Dave Ramsey Caught in a Scam

Watch out for scammers using fake websites and AI to trick you

Ric Edelman: It's Friday, May 31st, 2024. On today's show, Dave Ramsey is caught up in a scam. Plus the future of healthcare with David Moss, CEO and co-founder of Care Daily. You know, I'm not a huge fan of Dave Ramsey. His advice for helping the young and the stupid get out of debt is usually pretty good, but when he moves away from advice about paying off debts, he's usually out of his expertise. And the advice he gives is often more harmful than helpful. But today, I have to come to Dave's defense. He's gotten himself in the center of a scam, and he's just as much of a victim as the hapless souls who lost money. Turns out that a scam artist impersonated Dave Ramsey and tricked a 72-year-old woman into sending him her money. 

According to news reports, she went to a website that looked like it was connected to Dave, it even had a video of him. The site invited her to ask questions, and she did, and she ended up having a conversation via text messages with Dave. Of course, it wasn't really Dave Ramsey. It was a con artist who was claiming to be Dave Ramsey, and the more they chatted via text, the most aggressive the fake Dave got about encouraging her to invest with him. 

She sent the guy $2,000, and it soon looked like it grew to over $5,000. But in fact, her money was gone. When Ramsay's people were told about this, they tried to get the site shut down. But it's whack-a-mole. Even if they manage to shut it down, the crooks will just open another one. 

I feel bad for this woman. You might say that two grand isn't much, but it sure was a lot to her, and she wasn't the only one who lost money. The FBI says Americans lost tens of billions of dollars to scams and  frauds last year. We're talking millions of people who, like this 72-year-old woman, are just sincerely and honestly looking for help and advice. 

These folks aren't always greedy, looking for a get rich quick deal. They are just in need of help, and how are they supposed to know that the website they went to isn't the real deal? So, yeah, this woman was victimized, but so was Dave Ramsey. He's worked hard for decades to help people, and to build his reputation, and to see crooks exploit his good name for their own nefarious purposes, is just despicable. And Dave has to be feeling bad about this incident. Even though he had nothing to do with it, he knows that this retiree lost money essentially because of one simple reason. She's a fan of Dave Ramsey, and the crooks use that trust and familiarity against her. I am certain that Dave feels bad about this, even though there's really nothing he can do about it other than help the law enforcement folks who are trying to catch the crook and shut down that activity. 

And I know how Dave is feeling because I've had it happen to me. Not a week goes by that we don't get told by one, my listeners, that there's a fake Facebook page or LinkedIn profile or website that is supposedly me. Every time we hear about it, we get X or Facebook or YouTube or whoever to shut it down. But another just pops right up. It really is whack-a-mole.  

The worst event that ever happened. About 15 years ago, I got a call from a sheriff's deputy in a small town in Oregon. He got a call from a local banker. The banker had noticed that one of his customers had started making several large withdrawals over the past few weeks. 

We're talking withdrawals of $50,000 at a time, several times. The banker got suspicious and called the customer, who said everything was fine. The banker wasn't satisfied, so he called the sheriff. The sheriff called the wife. And she said she knew nothing of this. She confronted her husband, and he told her that he was investing with me, and was going to be making a lot of money in a very short time. 

He showed her letters he got from me, and statements of his accounts that he got from me. She gave those documents to the sheriff, and the sheriff called me 3,000 miles away to ask me about it. I, of course, had never heard of the guy, and when the sheriff showed me the paperwork, I was astonished. Um, the crook had imitated our letterhead. 

Remember, this was 15 years ago, long before we got very sophisticated with technology. The letterhead was identical to our own, except that it displayed a fake address and phone number, suggesting a local office in that guy's town in Oregon. The statements looked real, too, but it was all a scam. We cooperated with the Sheriff's Department. 

And I spoke with the wife and the bank. The husband refused to talk to me when she tried to put him on the phone with me. Even though everyone was telling this guy that he was being conned, he wouldn't listen to the bank, to the sheriff, or even to his wife. He kept insisting that he wasn't being conned, and in fact, he was going to prove it to everyone. 

How was he going to do that, the sheriff asked. He said he and I had arranged to meet, and he was bringing another $50,000. This would make it a total of $300,000 he had withdrawn from his bank. And he was going to be meeting me in a parking lot on a Sunday morning, and I'd be there with a brand-new Cadillac to give him. 

Nobody was able to persuade him that this was all nonsense. And yet, because he had sole control over his bank account, no one had the legal right to stop him from making his withdrawals. That Sunday morning came, the guy went to the parking lot, and the sheriff was there, too. The crook never showed up. 

And of course, I wasn't there either. And that was the end of the scam. The guy finally admitted it must all have been a hoax, and he lost $250,000, and I felt very badly for him because he had been a faithful listener to my radio show for decades, and the trust that had been built up was used against him in a devastating way. 

So my message to you is clear. Be very careful when searching for information on the web. Do not assume that the website you're visiting is real. Be very careful if a famous celebrity or personality is involved, because odds are extremely high that you're actually engaging with a crook, not the real person. 

And with the new capabilities of generative AI, you really have to assume that you're being conned because crooks can use AI to create fake audio and video of the scam artist. And the tech is now so good that you'll never be able to tell that what you're listening to isn't really the person you think you're listening to. 

For example, this entire show, today, was produced by Eleven Labs, a company that creates voices using AI. What you're hearing sounds like Ric Edelman. It isn't Ric Edelman. He wrote the script, but AI provided the voice. And if this has fooled you, imagine what else might be fooling you. This is particularly important during this year's election season. 

Because people can make it appear that candidates are saying and doing things that they really aren't saying or doing. And I'm talking about every candidate from Joe Biden and Donald Trump to nominees for the local school board. So, Dave Ramsey, sorry for your troubles and for your inadvertent role in causing troubles for others. It's the world we live in today. 

Coming up next, the future of healthcare with David Moss, CEO and co-founder of Care Daily. 

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Discover the future of healthcare with David Moss of Care Daily

Ric Edelman: You're listening to The Truth About Your Future. And we need to talk about the future of healthcare. You know what? It's going to be in your home. That's where the future of healthcare is and deeply personalized for you and your family to help us understand all of this. Welcome David Moss. He's the CEO and co-founder of Care Daily. David also invented the app Presence, which is in top 0.1% of all apps in the Apple iPhone store. David, great to have you with us.  

David Moss: Thanks, Ric. Thanks for having me on.  

Ric Edelman: So talk about what it is you're doing and how you got into it and all that. What's your story? 

David Moss: Yeah, well, actually the aha moment came for me after I created that app, Presence, over 10 years ago. And yeah, it was in the top 0.1% of revenue generating apps in the Apple app store, you'd get your old phone out of your sock drawer, you'd download the app. And then suddenly your old phone became a free internet security camera that you could watch live. You could get motion detection video alerts and talk back to the people and the pets who were nearby your camera. Now, my beautiful wife is a PhD user experience researcher, and I get to borrow her talents and smarts from time to time. So she studied our massive user base and found that while many people were using the app to watch over their homes and their kids and their pets, there was this really interesting population who was using it to care for an older adult. And those people turned out to be the most passionate users we ever had. In fact, there was one woman who said she was able to keep her job because she could use our app to watch over her mother back at home who had Alzheimer's. So we took this concept and pivoted the entire company. We created a type of virtual assistant that we call an AI caregiver. Now, it's not a robot. These AI caregivers never sleep, they're always friendly, they speak multiple languages, it's software, and they interact with people, and they interact with the physical world around us. So our AI caregiver is named Artie, and Artie talks with people over text messages, apps, phone calls. And they can understand how everyone is doing in their own homes using wearables and sensors and appliances that they may already own.  

Ric Edelman: So explain this to me, David, just in the trenches, logistically, how does a family access these AI caregivers? How do they use it on a daily basis?  

David Moss: Yeah, well, so families are going to access these services through our partners. Many of them are probably in your home already today. So you see Care Daily is actually here to make other companies the heroes in the battle against a sinister force that we call the care crisis. Now the care crisis is the enemy we're all up against. It manifests as anxiety and worry over mom and dad, inadequate care, professional caregivers who want to quit and rising costs that just cripple our ability to access quality care. So the care crisis is also shifting its battle into people's homes. So you can think of Care Daily as an AI technology arms dealer in this battle. We have an army of AI caregivers. And we're not selling to families directly, but we are helping other brand name healthcare and technology service providers become the heroes in this battle against the care crisis by providing enhanced care and reducing healthcare costs and connecting families. 

Ric Edelman: Well, there are so many device manufacturers, medical and non-medical. How do they all connect up and how do they make use of this larger intelligence?  

David Moss: Yeah. So there, there are hundreds of companies out there building products and solutions this, what we call the age tech or health tech space. And families really need these solutions fast. Unfortunately, it takes years to build this stuff, especially the kind of cloud services that enable this kind of artificial intelligence. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. So what we're doing at Care Daily is giving back to a select number of startups in this space by offering them their own instance of this artificial intelligence to call their own at no cost. And what they can do is connect up their own products. They can have unlimited users and round out their solution with other partners who are already part of the ecosystem. And they can find their way into these massive healthcare and service provider channels that we've established. So companies and startups can check it out at caredaily.ai.  

Ric Edelman: So are you suggesting that our home appliances, that are provided by these other companies, that they may someday be connected to this AI caregiving?  

David Moss: Yeah, Ric, exactly. It's already happening. Already today, our partners have connected over 200 products to this AI caregiver intelligence, and it's growing fast. Some of these are security systems, or appliances, or TVs, or even Wi-Fi routers that are already in millions of homes. Even your Apple Watch and your Aura Ring can play a part. Now, so ten years ago, a Wi-Fi connected refrigerator would have been laughable. But when you think about it, even opening the refrigerator door is an interesting observation. This person is awake, they're alive, they made it to the kitchen, and they may be thinking about a meal right now, so let's nudge them with a reminder to eat healthy.  

Ric Edelman: So what kinds of healthcare companies are you discovering are interested in this technology? How would they use it? 

David Moss: We're seeing interest from healthcare companies across the spectrum. AI caregivers are accelerating a tectonic shift from reactive to preventative care. And there are new hybrid models of care emerging, like from our partners at Lifeguard Health who combined their own AI caregivers from Care Daily with a single clinician who is now able to take care of dozens of families nearby. And home health and home care companies are transforming themselves to provide better care with AI caregivers. They're filling in gaps of communications with family members. And then finally, I think health care insurance companies are especially interesting to us. Paying for a hospital visit is their most expensive cost. And we believe AI caregivers are now intelligent enough to predict hospital visits up to seven days in advance, simply by talking with people, asking questions, capturing data from your wearables, and then privately understanding the lifestyle patterns in their homes.  

Ric Edelman: So it seemed to therefore that in addition to the healthcare companies, wanting to be involved in this because this can be a great way for them to save money by improving patient care, et cetera, that the telecom and internet companies would be all over this too. 

David Moss: Yeah, we, think about what these telcos and, other internet service provider companies do best. They create experiences for the whole family. They bring TV and internet into the home. They provide services and messaging capabilities for your smartphones and your cellular connected watches. And it's not just telcos. It's also security companies who are realizing that their existing security sensors in homes can actually learn lifestyle patterns and predict problems and know when patterns break unexpectedly. So I think televisions will start to become the teleconferencing center for the home that enables seniors to connect face to face with family and doctors, and Wi-Fi routers are starting to include Wi-Fi motion sensing technologies, which can detect some human activities in the home without having to install additional sensors. And I think that these assets that are already in homes today, when combined with AI caregiver software intelligence, like we have, will generate new compelling services that families just can't live without. 

Ric Edelman: So Siri and Alexa, I gotta believe they're going to be involved.  

David Moss: I think there's already some things that they're exploring in homes today. And yeah, there's a lot of interactions across every player in this space to bring them together. And create an experience that really unites the family and makes it easy to interact with AI caregivers. 

Ric Edelman: It sounds absolutely fascinating and I can see how that anecdote you told of a woman saying she was able to go to work and still provide observance if nothing else for her mom would make a lot of sense and why that would be very exciting. We spend a lot of time on this podcast talking about Alzheimer's disease and dementia and the incredible impact on families. But let me turn it upside down for a moment. If you're describing a home environment where all the connected devices, your computer, your Echo, connecting with Alexa, your television, the internet router itself, they're all observing what's happening in the home. Isn't this kind of like the ultimate of Big Brother? 

David Moss: It could be. And I think, as more sensitive health and data is collected, we need robust measures to protect this data. So you really have to opt into these services. You're not just going to, they're not going to be activated, for you automatically, but I think policymakers and industry players have to work together to create standards and regulations that will protect the user data. And we have to implement responsible AI policies while not stifling innovation or preventing the kind of care that's needed in homes today. 

Ric Edelman: So one thing I'm just thinking is that you mentioned the refrigerator in the kitchen telling you some really important information about what that family member or patient is doing. The other key room in the house is the bathroom, because that's where most injuries occur in the home, because there's water and you tend to be barefoot, and so you slip pretty easily. You're also dealing with razors, and sharp objects like scissors in the bathroom more than in other rooms of the house. So, bathrooms we all know are treacherous rooms, and they're really key for the hygiene and the care and well-being of patients, you put a camera in that room and I can just imagine the privacy issues that come up. So talk about that.  

David Moss: Yeah. when we learned this market is really in need of solutions with our app presence, that was a camera. The first thing we did was we got rid of the camera. 

Ric Edelman: I'll bet!  

David Moss: And, yeah, people don't want to feel spied upon. Now, in some cases with dementia and Alzheimer's, as your problems go up, cameras become very welcome in homes. But the bathroom is a special spot that you should not have a camera in there. Let me talk about some of the partners we have, connected into our AI caregiver that address the bathroom. There is a radar sensing device that can go on the wall with no cameras and detect falls in real time and actually understand if you're in the shower or, at the sink. It's able to identify those falls where, you know, 80% of falls do occur in the bathroom. There's another device, a little humidity sensor. You can stick it to the ceiling, and now we understand if you're taking showers or baths, there's a hygiene score that's developed out of that, which can trigger home care agencies to provide more services if we find out that somebody's not bathing regularly. And then finally, there are some really interesting devices like an actual toilet seat. It's kind of like a remote patient monitoring device. It's all about in this market, kind of the ins and outs, and we're able to sense problems proactively and put that in the hands of a trusted clinician who can really understand if there's really a problem.  

Ric Edelman: So it sounds very exciting. It sounds like there's a lot of things to consider, but I can envision a lot of people expressing a lot of interest in this, just as you experienced with your app Presence, your new app ,Care Daily, I think is going to have a lot of interest. What's the status of your company? You're a startup. Are you looking for investors and funding at this point? Do you have the cap table worked out already? What's your status?  

David Moss: We do. We have been around for over a decade now. We have gained about $8 million in funding from the National Institute on Aging, and I can talk about some of the results there, but all startup companies are generally looking for investments and funding. It's been a tough investment environment lately. What's exciting though, is we do have a healthcare venture capitalist leading a current round and we have a little more room for some additional startup investors. So age tech and health tech and AI startup investors who may be interested can reach out to our email address at hello@caredaily.ai. 

Ric Edelman: If you could offer just one piece of advice to consumers or to the healthcare industry, what would that be?  

David Moss: My advice would be to embrace collaboration and open innovation. Open innovation accelerates the pace of change. What we have is an open AI platform. It's already helping bring companies together in this space. And the healthcare industry is very complex. There's a lot of stakeholders involved. There's patients, caregivers, healthcare providers, insurers, technologists, and regulators. And each one of them brings a unique perspective and expertise.  

Ric Edelman: And they are not known for collaborating, let's face it. They guard their IP very carefully and they're not known for collaborating. 

David Moss: Exactly, Ric. Yeah, the challenges faced by the industry, including aging populations and rising healthcare costs and healthcare accessibility. They're just too big for any one entity to solve alone. What we need to do is come together and that's what we're helping to do at Care Daily. We bring all the players together. So my advice to the industry is to break down the silos, to foster a culture of collaboration and sharing and leverage our collective intelligence to meet the healthcare challenges of this next century.  

Ric Edelman: Well, it sounds very interesting. I think people should take a look at this. If you'd like to learn more, you can visit David at caredaily.ai. His LinkedIn address is in the show notes as well, so you can very easily connect directly with David. And David, thanks so much for bringing this to our attention and letting us know what you're working on. 

David Moss: Thank you very much, Ric. 

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Ric Edelman: Hey, have you registered for VISION yet? It’s coming to Austin, June 2-4, really quick. You’ll learn about the protocol economy, how blockchain technology is revolutionizing commerce. Plus, you’ll have the chance for one-on-one meetings and dine arounds. Spend time with other advisors who are interested in crypto for their clients. Register now at DACFP.com. The link is in the show notes.   

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Ric Edelman: On Monday, you'll be hearing from the real Ric Edelman. Or will you? You might never know.  

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Links from today’s show: 

VISION – Register Now: https://dacfp.com/2024-dacfp-vision/  

Care Daily: https://www.caredaily.ai/  

David Moss on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmoss/  

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