Stephen Bidwa: Don't just think that it's money that fraudsters are going for it. They could also just be going for information. If they're getting personal information about you. They can open up new accounts under your name somewhere else, unbeknownst to you. That's absolutely valuable as well. So don't just think it's always got to be money before there's fraud happening. Fraud is any, you know, unauthorized withdrawal, be it data, money, your login credentials, all of those things have value on the dark web for criminals. Paula Sabbagha: Hi and welcome to the chat TCG podcast. I am Paula Sabbagha, a financial advisor on the TCG and associates team at UBS Financial Services. We are located in Columbia, South Carolina and we can be reached at (803)- 873-9850. Our guest today on the Podcast is Stephen Bidwa, Executive Director, Fraud Strategy, Banking Fraud Protection League with Global Wealth Management. Paula Sabbagha: Hi, Stephen. Thank you so much for being with us today on the podcast. Stephen Bidwa: My pleasure. Thanks for inviting me. Paula Sabbagha: Yeah. So I wanted to ask you just a little bit how you got into this exciting area of fraud and fraud prevention. Kind of. What led you to this interest?
Stephen Bidwa: Sure. Yeah. It's been an evolution of. I got a graduate degree from the first program in the country to give undergraduate and graduate degrees and intelligence, grooming people to be intelligence analysts. In fact, it was set up by the former director of anti-terrorism for the FBI. And so I got an internship with Deloitte and Touche back when I was earning that degree and worked in their competitive intelligence group, doing due diligence on all of their clients, as well as mergers and acquisition deals that we were being consultants on anti-money laundering and fraud detection, and what you can do to help people. Stephen Bidwa: And that really is, I think, the the cornerstone of our entire team here in fraud strategy is it's it's a group of sheepdogs who just want to do the right thing and try to protect our clients and protect the firm and take a little bit of bad people out of the mix. If you can try to protect some assets and do good. Paula Sabbagha: Wow. Well, that's right in line with what we try to do as advisors help keep our clients assets safe. So it's such an important thing and it just seems like all these fraud scams and things you hear about are kind of changing from day to day. They're getting more advanced. So what what are you seeing now in the field? Paula Sabbagha: Like what are some of the most common types of fraud that you're seeing? Stephen Bidwa: Sure. We're seeing quite a bit of scams these days. And the the beauty of a scam is you can see beauty in it is that there's so many different variants that if the fraudster picks the right one and matches it with the correct target, they're gonna say, oh yeah, I'm expecting a package from Amazon or oh yeah, I was in Italy and I think I didn't pay tolls and I don't want to go to jail or oh yeah, I was going to jury duty and I know I sent that letter in, but you're saying I didn't.
Stephen Bidwa: So the the scams that we're seeing most frequently, there's a lot of imposter scams right now or impersonation where the, the criminal is pretending to be that intimate agency, be it jury duty or Amazon or saying that they're calling from PayPal or Venmo and they're trying to fix your account, which looks like it was compromised. We are all busy. Stephen Bidwa: We're all doing more things digitally these days. And so they're gonna probably hit more often than they miss with these scams. And the challenge for all of us, potential targets is to just understand that it's okay to take a pause, to think things through, to not believe what you're being told right off the bat. And I think one of my original observations is just how trusting the normal person still is. Stephen Bidwa: Even if we think we're jaded and you don't believe what you hear. It's amazing to me how many of our clients, when they are being scammed, or once it's already happened, they're embarrassed to come forward about it because they're like, that didn't really happen, did it? And yet there's some untrustworthy people in the world who are taking advantage. Stephen Bidwa: And it's interesting to me to see even as simple as if a client is on the phone with a fraudster and is having an hour long conversation, they might be reluctant to call out that person and say, I think you're a fraudster, I think you're stealing from me, or you're not really who you are. They'll be polite, or they might not even want to hang up on that person because they feel like that's being a bit too forward. Stephen Bidwa: And it's just it's I guess it's nice to know that people are that friendly still, but it can be a problem when you're being targeted like this, right?
Paula Sabbagha: Not me. Sometimes I call and I'll just talk to them anyway and ask them a lot of questions, and then they hang up on me. Yeah, give them a that's terrific. Stephen Bidwa: I love when people waste fraudsters times. Paula Sabbagha: That we can't call someone else. Yeah, I actually just had a voicemail. The other day and it said it was from the county sheriff's department and my heart like, sank. And I'm like, what? And I need to talk to me about some paper documents. And then I call I call the number for the actual county and gave them the name. Paula Sabbagha: And he said, there's no one here by that name. So. Right. It's happening to all of us. So I can. Stephen Bidwa: Collar. Paula Sabbagha: People. Stephen Bidwa: And I love that you did exactly what we said when we spoke earlier about fraud. Education is like, never use the information that's provided to you in this suspicious communication. How would you use a trusted phone number, a trusted email address, a bookmarked website, not something you type in alive because then you could you could even some extra keystrokes, or they've surreptitiously inserted an extra character in there that you don't know. Stephen Bidwa: So great, I'm glad to hear. Paula Sabbagha: Yeah. So it's crazy how much is out there. And like you said, everything pretty much is going digital. So what are some I guess there are still paper checks floating around out there, and some clients do love to use checks. So what are some of the things you're seeing with paper checks being used still?
Stephen Bidwa: Yeah that's really important to to bring it to your audiences. Just understand that mail theft is rampant these days. Insiders working at the post office and taking checks out of the mail. What is happening? We really can't stress it enough that if you haven't considered looking at digital payment channels instead of paper checks, please do. It's maybe daunting to start it, but once you've started it up and gotten them the established, it's so much faster. Stephen Bidwa: It's more secure because there's nothing that a fraudster can steal out of the mail. If you simply wrote a paper check, another thing that we're telling people is consider dropping it off directly at the post office. Don't even put it in your mailbox as outgoing mail, because that's another chance that a fraudster can just dip into your mailbox and snatch things out, particularly during certain times of year, like tax time when you're paying tax bills, or at Christmas, when you might be sending out gifts in the form of checks to to friends or vendors that that you do with, you do business with regularly. Paula Sabbagha: Right. That's important. And like we talked about for the taxes, there's a couple other ways to do it online or for our clients, we can always do a wire or an official check that we mail out. So lots of other ways than just putting your, handwritten check in the mail. So something to be aware of. I feel like a lot of the calls that we end up getting from clients, I always tell them, if you think it's suspicious or you're not sure, like, call me and I'll help you talk through what it is.
Paula Sabbagha: But I feel like a lot of it comes from emails that clients are getting where it's something that's almost too good to be true, but then they don't want to pass it up if it is. So what? What have you seen along those lines? Stephen Bidwa: Well, you're right, it's old adages that sometimes hold true the best. If it's too good to be true, it probably is. There's no free lunch. All of those things are true. You didn't really win the Publisher's Clearing House sweepstakes out of the blue, or it's highly unlikely that someone is trying to pay you your winnings, but they've got to take out the taxes you'd have to pay on it from that. Stephen Bidwa: That's all bogus. And when it sounds convoluted, trust that gut instinct. And you're absolutely right if you have any questions about it, who are we? But the financial analysts and the advisors who are supposed to be giving you advice. So absolutely, pick up the phone and contact us and just talk us through it and we'll be happy to give clarity. Stephen Bidwa: We'll be happy to tell you examples of five times we've heard this similar thing to other clients. And that's why we feel that we know that they are being potentially scammed here. That's a really good one. Going back to the romance or the the scams, and in general, sometimes the hardest thing is to just convince the target that this actually is a scam. Stephen Bidwa: And one of the ways you can break that spell is to just cite facts to them, saying, look, we've read this entire script verbatim from three other clients who reported this is exactly how they were approached. These are the words used when they, the scammer, was trying to convince them of the facts. This is the orientation of how they matured it.
Stephen Bidwa: You know, first they did this, then they did this, then they met online three times that. When you hear that and you're like, I thought I was special, but now I'm hearing that it's happening to three other people sometimes and not always, frankly. But sometimes that's enough to convince the client I need to at least reconsider how much I trust this person, this fraudster, in this case, over perhaps their better judgment at the beginning. Stephen Bidwa: Right. And that's another another good point about scams is don't think that it's going to be a quick thing. And oh, you've known this person for six months, so it couldn't possibly be a fraudster. It absolutely could be a fraudster. And they absolutely play the long game. And they are patient because they're not just targeting one person. They're targeting 50 targets. Stephen Bidwa: And all of those targets are in different timeframes of how mature that fraud is in being pulled off before they start to try and monetize it. So it doesn't matter that one person isn't willing to pay anything to the fraudster yet he's got three other targets who have been on the hook for six months, are starting to pull out. Stephen Bidwa: Money is from their IRAs or from their their, trust accounts because they finally were asked, well, you know what? I just lost all of my photography equipment. Could you send me a check to kind of help me get back on my feet? I know I I've never asked you for money over the past six months, but this was a bad thing that just happened to me.
Stephen Bidwa: Of course, this is all a lie being told by the fraudster, but it sounds more believable because they weren't pushy with it right off the jump. They were patient, and that's one of the things that lends it a bit more credence when you shouldn't give it credence just because it's taken a long time. Paula Sabbagha: And that's a good point. A lot of the older clients are, you know, maybe they're not talking to many people on a daily basis because they're not at work anymore. So sometimes they will just be glad to talk to someone on the phone. And I feel like a lot of the fraudsters are playing into that saying, oh, you're lonely. Paula Sabbagha: Like they're preying on people that they know will want to talk to them. So I think that's such a good caution for for people to, you know, be aware of who you're talking to. And even if they don't ask you for money upfront on the first call, it could be coming. Stephen Bidwa: And that reminds me of another really important aspect, which is don't just think that it's money that fraudsters are going for it. They could also just be going for information. If they're getting personal information about you, they can open up new accounts under your name somewhere else. Unbeknownst to you. That's absolutely valuable as well. So don't just think it's always got to be money before there's fraud happening. Stephen Bidwa: Fraud is any, you know, unauthorized withdrawal. Be it data, money, your login credentials, all of those things have value on the dark web for criminals. Paula Sabbagha: And that's true. It could be that they have, you know, three pieces of information and they're just after one other piece of information you might not think is, you know, such a bad thing to give out. But if they've got the other pieces, you know that that could be the final piece for them to move forward.
Stephen Bidwa: Yes, you. It takes less than a week for another item to come out on the news of a data breach, so don't think that your information isn't already out there. I would wager money that almost all of our Social Security numbers are floating around out there in the ether somewhere, so don't think that you're keeping it very close to the heart. Stephen Bidwa: Someone's already purchased it 15 times on the dark web, and they might be, like you said, just looking to get your username or your full address so that they can complete that, perhaps purchase that they made of that stolen data last year or two years ago, or from the target or the Home Depot breach that came out ten years ago. Stephen Bidwa: Right. Because literally there's tens of thousands of rows of data there. So even the fraudsters who want all the money can't go through that data that quickly. So it can take a long time. Paula Sabbagha: So speaking of that, since there are so many breaches, it's kind of the common thing. Now, what are some things or processes people can do to help protect their information, knowing that it's going to get out there? I'm talking maybe credit freezes or monitoring services. What what's your opinion on those? Stephen Bidwa: They are all terrific. The credit freezes should be table stakes with everyone at this point. It's a free service. Each of the three credit bureaus. So Equifax, Experian and TransUnion all get it. It's always free for all three of them. You just need to sign up, create your profile with that agency, and then it allows you to lock your credit report until you unfreeze it at your choice. Stephen Bidwa: It's as simple as clicking on a calendar and telling them I want it to unlock on this date, and then re lock on this future date. And then it's an automatic thing. You don't have to remember to call back or log back in later. It will refreeze itself automatically. So if you are looking to buy a boat or buy a new car and you know that they need to run your credit because you're going to finance that purchase, you can unlock your account for that specific agency.
Stephen Bidwa: So ask the financing department which agency do you pull credit through. And then you can go specifically to TransUnion if that's the one, and have it unlocked for that particular period of time when you know you're going to be out shopping and then know that it will be secure and no one can run your credit if it's frozen. Stephen Bidwa: So that's the beauty of that it everyone should be using it. It's a terrific service. Came out of a bad thing with Covid and the the crash that happened after that, but definitely everyone should be using it at this point. Now there are services out there for like lifeline that look for stolen data. They are useful, but if you follow some certain good cybersecurity practices, I think you can minimize the need to have something like that automatically. Stephen Bidwa: And certainly if we're involved with data breaches, you'll get a free subscription to some of those. A lot of the times as part of the affected party, they'll say, we'll give you six months of coverage with this agency, but if you do things like don't do sensitive online sessions on unprotected Wi-Fi networks, so don't do your banking when you're at Starbucks. Stephen Bidwa: Don't go to the local library and think that you're fine to log into your email and check your your sensitive areas, because if someone's using a scanning service there, they can steal your credentials. So if you don't do those sensitive things on public networks, perfectly fine. If you do need to do some of that sensitive activities of online browsing, do it on a virtual private network, a VPN. Stephen Bidwa: So then it's it's encrypted. It's, I won't say impossible to steal, but certainly much harder. And that's the name of the game with fraud prevention. Frankly, it's layers of protections. There's no one thing that will always protect you from fraud. But if you make it hard enough, the fraudster will just move on to an easier target. And that's kind of running faster than your friend, not running faster than the bear chasing you and your friend, unfortunately.
Stephen Bidwa: But that's the name of the game here. If you just make it a pain in the butt to steal from you, then fraudsters will just keep moving on which is great. Paula Sabbagha: I was going to say a good analogy is you think of someone trying to break into cars like end up at your home at night. If you've got your doors locked, that's one deterrent. If you've got signs that you have an alarm system, if you have a motion light, all these things are just layers to like make that criminals say, heck, with this house, I'm going to the next one where the doors are just left unlocked. Paula Sabbagha: So absolutely about it that way, kind of digitally it's very similar. Stephen Bidwa: And same thing with usernames and passwords. The gold standard would be you change all of your usernames and passwords every week. You know, no one has time to do that. So we understand that. But the minimum would be once you know you've been attacked in a scam event or a fraud event, you've got to change your username and password. Stephen Bidwa: That's just table stakes here. You can't keep that door open wide for anyone to come in and use that stolen credentials. So changing your username and password is just as automatic as if your credit card is stolen. We cancel that card number and we give you a new one. Same thing that if your checks are stolen in the mail, we are going to tell you we want to convert your checking account because that information is now part of the thief's repertoire. Stephen Bidwa: And we want to just break that chain and start you fresh. So changing your usernames and passwords after is an attack minimum. Don't use personal identifying information as your passwords, because if someone has been monitoring you or does some research on the internet about how many kids does this target have? The daughter's name is this. Do they use their birthdays as their passwords?
Stephen Bidwa: Anything like that is not that hard for fraudsters to kind of think about and try. Because fraudsters have a job, it's fraud and they work at it all the time because they're making their living off of this. This is their profession. So don't think that just because it takes ten minutes they won't try it. But like I said before, if you make it hard enough, there's enough other targets out there that they'll just move on. Stephen Bidwa: Using strong passwords, using phrases instead of passwords is a new angle to making people harder targets, and I thought that was really clever. So you can just make one long phrase that could be as simple as this website is for toys or this is my chewy account for my pet, that could be your password, but whatever you come up with, it's. Stephen Bidwa: I think once you get into the hang of thinking about it that way, it takes away the thing of I can't remember this random password that has exclamation points in asterisks and a carrot and has to have three capital letters. If you just make a phrase, it's equally hard for someone to crack that, but it might be very easy for you to remember as a mnemonic. Stephen Bidwa: So very cool idea. Paula Sabbagha: That is very cool. Along those lines, what about the password managers that kind of keep them all together for you? What do you think about those?
Stephen Bidwa: They're helpful. They have their place. I tell people though, that frankly, as a as a fraud officer, I'm using just a locked Excel spreadsheet that has all of my usernames and passwords there. So certainly if someone stole my laptop that had that file on it, there's a risk that they could break into that, but they'd need the password to that Excel file to open it. Stephen Bidwa: And like I said before, I'm I'm not trying to make myself insane with anti-fraud practices. I'm trying to do enough that I'm reasonably sure that it's safe. Someone could crack anything if they have, you know, they know that that's the nuclear secrets, and they just got to get in there and it's going to save the universe. They'll break in if they need to, but let's make it hard for them. Paula Sabbagha: One thing I've been getting a couple of questions about as clients and their parents are aging and getting older, maybe caregivers are coming into the home. I've gotten questions like, what should we do to make sure, you know, there's nothing lying around for when caregivers are in the house? And I thought, you know, that's really good question. Your checks should not be laying out anyway. Paula Sabbagha: But, you know, there are other things, like you said, that might have birthdays or passwords or, you know, just anything that that could be used to piece together your personal information. So anything else you've seen along those lines, but, you know, caregivers or contractors coming into homes?
Stephen Bidwa: Absolutely. It's one of the depressing things of saying, you know, this is what we call friendly fraud. It's a relative. It's a daughter who's, you know, using credit cards to just run up fraudulent charges and and claiming them as I didn't do that, caregivers, cleaning agencies, landscaping, all of that is potential fair game as a suspect, unfortunately. And let's not forget, they don't have to take a check. Stephen Bidwa: That's laying out. We live in the day of smartphones with cameras. Everyone can take a picture in a half a heartbeat, so if you just leave it laying out, they take a picture of it and then consume that data at their leisure at a later point. When they're safe, you know where they can look at it more carefully. Stephen Bidwa: So keeping all of that sensitive information in a secure location is definitely good advice. And think through if you notice something, perhaps like you're checking your statements and you're like, I didn't do this transaction, don't rule out, unfortunately, anyone who has access to your login credentials or has access to your checkbook, we're going to walk you through those potentials as a fraud investigator. Stephen Bidwa: But don't, you know, make it harder on us by being like, no, that's definitely off the table. I won't even tell them that my daughter borrowed the checkbook last week because that could potentially be what we have got to solve for it.
Paula Sabbagha: And that's another good point. You know, companies, banks are going to help protect against fraud. But it is up to clients to alert us when they see it. And also, I know UBS is very diligent about looking for transactions that don't fit your normal pattern, but you know, it is important to look over that statement to point out if there's something you didn't do or you need to question, because some of those do have time frames. Paula Sabbagha: From what I remember of my banking days, that you've got to report it in a reasonable time to to have it fall under those fraud clauses for credit. Yes. Stephen Bidwa: You've got 30 days past the date of publication of the statement. So in essence, it's 60 days. You get 30 days to get your statement, and then you've got a 30 days post that time to report it to us to to do our best efforts to recover those funds. Yep. Paula Sabbagha: There's so much, so much to think about. I wanted to go back real quick. You mentioned the the VPN to the virtual private network for anyone listening. That's not very familiar on that. How easy is that to use or where is it located? Where would they get a network? Stephen Bidwa: There are multiple sponsors of podcasts out there. And maybe, perhaps Paula, that's an opportunity for us. But, NordVPN is a common one that you'll hear. It's a strange, funny name, but it is just another vendor for virtual private networks. Nord, NORAD, I believe you're basically downloading it onto your device, and then you basically launch it first. It creates your your secure, encrypted pathway to whatever you're doing.
Stephen Bidwa: And then all of your, your activity just runs through that highway, if you will, that digital highway. It's a very simple thing that is proven technology at this point. Paula Sabbagha: Yeah. Future idea for a new podcast. Yeah. And I know we talked about kind of emails and things going back and forth, but can you talk about the the danger of why we tell people do not click on a link that's in a text message or an email. What's the danger if you just click on the link because you're curious to see what it is? Stephen Bidwa: Several things one, it could install malware on your device. Unbeknownst to you. It doesn't have to show you that it's doing anything. It can strictly install some things like key logger, which logs all of your keystrokes, or your button presses on your phone. If it's on your phone, it can record all of the your entries for passwords and and username captcha. Stephen Bidwa: It can install what's called a rat, which is a remote access technology, or Trojan, which allows someone to remote into your device and either take control of it. There's lots of variants of this, but either take control of it or pretend to be you and log into your G.P.S. online or your, you know, JPMorgan or Chase accounts via your device.
Stephen Bidwa: So it looks like it's you, but it's actually fraudster who's controlling the device. Clicking on a link can launch a page that looks exactly like the real page, but is actually a fraudster version of that page. And what they're trying to do there is they want you to, you know, fill in fields like type in your username and password or create a new account or give your information and they're capturing that information you think you're populating. Stephen Bidwa: You know, the the Bergen County jury pool, but in actuality, it's, you know, the fraudster pretending to to look just like that and mimic that, that real site. Paula Sabbagha: Yeah. Another one I know we talked about when you were live with us in our in-person session, if you think about when you're traveling and things that you post online on Facebook and I, we talked a little bit about, like social media showing that you're out of town, I guess, have you seen cases like that? And I'm thinking, like, if you're out of town, maybe someone's not gonna know that you're not checking your mail. Paula Sabbagha: Maybe they can go rummage through mail or what kind of danger is there for kind of oversharing? Stephen Bidwa: Yeah, one of the things that we talk about is just how a kind of a good thing is unfortunately turned into a bad thing, and social media can be great, but it can also really expose you to unnecessary risks. So being very active on Facebook and saying, I can't wait for our trip to the Greek islands, we'll be gone for a month.
Stephen Bidwa: You're announcing to the entire universe that you will not be in your home, and no one will be there for our month. Lord help us, help me. You tell them in the month of December, but we're going away. Then the criminals know exactly when they should target your home, how much time they'll have to wait carefully, you know, break in so that they don't leave any traces or don't make a lot of noise. Stephen Bidwa: So certainly that's a very basic thing of don't tell someone when you're traveling. Make sure that you stop your mail delivery and your your newspaper delivery. So that's not an obvious indicator that you're not there every day that they're piling up and on your front stoop or something like that. Paula Sabbagha: Reminds me of the Home Alone movie. Have the fake people kind of dancing in your rear window. Stephen Bidwa: So that's right. That's right. Yeah. But, just going back to the social media again, criminals can use your social media feeds to kind of be harvesting data about you. So you don't need to say, happy birthday to my daughter. I'm so happy that you're turning 53. You've given the exact year of date, and probably they've got a good chance to guess the day in the month of that person's date of birth if they've, for whatever reason, stolen or purchased information about your daughter online, you know they've got a credit card, but they don't have the date of birth, or they're looking for the the zip code so that they can activate what they have Stephen Bidwa: on a credit card that they've stolen. You're helping them out by being that more sharing on social media. So be aware of unfortunately, people using social media for nefarious purposes and what you're putting out there that might help them do that.
Paula Sabbagha: So many things. I know we could talk all afternoon about this topic. If clients want to know more about what we have to offer for helping protect them from fraud, what resources do we have to share with them through EBS? Stephen Bidwa: Short? Well, our best resources. Frankly, you and your teams talk to your financial advisor. They are happy to evaluate any investment that you're being proffered. Walk you through great things of do you have trusted account or trusted contacts on your accounts? If you'd like to have that failsafe of if something doesn't seem right, this is another person that has authority to at least hear about that. Stephen Bidwa: Obviously, a power of attorney is an even more rigorous version where they can discuss transactional details or have the ability to make transactions on your behalf or authorize things. That's great. There's so much that the fat teams, the financial advisory teams can do, that's the end all be all white glove bit of it certainly call UBS service Group which is our call center and ask for the fraud department. Stephen Bidwa: And we can obviously walk through and take the time to help you if you are concerned that something happened or you're not sure that you made a mistake. Timeliness is the critical element here. The sooner you let us know about a concern one, the more effective our recovery efforts are most likely going to be. We'll get the money back in a in a better chance of it.
Two we can limit the amount of damage that a fraudster might be able to pull off. The sooner that we find out about it. And three, we can get you back to a good pace where we fix things in a relatively quick pattern as well. So let us know it doesn't ever bother us. If you say, I'm not sure that I clicked on this link, can you just walk me through? Stephen Bidwa: We will spend the time. It's what we're here for. It's better for us to get a false positive than to have you wait three weeks because you're either embarrassed or you're not sure if that's a serious enough to to bring fraud in to investigate it. We're happy to to help you out with that. Paula Sabbagha: Another key point on that is make sure we have the correct contact information and you enable those alerts. I know I've gotten them when there's fraud potential brought on the credit card. It'll alert your EBS calls to confirm. So it's been so helpful. So like you said, stop it before. There's a lot more damage. Stephen Bidwa: Great. Yeah. Paula Sabbagha: Well thank you, Stephen, I really appreciate you taking the time to share some tips and thank you again. And we'll hopefully have another episode and maybe a VPN after that. Right. Stephen Bidwa: Sounds great. Thank you. It's my pleasure. Paula Sabbagha: Thank you. Bye bye.
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