#1362 – Episode 1362: Life, Scams, and Social Media in Latin America

Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.

[00:00] South of the border down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came up to play and now I wonder Hello there all you ex-pad wannabes. I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files living in Latin America The show that tells you just what it's like to live work play and or retire down here in Latin America It's a mix of the good the bad the ugly and the great and it's all right here. So let's get started You might remember me saying how much Latin Americans are Absolutely addicted to what's up you heard me say everyone. I mean everyone's got it. They can't live without it Well naturally hackers and extortionists have learned how to use what's up, too

[00:46] In fact, I don't think a week has gone by in the last maybe six months to a year Where I haven't heard at least one story Personally from someone in a Latinos family who's been victim of extortion It's always sexual extortion too. You want to hear the latest story? It happened just yesterday yesterday I was talking to an educated 30-something Latina who I've known for about two years a businesswoman Oh, it's a couple of small clothing and variety stores an educated person too She's got a bachelor's in business administration for what that's worth down here a lot up in the States practically nothing Because you know the stats say only about three to four percent of Latinos have a bachelor's degree in anything and up in the states It's 40 percent. So down here a bachelor's degree man that puts you in a class of your own

[01:34] Whereas in the US unless you're in the stem career, it's worth about as much as a high school diploma Anyway, I ran into her yesterday. She was all shook up she said there's been a big tragedy in her family her brother a 28 year old kind of nerdy mathematics teacher at one of those helicopter high schools, you know One of those schools where all the entitled rich kids go. Anyway, she said he's got a big problem Now I met this guy a couple times. She's kind of what you'd expect a low-key kind of nerdy guy You know mathematics professor really nice introverted guy has a nerdy girlfriend going to medical school down here Anyway, as it turns out, his sister told me just yesterday. He's been targeted in an extortion scam Seems he got a message on what's up and then a phone call on what's up And the person on the other end said they had an audio and a video of him and underage girls

[02:24] Doing lewd and unspeakable things and that they were gonna release it to the administration at school He works at unless he paid him $3,000 or basically the equivalent in the local funny money now They didn't include a sample of the audio or the video, but they sent along a lot of personal facts a Ton of personal facts things about his family where he lives The places he frequents the friends and contacts he has on social media And you know how these days people so easily give up their personal data Everywhere on the internet social media like fake book and LinkedIn and Google You know has hundreds of pages of your search data going all the way back to when you first started Any half-assed hacker could scrape that stuff down and come up with a nice very detailed snapshot of a person's life in a hurry

[03:12] There are even independent guys on the web that will do that for you for less than a hundred bucks So anyway when our young mathematics professor got that what's up message. It scared the shit out of him didn't matter if it was a complete Fabrication he knew that if someone Contacted his school and said they had that kind of stuff on him even if it was utter bullshit It could ruin his career get him fired No one's got a sense of humor about that kind of gossip Least of all when it comes to high school teachers and school administrators just the width of a rumor like that could kill your career That is down here in Latin America. Anyway. I know up in the States They've got things like drag Queen story hour now and books in kitty libraries that show Non-hetero sex acts as completely normal and healthy well

[04:00] You know down here in Latin America that kind of stuff's considered absolutely repulsive the word in Spanish is asko Just the thought of showing underage kids non-hetero sex acts. It does not fly at all And if you bring it up in mixed company Mentioned things like did you know they have drag Queen story hour at schools up in the States and Library books for children and adolescents showing non-binary sex acts Well, if you happen to mention that stuff around Latinos People just gasps and wins and look at you like you're from another planet Which I guess is one of the positive secondary effects of living in a macho society down here They just don't tolerate any of that LGB GT WTF stuff as being taught to their children or being normalized in grade school and high school

[04:47] Which I guess if you tally it up its recent 3246 through nine well, it's time for every American who hasn't been brainwashed in a tidal wave of wokeness to get your plan Be on steroids and get the hell out of Dodge then again Maybe you don't mind going down with the ship your call now Of course since Latinos and Latinas down here are addicted to social media. Just like you guys are up in the states That means Latinos and Latinas are getting to see how crazy it is up by you Little by little are starting to see the US Emperor has no clothes They're seeing on their social media feeds America going into the crapper yet the sweaty masses down here He still would like to get their piece of the American dream and because of those big social changes up in the states Things are changing little by little down here, man

[05:34] I remember when I first came down a long long time ago 30 plus years ago I remember Latino guys telling me one of the worst things or maybe even the worst thing that could happen To a Latino father is to have a kid who was gay now That was Latino male saying that Latino females never they weren't warm to the idea But they never said it was like the end of the world fast forward about 20 years turns out by around 2010 Following on the heels of what was happening with gay folks up in the states You know up in the states by about 2010 everyone was out of the closet In fact, it became all the fashion the cool thing to do anyway down here in Latin America took about 10 or 15 years lag time But now practically all the gays are out of the closet and of course the lesbians too and the transvestites called Travestis in Spanish suddenly they started showing up and about in greater numbers to in parks malls restaurants everywhere

[06:27] And of course the ones that dress and act really extreme They'll get a few looks from people but no one not even the average Latino macho male Insults criticizes or tends to abuse them in any way maybe a little behind closed doors never in public It sure is not like it used to be here in Latin America 10 or 15 years ago You'd hear on the news about a gay or transvestite getting beaten putting it to the hospital You just don't hear about that stuff anymore. In fact, I have a couple of gay Latino acquaintances down here They tell me the world's completely changed since about 2010 one of these guys explained to me pretty much since the advent of social media on the iPhone He claims those two things made regular macho Latin guys a lot more tolerant to gay people Though he also said most Latino gay guys

[07:14] they still don't get along very well with their fathers because well their fathers from another generation and though that's usually the case the rest of the world he said tweets him fine a 180 degree shift compared to maybe 15 or 20 years ago But as far as drag queens story hour in grade school in high school ain't never gonna happen down here In fact, one of my gay friends told me if that was to happen He predicted the drag queens in question would end up with bloody noses or worse, but I digress as usual Where were we? Oh, yeah that extortion example via what's up? So anyway, the math professor's sister was all shook up. She asked me for some advice I told her but I tell everyone down here get the hell off of social media at least cut way way down Problem is down here like up in the states. It's not only what's up. People love their fake book insta crap

[08:04] They spend hours a day on dick cock I'll tell you what they really need down here and up there by you is some kind of 12-step program for social media addicts But it seems down here. Anyway, no one will ever cut back on social media until something nasty happens Like in the case of this sorry ass math professor. Anyway, the story is just breaking. So I'll keep you posted I'll let you know what happens Personally, I don't want to see anything bad happen to this guy He is a nice guy a kind soul, which makes him a perfect target for an extortion racket Now I know some of you out there are thinking what if he is guilty? Well, I'm not a betting man, but I say it's a ten to one shot. He's completely innocent Plus the fact his sister told me they produced no audio or video that they claimed they had Not even a snippet though, you know these days with AI you could put together some pretty convincing fake audio and video

[08:57] We've all seen a lot of that stuff on the internet. It's up there every day Speaking of people being addicted to things like dick cock fake book or what's up my ass. That's what they should call it What's up my ass then maybe people would think twice about using it anyway on a related subject Comes this letter from a gringo expat self-admitted social media addict Now your longtime listeners have heard me complain about various expat fake book groups Most of them populated by retired gringo expats who used to work for the government Retired school teachers and bureaucrats and such who obviously love big government and are pretty majorly woke They're the ones I described as the type who've ruined America and

[09:46] Decided to come down to Latin America and ruin that too Thankfully though the vast majority of them have gone to live on the gringo tourist trail Lucky for me that isn't most of you guys and gals listening to this show cuz I always recommend Living way off the gringo tourist trailer at least far enough away from it So yeah, I don't actually have to have any discourse with those other guys or meet him face to face However, they do pollute social media sites like the plague Their favorite outlet being fake book where they can set up their own fake book self-selecting expat groups Now I could go into a lot of detail why I don't like them and why most of them are pretty toxic To that effect. I'll say just one thing Make it two things nearly everyone on those sites was absolutely pro-falsi and covidia jab and

[10:34] Nearly everyone who posts on those sites has trump derangement syndrome aside from those two mental disorders The only real good those fake book groups provide is in the classified buy and sell portions of those sites Because you know expats are always moving in and out buying and selling things So they can be a good source. For example, if you're looking for a used stove refrigerator car Whatever, but as for most of the shit for brains expat fools who post on those things Well, they don't like me much either. So anyway today. We've got a little letter entitled the Confessions of a recovering expat social media addict. In other words today You're gonna find out everything you wanted to know about how expats who have way too much time on their hands become social media addicts

[11:21] And I'll paraphrase this to cut out the boring parts. He says call me John Smith I'm a recovering expat social media addict, and I'm too embarrassed to show my face. I Wasn't always an addict. In fact six years ago when I moved to Ecuador I thought social media was something teenagers did it was certainly something I never thought a 60 year old guy would get into However, within a few months of relocating to Ecuador I became acquainted with the big wide world of Facebook group pages the blogs the news feeds the comment sections especially the comment sections In fact some of my new expat friends were participants and I slipped into the habit of checking in dozens of times a day and started Commenting on a very regular basis at first

[12:07] It was strictly entertainment because it was expats do have a lot of time on their hands But soon I began to participate over participate and become a daily participation regular Quite soon. I became obsessed that if I wasn't on there almost continually I would miss something Some breaking news some local trends with issues that interested me. You've heard of FOMO FOMO fear of missing out. Well, that was my disease in spades I just had to keep checking those Facebook sites always looking out for someone who might be contacting me personally in Addition to all those expats sites. I started reading and responding to several forms and websites back in the US I became hooked on several political websites, even though I left the country in part to get away from all that crap

[12:56] Moving to Latin America was supposed to make me less stressed But within a year of my introduction to the interactive cyber world, I was constantly stimulated not in a good way either But I didn't know that then Spending four or five hours a day in front of my laptop or cell phone Within another year. My wife tells me my use of the apps went to seven or eight hours a day even more I often found myself switching furiously between sites to see if someone had responded to one of my posts or a response to one of my Responses in the early days even cursing the slowness of my internet connection. Of course today It's super fast But back then four or five years ago that would stress me out put me on edge And if there was an internet outage for an hour or two or three That was fairly common five or six years ago. I'd pace a while go over to the modem

[13:46] Re-initialize it plug it in and out of the wall socket a few times. I needed my fix so that was my routine every day and well into the night a 60 year old guy, you know often hits the bathroom three or four times a night all welcome opportunities to check the phone So anyway, that was my routine all day and well into the night I cursed the commenters who didn't agree with me as well as the moderators who would often block my mean-spirited I admit Comments about anything and everything and my attempts to change most all conversations to the subject of US politics What was I thinking? Oftentimes I was so immersed in a conversation With someone I didn't even really know I told my wife to cancel upcoming plans Many times we couldn't go out to dinner because I was too immersed in some chat or text or conversation with someone I'd never even met

[14:38] That was the point when my wife had had enough and threatened to leave me She actually threatened to move into her own apartment About the same time a friend who had introduced me to social media in the first place But who never got hooked himself dropped by for a conversation He pointed out that I had gained a lot of weight and looked like crap He reminded me of my goals when I first came to town to do some serious walking and trekking Even maybe attempt mountain climbing which I loved that as a younger man in Colorado I'll never forget what he said that day besides get off your butt and start doing it He said the last thing this world needs is another social media expert expat Well, I guess I got the message I looked in the mirror at myself and began a slow steady withdrawal from my monitor and phone and

[15:28] Here I thought YouTube had everything everything except how to detox from social media Certainly because the folks at YouTube want you hooked. They're all in on it Anyhow, I attempted to quicken my withdrawal After reading some psychological research about people with social media addictions. Yes. I discovered it was a real thing a real sickness Among other things. I learned my kind of obsession with fake book. What's up website and blog comment sections, etc Was primarily a problem for people over 50 Young people it seems have different internet addictions like tick-tock. They're on fake book, of course, too But they are not commenters. They're basically viewers not participants. I

[16:14] Discovered to to my chagrin Researchers by the way, this is a hot topic for study at universities researchers say that a disproportionate percentage of internet addicts of my type Were angry lonely old men with big egos. Ouch My ego was further damaged when another friend an internet geek and hacker showed me readership status for a couple of Ecuador fake book group pages that I had been hooked on I Was absolutely shocked to see how few people were actually reading my posts or any other posts for that matter It's like screaming into an abyss For example, he showed me on one popular expat fake book page with 20,000 members

[16:59] The average daily readership is less than 700 and they're not even reading all the comments And here I had thought I was speaking to the masses if I was lucky only one out of 25 people Was even noticing me Now don't get me wrong. He says I think expat social media can provide a wonderful service you can meet friends pick up good information as well as a lot of crap useless information to and Fake book is good for opening up a page with your family back in the states And now I have a WhatsApp account that I only use for messaging my friends and family. I block Everything else. He says, you know when you're a fake book addict You run into a lot of other internet addicts on the way, you know those angry out of shape old gringos with big egos

[17:47] You can usually spot them a mile away at cafes bars and gringo hangouts. They're the ones tapping away at their phones Wait a minute. They're all tapping away at their phones Now what? Alright me Johnny here, you know over the past year or two I have told some boots on the ground stories about my buddy X corrupt Boston cop Bob And I'll tell you I'm not giving away any secrets here But the guy's absolutely addicted to what's up fake book the whole works He may be old, but he's not fat and decrepit goes to the gym every day and is in pretty damn good shape But he is a complete social media addict. Now. This guy's got a favorite outdoor cafe restaurant I know his schedule exactly when he's gonna be there. It's one of the places I pass when I do my power walk

[18:34] I always stop to say hi and sit down for five or ten minutes with him That's about all I can take because he's just continuously on his phone thing is though He's got his favorite table right out front right where the walkway is If I didn't sit down or tap on the shoulder, he'd never know I was there because he's completely immersed in his phone There hasn't been a single time where I haven't seen him completely all in on that phone And then even when I'm sitting down I will not have his complete and full attention because he's always got one eye on that phone He'll be talking to someone on that phone or typing away or talking to me And they say as guys are just not good at multitasking Well, you ought to talk to Bob and the truth is us guys really are not good at multitasking Well, I know I'm not and Bob not so good. He appears to be able to do it

[19:20] But many times I'll have said something to him and he won't get it It won't register and I'll have to repeat it again Now I must say Bob's a nice guy an interesting guy an honest guy Well, maybe not when he was a cop, but you know an old age now He's an honest guy But it's hard to be friends with a guy like that a guy that likes his phone more than face-to-face contact Now I'm mentioning this because you know, I've been down here a long long time over 30 years Way before the advent of the internet and smartphones the iPhones anti social media the whole works And I have to say I liked my personal interactions with gringo and expats a lot more Back then because these days with that social media addiction disease. There's just way too many gringos and expats like Bob Though in his favor and the other gringo expats. He kind of hangs around with none of them have Trump derangement syndrome

[20:11] in fact, some of them really liked a guy or at least our Independence or libertarian types his group. Thank God are repulsed by the DEI woke Democrats But it makes sense because it's a fact the farther you get off the gringo tourist trail The fewer gringos and expats you meet who are into US politics who give a shit about it I mean look that really is one of the main reasons a lot of us gringos and expats get the hell out Of dodge we don't want to hear or participate in any more of that crap and man I can't tell you how many times I've been sitting around with a bunch of gringos and expats and politics does come up You know Trump Biden Harris Kennedy, whatever. I can't tell you how many times I've said, you know what? Why are we talking about this? Think about why we're all down here to get the hell away from all that crap

[20:56] We're down here watching the US implode from a nice safe distance. That's why we're here. We escaped all that We're the lucky ones. It's just so disagreeable to talk about how the country has gone into the shitter Why not? Let's just change the subject, please and you know what everyone agrees. They say yeah, you're right. We're the lucky ones So let's move on The problem is, you know with all these gringo expats addicted to antisocial media scroll and scroll and it's scrolling all the time What do you think is scrolling through the news feeds election year bullshit politics? That's why unfortunately when I come up on a bunch of gringos and sit down I sometimes catch them right in the middle of a conversation about Biden or Trump or Harris or JD Vance man Jesus

[21:42] Get over it, man You left all that crap behind so leave it permanently or maybe that's the first sign of early Alzheimer's Getting caught up in the politics of a place you left because you just couldn't stomach the place anymore There's something really wrong with a person who's left their country for good yet Can't get enough of the news that's coming out of there and it's almost always bad news. I Don't get it. But then again, there's a lot of stuff. I don't get speaking of scams, you know, we talked about how being on WhatsApp and freely giving out too much of your personal information could make you a victim of Extortion attempts though really when I hear that kind of stuff, I can't dredge up very much sympathy Since people just love to chronicle their whole lives and including every bowel movement up on Facebook

[22:30] That said let's talk about gringos and expats getting scammed down here We've got some news about gringos getting scammed in Ecuador again Expats in Cuenca are reporting personal visits from people claiming to be agents of either the Instituto Nacional de Estadística Ocenso, that would be the census people or the Ministry of Interior It seems scammers somehow got a list of all gringos and expats living in Cuenca Ecuador They knock on the door and say they're gathering information about foreign residents These people wear clothing with government logos. They carry laptops and present official-looking letterheads and documents They reportedly speak decent English and ask for various personal information from the gringos and expats at home Including their passport details and sedular numbers and bank account information and because they appear to be completely official

[23:23] Guards in condominiums and residential towers are letting these people into buildings and providing them with unit numbers where expats live The article says beware. These are not real agents from the government. Do not let them into your apartment or house Beware you're being set up for a robbery and that's not the only scam going around in Ecuador focusing on gringos and expats By the way, why wouldn't scammers focus on gringos and expats? They think we're rich, right? Where are the guys and gals with the dollar signs on our foreheads? Anyway, there's an additional scam alert in Ecuador where the government is warning citizens that people from the Social Security Department Allegedly from the Social Security Department. They're knocking on doors at the homes of gringos and expats

[24:10] Asking to see passports and sedulas to verify if you the resident might qualify for a BDH That's a human development bonus for being a senior citizen The government has announced that the Social Security Department is not doing any kind of house visit So don't let them in the government is recommending not to give out any personal information to anyone coming to your door Even if they look official and now here's the thing those Ecuadorian social security bonuses only go out to low-income Ecuadorian retirees that would not be you So gringos and expats would be considered way too rich to ever qualify for such free dough The other debt giveaway is that these fraudsters speak English or decent enough to English to get by That should be a big red flag because if you've gone into any government office, you'll see almost no one there speaks English

[25:01] Alright me Johnny here. You know, that just means that more and more bad guys fraudsters and no goodniks are Singling out gringos and expats cuz that's where the money is. At least that's what they think by all appearances. We look rich I mean look we live in the nicest neighborhoods have the nicest cars We're out and about always going out to restaurants and bars the stereotype here in Latin America is that gringos and expats are rich and Relatively speaking we are even on a fifteen hundred dollar a month Social Security check That's five times the average Latin American minimum wage. Hell. I know dentists physicians and people with master's degrees working in businesses that only make a thousand bucks a month Anyway regarding those door-to-door scams

[25:46] Here's something you really have to know those kinds of scams appear to happen exclusively on the gringo tourist trail Now on the gringo tourist trail There are lots and lots of gated guarded communities and note that on the gringo trail If you take a ride through you might notice that every second or third house is occupied by a gringo Now imagine a no-good nick with an official government uniform Imagine he gets access to your gated guided community or residential tower He could knock on doors till his heart's content and meet gringo after gringo after gringo For a bad boy out to scam someone that way. It's an embarrassment of riches However off the gringo tourist trail It's a completely different thing Of course every town village and city off the gringo tourist trail has a number of upscale gated guided communities, too

[26:34] And maybe just maybe there will be a gringo or two Living in a subdivision of a hundred or two hundred houses. By the way, that's the way it is in 99.9 percent of guadamala The only exception being maybe antigua guadamala because it's a unesco world heritage site and you get lots of Echo-tourism traffic, but in the rest of the country gringos are far and few in between Anyway on the gringo tourist trail and anywhere gringos proliferate So will scammers and extortionists I mean look if you were a scammer, who would you target? The latino high school math teacher a guy Yeah Might be able to get three grand out of because his family will chip in or a clueless gringo expat who you might be able To squeeze 20 or 30 g's out of The moral of that story is yes, of course, you should have a plan b

[27:22] But you really should think about living off the gringo tourist trail You've got more of a gringo advantage. You've got less stress and you're much less likely to be a victim of a scam So You've been listening to the expat files living in latin america If you need some help with your own plan b we can schedule a one-on-one phone or skype consult Just send me an email the expat files at gmail.com And if you want to get on the waiting list for my next week-long expat insider seminar in central america Where you're guaranteed to get a two to five year head start on your plan b send me an email the expat files at gmail.com nos vamos