Outsmarting Fraudsters: A Talk with Dr. Kathleen Gowin

Want to protect your hard-earned money from the clutches of fraudsters? We've got banking veteran Dr. Kathleen Gowin spilling the beans on how to guard your financial health. With over four decades of banking experience, she uncovers the latest scams and frauds plaguing the industry and why seniors, especially those in the Villages, are often targeted. Don't miss out as we dissect protective measures like avoiding clicking on email links, even those seemingly from trusted sources.

As an added bonus, Dr. Gowin shares her pearls of wisdom on fortifying the safety of your bank accounts. She highlights crucial practices like using a dedicated device for online banking, setting up bank alerts, and employing multi-factor authentication. She also recommends a separate credit card for recurring payments and regularly changing passwords for financial sites. 

And that's not all, we also have Dr. Craig Curtis sharing his valuable insights on low impact exercises for improved brain health. 

Don't miss out on this enlightening conversation designed to safeguard your financial well-being!

Transcript

Emily: 0:10

Welcome to the Open Forum in the Villages, florida podcast. In this show we talk to leaders in the community, leaders of clubs and interesting folks who live here in the villages to give perspectives of what is happening here in the villages. We hope to add a new episode most Fridays at 9am. We are a listener supported podcast. You can become a supporter for as little as $3 per month or you can choose to pay more. To become a supporter, go to openforminthevillagescom and click on support in the black box. There will be shoutouts for supporters in episodes.

Emily: 0:41

In season 4, we have made some dramatic improvements and changes. First is a clarification of the podcast's title. It is open forum in the villages, florida. To make clear that this is a regional show, independently produced for folks who live in central Florida and the villages areas. It is a dramatic increase in the use of AI in the creation of each episode. These include a transcript of each show. Please understand that there may be errors inserted by the AI that may not be caught before the transcript is published. However, this is a dramatic step forward. We will now include chapter markers for each show. The show description text will be AI generated. In fact, the show's announcers are now all AI voices, including me, emily. Hope you enjoy.

Mike Roth: 1:22

This is Open forum in the villages florida. I'm here today with Dr Kathleen Gowin. Thanks for joining me, Kathleen.

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 1:28

Thank you, mike, I appreciate being on your show.

Mike Roth: 1:31

Dr Gowin is an accomplished executive with over 40 years in banking. She's held leadership positions in Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase. She now has a consulting firm to assess banks on their fraud detection capabilities based on regulatory requirements. She and her husband moved to the villages in February of 2022. Thanks again for joining me, Kathleen. It's an interesting to do consulting for banks on fraud detection and regulatory requirements. What are the latest trends in frauds and scams?

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 2:04

Well, as you might imagine, Mike, there's always increased fraud as the fraudsters get more creative. Banks need to develop more controls as fraudsters get more creative. That's where my role comes in, which is working with banks.

Mike Roth: 2:18

What is the most common fraud that you see committed with banks?

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 2:22

I'd say the most common fraud would be a fraudster trying to get a customer to send funds directly to the fraudster, but impersonating a representative of the bank or a representative of a government agency. They're very intent to separate you from your money.

Mike Roth: 2:42

That happens by the fraudsters sending emails or telephone calls to consumers.

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 2:48

The easiest way for fraudsters to commit that fraud is through either a text message or a phone call. We fall for these easily because we think we're trusting and we believe what the fraudster is telling us we want to believe. Unfortunately, the fraudsters recognize that and they capitalize on that. They'll try to build a relationship with you or try to maybe encourage you to take action.

Mike Roth: 3:16

Can you give us an example?

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 3:17

Somebody might call and say they are from your bank and there's been attempted fraud on your account. As a result, they need to backtrack on some of your transactions to see if those are your transactions or if they're fraudulent.

Mike Roth: 3:33

If the bank calls you and attempts to ask you to go over some old transactions, should the consumer just hang up on that call?

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 3:40

Absolutely, Mike. If you get a phone call from someone who says they're from your bank, the best thing you can do is hang up and then call the number that's on the back of your credit card or your debit card and ask for the fraud department.

Mike Roth: 3:53

I see, don't call back to the number that the fraudster gives you from the phone Correct. If that will be answered by a co-conspirator who says Bank of America.

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 4:02

That's right. We fall for that because it's so easy. Or you might see it in an email that it'll say we've detected fraud on your account. Please call your customer service representative at the following number. Don't call that number. Instead, look at the number on the back of your credit card or debit card and call that number and ask for the fraud department.

Mike Roth: 4:22

What you're saying is it's not safe to go to the web and say the Fraud Department from Bank of America it is absolutely not safe to do that.

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 4:30

Fraudsters will create websites that look very much like the bank's website, and you'll be taken in by that.

Mike Roth: 4:36

Didn't realize that. Why are seniors, especially seniors here in the villages, so frequently the victims of fraud?

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 4:42

I've got with you some interesting statistics on seniors and fraud In. Florida is the second largest state when it comes to fraud, right behind California. There was something like 45,000 attempts for people between the ages of 50 and 75.

Mike Roth: 5:00

How were they counted as attempts?

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 5:02

These will come from individuals who will then contact law enforcement and say that they believe that they're a victim of fraud. You can imagine there's probably many, many times more fraudulent attempts that are never reported, and then that means it doesn't get picked up in the statistics.

Mike Roth: 5:19

When I get these emails from people that I don't know, claiming to be my accounts payable department or accounts receivable department, the right thing to do is just delete them.

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 5:28

Better to find another channel to contact that department. If you have a phone number, a trusted phone number, you can give them a call and say I just got this email. Don't use email to respond back because you could, in essence, be contacting the fraudster. Pick another channel. If they sent you an email, then call them on the phone. If they called you on the phone, then send them an email.

Mike Roth: 5:52

These emails that come in saying we have a fax or a voicemail message for you with a link to an HTML file. What should the consumer do?

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 6:01

I think you already know the answer to this, mike. You do not click on links in emails, even if it's from a what appears to be a trusted person. So, for example, if my husband sends me an email and says hi, Kathy, click this link. Well, I never go by Kathy, so I know already that's a fraudulent email. But other emails can look very legitimate. They'll use the logos for the organization. They might use an email address that looks very similar. Maybe they've just added one extra character. If you think you have an email with a suspicious nature to it, the best thing to do delete the email, never click the link. Then what you can do is Google it and go to try to find that same information on your own, without the benefit of having clicked the link.

Mike Roth: 6:51

I've seen fraudulent emails like that from good companies like Microsoft and UPS. When you see that flashing screen that says don't turn off your computer, call this number, the first thing you should do is turn off your computer, reboot your computer. You went to a website that's run by a fraudster, probably from the site that you were on just before. Okay, Kathleen, let me tell you a joke that I put into each show for my grandson, Evan why did the melon jump into the river?

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 7:18

I have no idea.

Mike Roth: 7:19

Because it wanted to be a water e.

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 7:22

Wow, how old is your grandson?

Mike Roth: 7:24

I don't know. He's about 12 now.

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 7:26

Okay, that's age appropriate.

Mike Roth: 7:27

Age appropriate. That's good, kathleen. How do banks identify suspicious transactions?

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 7:33

Banks have developed, over many years, platforms designed to identify suspicious transactions, and they do this because they know you, they know your behaviors, they know your activity. So they've created platforms that have, oh, let's say, 500 different parameters that are checked, and they do this with every one of your online sessions. They also do this with every one of your credit card transactions. Would you like to hear some examples of what banks do?

Mike Roth: 7:59

Yeah, what are they looking for?

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 8:00

First say look, if you're logging in. They look at some very basic characteristics Like what time of the day are you logging in? Is that what time you usually log in? They also look at the geographic location and your IP address. That'll say where your device is actually located. So if you normally log in for your bank at nine in the morning from the villages and then the next login attempt comes at 2 am from Tahiti, that will raise a red flag to the bank.

Mike Roth: 8:28

Mm-hmm. Well, some people use VPNs and their source IP address is invisible.

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 8:35

That's a real thorn in the side of banks who are trying to do these behavior checks.

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 8:39

So they'll either go to another set of standards to look at and I can talk about those in a minute or they will ask you to provide maybe a two-factor authentication, if they're just not sure it's you, so they might send a code to your cell phone asking you to respond. They also look at behavior scores on the actual transaction. Is the dollar amount how much you normally spend? Is the person you're paying or the merchant you're going to with your credit card? Are they typical for you? They look especially to see if you're sending money outside of the US, and they also look especially closely at cryptocurrency transactions. And all of these and I said there's 500 or so, these are just a few examples all of these generate what's called a risk score. If the risk score is too high, then the bank might stop the online session, they might freeze your account, they might decline your credit card transaction. They will take action in order to mitigate the risk, not only to you but to the bank.

Mike Roth: 9:42

You talked about the banks. What about the credit card companies? Going back 10 years, I remember credit card companies calling me and questioning transactions that they didn't understand as I traveled to a country in Europe.

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 9:55

So that's a two-part question there. The first part is you should know you should hang up and then call the number on the back of your credit card, because that could be a fraudster trying to find things. They might say what are the last four digits of your card number? What is the address to which we mail your bank statement? They're trying to gain information from you and then they'll try to call the bank and impersonate you and that, by the way, is called an account takeover attempt. The second part of that question is when you're traveling, you need to tell your bank where you're going and that is, in part, for the bank to identify if there's a location where the transaction is coming from.

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 10:36

I just got back from a trip to Ireland. However, many banks now are starting to use or take advantage of data they already have. So, for example, my bank knew I had bought an airline ticket to Ireland several months ago. Now, when they see I'm in Ireland, they can match those two records together and I don't get bothered and I didn't have to call ahead of time. Not all banks are there yet. Some of them are, some of them aren't, but different banks will handle transactions in another country in different ways.

Mike Roth: 11:08

Well, if I make the transaction to buy the airline ticket with American Express, all the bank knows is the amount of money I sent to American Express, not that I bought an airline ticket to England.

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 11:18

You'd be surprised, mike, how much information the bank has on that transaction. So they have additional data Beyond the name of the merchant and the dollar amount. In the case of an airline ticket, they also know the ticket number, the record locator number, they know the departure city, the destination city, and they know more information about that transaction because it's been passed to them by the Airlines in order to do this kind of fraud checking.

Mike Roth: 11:44

Well, that seems like it's a good protection for consumers.

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 11:46

Yes, it is, until it gets annoying right. Well, I fact I frankly find two-factor Authentication both annoying and good in which do you feel it is for your bank accounts, annoying or good?

Mike Roth: 11:58

Well, it's probably good there, but what? Every time I have to deal with Apple and it's a two-factor Authentication where they call me, then I have to input a code to my computer before they'll give me access to my accounts. It's definitely annoying.

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 12:12

I would say any type of online, online activity you do that involves a financial transaction. If that Provider offers two-factor authentication, then you should definitely take advantage of it. It's a way to protect you from the fraudsters.

Mike Roth: 12:28

What do you think of the biometric Identification that's currently available for on some phones and computers?

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 12:35

Well, actually, banks are using biometric data now in order to Identify if the transaction is risky. If you'll recall, I said a few minutes ago, they use about 500 different Parameters to look at a transaction. So, for example, they can tell how fast you type, they can tell how hard you're hitting the keyboard on your phone and they can also watch how you move from one screen to another screen. And so if the typing isn't correct, if the speed isn't correct, or if the pressing of the digits on the phone isn't correct, or if you're pressing the digits on the phone too quickly, that will trigger a response by the bank to investigate the transaction or the session online a little bit closer to see if it's really you right.

Mike Roth: 13:20

When you said moving screen to screen, I was a little bit concerned because here in the studio, where we have four screens, Right you're talking about the screen on your cell phone.

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 13:29

I'm talking about the screen on your cell phone or the screen on whatever device you're using to access your bank online.

Mike Roth: 13:35

You're talking about going from web page to web page. Okay, now I'm with you. What are some of the things? If you can give our listeners four or five things that they should do to ensure the safety of their bank accounts, Well, there are several things I like to recommend.

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 13:50

The first I like to recommend is to have a separate device that you use for online banking, and use it only For online banking. You can buy a laptop or a tablet for just a few hundred dollars. Log use that to log into your bank accounts. Do not go anywhere else, do not go to social media, do not go to email, do not go to any other sites on the internet. In other words, this second device is dedicated to online banking only. That will protect you from malware and other Suspicious software that a fraudster might try to load on to your device.

Mike Roth: 14:25

That's a good idea, I think.

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 14:27

A second thing I like to recommend is to sign up for alerts from your bank, and that could be. Example is if a ATM transaction occurs, please notify me, or if a dollar Transaction is more than two hundred dollars, please notify me. Most banks offer alerts and they can be very helpful in preventing frauds fraud attacks. The third is we already talked about this, and that's multi-factor authentication. Be sure to sign up for that. If it's offered and this isn't just Banks use it for any of your shopping websites.

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 15:01

And the last one would be you're going to find this unusual, but I would suggest that for any repetitive payments that you have on credit cards, to have a separate credit card and use it only for that. In fact, my husband and I do this. We have a separate mastercard for repetitive payments and we keep it locked in our safe so we're not ever tempted to have it in our wallet. That way, if your primary credit card is compromised, all those repetitive payments are still in place and you don't have to change all that information.

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 15:31

Well, that sounds like a pretty good idea it's easy to get credit cards if your credit score is decent and you can find a no annual fee card with no minimum spending limit pretty easily on the internet and sign up for that good, we're gonna take a little break here and listen to dr Craig Curtis give us an Alzheimer's tip.

Mike Roth: 15:49

Dr Curtis, and in past tips You've told our listeners to walk is a good exercise five days a week. Is there any other exercise that they can do which will be beneficial to their brains, which is not going to be terribly Exerting or can be accomplished by people who have weak hip joints or weak knee joints or shoulder joints?

Dr. Craig Curtis: 16:09

absolutely any type of exercise what we call moderate exercise can help brain health, such as a stationary bicycle, simply pedaling a stationary bicycle. It's very low stress on the joints, it's very good for your heart and very good for your brain.

Warren: 16:25

With over 20 years of experience studying brain health, dr Curtis's goal is to educate the village's community on how to live a longer, healthier life. To learn more, visit his website, craigcurtismd. com, or call 352-500-5252 to attend a free seminar. This is my craw.

Mike Roth: 16:42

I'm picking up again with Dr Kathleen Gowin.

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 16:45

Any options that your bank offers you for more security, you should consider adopting it. So if you have an opportunity to do fingerprinting with your phone, I would suggest that If they offer you voice printing. So if you're calling the customer service center, I would suggest that banks are here to help protect you from fraud and scammers. So if they offer services, consider that as something that would be a good investment in protecting your own money.

Mike Roth: 17:16

What about services, banks or credit cards that offer one-time passwords?

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 17:21

That's an emerging trend using one-time passwords, and it is also a security measure. So if your bank offers that, my recommendation would be for you to check into that and give that a try. Paypal has done something similar for many years and now others are starting to adopt it, which is also using an identifier that is not your actual bank account number or your actual credit card number. It's a virtual number. So any services that offer replacement account numbers again, I would recommend you look into them.

Mike Roth: 17:53

Mm-hmm, what do you think of the various software programs that are in the cloud that remember all of your usernames and passwords?

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 18:01

If your listeners could see me, they would see me cringing. All data can be hacked and if you decide you want to use some sort of a password keeper, just remember there's still a risk with doing so. I've had others who've asked me well, what if I keep all my passwords on a spreadsheet and I keep it on my computer and actually that happens to be what I do, but I have a password protection on that worksheet and yet still I have other individuals who'll say well, I write all my passwords down in a notebook and that's fine. Actually, that's probably the safest of all, because you can't hack a notebook. But just be mindful where you keep the notebook. Don't carry it around in your purse every day, keep it at home, keep it in a safe or keep it someplace where somebody can't pick it up and leave with it.

Mike Roth: 18:49

Mm-hmm. I looked at the whole issue of password keepers and determined that I had over 1,500 passwords and it was a very difficult decision of what to do because it was unmanageable on paper. Unfortunately, there's no standard around passwords and you can't reuse the password because that's a safety violation in and of itself.

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 19:09

So now is my turn to make you cringe, and one of my recommendations is that you should change the passwords for any financial site at least every three months, and you should use a different password with each one. Don't use the same password, and I say that because there was some fraud several years back where the hackers were able to get ahold of passwords to one bank and they successfully used those same passwords at other financial institutions, and so that victim lost not just the funds from the first bank account, but they were literally cleaned out of their brokerage account and bank accounts other places.

Mike Roth: 19:46

Kathleen, what are the five things that we should stop doing to reduce the chances that we'll all become victims of fraud or a scam?

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 19:56

Well, Mike, I have five recommendations of things to stop doing. Number one stop clicking on links and emails and, in text messages, Find another way to get at the information. The second is never give out your personal information, and we hear this so many times through other agencies and public service announcements, but you'd be amazed how often especially senior citizens feel it's okay to tell the caller hey, this is my Medicare number or this is my social security number.

Mike Roth: 20:26

So Medicare number, social security numbers, bank account numbers credit card numbers are all taboo.

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 20:32

That's correct. If somebody is asking for you to provide that information, chances are it's a scammer and you should just hang up. Something else that I recommend is, whenever you feel like you're being pressured to make a payment quickly, that can be an indication it might be fraud. So someone's called you and said I'm from your bank and we're going to have to shut off your account unless you can provide your account number where we can reopen and reestablish the account Anytime you feel like you're being pressured, that could be an indication.

Mike Roth: 21:02

But they put a time pressure on.

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 21:03

That's right you have to do it now Do it and act now, before the end of the day, or something terrible is going to happen. That's what to look out for. Something else that is very prevalent within the industry is caller ID can be spoofed, thank you, as can email addresses. So if you get a call on your cell phone and it doesn't match to one of your contacts, even though it looks like it might be legitimate, like maybe it has a current area code, I'd still say let that go to voicemail and then call back later, because they can spoof the phone number. They can spoof the email.

Mike Roth: 21:38

What do you think of these text messages that people get that just begin with hello and it's from a number that you don't know?

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 21:45

I think you already know the answer to this, mike.

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 21:48

Delete the text message, don't open it, don't click on the link and, for heaven's sakes, as trusting as we are, don't call the person back and say I think you have the wrong text number here. Then they're for sure that they know that's a legitimate number and there's a live human. Many of these messages that go out go out by the thousands because they're generated by robots and if you don't respond and if you don't click and if you don't call back, they don't know it's a real number. Something we've seen that has occurred with spoof identities is small business might receive an email from what looks to be the president of the company saying quickly, email or wire transfer $100,000. I'm really busy right now you have to get this done by the end of the day and it looks like it's coming from, say, the CEO or the president or the treasurer, and that is a very recent scam that's affecting businesses and it's very difficult, if you do a wire transfer, to get those funds back. A wire transfer is intended to be immediate and final.

Mike Roth: 22:55

I'm glad you brought that up. What is the recourse that consumers may have if they've been scammed, or what should they do?

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 23:02

If you've been scammed and it's a credit card or a debit card type transaction or online banking, the first thing you do is you look at the phone number on the back of your credit or debit card, call your bank, report it immediately. There are regulations in place that can protect you as a consumer and can help return those funds. I will caution you that doesn't apply to cash apps like Zell and Venmo and Cash App. Once you send those funds, they are gone and the banks have no ability to recover that money. So be careful when you're using a Cash App on your cell phone that you really know the person, that you really have the correct phone number and that you really have the correct email address. If that's how you're paying the person, One character off and that money is gone and you'll never see it again.

Mike Roth: 23:55

Even if it was a legitimate transaction.

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 23:57

It could be a legitimate transaction and you made a mistake on the phone number. Whoever has the account for that mistake and phone number keeps the money and doesn't return it, and the banks cannot help you. That's something that I think consumers need to really understand that if you take advantage of the Cash Apps, it's out of their control to try to recover that money for you.

Mike Roth: 24:18

But applications like Stripe or PayPal, you are protected.

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 24:23

You're protected in the case that a credit card was used as the payment method. So as a consumer, you have a limited amount of time to contact your bank and say I have a suspicious credit card transaction. The bank will then investigate and open what's called a dispute. That doesn't always result in you getting all of your money back, but it's certainly an opportunity for you to challenge it. Now that exists with credit cards only. It does not exist for Cash Apps and it does not exist for checks.

Mike Roth: 24:52

What about debit cards?

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 24:53

It does not exist for debit cards either, credit cards only.

Mike Roth: 24:57

So that proves one of my old theses never use a debit card. Kathleen. If someone is unsure whether a transaction would be fraudulent or not, or think they've been defrauded or scammed, who should they contact?

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 25:10

The first thing you should do is call the number on the back of your credit card or your debit card, ask for the bank fraud department, explain your situation and they can take it further. You can also go to law enforcement. There are places to go, such as the attorney general's office, and then there's a great organization here in the villages called Seniors vs Crime in the Villages. They're a fabulous organization. They have four locations in the villages. You do not need an appointment. Just show up during their regular operating hours and they can also help you.

Mike Roth: 25:39

Great Thanks for the information. I'm sure our listeners will have gotten a lot from it and I may ask you back in the future to talk some more about fraud.

Dr. Kathleen Gowin: 25:46

Thank you, m, I enjoyed being here.

Emily: 25:49

The next episode will be released next Friday at 9am. Should you want to become a major supporter of the show or have questions, please contact us at mik@rothvoice. com. This is a shout out for supporters Greg Panjian, Tweet Coleman, Dan Kapellin, ed Williams, Alvin Stenzel and major supporter Dr Craig Curtis at K2 in the Villages. We will be hearing more from Dr Curtis with short Alzheimer's tips each week. If you know someone who should be on the show, contact us at mike@rothvoice. com. We thank everyone for listening to the show. The content of the show is copyrighted by Rothvoice 2023, all rights reserved.