Last summer, when Montana State University graduate student Connor Green was spending time with family, he didn’t expect his grandfather to receive a phone call he’d still think about five months later.
The call happened to be from Connor himself. Or rather, a scammer using AI to sound exactly like Green’s voice, telling his grandpa he’d been injured, was in the hospital and urgently needed $15,000.
Fortunately, Green recognized the scam and ended the call. He didn’t realize it then, but the experience would go on to inspire his academic work and community outreach in Bozeman.
These days, anyone with a phone or email address is likely familiar with the multifold techniques bad actors use to scam people out of their money. But with new technologies and scammers getting ever savvier, even the most vigilant person is susceptible to fraud.
Green, a graduate student in the Master of Public Accountancy program in the Jake Jabs College of Business and Entrepreneurship, was reminded of the scam call when taking a course on fraud examination last fall. Professor Angela Woodland assigned students a class project to prepare an educational presentation or video about fraud for an at-risk audience.
Along with Green, fellow graduate students Dylan Nelson, Nicholas Caiazzo and Ethan Egan created a presentation about common scams and how to avoid them. In November, the students presented it at the Bozeman Senior Center to an audience of about 20 people. Originally, the presentation was slated for 15 minutes, but attendees asked so many follow-up questions that the students ended up staying for two hours.
The presentation was such a hit that an audience member asked the students to present to the MSU Alumni Foundation Retiree Association, which they did on March 4. About 40 people attended in person and 30 others joined online, with the students answering dozens of questions after the presentation concluded.
“This is exactly the goal of our fraud examination class project,” said Woodland. “I could not be more proud of my students’ hard work, professionalism, expertise and heart for our community.”
For the second presentation, Green and his peers readied printouts of resources and tips for attendees to take home, gathered screenshots of real-life scam attempts to discuss and prepared to answer more specific questions.
When asked why the work was important to him, Green said, “I’ve heard so many horror stories of people losing their entire livelihoods because of these scams. Even just at the senior center, people had stories of losing thousands of dollars to scammers, and it’s really hard to get that money back.
“It’s difficult to see that happening to people and not want to do something about it,” he added.
In the presentation, the students covered four types of scams: family imitation and coercion, tech support scams, government impersonation scams, and phishing.
Fittingly, Green covered family imitation scams. To avoid falling for scams like the phone call to his grandpa, people should establish phrases with their family members to confirm the caller is actually who they say they are if they need help, Green said. The phrases shouldn’t be something easy to guess, like a birthday or hometown.
Ethan Egan outlined common tech support scams, which start with a message offering a refund for something you didn’t buy, or claiming your computer has a virus. Most of these messages come from online pop-ups that you should never click on. A tell-tale sign of such a scam is someone asking to connect to your computer “to fix the virus” or for you to sign into your bank account “to receive the refund,” Egan said.
Dylan Nelson highlighted government impersonation scams, where scammers pretend to represent agencies like the IRS. As a general rule, government agencies contact individuals through mail or in person and will never call or text, Nelson said. Scammers also instill a sense of urgency, asking potential victims to complete an action right away so they have less time to process what they’re doing. Often, they will ask for payment in a non-refundable form, such as gift cards or money transfer apps.
Nick Caiazzo detailed phishing scams, which are mass-produced emails and texts with embedded links. At first glance, the sender appears legitimate, like a bank or utility company, but will have slight discrepancies like a misspelled name. Often, the message contains a link to “update personal information” that will download malware onto your computer. The best practice is to avoid clicking on links from unknown senders and to place a call to the actual company for verification if you think the message may be real.
While both presentations were attended by audiences of senior citizens, the students emphasized these tips are applicable to anyone. People of any age can fall for scams, which are becoming increasingly elaborate, Green said.
“We don’t want to scold people for falling for scams, because it happens to everyone,” Green said. “It’s just something that you have to deal with, especially in the world we live in today.”
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