Our CEO Tried to Scam Me
Speaker 1: This is an opportunity to extend the warranty coverage on your vehicle before it’s too late to take advantage of this opportunity. Predatory now.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Hi, I’m Rachel Hampton.
Madison Malone: And I’m Madison Malone Kircher. You’re listening to ICYMI.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: In Case You Missed It.
Madison Malone: Slate’s podcast about Internet.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Culture. And we have good news, huh? What a treat. I mean, once again, Abdelhamid, she is coming through and providing us the incredible happy feelings that we need to make it through these dark times.
Madison Malone: What we’re saying is Emmy nominations came out this week and Albert Elementary is in it to win it.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Sweeping the nominations.
Madison Malone: Abbott Elementary, which is a delightful comedy we’ve recommended many times, has been nominated for an outstanding comedy series, Emmy. Rachel Joy to continue with the list.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: I would its creator, Quinta Brunson, scored two more Emmy nominations just for herself for lead actress in a comedy series and outstanding writing in a comedy series.
Madison Malone: Tyler James Williams was nominated for supporting actor and both Janelle James and Sheryl Lee Ralph found themselves nominated for supporting actress in a comedy series. And if I ran the Emmys, I would give to in that category this year. I’m just saying, I.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: It’s it should be an option.
Madison Malone: If you haven’t watched Abbott Elementary, just do it. Thank us later and then go listen to our episode about desking, which is a fake TikTok challenge that they made up in Abbott Elementary, which is like the most delightfully accurate representation of how challenges work online I think we’ve seen in popular culture to date.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: I mean, and it makes sense because it’s coming from none other than Quinto, who we should always know got her start online. She is one of, I would say, this generation’s first Internet talents that has made its way to mainstream fame.
Madison Malone: Take us through the journey, Rachel.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: I mean, you’ve been posting videos on Instagram, remember? Oh, he got money. Don’t mean nasty. Nasty. But he got money, though. We saw her on BuzzFeed with the whole cache of talent that if you want to find out why they left BuzzFeed, there are a lot of videos called Why You.
Madison Malone: Will Never Watch Anything Else on YouTube again. If you take this into the search bar, don’t do it. And now she’s on prime time television in less than a decade. I mean, suck it. Charli D’amelio Dixie, which one had the reality show? Was it? All of them?
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: It was, I think the whole family, if I’m not mistaken, all of this is just the best news. Absolutely fantastic. And I will say that there’s a highlight of this highlight, which is the video Sheryl Lee Ralph, which is posted by her son on Instagram. And it’s of her receiving the call that she earned the nomination, which is long overdue, I feel we must say.
Speaker 1: Well, well, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, my God. You got nominated.
Speaker 4: Oh, my God. It was.
Madison Malone: It’s just the way he says, Mommy. I don’t know that I have ever been that loving towards any of my parents in my life, and I feel regrets about this. Like, this is the bar.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: I mean, her children have been absolutely amazing throughout this entire press cycle. Her daughter has been the one dressing her on red carpets. And so you’ll see her tweet. This is what I was thinking for the idea for mom this week. Like we’re going all bright colors like Miss Sheryl Lee Ralph for an Emmy. And it worked.
Madison Malone: It’s funny, I was telling my girlfriend about this video and how, you know, long overdue. Sheryl Lee Ralph has been working for decades, steadily in television, just sort of like you’re watching a show and there she is. And I kid you not. We’re watching Motherland, Fort Salem, which is a show about which is it’s not great, but it’s very gay. And we look up and would you believe she plays the president of the United States?
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Can we make her the actual president of the United States?
Madison Malone: No. But we can attempt to make her an Emmy winner. We don’t actually have that power, but we’re.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Going to say we’re voting body can manifest. Manifest like in the nominations, like the Kids Choice Awards, where you just vote.
Madison Malone: And then you get a.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Surfboard. Surfboard.
Madison Malone: All right. So that’s the good news for the day. Enjoy it. Roll around in it like a little piggy in the mud.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: And rewatch the video of that phone call as many times as me and Madison have, which we will not disclose on air.
Madison Malone: Speaking of phone calls, though, that’s actually kind of what we’re talking about today, because scams, they’re everywhere. They’re back. Well, I guess they never really left.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Like, where did they go?
Madison Malone: They took a nice vacation, a little PTO. They’re back. And it feels like recently our phones just will not stop buzzing with phone calls and texts and DMS from unknown numbers, constantly trying to alert us to our expired car warranties, our IRS failures, and our absolutely non-existent, overdue medical bills.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Sorry, I was getting a spam off.
Madison Malone: We have been trying to reach you about your car’s extended warranty.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: I don’t even have a driver’s license.
Madison Malone: After the break, we’ll be back to talk about our own recent brushes with scams and why they have suddenly started feeling so inescapable.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: More scams after the break.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: And we’re back. So, Madison, what made you think we need to talk about this right now? As as in we don’t talk about scams enough on this podcast.
Madison Malone: The CEO of Slate tried to scare me. Parentheses, not clickbait, parentheses, story time.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: What?
Madison Malone: Yeah. So our CEO tried to scam me.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Please tell me more.
Madison Malone: So a couple of weeks ago, 7:00 on a monday night, and I got a text from a number I don’t recognize. Hmm. Hi, Madison. I’m in a conference call right now. Can’t talk on the phone, but let me know if you got my text. Thanks. Dan, check.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Dan, check.
Madison Malone: Dan, check is the CEO of our company. We’ve had a few conversations. We do not work together intimately in any way. We certainly do not text. I best know him as the man who one time when we did a show about what Instagram ads convinced our colleagues to buy, and Dan showed us a really great pair of cat pants.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: They were great pants.
Madison Malone: So I get this text. There are no typos, nothing in it. Is all that weird? It rings a few alarm bells in my brain because I do this for a living, but like.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: It could feasibly be real.
Madison Malone: On the off tiny chance that the CEO of our company needs something from me, I respond. Hey, Dan, what’s up? Dan, I have an urgent ask for you. Are you free? I’m suspicious at this point, but I continue because I now just need to confirm what I think is coming. Mm hmm. Is everything okay? Yeah, I’m around. Okay. Says Dan, I’m on a conference call right now, and I need to provide a client with some gift cards. Can you confirm you can get the cards from the nearest store to you? Can you handle this for me now? At which point I do not respond because this is very clearly.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: There we go.
Madison Malone: Classic gift card scam.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: There we go. The moment the gift card enters, the picture is the moment you stop responding. But that is wild. Not only that, the scammer got your phone number, which I swear to God my phone number is everywhere now, but knows the company that you work there and went as far as to find out the CEO of your company.
Madison Malone: It was very specific. Mm hmm. I really hoped and didn’t need those gift cards then.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: If you’re out there listening. Hi. Also sorry you needed those gift cards.
Madison Malone: The gift card scam is, of course, a classic because it works like this. I run out to the store. I use my own credit card to purchase gift cards for this person who is my boss. And then when I go to, you know, give them to my boss via text message, this person is going to ask for the gift card numbers after the fact. My real boss is going to say, What do you mean, that wasn’t me? And then I am out. However, many hundreds of thousands of dollars I spent on my own personal account and someone is off at target.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Living their best life, having an Amazon gift card.
Madison Malone: Having a great time with a MasterCard debit.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. This is one of the oldest scams in the book. If anyone ever asks you for a visa gift card, it’s probably not real unless it’s like a child in your life.
Madison Malone: Have you been scam lately, Rachel?
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: I have not been scammed lately, though I have had many people attempt to scam me. I think I have at least three off the top of my head. There’s one that comes from Twitter, I think every few weeks, ever since I got verified that says your Twitter verification status is under review, please click on this box.
Madison Malone: Did you guys hear that? It was Rachel bragging that she’s verified on Twitter?
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Oh, it took so many years for this to happen. Of course, I’m going to brag about it. And one happened to a friend that I know who was signing up for health care under the Affordable Care Act, which was through the marketplace. And so she was going to a website that I assume, I guess was not healthcare.gov, which is the legitimate website and called the number. And they were trying to get her to sign up and were like, we need your Social Security number for you to sign up. And she was like, well, I don’t know if I want to do this right now. And they just kept pressing. And she talked to like three different people who are like, if you don’t sign up right now, you won’t have coverage in time. And it was only after she had given them her credit card number. I think that she realized that this was not the actual healthcare.gov.
Madison Malone: We live in a failed state.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: We do. The fact that this is such an established scam that there were three people involved in this that kept being like, let me get my boss. Like, maybe they can talk you into it, but like you really need this health care coverage. And she did really need the health care coverage.
Madison Malone: Of course, we’re opening with these stories about us and Rachel’s anonymous friend today, because I think a thing that we get really wrong when we talk about these scams is to act like they don’t happen to online people, like they don’t happen to savvy folks. You’re you’re intentionally getting played.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Yeah. I mean, if you haven’t currently been scammed, you’re kind of like Schrödinger’s cat in that it’s it’s what actually, you know, I don’t think I can make that connection.
Madison Malone: Explain how you think Schrödinger’s cat works. To me.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: It’s Schrodinger’s scam where in which you are constantly in a perpetual I’m going.
Madison Malone: To cut you off. What we’re saying is movement. What we’re saying is Rachel, me, the cat. You are not alone.
Madison Malone: Earlier this week, the Washington Post actually published a piece on how this constant deluge of scams is hurting more than just our wallets. Like it might seem obvious that having to ward off scams like these takes a toll on us. But looking at these actual stories reported out, it’s heartbreaking.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: It really is one of the women that The Post talked to, Pamela McCarroll. She’s currently being treated for cancer. And so unlike me or you or anyone else in the world who can ignore any call coming her way from an unknown number. Pamela can’t do that. So even though the majority of the calls turn out to be spam, she’s on edge every single time the phone rings and it’s exhausting. She even says she started receiving calls about funeral insurance, which is.
Madison Malone: Dark, dark. We will, of course, link this excellent and depressing piece in the show notes, but we’re going to keep talking about it. They also spoke to a woman, Rene, who shared her experience of having received a phone call of what appeared to be her daughter’s number, only to have a man on the other end of the line threatening to murder her daughter if she didn’t send her cash app info, which she believed at first. And then, you know, luckily, sort of something smelled funky to her and the police got involved and checked in and the daughter was fine. And this was all, you know, considered real for a brief moment to Rene because of, you know, number spoofing, which is the thing where this is a bad joke of tweeted many times my tweets delete so you won’t find it. But basically the rise of robocalls has increased the number of times per week, I think, Oh God, someone in my family has died. Because who calls you from your hometown?
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: No one.
Madison Malone: Me neither. But sure enough, spoofed numbers is when robo callers call you from a number that is designed to look like either your phone number or a phone number from the area where your phone comes from. So, of course, I’m like, oh, look, my home town, no one calls me from there except my mother with bad news.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Exactly. I mean, one of the benefits for me, at least, of the fact that my number is a Texas number, because that’s where I got my cell phone and all my medical appointments are in New York, is that I don’t have to worry about whether the random New York number is, in fact, the doctor trying to get in contact with me about my unpaid bill. I know that it actually is an unpaid bill, but whenever it’s from Texas area, I’m like, I don’t know who the fuck that is. And it probably is a spam call on me about my car insurance for a car I don’t own and legally cannot drive.
Madison Malone: I mean, we do have to talk about how fundamentally wild it is that you and I are describing the ways in which we monitor our phone calls to avoid having these interactions. When you should be able to wake up in the morning, turn your ringer on and answer every single phone call and have them be productive.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: I was going to say you should wake up in the morning feeling like pee daddy.
Madison Malone: That’s from the Dr. Luke era. We don’t we don’t go there.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: There. But you know who did go there? A real housewife.
Madison Malone: How did I know you were going to bring reality TV into this?
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Because there’s always a fucking connection. Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Jen Shah has recently pleaded guilty and could go to prison for 11 to 14 years for engaging in a years long telemarketing robocall scheme. Which means that on some level what is happening to all of us is illegal and a prosecutable offense.
Madison Malone: And yet and yet my car’s extended warranty is running out as we speak.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: And it’s not even like this is a new thing. Our former colleague Aaron Mack wrote about a spike in spam calls back in April of this year. So we have been swimming in a pot of boiling scam water for months, if not years. Now.
Madison Malone: What a metaphor, Rachel.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: I can’t swim either.
Madison Malone: It doesn’t matter. The water’s boiling. The swimming skills are not going to save you. I’m really glad we just picked an upper of a topic for today.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Well, there are some uppers in the boiling scam. Waters have given us some absolutely incredible jokes. I don’t know if you’ve seen the trend on Tik Tok. We’ve been trying to reach you about your cars extended warranty coming out of literally nowhere.
Madison Malone: Oh, I’m familiar.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: There’s one I really love from Just Hammy, which I’m just going to let her explain it.
Speaker 5: So I had a colonoscopy today and decided to leave my gastro a little note in my butt cheeks.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Tammy was looking at the camera and then shows us a little piece of folded paper.
Speaker 5: Good morning. We’ve been trying to reach you about your car’s extended warranty.
Madison Malone: This is like kissing, but better Rick.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Rolling. Except. But.
Madison Malone: Okay, that’s all the time we have for fun on this topic because it’s just not fun. According to spam blocking company YOUMAIL, spam calls spiked in March of 2022 at 4.4 billion. There was a two month dip, a nice. A brief moment, a respite. A glimpse of a hot girl, summer, but they’re back up after that dip to 4.3 billion calls a month in June in the United States.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Cool. And the thing is, it’s not just phone calls, which is most of the have been talking about. Are text messages, which is what Madison talked about and also the ones that I’ve been getting a lot. Most recently, there’s been this I don’t want to call it a trend, but this thing where you get put into a group chat with what I call your phone number cousins, which is your phone number, plus or minus some digit, and then one person text the link most recently was put in one with someone who got real mad about this and said, Kill yourself. At which point I was like, Damn. People really are fed up with this.
Madison Malone: Some useful data from this Washington Post piece, which I read three times and just felt very seen by. Last year, consumers reported $5.8 billion in fraud to the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC, which is up 70% from 2020.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Oh, my God.
Madison Malone: Yeah. And to explain that in numbers that apply a little bit more on a personal level, the robo killer, which people use to weed out spam messages, reports that an average smartphone user in the United States will get an estimated 42 spam texts and 28 spam calls each month.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: That feels about right just about accurate summary of my life. What’s wild to me is that there are now apps that are specifically designed to keep people from having to deal with this problem. That is a problem that should be solved by the United States government. So somewhere the United States government is not doing what it needs to do and an app is stepping in and charging people money for a service that should not be needed. I love it. It’s America. It’s capitalism.
Madison Malone: I mean, you bring up a good question. Is there anything that can be done about this? Can the FCC actually get involved and take action, or are we all just doomed to miss that call from Publishers Clearinghouse about the giant check we’ve won because we thought it was spam.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Those are some great questions. And now I’m thinking about the fact that I could be a millionaire and we’ll get into all of that and discuss what we can do, if anything, to protect ourselves after a quick break.
Madison Malone: Hi there. Hope you’re enjoying today’s show. If this is the first time you’re tuning in, then welcome. We are so thrilled that you have joined us. In case you missed it, our show comes out twice a week on Wednesdays and Saturdays. So make sure you never miss an episode like this. Past Wednesday where we talked all about beeps doja cat, that kid from Stranger Things, Cardi B, The Shade Room. Leo Michelle. It’s a good one from. All right. And we are back. We were just talking about the FCC, which is the government organization supposedly in charge of solving this problem. But I’m going to ask a dumb question. Are they actually doing anything to fix it wildly?
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Yes, they are. Oh, they are actually doing a lot. In 2019, all the major phone companies. So Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile.
Madison Malone: Aren’t those just like one giant rap king of a phone company at this point?
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Not yet, because we still have some kind of monopoly protections in this country. But they’re trying.
Madison Malone: Okay. So the phone companies have banded together.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Yes. And pledged to use a new technology called Stir Shaken, which is supposed to crack down on spam calls by requiring phone companies to verify where the calls are coming from.
Madison Malone: Stir shaken like like James Bond.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Yes. They worked backwards from the acronym.
Madison Malone: To, quote, a TV show that is a problematic fave. James is ordering a weak martini and being snooty about it. Is there anything else that’s going to save us from these calls in 2020?
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: The Trump administration actually did something for us, the people in pass legislation meant to deal with the shit ton of robocalls. Keep in mind that was 2020. So we just said that those calls have gone up 70% since then. That legislation was called the Trace Act. The Trace Act increased fines for spam robocalls and required phone companies to speed up their work on developing tech that identifies and prevents robocalls before they reach the consumer. So they’re basically trying to put the responsibility back in the hands of the people that it should be, which is phone companies, to actually start working on some kind of technology to stop this from happening. And also fining robo callers for doing what they’re going to do, which is why Dan Schorr is going to prison.
Madison Malone: But all of this sounds great. It really it really does. It still seems like nothing is going to stop scammers from coming for us.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: I mean, it’s true, a lot of what the FCC is currently working on is that as they’re finding and finding robocalls in the United States, they just move overseas. So in May of this year, the FCC passed regulations targeting overseas scammers who are targeting U.S. citizens. These regulations have to do with what’s called gateway providers, which sounds like gateway drugs.
Madison Malone: Except these are fun.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: And they facilitate international calls. And so they’re making these gateway providers have to do more work to verify that the calls coming in are legitimate. And the agency is also trying to crack down on robotics, too. But that proposal is still pending. What I’m saying is the FCC is actually trying and yet.
Madison Malone: And yet I just it feels truly like you’ve solve one problem in ten more pop up, more Whac-A-Mole or let’s go Greek cut off its head and three hydra hydra. I guess that’s Marvel also according to CNET the robot.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Them.
Madison Malone: And you know I love them according to see that the robocalls have moved on from spoofing numbers and are now buying lists of phone numbers to trick the spam blocking technology. Once again, I’m just going to say, it is it’s actually insane that we live in a country where we can’t use our phones.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: And I think what always strikes me about problems like these, where we’re playing whack a mole, is that theoretically, we live in a country that is primed to solve problems like this because of like capitalism and competition and market.
Madison Malone: Emphasis, theoretically.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: I mean, that’s the that’s the kind of draw of capitalism, right? Is that if you throw enough money at a problem, then it’ll be fix. But importantly, with this problem, no one who has the money really gives a shit because all that’s happening is that the average U.S. consumer is suffering. There’s no money in solving suffering. So we’re all just suffering.
Madison Malone: We are in, you know, suffering extra. Those of us who think we are not susceptible to scams, that we are too smart to get scammed because that is just putting a giant neon arrow above your head. The blinking sign that says, Scam me, scam me.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: That’s kind of the draw of scam content to my mind, which is that because there is no intervention coming from Silicon Valley or from the government or from some caped crusader who actually has the money to fix this, it’s all individual level solutions, and nothing makes individuals feel better than having more knowledge. And so more knowledge in this case ends up becoming a scam content. But arming yourself with that knowledge will not actually prevent you from getting scam. Just like consuming true crime content will not prevent you from becoming the victim of a crime.
Madison Malone: Sure you’re safe from getting true crime.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: I mean, honestly, you might end up getting to crime.
Madison Malone: America.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Oh, man. Huh?
Madison Malone: I prefer when we sing the Jovian theme song.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: I bet Genovia doesn’t have scam calls.
Madison Malone: Well, they make their phone calls on purpose, so it’s very low tech over there.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Again, no scam calls. And it sounds like it smells delicious.
Madison Malone: It does. Or saying is don’t feel ashamed if you get caught by a scam. Truly. They’re coming for us all. And if you haven’t been scammed yet. Watch your back.
Madison Malone: One thing that The Washington Post piece pointed out and that I think immediately comes to mind when we talk about telephone scams, are the older adult population who are much more likely to be taken advantage of and whose losses could be significantly worse because of your scam and my 20 year old? But okay, fine.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: I’ll probably just tweet about it to be completely honest.
Madison Malone: Number that you’re not getting to Connecticut on what is in that bank account. But, you know, an older retiree. You know the stories. I don’t need to lay them out. They’re horrifying.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: I mean, also because scams as we know them are becoming increasingly personalized in the way that Dan Chet texted Madison and told her that he needed a gift card.
Madison Malone: We should probably run this whole episode by boat, then check out our lawyer.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Hi, Dan. Jack.
Madison Malone: Hi, lawyer. Exactly. Because, you know, they prey on real human emotion. For me, it was. Oh, God, does the CEO of our company need me to do something? I want to be a good employee. In terms of elder scamming, we’re talking about loneliness or fear. You know, having somebody on the phone to talk to you all of a sudden.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: And the fact that we, as a mean you are constantly finding ways to avoid picking up spam calls because we are extremely online and have the ability to do that. That doesn’t exist for an older population that is not as Internet literate as me and you, and also shouldn’t have to be to avoid getting their retirement savings taken from them.
Madison Malone: Not to mention, I am fully unembarrassed to admit that for a brief moment I thought Dan Chuck was texting me. But if you’re an older person who gets scammed, the feelings of shame are, you know, there’s a reason we don’t talk about this nearly as much as we should.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Basically what we’re saying is call your grandparents and check on them or your elderly parents or any other elder in your life and tell them, please don’t pick up that number from Wisconsin. Make sure.
Madison Malone: You call them from a number they recognize.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Or, you know, knock on their door.
Madison Malone: There are certainly a few things you can do to stay vigilant about scam attempts. Here’s the part where we try to give you some uplifting advice before we leave. You read your emails and messages very carefully. All I’m saying is if there’s one too many O’s in Google, it’s probably actually not an email from Google.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Check the email address of where it’s coming from. That is actually one of the biggest tip offs of where a scam email could be coming from.
Madison Malone: Is it a capital guy or is it a lowercase l?
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Who knows? Is there an extra T in Twitter.
Madison Malone: Be suspicious of incoming calls and texts from unknown numbers? I’m sorry. Perhaps the the giant check from the clearing house will come for me someday. But until then, I’m going to be giving them a little side eye and constant vigilance. It sucks that there really is no good, like hard and fast. If you do these three things, you will be safe forever.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: I mean, again, we have both almost gotten taken in and we do all of these things. And I have honestly reached a point recently where if I get scam, I get scammed and I’m not going to feel bad about it because they’re evolving and I can’t keep up and I’m just so tired, you know?
Madison Malone: What were you just saying the other day? What’s the Jurassic Park Line life?
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: We’ll find a way.
Madison Malone: Scammers will find a way.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Oh, they will. If there’s anything. Scammers like cockroaches, to be completely honest, if there’s anything that’s going to keep coming back, it’s going to be the scam.
Madison Malone: So we can only fix this if the system changes. So we’re going to end at our usual spot here on. I see. Why am I which is? Make some phone calls.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: Call your senators, call.
Madison Malone: Your grandparents, call Rachel’s grandparents.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: They love that.
Madison Malone: But all right. That’s the show. We’ll be back in your feed on Wednesday. So definitely subscribe. It’s the best way to make sure you never miss an episode and all of our helpful tech tips. We know you love them. Please leave us a rating review in Apple and Spotify. Tell your friends about us. You can follow us on Twitter at ICYMI Underscore Pod. Feel free to DMS. Screenshots of the wild texts you’ve received from your not not CEO. You can also email us. We are IRS. Why am I at Slate.com?
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: I see why I am. I was produced by Daniel Schroeder, Mannesmann, Kircher and me. Rachael Hampton Daisy Rosario is our senior supervising producer and Lisa montgomery is Slate’s VP of Audio See online.
Madison Malone: We’ve been trying to reach you about your car’s extended warranty.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: To BuzzFeed, where we saw her with a whole cache of talent.
Madison Malone: Like a cache?
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: No case. It’s a.
Madison Malone: Case joke.
Rachel Hansen, Rachel Hampton: In case you missed it. Okay.
