Fighting back against cyber-scammers.Hashtag Trending Weekend Edition with Zach Schleien, the CEO of dating app Filteroff #nigeria | #nigeriascams | #lovescams

I remember when my dad confessed to me that he’d fallen victim to an old scam where someone pretending to be one of the kids calls in the middle of the night and needs emergency funds sent by Western Union. I was flabergasted. My dad was a bright guy. He said he had some doubts, but it was the middle of the night and he was 83 years old at the time….

We had a friend that joined a dating service and met her soul mate. She corresponded with him. He travelled a lot. Cool. They were going to meet up. And then she said, that he had his funds tied up and he needed to get some temporary cash —

Woa….I couldn’t let her do that. She has very little of her own money. But when I told her this was a scam….she didn’t believe me. He didn’t ask for money, he was just explaining his problems. They were in love. Soul mates.

Somehow I talked her out of sending the money. Guess whose soul mate disappeared? Yup.

It makes my blood boil when I hear stories of people who have been taken in. It makes you want to fight back.

So when this story crossed my digital desk, I had to follow up on it. This was the message:

“I am the founder of the video speed dating app Filteroff, and as user numbers grew, so did the number of scammers harassing people for money.

We are a teeny startup. We have resources like two staplers, a handful of pens, and a computer charger. We couldn’t “throw money at the problem.”

Here’s what we did instead…”

Well, with that intro, I had to to invite our guest onto the podcast.  Check it out.

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