Cybersecurity expert warns Bangor residents about rising phone and online scams

[1:48] Susan Hawes: Going to give people a few more minutes to come on, okay. [1:58] Roz Fisher: Am I on? Yep, I can hear you. Yeah, I just got out of a meeting. [2:07] Susan Hawes: One meeting to the next. I usually give people a few minutes, yeah, because some people kind of. We'll get started in a minute, okay. Before we get started on today's topic, I said it'd be good if we went around the room and I'll ask you guys on Zoom to say hello and give your name and where you're from and all that. So I'm Anne Krieg, I'm the Director of Community and Economic Development for the City of Bangor. My name is Jamie Comstock and I'm the Health Promotion Manager at Bangor Public Health and Community Services. [6:03] Dominic Rizzo: I'm Dominic Rizzo, resident of Bangor, currently retired, but involved in different type of projects. [6:13] Alexandria Poulin: I'm Alexandria Poulin, resident of Bangor and I work at a cybersecurity company. [6:19] Susan Hawes: Thank you for being here, Alyssa. My name is Alyssa Lovering. I am the community case manager at Eastern Area Agency on Aging. I'm usually based out of Brewer, but starting next week I'll be in Ellsworth once a month as well. So a little all over. Oh, wow. That's great. Great. Thank you, Alyssa. And Roslyn. [6:45] Roz Fisher: I'm Roz Fisher, and I volunteer at the First United Methodist Church community meal service. Free meal. There were over 130 last night. So it's every week, four to six. You don't ask any questions. Questions. I'm also an advocate for child care and serve on the child care jobs team by Thinking in Action. And I just got off a meeting. We're doing some creative drama with kids for Christmas and doing some programming for that. [7:22] Alexandria Poulin: Yeah, so great you're very busy, that's good. Yeah, for 88 I'm doing okay, awesome. [7:33] Susan Hawes: Okay, so we're gonna talk about cyber threat, cyber security today, and so I'm gonna let Alexandra get right into it. I'm going to do a shared screen. [8:07] Alexandria Poulin: Oh wait, just from beginning. Yeah, all right, so I have reached out to Annie about scams that are going on in the area. There's been a lot going on and it's hit home recently as well for me because of my mom. I work in cyber security so I feel like that hit even harder because I've trained her on this. So I just want to talk about scams and trying to get this out into the community to recognize what they are. Okay, so I'm the director of service delivery at Cloud Security Partners. We are cyber security. Company we are not in the area but there's three of us in the area. I am part of like the cyber security community in Maine. There's different groups. There's actually one that meets in Bangor as well. A long time Bangor resident, I care about this community. I don't want people to get scammed. You know it's hard, creates hardships when they do. And if you want to stay in touch my information is there. Okay we can actually skip this slide but this is part of a longer presentation because if I give this to like a bigger group so it's just to understand scammers goals. I understand the emotional pressure because that's what their goal is, to put you under emotional pressure. Spot common scams, practice safe responses, and know what to do after a mistake because mistakes do happen. Yeah you don't have to recognize every scam, you just have to recognize the behavior because the behavior is generally the same. So the goal of this is to get attention. On the news on the fourth the prom Scott Sheriff's Department just released about the sheriff scam. On May 30th my mom was actually hit by the sheriff scam. I was at a cyber security conference so it was really interesting. She was actually watching my son. She got called being told she was going to be arrested. They were able to spoof the number. They actually had a sergeant number like real sergeant name, the person who works at the sheriff's department, saying there's a warrant up for her arrest, a bench warrant because she didn't come to jury duty and that she had to pay so much money or they were going to come arrest her. So got attention, created an emotional reaction. They told her if she hung up they were going to come arrest her right then. They isolated you by staying on the line. And then they were going they were wanting a payment. Luckily, she didn't pay. Even my sister was in the room with her, and she fell for it. She was like searching it up and found that it was a real sergeant at the sheriff's. Of course it wasn't the actual sergeant, they just found the name. Their goal is to get attention. So finally it was in the news on the fourth, even though this has been ongoing since May. And it's actually a nationwide scam going on right now, but they are targeting smaller communities. So the story may change, but the pattern stays the same. They always want to get your attention. They create a motion. They try to isolate you, and then they try to extort. So fear you'll be arrested. Urgency act. Now you lose trust. They could say it's your bank, like say it's being more savings. I know Bangor Savings had one. Bangor Savings is wonderful, by the way. Call them in person and they can walk you through it as well, or it could be your child or grandchild needs help. We know someone else in the area who works at one of the colleges. She got a call and it was her son. They AI cloned his voice and said that he was arrested and need to post bail, and then and then they called her back as if it was an attorney trying to get the attorney to get money so they could represent him. Wow. Yeah. And so sometimes it's greed, guaranteed returns, and sometimes they might shame you as well, like you know, you might, if you're, if you do get scammed even for a little bit, they like don't tell anyone or things like that. So when emotion spikes, the best thing you can do is slow down the conversation because they're trying to get you to keep going. All right, so you're not a fool, you're just out practiced, right? The scammer runs this exact script dozens of times a day. It's their full-time job. There's actually call centers that exist for people to do this. So every objection you could raise, they already have a rehearsed answer for because it's their practice. It's not a fair fight. You might hear a scam once, maybe you saw it on the news, but what it is, it gets you caught up where humans, you have bad days, you might be out to lunch with your family and get this like alarming call, you know, so they can throw you off. You just don't know when it's been ahead head. 73% of US adults have experienced some sort of online scam or attack. [Dominic Rizzo: That's] an incredible number. Yeah. Scam playbook. All right, so there's always a hook. It's a surprising message or a call. This is your bank and this is the Sheriff's Department, something like that. You don't expect the contact. Then there is pressure. There's a threat or a deadline that you need to do this. All right, so too much urgency there, you know. It's a lot of times that this is your bank or things like that. They're not going to force an urgency like that. Then there's always a payment or access. Now this is usually where you can catch them because they want a gift card crypto wire code or remote code access so it's usually an unusual payment and then the last thing is if you do fall for it's a disappearance they will block the number and things like that and there's no time to no longer bear it's a huge problem we can kind of skip through this quickly but it's the ftc federal trade commission about 12.5 billion losses in 2024 2.6 million reports now these are only what's reported a lot of people, especially if it's under a couple hundred dollars, they're not going to report it. They're embarrassed. So the FBI, 16.6 billion internet crime losses and about 859,000 complaints. So yeah, it's a big problem. And then the next one just shows where most people say the major problems are. So it's text messages and phone calls are the biggest one that people think are problems, but it's all the way through. It's email, social media, shopping, banks, and stuff like that. Well, yeah, actually people is 2,029, or one of the biggest targeted groups right now, and they're the most effective. However, they don't have as many financial losses, whereas 60 plus have the bigger financial losses. So that's about the average dollar amount, but 65 plus do usually give more money, especially if it's like a grandchild or something like that. They're more likely to fork out two thousand [Dominic Rizzo: dollars all] right, so this is where most of the connections are made. So website, social media, phone call, but the most money is lost through a phone call than through like the website site. And then there's different types, investment, imposter, social media, job, business, or tech started. Okay, so the universal defense is to stop. So slow down, they want to create urgency, so you take control of the call. Think before you act, think about why you're being rushed, then go ahead and verify, you know, and protect your money. No codes, no remote access, and no unusual payments, because sometimes they might pretend they're from Microsoft. They might have a pop-up saying on your computer that you have a virus. A lot of times those pop-ups aren't real. Actually, 95, 99 times they're not real. They just are on a website, like it could be a fake site that automatically does that. So do not do that. And then you can say things like, I don't make financial decisions, or I'm gonna drive to my bank, or I'm gonna drive to the sheriff's. Department anything like that, they're gonna hang up right away. So there's text match message scans. I did quite a few of these, but we can just do like one or two. Let's go ahead. You know, yes, so GPS, your package can't be delivered, or did you authorize this amount? They want you to click a fake link. Oftentimes they're trying to get your data, so they want to collect your credit card, your address, your login and data, something they can use later. They may move you to a phone call. That's usually less likely, but sometimes it's simply to see if your number is active, because then they might move you to like the next phase of a scam. They might call you with a different one. Yeah, do not reply, do not click, verify another way. Most of the time these are fake. We can go ahead and say this because it's kind of the same thing. So yeah, all right, so this is an example that was actually sent, and so it says UPS parcel, please use the link, so it's USPS. Anyone notice anything wrong with it? The website isn't consistent with that. Yeah, and for med, no, that's the website. Well, you can't see at the top is also a phone number. It's a plus zero one two, I think, so it's an out of country phone number. You're never going to have an out of country phone number. A lot of times if they are real, they usually those like five digit phone numbers or six digital numbers. Next one. Okay, so again, same thing, small that late fee just creates urgency. Remember the next one. Yeah, so what emotion this creates is like that panic right, yeah, okay, we can go to the next one though. It's like I just did a lot of examples, just I didn't know. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, I think we run the next one. Okay, I actually got this text yesterday, two days ago, two days ago, and it says hello dear, how are you doing today? This is to elicit a response. No, I don't know this number, and so trust that you don't know this number. The so report these as spam. So what they're doing is a friendly opener. They might try to build trust, move to another app, or you know, introduce investment, romance, task. Now I don't know anyone that probably would say hello dear to me, I right, like so I actually just got this two days ago. It's just to get you to respond, then and then they'll do a conversation potentially. They might, you know, you can say wrong number and they can say oh sorry, but then they know this phone number is active, then they can do research on the phone number, find out who you are, and then continue trying to scam you with different. Oh okay, yeah, that's That's good. Yeah, so these I would just, especially if you have an iPhone, you can like report them to scam. Yeah, yep. So text pause, don't tap while emotional. Do not reply. Verify independently. Do research. A lot of times you can even type in like a UPS scam and you can find other examples already out there that people have posted, and then you can report them for junk. Yeah, all right, phone scams. This is a big one. This is the hardest to get around, I would say. There's one thing in the phone caller IDs can be faked. They can be made to look like a official caller. It can come up on your phone and say Penobscot Sheriff's Department. Can come up on your phone saying Bangor Savings. They can pay and have the phone numbers be spoofed. And then silence feels awkward, so they prey on like people's natural reactions and stuff like that. So they will get you to answer questions because you're being polite. Most of the time, they go off people's good nature. Then they'll try to escalate. They might interrupt you while you're thinking, being like, you don't have time, you need to hurry up and do this. There's different ways they can do it. And stay on the line, don't call anyone. If we hear that you call anyone, we'll come and get you or things like that. So safety things, hang up and call back the number. [20:17] Dominic Rizzo: And what would that do if you call back that number? I mean, it's going to show it's not a [20:21] Alexandria Poulin: real number because as soon as you hang up, if it's spoofed, it like might even say it's a block number or yeah. So spoofing, let them have a different number, they can match your area code. So there's IRS scams as well or Social Security Administration, they can spoof those numbers. So caller ID is not proof anymore, can't use it anymore. Yeah, so again, hang up and use a bill too or like your social security people work or things like that to find the phone number to call you. But even if you hang up and dial it back, usually it's a fake number. So but okay, so a lot of times they act like they have authority, that's your bank, IRS, Microsoft, they create a crisis, then they isolate you, and then they want an action from you. They take money, buy cards. Sometimes they'll be like, we need to reset your password on your Microsoft 365 account. You're going to get texted a code. Tell me that code. So they're going to go in and change your password, and then they'll have access to your account. Yeah, so usually you always listen to secure secrecy urgency and money threats. So this can be an example, your account is under attack, we need you to move your money, or we need to change your account login or something like that. So the red flag is safe account transfer and safe response. I'm hanging up and calling the number on my card. Never probably buy those one-time codes either. Never move money. Yeah, I never provide a one-time code, that's your safety. Banks will never ask for your one-time code. Microsoft will never ask for your one-time code, they have access to that. Okay, Sheriff's, this was Mr duty Warren pay now with gift cards. My mom never got to the gift card stage. They were really good, they were like you need to come to the sheriff's from, she's like what is that gonna just meet some person outside. I bet you they would have redirected her if she got there, because when she got me on the phone I was like just go to, she was in Bangor, I was like just drive to the sheriff's department. Just tell them you're going to the sheriff's department. Yeah, I mean it's not like the sheriff's department's going to turn you away, you know, right. Yeah, nope, that wasn't us. So threat and usually unusual payment, sometimes they won't tell you the payment until way later, they'll like get you on the hook and really get you going. Yeah, so I don't handle legal, you can just like shut them down any way you want. Don't handle legal government calls on unsolicited calls, hang up and you can call the real not. Emergency please right, Microsoft hackers are in their computer, download the support tool so I can remove them. Now that Microsoft, I can guarantee is never ever going to do that. So yeah, remote access most times no moments. Okay, I never give unexpected expect to callers remote access to your computer. Oh, this one especially, they can prey on like love and stuff. So grandma was an accident, please don't tell mom, my Lauria needs $4,800 a day. Secrecy and urges. Yeah, this is a big thing. This is probably where people haven't talked about is to create a family code word. Because even if they are AI voice clone, things like that, the chances they know your code is not very unlikely and kind of make it something that wouldn't be natural in a conversation, right? You know, I drank orange soda today, like something like that, or what did you drink today? And then so they can say orange soda, right? You know, like something that someone wouldn't be able to just throw into a conversation necessarily. Yeah, so yeah, and then there's other common scripts, utility shut off, insurance. Prize, lottery, charity, we don't see as much campaign donations, that's a popular one right now, and as we, Erin, I feel like it's always popular, but just never know, always like don't trust in the verifier, and then voter registration, that's been something that they've been seeing lately in certain states more than others depending on the voter requirements, payment red flags, they're gonna ask for gift cards, crypto, ATM, wire, and cell or cash for real. Yeah, so they demand a specific payment against. Another reason to stop and verify. Okay, so you can say for bank, I'm calling the number on my card. I don't handle legal matters, I'm gonna verify with my family first. Please mail me the information. You're allowed to hang up, and you are allowed to be rude. That's your permission slip. So these are just some practices we can skip now. Yeah, just different things, ways you can say, all of them have hook and pressure, so essentially they are all different scams. Social media scams happen a lot still too, so it's ads, fake profiles, hack friends, investment groups, romance, shops, and shopping. I'm sure all of you have been on Facebook and have seen some of the account get hacked. Yeah, so large target is on their most reported, shopping scam biggest losses are investment scams, and of course unfortunately, bromance scams do happen and people. Get people to pay their money and stuff. Shopping ad. I have had family members fall for this myself. 70% off today. It was an espresso machine, like a Breville espresso machine, like $500. And he thought he could get one for $100. I was like, no way you're ever going to get something that expensive for $100. And actually, we ended up looking up the store. We work in tech security, so we were able to backtrack where it was. It was a little old lady's house in Miami-Dade County. It was like, so obviously they were using her address and stuff like that. Oh wow, yeah, hacked friend. That's a very common thing if they ask you for money, especially if it's not a friend that you have direct contact with, right, on social media, like maybe we haven't talked to in 10 years. The chance are going to come out and ask you for money, no, it's not going to happen. And then romance and investing is another one, and fake listings, so they might ask for like fees before verifying verification or [26:44] Susan Hawes: anything like that. 's happened to a friend of mine who has a vacation home. Another group came that hadn't, that they didn't have a, you know, a reservation with, and the people that were already there did have a reservation. Yeah, it was a fake. They had, they had cloned her listing and was trying to sell it. Yeah, well, it's crazy. So just limit visibility, review [27:20] Alexandria Poulin: your privacy settings and your friends list. You know, if you don't talk to someone after so long, maybe you don't need to be friends anymore. Do not invest from a direct message. Contact the sellers. Search it up. Search a scam, like if you type in the exact scam, you'll probably find it. People post this on Reddit all the time too, and things like that. And verify elsewhere, you know, call them. Public posts create targeting clues. Private messages create pressure, but you are right, those travel ones are tough, so try to go through approved travel agencies. All right, mail scams. This happened less likely. We can go through this quickly. So fake check or overpayment. Deposit this check and then send some money back. You won the lottery, but you need to pay fees or taxes first. Charity imposters means it sound like real charities. They'll logos and everything like that will be pretty close. And then fake invoice or renewal for other services. Usually you can tell these like look at like return addresses and stuff like that compared to your normal. I can tell you these are the more rare type of scam. So pause before depositing checks. Never pay to receive a prize. Check charities and use secure drop off for checks. Official looking mail still needs independent verification. Okay, web scams. So fake stores, phishing pages, malicious pop-ups, look-alike books. So there's fake online stores to be true to pricing, no reviews or checkout, it might be an unfamiliar page as well. So you can always take the URL and search for it to see if there's anything wrong with that. Fake bank email or shipping login page. This is big with like the USPS scams, UPS scams. They'll have a site that's similar. Fake virus pop-ups, because you can go on a site that is a sponsored site, and the whole goal of it might be to have a pop-up that comes up to get you to push to go to a phone call. And then there's look alike websites. They'll swap letters or ad words to mimic real trusted sites. Also, people can pay to have their search results above regular results. If you've ever googled something, it'll say sponsored at the top, and then you scroll halfway down, and that's the actual results. So scammers can pay to have their results first for airlines. I think airline companies have this happen, banks or tech support services. They'll have text close to mimic the real brand. They'll look real, but they'll have a fake number. But skip the ad and scroll down. This is easy. There's even for like TSA or I had a family member needed to review their password, and they use one of the sponsored ads. Luckily it ended up being real but not real. They, you paid them to fill out your passport information but you had to put it all in and then they mailed your papers. So it's like, well, now they have all your information. But he paid 100 extra dollars on top of his passport fee for them just to fill out his paperwork, you know, like they're not that completely, I know, I know, it's not completely illegal, like all they are just, you know, their service, but you have to put in that all the information you have. Put in if you go to the new passport site, it's the same information. Wow, yeah, all right, so these are two websites. So one's PayPal and then no worries, it's pay dash pal, but it's p-a-i-l, so close enough, they look similar, learn. But yeah, here's another example using PayPal. It's you in the search, it says help PayPal, and that first one says sites.google.com pay.pal help, and then the other one underneath is help center, because it's a sponsored one, and then not if you couldn't just show up, yeah, so that. First one's a malicious ad. So check the address bar, look for correct spelling and secure connection. If you are going to make a payment, pay by credit card. Credit cards have the best fraud protection. Bank accounts are not great, not that the banks aren't great, but if they wipe your bank account, it's going to take the bank a lot longer. Credit cards give you that in between, you know, the most they can do is go up to your max spending limit, hopefully they don't do that either, but if you notice that. It's not real. You can contact your credit card company and you might be out the money, but they can shut down your credit card. Versus if you give them your bank account information, they now have access to your bank account. Easier contact for our credit card than deal with bank account issues, because then they'd have to pause all stuff for your accounts, which can affect mortgage payments, things like that. Search before you buy, you know, use the internet to your advantage. I mean, making it sound like there's a lot of disadvantages, but there are advantages too. And never call pop-up numbers, because sometimes they'll like, have you ever gone on a website and there's like flashing like, yeah, that's just trying to get your attention and it's usually not okay. Stop contact, don't negotiate. So this is if you clicked and paid, call the financial institution right away and do a freeze. Change passwords right away, start with email, banking, and reuse passwords. Document everything, try to take screenshots, phone numbers, receipts, wallet addresses. And then there are places you can report. You can report for the Federal Trade Commission, FBI IC3, it's three C's, I can't remember all what all the C's stand for, police, USPS, up USPIS. So you can reach out to the individuals. And then watch out for recovery scans, because you might want to stand, watch out for the ones that are like, hey, you were scammed, let's give us money and we'll help you. That's not going to happen either. Also don't be embarrassed and don't do anything about it. 's better to do something about it and report it and report it. Yeah, I mean, you might not get your money back, but it's better to put it out there and educate, like tell people it's out there. So yeah, there's all these different ones that you can report from. Okay, so final, because scam illegitimate, your bank texts you with a fraud alert, b social security number is suspended, a friend DMs you ask them for verification code, a charity calls you after a disaster asks for a card number. Now that's all of them are scams most likely, but you know, just pause, verify independently, don't send money, codes, or personal information. It's unfortunate when there is a disaster, there are scam groups that will go after individuals that may be affected or that you know have people affected by it to try to get money from [Roz Fisher: them all] Right, three rules. Slow down, urgency is a scammer's oxygen, verify independently, use contact information you find yourself, and protect your money and your information. No codes, no remote access, no are unusual payments. So you don't need to doesn't mean you never receive a It just means you have the habits to protect yourself when one arrives. And then that's just the cheat sheet I made. Any questions? That's great. [35:00] Susan Hawes: I kept thinking of all the ways. Could you share that with me? Yeah. Yeah. And this is saved on the YouTube, the city's YouTube channel, so if you know anybody that wanted to see I could come they can go on to YouTube and watch it okay I live [35:25] Alexandria Poulin: in the area yeah happy to talk to people I'm like my mom fell for this game she'll totally she wants to tell people about it she didn't want to talk to them tell the news let's just tell the news but she would even come and talk to people talk about how she fell for it 's really hard because it's like where i work in cyber security i know i'm having and i've had so many people around me fall for it 's easy i mean you've ever been so busy at work and you get an email and it's like oh they're telling me i need to change my password but it's like wait that might not be real right yeah because phishing [36:00] Susan Hawes: and stuff like that yeah it seems a little odd i love how you just gave permission to people to hang up and be rude because i think like i love that you could just stop it right there like does this sound strange yes click yeah you don't have to talk to people and the odds are they won't [36:24] Alexandria Poulin: call back no probably not they're gonna be like oh move on to my next person they are in a call [36:29] Susan Hawes: center yeah i think that's amazing to me that there's a call center for things like that they're [36:34] Alexandria Poulin: not in the us generally yeah but still i mean some people might just do it [36:40] Susan Hawes: people find ways to scam yeah wow yeah we had in city hall for a while we had an email that looked like it was coming from the city manager asking you know hey i need you to do something for me and then it was getting gift cards yeah and yeah that was crazy and one we did have one staff person fall for it yeah a few years ago but and we're also on [37:12] Alexandria Poulin: The reverse side of it, we do this as a company. Companies will hire us to come in and like try to get information from some of their employees and stuff like that. We'll do fishing, we'll do smishing, we obviously do it for the company's interest. We are ethical hackers, so that's also why I understand like what some of these are and how to deal with it. But we've, yeah, we've been hired to do that too, just to and so it's so education and train, right? Yeah, right, yeah. People, you know, just you can prey on people's good nature. Not that's not what we like to do, but we like to educate. Yeah, and with like my mom, they had our information, everything, but your information like you know tax records, they can look through tax rate, it's fine, we live find your age, things like that. So basic information is out there and they just use that and she was probably targeted because of her age [38:06] Dominic Rizzo: Absolutely, there are websites that you any of us could go to that has every address I ever lived in, phone numbers. Oh yeah, it's very easy, very easy, and then [38:15] Alexandria Poulin: they can even call like a family member and be like, we're trying to get you know hold of so-and-so [38:22] Susan Hawes: Yeah, some of those sites also though, if you plunk in a phone number, it will say you know a bunch of people have said this is a scam number [38:33] Alexandria Poulin: which is good, that can be helpful too. Yeah, and the phone services do their best to notify you that it's a scam, but it's only once they've been notified [38:43] Roz Fisher: I think was, yeah, oh yeah, well I got the wrong thing here. I'm sure you all know, but AARP is very active in all of this and of course the message is if you see something say something, because older people like me are more embarrassed if we get something you know like this Microsoft and I hate Microsoft, but when that screaming thing comes up and it's bright red or whatever, and it's telling me, do not turn this off and blah,, blah, like that. And I know through the protection system that I go through Staples and that takes care of it. And they always say, we can teach you how to do this. And this is the number, this is what you do. And I said, no, I'm just going to call because it's so much easier, but it's, it is frustrating. And on AARP also there are fraud protection videos and presentations, and if they need somebody to come and talk to, you know, a group or whatever, they will do this. So because we are the oldest population, as we know, older people are more likely targeted. I know your research is showing younger people, but because in Maine it may be skewed a little bit more to those of us who are older. I had a good friend whose brother had to bail her out of a very serious financial one, yeah. And I mean, and she's a smart woman, you know, it's not, but you know, we all get gullible. And I'm wondering if you all are seeing more with the AI stuff, and you're nodding and you didn't mention that, but I think that is probably going to be a bigger concern in the future because it's everywhere. And I'm, I'm still trying to get rid of it on my email. I hate AI and I don't want the notes from a meeting and I don't know how to get rid of it, but I mean, I think that is going to be a real challenge. [41:11] Alexandria Poulin: am i right you're correct i didn't talk about it too much you're seeing more the ai scams hitting corporations than individuals because it's expensive to do it individualized right now and you are correct the older population is targeted and they're targeted more for like the phone calls where the younger is targeted on social media right so that's where we're seeing it and i mean anyone in their 20 to 29 or 18 they're always on social media right tick tocks so that's a big place for that you are correct. Actually one of the scams that did happen in this area was her son's voice that was cloned, and with the younger generation being on the internet more, videos of them and stuff like that, so then now they can take those voices and target older people with it. There was a company and I can't remember exactly who did what, but I think it was a cloned CFO got someone to transfer a million dollars and it wasn't actual CFO of the company. I can't remember the exact story, you can look it up, a company transfers a lot of money but yes it is happening and but it takes a little bit more time where you're seeing that become more successful is with fishing and text messages because even if they are not English as a first language or things like that AI can make it very professional sounding it can put it in the formatting of another company things like that so it's helping with those things as well. So emails are getting harder to track because normally before, our advice was look for spelling errors. Well, now you're not seeing spelling errors. So you are correct. And it's going to become harder to pinpoint these and AI is going to make them more efficient. They can do more calls and stuff like that. [42:59] Roz Fisher: Oh, goody. [43:01] Dominic Rizzo: And they could probably create an actual video of a grandchild talking and asking for. [43:09] Alexandria Poulin: Yes. So things to look for still with AI videos, and I think it's gotten better, but like hands, it's really bad with hands. It puts extra fingers or things like that. I think it is getting better, but I'm assuming they're not paying for like the higher end. Yeah. I think like my kids are really [43:25] Susan Hawes: good at identifying AI. So they're way better than I am. So that's like one benefit of them [43:35] Alexandria Poulin: having more familiarity with it yeah there's usually like mistakes in the background and things like that yeah best thing to do is hang up and call the actual family member but you are correct it's gonna get worse before it gets better and then hopefully on the inverse someone creates an AI system that maybe like can identify these issues so it can be like a fine personal firewall but we're not there yet and i don't know if people would be interested because then you'd have to pay for it and yeah so companies will want to do it but yeah that's awesome yeah i just have [44:18] Dominic Rizzo: this may not be totally relevant but like going out and just buying something locally there's the choice of besides cash but debit or credit now i bango savings bank has a debit card that you get it's really local so you get money back by using that and there's there's always that temptation and it's usually for local businesses that I know but there's that fear as you said earlier of where one should probably use a credit card because you are so I mean am I wrong [44:52] Alexandria Poulin: to no I mean I think local businesses you know they're not going to have credit card like scammers cameras on them or whatever I think it's more online shopping you want to do the credit cards and stuff and then maybe don't like donations and stuff like that maybe don't trust an ATM just in the middle of nowhere so like standalone ATMs and like gas stations and stuff like that I wouldn't trust oh wow yeah I think they've gotten better thank [45:25] Susan Hawes: you any other questions or thoughts thank you I know thank you so much I appreciate it feel free to reach out if you have [45:36] Alexandria Poulin: Any questions? You know, like I said, we're part of a social security group that's up here too. We meet quarterly, but yeah, but how do we know you're not a scam? I mean, you can find my information. I used to teach at the University of Maine too, but no, I wouldn't scam people. But I can understand, it's a good question. It, I think it's fair. Yeah, I appreciate you having me. Yeah, thank you. Well, it's good. [46:10] Dominic Rizzo: As you said, because yeah, you watch it or you know, yeah, someone else to watch it and I mean, I did. [46:16] Alexandria Poulin: Move faster, so I can always do a slower version if anyone needs to slow it down. Is there a thing? [46:23] Susan Hawes: On the computer that, yeah, it's on YouTube, yeah, which is nice, so we can send it to people and yeah, that's good. Does anybody have any other announcements while we're in the room, stuff? [46:37] Dominic Rizzo: You're working on you want other people to know about? Tomorrow is the folks clean up on the friends of lower conducts the extreme. Yeah, the third Saturday of every month except winter, we go out and clean from 8 until 9:30. We meet at Pankhurst parking lot by the, pedestrian bridge and we pick up trash and whatever else is along there, so just putting it out there in. [47:05] Susan Hawes: The ether, ethosphere, right? Well, that's great, you guys do that. Anything else? Well, this is. [47:14] Roz Fisher: Far in the future now, but I'm sure that many of you know about this, but October 10th, this is the multicultural, what's it called now? Bangor United Multicultural Fair. And that's the city of Bangor and Bangor Savings Bank and Northern Light and on and on and on. You know, we went last year and I was impressed to know that, and you know, I can't do much better with that. [47:42] Susan Hawes: That's better. That's perfect. [47:46] Roz Fisher: But anyway, and I just received this through someone in Faith, Thinking, and Action, but Cecilia Cobble-Lewis. But if you look at the Bangor Public Library, it'll probably be on their list from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. And I was so surprised to learn that in this area there were so many different nationalities represented. And so there were tables with food, craft, that country, whatever,, and then people performing dances from different countries and so forth. So I think we tend to think of Bangor, at least I did, as being pretty homogeneous. But I was amazed to see that there were so many different countries represented. presented so it's it's worth going to and you don't have to stay all day but you know at the end they have a live band so I just think that you know I'm sure that the city will be promoting it I'll do but people plan things right you know far ahead I don't know what happens with rain because most of it was outside last year but I don't know I guess I'll figure it out. But they're all the vendors are the people presenting in so forth were inside, but they had all the music and stuff, you know, outside. [49:12] Dominic Rizzo: So anything else? Well, lastly, I just wanted to thank Roslyn again at the previous actual meeting that we had here. Here we were talking about different organizations that help people in need in general whether they're houseless or just in need and you directed us to also look at with the faith we get an action at the calendar so I did that the meeting and there actually is a lot out there you know it's just a matter of getting the information out to people but thank you for alerting us to it well [49:50] Roz Fisher: Well, thank you, Dominic. Good, yeah. And we are, or they are, I don't do this, but we've had a change in who's doing the website for faith and gain action. And they're trying to get this all done locally because that's been a, you know, sometimes things don't get updated quite as quickly as they could because the person doing the website moved to Tennessee or somewhere or so. Anyway, so Mark Fryer at the university is working on this. So anyway but thank you for it's good to know and it's good to know that people are finding out that there really are calendars out there they can find food pantries are hurting good shepherds hurting everybody is people don't have the money to donate to food pantries like they used to I mean we have a shopping cart the church every week that is filled but not everybody can do that and so it's it's just something with all the cutbacks to snap [50:57] Alexandria Poulin: Everything that it's not going to get better when the snap a lot of pressure on food pantries [51:05] Susan Hawes: Because of the snap cuts yeah all right well thank you thanks everybody thank you thank you [51:17] Alexandria Poulin: For supporting your family thank you for the zoom thank you for the zoom link all right we'll see you