The Newest Financial Scams and How You Can Protect Your Accounts
Financial fraud is on the rise — how can you protect yourself?
There's been a sharp uptick (25% increase!) in financial fraud this year. In this episode, I go over some strategies to recognize and protect yourself from scams.
Key takeaways:
Watch for red flags: Be wary of unsolicited calls (even when they appear to come from legitimate institutions) that create urgency, ask for sensitive info, or pressure you to act quickly. Always hang up and call back using a verified number you found on their website.
Strengthen your digital defenses: Enable two-factor authentication, set up transaction alerts on your accounts, and use strong, unique passwords—especially for financial logins.
Michelle also suggests having a separate email just for financial matters.
Stay vigilant—and help others do the same: Many scams target older adults or those less familiar with digital security. Talk openly with family and friends about common tactics fraudsters use, and encourage them to lock down their accounts.
Taking proactive steps now can make all the difference in protecting your money and accounts.
If you haven’t reviewed your account security lately, now’s the time!
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Introduction to the Unconventional Investor Podcast
Welcome to the Unconventional Investor Podcast. I'm your host, Michelle Moses, certified financial planner, licensed realtor, and founder of MeFinancial. If you're an accredited investor feeling overwhelmed by managing your portfolio and looking for alternative investment strategies that go beyond the traditional stock market, you're in the right place.
Let's head into today's episode so you can start taking control of your financial future.
Today's Topic: Financial Fraud
Hello everyone and welcome to the show. Thank you so much for tuning in. Today is gonna be a solo show with just me. We're gonna be talking about financial fraud and I think that this is on a lot of people's minds especially with your email and your wifi and.
I just think the cybersecurity attacks are getting more sophisticated and I think this is a very timely episode because we have seen already this year a 25% uptick in financial fraud attempts. And. Not that I've had this happen myself, but I do get a lot of emails and updates and meetings [00:01:00]and things about these types of things.
And the companies that I work for namely Schwab, they are seeing an uptick in all of this.
Recognizing Financial Fraud Tactics
And today I wanna talk about financial fraud and how to recognize it and how to protect yourself. And I'm going to go through a couple of examples of things that. These fraudsters have done, and I have done an episode 30, who is on title fraud.
And that one was really interesting because it's more about when you're buying real estate or you have land. So I urge you to listen to that one and I will put it in the show notes, but it, it's the same thing. Where there are fraudsters and that's what I'm gonna call them. I feel weird, it's calling them that, but they are going to try to obviously gain access to your accounts and.
Essentially what they'll do is they're trying to gain access to your accounts, change a bunch of stuff very quickly. They seem to be very prepared to change, the bank account that your account is linked to, things like that. And and [00:02:00] then check, transfer all of your money to another account.
And then once it's transferred, obviously you can't get it back. So we are going to go over how these. Scams typically work and then we're gonna go over like some red flags and then some things that you can do to protect yourself. Okay.
Real-Life Examples of Financial Fraud
So usually the way this starts out is that they will spoof a caller id, so the scammer will make a call look like it's coming from a, like a legitimate financial institution or a stock custodian like Schwab or Fidelity or wherever you might have your accounts.
And then they will have a sense of urgency about them. So they'll claim their suspicious activity on your account and try to verify details immediately to prevent the loss. So there's usually a sense of urgency to, so that you can't think straight, that's the way that they're catching you off guard and.
What they are wanting to do is get your credentials. So they're going to ask for your account numbers, so social security numbers, your login credentials, and your two factor authentication code. So [00:03:00] sometimes they'll say, okay, there's gonna be a code sent to your sent to your phone. Please read it to me.
Don't ever read that to someone unless you have initiated the call. But so that's because they could be trying to log into your account. And then you're getting the two factor off of off the. Authentication of should I let this person into the account? And then by you giving them the credentials from your phone, obviously then you're allowing them to log in from whatever computer they're in.
And then once they are in, they take over the account. So once they have that info, they can initiate withdrawals or unauthorized trades. They can change your account settings. And a lot of times what they're trying to do is lock you out of your account entirely. So they'll change the email address.
They'll change the phone number associated with it, things like that. So they are ready to pounce as soon as they get access to the account. And I think that's what these meetings have been stressing is they are surprised at how quickly the fraudsters are [00:04:00] changing the information inside of your account so that you can't get into it.
And that they're, how poised they are, how ready they're, they are to go as immediately once they get in. So you don't even wanna give them five minutes inside of your account. And I have also seen at this, these stories are from re meeting I was recently at, but then I was at a meeting like a year ago, and they were talking about how these fraudsters would gain access to people's Gmail account or whatever, email.
But usually it's Gmail and they would be logged in at the same time. So like the client could also. Be getting these, be getting their email and think nothing was wrong. But then they had access to their Gmail account and they were sending emails from their actual Gmail account to the advisor or to Schwab, but normally to the advisor.
And then they would be saying things like, Hey, I wanna take a withdrawal of $40,000. I wanna redo my bathroom. And it's up to me as the advisor to say we've never talked about you redoing your bathroom, and why are you wanting to change your bank account to another financial [00:05:00] institution in order to make this trade?
So knowing what I do, I wouldn't do that, but this is what they were trying to do is email the advisor, say, I wanna take out money to do a, to update my. My house. And then they would say, but no, I don't want you to transferred to this Wells Fargo account. I wanna change it to such and such bank.
And then I think the advisor would do it, or Schwab would do it, thinking that it was them. And so that's why you want to really lock down your Gmail and have all these two factor authentications. I know that it's such a pain, but when it comes to. Being a victim of fraud you would be happy that you had all this stuff in place.
So essentially, those are the stories about what they try to do is take over your accounts or get money out of them by tricking people.
Red Flags to Watch Out For
And so I think what you need to watch out for, so red flags that you need to watch out for are unsolicited calls from someone claiming to be from your brokerage or your custodian.
So if they are calling and it isn't about [00:06:00] something that is in process hey, we're processing this paper transfer paperwork that used. Signed yesterday or something that you already know about, you need to hang up the phone and you need to call them back from a number that is on their website or on that you can easily find on the internet.
If they call and have a sense of urgency, you need to call back and say, Hey, what number can I call you back at? And then verify it online and then call them back and make sure that it's okay because they are getting very sophisticated. Someone could know your name, your address, and they could also actually know your social 'cause We all know that a lot of this information is.
Widely held out there on the dark web. And so you wanna make sure that it is a situation that you already know about. And if you don't hang up the phone and call the financial institution yourself. So if there is a pressure to act fast or your account will be frozen then you know it's a red flag.
And then another thing is spelling issues. And I'll tell you, I almost got caught with one of these. I [00:07:00] it's no. I have some crypto and in the hubbub of about a year and a half ago, I was trying all these different accounts to test them out, and there was one called Block Fi, and it went under with the whole FTX scandal.
And I had to go through, they were going through bankruptcy and then we, I was waiting to get all my crypto back and they were gonna transfer it to a wallet. Come to find out that apparently the list of all the block fi. I think because bankruptcy proceedings, I didn't really do a lot of research, but a bankruptcy proceedings are public and so then my email became public and so I started getting these emails and I almost clicked on one, like one looked so legitimate and I watch out for these things and I didn't click on the button.
I actually went to the website 'cause I already knew it. I was like, oh, let me login and see what this was. There was nothing in it. And so then I went back to the email and of course I clicked on who it was from and it said block fi, and it had the picture. But then obviously then when I clicked [00:08:00] on the email, it was coming from 24 hour Fitness or something like that.
So now whenever I get a financial email of any sort, I always look at what the email is. Even if it looks like it's coming from the financial institution, I will just go to the institution and log in and see if it's in there and then make a phone call. Because that one really scared me. It was so perfect.
It had the amounts that I had in the bankruptcy proceedings. It had I, I mean it, it had my email, everything. So I really highly suggest don't click on any links. Go to the actual website. It's. Self. And then if you do get a phone call that does look like it's from your financial institution and there is a sense of urgency, that is a red flag.
So if you have all the safety precautions set up, then you are already gonna know that something is wrong in your account. So let's go over some of that too.
Protecting Yourself from Financial Fraud
So some of the ways that you can protect yourself is obviously setting up alerts for any transactions in your account. If there's a withdrawal, if [00:09:00] even if you're getting dividends and interest, you can set up alerts.
It might be boring sometimes, but sometimes, it might come in handy. I have already mentioned this. Another way to protect yourself is to hang up and call back on the number listed on the firm's official website. And I know this is super tricky and a lot of older people are not into listening to podcasts.
So if you have your mom or your dad or your aunt or uncle that you think could be susceptible to this. I highly recommend that you at least talk to them about what they need to do, because I have seen some elderly people get very caught up in this urgency because they don't want to be ripped off. And so they do think that these institutions are calling them and saying, Hey, we're trying to help you out.
We really, they're just trying to get all these information from them to harvest. All of their information. And then once they have all that information, they could go to all of the major custodians and try, the same email address and say they lost the password and that sort of thing.
So you don't ever want to give them all those credentials enable your two factor [00:10:00] authentication and use a very strong password. Okay, we're past the days of using, I used to use the same word for everything. We are past the day, the days of being able to do that. You need to have a very strong password with symbols and numbers and especially for your financial things.
And I even go as far as, I have a separate email strictly for all of my financial accounts. So banks, crypto. Anything that is sensitive, I have a one separate email that isn't even a Gmail. And I use that specifically for financial things so that I know if it's coming to this other Gmail account, it is not, it's not real.
And that has helped it because. It's I, this other Gmail account I have had for years and years, whereas this other one is newer, so it's not out there. So I would recommend maybe doing that too, so that you're basically creating like a, a box for your financials. So the email all goes there, your two factor authentication goes there.
You can use your cell [00:11:00] phone if you want, but I have seen things where they will port your cell phone and take it over. That goes into a whole another thing. You need to make sure that they can't port, move your cell phone. And there is a button that you can go in and log into Verizon or to T-Mobile or whoever you have, and click the button that basically says that your number cannot move to any other carrier no matter what, unless.
You uncheck that box or that, they go through a whole system. It's like putting a fraud alert on your credit. So anyway, back to ways to protect yourself. Don't share your personal or financial information over the phone unless you initiated the call using a verified number. So if they start asking for information, you're going to immediately hang up.
Look for another phone number. Look for the phone number on the website, and then you can give your financial information if you know that you're calling that company. And then I think if you see any suspicious activity, you need to call your investment advisor your custodian, things like that. It's really being vigilant, but you [00:12:00] can circumvent a lot of this just by setting up the alerts and the two factor authentication that is already available in your email and in all of your accounts.
So you do wanna make sure that you have those things set up. And then I have the Authenticator app, so you know, every single time I log in, I have to put in like a six digit code. Those. Really are a pain. 'cause sometimes you don't have your phone right there, things like that. But that really will lock it down.
My only recommendation there is just because it happened to me, is I switched phones and I didn't change my authenticator app and it took me months to gain access to a lot of things and I actually lost. Access to my Instagram forever, and I had to change. Which isn't financial, so if you do have an authenticator app, make sure when you get a new phone that you transfer all that information over to your new phone.
Otherwise you're gonna be in a world of hurt. But it does create a lot of safety in your accounts. You can oftentimes click, remember this computer for 30 days, that sort of thing. But,
Final Thoughts and Recommendations
I do think you need to be vigilant about all this financial fraud that is going on, [00:13:00] and if you haven't set up the two factor authentication or alerts on your account maybe go into one and just do it slowly over time or as you're in there.
It is very important to do because once the money is gone from your account, there is not really anything that people can do. So please share this with your friends and your family. And I'm going to put this a lot in the show notes, if people are not all about listening to this. And again, the other episode that I mentioned is episode 30 and it's about title fraud and that is about people taking over the title of a house or a piece of land or often a vacant house and people not knowing it.
And then once that's done and they will resell the house. Then there's not a way to actually get that real estate back. So I urge you to also listen to that one because that one is really interesting. And if you have any questions please feel free to reach out. I'm happy to help.
And thank you so much for listening. If you have any topics or anything, I would love to hear that. Or if you would care to leave a review for the show, that would help me tremendously. And thank you so much [00:14:00] for listening. I really have a good time with us. So have a great day guys. Thanks.
Conclusion and Next Steps
Thank you for listening to the Unconventional Investor Podcast. I hope you feel more confident in how you can grow your wealth using the strategies I shared in this episode. If you're ready to take the next step in diversifying your portfolio
outside the stock market with alternative investments, head to mefinancial.net/contactus to book a 15 minute consult call with me.Let's discuss how we can work together to achieve your financial goals. Until then, I'll see you on the next episode.
Disclaimer: The information provided in this podcast is for general informational purposes only and should not be construed as professional financial advice. Always consult with a qualified financial advisor or professional before making any financial decisions. The hosts and guests of this podcast are not responsible for any actions taken based on the information presented.