of listening to, but the vast majority of people don’t really know yet.

00:22:58 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The majority of investment advice.

00:23:00 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It actually comes from friends and families who probably are not very professional about this.

00:23:08 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The 4th aspect is if you suspect something wrong, stop withdraw, cut it off.

00:23:18 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

But people don’t want to offend, they don’t trust in their ability to make a good decision.

00:23:27 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It’s part of the job.

00:23:28 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The scammer is through their manipulation to undermine your ability to trust yourself.

00:23:36 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Truth is.

00:23:38 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Probably shouldn’t, which is why complete abstinence and avoidance is so important.

00:23:44 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It’s the only thing that any victim can rely upon.

00:23:49 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

To make sound decisions, you’ll miss something, sure.

00:23:53 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

But if you miss 2% and avoid 98% of the criminal behavior, consider yourself ahead of the game.

00:24:02 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And then lastly.

00:24:05 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Once you believe.

00:24:07 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

That it is a scam.

00:24:08 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Report it.

00:24:11 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Most people don’t.

00:24:14

Brings up cards.

00:24:14 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

That’s all there is to avoiding scams.

00:24:16 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

But that brings up our next topic.

00:24:18 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

When we go to report, who do we report to?

00:24:22 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

And what’s going to come out of that report?

00:24:25 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Who is your first responder?

00:24:27 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

That’s the first question you ask.

00:24:29 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It’s your local police.

00:24:32 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It’s not the FBI.

00:24:33 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It’s not the Federal Trade Commission.

00:24:35 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It’s not.

00:24:36 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

At some mythical agency somewhere around the world, it is your local police and as difficult as that is because police are human and some of them are going to be jerks.

00:24:48 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

A lot of them, particularly over the last five years, have become incredibly aware of this problem.

00:24:56 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And are very empathic and supportive. Some are not, but it is every victims duty to report these crimes, because if they don’t, they’re just enabling scammers for every report that isn’t made, there’s 100 victims.

00:25:14

Think about that for a.

00:25:15 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Minute victims themselves and this isn’t blaming.

00:25:18 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

This is an acknowledgement of reality victims themselves by not reporting are making the situation worse now.

00:25:27 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

I know this is hard deal with victims every single day in various stages of trauma, but.

00:25:37 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

We can get there.

00:25:39 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Sexual assault victims.

00:25:43 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Learn to be able to report their crimes, took a lot of support, a lot of compassion, and a lot of societal acceptance for that to become possible.

00:25:56 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It’s still difficult, both because of the trauma that the victims experience, and because society.

00:26:03 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Still isn’t as sensitive.

00:26:06 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Or empathic as they should be. Domestic abuse victims have learned to report these crimes. It’s still not reported at anything close to 100%. Some estimates are that only 20 to 30% of domestic abuse cases are reported.

00:26:24 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Less than 60% of sexual assault cases are reported, but it’s a lot better than 1%, which is the way it used to be.

00:26:33 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

So when you go into a police Police Department, what do you take?

00:26:37 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Because obviously you’re not going in with a black.

00:26:39 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Eye or a bruise.

00:26:41 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

You go in.

00:26:43 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

We know that you can’t.

00:26:45 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

You shouldn’t go in.

00:26:45 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Emotional, but how do you?

00:26:46 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Prepare yourself for presenting what you are showing them and what do you want out of it.

00:26:49

OK.

00:26:54 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The mistake that many victims make is they go in looking for a savior.

00:26:59 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The police are not going to be your savior.

00:27:02 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The police have one job.

00:27:05 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

In the case of these crimes to collect the information and pass it up the food.

00:27:12 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The food chain for a decision as to whether or not it’s going to be investigated.

00:27:17 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

That’s all they have to do.

00:27:19 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They’re not going to get on a plane and go to Ghana.

00:27:20 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They’re not going to get on a plane and go to China.

00:27:23 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Now the problem that exists from the police perspective is that victims are very disorganized.

00:27:30 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Now this is something unique.

00:27:33 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

To financial fraud.

00:27:35 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

That is different than other kinds of violence.

00:27:41 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

So if you were the victim of sexual assault.

00:27:47 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

There he is.

00:27:49 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Profound physical and mental trauma.

00:27:52 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And those victims may be incapable of reporting the crime.

00:27:58 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

For some time, This is why hospitals are obligated to report.

00:28:03 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

When they believe that a violent crime has been committed because that’s one of the ways of increasing the report rate of these crimes, and as a result, society adjusted to its awareness and tolerance of these crimes.

00:28:18 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

But in the case of scams, the first thing that victims must do.

00:28:23 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Is sit down.

00:28:24 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And organize their information before they talk to the police.

00:28:28 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And that means throwing out all the future plans.

00:28:32 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

All the lies, all the drama, all the dialogue none of it matters because it’s just lies.

00:28:39 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

What matters is hard data that can result.

00:28:43 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

In useful information for law info.

00:28:46 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Phone numbers, email addresses?

00:28:48 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

How much money how it was sent, where it was sent, any addresses, any names?

00:28:55 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

That’s all hard data organized that it shouldn’t be more than two pages.

00:29:02 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Of information, write it down on a.

00:29:05 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Pad of paper.

00:29:06 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Then take that into the police.

00:29:09 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Tell them that you’re the victim of financial fraud.

00:29:12 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Hand them that information.

00:29:14 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Hopefully you’ve kept a copy of it.

00:29:15 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Hand them that information and let them transcribe it into their report.

00:29:20 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They don’t want to know that he was an oil rig worker who lost his mother, who has a child in in a boarding school who can’t afford to buy food on his oil rig or in.

00:29:35 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Zambia while on a peacekeeping mission, none of that matters because it’s nothing the police can make use of, it’s just.

00:29:45 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Dialogue and lies.

00:29:47 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

So strip it down to the basic information, who, what, when, where and how much.

00:29:56 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

On our website, romancescamsnow.com we have a checklist for interacting with the police.

00:30:03 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

We also have through SCARS publishing on our SCARS publishing website.

00:30:09 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

An actual book that will help you organize all of this information, but you can do it without buying the book. The book isn’t expensive, it’s $9, but.

00:30:21 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Organizing this information is critical because you’re going to be reporting it more.

00:30:26 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Than one time.

00:30:27 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

You’re going to report it to the local police, and the only thing that you need coming out of there.

00:30:34 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Is a police report number because this helps you validate to yourself that you are the victim of a criminal.

00:30:43 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Nothing more reporting to the police is your first step or a victim’s first step in reasserting control and taking it away from the scam.

00:30:56 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

There’s a lot more to work through, but this is an important first step.

00:31:00 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It’s you saying to the scammer?

00:31:01 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

I know you’re a criminal, I accept.

00:31:04 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

But I’m a victim.

00:31:05 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

I’m going to do something about it now.

00:31:08 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Once you’ve done that.

00:31:10 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Then there are other agencies that you should report to.

00:31:12 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

You should report to the FTC.

00:31:16 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And we have that link on romance scams now.

00:31:18 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Com A very specific link.

00:31:21 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Because SCARS as a Sentinel reporting partner gets more attention and visibility when reports are done through our link because of being a partner.

00:31:34 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Report to the FTC. You can also report to the fbithroughic3.gov and other agencies Canada, the Anti Fraud Center in Europe.

00:31:48 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Through national police but always local police.

00:31:53 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Now there’s one exception to this.

00:31:56 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

There are certain countries in the world and I’m sorry to say this.

00:32:00 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

If it is a Sharia law country, do not report to the police in that country.

00:32:08 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Whether that’s Saudi Arabia or Iran or Afghanistan or Pakistan, or.

00:32:15 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Related countries now there are some which are progressive like.

00:32:20 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Not so much, but better.

00:32:23 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Jordan is pretty good, uh?

00:32:27 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Kuwait is pretty good.

00:32:29 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

I’m not thrilled with places like Oman or some of the Emirates.

00:32:35 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Dubai is very modern so you have to evaluate whether your country will view you as a criminal by having given up that money.

00:32:45 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

That’s strictly Sharia law countries.

00:32:47 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The rest of the world they may not.

00:32:51 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Treat you with respect.

00:32:54 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

But they are at least professional police.

00:32:58 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

That’s very interesting time.

00:33:00 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

I’m so go ahead, Tim.

00:33:01 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

That’s just, there’s so much great information.

00:33:02 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

What, just like you say.

00:33:06 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The other thing that is important and it was brought up on a recent zoom call, is if you’re in one country and you sent money to another.

00:33:14 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

You can report the crime to that other country and there are ways in which you can do this.

00:33:21 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

So almost every country on the planet now has a cybercrime police unit.

00:33:26 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

So if you’re in the US, you can report it, report it to the agency of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

00:33:34 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

You can report it to the Cyber Crimes Agency in Germany or France.

00:33:38 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

You can report it to the FCC in Nigeria and I encourage everyone to do that because of this process of reporting.

00:33:47 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Is cathartic it is you establish in control now there’s a difference between reporting and getting justice.

00:33:55 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

There’s probably not going to be any justice, because justice is a euphemism for revenge.

00:34:02 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

You’re never likely to know the real identity.

00:34:06 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Of the scammer.

00:34:08 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

You’re not going to know if they’ve been arrested and you’re not going to be able to affect that unless you report people that post scammer profiles online are just wasting their time, and unfortunately increasing their trauma.

00:34:24 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Report things properly and then once you’ve done that.

00:34:29 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Focus on your own recovery.

00:34:34 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

This came up in last night’s call.

00:34:35 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Can you tell?

00:34:36 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Us a little bit about what the role of Interpol, or Europol?

00:34:41 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Is in?

00:34:42 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Should we contact them or do you contact them or not?

00:34:46 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

I don’t, I don’t understand it.

00:34:47 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Can you so Interpol Europe?

00:34:50 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Law enforcement agencies are a government agency whose job it is to receive complaints from victims or third parties to investigate and to apprehend criminals.

00:35:04 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

That’s their job.

00:35:06 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They take reports.

00:35:08 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They take names.

00:35:09 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They kick **** and they they throw people in jail.

00:35:13 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

That’s the job of law enforcement.

00:35:16 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Europol is a law enforcement agency.

00:35:20 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It’s the national Law Enforcement Agency for the Council of Europe, the European Union.

00:35:26 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

However, it has specific responsibilities.

00:35:32 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

So it is not a first responder.

00:35:36 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The Cyber Crime Police unit of the Government of Germany is a first responder, for example, but the truth is all crimes begin locally.

00:35:46 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

So you report to your local police first.

00:35:49 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They are your first responders.

00:35:52 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It’s important to get a copy of the report or the report number because this validates the fact that you are a victim.

00:35:59 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Of a crime.

00:36:00 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And that actually has benefit to victims because in many localities there are extra.

00:36:06 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Benefits and services that are offered to victims of crime plus victims of crime have certain unique civil rights.

00:36:14 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

In many countries around the world.

00:36:17 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Now you can then report it to additional agencies over and above them. FBI is a good example. The FTC Europe whole has its EC3.

00:36:30 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

But the truth is.

00:36:33 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Reporting it at the national level is the next step for people in Europe, or if you’re outside and you want to report about someone in Europe, Interpol is not a law enforcement agency.

00:36:46 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They don’t take reports, they don’t investigate crimes they don’t arrest anybody.

00:36:53 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Europe whole is an NGO.

00:36:55 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It’s a nongovernmental organization.

00:36:59 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Their job is to be an information gatherer and clearinghouse for law enforcement around the world, in other words.

00:37:08 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

You could say that they’re a paper pushers.

00:37:10 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Their job is to collect information and distribute it around the world.

00:37:13 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

In that regard, we are as well are any scam.

00:37:17 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

COM website serves that same purpose.

00:37:22 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Don’t even think about reporting the Interpol because you can’t.

00:37:26 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And even if you got the email or a phone number, they won’t listen.

00:37:29 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

That’s not their job.

00:37:31 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Their job is to distribute information about criminals many times and about crimes so that local law enforcement agencies can better do their job.

00:37:42 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Now they have liaison personnel in major.

00:37:46 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Countries to facilitate that information flow back and forth between them and others outside.

00:37:54 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

So when we’re talking about transnational crime, which these online or cyber-enabled crimes are, there’s a lot of coordination and information sharing that’s necessary.

00:38:06 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Between governments around the world to effectively change these situations, for example, a major call-center scam group was just busted in Latvia and Lithuania.

00:38:19 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

This was coordinated by Interpol excluding not interval by Europe whole because it involved numerous national jurisdictions and that’s part of Europe.

00:38:33 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Whole role as being the overarching law enforcement agency for Europe.

00:38:40 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

For example, the FBI does the same thing in the United States when crimes involve multiple states or multiple local jurisdictions.

00:38:51 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

When criminals cross state lines, it is the job of the federal authorities to become involved.

00:38:58 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Same is true in Canada.

00:39:00 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Except in the case of Ontario in Quebec.

00:39:04 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Every country has their own peculiarities of jurisdiction, responsibilities, and focus.

00:39:11 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

In addition, there are agencies which are quasi law enforcement like the Federal Trade Commission.

00:39:18 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It’s a regulatory enforcement agency.

00:39:21 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They don’t go out in and arrest.

00:39:24 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

People they work through federal courts.

00:39:28 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

To take action against criminals.

00:39:31 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The EPA, the FCC.

00:39:34 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Alphabet soup of agencies do similar things.

00:39:38 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

What are we seeing?

00:39:38 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

True law enforcement arrests people.

00:39:41 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

What are we seeing today with the federal court system and getting some justice for our victims?

00:39:50 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

So interesting things have been happening over the last couple of years during the pandemic and in this post-pandemic period, if we can call it that.

00:40:01 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

One the evolution of awareness of the magnitude of the problem has been the single greatest achievement that organizations like SCARS and others have had in working with the government and getting the government to recognize these problems.

00:40:19 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

So the result.

00:40:20 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Is that the FBI is?

00:40:24 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

More aggressively sifting through the information to identify perpetrators and then even going so far as to get indictments against people that are not even in the United States, so that they can issue extradition warrants to countries like Nigeria.

00:40:43 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Uh, recently a scammer kingpin in Nigeria that was on the FBI’s wanted list, was apprehended as a result of quote UN quote intelligence received by EFCC from third parties, whose name shall remain name.

00:41:02 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And the result is that the extradition process will now take place within the side of Nigeria, and hopefully that person will be sent to the United States and tried in the United States.

00:41:16 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And in many other countries, government is becoming increasingly aggressive about this.

00:41:23 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

We’ve seen just this week alone.

00:41:26 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Hundreds of cyber-criminal.

00:41:30 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Arrested worldwide from a major major hacker gang in the United Kingdom to the group in Lithuania.

00:41:40 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Hundreds of scammers have been arrested this week by the EFCC in Nigeria.

00:41:45 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Even in the Ivory Coast, they continue to do the job that they’re.

00:41:49 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Able to do.

00:41:50 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Truth is Ivory Coast, which is full of scammers, only has three or four law enforcement officers that involved in cybercrimes, so they do the best that they can.

00:42:01 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

But the fact that they’re doing something is amazing.

00:42:05 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Ghana still does nothing.

00:42:11 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Be very careful about the chocolate you buy.

00:42:13 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

By the way, boycott Ghana and Ghana chocolate.

00:42:19 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

That may be the only way of gaining their attention, but essentially US courts are completely willing to try and convict.

00:42:30 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Cyber-enabled criminals of every type that are involved in financial fraud, but the numbers are tiny, they’re minuscule still.

00:42:40 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

But what we found when I was out in Dallas for that court case is that how important it was for people to have reported it.

00:42:48 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

You know, you may.

00:42:49 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

The individual may not see any justice in it at the time, but when there.

00:42:54 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Or the account numbers or something shows up in the forensic report to me.

00:42:59 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

That was amazing and well worth you.

00:43:01 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Know us saying report report report.

00:43:04 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

It’s important it is being accumulated and it’s being documented and possibly being used in.

00:43:10 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Court to sentence later on.

00:43:14 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

So that was the importance and.

00:43:15 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Honestly, I think when I went to the federal case in Dallas.

00:43:19 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

For the sentencing hearing, that was the validation for me and a little bit of closure for, you know, the FBI doesn’t do anything.

00:43:25 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Well, they did do something in that case and I do get alerts from, you know, my the court in Miami just had a case recently.

00:43:33 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

And New York.

00:43:34 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

There are states that are doing.

00:43:36 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

A fairly good job.

00:43:39 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

The numbers are small, but we got to start somewhere.

00:43:43

You know this.

00:43:43 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Is one of the great challenges also in supporting victims after the scam is there is so much disinformation.

00:43:52 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Amateur urban legends spread around, and one of them is this common myth that the police don’t do anything.

00:43:59 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They do exactly what they’re supposed to do.

00:44:02 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They collect the report.

00:44:04 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It goes into their systems.

00:44:07 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Rolls up into regional and state numbers, rolls up into national numbers.

00:44:12 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Think about something as mundane.

00:44:17 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Probably not the best word as drunk driving.

00:44:21 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Remember where we were 40 years ago where a drunk driver would get a pat on the back?

00:44:27 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They’d get a cab called.

00:44:29 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

For them, and they be sent on their way.

00:44:32 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Bars and restaurants never took any responsibility for feeding somebody 20 drinks.

00:44:39 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

There was a societal disregard of this serious crime that was killing thousands of people a year.

00:44:48 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

As a result of the efforts of an organization like MADD.

00:44:52 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Awareness developed that this was intolerable.

00:44:56 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Society had to develop an awareness, but more importantly, law enforcement and our court systems also had to evolve to treat these as the crime that they are.

00:45:07 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It’s tragic that first time offenders can be ruined for life, but society safety is more important.

00:45:18 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

So you have to be aware.

00:45:20 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

But it took 40 years to get where we are today and still to this day there are jurisdictions that give people a slap on the wrist they are in the minority.

00:45:30 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

That’s the great news.

00:45:31 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Same thing happened with sexual assault, domestic abuse.

00:45:34 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

So in our space.

00:45:38 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

There is a lot of awareness that is being generated.

00:45:42 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

But we are the only ones that are out there actively supporting and helping victims to recover, so we have a little bit different perspective.

00:45:54 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The last five years have seen a watershed change in government perspective.

00:46:00 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

On these crimes.

00:46:02 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The previous administration was very, very attuned to the issues of individual victims.

00:46:08 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The current one not so much.

00:46:10 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They’re more focused on corporate and governmental cyber security.

00:46:14 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Than they are on individual victims, but that awareness isn’t forgotten regardless.

00:46:21 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

This is an evolving process that is going to take time.

00:46:24 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

That’s no consolation for somebody who’s just been victimized, but for example, we just saw an example of a A member or a scam victim under our care, who weeks after the scam ended went to their bank.

00:46:42 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And had the wire transfers reversed and was able to get some of their.

00:46:47 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Money back because.

00:46:50 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Victims in general.

00:46:53 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Avoid the issue of talking about it with people that can actually help them.

00:46:58 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

So because we were able to talk to this particular scam victim early and impress upon them the importance of reporting and being their own advocate.

00:47:11 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

She was able to get some of.

00:47:12 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Her money back, that’s amazing.

00:47:14 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And that’s only the 5th time.

00:47:19 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

That I’m aware of.

00:47:21 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The victims that we were connected to have successfully recovered their money, but the change in the mentality in the financial industry.

00:47:30 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The change of FINRA regulations, the change of the Federal Reserve, the change of.

00:47:37 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The mentality in the United Kingdom and in Europe and in other places is.

00:47:45 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Profound in the United Kingdom, it’s estimated that 50% of all crime is financial fraud. That’s a staggering realization.

00:47:56 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

So much so that the United Kingdom is looking at ways to completely reorganize police at the local, regional, and national level.

00:48:05 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

To address this problem specifically, we haven’t even begun to think in those terms in the United States.

00:48:11 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Rates, nor in places like Canada, Japan is still, I’m sorry to say, incredibly backwards.

00:48:18 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The same with South Korea.

00:48:20 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

If you watch any South Korean police programs, you see how.

00:48:25 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It’s almost like watching the Three Stooges the way the police act, but regardless, and that’s a stereotype and somewhat racist.

00:48:35 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

But the reality is police professionalism isn’t evolving.

00:48:41 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Thing that is getting better worldwide.

00:48:46 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

What is interesting, though.

00:48:46 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And our parts.

00:48:48

Go ahead.

00:48:48 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

It’s interesting, though some of the most important interviews that I feel I’ve done in the last year have come out of the UK.

00:48:58 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

And the BBC and some of the news organizations reporters they are interested.

00:49:04 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

I was on a show the other day and they are very interested in what’s going on and how it’s happening.

00:49:09 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

So here’s a question about the media though Tim, why does the media want specifics?

00:49:15 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

You’d never ask a victim of domestic abuse what happened step by step?

00:49:21 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

What is the interest in how a relationship scam happens?

00:49:26 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Is it I want your take?

00:49:28 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

I’ve got my own.

00:49:29 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Ideas, but why?

00:49:30 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Do you think they’re so interested in specific?

00:49:32 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Then why do we encourage our survivor victims?

00:49:35 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

To not communicate with the media for at least a.

00:49:38 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Year after this camp.

00:49:41 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

So it’s it’s part of this.

00:49:43 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Evolving awareness.

00:49:48 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

In the 60s.

00:49:50 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

You might not have been aware of the way the media treated rape victims.

00:49:57 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It was horrific.

00:49:59 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It was just as bad.

00:50:01 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It was salacious male reporters would try.

00:50:04 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

To dig down into.

00:50:05 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Each and every dirty little detail.

00:50:08 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It was terrible.

00:50:10 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And you can go back through some of the news services and look at stories from that tier from that era and be horrified.

00:50:21 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

So part of the problem is.

00:50:25 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

That there is a awareness of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable today.

00:50:32 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The news media doesn’t believe that there are any boundaries in their interviewing of scam victims.

00:50:39 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They now understand that there are boundaries when it comes to sexual assault.

00:50:44 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Domestic abuse.

00:50:45 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And other violent crimes.

00:50:47 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The UK also has a significantly better education.

00:50:52 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Rated media class than we do in the United States or in.

00:50:56 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Canada, and I’m generalizing.

00:50:58 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

There are some very specifics.

00:51:01 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

But we’ve seen, even with our involvement with National Geographic, how that episode on Romance scams turned into.

00:51:10 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Apologism for the poor.

00:51:15 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Economically disadvantaged.

00:51:18 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

There was more empathy in that program for the scammers than there was for the victims yourself specifically, and others.

00:51:25 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It was very disappointing as a result of that.

00:51:28 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It’s good journalism, except for that aspect.

00:51:36 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The problem is terminology.

00:51:40 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The problem is an understanding of proper boundaries, an understanding that scam victims are every bit as traumatized and as harmed as victims of violent crimes.

00:51:53 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The English are especially interested in the mechanics because they believe that by exposing the mechanics it will help other victims see the parallels in their own experience.

00:52:08 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Unfortunately it doesn’t.

00:52:09 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Work that way.

00:52:10 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

In the US, it’s all about salacious.

00:52:15 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Unfortunately, when you see most victim interviews, it’s all done on the local news level predominantly, and they want 3 minutes of drama.

00:52:26 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And they present nothing useful to their audience after that.

00:52:32 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Yeah, don’t talk to strangers.

00:52:34 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Don’t send money to people you don’t know, blah blah blah those same.

00:52:36 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The same basic bullet points that the Better Business Bureau puts out.

00:52:41 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

But the reality is.

00:52:44 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They’re doing nothing for the victim in such interviews, the victims are often very frustrated because they couldn’t tell their whole story or the things that really mattered to them.

00:52:57 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And they’re held up as a poster child of foolishness because one of the things that local media in the United States, Canada, Australia especially do is they’re judgmental about the victims in a kind of passive-aggressive.

00:53:17 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Anyway, they’re not overt in saying it, but.

00:53:22 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The implications of the interview are.

00:53:27 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Poor victim, they were too foolish to recognize what really happened.

00:53:31 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The reality is in none of these interviews do they convey this basic simple thought that victims are not to blame for this, but everybody can be scanned.

00:53:43 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And that’s a tragedy.

00:53:44 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

In the UK, they’re doing a better job of this.

00:53:47 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And part of the reason is that there’s an amazing agency in the United Kingdom, uh?

00:53:56 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Called Action Rod Yep.

00:53:58 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Uh, sorry.

00:54:00 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

I had to sort through my Rolodex there of law enforcement agencies around the world, which is part of the Metropolitan Police of London, and they’ve been doing an outstanding job for a decade of really educating about the real mechanics of what goes on and.

00:54:19 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

D vilifying victims as being what they really are.

00:54:23 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They’re the victim of an organized gang of transnational criminals.

00:54:29 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It’s not a scammer or fraudster, it’s a criminal engaged in serious financial fraud.

00:54:36 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

But I don’t see this changing.

00:54:39 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Of course, you and I know that we do our very best to do a brain dump on every reporter that we can talk to, because it always bears fruit.

00:54:48 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They gain a better understanding.

00:54:50 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It results in more stories.

00:54:52 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It results in better stories, more compassionate stories as a result.

00:54:56 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

But going back to the victims.

00:55:00 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

If you’re a new victim, don’t Share your story because your first concern is your own psychology, your own recovery, sharing your story too early can be very traumatic and it can result in.

00:55:17 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

People around you judging you incorrectly.

00:55:20 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

This is the this is the the doctor Phil Jerry Springer effect right that they bring on the victim to make the family feel better.

00:55:29 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

But it vilifies the victim or paints them in an incredibly derogatory light.

00:55:35 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And please, please please, everybody stop using the word catfish.

00:55:39 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It’s a horribly sexist, derogatory word.

00:55:45 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

I agree and I I have found over the years that when I changed the way I did my embryos and because most of the reporters are not aware and they are looking for that sensational aahe you know oh they lost $1,000,000 moment.

00:56:00 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

I said what you need to look.

00:56:02 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

At is could.

00:56:03 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

This happen to your mother.

00:56:04 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Your sister or your daughter?

00:56:06 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

And then explain to them what we’ve talked about today, or your husband exactly and I and I.

00:56:08 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Or your husband, or your son.

00:56:12 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

I don’t mean to not, you know, bring the men in we we typically deal with more women because they’re open victims.

00:56:19 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

They’ll speak about it, but the FBI told me in Palm Beach County, more men get taken for $1,000,000 in women and they’ll never talk about it.

00:56:27 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

And that’s that’s a true statement.

00:56:29 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

But if we can just educate and say and not put it.

00:56:33 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

On us, as you know, don’t.

00:56:35 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Don’t pity me.

00:56:36 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

I’m not a poor pity victim.

00:56:38 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

It’s happened to me and I’ve learned a lot out about it yesterday I said it was probably one of the most priceless experiences I’ve haven’t have had in my life.

00:56:47 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

It costs me a.

00:56:47 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It actually wasn’t priceless.

00:56:48 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Lot of money for you.

00:56:50 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

There was a very specific price attached to it.

00:56:52 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

It costs a lot of money, but I can’t take that money with me in the end.

00:56:56 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

But what I can take with me is being there for that one woman that writes to me and said I wish I had read your story before.

00:57:06 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

For the ones called.

00:57:06 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Well, that’s one of the reasons why I’m so thankful that you and Chris and Viani and others of our board are there because you guys.

00:57:17 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Guys in the generic sense are the encouragement in the compassionate side of things, whereas my role tends to be more analytical and more factual and direct.

00:57:32 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

You know there it brings up a topic which is important.

00:57:37 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Encouragement is a dual-edged sword.

00:57:40 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Encouragement is not support.

00:57:43 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

They’re not the same thing.

00:57:45 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Support is providing a foundation that someone can stand upon.

00:57:50 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Encouragement is.

00:57:54 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Sometimes giving them the white lies to help them get through the day.

00:58:00 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

That’s the difference.

00:58:02 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

SCARS provides support and through our support activities, other victims encourage themselves.

00:58:11 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And that’s an incredibly useful balance when we look at other anti-scam groups that are out there, they tend to feed on their own young.

00:58:22 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And the reason for that is an article that we published recently on transference.

00:58:28 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Victims naturally, as a result of their trauma and their grief and the.

00:58:35 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Post addictive aspects of their behaviors.

00:58:40 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Transfer a lot of their emotions onto others around them.

00:58:44 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It’s both dangerous and something that needs to be recognized, but.

00:58:50 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

So many of the amateur groups, the victim that started the group thinking that they were going to be the savior of everybody, transfers their anger and aggression for scammers.

00:59:01 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Actually onto the other victims that go to them for information.

00:59:06 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

So the result is, there’s highly charged negative environments.

00:59:10 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And atmospheres in these groups.

00:59:12 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Because of this, we’re really careful to avoid.

00:59:19 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The exploration and development of negativity because it is so counterproductive.

00:59:27 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Well, we want to provide hope we want to.

00:59:30 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

We want to be there to say you’re not alone and this is how you can get through it and recover, OK?

00:59:37 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Now I’m going to.

00:59:38 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Disagree with you for a minute.

00:59:40 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Hope is hope is a four letter word.

00:59:43 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

What is wrong with hope?

00:59:46 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

It’s the same hope that you had.

00:59:48 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

During the scam.

00:59:50 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Hope is actually an extraordinarily useful.

00:59:55 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Mechanism and emotion, except when it’s not so.

01:00:00 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Hope based upon a factual understanding that you can get through this process and come out of it.

01:00:07 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Stronger, smarter and more aware is incredibly valuable.

01:00:13 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

False hope which?

01:00:15 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Looks and feels the same.

01:00:18 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

You know when you do a taste comparison between hope A and hope B. They smell and taste the same, but one is not real and it is important to always keep your expectations quote UN quote. Hope in line with factual reality.

01:00:38 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Well, there you go to him and we’re at the.

01:00:41 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Top of the hour.

01:00:42 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

How can people find out about SCARS?

01:00:46 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Well, SCARS is virtually anywhere, so you start your journey as a new scam victim.

01:00:56 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

At romance scams now.

01:00:58 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Or if you speak Spanish in Contra staffies Punto org we are fully bilingual.

01:01:04 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

We we operate our.

01:01:07 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

English language organization and we have a Spanish language organization that operates out of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico.

01:01:15 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Your journey begins there.

01:01:16 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

This is a journey of learning because so much of what happened to you is based upon ignorance.

01:01:23 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

There’s no shame in being ignorant.

01:01:25 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

You don’t know what you don’t know.

01:01:27 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

But now you have to.

01:01:28 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Learn it now. You have to learn to drive the Internet safely or you will become a scam victim again and the average is about 3.43 point.

01:01:40 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Five times victims will be scanned.

01:01:43 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

That means there’s many that are scanned once, and many that are scanned dozens of times.

01:01:49 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

We have lots of members of our support groups who have in fact been scanned three times.

01:01:56 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

And on the third one finally understood what it was about their personality.

01:02:03 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

About their humanity that made them susceptible to this, everybody is susceptible.

01:02:10 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The only way you avoid scams is through a combination of knowledge and behavior.

01:02:15 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Change romance scams now.

01:02:17 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

COM is the place you start the.

01:02:20 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Place you report is go to that website, look in our directory at the top.

01:02:25 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Of every single page, we have a new, very simplified smartphone version of our website which gives you access much more easily.

01:02:36 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Really, to information we’ve just gone through a major redesign to make information more accessible, more findable.

01:02:44 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Something that was completed in this last week. If you want to look at scam photos, we publish videos of photos that go really fast because we don’t want you dwelling on them. But if you insist, go to scammerphotos.com, which is our million plus scammer photo repository.

01:03:03 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Which Google just notified us by the way that we were being really mean to scammers and that we should stop.

01:03:10 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Of course, we appealed and we won, but

01:03:14 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

Nevertheless, social media is the problem.

01:03:18 Dr. Tim McGuinness, SCARS Director

The only solution is learning and changing your behavior.

01:03:23 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Well, Doctor Tim McGuinness, thank you so much for your information.

01:03:26 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Again, romance scams now.

01:03:28 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

COM is the encyclopedia of a relationship, scam, information relationship, fraud information, where to report?

01:03:35 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

It’s unbelievable.

01:03:36 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

There’s so much information there.

01:03:38 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Take it one article at a time and don’t get.

01:03:41 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Go to our Facebook groups?

01:03:42 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Join those if you want some support in a group atmosphere.

01:03:46 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

It is fabulous.

01:03:47 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Doctor Tim, thank you so much for being our Scam Buster.

01:03:50 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

There’s so much more that we can talk about.

01:03:52 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

That’ll be another.

01:03:52 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Day, I want to thank our audience who is here and who’s listening to this on.

01:03:57 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Replays this.

01:03:58 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Is important information and if for the month.

01:04:01 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Of April, remember we want to tell one or two extra people about what’s going on out there too.

01:04:07 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

Beware and be aware and when it happens, make sure you stand up and speak up and don’t let the scammers get the best of us.

01:04:14 Debby Montgomery Johnson, Host

So Doctor Tim, thank you so much for being my guest today and we’ll adjourn till next week.