Does it feel like the financial system is stacked against you? For many of us, it is. Especially if you’re Black or Brown, a woman, or single. In Diversifying , we explore why the traditional rules of money management no longer apply to new generations. Hosted by Delyanne Barros, better known as Delyanne The Money Coach, Diversifying demystifies and humanizes money by examining the culture we make it in and how to make it work for you.
Yeah! I’m like, Oh, my God. The IRS has my phone number? I’m like, What’s happening? That’s Vivian Tu, the CEO and founder of Your Rich BFF Media. She knows a lot about the finance world and she was right about that scary voicemail. The real IRS definitely wasn’t calling me. It was a phone scam. And it’s just one of many ways people lose millions every year. These scams have become so sophisticated that anyone can fall prey to them. So don’t feel bad if it’s happened to you. Today, Vivian’s going to help me break down some of the more common money traps – from copycat profiles on social media to pyramid schemes. And of course, she’ll tell us how to spot them so you can stay safe and keep your money where it belongs, in your pocket. I’m Delyanne Barros, this is Diversifying.
Vivian used to work on Wall Street. And these days, she’s sharing her financial wisdom on social media. Like me, she uses her platform to help her audience navigate the tricky personal finance decisions we have to make every day. She also debunks some of the sketchy tips and tricks that get passed around social media. So I wanted to ask her, How does she go from being a Wall Street baddie to a personal finance phenomenon?
When I left Wall Street, I pivoted into tech. And when I got there, all of my new colleagues were like, You came from Wall Street? Can you rebalance my 401k? Can I see which health insurance plan you picked? What are you investing in? What should I be spending my money on? And I very literally started my TikTok as a joke for my coworkers, thinking that we were just going to have this little inside fun thing between us. And I made my very first video talking about how I had seen some sketchy advice going around. I told my audience, Hey, I don’t have any get rich quick schemes here, but if you actually want to learn about money and finance, I can help. And the channel has blown up since.
That is why I’m so glad you’re here today, because we are going to tackle some of these money scams or as I like to call them, traps, and how our listeners can protect themselves. So to get started, give me your take on what you think of when you hear the word money scam.
So this is like a very niche experience, but I feel like everybody has this. When you get a message from a girl that you knew from high school who immediately starts the message being like, Hey, girlie, it’s been a while, but do you want to make a bunch of money working from home and be your own girl boss? And I’m like, Oh no. Like, this person’s about to try and sell me skinny tea or some brand of makeup that I’ve never heard of, or a hair product that’s probably going to make my hair fall out. But that’s my initial reaction is just huge money scam being that potential MLM style pyramid scheme.
Yeah, I think that we’ve all seen, you know, Tinder Swindler and all of those movies and you know, we’ve heard the podcasts and we’ve heard these crazy schemes that are out there where we’re like, How did that person get scammed? That would never happen to me. But I think that the scams that we’re going to be talking about today and the ones that are out there, they’re actually taking a lot of money away from people are very sneaky and they kind of infiltrate the financial space in a way that it almost blends in. So it almost sounds legitimate.
Whether that be somebody reaching out to you in your DMS, pretending to be you or me and saying, like, I can guarantee you 15% returns, or it’s essentially always somewhat in the realm of reality, but always on the better side of it. And then […]
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