Zero To Travel Podcast

Adam Levin 0:00
I mean Clark Kent does not advertise that he's Superman and Bruce Wayne doesn't have a Bruce Wayne nametag on his Batman outfit. But you have to understand that when you use things that people can easily learn about you by going online, that's the same thing as wearing a nametag or doing something and skywriting. The thing about technology that which makes us powerful makes us vulnerable.

Jason Moore 0:24
Indeed, technology does make us vulnerable, especially as we roam the planet. That is why today, I've got a nationally recognized expert on cybersecurity, privacy, identity theft, fraud and personal finance, here to help you out to give us the one on one and more on how we can stay safe and protect ourselves from all of these things when we're out on the road and at home. So excited to bring you this value packed interview with Adam Levin, who you just heard at the top of the show. On top of all that, I'm going to share a message I got from a listener in this community who has really found a way to embrace the idea of living the full travel life and provides I think a good example of how you can mix and match your travel experiences. So all of that happening and much more right now. Buckle up strap in. Thanks for being here. And welcome to the zero travel podcast, my friend.

ad 1:30
You're listening to the zero to travel Podcast where we explore exciting travel based work, lifestyle and business opportunities, helping you to achieve your wildest travel dreams. Now your host World wonder and travel junkie, Jason Moore.

Jason Moore 1:48
Hey, what's up, it's Jason with zero travel.com Welcome to the show, my friend. Thanks for hanging out. Let me bring a little travel into your ears today. This is the show to help you travel the world on your terms to fill your life with as much travel as you desire. No matter what your situation or experience. I mentioned at the top, we are going to give a shout out to a listener here who I believe is really fully embracing this idea of filling your life with as much travel as you desire. You're gonna get to hear a voicemail from him in a few moments, but I want to talk about our guest today who really an incredible guy and wonderful conversation packed with a ton of value. Practical Tips, a simple framework for protecting yourself in terms of making sure you're safe from identity theft, and that your computer and your devices are secure. And all of that important stuff that helps you avoid any headaches down the road. And this is the kind of stuff that I think is pretty easy to put off, right? Like who wants to sit down and protect yourself against identity theft, you know, do the things that need to be done to kind of set yourself up for success. So this doesn't happen to you. But as you'll hear in this show, it's not a lot that you have to do. And it's well worth your time. And I think this is one of those things where, hey, a show like this can not only create awareness, but just bring these things to the top of your mind. And maybe put a few simple things on your to do list coming out of this, to make sure that that you're fully protected out there when you're traveling. And frankly, a lot of these things or I should say all of these things translate to things that you would want to do at home as well when you're just going out and about your day at home. So this is a really big topic, but you're going to come out of it with an action plan and very specific actions you can take an Adam Levin, our guest today. What an incredible background he has with this stuff. He's been a fierce consumer advocate for the past 50 years. He was former director of the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs. He's the founder of cyber scout and the co founder of credit.com. He is the author of the critically acclaimed book swiped how to protect yourself in a world full of scammers, fishers and identity thieves. And he's also the host of the what the hack podcast where they believe that scaring is caring and laughter should accompany learning and each week, their crew talks to fascinating people about the most terrifying or annoying, embarrassing or infuriating things that have ever happened to them in cyberspace. Then they tell you what happened, what you can do next and how to keep whatever it was from happening. Again, a ton in this interview and stick around on the back end. I'll share a fun story about a time that I was scammed and that turned out to be pretty fun day in the end, so you can stick around for that. Now when big adventures knock you want to say yes but doing the things you love can require a bit of pre planning. US Bank offers a wide range of credit cards for a wide variety of financial needs, and one of its most useful cards is the US Bank visa platinum card with a low introductory APR for 24 billing cycles this card is a tool for getting ahead. The US Bank visa platinum card is a savvy financial move for large purchases, unexpected expenses and balance transfers and with the ability to customize your payment date, this card gives you control over your financial future. Apply now at us bank.com/platinum. With the US Bank visa platinum card, you can be worryfree for the next two years to see if you qualify for the best introductory APR out there, visit us bank.com/platinum Limited time offer. The creditor and issuer of this card is US Bank National Association, pursuant to a license from visa USA Inc. Some restrictions may apply. Now, quickly before the interview, I want to play this voicemail I got from Andrew, who was truly embracing that idea of living a life of travel.

Andrew 6:01
My name is Andrew, I'm 23 years old from Boston, Massachusetts, I've been listening your podcast for about two years now. It's crazy the times gone by that that long I first discovered you during like full lockdown. As you know, I was trying to find other things to keep me busy. And you know, I do want to say that I really do appreciate the content that you've been putting out there and the people that you've been bringing onto your show. It's really kind of what's gotten me started to want to live a full travel filled life. Since I started listening to you, I've lived in four different countries. And I've traveled to 25 new places. I'm doing my masters in Europe this fall. And you know, I'm going to teach English in Southeast Asia this summer. And you know, I guess I wouldn't really have any that motivation if it wasn't for, I guess, learning about a new world that was kind of like, you know, like that glass shattering moment of like, wow, like, what have I been missing this whole time? But yeah, basically just want to give you a shout out. Just say like, quick. Thank you,

Jason Moore 7:15
Andrew, thank you, my man, I appreciate your time. And wow, I mean, living in four countries traveling to 25 new places, doing the Masters thing in Europe going to Southeast Asia. Unbelievable, super inspiring. And, you know, this idea that you said, quote, learning about a new world is is important, right? We want to kind of live our best lives. And sometimes that's just opening up our minds to the possibilities and being exposed to other people doing it. And I'm so glad that the stories you've heard here on the show have inspired you. So I'm inspired. I'm sure the listeners are and please you Yes, you listening to this, if you have never checked in before, I would love to hear from you. Just say hi, you don't have to have some crazy story about your travels or your life or anything that just say hi and what's up, you can leave me a voicemail very easily with that link in every show notes or you can drop me a line Chase net zero to travel.com is my email address. Okay, let's slip and slide into this interview. I'll see you on the other side my friend

I'm really excited to cover this topic because this is a big one cybersecurity, I think this goes across people's lives, whether you're traveling or if you're just at home, going to coffee shops and things like that. I feel like there's a lot of the same issue. So I'm really excited to have you here. Adam Levin. Welcome to the zero to travel podcast, my

Adam Levin 8:51
friend. Thanks for inviting me.

Jason Moore 8:54
Well, it's it's a pleasure. I should mention once again what the hack is your podcast. How are you enjoying podcasting?

Adam Levin 9:01
I'm loving it. You know, it's great. I spent many years on and off doing radio. When I was head of Consumer Affairs for New Jersey. I was on W MCA in New York. I did some radio spots for CBS radio. And I had a radio show actually in Los Angeles for about almost a year called the credit line talking about all things credit related, because I used to have a company credit.com So but I love it. I love it. It's very rewarding. It's a lot of fun and we have great guests on and learn a lot. Share a lot. Yeah,

Jason Moore 9:37
well part of New Jersey. Did you grow up?

Adam Levin 9:39
Born in Plainfield, New Jersey raised in Warren, which is sort of up in New Jersey's definition of the mountains. The town I grew up in was so small the pharmacy had the post office in the back. So which is very unusual, busy, like

Jason Moore 9:58
Yeah, so you were closer to me. York cuz I grew up outside of Philadelphia, north of the city. So sort of your neck of the woods. I mean, I think you can take the guy out of the east coast, but you can't take the East Coast out of the guy. Am I right?

Adam Levin 10:12
Ever? The jerseys always in the guy for me. I'm sure the Philadelphia is always the guy for you. And now it's nice to know, I got a friend in Pennsylvania. Right. So there we go.

Jason Moore 10:21
Yeah. Well, I mean, you're living in Arizona. But, you know, do you ever find just living out west like being from the East Coast? Like, there's just a little too laid back out here? I need to get my east coast on right now. You know,

Adam Levin 10:32
I can guarantee you that. That's what my wife tells me every day. I mean, she, she is she's from Colorado, but she lived in New York for almost 20 years. And when we came out here, and in early 2020, she said to me, are we really doing this? I said, we have because I have a company out here. We were escaping COVID We wanted our son to have in person schooling as opposed to remote schooling. And it's very healthy out here. And as long as you don't get freaked out by the scorpions, the snakes and the spiders, you're fine.

Jason Moore 11:08
Well, I used to live in Boulder, Colorado, I'm not sure where your wife comes from Littleton was part of Denver, same area, where did you guys meet?

Adam Levin 11:17
Through a friend in New York, I had been living in Arizona. And he said to me, I want you to come home. I said, I'm not coming home unless you introduce me to the future mother of my children. He said if I do, do you promise to stay? I said, Sure. And when I came back, he introduced me to four people. And my wife was the fourth. I said to the first three lovely people but not feeling it. He said, Wait, I have one more.

Jason Moore 11:43
And how long ago was that?

Adam Levin 11:45
That was in 2009. Okay, we got married on 910 11. And it's been awesome ever since.

Jason Moore 11:55
Nice. Congratulations. Well, how much of a traveler Are you? It sounds like you've been around been living a lot of different places. Have you traveled often with with your job or business travel? Or have you done a lot of personal travel?

Adam Levin 12:08
Well, I used to do a lot of business travel. Then we did some personal travel. But you know, being that I'm over 65 We I slowed down the travel, especially during COVID got a bit more protective, but we're going to we're gonna start to travel again shortly. She she has a trip plan to Europe this summer. So we're going to do that. And she's always popping somewhere. She's a fitness competitor. So she's on the road a lot too. So Oh, yeah. Cool.

Jason Moore 12:39
I imagine you've racked up quite a few frequent flyer miles over the years.

Adam Levin 12:44
Now what again, actually, I find that we have one particular credit card, we've just racked up a lot of points. Yeah. And so we can, we can use those points for pretty much anything and we use it for travel. So.

Jason Moore 12:55
So your expertise is why I was wondering how people get into doing what they do. And I know you've had a varied career path. But at some point, you became this nationally recognized expert on cybersecurity and privacy and identity theft and all these things. How did you? How did that happen? How do you get into that line of work?

Adam Levin 13:17
One day, I was sleeping and I had an epiphany No. I started as a consumer regulator, actually, I was a Consumer Affairs Director for the state of New Jersey for five years, did some real estate development because the families involved in that. And then met a fellow who was an expert on credit. And we decided first to do a, a an infomercial, a book and an infomercial. But we noticed kind of partially into the process of doing the infomercial that it got very expensive. And there were a lot of big players in it. And it would be not a cheap date to become meaningful. And those were the days of Susan powder, Tony Little Tony Robbins in the early days of of some of the giants of of infomercials. And then he came to me one day, and this was in 1993. And he said there is this new thing. It's called the Internet. And he said, I think that we might be able to sell our book and information programs as well as Do you know, serious online real time consumer education, and do products and services in the credit area? And he said, Oh, here's the best part, I managed to get the domain credit.com by swapping an $1,800 hard drive for it.

Jason Moore 14:39
I was gonna ask about that, because that seems like an impossible domain to get.

Adam Levin 14:43
Yep. So we were like we were so early in the game that we were able to get that for and we bought the domain mortgage.com for 10,000 and then flip that domain in the late 90s, early 2000s and use that money to continue to develop A credit.com. And then we sold credit.com in 2015. It was a pretty exciting day. But while that was going on, I was approached by somebody from a legal services organization in 2003. And they and I've run a new team into credit.com at the time, and they said, Do you know anything about identity theft? I said, why? What do you what do you want? They said, well, we want to bid on this credit card portfolio for a huge company. But we feel our bids going to be too high. But if you're if you can give us a pathway into identity theft protection services, find us somebody or the credit world, I mean, credit identity, they're pretty much tied together. So we kind of looked around and came back and my operating partners at the time, who became the operating partners for what was that time known as identity theft 911. They said nobody's doing it, right. It's it's viewed as sort of an extra revenue generator for some people like credit reporting agencies, a couple, marketing companies, insurance brokerage company, even investigative agency, but nobody is doing it the way it should be, which is that the center the core of the business should be identity theft, resolution, putting people and businesses back together again, after they've suffered an identity incident. And this was way before even cyber came into the picture. And this was way before anybody even knew about what breaches were. I mean, the first iconic breach was a company called ChoicePoint. And that was back in 2005. And in those days, there were no breach notification laws in any state in the United States, except for California. So ChoicePoint was located in Georgia. So they didn't have to tell anybody in Georgia that they had had that said suffered a compromise. But they did have to tell California residents that they did. And as a result of that required disclosure, 38 Attorneys General around the country banded together and basically forced them into disclosure. And then one by one states across the country began passing breach notification laws. To this day, there is no national breach notification law in America. None. They have one in the EU, the GDPR. But they have none in the United States. They're working on it, but it's like, how many years do you have to work on something before something happens? So so we started as identity theft 911, our biggest clients were insurance companies. And by the time we sold this company, which had morphed from identity theft, 911 to IDT, 911. To cyber Scout, it was a global company working for somewhere between three and 400 insurance companies, as well as a number of other companies around the world that were involved in employee benefits. And it also became a a breach preparedness and breach response, and forensic company. And we even spend some time doing election security. Sorry, for the long explanation. No,

Jason Moore 18:23
that's really interesting. I mean, I have a lot of business related questions. Actually, it seems like you've built multiple giant businesses, but I don't want to go there because we've got so much to cover. Sure, sure. cybersecurity, but maybe we'll go there in this interview we're in or another one at some point. But you know, that might be a place to start. Just you mentioned the breaches. And I recall though I don't remember the resource. I was somehow directed to some website where it were they were able to tell me all of the entities that I'm a part of, or that made me all email addresses in that had been breached and that I wasn't potentially subject to having my information out there.

Adam Levin 19:04
It was actually the website is known as have I been pawned? pwn. Ed,

Jason Moore 19:10
is that a good resource? Because I'm actually looking for a resource for people to just, maybe that's the first thing to do. Just hey, let's see how your information may be out there is that?

Adam Levin 19:20
Absolutely, yes. It's an excellent resource. And it's free. It's a place that people should consider I mean, tools, the free things that people should consider is one going to have I been poned to find out whether or not they're a victim, or their, let's say their user ID password is out there and their phone numbers out there. You know, for years, people told us that the ultimate unique identifier is your social security number. Of course, that whole thing went out the window when Equifax got breached and 150 million social security numbers got exposed. But the real, ultimate unique identifier for each and every one of us and certainly in travel, this is the same is your cell phone number because people give that number to everyone. And don't even think about giving, it's like, what's your number? Well, here it is. Because that's that's the way you're identify with most organizations even better than password and an email address.

Jason Moore 20:17
Yeah. So what was the other resource things you mentioned?

Adam Levin 20:21
Oh, the other one is, is annual credit report.com. And it's free. All three of the credit reporting agencies are there they are required to make your credit report available to you once a year for free. But during the pandemic, they were literally making it available once a week for free, if you wanted to see it. Because so many people have been scammed during the COVID pandemic. Not Not to mention now with the with the horrible things going on in the Ukraine, a lot of people are getting breached, because a lot of of the same kinds of pitches are going out there. They're just wrapped in the Ukrainian flag as opposed to COVID.

Jason Moore 21:05
Yeah, okay. Well, let's talk about the telephone then. Because it's crazy how much I need this darn thing I'm holding in my hand right now, because I even sometimes when I leave with, you know what, I'm not bringing my phone today, I just don't want it. And then I get on the subway system here. And my wife reminds me Oh, your you know, your subway tickets on your phone, so you don't have it now. I'm like, is everything on my phone? Now? Can I just walk out the door without my phone? No, can't really do it anymore. That

Adam Levin 21:35
should be American Express. Don't leave home without it. Well, now, don't leave home without your phone. Or else if you come to haunt you, you know,

Jason Moore 21:41
like I have VIPPs in Norway. It's the equivalent of Venmo. But a lot of these banking type things are face ID or double authentication. Google Authenticator, those those types of services. But, you know, let's start with just protecting our phones. Because I think that's the number one thing that probably even more computers, a traveler, or anybody, even if you're not traveling, might leave behind or might get lost. So maybe you could just give us the 101 on protecting everything from the number you mentioned, like you mentioned, giving out a number everywhere and as a unique identifier, should we like have a burner phone? You know, we give her certain things like I have no idea what you're going to say here. So I would just love to hear all of your advice around protecting the smartphones?

Adam Levin 22:24
Well, I think you should definitely consider a burner phone, especially if you're traveling somewhere that you haven't been before. And there are many places in the world now that are kind of known for hacker havens. So you know, people cared about the fact that there are certain of these conferences, they go to like DEF CON at BlackHat, where you, you really want to bring a burner phone, because there are people there who are absolutely looking to crawl into your telephone and anything else. You know, I remember we used to do an event for cyber Scout every year called the privacy exchange. And we had one of the top hackers in the world, Harvey Hearst to use his real expertise is hacking voting equipment. He now does it for the US government, just to make sure that these devices are safe. But anyway, he created what he called the wall of shame. And as you walked by it, it would actually suck up information from your phone and put it on this electronic tote board, which you could see or part of your email address and part of your user ID. He did it in or your password, he did it in a way that that it was safe that you know other than you no one would know that was you. But he was able to at one point, he was making a presentation and he said, I know that there are two people in this audience right now. That were a gentleman that were in a gentlemen's club in St. Louis last week. And I know this from your phone. And no one said a word. But there were at least two people who visibly whitened when he made that compact. Because we have no idea how much we have on our phone. We don't think about it. And secondly, he set up a network in the conference. And on this network, he said do not connect to this network, and at least 35 people did. So you know you have to think of your phone as kind of your private temple. And you need to do all the things that you can to protect it. Like use a virtual private network, a VPN, which is easy enough to get and some of them cost money. Some of them don't think of it as an encrypted tube between your device and the website that you're going to especially if you're going to be in an area where you might be using public Wi Fi, which frankly, you should never use public Wi Fi you should create a hotspot right you get it from your your A mobile provider. But a you know, a mobile hotspot is safer than then connecting into a network unless you know exactly whose network it is, and how secure it is. And even now, when you travel, you'll see that on most hotel websites, they will tell you, or airliners and the like. This site is not secure, that it is eminently hackable, they don't use those final words, eminently hackable. But if it's not secure, you know, that's kind of a red flag. So you kind of have to carry your security with you. Now, some phones, like Apple phones are much more secure than other phones. And, but also, when you travel, people have a tendency to want to download apps. Well, first of all, make sure that the app you're downloading is from a recognized legitimate app store, like Apple or Google Play. And even Google Play has had issues with certain malicious apps that have crawled onto their website. So don't just download every app that you see, use a burner phone, if you can use a virtual private network, steer clear of free public Wi Fi, unless you're only browsing the internet, and you have absolutely no intention of doing any sensitive transaction whatsoever. Like you're buying something or you're checking email, or you're checking your financial accounts, not really good idea to do that when you're out in the wild. Unless you have things like the VPNs. And then it's better really to try to do it when you're hooked up to a secure Wi Fi network, as opposed to free public Wi Fi.

Jason Moore 26:54
Okay. So the VPN, really only to be used when we're gonna hook up to Wi Fi. Right?

Adam Levin 27:03
I mean, a lot of people generally just use VPNs for everything, because it gives them kind of this anonymity. And

Jason Moore 27:09
you have it on all the time. I didn't know it worked like that. I thought it was just a Wi Fi thing?

Adam Levin 27:13
Well, no, you can have it on all the time. I mean, it really where it's most effective is Wi Fi. But, you know, some people have it dialed up so high that they can't even get into certain accounts because of this VPN. So, you know, use it carefully, smartly, but understand that it can, it can help you certainly now, you know, you're seeing that as Russia is shutting off all of these, the social network access to a lot of people, they are still going online, but they are using VPN, so that they can be shielded from where they're going, and what they're looking at. With a VPN, though also get the ones that charge you. Because the issue with anything that's free is you don't know whether or not they're gathering data about you. And that they're going to share that data at some point or they get breached, and that data gets shared. So you want to you want to use ones that you pay for because in essence, you're paying for more privacy.

Jason Moore 28:15
Yeah. I should mention, because one of the things you do in your podcast, you have this description, it says believe that we believe that scaring is caring and laughter should accompany learning. So we're not trying to like put the fear in God, everybody here, but but kind of because, you know, we do want to kind of a reminder here that's like that, that's the whole point of this, like, okay, it's pretty easy. When you go about your day to day life, your day to day travels to just kind of forget to go through your routines to have your habits that don't necessarily involve top security, clearance to get into your devices. So this is like a chance, I think, for anybody listening to just take a step back and really kind of take this all in and actually implement some of these things afterwards. So

Adam Levin 28:59
well, and Jason, just a couple other really quick things too. Now. I mean, you know, people go, I knew that, well, they don't know it. And that is make sure that you're you're the code that you use to lock your phone is something better than 123456 or 9876 that make sure you don't use something that in any way has a relationship to a date in your life that someone could find on social media. Because a lot of people do. They use their birthday, that wife's birthday that they got married and meanwhile they're posting all of this stuff on social media because people can't help themselves. They post everything on social media. So it's a you know, you need to approach social media in the way that that people should be also approaching when they create answers to security questions, which is lie like a superhero. I mean, Clark Kent does not advertise that he's Superman and Bruce Wayne doesn't have a Bruce Wayne nametag on his Batman outfit. But you have to understand that when you use things that people can easily learn about you by going online, that's the same thing as wearing a nametag or doing something in skywriting. So try to use a more interesting, complicated PIN code for your phones, as well as, you know, be careful when you set up these these questions and answers. And you have to think of this using a stronger passcode on your phone. Like if someone's trying to break into something like a burglar will always go to the house where there's no dog, I mean, why to have to fight with the dog? Well, the same thing is, if you have a passcode on your phone, and it's somewhat sophisticated. It could even represent the first letter of a few different words that the each letter is a number and that's the number. But you have to be clever about that. Because you know, again, it's the it's the easiest way into for somebody is using it or 000000 I've seen that or six ones.

Jason Moore 31:18
Then you end up on the wall shame. Yep. Are you recommending also we should put a Beware of Dog?

Adam Levin 31:26
Probably sign on our phones. Yes. Beware of cyber dog,

Jason Moore 31:29
worm cyber dog. Okay, no, those are, those are great tips. Just to go back to a one thing you said. really adamant on never using the public Wi Fi switch should always connect to our local hotspot. But we can use it just for browsing. Like if we're going to a new site or something like that.

Adam Levin 31:45
But just remember, as you're browsing, be careful what you click on, because you could click something that's malware that gets on your device. It's not as horrible for phones, it can be but it's certainly horrible for PCs, laptops and things like that. Because depending upon the malware that gets onto your device, it can either turn it into a keystroke logger, which means every time that you go on your device and log in somewhere that information is being transmitted to the hackers. Or it could put malware on your device, the ransomware related malware, and then you got a problem.

Jason Moore 32:22
I mean, if that ends up on our phones, oftentimes we wouldn't even know. So are there resources that you go to to check to see if any of that is on.

Adam Levin 32:31
You can and then there are websites that help you decrypt. But ransomware is more of a problem when it comes to laptops and PCs. But also, you could make a mistake and end up with stalker wear on your phone. Whether you know someone puts it on there, or you go someplace and click on a link and all of a sudden your phone becomes a listening device. A camera for someone else. I just

Jason Moore 32:58
kind of assume it always is that at this point?

Adam Levin 33:02
Not a bad idea. Right? Not a bad idea.

Jason Moore 33:07
You probably know a few things a little bit. Yeah,

Adam Levin 33:10
the we're living in a It's not only a surveillance society, depending upon which country you're in. But a surveillance economy. I mean, everything we do is being tracked or listened to and you know, all in the quest for learning as much about us so that we can get the products and services arguably, that we're we're looking for. But the truth is, the more information they have, the more exposed you are. And frankly, an awful lot of companies are getting breached. As a matter of fact, a simple rule of thumb is to assume this, breaches are the third certainty in life behind death and taxes. Really, yeah. billions of files. I mean, that's Dr. Evil Pinky. The lips be billions of files, containing information about people, some of it our most sensitive information have been exposed over the past few years. So I think it's important for most people to adopt the stance that hey, my informations out there. So the question is, what can I do to protect myself if someone attempts to use this information to exploit me? And that's where we come into what I developed in a book that I wrote with my co author and co host on what the act both Friedlaender and it's called swiped how to protect yourself in a world full of scammers, fishers and identity thieves. And we call it the three M's. And this really applies to pretty much anything you do whether you're an organization, you're an individual, whether you travel or not travel. And the first is how do you minimize your risk of exposure or reduce your attackable surface? In a world where you have billions like 35 billion and counting Internet of Things, devices that are tracking us everything from our toes? stir to our printer to our computers. Everything is is is a is a weigh in. So how do you how do you minimize your risk of exposure? How do you monitor? So you effectively know you have a problem as quickly as possible? And how do you manage the damage?

Jason Moore 35:16
How can we do all that? I know you have a whole book about it, and you can't cover it all here. But can you give us some of your best? Sort of? Oh, sure. Yeah.

Adam Levin 35:24
Well, the first time, how do you minimize your risk of exposure, don't use dumb passwords that you share across your entire universe of websites use a password manager, and many of them are multi platforms. So it's not like you have to use it and then go, oh, gosh, what the heck did I do now that I'm using another device, it's multi-platform, use two factor authentication. And this is based on something you have, who you are and something that you you do, or something that's you. So for instance, it would be a code that goes to your phone, a code that goes to trust the device, in some cases, depending upon how sophisticated the device is, it could be a thumbprint, a fingerprint of some kind, or like, you know, you see a lot of the laptops now where it's fingerprint based, or even a retinal scan, depending upon if the really super sophisticated ones do it. I know that MasterCard was was testing something out where after you did a transaction on MasterCard, you would have to take a selfie and blink. For proof of life. The IRS was going to do the selfie thing and Congress went back crazy over it and said, There's no way we're going to allow you to collect facial recognition information on pretty much every American not going to happen in this country. So that was the end of that. But two factor authentication is important. But remember that someone could get their hands on your phone, either stealing it or convincing your mobile provider they're you. And then having your

having your number transferred to their device, which they will then use as two factor authentication to masquerade as if they're you. Also, you don't click on links or open attachments, even if you think you know where they're coming from, you need to end up independently confirmed that's where they're really coming from. Because you could turn your device into a keystroke logger or put ransomware all over your device by clicking on the wrong link, or certain kinds of malware, it just sits on your device, and then start sucking up information about you to the point where it ends up with everything. So gotta be careful about that. Be careful about downloading apps, it may be new, cool, sharp and wild. And it's something you always wanted. But it could also be, you know, your worst enemy in there. Also social media, we certainly don't when people travel, they love to talk about everything they're doing, where they're going, where they are. And you have to remember that is fodder for a stalker. And, you know, also if people know where you are, de facto they know where you're not. And there was a website a few years ago called please Rob me.com. And it was it was tracking where people were exposing their travel and saying to people, do you understand the fact that you've now told somebody, they can go and rob your house. So, you know, be careful on that. Also, people should freeze their credit, it's free now. And freezing means that no one including you can gain access to your credit without thawing that freeze using a special pin that you got. With your credit reporting agencies. You have to go to each one. But freezing is important. That's a way of keeping people from opening new accounts in your name, including getting a mortgage on your house that you didn't realize that you had. That's how they open accounts because they get access to to your credit or and and that lenders look at your credit and think that it's you but it's not you it's the thief. Then there's the second M which is monitor. That means get credit reports, look at them for what you didn't do, as opposed to what you did do track your credit scores. If they take a sudden precipitous drop, it could mean you're a victim of identity theft. Sign up for what's called transaction alerts from your bank or credit card company that notify you anytime there's activity in your accounts. This is particularly important when you travel because things could be popping up through these notifications. And you go that's nice that I'm using an ATM around the corner from my house except I'm in Norway. I'm not in New York, and so that you would immediately notify your institution Believe it or not, when you get an explanation of benefits statement from your health insurer, you can actually see where someone's stolen your identity and getting medical treatment in your name, which means you can then notify the provider, you can get more serious kinds of monitoring programs that have dark web monitoring, and instant notifications, which would be something like, instead of saying, Jason, a month ago, somebody opened an account in your name. It'll say, Jason, someone is attempting to open an account in your name right now. Is it you yes or no? So that's, that's something and then the third am, how do you manage the damage? Well, a lot of people don't realize that now through their insurance company, some financial institutions, credit unions more than banks, and through your employer, there are programs available to help you through identity incidents. In some cases, it's free as a perk of your relationship with the institution. In other cases, it's deeply discounted. But there are just a few questions you need to ask, Do you have a program that'll help me if I have an identity related problem? Am I in it? If not, what do I need to do to get in it? And by the way, what's it going to cost? So those are really the three M's it's kind of a framework for people to make it a little bit less daunting.

Jason Moore 41:18
It's great framework, minimize, monitor and manage. Tick those off. That's powerful stuff. Thanks for sharing. What can you do if your phone is stolen or lost? You just don't even have it on your person anymore.

Adam Levin 41:31
Well, you know, the good news is like, for instance, if you have an Apple phone, if they have in a fine my phone, now once it goes off, but at least you can trace to where you thought it was when you last saw it.

Jason Moore 41:44
But can you somehow erase the whole thing virtually or something?

Adam Levin 41:47
Well, you can you are, you have the capability, also of erasing everything on the phone, there is software there come that Apple has that, frankly, I think Android now has to for their phones. But you do want to have a situation where when you're when it's clear, your phone is gone, you want to make sure that everything goes off it, hopefully you've used the programs that are available through Apple and Google to save the data on your phone, just so that you haven't lost your entire life and that it's up in the cloud. And then when you get your new phone, they can just simply download that data. But yes, it's important to be able to do that they have a new thing. Now to that, if my air pods are not anywhere near my phone, it a little thing comes up on the phone, it goes by the way, the last time your air pods were anywhere near you, they were at such and such address. And it could be slightly annoying, it's like stop doing this there on me. But at the same point, it's very important to keep track. There's also you know, air tags, which have been, there's been some controversy with air tags that someone's slipped in air tag and someone else's coat, or someone else's car or someone else's luggage. I mean, the theory behind the air tag is you can find your luggage or things that you need to locate. The only problem is if someone else gets their hands on it, they can find you. So, you know with there's always two sides. And and again, the thing about technology that which makes us powerful makes us vulnerable. So you know, you know us it's like these to say no use this with caution. Well, just remember that these devices, they're there in their attempts to help you protect your privacy and to help you have a better idea of where you are and where your stuff is. If it gets into the wrong hands, it actually puts your privacy in harm's way.

Jason Moore 43:49
What are the most common scams?

Adam Levin 43:53
Oh, well, in travel, we'll start with that. In travelled common scams are travel clubs. You can save a lot of money, just you know, join our travel club. There's an upfront handling charge and there's a bunch of other stuff. And then by the time you get to where you're going, you're paying more than you would have paid if you went directly to the A well known third party travel site, or booked with a hotel or cruise line directly. You also have clone sites where scammers and hackers can make websites look exactly like the website that you think you're going to. Unfortunately it's not and it's designed to either get payment information or some other information from you. You have what's called the double booking scam. That's where you're all set, and you're traveling someplace and the day before you leave, you get notified by whatever the booking entity was. Hey, listen, Jason, we have good news and bad news. The good news is we really got your room at a great rate. But the bad news He's got double booked. But the maybe good news is give us little extra money and we'll pay the person off. And we'll make sure you have your room. So that is not an uncommon scam either. Then there's the excursion scam. That's where now you're at the hotel, you're you've traveled and there is this unbelievably cool secret cave. And we can take you there, we have a tour company that will take you there. Unfortunately, the reason the cave is secret is that it doesn't exist. Or if you go somewhere, you could become secret, and you may not exist, or you may be held for ransom. So that's why you have to be careful that you only use well recommended, well vetted, well reviewed, travel companies, Turca, even local companies, you know, at least you're a little safer. If it comes from the concierge at your hotel, than if someone while you were riding in a cab said, you want to go to a really cool place, well, we got a cool place for you. So there's that there are scams that when you are at a hotel in the middle of the night, you get a phone call. And it sounds like it's coming from the front desk. And it says, Listen, we have a problem with your credit card or your debit card. And we may have when we entered the information in our computer, we may have entered the wrong or a wrong digit, Could you do us a favor and just read us the information on your credit card again, or your debit card and by the way, the expiration date, flip it over the bank. And that's really a scammer to something as simple as you get to a hotel. It's late it's night, it's maybe somewhat remote. And there is a flyer under your door where you can order food in the area. So you call somebody sounds like it's legitimate. They take down your order, they take down your payment information. And an hour later, you're still hungry, nothing has showed up. And you suddenly realize you were on the menu. So you know, be careful when you just even fall, you know, go for stuff like that.

Jason Moore 47:11
That's a good one. No one could get me that. Yeah, yeah. Oh, so

Adam Levin 47:14
you're starving, and it's like I need to eat and there's no room service anymore. So yeah, you know, again, what they try to do is come up with things that they expect will feel normal to people. So you know, you have all those kinds of scams. Also, by the way, when you travel when you're not using your devices, power them down. Because remember, when you power up something that you power down, it's going to ask you for your passcode again, right, so it's off. So if someone took it while it was powered down, they'd have to figure out your passcode. Not to mention the fact that there are some mobile based forms of malware that sit on your phone, but they can be disabled simply by turning your phone off and on again. So you know, that's something as well. Also, when you're traveling, use a credit card, not a debit card, because a credit card is their money, a debit card is your money. And even if the bank agrees that you're right, they may take 1012 days to conduct an investigation. If you're on a trip, all of a sudden you can't get access to your bank account. You got a problem. So you need to do that. But you know the everywhere you turn their social media scams quizzes there during COVID, there was scam after scam after scam, whether it was contact tracing, whether it was here's where you get your test. Here's where you get your shot, unemployment compensation scams during COVID. I mean, I my sister in law was called by Colorado where she lives and our higher which she's never been in. And and they asked her about her application for unemployment compensation. Meanwhile, she was working. So you had those you had update any kind of update travel update emergency update. During COVID, it was like, you know, click here for the most up to date information on the spread of the disease and where it is, and where are the countries that you shouldn't go or you can't go because of the disease. It's why I always say if you don't want remorse, go to the source. Don't click on the link. Go to a trusted news source where you go directly to their website, charitable scams during all of these the crises that are going on with the Ukraine. Anytime there's a hurry pain or a flood or a tsunami or any hostile action in the country, there are all sorts of ads, banner ads that show up going, you know, help the people of the Ukraine, well go to go to a site like Charity Navigator, for instance, which does keep track of the legitimate charities or contact the Better Business Bureau, or contact the Office of the Attorney General, the Division of Consumer Affairs in the state you live and say, Is this a legitimate charity? Oftentimes, they'll have a list of the legitimate charities and they'll also have a complete consumer hotline, where they've gotten complaints against certain charities for being fraudulent. And also read reviews. You know, before you download an app, read reviews before you use the travel agent, read reviews, before you go to any particular hotel, read reviews, when I was at a Consumer Affairs, somebody was doing a promotional campaign. And they said that, you know, if you come to our site and do this, you get a free trip to a resort on the Gulf Coast. Well, people Wow, this is fun, the Gulf Coast then all I have to do is order this. Well, when they got there. It was a motel behind an oil drill.

So didn't turn out to be so great. So every every day, there is a there is a new wrapping around a scam. But the scams are all pretty much the same whether it's an IRS scam or a business, email scam, cat phishing scam. I mean, think about all the people that we know who they thought they found the love of their life online. And then somewhere in the first couple of weeks after this person came on to them as if they wanted them to have their child, or they wanted to be the person having their child. But everything was drama, they couldn't show up. There was a problem. One device didn't work one day, they can only communicate with you by text. And then all of a sudden, they ask comes either compromising photographs, which could lead to extortion, and blackmail, or money. Money. Please help me if you love me, I want to come visit you. Could you send me money for tech?

Jason Moore 52:27
All of this knowledge, you have all of this experience? All of the crazy scams you've heard about I'm sure you got a million stories of individuals that have been scammed in various ways. And how do you how do you balance your you know, faith in humanity with this cynicism?

Adam Levin 52:44
Well, it's like love your fellow human. But you know, Ronald Reagan used to say Trust, but verify. Today, the buy words are never trust, always question always verify, always. Because even if let's say, you and I bond, and I go, I want to send Jason an E card to thank you. And I found an E card somewhere that looked pretty cool. And I sent it to you, I in good faith sent this this E card to you. But unfortunately, I didn't realize that it was a fakie card. And it was really a device to put malware on a computer. How many times do people in social media just simply forward something cool they saw on social media, not realizing that what they forwarded could be malware laden, so it isn't even that someone is a bad faith. It is simply that they got duped. Like whoever the scammer is is hoping that you get duped. And you know, be careful beware of people friending you and be aware of of posting every single thing you do every day wherever you do it. Because it's giving a pathway into your life. They could be used to exploit you.

Jason Moore 54:01
When you're just walking around. You're not online, whatever you walk around with your phone, you got your laptop, you got maybe your Bluetooth on or something. Can people get into your devices, then is it?

Adam Levin 54:13
Is it yep. Yep, there are ways to do it. There are you know, if you have RFID on your any any device, there are ways that someone could get close to you and read that RFID which would then give them sort of insight into you and where you. I mean, there was a story once where people outside a mall they were they were just sitting outside a mall, and when people would come out and they were trying to get very close they and they would look for people coming out of fancy stores and malls. And they would like follow them to their car. And they would then follow the car. And sometimes they would simply just track the RFID code that was in a piece of clothing because there are a number of stores that use that To track inventory, right, so there was that. And you have people that will, will cyberstalk you. And you know, we've seen situations where former spouses will track their spouses, and, you know, by by putting stock aware on their device. So, you know, there are there, there are ways to do it, plus the fact that we have had so many breaches. And you know, so many people will say to me, I'm just a regular person who cares about me. I mean, I just, you know, I live my life and I do anything, the people that what you have to keep in mind is, you look in the mirror, you see you, when a hacker looks at you, they see Sharon Stone, the rock, Jay Z, Beyonce, Adam Levine, you got what they want, you have data, you have financial information, you have certain things that can be used against you that they can use to extort you. Or you are the tributary to a larger river, which means it's not about you. It's about your spouse, your child, your parent, where you work, you know, the easiest way to get into a company is compromise somebody's credentials. So if you know where somebody works, like go on LinkedIn, you'll know where they work, not only will you know where they work, but a lot of the people that work at the same place, post information as well. So there's an entire list of people that work at the same place. So a scammer or hacker could go on, look at that figure out ways to, to scam you into giving them information. And then use your information to communicate with other people in the company that may have senior positions to you, or maybe in the finance or accounting departments of the company. And all of a sudden, depending upon what your role is, and what their role is, they could be asking for money to be wired to a certain account for business purposes. Think about the way that the target was breached. And that's one of the most iconic breaches and you're talking about 110 million people in one form or another were breached. They didn't go through the front door of target. They breached somebody, or they, let's say compromise someone working at an HVAC subcontractor, who had a business relationship with target and had access into the target systems because they were monitoring the chilling systems in target. And they use that pathway into Target first into the point of sale system, and then into the databases. And this goes on every single day.

And so the other thing to keep in mind is they're going to come at you at least four ways phishing, which is generalized phishing dear cardholder, dear member, dear target shopper, spear phishing. Dear Jason vishing. When you get a call on the phone, you think it's from the IRS, which they never call you. Or you think it's from a financial institution, they do call you sometimes, but and they use that position of authority or position of relationship, to try to get information out of you like, perfect example. You just came back from a trip. Or let's say you're on your trip. And you get a phone call from your financial institution, except it's not your financial institution. And they say listen, we think that your your credit card or your debit card was used in the wrong place. And we think there are fraudulent charges. Now if they just say to you, we've noticed some suspicious activity on your account, just is it true or not? And that's it. They're probably legitimate. But if they do, and a scam is for instance, is this your credit card number? Why? Yes, it is. Is this your expiration date? Yes, it is. Listen, just to prove your you flip over your card and give us the security code on the back? Well, first of all, if someone calls you, they should already know what they need to know about you. And not have to ask you for your security code. First of all, they know they're talking to you. And so that's that's a dead giveaway, never authenticate yourself to anyone. And we've seen the scam even go further where they go be up, you are definitely a victim of fraudulent activity. And this could actually impact your your life, your business, your work, your social security number. So let's help you get either a fraud alert on your credit file or freeze your credit. If you could just give us your social security number since we're your bank. I mean, you know, we can do this. We'll call up the credit agency. We'll get everything going for you. Well, it wasn't your bank and now you just gave away your whole life. So that's why Be careful when someone contacts asks you and asks you to authenticate yourself, never authenticate yourself, always go directly to the institution, speak to customer service asked to speak to the security department and say, did someone by the way, just call me from your institution? Because it's going to be on their computer? And am I having a problem? And,

Jason Moore 1:00:20
you know, always hang up and call your actual and just be like, hey, is this

Adam Levin 1:00:23
absolutely always do it? If someone approaches you from a charity? Do not even if it gets some legitimate charities for clumped, sorry, get the information independently confirm that's the charity independently confirmed contact information, and then either go onto their website, and give your contribution, or call whatever the phone bank is for the charity, and then you give online if you'd prefer. But it's part of never trust, always question. Always verify.

Jason Moore 1:00:55
Yeah, I mean, that's one of the hard things, I think, when you're traveling in a certain way, and you don't you don't want to be paranoid about everybody in the world, right? Like, you want to have that openness, where you can make a connection with a local person or, you know, have an experience. And, you know, I know a lot of people listening and myself included, I've had wonderful experiences with people that I've just met that I didn't know, and they weren't scamming me at all, or anything so that there's no real answer to that question, because you really have to kind of feel out situation for yourself. But you have any advice on that sort of balance?

Adam Levin 1:01:30
Well, I think that, you know, the first thing is, you have to keep in mind that we all have day jobs, whether we're traveling, working, raising a family, being involved in getting our education, being involved in philanthropic activities, that's what we do. However, when you're up against a scammer, or hacker or an identity thief, you are their day

Jason Moore 1:01:52
job, right? So, so crazy to think.

Adam Levin 1:01:55
So that's the important thing. And you know, the second thing, again, is there's no reason why you shouldn't trust people. But remember that the government can't always protect you. In fact, they don't rust, business hasn't really done enough, some are doing all they can. And despite the enormous amount of money they pay for security. If there's one device that's unprotected, it could bring down an organization just like you could have everything right as a company. And all you need is one person to click on the wrong link. Just one, one H back guy. That's it. That's it. And just like as consumers, you know, no one is going to stop you from clicking on the link, or opening the attachment or using a really dumb password, or not enabling two factor authentication, or downloading every app that you that you look at. or not, not freezing your credit, you know, or not getting your credit report or not signing up for transaction alerts that that's freewill that's up to each and every one of us. So we have to understand that in the end, the ultimate guardian of the consumer has always been is and always will be the consumer that we have a responsibility at. We are part of now a shared responsibility with business, government, media, and consumers. And that we have to stick up for ourselves because we know things they won't know, hopefully, although they seem to be growing more and more about us. We know what we do we know where we've been, we know where we are at any moment. That doesn't mean anyone else does. So therefore, we're in a better position to say wait, I didn't do that transaction. That wasn't me. So it's really up to us. We didn't ask for it. We're not trained for it. It's not something we want to do. But we really now do have a responsibility. We have to protect ourselves, our children, our families, the companies we work for, this is really an all in effort, especially in light of the fact that we are being attacked on a daily basis by people who have only one goal in mind. They are not our friends. They want us to be the gift that keeps on giving.

Jason Moore 1:04:18
Yeah, that's yeah, it's it is wild to kind of put yourself in their shoes for a minute and think that you are their day job when you said that I really hit home for me. It sounds like you know, with a lot of this stuff, like anything, maybe there might be an upfront time investment may be a little bit of a learning curve. But once you sort of implement some of these systems, for example, the the what you call it the transaction alerts and things like that, then you're kind of you have the infrastructure to kind of protect yourself to an extent correct me you don't want to click on the wrong links. You have to be vigilant but there is a bit of an infrastructure you can set up for yourself to kind of at least Do that first step which is minimize, right?

Adam Levin 1:05:02
Right. And that's just just say to yourself, just like a business needs to train its employees on a on a on a daily basis, it has to be a constant conversation. You have to talk to your kids, they have to talk to you. I mean, kids are digital natives yet a lot of them are targets. And a lot of them fall for it, because they trust or we have what I like to refer to as generation i, which stands for generation invincible, I go online, and you know, we're all in it together. No, we're not all in it together online. We're not. And and we have to realize, again, that that that we are valuable to the wrong kind of people.

Jason Moore 1:05:46
Yeah, yeah, it's it's, well, I wanted to ask you about skimming devices, because I've heard of that, where, you know, you go to an ATM, and they have something set up where they can take all your debit card information or whatever. And in that case, I mean, you have to use your debit card, right? You go to an ATM machine, you're using your debit card to get money. I don't know how common that is. But is there any way to detect something like that? Or to check? Is that a common thing?

Adam Levin 1:06:15
Well, yeah, it's like if you're traveling, or if you're even in your at home, when you go somewhere, try to rattle the front of the of the ATM machine, if it moves a little bit, it could be an indication that someone has put a skimming device in it. The second thing is when you're entering your PIN code, Always cover your hand. Because usually when people put skimming devices into an ATM, they have a hidden camera somewhere that's trained on that keyboard. So that's how they get both. That's why it's always best to use an ATM machine that is either in the lobby area. And there are a lobby areas that are open there just outside lobby areas of financial institutions, or that are attached to financial institutions. And as much as Bodega owners will want to skin me alive for saying this. Be really careful when you walk into a bodega or where you're using ATM machine that is kind of in the middle of nowhere. It could really come back to haunt you. That's why it's so important to have transaction alerts. Because if suddenly, things pop up, after you've used a credit or debit card, that's an indication that you've have a problem that someone somehow got that got the information. and can even be as simple as you go to a restaurant. Now, you know when now when you travel, a lot of restaurants, they bring out that little device, we're right in front of you, they take your information. But you know, for many restaurants it used to be they took your payment card and they went in the back. And then they came out with a receipt and you don't know whether they also made a copy of your card while they were back there.

Jason Moore 1:08:10
One time the waitress changed the tip amount on me like a month later, I got my credit card statement. I think I left her like a $13 tip. And I saw there was a $33 tip. And I realized which turned that one into a three. And then I called the restaurant and I said hey, I know this isn't right. He didn't manage it. And please no way that didn't happen. Didn't have I said I'm telling you it did I have the receipt right here. And you can look it up. And I was right. So that that girl had to get fired, unfortunately, but no. And it's also important when you do that to other people. So I needed to make a call, you know, yeah.

Adam Levin 1:08:47
And when you travel, also look at the receipt. See what they're charging you because you know a lot of people go, just give me my receipt. Here's my credit card or debit card. I'm out of here. You know, take a minute to look at it because it's very easy for someone to slip out a few extra things on your on your bill.

Jason Moore 1:09:08
Did we miss anything major? Here?

Adam Levin 1:09:11
Nope, I don't think so. No, I think I think this is pretty much I mean, there's we could talk for hours about all the different kinds of scams. But again, it's all about being alert and understanding that that again, not everybody's your friend. And you know, people will do things for a variety of reasons. They can be blackmailed. They can be just being extorted, they could need to do this to raise money. I mean, you know, when people talk about state sponsored hacking, and you know, state sponsored hackers, they're they're either in it for chaos or whatever. You have to understand that like in certain countries, there is a line item in their budget for the ransomware money that's being collected by the hackers they sponsor

Jason Moore 1:10:00
As part of the part of the annual budget, that's it.

Adam Levin 1:10:03
And, you know, people will say, Well, you know, they got me, but we can get them right. And the answer is, law enforcement is getting better and more aggressive. But at the same time, a lot of these guys are operating outside the United States, outside the jurisdiction of even us friendly countries, and under the protection in certain countries of the government. So with a lot of these scams, once it's gone, it's gone. Which means you don't wire people and money to people you think, you know, you confirm how many times have you gotten because I've gotten and people I know got a lot. It was called the 419. Scam, which is Jason listen, I'm traveling buddy, I somebody stole my, my wallet, or they stole my backpack, and I have no money. Is there any way you could do me a solid and wire me some money? It's a scam. In most cases. I mean, the the way to confirm it is pick up a phone, call them and say, Are you traveling? Are you in trouble? Do you need help? You still may not want to help. But the fact is, at least you'll know that it's real. And they do the Grandparents Scam and everything else. But travel is usually one of the things where the scammers that's what they play on. And they will appeal to family members or very close friends. And that information they get off social media. That I'm in trouble. I need your help.

Jason Moore 1:11:31
Yeah. You probably have some Wilds scam stories, don't you?

Adam Levin 1:11:36
Oh, there Yeah.

Jason Moore 1:11:40
What's one that just sticks with you?

Adam Levin 1:11:43
Well, we had a, you know, on what the hack we have a lot of great stories we have one story in particular was a guy who was a reporter. And he would travel to Afghanistan and Iran and you know, as part of his reporting Iraq, and he was always getting hacked for something. And then one day he fell for a sextortion scam. Somebody had gotten his information and And in his case, it was just part of a they just throw it out there and see how many people they got. But you would get something and it would it would actually have on it a your email address, and an old password they do use to us. And they would say to you, we know what you do. And we know that you like to visit pornographic websites. And unlucky for you. We actually had malware on one of those pornographic websites. And we have a video of you watching a pornographic video, as well as having a good time while you were watching the pornographic video. Now, we're happy to make this all go away if you'd like to send us 14,000 and Bitcoin? If not, if you don't believe us, well, we'll just send five copies of this video to your family. And they can confirm whether or not it's real. Or, you know, we're just going to go away, and we're going to send it to every contact in your email. Because when we got onto your computer, we got into your email, and we have

Jason Moore 1:13:25
all and they really have it and they could really do that. Well the thing

Adam Levin 1:13:29
is, maybe in a couple of cases they have it but the overwhelming majority of times they do not have it. It's all a play to scare you have to death. And and they do it very successfully. People fall for it. I once when I was traveling in Europe to give a speech at a conference. I went into my in spam folder and 35 of those emails. Were there.

Jason Moore 1:13:54
No less than 35 no less

Adam Levin 1:13:57
than 35 No, they just kept sending it out. And then I was doing a show on a radio station in Oregon. And the station manager walked in and said, she said I got a few of those too. So I mean, it was like, you know equal opportunity. sextortion scams. Yeah.

Jason Moore 1:14:14
I mean, there must be somebody out there like Adam, he thinks he's so somebody get that Adam one day now let's hope not. Let's hope there's not.

Adam Levin 1:14:22
I mean, there's always somebody's got our number as it were one way or another. And the fact is that it's it's, it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen to all of us. So the question is, how well do you Gird your defenses? And you know, practicing the three M's at least gives you a better shot at being better protected.

Jason Moore 1:14:40
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us today. Go ahead and share. You know where people can find you and the podcast and anything you'd like here. Well, if

Adam Levin 1:14:51
you go to Adam levin.com, which is our kind of website, content web related website for these all of These scams are also come to what the hack with Adam Levin, it's available. Wherever you get your podcasts, Apple, Spotify, you name it, it's it's up there. And you know, every week we have a new story, we have created a no shame zone for people to come on. And the whole point is that scaring is caring. But also sharing is caring. And it's important to share your story because a lot of people, you know, will say, Wow, that's, that's an interesting object lesson. It's terrible. It happened to this particular individual. But it's great because now I can, there's certain things I know I can look for. So it's kind of like cartop for cyber plus guests. That some of them are celebrities. Some of them are friends. Some of them are people who have contacted us, like somebody contacted us by way of Reddit, and then came on and told their story. But it's an interesting story every week, it's a different story. And we all can learn a lot from what's happened to our, our fellow humans.

Jason Moore 1:16:13
Yeah, yeah, well, I appreciate it. And you gave us a ton of great stuff here. Today, I love how you've been able to distill a lot of this down into these very memorable chunks to like the minimize, monitor manage the would you say when you don't want remorse, then go to source these things are very memorable. So a lot to walk away from this. And I'm definitely motivated to kind of take some of that upfront investment time for myself to minimize So, Adam, thanks so much, and hope we can stay in touch. Appreciate your time today.

Adam Levin 1:16:48
No, I'd love it. And I really appreciate the invitation. Take care. Bye.

Jason Moore 1:16:58
There you have it. Once again, one Thanks, Adam, for stopping by the show credible guy, wealth of knowledge, but doing this stuff forever. So I hope that you enjoyed those takeaways and the conversation, you know, never a fun topic in some sense to talk about this idea of you know, getting scammed or getting your identity stolen or whatever. But this is the reality of the world we live in. And we need to protect ourselves and his three M system. That was my big takeaway there. I thought that was so impactful, and just easy to remember, minimize, monitor, and manage. I love that. And we got all those tips there for you. So what actions you're going to take coming out of the show. I'm working on the minimize portion of this. And that's a great place to start. But if you want to get started, I'll issue that challenge to you today to maybe clean up a little hole you have in your own personal network and something that you feel may expose you a bit. Yeah, just do one thing, just to one thing coming out of the show. And that can be a nice little challenge for the community. I'm gonna leave you with a quote in a second. First, as promised, let me share my scam story, the time I got scanned in Thailand, and actually had a good day. First, a quick reminder, if you go to zero to travel.com/premium, you can sign up to get access to a private podcast feed a private zero to travel podcast feed with ad free shows exclusive bonus content, a couple multi episode programs I put together like how to quit your job and travel the world. And one all about how to get into International House sitting and what you can do to stand out and just loads more and you also be supporting the show and you can try it all for $1 If you go to zero travel.com/premium If you want to get back to the show, and keep the lights on over here at the zero to travel podcasts, I created this awesome thing so you can get something incredible. And you can also support the show. Try it for a buck if you don't like it. You can cancel anytime. No worries. Again, zero travel.com/premium really appreciate everybody who's subscribed over there keeps the show going. And thanks for your support. And please take a moment if the show has impacted you in some way. You like the content here and it's helped you and you want to support the show. Please just take a moment and check it out. Thank you so very much. Now here I was in Thailand, it was the early 2000s with my buddy Jim had no idea about some of the scams that are run in Southeast Asia and we fell for one of them it was the took took the cheap took took scam where they charge you next to nothing to take you on a little quote city tour, which they do. But part of that tour is they take you to a couple shops along the way like a jeweler and a tailor and they try to use these high pressure sales tactics to get you to buy things we didn't buy anything and it was kind of laughable. And once we realized, actually, it was my buddy Jim, that kind of sussed it out. He's like, I think this is sort of a scam thing that's going on right now. And I was like, really? Because I'm just, I don't know, I'm just on this ride. I mean, you get time, whatever. We stopped at a couple shops, no big deal. But it seems to become apparent when we came out of the jeWelry shop and somebody happened to wander around the corner, I'm using air quotes. A, an American, he's like, Oh, I just bought this jade necklace or whatever. There's all these Jade necklaces. And I resold them in America for so much money and just like making a killing and you know, trying to get us to go back in and buy a bunch of stuff. And my buddy Jim's like, isn't it a little weird? That guy just walked around the corner and ran into us as we left the shop. So there was multiple levels to this scam. I think the problem was our driver was just super nice. I think he felt kind of bad for us. And we didn't really care. Once we realized we were out. We're like, well, we're not buying anything. We're not going to be pressured into buying anything. And we don't care that you're pressuring us. So we're just relax and we're just going to enjoy being along for the ride on the scam, which we did. And it was a story to tell later. And kind of a fun experience. When all was said and done pretty harmless. We were never in any danger or anything like that. But if you go out into the world, you're gonna get scammed, things are gonna happen. And that's just the way it goes. So coming back to the to the episode here. Just be vigilant, stay on top of your stuff. Do the best you can. And when things happen, I guess just just roll with it. Roll with it. And the tuk tuk. I don't know. All right. Let me leave you with a quote from James all teacher who wrote a great book, by the way called, I've read it a while back. It's called choose yourself. And I'm not sure if this quote is from that book. But he said quote, The American Dream never really existed. It was a marketing scam.

And quote, so there you go. Another way to look at scams. Alright, thank you so much for your time today. Appreciate you your presence here you being a part of this community. Get in touch anytime and give me some feedback on the show. recommend some guests, whatever. It's all good. Just say hi. I'd love to hear from you. I'll let you go now. Have a wonderful day. See you next time. Peace and love.

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