Podcast: credit card re-scam - fraud prevention

[00:00:01] HOST: Coming up on this episode of AARP's Perfect Scam. [00:00:04] Ann: There must have been multiple copies of the debit card made, because it was all over the country, and

within 24 hours, they had cleaned us out. It's so easy to become a victim of one of these people. [00:00:17] HOST: Another week, another scam. This week, is it really the credit card

company calling? This scam will sound familiar to many, and it's definitely one to look out for. We'll tell you what questions to ask and when to just hang up. For The Perfect

Scam, I'm Will Johnson, and I'm joined, as always by the Fraud Watch Network Ambassador, Frank Abagnale. Frank, thanks for being here once again. [00:00:37] Frank Abagnale: Great

to be here, will, Thanks. [00:00:38] HOST: Frank, today we have a victim of a re-scam we're going to tell our listeners about, but first, as always, we like just to shoot the breeze

with you a little bit and I was thinking about your story this week. And I wanted to talk to you about, and I know people ask you about them, the FBI agent who pursues you through the movie

and finally catches up with you, Karl Hanretti. [00:00:58] Frank Abagnale: Right. His actual name was Joe Shea. [00:01:02] HOST: Oh, not his real name. [00:01:03] Frank Abagnale: No, but he,

he was on the set along with the two younger agents during the making of the film. He was Stephen Spielberg's consultants, and he didn't want his real name used, so Tom Hanks made

up the name of an old football player named Karl Hanretti and used that instead. In the book I used Joe Shea's real name, and Joe Shea, it was a real Irishman from Boston, so he did

have a heavy accent. Tom Hanks did an amazing job of portraying him. He sounded like him, he looked like him. [00:01:33] HOST: Yeah, he does, cause when you hear a fake Boston accent, it can

be really annoying. [00:01:36] Frank Abagnale: Yeah, his mannerisms and everything he picked up, he was great. Joe Shea was a wonderful man. He and I were friends for 30 some odd years. I

worked with him a great deal at the Bureau for 10 years till he retired. We remained friends 20 years after. He died several years ago at age 88, but he lived a great life up until his

death, and of course, one of my books, Stealing Your Life, I dedicated that book to him and our long-term relationship. He had two daughters which I'm very close to today, and he was

just a wonderful, wonderful man. [00:02:08] HOST: It's such an interesting relationship obviously, the person who pursued you and caught you eventually and sent you to jail. [00:02:15]

Frank Abagnale: Right, and I think his thing was, is he said in interviews that, "At the beginning I always thought I was chasing this very sophisticated, older criminal." And he

said, "When I came to realize I was actually chasing just a young boy," his whole frame changed about how he perceived me and what he thought of me and I think that had a lot to do

with probably the father in him. [00:02:39] HOST: Right, and there's a father figure vibe in the movie. [00:02:41] Frank Abagnale: Right, yeah, absolutely. [00:02:44] HOST: And you

know, it brings up the idea also when he eventually found you in France, right? [00:02:48] Frank Abagnale: Yes. [00:02:50] HOST: Were you relieved to go back to the U.S. after spending time

in institutions, in jails, prison overseas that probably weren't so nice? [00:02:58] Frank Abagnale: Well, to be honest, I would have been ready to go back immediately after the French

experience, but then when I got to the Swedish prison, that was like staying at the Holiday Inn, so it wasn't very bad, so I thought, well maybe I'll just stay here. But no, I knew

eventually they'd be taking me back, yeah. [00:03:15] HOST: And forgive me, I really have to ask this question; did you really escape out of the airplane as in the movie? [00:03:20]

Frank Abagnale: Absolutely, but not from the toilet, from the kitchen galley where they do service the plane and bring things onto the plane. When I watched the movie and saw that, my wife

looked at me, and I said, "I did not go through the toilet." [00:03:33] HOST: Alright, so a little poetic license there from Spielberg, but I was watching it with my 10-year-old

and we were dumbfounded, you know, to, I was reminded that's how you got away in the movie. But nonetheless, you did get out of the plane and go running off the runway. [00:03:45] Frank

Abagnale: Yes. [00:03:47] HOST: So, then after... [00:03:49] Frank Abagnale: Now the interesting thing, let me tell you about that part was that I was not trying to be sneaky. What had

happened is, because I was non-violent, in my extradition back to the U.S. became more of a deportation, so the federal government imply asked the Swedish government to put me onboard a

nonstop flight to JFK. Make sure that my passport and all my belongings were with the pilot of the aircraft, so that's what they did because I wasn't a threat to anybody. When we

landed, it was about 10 o'clock at night, and we were taxiing on the runway and we had stopped, waiting for a gate, and I was sitting there and it came to me, and the flight attendant

had gone up to talk to the other flight attendant, so I got up and walked to the back of the plane. I was not trying to be sneaky. I disarmed, she had already disarmed the chute or I would

have done it, but she had disarmed the chute... [00:04:36] HOST: And you knew about disarming the chute from your previous... [00:04:38] Frank Abagnale: Oh yeah, how to open the doors. I

knew all the from the other experience. [00:04:41] HOST: Alright, cause the average person wouldn't go back in the galley. [00:04:43] Frank Abagnale: Right, and I opened the door, and

then I basically kind of hung down to jump from the plane. I wasn't trying to be sneaky. First, I thought that when the door opened, it sends an alarm off to the cockpit that the

door's been opened, so I assumed they knew. So when I jumped I had no idea, but what had happened was the door, which was on a swing, swang back closed. I hit the ground and started

running to the Van Wyck Expressway. I assumed someone in the tower saw me running, but nobody saw me. I went over the fence. So the best part of that story was the pilot hears the alarm go

off, but it's just a ding and he thinks on impact, on the landing, the door juggled or something. He just cancels it, and then when we pulled up, they tell people, please remain on the

flight, there's some officers coming on the plane, it'll just take a moment. And the immigration customs people came on and Shea, and... [00:05:36] HOST: You're gone.

[00:05:32] Frank Abagnale: I was gone, and they couldn't figure out, and the flight attendant kept swearing, he was there. I saw him. He was there when we landed a minute ago, and I was

gone, so that made it even more intriguing. [00:05:46] HOST: One of the great things about you, Frank, is that you tell these stories like, kind of matter of fact, but also like it almost

happened to somebody else. And in a way maybe it did. You were a different guy, you were a kid. [00:05:55] Frank Abagnale: A different person, yeah. [00:05:57] HOST: And then 41 years later,

you're still working with the FBI. Have you met others who were either con men or, I know the FBI interviews people who have done, bad guys, if you will, others who have been brought

into the FBI like yourself, or are you a unique case? [00:05:52] Frank Abagnale: A few years ago the Bureau did their 100-year anniversary coffee table book, and basically, I was the only

one that they've ever actually brought into the FBI to do the things that I do and teach at the academy. They have brought in people that are, that basically they use to get information

out of, or maybe use, to help them in undercover case. [00:06:33] HOST: Jailhouse interviews. [00:06:34] Frank Abagnale: Yeah, what's interesting is that I get a lot of emails from,

especially young men that are in prison that say I want to do what you did. And I have a great experience in computer fraud or I'm really good at doing this, and this is what I did and

was convicted of. So I would like to come out and work for Microsoft, or come out and work for the government, and what I try to explain to them, you just don't do that overnight. You

have to build credibility. People have to believe they can trust you. Microsoft's not going to hire you tomorrow and put you in a job just because you're good on a computer. They

would have to learn to know that you've gone straight and that you're doing something positive, so it's not that easy to go do it, but you certainly can turn your life around

if you want to, but it's not, it's like not thinking you’re going to be a millionaire tomorrow when you get out of college. It's the same thing. You've got to learn to

get people's trust, to trust you and then learn to build that credibility before you actually can do those kind of things. [00:07:32] HOST: The thing is about these guys or men or women

who are reaching out to you, you're actually responding. I'm guessing you have some empathy for somebody who's done something wrong and maybe trying to change their life.

[00:07:43] Frank Abagnale: Absolutely. I, you know, I want to encourage them to come out and do something with this life, but I tell them that it's entirely up to them. They have to

make the decision to want to do it, they want to change their life. And some do and some don't, but they're never going to get anywhere until they make the decision that I'm

going to change my life, and that it's not going to be easy, you know, that it's not going to come easy. You’ve got to work at it, but you can do it. (MUSIC SEGUE) [00:08:12] HOST:

On this week's episode, we introduce you to Ann. Ann considers herself scam-wise, her term, but it's a good one, and would seem to imply that she couldn't be tricked by a

scam artist. To be fair that's probably how a lot of feel that we're wise to most of the everyday phone calls from numbers we don't know and strangers asking us for

information we wouldn't normally just give out. Unfortunately, one day last year Ann learned that she's not as foolproof as she thought. [00:08:37] Ann: We got a call from a woman

who said she was from the Chase Bank Credit Card Fraud Unit, and I said, "Okay, what's going on?" And she said, "We've seen some fraudulent activity on your credit

card, and I just need to get some information." And I said, "Alright. That's fine. I'm glad you called. I appreciate it." And she gave me the last four of my credit

card, the last four numbers. And I said, "Alright, that's good." [00:09:09] HOST: This is like a scammer as you're going to find out, actually pretending to be catching a

scam, which is, that's kind of a, that's pretty tricky. [00:09:19] Ann: Well, it's a re-scam. And so, anyhow, she asked what my name was, my full name, and what my

husband's full name was, and then she asked if I could give her the full credit card number, and I did. And then she asked for my social security number, and because my husband had

recently been diagnosed with lung cancer, my brain was not on 100 percent scam guard. And I gave it to her, and then she asked, although I said, "I don't really like to do this

over the phone," and she said, "Well it's alright, I'm from the Chase Fraud Unit and we need this information." [00:10:08] HOST: So, at this point, did you, as you

said, it was, you were obviously going through a difficult time with your husband's health and oftentimes that's when they'll get people when they're vulnerable.

[00:10:18] Ann: Yes, I was distracted. [00:10:19] HOST: And did you feel like more or less you were distracted, but more or less things were, were on the up and up. [00:10:25] Ann: At that

point I was becoming a little suspicious, but not as suspicious as I should have been. [00:10:32] HOST: Well, and also, they were calling you about something that probably made you, gave

you, would have given you some anxiety were it actually true and you'd want to follow up on it. [00:10:40] Ann: Exactly. Exactly. She wanted to know what other credit cards we had and

what my bank account number was. And at that point I became extremely suspicious and I said, "I'm not going to give you any more information," but meanwhile, I had given her

our address, our social security numbers, the full number of the Chase credit card, and I, after I hung up, I said, oh boy, there's something wrong here. And the first clue that I

should have noticed was that it was a local number, in the 518 area code. [00:11:27] HOST: Okay, and they, maybe that was the reason why you picked up in the first place or no? [00:11:30]

Ann: Yes. Yes, and then I called Chase Fraud Department, and they said no, we never ever, ever ask for anyone's social security number, we have all the information. [00:11:43] HOST: And

so, when you heard that what went through your mind? [00:11:47] Ann: Words that I cannot repeat in a polite society. [00:11:52] HOST: In a family-friendly setting. Okay. [00:11:54] Ann:

Yes, exactly. And I was really worried. And so I gave all the information to the real Chase Fraud Department that I called, and they said we will look into this. Within 24 hours, they, the

scammers had physically reproduced my debit card for our bank account. [00:12:19] HOST: How, how do you know they were able to do that? [00:12:21] Ann: Because they were using it for all

kinds of charges that you need to have your debit card with you, not phone ordering or internet ordering, but going into a store and using it. At that point, I called my bank and found out

that they had cleaned us out of $5,000. [00:12:45] HOST: Good Lord. [00:12:46] Ann: And I called the FBI, and I had also, the day before when I talked to the real Chase Fraud Department,

called the state police and the local police. And what I did find out in talking to the FBI when I called them to report this they told me that there was a scam group coming out of Russia,

and that they had the ability locally, all over the country to physically reproduce credit cards and debit cards. And they would look very real, they would have chips on them, they'd

have all the magnetic information on the little strip, and they look legit. And finally, the group was caught. We've never recovered that amount of money that we lost. There must have

been multiple copies of the debit card made, because it was all over the country. And within 24 hours they had cleaned us out. [00:13:53] HOST: And did you know, so along the way, so along

the way you learned the right thing to do and the right people to call. Before this happened, had you had other scam type things happen to you, or did you know what to do? [00:14:04] Ann: Oh

yes, we, and, and we were called by the IRS and, I very kindly told the guy that he was a crook and that he should be ashamed of himself, that he was bringing dishonor on his family.

[00:14:25] HOST: Anything else you want to add? This is great information and all of these stories and people that we talk to are hopefully going to help somebody else out who gets a similar

call. [00:14:33] Ann: I hope so. Just, just don't trust anybody on the phone that doesn't give you their ID number, that isn't calling from a recognized toll-free number, and

that asks you for any more information, including your credit or debit card number, your insurance number, your healthcare number, all of those lead scam artists to your, all of your

personal information, and don't forget to notify your local law authorities and the, and the FBI. [00:15:16] HOST: Yeah, I mean the bottom line is you don't have to tell anybody

anything over the phone. [00:15:19] Ann: No, no, no. You can, but you can embarrass them and tell them that they're crooks. [00:15:25] HOST: Ann, I like your, I like your style. We,

personally I like it. At the AARP what they tell us is, and what they try to tell people who are involved, is hang up. Were you able to talk to your husband, a friend, your family? A lot of

people feel embarrassed when this kind of thing happens. [00:15:44] Ann: I'm not one of those people. (MUSIC SEGUE) [00:15:53] HOST: So Frank, one thing about this story with Ann is

that she mentions that she was distracted, she was vulnerable because her husband was ill. That's just a scammer getting lucky, I assumed, for the scammer. [00:16:05] Frank Abagnale:

That was probably just, the scammer didn't plan on that. They've gotten a little more sophisticated, so now the caller ID would have said, Wells Fargo bank, so that when they

picked it up they're very confident... [00:16:17] HOST: Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. So you can get a, you can... [00:16:20] Frank Abagnale: For a phone, and especially

Russian gangs that manipulate the caller ID. [00:16:24] HOST: So you believed all the Russian gang stuff in this story about the credit cards and... [00:16:27] Frank Abagnale: I have a

Russian, as I mentioned before, that it's a 20 billion dollar business, you know with the Russian gangs that do a lot of these scams in the United States and other countries. [00:16:36]

HOST: And they're creating the credit cards like that. [00:16:37] Frank Abagnale: And they're creating the credit cards, yes. So there's a couple of things here. First of

all, they're probably a Russian gang. They would have been a little more sophisticated today and they would have popped up as Wells Fargo bank. They would have said yes, there was

suspicious activity on your account, we're from the fraud department. Now, first of all, getting the last four digits of your credit card, that's everywhere, so if you were to buy

a ticket today on one of the airlines and then say, email me over the receipt, you'll notice that at the top it gives you the last four digits of your credit card. That's on

everything; department store charges, everywhere. So everyone picking up a receipt or anything has got the last four digits of your credit card, so knowing that is not a, a big deal, but it

makes people feel confident that must be my, must be my bank. And today we do have chips in cards. The whole purpose of the chip is to keep cards from being cloned. That's the sole

purpose behind the chip on the card. When we first developed chip and pin, which was developed by the French, it basically was done as chip and pin, and then picked up around the world

everywhere except the United States. It's very effective in keeping people from cloning cards as they did in this case. But, we brought that, and adopted that in the United States a

couple years ago and we went to chip and signature. That immediately took away 50 percent of the technologies you use for a security device because the credit card companies didn't

think Americans wanted to remember a four-digit pin, so they made it chip and signature. So that was a criminal's dream come true, so it basically made it 50 percent less more secure

than it would be say in Australia or France. [00:18:13] HOST: But isn't the chip very secure? [00:18:15] Frank Abagnale: The chip is secure, but again you have Russian gangs. When you

have 20 billion dollars you can produce your own chips. You can manipulate the chip. For example, if you take a pin and you know exactly where to hit the chip with a little hammer in the

pin, you can default the chip. So when I walk in a retail store, and they put the card in the chip reader, it cannot read it. [00:18:36] HOST: So you swipe it. [00:18:36] Frank Abagnale:

They tell you to swipe it. So they just circumvent the chip. [00:18:39] HOST: And half those machines don't have the pin technology in them anyway, right? [00:18:42] Frank Abagnale:

Yeah, so most likely more than, I would say more than them having created the chip, they're using that technique of defaulting or putting a phony chip in that can't be read,

forcing you to go to magnetic strip and swipe it. [00:18:56] HOST: And that's only if you're in person anyway using the chip, obviously, you could use a card over the phone and if

you have all the numbers that you need you've bought something. [00:19:03] Frank Abagnale: Right, and there's a lot to be said about 4-digit numbers. For example, if I say to you

as a telemarketer or someone soliciting you and say to you, "I only need the last four digits of your social security number," and you say to me, "0-9-1-8" I'm going

to follow that up with, "So I detect a real southern accent." And you go, "Oh yeah I'm born and raised in Alabama." "Oh, really? You know you sound like

you're my age. I'm 41." "Oh really? No, I'm actually a little older than you, I'm 58." You just told him where you were born and your date of birth.

That's the first three digits of your social security number. That is a formula used by the Social Security Administration to tell them when it was issued and where it was issued. Then

that leaves me just two digits to manipulate. [00:19:46] HOST: You're really good at that, by the way, Frank. [00:19:47] Frank Abagnale: So in 2013, the Social Security Administration

eliminated that now, and this is why you're seeing social security numbers with 888, 000, as a starting number that we'd have never seen before; however, anyone with a social

security number prior to January 1st, 2013, that's still the same three digits represent that information. So they know to scam that out of you through social engineering to simply say

things like I did to get that information. [00:20:14] HOST: So you've got the first three and the last four. [00:20:16] Frank Abagnale: Right, so now you're left with 99 digits,

and any computer program can come up to a match of those number. [00:20:20] HOST: There you go. [00:20:21] Frank Abagnale: I think what's going to happen in the very near future, there

is a new technology called Trusona, which is T-r-u-s-o-n-a, that stands for True Persona. That is a technology that allows you the ability to know with 100 percent accuracy that the person

on the other end of the device is in fact who they say they are. So, that device, that technology's being used now to eliminate passwords. So government organizations and financial

institutions are getting rid of passwords. So let's take a major, let's take one of the top 10 banks in the United States. They spend about $6 million a month in their call center

resetting passwords, so that means that bank spends $100 million a year just resetting passwords, so in order to have the ability to eliminate passwords is a wonderful thing because

that's why we have most of the problems we have today. Passwords are stagnant, they need to be gone, so Trusona basically does away with the need for passwords. So for example, when you

in about a year's time you'll go up to your bank's ATM, you'll want to withdraw your money, you will just take your phone out and you will hold your phone up to the

screen at the bank, and it'll know it's you. [00:21:35] HOST: What is somebody's got my phone? [00:21:36] Frank Abagnale: No, because there is, it identifies you because you

have, when you press your app, you will have entered a passcode to open the app, and on your phone, or you'll use your thumbprint to open the phone and it'll know it's you.

[00:21:49] HOST: So most people, somebody's been able to unlock your phone and then have your phone, it's definitely... a lot safer. [00:21:53] Frank Abagnale: Right, so I've

had the opportunity to be an advisor to that technology on the government's behalf because the CIA uses that technology. So what I think is, in the next couple years that will be widely

used, passwords will go away, banks will start using it, even when you watch TV you'll hold your phone up to your television and you're into Netflix. You don't need to get

there through passwords and all of that. So what will happen, I think, is you won't need to say your social security number anymore. I'll identify you by your phone or your I-pad

or your PC that you are who you say you are. Yes, the government will still have your social security number as an identifier internally within the government, but you won't be required

when you go buy a car or you go do something to provide someone with your social security number, and I think that'll be where we get, turn that whole thing around. [00:22:41] HOST:

And does that lead into biometrics as well? I mean movies we've seen for decades, right? Eyeball scan, iris scan. [00:22:48] Frank Abagnale: The problem with biometrics, biometrics can

be easily replicated. This technology you cannot replicate nor can you replay, so there's no way to reduplicate it. You're you and I can't do anything about that. So I always

tell people about biometrics, that if you get a gummy bear and you press your thumb down on that gummy bear as hard as you can and make it... [00:23:10] HOST: Hold on, bad guys, stop

listening, but go ahead. [00:23:13] Frank Abagnale: It's not, anybody can do this, but it's to prove a point. If you take a gummy bear, which is gelatin, and you press your thumb

down on it as hard as you can, it'll make a 3-dimensional impression of your thumb, then take the gummy bear and lay it on your I-phone, it'll open it every single time. [00:23:28]

HOST: Really. [00:23:28] Frank Abagnale: So that... [00:23:29] HOST: And also all teenagers stop listening. [00:23:32] Frank Abagnale: So that is why now the new I-phone 10 will only scan

the veins in your thumb, so it'll replicate only your thumb. So once you record the veins and vessels in your thumb, that's how it'll read it, not by your fingerprint. So you

know, fingerprints... [00:23:47] HOST: I don't even see veins in my thumb. [00:23:48] Frank Abagnale: I always remind people that fingerprints are wonderful when you go to a crime scene

and there are fingerprints left behind and you identify the person, but when you think about it, everywhere you go, you leave your fingerprints, so if you're in a restaurant and I see

your glass and you put it down and I go over and pick up your glass, I have your fingerprints. So biometrics is something that can be replicated, it can be picked up and reused again. So

that's why it had to be a technology that couldn't replay and you couldn't reuse and you couldn't replicate. [00:24:15] HOST: What about the iris scan? Is that something

that's... [00:24:18] Frank Abagnale: Same thing. You can, once I record it, I can do a replay. So in other words, what criminals do is they send that image and it gets recorded so if

I'm in Russia and I capture that load, that download, I can replay that download and when I replay it, I have the same information, the same retina, the same everything that's on

that load. So that's why those things are not really... [00:24:42] HOST: I hear you, the replayable thing is really important. [00:24:44] Frank Abagnale: Right. [00:24:44] HOST: Or

non-replayable. [00:24:45] Frank Abagnale: Right. [00:24:46] HOST: The three digits on the back of a credit card, is that just adding, I don't know if I fully understand, but adding

three more numbers that make it even harder for somebody to get access to your credit card? I don't know, it seems funny to me that like you're still, you can still see the

numbers, anybody can read them. [00:24:59] Frank Abagnale: Right, and the whole purpose of that is to verify that you are, you are the person holding the card. That's mainly more for

online. And that's the other thing you need to understand. The chip is, the whole purpose of the chip, say it worked 100 percent perfectly, is to keep the cloning of credit cards, when

there is say, for example, a breech and someone gets all the credit card and debit card numbers, to keep them from going out and manufacturing those cards instantly, they've gone to the

chip. However, that does not stop online fraud. So when I go buy something on Amazon, they don't have my card. They don't have my three-digit number. They don't have any of

that, so online fraud then skyrockets because they get away from the credit card actual possession of the card, and they go commit all the fraud online. So, buying airline tickets, all that,

I don't need my card, the chip really doesn't serve any purpose, it's only for the direct purchase at point of sale. [00:25:54] HOST: Driver's licenses also have a lot

of technology these days, right, that protect people? [00:25:57] Frank Abagnale: They have some. [00:25:59] HOST: Will that help law enforcement? [00:26:00] Frank Abagnale: They've gone

to a little more sophisticated tech, driver's license. They have microprinting on it which is printing you can't see. [00:26:04] HOST: Passports, too. [00:26:06] Frank Abagnale:

Yeah, passport's much more sophisticated than driver's license. They have a lot what we call overt and covert features. Overt, things you can see, covert, things that are in there

that can only be read by a machine or a device that you can't see. [00:26:20] HOST: Okay. She talks about giving the caller a hard time, but we always advise people not to engage.

[00:26:28] Frank Abagnale: Yeah... [00:26:29] HOST: Why not? I mean just it would be a good idea not to... [00:26:31] Frank Abagnale: Again, this, again these calls are very common, so if I

had gone over to the phone and said, "Wells Fargo bank," even on my caller ID, said, "Hi, this is Robert Johnson, Fraud Department, Wells Fargo. Had some suspicious activity

on your credit card." I might listen to what they say. What is the suspicious activity? Okay. The moment they would have asked me any information, I would simply, sorry, I'm going

to have to hang up on you, but I will be calling back. And then I hang up, take my credit card, turn it over, call the 800 number on the back, get customer service, say, "I just got a

call from the fraud department. This is what they said." That person on customer service may say, let me connect you to the fraud department and then when you get someone of course

they're going to say, well no, we didn't call you and that's a scam. But yeah, she's right about the fact that no bank is going to ask you your social security number.

They're not going to ask you to reveal your bank account number. They know that. So they're not going to ask you that information. Obviously, if they're asking you that,

they're trying to get that information from you. [00:27:35] HOST: Frank, my colleague who is always in the room for our tapings, Julie. Julie, how are you? [00:27:39] Julie: I'm

well, thank you. [00:27:40] HOST: She always has questions and she's raising her hand, but she has one about calling the pizza place, right? [00:27:45] Julie: Yes, I do. So about every

Friday night my family and I order a pizza down at the local pizza joint, and the girl is maybe what, 16, 17 years old. Always asks for my credit card information. I give it to her. She asks

me expiration. And then she asks me the three digit on the back of the card. I always give it, but I always pause and think, is this right? So tell me, what advice you have. Should I be

doing this? [00:28:08] Frank Abagnale: Absolutely not, and most of all the pizza place should not be asking you that question, and if the credit card company knew that, they would have a

hard time with that pizza company, and the reason is, that they're only required to ask you for the credit card information over the phone, your name, your expiration date, and the card

number. They sometimes will then ask you for your zip code or actually, can you give me your address, which they already have because you're delivering the pizza to your house.

That's all they're required to get. Then their money's guaranteed, even if your card turns out to be fraudulent, or it turns out that you don't pay your bills, it

doesn't matter; the credit card company considers that an authorization and they'll make good to the pizza place on your card, but I can assure you that the credit card company

would never say to the pizza place, you have to ask for their three digit number. They don't want them to know your three digit, that number, so that's... [00:29:01] HOST:

It's just a pizza for goodness' sake, right? [00:28:58] Frank Abagnale: That's a case where somebody started doing that because they didn't know any better and that’s

just a policy of theirs until somebody tells you... [00:29:08] HOST: Check your statement, Julie. Every Friday night if the purchase is around midnight... [00:29:13] Frank Abagnale:

It's almost better just to say, it's almost better to say to your credit card company, listen, this is a pizza place I do business with. They ask me this and VISA will contact

them, whoever their credit card representative is, and their, or their processor will contact them and say, hey, stop asking your customers for that three digit number. You're giving

them away all that information... [00:29:33] HOST: When do you give the three digit number? Just online is what it's... [00:29:37] Frank Abagnale: Not even a lot of times online,

it's just on certain purchases and certain types where the credit card company has told the merchant, you must have the three digit number, like buying jewelry, something of an

expensive item over a certain dollar amount. Otherwise you don't need your three digit number on there. Most of that information about what information and data to get from the

customers is done by the processor and not by the credit card company, the VISA or MasterCard. They have rules for the processor to follow, so maybe there's a chance that the processor,

whoever the pizza place uses, requires that they get that three digit number on the back of the card. I don't think that's something VISA or MasterCard would condone for the prize

of an $18 pizza, but that may be the case in that processor has told them to get the three digit number on the back. [00:30:27] HOST: Alright, so something to keep in mind in the midst of

all of this. [00:30:29] Frank Abagnale: Yes. [00:30:30] HOST: Got it, Julie? [00:30:31] Julie: I do. So next time, so next time I order the pizza should I say something to the girl as well?

[00:30:36] Frank Abagnale: Say, I don't believe you need my three digit number for buying this pizza. I'm having to give you my address and my... [00:30:39] HOST: Just bring me my

pizza. It's Julie, I order every Friday. [00:30:43] Julie: I'm so hungry, please bring me my pizza. [00:30:45] Frank Abagnale: Yes, so see this is that whole thing where we give

away too much information only because someone asked us something, and we shouldn't give away all that information. [00:30:51] HOST: We don't know any better maybe, but right.

Alright, Julie. Any other questions or you’re good? [00:30:56] Julie: I'm good. [00:30:56] HOST: Okay. We should have Julie on more. Alright, thank you, Frank. Once again, the AARP

Fraud Watch Network Ambassador and my cohost, Frank Abagnale. [00:31:04] Frank Abagnale: Thank you. [00:31:04] HOST: For more information and resources on how to protect yourself from scam

artists visit AARP.org. _END OF TRANSCRIPT_