Cyber Safe Series
A letter from our founder
Greetings to our wonderful clients, referral partners and Fiscal Harmony community.
We are so grateful for each and every one of you.
It is our purpose to help our clients achieve inter-generational wealth; our SCORED model is built on that premise.
A few years ago, we heard a very sad story indeed about an elderly parent who had been scammed…..egregiously. It frankly broke our hearts to hear the details of just how much fear had been induced to manipulate the woman to send significant amounts of hard won savings out of the country to scammers.
Scamming has been around for a very long time sadly. We’ve all heard the Nigerian prince scams etc. and probably have thought to ourselves how sad, and this wouldn’t happen to me. I thought the very same thing…..until reading the sentencing of a bank CEO who had fallen prey to a pig butchering scam. He was sentenced in November of 2024 after committing fraud in the tens of millions of dollars. The CEO embezzled client funds as he fell prey to a complex crypto scheme and in doing so ruined many lives in the community he lived.
According to the Podcast Scam Inc on the Economist, and the amazing work of Erin West founder of Operation Shamrock and host of the podcast Stolen; scam victims under 50 are as numerous as victims over 50. And the dollar losses and numbers of victims are growing….
As an educator, I’ve always believed knowledge is power. So that’s our goal; up our game of information to help protect you, your family, your loved ones, your friends. Unfortunately there will always be darkness, but it tends to retreat when a bright light shines on it.
This month; our tip is that scams are unfortunately using artificial intelligence to learn more about us, and use our distraction against us.
Tip #1; take a breath.
Scammers know we are busy….they’re counting on it. If you receive an email or text that looks suspicious it probably is and the best course of action is to delete. Erin West said it best, ASSUME it’s a scam until proven otherwise. This months message: take a breath and don’t react and when in doubt delete.