Welcome to the Stay Walthy podcast. I'm your host, Taylor Schulte, and today I'm sharing important

information about an increasingly popular financial scam. And to help you take action and stay safe,

I'm also sharing three important tips for protecting your identity and hard-earned financial assets.

For the links and resources mentioned today, just head over to you staywealthy.com forward slash

151.

I'm not sure if I've ever shared this publicly before.

Maybe once a long time ago on the podcast, but about 10 years ago, my grandfather

received a phone call from someone pretending to be me. It's a version of the grandparent scam or the

family and trouble scam, as some refer to it as. When the phone is picked up by the grandparent

or the family member, the scammer simply says something like, hey, grandpa, and then waits for

them to say something along the lines of, Taylor, is that you?

Now the scammer has my name, says, yes, grandpa, it's Taylor, and then proceeds with the scam.

In this case, the scammer told my grandfather that my voice might sound a little funny because I was in an altercation in Canada or an accident and they gave me pain meds.

And as a result of this situation of this altercation, I'm in trouble and I need $7,000 in cash

ASAP.

The kicker, and this is common throughout all these scams, is that the grandparent is told,

or the family member is told by the scammer that they cannot tell anyone about this,

that I'll get into even more

trouble if anyone else gets involved or knows about the situation. So my grandfather, believing

it was me on the other end of the phone, even though I sounded a little funny, rushed to a few

different banks and gathered up $7,000 in cash, put it in an envelope addressed to the scammer, and dropped it off at the post

office. It wasn't until he got home that my mother just kind of sensed something was wrong

...