Double Scam: Author Caught in Recovery Scheme After Crypto Dating Fraud
The Perfect Scam
AARP
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 13 February 2026
⏱️ 57 minutes
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Summary
Josh loves his job as a full-time novelist, but writing and working from home don't give him many opportunities to meet people. So he decides to try a dating site and connects with a woman named Hannah. After months of conversation and growing closer, Hannah tells Josh about her cryptocurrency investments and encourages him to invest as well. Over time, he puts in more than $100,000 and watches his money grow. When he tries to withdraw money from his account, it is frozen and Hannah disappears. Panicked, Josh searches for help online and finds a company that claims to trace and recover stolen crypto funds. The tragedy only deepens when he turns to family for help paying the company's fees.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This week on the perfect scam. |
| 0:04.0 | This one caught me so completely out of guard because she put in the work. It was not a simple scam. |
| 0:10.0 | She introduced herself as a girlfriend. And then after several months, she introduced the investment. |
| 0:17.0 | She was the perfect hook. And then it was the actual scam. |
| 0:27.7 | Welcome back to the perfect scam. I'm your host, Bob Sullivan. Scam victims often find |
| 0:34.8 | themselves in desperate situations, their money stolen, their options, |
| 0:39.9 | limited. And sometimes it feels like there's nowhere to turn for help. And into this sea of |
| 0:45.9 | frustration and desperation, well, criminals charge in, re-victimizing people and the darkest kind |
| 0:52.8 | of kick them while they're down operation. |
| 0:57.0 | Today's guest is the victim of what's known as a recovery scam. |
| 1:01.3 | He's a double victim, and the tragedy only deepens when he turns to family for financial help. |
| 1:07.7 | Meet Josh Kern. |
| 1:09.2 | His dad was in the military, so he grew up all over, but he lives in Colorado now. |
| 1:14.2 | He's an author who's written dozens of books, but Josh never expected to live out the life of a character for one of his zombie thrillers. |
| 1:24.3 | What kind of things do you write? |
| 1:26.0 | Fantasy, lit RPG, gamel, apocalyptic, zombie thrillers, a little bit of everything. |
| 1:33.3 | Mainly I try to concentrate on fantasy because that's my first love growing up. |
| 1:38.7 | But yeah, also sci-fi stuff. |
| 1:41.7 | But yeah, fantasy is generally my bread and butter with also thrillers as my backup, |
| 1:47.7 | just because I really enjoy writing them. I don't really know how to phrase that one, but it just |
| 1:56.3 | that's okay. You sort of does something for me. Yeah, I'm sure it's more fun to write one than to live one, |
| 2:01.7 | however, isn't it? Yeah, for sure. I'm actually using this entire episode in one of my current |
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