Scammed! What Happens When You Ignore the Red Flags

Sooooo, guess what happened to me?! I got scammed this week, to the tune of over eight hundred and seventy-five dollars, plus my time, my patience, and my energy. I will not walk you through every detail here, I want to focus on what it taught me, because I think it applies to a lot more than phone calls and insurance claims.

Here is the short version. I was trying to do the responsible thing, notify our insurance company after a minor accident, and somewhere along the way I ended up connected to the wrong people entirely.  It wasn't the insurance company at all, but fraudulent individuals who re-routed all incoming calls for the insurance company to their line. The wild part is not that it happened. The wild part is how many times something felt off before I lost a single dollar. I noticed the inconsistencies. I asked the right questions. My intuition was working exactly the way it was supposed to. I just did not listen to it.

That is the real lesson, and it is bigger than fraud. We rarely miss the warning signs because we do not have the information. We miss them because we have the information, feel it, sense it, and keep moving anyway. We are busy. We do not want to seem difficult. We just want to get it over with. So, we override the very instincts that were put there to protect us.

This shows up everywhere, not just on a phone call with a scammer. It shows up when we sense a hire is not the right fit but move forward because the position has been open too long. It shows up when a partnership or a deal feels rushed but we sign anyway because slowing down feels inconvenient. It shows up when someone in our circle keeps giving us a reason to pause and we keep talking ourselves out of pausing.

So here is what I am asking you, the same thing I had to ask myself. Where are you clicking the easy button instead of doing the slower, safer thing? Who are you connected to right now, in your finances, your friendships, your business, that you have not actually verified or that feels off? What is your gut already telling you that your calendar keeps talking you out of?

Slow down. Ask twice. Verify before you trust. Listen to your intuition

To listen to the full episode, tune in to the KimUnity Soulutions Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Truly, 

Kim the SME