The Perfect Scam

Caring for ailing senior dogs is a passion project for Helen and her husband, who run the nonprofit dog hospice Old Dogs Go to Helen. They rely on donations to pay for the dogs’ medical and comfort care until they pass on. One day, they receive a text message appearing to be from the nonprofit’s Bank of America account, which leads them through a familiar series of steps to secure their accounts from a possible fraud. While Helen thought she was averting a crisis, she was actually the victim of a sophisticated bank impersonation fraud.

In part 2, Gerard Puana stands accused of stealing the mailbox of his niece, the deputy city prosecutor, Katherine Kealoha. Surprisingly, this strange crime will lay bare that Katherine’s luxurious lifestyle is fueled by a reverse mortgage on her grandmother’s home, and that her husband, Louis, is using his power as police chief to cover up the crime.

In this 2021 episode, Katherine and Louis Kealoha report that their mailbox has been stolen, a strange occurrence in the upscale Honolulu neighborhood of Kahala. Even stranger is that Katherine claims that her uncle Gerard Puana is the mailbox thief, an accusation he vehemently denies. When the case goes to court, though, the Kealohas’ secrets are exposed, revealing a terrible case of family financial fraud. 

Thieves think that stolen cryptocurrency is the perfect crime — anonymous, secret and safe from seizure. But prosecutor Erin West and her team are proving them wrong, recovering millions of dollars in stolen cryptocurrency and returning it back to victims. West is a six-year veteran of REACT (Regional Enforcement Allied Computer Team), a cross-agency task force addressing the escalating problem of high technology crime. In this special episode, Bob talks with Erin about the top five things everyone should know about cryptocurrency scams, including whether money lost to scams is recoverable and if scams are traceable. Erin will discuss steps that can be taken if you’ve experienced a crypto scam, as well as the impact law enforcement can have when agencies have the right tools, knowledge and collaboration. 

In part 2, after a scammer she meets playing Words With Friends steals most of her family’s savings, Kathy is so distraught that she attempts to take her own life. She survives thanks to the quick actions of her husband and police, and with the support of her family and professional help, Kathy starts on the road to recovery. The emotional wounds of scams are deep, but Kathy is healing by sharing her story. She hopes that others who might be feeling the way that she did know that there is life and even joy after a scam — Kathy and her husband recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. 

Like many of us, Kathy struggles in the early days of the pandemic to adjust to isolation from family and friends. She enjoys the diversion of playing Words With Friends and soon strikes up a friendship with a fellow player. For months the friends continue playing online games and chatting on WhatsApp, until one day he asks Kathy for a loan. He says he is stuck in Mexico and having trouble accessing his accounts. Kathy sees no harm in helping out a friend, especially when he promises to quickly pay the money back. When the repayments never come, Kathy comes to the devasting realization that it was a scam and that most of her and her husband’s retirement savings are gone. Distraught and ashamed, Kathy begins to have thoughts of suicide. This is the story of one woman’s survival from the darkest of days. 

This episode contains discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know is in crisis, please call or text 988, a free nationwide service where professionals can listen and get you the help you need. 

Jerry Hsu, a retired engineer living in Florida, receives a phone call from someone claiming to be his cellphone provider. They are threatening to cut off his service because the Shanghai Police Department says Jerry is speaking out against the Chinese government and engaging in money laundering. As a Taiwanese immigrant, Jerry is frightened; there must be a misunderstanding. The person on the other end of the line is very persistent and convinces Jerry to work as a secret agent for the police, and he eventually wires up to $1 million from his bank account in order to protect himself. After Jerry transfers the last of his life savings and realizes this was all a scam, he shares what’s happened with his son, who is a filmmaker in New York City. The father-son duo then decide the best way to share Jerry’s unfortunate experience and alert other families is to create a documentary film. And in this heartbreaking yet -warming film, Jerry plays himself.

Lisa is an avid concertgoer with extensive experience buying and selling tickets online. So when pop megastar Taylor Swift announces she’s coming to town, Lisa is determined to find the highly sought-after tickets for her teenage daughter and her three friends. After messaging dozens of online ticket sellers and weeding out apparent scams, she finally finds a local man selling four tickets. She is reassured when he offers to transfer the tickets to her via Apple Wallet before receiving payment. The tickets look great, and the girls are overjoyed. When a friend raises suspicions, Lisa drives to the box office to verify the tickets only to discover that they are very convincing fakes.

Wayde McKelvy and Troy Wragg stir up enthusiasm for their company, Mantria, and a green energy revolution they promise in the form of a product called “biochar.” Their “garbage to gold” scheme attracts scores of investors and even the attention of former President Bill Clinton. But soon the Securities and Exchange Commission discovers that Mantria is a Ponzi scheme, laced with bogus claims and false promises of enormous returns, ultimately defrauding investors out of millions of dollars.

In Part 2 of this 2019 episode, after losing her job and breaking up with her boyfriend in the same day, a distraught Debra pays a visit to a psychic. Little does Debra know that the shop is part of a larger criminal organization, and psychic Sylvia Mitchell is a scammer who has stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars from her clients. A series of readings leads to Sylvia stealing $28,000 of Debra’s money and cutting off communication. Debra enlists the help of Bob Nygaard, a private investigator and retired police officer who specializes in psychic scams. Together, they bring Sylvia Mitchell to justice.

In this 2019 episode, Debra is a divorced mother and ballroom dancer who travels between her home in Florida and her boyfriend’s home in New York City, where she trains with her dance partner. When Debra loses her part-time job in New York and breaks up with her boyfriend on the same day, she’s distraught. Without the extra income from her job and a place to stay with her boyfriend, Debra knows she’ll have to quit ballroom dancing — even though she and her partner have been climbing the ranks on the Pro-Am circuit. During a walk in Greenwich Village, Debra sees a psychic shop she’s often passed by before and decides to stop in, hoping to find answers. Instead of finding answers, Debra finds herself in a five-year odyssey, desperately trying to find justice and trying to get back $28,000 that was stolen from her.

Hoping to build her hobby into a business, Penny takes an online training course in social media marketing. After this initial small investment, she is flooded with calls from companies selling different website services. They promise big returns, but her investment of more than $30,000 with multiple companies doesn’t lead to a single sale. Penny reports the scam, but it’s not until she gets a call from a news producer that she learns that the person behind the scheme is none other than The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Jen Shah.

Consumers write far fewer checks than they did in the past, so it may seem surprising that the once-common crime of check washing is making a dramatic comeback. Criminals steal a check out of the mail, wash off the payee’s name and other information, and then cash the check and steal money from the owner's account. In this episode, we’ll learn how the crime is evolving and becoming more violent, putting mail carriers in danger, as well as how you can safeguard your checks from falling into the hands of criminals.

Retiree Susan moves from California to a beautiful Victorian home in Montana to be closer to her son and his growing family. One day, Susan notices some unusual charges from her Amazon account. She takes all the necessary steps to dispute and resolve the charges, but a few weeks later, she receives a call from “Amazon” informing her of additional fraudulent activity on her account. This call and the subsequent investigation by a man posing as a DEA agent, will put everything that Susan has, including that Victorian home, in jeopardy.

Derek Alldred has spent decades using fake identities to date and steal money from hundreds of women around the country. He’s been arrested numerous times on fraud charges, but Derek skips town as soon as he is released on bail, and resumes committing his crimes in a new location. This time is different: After Derek drains Linda’s retirement account and leaves her in debt, she is determined to see him get his due. She bands together with other women also deceived by Derek, and they finally bring this serial romance scammer to justice.

After her divorce, Linda decides to take a chance on online dating. She’s pleasantly surprised to make an instant connection with a man named Rich. He’s handsome, charismatic and has an impressive résumé — a Navy reservist working on his PhD. The relationship progresses quickly, with Linda and her young son moving into Rich’s new house. One day Linda receives a troubling message from a woman name Missi who claims to also be dating Rich. Linda discovers that he’s been lying to them both. His real name is Derek Alldred and he has a criminal record a mile long, stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from numerous women. Linda and Missi decide they have to do something to keep this serial romance scammer from finding his next target.

In this bonus episode, Bob sits down with David Etue, CEO of Nisos, The Managed Intelligence Company®, to discuss a fascinating study his team recently conducted to learn more about  criminal online activity to better protect online users. For the study, “Catphishing the Catphisher,” researchers set up fake social media profiles and waited for criminals to connect in hopes of engaging in conversation. Although they expected the study to take several months, maybe even a year, Etue and his team were quite surprised with such quick results. Wait until you hear what happens. 

In part 2, a call from Reuters journalist Brian Grow confirms Diana’s worst fears about what really happened to her stepfather’s remains. As Brian digs deeper into the story, the truth he uncovers about Sunset Mesa Funeral Home and the body brokering scheme is worse than anyone could have imagined. The conviction of Megan Hess brings some needed closure to families devastated by her shocking betrayal of trust.

Planning a loved one’s burial or cremation is a difficult experience under the best of circumstances. When Diana’s stepfather, Cactus, gets sick during the early stages of Alzheimer’s and sees a billboard advertising simple cremations for $695 at Sunset Mesa Funeral Home, he requests that his family cremate him and not spend a lot of money. But when Cactus dies and his cremains go missing under mysterious circumstances, it sets off a series of events that not only exacerbates the family’s grief, but also tips off a lengthy investigation by Reuters journalists that rocks a small community in western Colorado and exposes the dark, unregulated side of the body trade industry.

In part 2, Philadelphia homeowners fight to be released from their 40-year contracts with MV Realty. Complaints from all over the city and the state reach the Pennsylvania attorney general, who files a lawsuit against the company for allegedly misleading consumers. Attorneys general in several other states follow suit, and state lawmakers race to take action against what they call unfair real estate agreements.