Episode 16 – Thank You for Listening… We’re Not Done Yet...

In this short episode of The Anatomy of Modern Romance Scams, I take a moment to say thank you for listening, for sharing, and for helping bring awareness to something that impacts so many people and families.

As we continue this series, the goal remains the same — to break down how these scams really work so they can be recognized earlier.

I also want to highlight the work being done by April Helm and encourage you to explore additional resources focused on education, prevention, and support.

This is a brief pause before we go deeper into the mechanics of modern romance scams.

Stay with me and thank you for listening and sharing...

Book on Amazon:

https://a.co/d/08jwHDsn

Transcript

Take a Moment to say Thank-you

Catch April Helm

US Impact - 2025

FBI - Empathy

The Epidemic - Modern Romance Scams

We Have a Part in all of This

Book on Amazon - Find it at Michael B Ding

Stay Tuned - A Lot More to Talk About

Patterns Tell a Story

Recovery - One Day at a Time. One Step at a Time

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good afternoon. Today's the 8th of April. Hope everybody had a good weekend. Last weekend for Easter. The 15th's coming up, and you know what that means. Hey, I'm Michael B. Today I'll be your host. This one's gonna be a short one, and I'm gonna forego my typical intro. Actually, I'll just read one part. Okay. My goal here is simple with these podcasts. To pull back the curtain so you can recognize these scams before they recognize you. Now I can speak firsthand about these, unfortunately, because one of them happened to me. And that's what I'm trying to relay to you. How did it happen? What were the mechanics? And what did you do? Where were the red flags? Why did you walk by them? But before we continue our deeper dive in upcoming podcast editions, there's much to talk about and there will be more coming. But this one I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you. I don't I don't script these so that I can speak from the heart. So I can speak from first hand perspective. So forgive me if my podcast isn't perfect, my enunciation isn't perfect, or I stumble a bit. I I apologize for that. The main thing is that you come away with the message and go, you know what? I need to be more aware. You know what? I need to share this with somebody. You know what? I need to talk with my family about that. You know what? I need to talk with my co-workers about this. Just to remain vigilant and on point. Okay. But this podcast is again just to say thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for helping bring awareness to something that impacts so many people, yet is just not talked about. We need to. This week, I don't know if anyone caught it, but on April Helm's site, Scammer Stories Podcast, which he is the hostess of, which by the way is a great resource. It's focused on education, support, and awareness around these scams. If you haven't visited yet, I encourage you to take a look. But I wanted to share with you what April shared, and you can go look at that and get all the details. But basically, as a summary, she shared that in 2025, in the US alone, now this is a global problem, right? But in the US alone, Americans lost$21 billion. There were over a million complaints logged to the IC3. Now, if you don't know what the IC3 is, it's really the FBI. It's the federal government where you would call and report the scam that happened to you. And I hope you never have to call them. Now I will put in a plug for the FBI. They have been extremely, extremely empathetic towards me to the point of tears. Now, we need to understand that when we talk about the FBI and going back to that, everyone that I've talked to within that organization, and I probably have talked to six or seven different agents now, they've all said, look, Michael, this is epidemic. It's epidemic globally. Alright? So this is this is what's important. We're building something here. It's not just understanding how these scams work, but being able to help avoid these through continued vigilance, increased knowledge, awareness that will lead to fewer incidents of this happening. Yeah, it'd be good to have continued government support and recognition, and April speaks to that. Their role will be easier and easier if we do our part to help others in reducing and finally eliminating these scams. We have our own personal responsibility for that, for ourselves, for our family, for taking care of each other. That is what this podcast is all about. How do we take care of each other so that these do not happen? To any to you, to your anyone in your family, to anyone that you love. Share these podcasts, please. Share my book on Amazon. You can find it by Michael Space B Space Ding. I'm not promoting that book. I hope that you'll pick it up. I hope that you'll read it, critique it, share it with others, leave it on your desk so that it's a visual reminder to you that, oh yeah, I see this message coming through on my phone. I see this message coming through on my computer. Hi, I loved your post on Twitter. Do you want to talk more about it or can we talk more about it? And the doors open. Don't walk through those. It it really takes you a minute to delete, block, and walk. You will save yourself so many sleepless nights, so much heartache. But that's not what this discussion is about. This discussion again today was really thank you for putting up with me. Thank you for my imperfections, for putting up with my imperfections like that one. And thank you for listening. You can invest your time in so many places today. So I really appreciate you spending a few minutes with me today. I hope that you'll share at least one episode that has resonated with you. I hope that you'll continue to stay with me. I hope you'll continue to share this. That if you pick up a copy of that book, that you'll read it, pass it on by your own copy for your own desk. Look, awareness is one of the most powerful tools we have to prevent others from becoming victims, to prevent ourselves from becoming victims. Continue to spread the word. Continue to join forces with people like April so that we can combine and combine our voices together to make sure that this gets eradicated and it's not something that we have to deal with, not something that will carry through for our children to have to deal with. Join me next time as we continue breaking down how these scams unfold. I will get right down into the nitty-gritty in episode 17 to let you know how this all worked. You will understand it from point A to point B. Now yours might be a little bit different than mine, but patterns tell a story. If anything in my podcast have resonated with you, and you go, you know what, that's happening to me. Or man, that I I won't let that happen to me. Or, you know, this has already happened to me. I don't know where to turn. I'm gonna DM Michael directly. Look, I'm here, I'm here to help you. I know the personal hell that you've created for yourself. I lie. I live that every day. But it's one day at a time, one step at a time. And if I can prevent that from you, from happening to you, from happening to any anyone in your family, then the pain uh recording these is gonna be worth it. Again, thank you so much for being here. Please overlook my slips, my stumbles. Look for the message, find it, hold on to it, share it. Until then, until next time, stay aware, stay protected, and always, always stay safe. I'm Michael B.