[Ep. 42] Voicemail with no missed call? It's a scam

She asked to see a warrant, then says she was arrested in front of her kids on bodycam footage. I sat down with Natasha Lopez to walk through what happened next.She breaks down her arrest captured on bodycam and home security footage, how a Flock license plate reader camera was allegedly used to track her son's girlfriend in real time to her house, and a months long pattern of stalking with fake pages and deepfake photos. I also cover what happened when she reported it, why a restraining order was only the start, and where the charges, lost certification, and wider investigation stand now.What You Will Learn This Episode:- How to handle police at your door when no warrant is shown- What Flock cameras are and how license plate readers can follow a vehicle in real time- Why saving your own body cam video can protect you and what it can invite- How deepfake images are used in online safety cases- What to do when you report harassment and it keeps coming back- Why a temporary restraining order is not the end in a stalking case- What accountability looks like here: charges, lost certification, investigation- Why Natasha wants a state law on Flock camerasEnjoying the show? Take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. Head over to https://cyberguy.com/podcast/ to find the show on other platforms.

An airline miles scam can hit anyone, even travel expert Katy Nastro. She landed in New York, opened her app, and found 50,000 miles gone, redeemed by a stranger for a trip she never booked. She shares how she found out, what the airline demanded before it would help, and a habit she thinks may have left her exposed. Plus, why the miles you're saving for "someday" may be riskier to hold than you think.What You Will Learn This Episode:• How Katy discovered 50,000 airline miles missing while riding home in an Uber• What the airline made her do before it would give her miles back• Why there's almost no consumer protection for stolen miles and points• Why airline loyalty programs quietly shrink the value of your miles every year• How to make your airline and hotel accounts harder to break into• Why a dedicated email address for your miles account can help• How to tell a real redemption alert from a fake airline miles scam email• Why social media is a risky place to ask your airline for helpEnjoying the show? Take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. Head over to https://cyberguy.com/podcast/ to find the show on other platforms.

Sick of political text messages? I get them too. I block one number, and wham, the next day it's back from the same group.So I asked PACspam creator George Weiner why blocking never works. He explains snowshoeing, the loophole that keeps the flood coming, who profits off every campaign text, and how to trace who's texting you so you can fight back at the source.What You Will Learn in This Episode:- Why blocking one number never works and what snowshoeing is- How to use PACspam.org to trace who sent you a political text, free and anonymous- Who to contact at the texting platform to get removed, and what to say- Why donating through an unsolicited text means even more spam- How to tell a real campaign from a PAC and give directly insteadEnjoying the show? Take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. Head over to https://cyberguy.com/podcast/ to find the show on other platforms.

The Daejon Love scam started on dating apps like Hinge, where a fake 49ers player allegedly ran a $1.3 million romance scam on at least 26 women. Domonique Dubose matched with him and caught on fast.He had a blue check, 85,000 Instagram followers, and videos from Super Bowl week to prove he was the real deal. But within minutes of his first messages, Domonique knew something was off. She tells Kurt exactly how she started digging, the lies that didn't add up, and why she believes the real number of victims is far bigger than anyone knows.What You Will Learn This Episode:- How a fake 49ers player allegedly used a blue check, luxury cars, and team gear to look completely real- Why a flood of voice notes and videos in the first few minutes is a major red flag- How one scammer allegedly ran different personas (football player, real estate investor, day trader) to target different groups of victims- What simple searches you can do to check whether a dating app match is who he says he is- Why handing over cash or taking out a loan "for someone you love" is a warning sign you should never ignore- Why dating app ID checks can't stop someone from lying to you once they're verified- What one social media platform did to help protect people from fake athlete profiles- How Domonique protects herself from dating app scams today, starting with the moment you text herEnjoying the show? Take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. Head over to https://cyberguy.com/podcast/ to find the show on other platforms.

An AI voice cloning scam convinced Deborah Del Mastro that a Mexican drug cartel had kidnapped her daughter. The sobbing voice on the phone was an AI voice clone, and the kidnapping was fake.It started over breakfast, when a local number called and a stranger asked if her daughter was prone to panic attacks. Seconds later, she heard her daughter crying on the line, and a man said she'd be sold unless Deborah paid up.What followed was five and a half hours of threats, wire transfers, and driving from store to store with the phone held up so he could hear every word. The whole time, her daughter was safe at work. Deborah, a Navy veteran and mother of two, walks me through every minute of it and what she wishes every family knew before that phone rings.What You Will Learn This Episode:- How scammers can copy a loved one's voice from social media and use it against you- Why these callers keep you on the phone for hours and what that's really for- What a family safe word is and why you should set one up today- Why nobody at the store stopped Deborah from wiring money to Mexico- How your personal details end up in scammers' hands for just a few dollars- Why smart, careful people fall for this and why it's never your fault- The simple app Deborah's family now uses so they always know everyone is safe- The classic red flags to watch for: urgency, secrecy, and a demand for moneyEnjoying the show? Take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. Head over to https://cyberguy.com/podcast/ to find the show on other platforms.

In 2019, seven squatters moved into Flash Shelton's mom's empty house, and the sheriff told him there was nothing they could do. So he came up with a plan of his own. Now known as the Squatter Hunter from A&E's Squatters, Flash sits down with me to reveal how squatters really operate, why most of them aren't homeless, and the tenant law loophole that lets them live rent-free for months. If you own a home, care for an aging parent, or ever leave your house empty, this conversation could save you from a nightmare.What You Will Learn This Episode:- How one son took back his mom's house from seven squatters without waiting on the courts- Why most squatters aren't homeless, and why they keep moving from house to house- What squatters are really after, and why a fake lease can stall police for months- How to register your no trespassing signs so deputies can actually make an arrest- Why a locked mailbox is one of your best defenses against squatters- What to set up before vacation, from battery backup cameras to timers and a car in the driveway- How to protect an empty house with no power or Wi-Fi- What happened when an 88-year-old's caregiver refused to leave her homeEnjoying the show? Take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. Head over to https://cyberguy.com/podcast/ to find the show on other platforms.

Romance scams are the most expensive form of online dating fraud, and this one plays out like a true crime documentary with two victims instead of one. Gabby met a man on LinkedIn who was already connected to a former colleague of hers, so she assumed he was real. Over two years he asked for money, sent it back, and asked again, until the amounts got very large and the money stopped coming back. The photos used to catfish her belong to Brian Haugen, a real man in Los Angeles, and he joins me in studio to explain what a stolen face has cost him.What You Will Learn This Episode:- Why a romance scammer sends your money back early on, and what it is actually buying him- How a scam account uses one shared LinkedIn connection to look completely legitimate- What to watch for when an online dating match always has a reason they cannot meet you- Why the amounts start small and climb slowly instead of arriving as one big ask- The single request that will expose a catfish faster than anything else you can try- Who the Yahoo Boys are and how an international romance scam operation actually runs- What happens to the real person whose face gets stolen and used to catfish strangers- Kurt's red flags for checking on someone you love who is dating a stranger onlineEnjoying the show? Take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. Head over to https://cyberguy.com/podcast/ to find the show on other platforms. Have a question for Kurt? Call 877-655-KURT and leave a voicemail.

Flock cameras sit at the end of ordinary neighborhood streets in thousands of American towns, and one of them read Lindsey Isaacs' license plate wrong. Seven months later, the 23-year-old was surrendering herself on eight felony counts tied to a crash that killed three people. She was nowhere near the accident. She had a receipt, a car with no damage on it, and a vehicle that was not even the same color as the one witnesses described. This true crime story pinned an innocent person to the crime with just a flock camera, a plate number, and the officers who decided that was enough. I sit down with Lindsey to walk through the 13 days she spent in jail, the moment she realized what investigators had actually built their case on, and what mass surveillance on your own street now costs you in privacy.What You Will Learn This Episode:- How flock cameras work, and how one plate read can turn your car into evidence- What a plate reader captures about where you drive, and how long police keep it- Why a receipt and an undamaged car were not enough to stop an arrest- What a time and distance analysis is, and how it finally broke the case open- Why the color of a vehicle matters more than most drivers realize- What happens inside solitary confinement when charges get labeled severe- The safeguard Lindsey says should be required before any plate based arrest- Why "I have nothing to hide" is the wrong way to think about mass surveillanceEnjoying the show? Take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. Head over to https://cyberguy.com/podcast/ to find the show on other platforms. Have a question for Kurt? Call 877-655-KURT and leave a voicemail.

In August 2005, I flew to New Orleans on a trip with my parents and ended up trapped downtown as Hurricane Katrina came ashore. I got my mom and dad onto the last flight out, then checked back into a hotel that promised it was the "model of hurricane preparedness." Within days, the food was gone, the generators were dying, gunfire echoed through the streets, and nine feet of water surrounded the building. Carlos Amezcua, the KTLA anchor who interviewed me while I was trapped in New Orleans, joins me in studio to walk back through it. What I learned in those days became the Hurricane prep checklist I have used ever since, and I share all of it here.What You Will Learn This Episode:- How to find and save your home's exact GPS coordinates in under a minute, and why rescuers cannot reach you without them- Why your cell tower stops working roughly 48 hours after the power goes out, and what still works after that- What belongs in the Ziploc bag Kurt keeps ready at all times- How to choose an emergency radio that wakes you up before a storm arrives instead of after- Why a hotel or building that says it is prepared can still run out of food and water in days- How to set up Emergency SOS by satellite on your phone before you need it, and the one mistake that keeps it from working- What to keep charged, and where to store the backup power everyone forgets- Why the scams coming after a disaster can do as much damage as the stormEnjoying the show? Take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. Head over to https://cyberguy.com/podcast/ to find the show on other platforms.

Voicemail with no missed call? That silent voicemail scam is how criminals confirm your phone number is real, and blocking the number will never stop it. A viewer named Mike started getting empty voicemails from numbers that never rang his phone. He blocked one. Twenty minutes later, another arrived from a different number. Then another. I explain how ringless voicemail works, why every number you block comes back as a new one, and why the call that comes next is the one that can cost you everything.What You Will Learn This Episode:- Why your phone never rings before these voicemails land- How ringless voicemail gets into your inbox without going through your phone- Why blocking the number does absolutely nothing to stop it- What scammers actually learn the second you open that message- How your phone number gets stamped confirmed and sold to worse criminals- The exact iPhone setting that makes unknown callers explain themselves first- What to ask your carrier for by name, because they will not offer it- How to report these calls to the FTC and get your number off broker listsEnjoying the show? Take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. Head over to https://cyberguy.com/podcast/ to find the show on other platforms. Have a question for Kurt? Call 877-655-KURT and leave a voicemail.