Serial Con Artist Impersonates Psychiatrist

[00:00:00] Michelle: This week on The Perfect Scam.

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[00:00:03] The old me would have just let it go, and just kind of like put my head in my turtle shell and be embarrassed again, and I said, no. I'm not wrong. I did nothing wrong. He did wrong. You know, it's, I don't need to be punished for this. You need to be punished.

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[00:00:23] Michelle: Welcome back to AARP's The Perfect Scam. I'm your host, Michelle Kosinski. Well we have an unusual one for you this week. There are few relationships more private, more sacred than that between a person and their doctor. You might say, all the more so when that doctor is a psychologist and helping someone deal with their most personal stuff. But what happens when that doctor is the one with the biggest secrets, the biggest problems of all, when the supposed psychologist is quite possibly a narcissistic sociopath and a fraud. We'll show you how this all goes down, but first let's chat with Fraud Expert Frank Abagnale, who himself was quite the legendary impersonator back in the day. As you know, if you've ever seen the movie, Catch Me If You Can, Frank literally wrote the book on being an exceptionally good imposter, and now in real life he helps the FBI stop these kinds of frauds. Welcome back, Frank.

[00:01:26] Frank Abagnale: Hi, Michelle. Glad to be back with you today.

[00:01:28] Michelle: Frank, the Federal Trade Commission says that the imposter scam is the most common type of scam out there, but I guess that makes sense because if you're going to try to get away with something, maybe the odds are you're going to have to impersonate someone down the road.

[00:01:46] Frank Abagnale: Yeah, I can attest to that since I did that 50 years ago, and it doesn't surprise me at all that there's people doing it today. It is not that difficult to do. So I impersonated an airline pilot because it was much easier to cash checks and get on planes for free and ride around the world for free, so that was my motivation for impersonating a pilot. Some people do it, obviously, to make money at doing it, and the longer they do it the more knowledge they gain of whatever it is they're impersonating. So if it's a doctor or it's a lawyer, uh, they become very good at it. I used to get emails years ago that would say, I wanted to ask you, I have a friend that's worked for a company and he works for them now for 10 years. He went to work for the company and said he was an engineer and had an engineering degree. He's done a great job working at the company, he's very respected at the company, but he's now getting offered a promotion to Vice President over the engineering department, and he's wondering if it will come up in a background check that he never had this engineering degree. And I used to write back and say, yes, because eventually someone's going to check him out. But again, this is part of the con. I'm conning you into believing I am that doctor. I'm conning you into believing I am that person, so you start to trust me immediately and say, well this is a great guy, he's a really nice guy, so all your defenses come down. And instead of following through to do what you normally would probably do, and that is, check me out and check out my references and my background and call the school, send a letter to the school and get a copy of my transcripts, et cetera, you don't do that 'cause you just say, well he's fine, you know, I believe he's great.

[00:03:29] Michelle: Right.

[00:03:30] Frank Abagnale: You can't do that. In this world we live in today, things have to be checked out. You have to make sure that person is who they say they are, and they are qualified to do what they’re doing.

[00:03:39] Michelle: Now, Frank, I know that you impersonated a doctor for a little while there. How long was that? How, how long were you able to pull this off?

[00:03:47] Frank Abagnale: That was just for a few weeks. That was more of a challenge to myself to see if I could get away with it. I moved into an apartment complex in Atlanta, and on the application, it asked my occupation. I couldn't write airline pilot because they were looking for me posing as this pilot, so I just casually wrote down the word, doctor. But I had a very inquisitive apartment manager, so she turned to me and said, "Oh, you're a doctor." I said, "Yes." "Why type of doctor are you?" So, "I'm a medical doctor." "Oh really? Well what type of medical doctor?" And because it was a singles' complex where only single people lived, I said I was a pediatrician. And then I moved in and thought that was the end of it, but then I met a real pediatrician who lived there, and I found myself having to look up things and read a little bit to have a conversation with him, and he eventually invited me up to the hospital to meet the people he worked with, and then when they had an incident where one of the doctors on the midnight shift had a death in his family, they asked me if I'd cover the shift. And I first tried to get out of it by saying, "No, there's no way I could do that. I'm not licensed to practice medicine in the state of Georgia." They said, "No, no, you don't need, we, we just simply this is a supervisory position. You're not going to treat anybody, you don't, we, well you can use your California license to do that." But no one checked out to see if I had a California license. No one checked me out. They all knew me. They had gone socially out to dinner with me, so they went ahead and I, but I was smart enough to know I couldn't get away with that for a long time. I knew that in all of the things I did, you can fool some of the people some of the time, you can't fool all the people all the time.

[00:05:24] Michelle: Did you live in fear for those number of weeks that you were actually going to have to make some kind of life's decision for a patient?

[00:05:32] Frank Abagnale: Yeah, I think that, you know, I made sure I avoided anything like that, and but I also, you know, again, being a young kid, I didn't have the conscience or uh, concern I would have had had I been a little older. So I think being an adolescent let me get past some of those fears and concerns, but again, I was smart enough. You know, it's like when I was posing as a pilot and I rode the jump seat one time on a British Airways flight, and I was sitting in the jump seat on a flight from New York to London, and the captain got up and said, "I'm going to go back and get a cup of coffee." So he looked at me in the jump seat and said, "Go ahead and take my seat."

[00:06:10] Michelle: Ohhh.

[00:06:10] Frank Abagnale: And I had never had that happen before, so I, I slid into his seat, but the copilot was there, and the flight engineer was there, both qualified pilots, and I snapped myself in the seat, but I'm going to assure you that if the copilot had said to me, you know what I think I'm going to go back and join him for that cup of coffee, I'd a said, whoa, whoa, whoa. I have to tell you this story. I would have never uh, taken it that far.

[00:06:33] Michelle: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a good reminder that you were doing all of these things, and you were a kid.

[00:06:39] Frank Abagnale: Right.

[00:06:39] Michelle: That's just... that's equally incredible. All right, well we love your stories. Thanks so much, Frank.

[00:06:46] Frank Abagnale: Thank you.

[00:06:46] Michelle: If only this week's scammer extraordinaire had Frank's sense on what he should and should not have been doing in the world of medicine, but few people know this better than one of Scott Redman's patients, a lovely woman in the Chicago suburbs named Kathy Baran.

[00:07:03] Kathy Baran: I am uh, disabled, um, due to uh, an illness that I suffer with since my late teens, however, I do help out a family friend's father who has Parkinson's. I have some, some medical and nursing experience, and um, when they're in need of help, I do what I can, you know, to help out.

[00:07:26] Michelle: Kathy's in her late 40s and has been dealing with anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. She's been in therapy since her mid-20s, and a few years ago her long-time therapist announced he was leaving. So she wanted to keep up with her progress and needed to find someone new.

[00:07:41] Kathy Baran: And he made some referrals, but at the time I did not have any insurance, so I had to be out-of-pocket pay. So I googled a couple of therapists near me. I had interviewed with several.

[00:07:55] Michelle: One of them, practicing in his own office with an ad for his services in the publication Psychology Today, was Scott Redman. He's soft-spoken with kind of sad, puppy dog eyes, and shoulder-length salt and pepper hair that he wears slicked back with a beard. He has this sort of laid back college professor vibe, especially when he wears his glasses, with a bit of hippy guitarist mixed in. He looks just like that 40 something guy who plays in a groovy alternative band at your local bar on Saturday nights. Kathy was just looking for someone with good credentials, and Dr. Redman seemed to fit the bill.

[00:08:32] Kathy Baran: Having practiced with different doctors and therapists in the past, he knew how to walk the walk and talk the talk, you know, he knew the lingo, he, he was obviously very bright. With my education background and the psychology courses that I've taken, you know, he, I was a little familiar with the different theorists, and he knew, he knew what he was doing. He, he even went so far as to having consultations um, privately and also with me on speaker in the office with my doctor who provides my medication, and also with my former therapist, um, you know, just to have some background on me again with me in the room.

[00:09:12] Michelle: It seemed like a thorough and caring approach. His reviews online were great, all four and five stars out of five, so Kathy went ahead. Scott Redman became her psychologist.

[00:09:23] Kathy Baran: He came across really good. You know, I felt very comfortable with him. I felt at ease. Of course, you know, cost was a factor too, you know it was, he was on the lower end of the sliding scale.

[00:09:33] Michelle: Got it.

[00:09:34] Kathy Baran: You know, it was, everything seemed to be okay with it.

[00:09:37] Michelle: What was your first impression of him? Was he, did he seem like a, a nice man? Did he seem like he was...

[00:09:43] Kathy Baran: Oh yeah.

[00:09:44] Michelle: ...patient, like what were your first thoughts of him?

[00:09:48] Kathy Baran: Um, he seemed like he was patient. He seemed very nice. He seemed very personable. He was very talkative which I tend to like because back then I was a typical wallflower, you know, no one ever noticed, no one ever noticed me, nor did I want to be noticed. And I never wanted to speak, but I, I knew I didn't want to keep living my life that way. I needed to have a voice. I needed to get better, I needed to go on living, because time was not stopping for me.

[00:10:16] Michelle: Well, good for you. Good for you.

[00:10:18] Kathy Baran: So, but, but yeah, he, he seemed very open-minded. He wasn't scared off with some of my issues, um, where some people say, well I don't want to deal with any of that kind of stuff, you know. But let's find someone else, or, or, you know, let's look for other resources for you. That, nothing scared him off, you know.

[00:10:37] Michelle: Kathy was dealing with things from her childhood, very sensitive abuse issues that hold her back as an adult, especially in forming close relationships. So it took a lot for her to really open up to a new therapist, to tell her whole story again, relive those issues, and develop that connection with a new doctor.

[00:10:58] Kathy Baran: A lot of it is trust. You have to trust. You have to trust. But you do have to trust in order to, to open yourself up and the only way you're going to open yourself up is just if you trust, and it's kind of like a double-edged sword. I have to do it; I have to... You know, there's no dipping your toe in sometimes. You have to just sometimes jump in and... just either he--, head on and let me just cry it all out, or let me just, you know, whatever, and just let me mourn it, let me get angry. And, you know, sometimes I do need a nudge.

[00:11:27] Michelle: Did he seem like a nice person, like a good person when you were dealing with him?

[00:11:30] Kathy Baran: Of course, of course he was. I wanted someone empathetic and someone a, a good listener, and I wanted someone to be there for me. But I knew I also was never going to get better if I wasn't, if I kept on being coddled. I'm not independently wealthy that I could be in therapy, nor do I want to waste of my, any more of my life being in therapy for the rest of my life.

[00:11:52] Michelle: Right, right. So Kathy pours her heart and mind out to Dr. Redman. She also spends a lot of money. This is $80 a session, at least once a week for more than two years, thousands of dollars and all those hours, all those emotions. Kathy's okay with it, although there are a few things about Dr. Redman that bother her.

[00:12:14] Kathy Baran: It, it was a couple of years that I've, I've seen him. You know, there was, there were just times during the therapy where I just said, "You know what, I, I feel a little uncomfortable." But therapy isn't supposed to be comfortable. If it's comfortable, then you need to find someone new. You know it's, it's a process and it's a growing process, and changing is never easy, and again, you know, he would remarkably poke, kind of like poke the bear, you know what I mean, and again, I understand you have to nudge because sometimes I get stuck and that's a big part of my problem. All my life is I get stuck, and I need a nudge, but he would, I found him asking more inappropriate questions than ever before, um, saying different things, kind of provoking me, uh and it had nothing to do with me or with my current situation.

[00:13:04] Michelle: And that's the tricky thing about this position a patient is in in therapy. Kathy deeply wanted to make progress. She knew she had to dig into uncomfortable things, so that can really blur the lines between what is helpful and what is inappropriate.

[00:13:21] Michelle: When you said that he would sometimes ask provoking questions, like did any, any really jump out at you as like, why is he asking about that?

[00:13:29] Kathy Baran: Well I, I know that there are, again, going to past trauma issues, um, there were things on the table that needed to be, you know, addressed; however, never have I thought um, or saw a need for details.

[00:13:45] Michelle: Got it.

[00:13:46] Kathy Baran: You know, you know different, you know, it was kind of, kind of, kind of greasy and icky. Well I was there to talk things out no matter how uncomfortable they were.

[00:13:56] Michelle: Yeah.

[00:13:57] Kathy Baran: Only I didn't know how, what was appropriate and what was inappropriate.

[00:14:00] Michelle: Exactly. Exactly. That's tough, 'cause it puts you in a very vulnerable situation.

[00:14:07] Kathy Baran: Yes. Yes, so you don't know exactly when the line is being crossed, but the only way I could put it is when I had that, that sick feeling in my stomach, that's when I knew that, that line was crossed.

[00:14:18] Michelle: Got it. And that happened a time or two or did it happen pretty often?

[00:14:22] Kathy Baran: Oh no, it, it had happened, in, in hindsight, pretty often. Pretty often. Whenever that subject was, was discussed, it, it just made it sick and dirty.

[00:14:34] Michelle: Got it.

[00:14:35] Kathy Baran: And even if it was sick and dirty, it shouldn't have made me feel sick and dirty.

[00:14:39] Michelle: Got it. So you think it was some, something in his way that, that, gave you a kind of internal discomfort.

[00:14:46] Kathy Baran: Yeah, yeah.

[00:14:48] Michelle: But Kathy's a regular patient now. It's been years and it's not like she's going to make another big change in her therapy. In fact, when her friend is looking for a therapist, Kathy gives her Dr. Redman's information. It was then, when certain things, certain discomforts blasted out of the familiar woodwork and into clear view.

[00:15:09] Kathy Baran: Liz, uh, the, the friend who I referred to, she said, "Well who are you sending me to?" And she goes, "Did you even google him?" I go, "Everyone googles everybody nowadays," I go, "Well yeah, and he looked fantastic." And she goes, "Well, I'll hang up with you, google his name, and then call me right back." And sure enough, at that time he must have covered everything up, his messy trail, and everything had resurfaced because once I was in treatment, I didn't think to keep researching him.

[00:15:37] Michelle: This time, the google search turned up a mess, which was not visible two years earlier. Kathy was floored.

[00:15:46] Kathy Baran: I found out the, uh, the first published article was in Florida, that he was arrested for uh impersonating a psychologist. And then it, it went on. I forgot which other states, but there were other, other cities in Illinois, um, it was, I believe he was cited in Indiana, and he just kept on going on and on. That's deception, deception, fraud, those types of things.

[00:16:15] Michelle: The worst part, Dr. Scott Redman, the man in the office with the diplomas on the wall to whom she had poured out her heart for years was, in fact, not a doctor at all. He had no medical degree. He had no college degree. Scott Redman did not have a high school diploma, he was a guy with a 10th grade education, and by now, a total fraud.

[00:16:41] Kathy Baran: And sure enough, you know, he, he started out in Florida, I guess with his, his trail, and you know, he went state to state after being caught. I was, you know, just distraught, and then I was, I was, you know, hit that depression and I'm just like, how am I going to do this?

[00:16:55] Michelle: Scott Redman's biohazard level trail of medical fakery does appear to have started in Florida. He had first gotten an actual license in therapy, but with fake credentials. This was back in 2010. Officials made him give up that license because he, in reality, had no Master's Degree or any credentials at all to become a therapist, let alone an MD. Within two years though, he had moved to Illinois and was treating Kathy and other patients. And by now, he was claiming to be a psychologist which, of course, requires a degree from medical school, extensive training. So despite being busted in Florida, Scott Redman was not only undaunted, he was emboldened to give himself a big promotion here. And now reading about this online, Kathy was in disbelief. This was the man who had essentially been pretending to treat her childhood trauma. It's sickening.

[00:17:55] Kathy Baran: I'm so embarrassed, I'm so embarrassed. And then I finally, you know what, I am mad. I am mad and this time I'm not going to just, you know, turn it inward, and I'm just going to do something about it.

[00:18:08] Michelle: In a bold move of her own, Kathy decides to walk in there to his little office that she now knows so well and confront him.

[00:18:16] Kathy Baran: I walk into his office, and I guess he'd read, read me like, you know, like an open book, and he, he goes, "So, what's going on?" And I said, "Why don't you tell me what's going on." And he goes, "I don't understand." And um...

[00:18:30] Michelle: Were you afraid to confront him at all, 'cause it...

[00:18:33] Kathy Baran: Oh yes.

[00:18:34] Michelle: I would be scared that he would like try to kill me, or like hide me.

[00:18:38] Kathy Baran: Well, I go, okay, well your name may be Scott C. Redman, but who are you? Really. What, what are you? With what you do, do you," and he goes, "Well what are you, what are you talking about?" I go, "Do me a favor. Get on your, get on your computer and type in your name and see what shows up, you know." And he, he was just in utter shock. He was just like, oh no, like he didn't know this had resurfaced. Yeah, and so I just said, "Do you know what, um, I, I just needed to close this book. I want every penny I paid you back." I kept all my my receipts, and I also, and he did it old school where he didn't put anything on um, computer. Everything was still handwritten notes. And I said, "And I want my file, I want my folder, I want everything." And he said, "I can't give that to you." I go, "What do you mean? That's, that's my life in, that are on those pages. You're going to have to call the police to remove me. I'm not leaving." Because I know as I soon as I left it would go in, it would go in a shredder. And he would say, I would become the crazy woman, like who was she?

[00:19:39] Michelle: You're, you know, you were really brave to confront somebody like that, where it could be...

[00:19:44] Kathy Baran: No, I was...

[00:19:45] Michelle: ...the end of his rope.

[00:19:45] Kathy Baran: ... shaking in my boots. I was shake--, and you know, he kind, and then he had the nerve to say, "Well, do you realize what you're going to do?" He's just like, "If you do this," he goes, "do you realize that I won't be able to make my house payment, and you know I have kids." I said, "Buddy that's on you." I go, "I, there is no, what you’re doing is undignified. You're, you’re, you're robbing me. You're stealing from me. You are doing bad things. I see children come on out of, out of your office." I go, "Actually maybe it's too late for me right now, but those children that you treat, you're messing them up." Why are you doing this?" And he said, "Well, 'cause I have to, I have to feed my family." I go, "No, that's not an excuse. Well, and again like I said, I, I refused to leave, and I said, "I want documentation, and I want money." He said, "Look, I don't have any money here." And I said, "You know what, I'm not here to, you know, point a gun at you, or stick you up," I go, "but I'm not going without my file." And he goes, "You can't have it." And I go, "I need my file." And at this point he goes, "Well I have people coming in." I go, "Then, I suggest you give me my file, or you call the police to remove me, because I'm not leaving." You know, and then quickly, he went into his file cabinet, and he gave me my notes and my file, and everything he had, and um...

[00:21:02] Michelle: Did it seem like a legit file with actual information in it? Or what was in your file, like did it seem, did it seem up, on the up and up?

[00:21:12] Kathy Baran: Honest to goodness, I did not still go page by page, sentence by sentence. There was a lot of scribbles, there were a lot of notes, you know, like such and such, you know dates, feeling like this.

[00:21:24] Michelle: Okay.

[00:21:24] Kathy Baran: I guess pretty much just to keep track of how my progress looked. You know, last week you were like this. How are you this week? Um, but as for little footnotes, little side notes, I, I did not go through it.

[00:21:37] Michelle: When you confronted him, was he, did he sort of admit to everything, like, ah, you got me, or did he try to pretend for a little while that he did have the credentials?

[00:21:48] Kathy Baran: Not even for a while, just for a second. Um, he just said, "Well those are my diplomas." And I said, "Well no, there's no record of you going to that university." And he said, "Oh." He goes, "But, but I did help you, right? I did help. That's what, that's what my job is, to help people." I go, "I could talk to a stranger on the phone and get help. I could talk to a friend and get help. I could talk to a family member and get help, but I was coming to you and paying you for a service." I go, "My goodness, there's, there's more big deal going on over a bad haircut, you know, and it's, you, you need to go to school and have a license to be a, a, to give a haircut." I go, "You're dealing with people's lives."

[00:22:32] Michelle: Was he stunned that you had figured him out?

[00:22:35] Kathy Baran: He was stunned. And then he went to being, "Well, I'm going to have to ask you to leave." I go, "I'm not leaving without my records."

[00:22:42] Michelle: This is a dramatic confrontation that Kathy never in a million years expected to have with her therapist, with someone she thought she could trust with basically her whole life story. And she found a strength and a resolve that she was surprised she had. She was only getting angrier, more disgusted with every lame excuse this dime store doctor produced.

[00:23:06] Kathy Baran: "I have people coming." I said, "I don't care." Better, better that they do come and find, you know, out who you are. So eventually he quickly gave my file and um, he did keep those people there. He didn't ask them to leave. He didn’t close up shop.

[00:23:22] Michelle: He had given you your file and then proceeded to like, do therapy with a couple.

[00:23:26] Kathy Baran: Of course he did.

[00:23:28] Michelle: Oh gosh.

[00:23:28] Kathy Baran: Yeah. You know, thinking like I wasn't going to do anything. And I, it's just I hit that point where I was just mad. I just didn't want to be walked over anymore.

[00:23:37] Michelle: That's sounds like that was like a breakthrough for you in your therapy was exposing your therapist as a fraud.

[00:23:45] Kathy Baran: The old me would have just never came back, and just let it go, and just kind of like put my head in my turtle shell and be embarrassed again, and I said, no, I'm not wrong. This is not wrong. I did not, nothing wrong. He did wrong.

[00:24:00] Michelle: Yeah.

[00:24:01] Kathy Baran: You know, it's, I don't need to be punished for this; you need to be punished.

[00:24:05] Michelle: Kathy was not going to just let this go. This was the end of her quietly acquiescing to his weird questions or brushing them off as quirks or part of treatment. This guy had clearly violated her trust and the law. Kathy took her file and walked straight to the police department two blocks away. This had to be the most interesting report the cops there had heard in a while.

[00:24:30] Michelle: They listened to my story, actually asked me if I had time. I said I have all the time in the world. Uh, they went over to the office. They, they arrested him. They uh, they took his mug shot and they said, yeah, that's him, and that's when the divulged, you know we were wondering why there was always parked cars with people in it outside. They thought some kind of funny... well there was funny business going on, but um, they, now they knew why. Now they knew why.

[00:24:56] Michelle: Well with zero credentials to practice medicine, it wasn't hard for authorities to see that Scott Redman's college degrees were forgeries. He was arrested, but practicing psychology without a license in Illinois is a misdemeanor, so he was quickly released on bail. He pleaded guilty. His sentence involved zero prison time, just supervision, and he was supposed to pay Kathy back, but having no money, he didn't. Not a dime. Kathy feels the loss much deeper though than all the money she paid for fake treatment.

[00:25:29] Kathy Baran: I'm still dealing with them, dealing with the same fears, with the same, you know, the relationship issues. I still, to this day, cannot have a healthy relationship. I just, I just don't have that trust in me, and um...

[00:25:42] Michelle: Well this probably, this experience probably contributed to difficulty in trusting people, like this is, you know, a really sacred relationship.

[00:25:53] Kathy Baran: He fooled my doctor, he fooled uh, my former therapist, and obviously, so many more people because he went state by state doing this, and it wasn't found out until I had referred a friend to him who was going through some personal issues with her son and her husband.

[00:26:12] Michelle: I'm really amazed your doctor didn't think anything was weird at all.

[00:26:17] Kathy Baran: No, not, not, not at all. You know I, I joked around about it later on when I was able to joke around. If he only used his powers for good, because obviously he was a bright man, he knew how to um, you know work around things, gather whatever information he needed to falsify records and uh, you know, get, get falsified diplomas and, like I said, he knew the lingo. I'm, I'm not some naive person walking off the street. I knew the, I knew the process.

[00:26:53] Michelle: Exactly.

[00:26:54] Kathy Baran: My doctor, you know, my doctor, my former therapist. And everyone's like, yeah, if you're comfortable, we're comfortable with it. All you know is that you're in need and, and you want help and, and you're, you're trying to do, do what's best for yourself. However, he has damaged me to the point where do I know logically, intel--, intellectually will I get better quicker and be at a higher functioning person if I had therapy along with my med management? Yes. Will I get it right now? No. I can't right now. I just, I just really can't. Everything is still so raw. You know, the band..., it's enough like the Band-Aid could, could be peeled off, but everything still hurts. I just hurts so badly.

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[00:27:47] Michelle: It's a lot to have to process, and even though as Kathy says, there are people with traffic tickets who get tougher sentences than Scott Redman did for being a pretend psychologist repeatedly for years. The state of Illinois did forbid him from practicing again, so his big, bold, fake career was finally over. Or was it? Next week on The Perfect Scam, we'll tell you what Scott Redman did next and we'll have more insight on what kind of person is driven to take these enormous risks, playing with other people's lives.

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[00:28:26] Michelle: If you or someone you know has been the victim of a fraud or scam, call AARP's free Fraud Watch Network Helpline at 877-908-3360. Their trained fraud specialists can help you know what to do next and how to avoid scams in the future. Thank you to our team of scambusters; Executive Producer, Julie Getz; Producer, Brook Ellis; Associate Producer and Researcher, Megan DeMagnus; our Audio Engineer, Julio Gonzalez; and of course, Fraud Expert, Frank Abagnale. Be sure to find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. For AARP's The Perfect Scam, I'm Michelle Kosinski.

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