[Ep. 17] Deepfake romance scam cost her mother $80,000 and her home

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.

The Daejon Love scam started on dating apps like Hinge, where a fake 49ers player allegedly ran a $1.3 million romance scam on at least 26 women. Domonique Dubose matched with him and caught on fast. He had a blue check, 85,000 Instagram followers, and videos from Super Bowl week to prove he was the real deal. But within minutes of his first messages, Domonique knew something was off. She tells Kurt exactly how she started digging, the lies that didn't add up, and why she believes the real number of victims is far bigger than anyone knows. What You Will Learn This Episode: - How a fake 49ers player allegedly used a blue check, luxury cars, and team gear to look completely real - Why a flood of voice notes and videos in the first few minutes is a major red flag - How one scammer allegedly ran different personas (football player, real estate investor, day trader) to target different groups of victims - What simple searches you can do to check whether a dating app match is who he says he is - Why handing over cash or taking out a loan "for someone you love" is a warning sign you should never ignore - Why dating app ID checks can't stop someone from lying to you once they're verified - What one social media platform did to help protect people from fake athlete profiles - How Domonique protects herself from dating app scams today, starting with the moment you text her

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