[Ep. 48] How a fake NFL player allegedly pulled off a $1.3 million scam

Sick of political text messages? I get them too. I block one number, and wham, the next day it's back from the same group.

An AI voice cloning scam convinced Deborah Del Mastro that a Mexican drug cartel had kidnapped her daughter. The sobbing voice on the phone was an AI voice clone, and the kidnapping was fake. It started over breakfast, when a local number called and a stranger asked if her daughter was prone to panic attacks. Seconds later, she heard her daughter crying on the line, and a man said she'd be sold unless Deborah paid up. What followed was five and a half hours of threats, wire transfers, and driving from store to store with the phone held up so he could hear every word. The whole time, her daughter was safe at work. Deborah, a Navy veteran and mother of two, walks me through every minute of it and what she wishes every family knew before that phone rings. What You Will Learn This Episode: - How scammers can copy a loved one's voice from social media and use it against you - Why these callers keep you on the phone for hours and what that's really for - What a family safe word is and why you should set one up today - Why nobody at the store stopped Deborah from wiring money to Mexico - How your personal details end up in scammers' hands for just a few dollars - Why smart, careful people fall for this and why it's never your fault - The simple app Deborah's family now uses so they always know everyone is safe - The classic red flags to watch for: urgency, secrecy, and a demand for money

In 2019, seven squatters moved into Flash Shelton's mom's empty house, and the sheriff told him there was nothing they could do. So he came up with a plan of his own. Now known as the Squatter Hunter from A&E's Squatters, Flash sits down with me to reveal how squatters really operate, why most of them aren't homeless, and the tenant law loophole that lets them live rent-free for months. If you own a home, care for an aging parent, or ever leave your house empty, this conversation could save you from a nightmare.What You Will Learn This Episode:- How one son took back his mom's house from seven squatters without waiting on the courts- Why most squatters aren't homeless, and why they keep moving from house to house- What squatters are really after, and why a fake lease can stall police for months- How to register your no trespassing signs so deputies can actually make an arrest- Why a locked mailbox is one of your best defenses against squatters- What to set up before vacation, from battery backup cameras to timers and a car in the driveway- How to protect an empty house with no power or Wi-Fi- What happened when an 88-year-old's caregiver refused to leave her home

Romance scams are the most expensive form of online dating fraud, and this one plays out like a true crime documentary with two victims instead of one. Gabby met a man on LinkedIn who was already connected to a former colleague of hers, so she assumed he was real. Over two years he asked for money, sent it back, and asked again, until the amounts got very large and the money stopped coming back. The photos used to catfish her belong to Brian Haugen, a real man in Los Angeles, and he joins me in studio to explain what a stolen face has cost him. What You Will Learn This Episode: - Why a romance scammer sends your money back early on, and what it is actually buying him - How a scam account uses one shared LinkedIn connection to look completely legitimate - What to watch for when an online dating match always has a reason they cannot meet you - Why the amounts start small and climb slowly instead of arriving as one big ask - The single request that will expose a catfish faster than anything else you can try - Who the Yahoo Boys are and how an international romance scam operation actually runs - What happens to the real person whose face gets stolen and used to catfish strangers - Kurt's red flags for checking on someone you love who is dating a stranger online

Flock cameras sit at the end of ordinary neighborhood streets in thousands of American towns, and one of them read Lindsey Isaacs' license plate wrong. Seven months later, the 23-year-old was surrendering herself on eight felony counts tied to a crash that killed three people. She was nowhere near the accident. She had a receipt, a car with no damage on it, and a vehicle that was not even the same color as the one witnesses described. This true crime story pinned an innocent person to the crime with just a flock camera, a plate number, and the officers who decided that was enough. I sit down with Lindsey to walk through the 13 days she spent in jail, the moment she realized what investigators had actually built their case on, and what mass surveillance on your own street now costs you in privacy.What You Will Learn This Episode:- How flock cameras work, and how one plate read can turn your car into evidence- What a plate reader captures about where you drive, and how long police keep it- Why a receipt and an undamaged car were not enough to stop an arrest- What a time and distance analysis is, and how it finally broke the case open- Why the color of a vehicle matters more than most drivers realize- What happens inside solitary confinement when charges get labeled severe- The safeguard Lindsey says should be required before any plate based arrest- Why "I have nothing to hide" is the wrong way to think about mass surveillance