Latest / Financial Survival Network / Amazon Prime Scams and the Medical Debt Shock - Paul Oster #6309

Transcript

Amazon Prime Scams and the Medical Debt Shock - Paul Oster #6309 · Financial Survival Network

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: And the other thing that has been a hot topic
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: just recently is this situation involving Amazon Prime members. There's
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: about two hundred and twenty million Prime members, and you know,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: with the population and pool that big, it is really
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: only a matter of time before the bad actors figured
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: out a way to target them.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: You are listening to Carrie Letz's Financial Survival Network, where
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: you get valuable information you just can't find anywhere else
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: to thrive in today's trying times. You need the Financial
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Survival Network now more than ever. Go to Financial Survivalnetwork
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: dot com and get your free newsletter and gift. Financial
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Survival Network now more than.
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: Ever, And welcome. You are listening to the Financial Survival Network.
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: I'm your host, Carrie Lutz. Well, it's the end of July.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: Here we got stuff happening in credit and I thought
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: you needed to know about our good friend Paul Auster
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: from a Better Credit is with us now.
• 1:07
  Speaker 4: Paul, great to have you back on the show.
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: What's going on in the credit arena?
• 1:12
  Speaker 4: So there's a couple of different things.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: I think it's important to note that the current administration
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: has reversed an earlier ruling that removed medical debt from
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: people's credit reports. So that situation is going to be
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: very troublesome for millions of consumers that had those collection
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: accounts removed from their credit report, only to now be
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: put back on. So this has been a political football
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: kind of like student loans has been back and forth
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: with the debt forgiveness, but nobody was asking for these
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: medical debts to be forgiven. They came to a really
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: good decision and decided that it wasn't right for consumers
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: to continue to suffer, for lack of a better word,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: even more from having these medical debts on their on
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: their credit reports, which then would wind up costing them
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: more money for every other financial transaction.
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: So this is not a situation where.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: People, you know, bought an r V or or a
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: jet ski or a boat and then couldn't afford it.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: These were people that got sick, you know, and and
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: health is still the number one reason why why people
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: claim bankruptcy in the first place, being able to afford
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: the healthcare that they needed. So this is you know,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: not elective surgeries and and things like that. This was
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: situations where people got sick, they incurred some crazy, crazy bills,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: and they got sent to collections. So I'm not I'm
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: not a fan. I'm not happy that the current administration
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: decided to reverse gears and and put these things back
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: on the consumer reports.
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it just seems like you're just kind of adding
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: insult to injury, you.
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: Know, yep, yep.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: And the other thing that has been a hot topic
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: just recently is this situation involving Amazon Prime members. There's
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: about two hundred and twenty million Prime members, and you know,
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: with the population and pool that big, it is really
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: only a matter of time before the bad actors figured
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: out a way to target them. So Prime Members have
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: been victims and targets of you know, the three issues fishing,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: which is phone calls, phishing with a p H, which
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: is email, and smishing which is SMS, text messaging. So
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: the bad actors are targeting these Prime members. You know,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: they're getting messages, emails, phone calls about clign membership renewals,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: about their accounts being suspended, you know, with things like that.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: And when they click on a link or you know,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: open an email and click on a link to supposedly
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: they're being taken to their account to update payment information again,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: update their account information, they could be targeting them with
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: a product that wasn't sent to them. It's called brushing,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: or they send a product that the client didn't order
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: and then follow up with them directly to try and
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: resolve that issue. The problem is if you click on
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: any of those links, you're going to be redirected to
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: a website that you know has malware and viruses and
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: things like that that are going to then either log
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: into your accounts that are open your electronic devices, or
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: they're going to ask you to provide personal information to
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: update the accounts. So the message again upun intended. The
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: message here is don't do it right if in all
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: of these messages, the one commonality all of these messages
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: have is this sense of urgency. Right, they're threatening messages, Kerry,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: you need to act immediately or your prime membership is
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: going to get suspended. Kerry, there's a problem with your payment.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: We see here it looks like there's fraud happening on
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: your account. So they're trying to get the people to
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: act in haste, which then leads to, you know, the
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: actual identity theft. So if you get any of those messages,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: the easiest thing to do is just go to Amazon,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: go to your account, log in and click on the
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: messages and if there's a message from Amazon, that's where
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: it would be. So again, the problem is you get
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: people in the middle of life, right, life is happening
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: all over and they do something that they shouldn't do,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: and that's that's click one of the links, provide information
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: over the phone, or you know, typing information into one
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: of these websites.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: Right yeah, and there it seems like legit. You know,
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: it looks legit. That's why you always have to look
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: at who the center of this item is, right yeah.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: So verifying the verifying the sender's email address is definitely
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: one of the steps here. And like you said, these
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: these emails, whether it's from a bank or Amazon, they
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: look real, they look authentic. So one of the other
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: things is to make sure that whether you're a prime
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: member or if you do any thing online, you need
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: to engage two step authentication. That's one of the easiest
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: ways to avoid being a victim having someone else logging
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: in to one of your accounts, even if they get
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: you're using name and password in order to log in.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: The second step is going to be to send an
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: email or a text message so if they don't have
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: your phone or they haven't figured out how to redirect
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: a text message that's supposed to be coming to you,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: they won't be able to complete that last step. So look,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: we've been saying this for years. You have to change
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: all of your passwords to pass phrases. You have to
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: change your passwords by pass phrases on a regular basis.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: You can't use the same pass phrase with the same
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: email for all of your accounts because you are just
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: begging to become a victim. They have softwares. Now. One
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: of the things that we know from this particular scam
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: is when they redirect you to one of these websites,
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: the software can actually figure out what your password is
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: and the email associated with it if you use the
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: same password. Yeah, so if you use the same password
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: or passphrase an email for all of your other accounts,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: that's how this malware and virus works because now they'll
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: have access to.
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: Your computer and it would be very very easy for.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Them to log into all of the other accounts that
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: are connected to those devices. So look, it's not easy, right.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: You have to use a password manager where you're going
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: to have to write these passwords down somewhere in a
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: secure location. But using a password manager is one of
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: the best ways to help you try and figure this out.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Other than that, you know, the average person now has
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: easily twenty different passwords and user names. It's probably fifty
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: one hundred some people in Wish.
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: I only have twenty.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: I have like thirteen hundred exactly exactly, So just impossible
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: to try and manage those user names and passwords without
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: using a password manager.
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's crazy, it's crazy. You have to use one
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: always use two factor authentication, and what else. There's one
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: other thing that you need to be doing here, make
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: sure your phone doesn't get spoofed.
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Well, the other thing is, you know, and I think
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: we spoke about this the last time, and I'm not
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: always the most popular person in the room because I
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: ten to fold the consumer right, the victim quote unquote
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: somewhat responsible for being in that situation. We've all sacrificed
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of our privacy, our data security for
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: convenience and the easiest way, the best examp there is
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: when you open up a new account or you download
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: a new app, whether again, whether it's for your banking
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: or your Amazon account, when you create your your log
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: in user name and password, a little blip is going
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: to pop up and it's going to say, hey, Kerry,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: would you like us to remember your password so you.
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: Don't have to Yeah.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: If you do that and someone gains access to your again,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: to one of your electronic devices, they can log into
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: your accounts remotely in seconds and literally wipe out your accounts.
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: This is true, very true. So, and when you use
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: a pass word manager, it'll generate a unique password for
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: every account, so there's no more using your standard password, right.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, you know, and those those computer generated pass words
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: pass phrases are very very difficult for these coders and
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: programs to break, to crack the code, right they have
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: again softwares that decipher passwords in milliseconds. If you use
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: a passphrase, it could take days. So what happens is
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: if the software hits on a computer generated pass phrase
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: or password, or you've created a very very strong pass phrase,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: the software is going to jump to the next person
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: who still Carrie. You know, I just heard this the
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: other day and I thought, again, we were getting better
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: at this, but we're not.
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: The most common widely used passwords are still hello, one, two, three, goodbye, four,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: five six, So any of those combinations of the password
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: is one of the most commonly used passwords. So if
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: you're using any thing like that at all, again, you
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: need to you need to change your behavior because you're
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: going to become a victim. It's only a matter of when,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: not if. You know, the fastest growing crime past couple
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: of years has been and is going to continue to
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: be identity theft. And one of the reasons for that
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: is that we're we're not very good at protecting ourselves.
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: You know, I have been.
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: Listening to these Reddit stories where people in your family
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: steal your identity and take out credit cards and loans.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: It was shocking, but I guess nothing sacred anymore.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Now just unfortunately, just like everything else, so often the
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: victim of identity theft was you know, it was it
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: was a family member or close friend, somebody that they knew,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: a business coworker, So that that intimate setting an environment
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: makes it very very easy, unfortunately, for that to happen.
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: You know, there's a certain amount of trust.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: People get up maybe either computer open rather going in
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: the bathroom or something like that, and it's very very
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: easy for a coworker to gain access to your information.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: So we need to be careful, you know, obviously showing
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: a little bit of trust, but you've got to have
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: a little common sense that goes along with that.
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, trust, but verify and treat your your passwords and
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: your computer like it's a National Security Administration asset and
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: act accordingly.
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: Right, that's exactly right, spot up.
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because you know, I don't leave I never leave
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: my phone around, even though the screen might be locked
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: or whatever, I will never leave it around, you know.
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, you're all of our smartphones.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: That's that's the problem, right, It's they're they're smart, and
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: they house a tremendous amount of non public information or
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: most sensitive data.
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. All right, Well, I'm glad we had
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: this talk because the who the heck knows anybody, and
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: I mean anybody with a decent credit score and even
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: a n side decent credit score can be a victim
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: of identity theft.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, and one of the things everyone needs to know,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: and I have mentioned this before on the show, one
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: of the hangovers and good things that you know we
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: got from the pandemic in the COVID era was access.
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: To our credit reports. So BC.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Before COVID, we had one free look every twelve months
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: at Annualcreditreport dot Com. Again that's Annualcreditreport dot Com. We
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: had access to our reports once a year. Now you
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: can check your reports once a week. And I don't
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: think you have to be that crazy, but you should
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: be checking your reports on a regular basis, maybe monthly.
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: And one of the the main.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Reasons for that is exactly that you're looking for red
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: flags of identity theft.
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: And your listeners need to know that.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: One of the easiest red flags to spot are addresses,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: previous addresses or addresses associated with your name and social
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: Security number that you don't recognize because one of the
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: first things that these bad actors do is they try
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: and get addresses tied to your name your social Security number.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: So if and when they're successful at opening up new accounts,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: that information goes.
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: To a different address, not your address. So the so the.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: Sooner you're made aware of the identity theft situation, the
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: easier and faster it will be to resolve that situation.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: But unfortunately, you have cases where the people didn't realize
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: that they were victims of identity theft for months, if
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: not years. And that really really makes it difficult to recover.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: The average person spends about two years trying to resolve
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: identity theft issues.
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: How fast can you do that for people? Can you
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: get it done?
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: Well?
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: We expedite it because unless you have a full time
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: staff that's working eight nine ten hours a day like
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: we do, it's not easy. And people have to take
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: off work, they miss time at work. They're suffering on
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: that side of things. So it takes a tremendous amount
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: of time. You would think, Gerry, that it would be
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: very easy to just say, listen, it wasn't me, I
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: was a victim of identity theft. Please remove it from
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: my credit report, Please cancel the account, refund my money.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: It's not that easy. You have to respect the credit
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: bureros themselves. You have to prove that you're a victim
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: of identity theft. You have to get a police report,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: you have to file the police report. Look, the reality
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: is no one really ever gets caught. A few of
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: these identity thieves actually get caught and convicted, but we
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: don't need the outcome. We just need a copy of
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: the credit report. That will help greatly expedite the process.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: So again, unfortunately for us, we spend a tremendous amount
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: of time in the office dealing with this for for
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: our clients, and we can cut that time down, you know,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: to days and weeks instead of months and years for
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: people to resolve the issues.
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: All right, that's really good to know. Appreciate you coming
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: on the show as ol is.
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: Paul.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just tell us again where we find you go
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: to better qualified dot com again, that's better qualified dot com,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: all right.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: And the links in the show notes of this interview
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: on Financial Survival Network dot com. Make sure you stop
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: by there sign up for a free free newsletter. Paul,
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: is a pleasure having you on. We'll talk to you soon.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Gary, thanks for listening to Carrie Letz's Financial
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: Survival Network, your solution to today's trying times. For the latest,
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: go to Financial Survivalnetwork dot com. Financial Survival Network now
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: more than ever,