Latest / MaxValue Podcast / Crimes, they aren't a-changin' Ft. Megan and Alex

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Crimes, they aren't a-changin' Ft. Megan and Alex · MaxValue Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_04: Airport security was approached.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_04: The fact that all his aliases were comic to a character.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: What is it?
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: You have the opportunity, the motivation, and the ability.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't take much to make one small bad decision, and then now you're kind of in it.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: An honest man has nothing to fear, so it's very hard not to be afraid.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: 9,500, 100,000 very often because it doesn't quite welcome to Max Value, the show for business owners and their professional advisors pursuing maximum value.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about business valuation, exit planning strategy, but today we're going to go to the movies instead.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: I want to welcome my friends Alex Spady from Bridge Forensics and repeat guest and movie watcher Megan Thompson from Thompson Accounting.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: They are both forensic accountants who practice in family law in California.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Hey guys.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome, welcome.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: So today we are diving into a forensic accounting classic.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Catch me if you can, starring Leonardo Leonardo.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Those Ninja Turtles are tough.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: DiCaprio as Frank Abignale Jr.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: and Tom Hanks as FBI agent Carl Hanrady.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Spielberg Flick is over 20 years old, but just in case you haven't seen it, stop right now and watch before you do a listen.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, there are spoilers for the entire movie here, but again, old movie.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: So Catch Me If You Can opens with 16-year-old Frank Abignell Jr.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: watching his parents' marriage and his father's business unravel under the weight of IRS trouble.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe they weren't happy uh with each other either.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And when forced to choose between the two parents which one he wants to live with, he runs away and goes to New York uh with a checkbook and a sharpsuit and nothing else.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: He was broke, but he was resourceful.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: He starts small with doctoring checks and bouncing them around the city, but realizes that the real leverage isn't the paper, actually, it's a uniform that he gets.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: So he cons his way into a pan Am pilot's outfit and talks his way into deadhead flights around the world and cashes forged payroll checks at banks that practically, you know, uh that respect a pilot.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh from there, impersonation escalates.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: He poses as a pediatric supervisor at a Georgia hospital, charms his way as a uh fiance and as an attorney in Louisiana.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and all at the same time, FBI agent Carl Hanratdy, played by Tom Hanks, is assigned to a bank fraud unit that nobody really wants, but pieces together that this guy who is scamming everybody for uh a ton of money is he pieces together that he's just a kid.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Han Randy Han Raddy finally corners Frank uh in a motel, uh, but Frank talks his way out of it by pretending he's part of the Secret Service.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: He gets him again, almost gets him again, at his engagement party in Louisiana with the uh lead attorney's daughter.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but Frank gets out the window.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Chase eventually brings them all to a French village, the same French village where his mother grew up in the war.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and he's printing basically perfect replica checks in a basement.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where Han Ride finally gets him.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Cold, exhausted, but almost relieved to be caught.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then after he serves a stint in a French prison, he's extradited to the US, and Frank makes a deal.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: He serves the rest of his time working for the FBI's financial crimes unit, teaching the FBI how to spot many of the tricks that he invented.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the film closes out on this strange partnership between he and uh and Carl Hanraddy, the the agent.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of a saving the cat moment for himself, I guess.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: All right, guys, let's dive into it.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let's what what was there to talk about in this this show?
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_04: There's a lot of great things to talk about that you know, accounting concepts that are some known frauds and types of frauds that that have been per you know created over the years.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_04: Uh there was a little bit of family law in there, and uh I I thought I thought that I thought we had a lot of good things to talk about that really tie back to accounting, even though the 20 years old.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_04: Well, let's try to do that.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: I think also I was just gonna say also it goes back to the old trope of like we are the nerds always.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: So the accountants are always portrayed as the people no one wants to hang out with, and we don't want they didn't want to be stuck uh with the accounting job.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: All the FBI agents kind of begrudgingly took this accounting position.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: You're right.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start there because really that that is the through line.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, we Megan, you and I had done the uh the accountant to movie review uh previously and and pointed out that even though you know he's he's kind of a badass, the you know because he's an accountant, they still have to you know knock him down a peg and you know give give him some uh some disabilities, basically.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And and here, the uh you know, the the overly serious and and straight and uh man, I don't even know what to say about him.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, not not very funny, if you will.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh nerd accountant uh that Hanks portrays, thank you very much, very well.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh is you know, yeah, no people don't particularly like him.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: They're you know, they make fun of him for you know thinking this stuff, you know, the the the stuff with the checks is cool and and all that.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's pretty uh pretty funny.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I agree.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_04: They they really kind of hound on him as this, you know, pencil pusher and you know, the the guys that were in the field doing the real cop stuff, and he's just kind of behind the desk, like looking at check numbers and just weird things that like well who cares about the check process and why is that important?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_04: And uh is often, I think early on is very dismissed as if this process is even important or relevant, they just they don't think it's cool, and you know, but what what's happening is he's actually committing millions of dollars to fraud um using the kind of broken system.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Financial crimes are real crimes.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, and you know, you you would uh while we were watching, uh, you had done the conversion, and basically all if we if we talk about any of the numbers that that he steals over time, bringing it forward to you know 2026, it's about what 10x the uh on an inflation inflated basis.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I think it worded out about 40 million that is or yeah in today dollars, yeah.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Which I mean, heck, that's a that's a minor fraud.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: No, okay.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um you could live comfortably on that.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I don't know about you.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, let's let's talk about that uh that family law issue uh first that you that you were bringing up.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I mean I I guess from I mean Megan and I, as the viewers might know, we we do a fair amount of our work in family law.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_04: And I mean, I don't know again, I found it uh jarring.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_04: And it's no I know custody is not something we normally get involved in, but it was pretty jarring.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_04: There's a scene about custody, and I don't know your thoughts on that.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: Basically, yeah, so you know, after I mean, we the the dad originally he's accused of tax fraud, or he's pretty much convicted of tax fraud.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's pretty obvious.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: He's accused of which, yeah, because he didn't by the way, Christopher Walken is great in this he's great, he's he's great in everything, but obviously.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but um when they're getting divorced, the lawyer's there with their 16-year-old son, and he said, By the way, your parents are getting divorced.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: Here's a piece of paper.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: There's a blank space where you can put mom or dad, pick who you want to live with.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: And Alex and everyone's like, What?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_03: No way, right?
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, just that's a little that's that's not how we do it usually.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: At least not now, right?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: At least not now.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: I have no idea if that used to be, but yeah.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: I have not seen that.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not an attorney, maybe there's an area where that happens, but it seems a little unethical.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little bit like Rochambeau, though, right?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like it would have the same same legal effect, but I don't know.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that was that was quite jarring.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_04: I know that you know, I know as kids get older, they do get often have some ability to convey their preferences more, but to be kind of put in the middle like that, uh, right at the outset.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it makes you really sympathetic to him because I think that's where the film then jumps to he ran, he runs away from home just because of the stress of having to, you know, decide between his parents like that.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_04: And I I felt pretty sympathetic to that.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_04: That seems like a really tough choice to have to make.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I could see why you'd want to just you know escape having to make that choice at all.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I it definitely is the inciting incident for the for the whole film.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because you know, he clearly worships his dad, um, who's an inveterate liar.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, he he worships his mom and he you know believes that you know they they had you know for that, you know, for his childhood, a you know, a perfect family life.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, and he's he sees that it's it's very clear he sees that as the as the paradigm, and he's he's always feeling like he's missing out.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: He's he's missed that.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_04: And he's trying to like bring it back together, like right, but not the right way, right?
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Quote unquote.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's he's he's trying to make it all better right now through you know, through through fraud, yeah.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right his dad was a uh a big smooth talking shyster kind of guy.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, actually, excuse me, not not a big time, small time.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: He's a small time shyster.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but he looks like yeah, really the first foray into that is with his dad, where he takes him to the suit store and talks them into lending him a suit, tell him it's you know they're going to a funeral, and really he's going trying to go to the bank to get a loan, uh, to kind of float them to the next, you know, scam, basically.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: So he's kind of brought in early in all that.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_04: And I think, I mean, that's the mean that that's actually, I mean, I know that the whole movie, and we'll talk about that, I'm sure, in a bit about the check process, you know, the how they the actual fraud was with the checks and things like that.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_04: But I actually think the first fraud was the social engineering.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_04: Um, that's what he learned from his dad.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, that that was the the first manifestation of what I think he learned as a kid was oh, you know, there's rules and things that different organizations and schools and stuff have, but you can fake it.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_04: And like there's not someone checking.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_04: He he faked himself as a substitute teacher for a week, you know.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_04: Like, there's he learns that certain confidence and things like that like can get you far and can get you to be able to into places that you might maybe otherwise wouldn't be allowed to, or the rules say you're not supposed to.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that's one of the first things he learns from his dad, which obviously carries throughout the rest of the movie.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't we don't see any fallout from that, for example.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: That that was one of the very you're right, that was actually the very first fraud.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, is you know him not wanting to be uh seen as lesser because he he walks into this new school because they they have their house taken because of the IRS fraud.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know they have to move somewhere else, and he's not going to his you know, prep school anymore, and he's there with his you know prep school uniform still.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um people are making fun of him because that's what you do in high school.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: And um he's he decides to big dog everybody by by going up to the front of the class.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: And and I think it is it it is funny because he just had enough bravado to get it done.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's everybody wanted to believe it or was perfectly ready to believe it.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't see any fallout from that at the back end, right?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the the his parents get a talking to by the by the principal.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: We don't see him getting any consequences directly, though.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_04: Well, and I think even early on in the movie, we see that like they they have a whole montage when he's first starting the check when he's trying to you know do these fake checks and small amounts.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_04: It has that whole montage of him going to the all this this just row and different banks and different tellers, and there's this whole you know, montage of that process.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_04: And I think I took from that like that's him refining his social engineering game.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_04: And you know, that's often I think with I mean with the fraud thing, I mean, that's the part that's how the that's the that's the vulnerability, right?
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_04: With fraud, is it's the person, it's the people, and that is the game that he's playing, that he's learning how to charm the teller, what the right thing to say is, the the little bit of information that makes him sound like an insider that like builds that fake trust that that then can let the rest of the scheme happen.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_04: But that doesn't happen without the the social confidence that that part of the scam.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: That is the right, and it started out with a lot of people saying no.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's what that montage was was him like figuring out because people were like, I'm sorry we can't do that, I'm sorry we can't do that.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: And then we get to the next part where he's at the hotel, uh, because he gets he gets kicked out of uh housing that he's in because they get checks bounced, and and he's at the hotel and he's trying to uh cash a check, and they say, Oh, we can cash personal checks up to a hundred bucks, but payroll checks up to 300.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's he's learning, yeah.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then that's that first.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um it is it is interesting that it's all incremental frauds.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, first he's just writing bad checks.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: So he has a checkbook and he's writing, you know, he's writing checks that he can't cash, literally.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and but that catches up to him pretty quickly, as you pointed out.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so he's he's keeps iteratively getting smarter and smarter and smarter about it.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: And it made me think honestly, like of so, you know, back then you had to use like paper and a typewriter, he was doing all this stuff.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I had a case uh recently, recently in the past few years, where we had an issue where the pay stumps we were provided were clearly manufactured.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: That you know, it wasn't it wasn't a matter of someone trying to cash a paycheck, but it was evidence that was presented that was supposed to be a pay stub for a company that clearly was not correct.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: And when we tried to subpoena those records, they said, this person doesn't work here.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I just thought about like, oh, back then, how hard it was to do these things manually, and now how that one piece where we talked about like a lot of the things are a lot harder to do now, those kind of things are a lot easier to do now, to forge things to to create uh, you know, to just manipulate documents is a lot easier than it was back then.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I completely agree.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_04: I also thought it was really interesting how, and I think this is something that like is still very prevalent in like any kind of fraud today, with especially that like social engineering was yeah, you you mentioned like then it was incremental, but also like he would learn these little tidbits like throughout the way.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_04: And like at that one point, he you know impersonates being a reporter to learn these inside pieces of information, and like he then uses those inside pieces of information to kind of navigate the different systems, whether it's the airline, whether I mean you use these little things, these seemingly disparate, irrelevant pieces of information that someone might give up freely.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_04: Um, that actually, when you connect them in a in a nefarious way, all of a sudden like allows him to impersonate being a pilot, a medical doctor.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_04: Like it's it's kind of crazy to me that there's there's a document part of it, but there's also this lingo, there's knowing the right things to say that he he connects and and I don't know, it just makes me like it makes me like think about like are there any like random disparate pieces of information about me or about like you know that company that like you could use to connect a fraud?
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's it's yeah, like he goes in the back and starts flirting with Elizabeth Banks, and she takes them in the back and shows them the the machine and it's like look at the why are they about that now, right?
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean that that that's really the thing.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, like well, like most things, most like a warning label or whatever, somebody has to do the dumb thing in order to to create the uh problem for the warning label to exist.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Same thing with a lot of uh financial controls, just like that.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like, no, you can't have, you know, except for maybe the the uh safety boxes, uh the deposit boxes, you can't have clients in the back, you know, behind the counter.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: So he one of his his his big uh well, one of his big frauds uh is the check kiting.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: The float is what they saw.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Float, yes, the check float, yeah.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: The check float.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, I think yeah, Han Raddy was calling it the check floating.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's called the float.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: The float.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure I know if there is a technical difference between between the two things.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think in school we all learned it as check kiting, but I think it's the same.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: Bottom line though is um what maybe you guys who are dealing you know with yeah with this more often.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what is it?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Why did it work and why doesn't it work now?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: Or not in the same way.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_04: So um basically, I mean, so the the gist of the process is that you know back in the 60s, you had to have a physical check.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_04: So what would happen is you'd you'd you'd draft a check that was telling, you know, I I have me, Alex, I have I want to write a$500 check to Megan.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm basically the check is an instruction document telling my bank to give Megan's bank$500 from me to her.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_04: And the way that though that would clear is I would take the bank, I give the check to Megan.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_04: Megan takes that check to her bank, her bank has to go and clear it to both in paper, transport it to like a main institution, and then go to a federal district, a processing center, to actually make sure that the ledger between all the banks was reconciled and then get back in touch with my bank so my bank could pull the money from my account and make sure that everyone was squared up.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_04: In that in between, they would often banks would often give Megan the access to the funds on the check and settle it up with me later.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and sometimes the bank that you know Megan would take the check to would all everyone was gonna be settling up later in multiple days.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so there was this, you know, often multi-day process um to make sure that if I wrote a check to Megan for$500, that that check was actually a good check and that our our respective you know checking accounts were gonna be updated with the the ledger.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_04: That that whole process would take days, if not weeks.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_04: Um that's something that happens later in the movie, is that they they start to get into him realizing that he Leo, this character, realizes that there's multiple Federal Reserve processing centers around the country.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_04: And if he makes the check, the processing center in the West Coast, when he's on the East Coast, it'll take weeks for the process the check to actually because it physically has to go from New York somewhere somewhere on the West Coast and then get sent back to be all processed.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_04: So he realizes he can play this game where I can write these checks for weeks and it won't catch up to me because they they won't realize that you know, the recipient's bank won't realize that there's a problem for weeks.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and that was back in the day, that's that's what you know, that's how it would work.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_04: And that's how I think he was able to get access to so much cash is that there was this, there was a bigger system of trust around that.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_04: Nowadays, uh that it doesn't work like that.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_04: Um there's a lot more things in place.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_04: Um I think part in part because of these real frauds.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I mean, one thing is probably you know really obvious to everyone, but is it it's all digital?
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_04: Um, there is not a need to move the paper check anymore.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_04: It's all a digital process and it can all be processed electronically.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_04: So that settling that used to take days and weeks happens in real time, if not daily or instantaneously.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_04: It's happening at least overnight.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_04: Um also a lot of banks now will have processes in place.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_04: So if I'm a Chase customer and Megan's a Wells Fargo customer, maybe there's a hold on the check.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_04: So Megan takes the check to her bank and maybe the the bank says, we'll give you$300 of this check, but the thousand that it's written, you can't, you can't, it's actually not available to you.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_04: You have to wait a day or two until we can settle it up with the bank.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_04: Um, sometimes if you're at the same bank, it can clear much more quickly.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_04: But the banks have gotten a lot smarter about making sure that you can't play with this float.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_04: Um and this is something that people used to play with.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, people play with this process on their own in a legitimate way, right?
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_04: You write a check to pay your mortgage.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_04: That takes a few days to clear the mail.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_04: You're getting the benefit of that float, but this was done in a much obviously more nefarious way.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: What do you what do you think banks are?
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, banks are float.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that that's the whole concept, right?
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it they're they're able to you know leverage you know certain deposits and and lend it out, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's not that the underlying concept is is anything but a a just a fact.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, you know, he he saw this and exploited this uh to the nth degree.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's it sounded like he was um, or at least the movie made it sound like he created, um, yeah, first ideated some of these frauds.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, right.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: The expansion of yeah, because then that and the next sort of fraudulent area was when he meets up with Jennifer Garner.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, and I I I caught this sort of at the time, but uh upon reflection, I realized that what he was doing.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: Because at first, uh, because she comes in and says, you know, how much how much to spend the night with me?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and he they get to a thousand dollars, right?
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I saw him going through, he had cashier's checks, and one of them was for a thousand dollars, and he shuffles that one away and pulls out the fourteen hundred dollar one and then offers that to her and says, but wait, that's too much.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: And she says, Here's four hundred dollars in cash, give me the cashier's check and I'll cash it.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: So even then, even at that time when he's sort of getting scammed, like I mean, not exactly, but he he's sort of getting scammed, he figures out a way to sort of flip it and scam her instead, even though.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_04: he had you know a means uh to to not scam her he also found kind of a new scam actually i mean he that he kind of advanced from the check the check you know floating process to more of like a i forget what we we found the name of the term is advanced fee the advanced fee scam where you know it's the it's the classic you know hey there's this I have this fifty thousand dollar check waiting for you you've just got to send me the five and I'll get it to clear and you know the money's all yours it's it I mean that's that's exactly the classic it's exactly what he did classic classic well not classic when you're inventing it but it now now yeah but but I will say Jennifer Gardner is a lot better looking than the Nigerian prince in my head um but that's I mean there's so many iterations of of that that people are trying to perpetrate all the time.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: So if Jennifer Gardner ever calls me up I'll know that it's probably not her.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah yeah probably not real just definitely you guys will be fan.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_04: But it it is it it's really I mean really it was interesting to see how you know that was the older process of how I mean because the some of the same concepts of checks that they talk about with the the routing numbers and the I mean some of that's that structure still exists today.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_04: It's still the way that checks are drafted and set up it's just that the actual behind the scenes processing has gotten so much more advanced.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_04: And you know even in corporate settings a lot of banks and institutions will have like positive pay on their checks.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_04: So the check itself has to get authenticated by the like institution or the company to make sure that you know I we did indeed write this check.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_04: Someone didn't just steal my check stock and just start drafting because that's the other thing that really was part of I mean that the the bank processing system has changed from the 60s to now and all that really did the the change there was that it gave you less time if you were if let's say you were legitimately writing a check if I was you know legitimately writing a check from myself to Megan I live in New York and Megan lives in California in the 60s you would have had that float right that the the mail the check would have gotten there faster in the mail than it would have taken to process through the banking system.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_04: That is the float we're talking about now that float is you know I mean why would I send a check anymore?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_04: I'd probably just pay you know via Zell anyway but that's a whole different you know who sends a check but that the processing time has gotten reduced you only send a check when you want the float right you want the float exactly but the float's not that long it's a day or two now that's the that's the issue.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_04: The the the other underlying thing that he was doing was the underlying check itself wasn't real right that that's the other thing is he he found a way to fabricate the check stock and and alter it and so it looks real but it really was never it he never had the money to begin with.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well but what they're what they were saying was and that that happened later in the in the movie but that not that they're not they're that he's making real checks yeah that they're not they're not counterfeit checks they're he's finding a way to print real checks that was like the third final iteration yeah was he he got a real printing press it in in France uh he got a real heavy duty printing press and the real real check stock even though it wasn't actually commissioned by you know any any of the companies that he was writing them on everything like because it was the same.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah I I also think the one thing that I thought about that was you know he also one thing that one of the processes I I'm just thinking about more that is he started you know one of the big things is he would go to the teller and try to cash a check which I I actually think you know back then may have been a bigger concept but like I don't find that that's actually a really common process anymore.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_04: That's the other thing the checks are often being used to settle I'm paying my daycare I'm paying my mortgage with a check and so it's it's settling up a bill or something like that.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_04: The that was the other part of what he had to do was I'm going to the bank and pull and taking this check from you know the whoever and that's another thing that I mean banking regulations often have ch have changed around is I can't you can't usually can't just if I have a check from you know what someone I just can't go into a random bank that I'm not a client of or a customer of and just get cash.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: There's usually a lot of around that I think that's the difference is it's if you if it's your bank then maybe yes because then it can cover it if it does if it doesn't end up being valid.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_02: But I yeah I can't if someone writes me a check from Chase and I go into you know Wells Fargo and try to cash it they're gonna say this yeah good luck.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well and the you know it and and of course there's all sorts of mitigating things because you know it's a balance of you know stopping people from doing real commerce which is you know kind of a capitalist no no right and at the same time though trying to keep the integrity of the system.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um so you know one of the other mitigating things they do of course is is you the the relative amount I mean if it's a huge amount relative to the bank balance in that account if it's a large amount just generally if it's ten thousand dollars you know for uh what is it Rick's purposes that uh that starts triggering things yeah so all all all kinds of things um keep keep kind of a lid on even if you are kiting checks you're gonna be probably pretty small time at at this point yeah there there are definitely other scams you can that that would be more lucrative actually you maybe think of another scam that they kind of highlighted in the movie kind of albeit briefly and not they didn't explicitly say anything but there's that scene where he learns that the limit on if you have a payroll check it's up to$300.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_04: And so you see him cutting a few different checks for like$295 and two you know and and I I thought that was a great you know that's something that's taught in like any kind of fraud class that like they they often will you know they say the thresholds but they often will do threshold testing right below the threshold just because once someone learns the threshold that is the exact game they play like oh you're not gonna check if it's over 10 000 great let's do a bunch of nine thousand dollar checks I see that all the time with transfers from foreign countries.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: I think about that one we're looking at you know uh transfers from family or two family or anything when when uh transfers into the United States are usually nine nine thousand nine hundred something dollars that's what I see very often because it doesn't trigger anything um or allegedly it allegedly doesn't I mean obviously if you have a series of transactions at$9900 you're you're if your banker is paying attention if the the bank is paying attention that they're they're supposed to catch a bit yeah um so and and so he does he does various financial fraudulent things and then he does socially fraudulent like we were talking about tries to become a doctor and then he tries to become a lawyer and one of the interesting things that Alex and I were talking about was when he tries to when he goes into a preliminary hearing and tries to present evidence and talks to the to the uh defendant and the jury and all this stuff and there's nobody there and the judge gets mad at him um and how that could potentially actually happen.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: It was one of those things we were talking about where uh you know a lot of uh new attorneys are sort of shoved into situations where they're maybe not a hundred percent sure uh of how the procedures work and uh you know or or experts where you go in and you and you don't know where the where the witness stand is I've seen people accidentally walk up to the clerk's dance you know things like that where you know that that's very uh common and understandable to to be you know not knowledgeable of all the rules if you haven't experienced them.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that's what he was trying to I mean that that was the whole part of like kind of watching him stumble through some of that was like that was the social engineering thing.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_04: He's he's refining the learning of like you saw that when he first got on the plane and he was like in that little shuttle seat they had like he didn't even know how to pull it out yeah and so like he but he's trying to pretend like I have the lingo and I fly a 747 but like he's he's doing his best to try to pretend enough that um you know I I think that's another big thing that's obviously changed is you know authenticating credentials and and whatnot.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_04: There's just a lot easier to verify that online um that you know you have someone is actually who they say they are background checks are a lot more uh official and and whatnot because it it it was you know terrifying to me watching that movie like oh my god like you've pretended to be an an airline pilot you've attended to be a doctor you've had to be a lawyer like all three of these in varying degrees of you know have you know really can huge impact on someone's life that's not something you can just go fund your way into so yeah I think that was quite a bit of background and knowledge to get there.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah so um yeah but but I think like a big part of his character was he wasn't afraid to look stupid fall on his face kind of thing and and that and took that as a learning experience rather than you know being embarrassed or or I mean because you could tell he was scared and even like the tailor at one point the tailor who's uh tailoring his clothes for his his uh pilot's uniform was like oh why are you so nervous and he immediately pivoted and said well wouldn't you be nervous if you forgot you know if you lost your uniform on the first day or first week or you know he he was really good at thinking on his feet but I mean he he wasn't uh infallible and he was I'm hearing a sense of uh you know a sense of admiration here I mean you know normally because normally aren't we seeing you know it there are admirable qualities at the very least I mean from the standpoint of yeah I mean I do want my kids going out there and making making mistakes or being not afraid to make a mistake and fall on your face so you can try something this is obviously to the nth degree and and in a direction we don't we don't want anybody to go but I always I'm sorry no 100% when you when they but when the principal was talking to parents I was like I would have been so proud I mean a lot right he's like oh you pretended to be a teacher for a week and I'm like dude like very good job this is this is the thing like right where I mean even anytime like you get something that's maybe a little new novel to you or something you not have quite done before like it's that line between is this confidence and this is is this a learning opportunity in a way to like you know learn something novel or is this just now malpractice and I'm totally like I'm an I'm a total imposter and I'm faking it.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_04: Like that line I mean we've seen that with silicon valley frauds and like all these things like there that's a continuum to me.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_04: It's not this black or white thing.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_04: And I think the movie actually does a good job of kind of highlighting how there's this escalation of like you know yeah to the point where okay maybe that's kind of funny little prank you're kind of being confident you found your way into places that you shouldn't have been like okay now you're definitely like you know you know in the point of this is definitely fraught like that line is really uh I I I thought what when I talk about that was like he would use like there was a scene where he was like you know talking to his his fiance or his soon-to-be fiance or he's asking the dad for permission and he has that whole thing he's like you know I'll be honest with you I'm none of these things I'm not a lawyer I'm not a a pilot and it's like he's actually telling the truth and but he's using that in this really obfuscated way even with the truth yeah I think you know but you mentioned that's admiration I think I think the thing for me that is so telling is that maybe it's just that like it's the fact that he kind of rolls the he's so nimble and able to like I'm gonna just say this and then I'm able to roll with it so in the moment and like that's the part that maybe is just so I don't think most people do that and can think like that.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_04: And so there is something that's interesting about that that some of that someone can do that.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously it's a movie but right right right and you know I I I I I think they do the the I think what makes this movie really work besides the incredible acting of course the uh the fact that they really humanize this guy.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean even even through his his big crime spree uh you know he he he doesn't show up in the movie as a perfectly formed character.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: He's he's he's failing you know for the you know for the beginning parts until he's you know gets little bits of success in crime uh in in these uh in these frauds and over time yeah he he turns himself into this you know the this machine of of lies um but it's not immediate and even then he's he you know you you see his emotional uh you see you see his guilt you know it it it rides him you see his loneliness it rides him you know I one thing I'd never noticed this that this movie was a Christmas movie because I mean it's right up there with diehard because he's calling Tom Hanks every Christmas and he gets caught on Christmas or Christmas or Christmas Eve.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah and it's kind of amazing I never you know I didn't put that in the column of uh this being a Christmas movie but you're totally right and and and if we're if we're gonna go there diehard is a Christmas movie.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think that might be a generational thing but it's that's that's our generation Megan uh for sure it's a Christmas movie in my um anyway so but what is yeah we we were uh just saying it's like you know he it builds up and builds up and builds up and one of the things that what really struck me was at the beginning it was little increments you know just trying to get by just trying to be able to survive to eat to have a place to stay and then when he's with Amy Adams and they're like getting you know at their engagement party he's got suitcases full of cash yeah and and so at that point it's not just trying to get by something else is going on because he's not he's not just cashing checks to be able to make ends right because at that point you're right he had a legitimate job as a lawyer yeah you know he has a you know paycheck I mean yeah he was well paid job yeah yeah a big big time paper hanger as as the F B FBI was calling him I I think the um you know uh in in in that sense the the money is just a a way of keeping track keeping score um and he was ahead in the score and you know he at at some point I think also on on Christmas Eve he calls Carl Hanraddy uh Tom Hanks um and says you know I want out I'm done you know stop stop chasing me we're you know I I think he just wanted to you know leave the leave the table with his chips and everybody go home don't worry about it we're good uh and and that wasn't obviously that wasn't gonna work for Mr.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: Law but um you know he he did at least really consider going straight at at that time and I thought that was really interesting and again one of the one of the things that you know made the um uh made the movie very humanizing is that at some point he was just tired right he had built his castle of lies and it was you know it was crumbling because it's so hard to to just hold up by main force.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah I always wonder about that with things when you know like the when Bernie Madoff came out and when like Enron happened.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_02: And like for me I am maybe I'm honest to a fault sometimes which you know I'll take that over being dishonest but but I can't imagine living your life like that under that kind of stress the stress that comes with just keeping the lies straight and like I I I I always think about that like who like why would you want to do this?
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like why do you want why would why would the enron execs want to be I mean I know there's power and money and whatever but like you know it's coming to get you like at some point it it's it's the first you know I I I I think I think that whole incremental thing is is how that how that goes.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean fog in the water yeah yeah we you have the the um uh what is it you have the you know the the opportunity the motivation and the uh the ability I no i think I'm stating that wrong it's been a while since uh since the CPA exam um but basically when you have all those things coming together uh you know it doesn't take much to make one small bad decision and then now you're kind of in it and now you're bad decisions.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yep I didn't know that this was going to be a parenting podcast but it is listen up um just kidding bud okay a quick break in the fun today's episode really has just been more for fun and to see how Hollywood depicts certain types of fraud how closely that matches the real world but in the fun let's not forget that exit planning is serious business.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is why the podcast exists is to help valuable businesses stay valuable and maximize that value.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: We need to be aware of the potential for fraud and black swan risks that can destroy your business out of nowhere.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it really is important to make sure that the value of your business can be transferred when you want to exit.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah this episode was for fun but exit planning is serious no matter what you think a good exit means whether that's outside sale passing it to your kids or whatever Exit Builder is our program specifically designed to build on your existing success so that you can be more certain of an exit.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of risk is hiding in the blind spots and specialists like Megan Alex and myself are expert at finding them do you want to take a look at those blind spots?
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_02: Start at townadvisor.com or message me directly but do me a favor use your real name all right back to Alex and Megan and together we will see if we can catch the facts in the fiction I the only last thing that I had sort of noted was at the end when he's consulting and they're talking about like the different methods and stuff in the in the check washing which it I don't think he had done or they hadn't pointed that out which was you know basically stealing checks out of mailboxes, taking everything but the signature off and making the check out to yourself.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_02: And my only thought on that was like then does it isn't your name on the check like it was like I guess you have to like have a fake identity.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah yeah I I thought about that too with the bank you know when at that scene when he had all that money in the cash that like you know it was interesting to me that I mean it the film never got into that but it just was a little curious to me that like because you're the way that you're doing the system and pulling the cash out like at some point I don't know I mean he might have needed to launder the money but like I think the biggest problem he just didn't want his name tied to an institution but he had there is always that problem with most of these fraud and criminal schemes is that at some point you need to get the money back into a form in which you can use it for functional daily life and like well now see I think I think that's a that's a giant difference from like the 60s to now is that you you absolut which is why everybody is kind of being is suggested you know to be a a contactless payment and all that stuff because basically all the money has to go through the system and because it's in the system it can be tracked whereas when you could use cash you know more freely I mean you can still use cash but it's just not at not the you know mean not as ubiquitous for sure.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah yeah and there are places where you can't use cash I mean I've had uh interactions where they say sorry it it's cash of card only or it's card or card or debit only like we can't there's no we don't accept cash in can can I I'm I'm gonna express you know a little bit of uh just queuing frustration what you be an old man yeah it it grinds my gears uh well but but really though it it does kind of grind my gears that that everybody's kind of used covet as the um as as the excuse you know oh we only do contactless payment dude you just touched all my stuff i'm you know what whatever we're not doing contactless anything here don't don't pretend that me tapping on your terminal here makes anything better that's not to do with anything other than everything's going through the system now which is fine just don't don't lie to me you know don't don't pretend that is this thing I will say as a forensic accountant I do enjoy that it's a lot more you know mostly in the system and it just makes does make our job a little easier for right so I'm I'm fine with that in that that regard but I do I do think that's a good point that you know it was it maybe just an interesting it's a kind of it's like watching you know episodes of Mad Men like it's just a cool period piece in that way to look back and be like oh wow you know certain things just we just you know they were different and um in in terms especially like financial processing and things like that like you you I don't know I always when I when you I always have this thing when you know we we look at any new like technology especially around like financial services and processing like I think it's so easy to to decry sometimes the system of all these regulations and all these things that we have but and you don't you know don't always realize that like sometimes banks are slow and have all these regulations because all of these frauds that have perpetrated over the last hundred years or longer have been the the rule as you were saying earlier like oh we learn from that that's why a check has a hold on it that's why it takes three days to clear a check like there are certain limits to like oh I don't have the funds immediately available anymore.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_04: It's like because we've learned from people doing these you know stupid and illegal things that like we should probably have this thing It's like so we don't necessarily always want to just throw all that out, even though sometimes maybe it does get too obtuse and it's hard to work with, but like throwing it all away isn't necessarily the solution because there's a lot of regulation isn't isn't always a good answer.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but but it it but it is interesting how those systems do tend to get more complicated over time just naturally because you're like, oh that's a hole, we gotta plug it.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's a hole.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, things like if if you look at the you know, um, you know, payment processing platforms, um, like I was sending a Venmo the other night, and you know, now it tells you, hey, you can ensure basically insure this uh this just in case it goes to the wrong place or just in case you get to this in just in case it's a fraud or whatever, you know, you pay a little fee and you can you can push the button instead of um instead of just letting it go out there let like it used to for quite a long time, you couldn't have any recourse, but now there is right and like ACH with bank processing isn't and we don't that's a whole nother you know door to go into but like you know there are recalls on certain types of ACH transactions.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_04: So like if you send money accidentally to the wrong person, you have the ability to claw it back, and like, yes, that means that it doesn't clear instantaneously, but like you know, yes, it also means that you know, whoops, I put the wrong number, I can get I can get my money back.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: So there is you know it's like that delay to take or was it yeah, delay tape to live or whatever it is, you know, on on certain uh live broadcasts, right?
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's 15 second delay, so you don't, you know, uh you don't hear what you aren't supposed to hear on uh you know from the Oscars or whatever.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_04: Um yeah, I think I mean this again, like it's like with you know, any new like I I s when I see some of the frauds and stuff that happen with like these new like with Venmo and these some of these newer technologies like crypto, like the frauds that get perpetrated on people are it's like these are frauds from the 1930s that now we out we have rules on in the traditional banking system to make it so that these don't happen.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_04: And it's like, yeah, so we don't need to throw all maybe don't throw all the rules out.
• 46:02
  unknown: Yeah.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_04: It's just it's it's fascinating.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_04: It was cool.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_04: It's to me, it was a cool period thing to look back into and be like, oh, okay.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_04: Like you can context a certain way and whatnot.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: I I I think I think there was a lot of um to kind of go into just some of the fun highlights of the of the movie.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think they had some really cool uh quotes.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like uh early on in the in the movie, he's writing his dad a letter.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Another you know, you always say an honest man has nothing to fear, so I'm trying hard not to be afraid.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: Which you know, obviously that's a little bit backwards.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I thought that was that was awesome.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um the uh his dad says, you know, sooner or later they'll forget about me, referring to the IRS.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I that made me laugh.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, the IRS will not never forget.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_04: I thought the milk was when he was on the plane and he asked for milk.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_02: I was just so like, would you like to drink, sir?
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_04: The hell where it was milk, and I maybe it's just because I feel like there was such a I don't know if that was a nod, but I feel like in a lot of movies that is the thing where like milk is often just given to the villain, and it just it was a weird, like I just thought it was private gene, and he didn't like if he wanted like a gin and tonic, and he was like, I drink milk, yeah.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know how I took it.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_02: I just couldn't believe all the people who were in this that I did not I you know I knew Tom Hanks and I knew Leonardo DiCaprio, but like Elizabeth Banks shows up out of nowhere.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_02: We've got Jennifer uh Carter, we've got Amy Adams at a huge I forgot that she was even in this, like there were a ton of people.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_02: Christopher Watson, like so many people, yeah.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_04: The other one, I know it's totally star-studded cast.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_04: The other one, I guess.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_04: Did anyone else just was it just like airport security was atrocious?
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_00: Nope.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was like walking onto the bus.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're you're absolutely right.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think Megan, you made that comment earlier.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like we just it was like a bus they treated it as a like a bus station, yeah, originally.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_02: It was just like a transportation thing.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_02: You just go in and you get a with why why would there be security going from one place to the next?
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then did did you notice that that there's an underlying theme the whole time of of misdirection?
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_00: And starting with like uh that that question that his dad asked him, you know, why do the Yankees always win?
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, because they have Mickey Mann, but he says no, because the other team can't stop looking at their pinstripes, being you know, distracted by the pinstripes, right?
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, which I think is funny on its own.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_00: But then, you know, then you see it all the way through.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he he uh he he asks, uh at one point he asked, you know, hey, do you want to see a card trick?
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, magic, you know, misdirection.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then at the towards the end, you know, he actually makes makes good his escape to you know international uh airspace by uh putting pinstripes around him.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: He he has uh he has I don't know half a dozen really hot uh flight attendants just surrounding him as he's just walking there and nobody sees him.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_00: He's he's the invisible person because nobody cares what who who's walking with these gorgeous women.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I thought that was really funny.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a misdirect, and he's right there, you know, right in the middle.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I it was he he was he was a kind of a master at that, and he just he got really good at you know playing Tom Hanks's character and frustrating him and frustrated a nerd.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's rough, man.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_04: Oh you know the other thing we didn't mention, or didn't it was the uh the fact that all his aliases were um comic book characters, or the ail he was using his names for all his fake names were all aliases of the underlying like comic books.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't know if they're they they caught it because he was the flash, right?
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_02: Ben caught that actually before that part came out.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Ben came in and was like, that's the flash.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you don't believe it.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for outing me as a bigger nerd than uh was expected to be at like the average level of nerd.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was explained in the movie that this was the case, but I'm like, oh uh I do think that she ran away fast.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_04: I do think that's the thing, though, where you know, in like this fraud, certain fraud investigations, and like you know, if you look at the back the stories of how people catch these frauds, I mean, there's usually that some threat.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, people are human, there's the creatures of habit, like I mean, even the like classic, like code-breaking, like Enigma story, like there's something that breaks that, right?
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_04: There's a thread through, and like for him, it was a comic book character because he had to keep coming up with these fake names, and that was his thread.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_02: I think that was how they even yeah, like Tom Hanks figured out where he was because he went to his dad's house and then found the letter from him and went back, and then and then you know, he then he told him he was getting married and he looked for wedding announcements, you know.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_02: So he he was able to piece all those little bits together, just like uh Leonardo DiCaprio was able to piece all little bits together to figure out how to game the system.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I I love the fact that this movie is you know uh about a con man, but then you actually see some of the mechanics of you know the financial fraud that allows him to uh allows him to to live his life for, I mean, what is it, nine years free or something?
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_00: At least in the um uh in the movie.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now, oh that brings us to you know kind of uh a point you that Alex you were bringing up is that you know this this is all based off of a book by uh the the guy the same name, Frank Abingdale.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_00: Frank Abingdale.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_00: But but it's you know, but it's been you know I won't say debunked, but challenged harshly uh in in real life.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, there hey gosh, got you know, even the book, you know, even all the claims in the book are way, way overblown.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_00: And and I I will say you you did ruin a tiny little bit of my happiness, Alex, because in in the movie, in the movie, Leo says, Yeah, I mean, how when asked how did you pass the bar in Louisiana?
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I studied for two weeks.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I always thought that was the funniest damn thing.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm like, the the bar must be easy in Louisiana, all I'm saying, but at the same time, we find out that that never happened in that was the claim.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_00: So now now I have to, you know, I have to let go of that little bit of happiness.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I apologize to any of my uh attorney friends who I've I've ever uh mentioned that to.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's not not true.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_01: Not true, yeah.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_04: Which I I find is amusing, right?
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_04: Even in his own, like the memoirs that he wrote about his experiences doing this were actually kind of grossly inflated.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, his whole even that was a con job, like so.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I kind of think that's great, though.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's nothing that says it has to be has to be real.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, we we specifically go out there and and try to find you know fiction books because they're entertaining and sometimes destructive.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, I mean, I guess the only con really is calling it a biography or whatever.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, right.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_00: All right, guys.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thanks so much for being here.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_00: I really enjoyed watching the movie with you and and going through it.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, I think we need to remember that you know some of these things actually are real and you know in our real life, that we need to be aware of them.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_00: We need to be, you know, on the lookout.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I Alex, you said something earlier about even though a lot of the tools are changing over time, yeah.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_00: The scams themselves aren't because people aren't changing, you know, people don't change, and we're the weak link.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_04: We are, and that's the social engine.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, that's maybe the part, right?
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_04: That was maybe so it's why it's so encapsulating.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_04: It's like because people like that are they do capture you, and then that's how you get sucked into the scam.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_04: And it's just that is the that is the part of the con, right?
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_04: It's like you're you're charismatic, and it's like you've turned those skills that we might use you might want to have to explain what you're doing or sell your point, but they've turned it in like this nefarious way, and it's it's that that those those scams, I mean they they they stood the test of time, unfortunately.
• 54:15
  unknown: Absolutely true.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_00: Alrighty, guys.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you very much.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great day.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_02: All right, that's great.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's a wrap.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_00: You've been listening to Max Value Podcast.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_00: And if this episode provided any interesting information, hit that subscribe button, smash like, and drop a comment below.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Ben Town with Town Advisory, and I'll catch you next time.