How scams work, and the habits that stop them.
Host Chris Parker talks with guests about how fraud works, from robocalls and reused passwords to con artists who build relationships that last for months. The show stays practical: how the traps are engineered, why careful people still fall into them, and which habits actually cut the risk.
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Easy Prey is an interview show about deception, hosted by Chris Parker, and it treats a scam as both a technical problem and a human one. The guest list shows how wide that range is. In 'Privacy vs Reality', Yael Grauer, a freelance investigative technology reporter who manages the free Security Planner resource at Consumer Reports, talks about why online security advice sounds simple until someone tries to follow it. The conversation stays on fundamentals. People worry about being targeted by nation-state attackers while using the same password everywhere, and technically minded people can forget about physical security. One question hits hard: owning a security camera is one thing, but what is the plan when someone actually shows up on it? 'Wired to Trust' moves from tools to the brain. Its premise is that scams succeed not because people are careless but because they are built to trust, and that urgency, emotion and authority make obvious warning signs easy to explain away. The guest, Tali, is the author of The Optimism Bias and The Science of Optimism. The talk turns personal when it reaches a rental that went wrong, and to the emotional cost a scam leaves on top of the money. 'Intimate Partner Fraud' features Tracy Hall, known as the last victim of Hamish McLaren, whom the episode calls Australia's most infamous con man. Her account covers a deception that unfolded over months inside what felt like a real relationship. One stretch looks at how a made-up backstory tied to an emotionally charged event, plus a claim that his parents died when he was young, made doubting him feel mean-spirited. The corporate side of security gets its own conversations. In 'Identity without Passwords', Jason Casey, co-founder and CEO of Beyond Identity, and Josh Johanson start from the point that phishing works because passwords can be stolen, and look at device-bound identity as the alternative. It gets specific, down to checking at the moment of login that a browser is genuine and not a script trying to grab an access token. In 'When Cybercrime Gets Personal', May Chen-Contino, CEO of the threat disruption company Unit 221B, explains why paying a ransom often backfires, and describes offenders trying to prove themselves to peers inside criminal groups. Then there is the phone. Alex Qualicci, who leads YouMail, offers the easiest rule to carry around: if a call is not expected, let it go to voicemail and call back. Parker's questions tend to turn a story into a takeaway, such as asking a guest whether being scammed changed how she sees people. Episodes close by pointing to notes and a transcript on the show's website. The best starting point depends on the worry: 'Stopping Phone Scams' for the phone that keeps ringing, 'Wired to Trust' for why careful people still get fooled, 'Intimate Partner Fraud' for the human cost.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants plain, usable advice on phone scams, passwords and privacy, and who is curious why careful people still get fooled. The occasional conversation about securing a company also suits someone who works close to IT.
What sets it apart: It puts the human side of fraud next to the technical side: a victim's account of a con built on a relationship sits alongside research on optimism, robocall blocking and identity without passwords. The show explains both why people trust and how to check before they do.
Chris Parker, the founder of WhatIsMyIPAddress.com, interviews guests and tells real-life stories about topics to open your eyes to the danger and traps lurking in the real world, ranging from online scams and frauds to everyday situations where people are trying to take advantage of you—for their gain and your loss.Our goal is to educate and equip you, so you learn how to spot the warning signs of trouble, take quick action, and lower the risk of becoming a victim.
Voicemail gets promoted to security guard, and you can stop feeling rude for letting it answer.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A grounded conversation about turning privacy anxiety into manageable security habits.
This EasyPray episode takes online security advice out of the abstract and follows what happens when people actually try to use it. Yael Grauer keeps the focus on basics that still matter: password managers, software updates, privacy settings, data brokers, and planning for…
A clear, personal look at how emotional trust can become the lever of intimate fraud.
This Easy Prey episode frames intimate fraud as a relationship scam built through trust, empathy, and emotional pressure. Tracy Hall describes how Hamish McLaren told her his parents had died when he was young, a story that met her own experience of losing a parent and moved her…
A practical hospitality-security discussion on passwords, device checks, and agent-aware access policy.
EasyPray's episode with Jason Casey and Josh Johanson frames phishing as a systems problem, with hospitality as the pressure point: one bad click can put a wider organization at risk.
A practical, humane look at how criminals exploit trust, and why preserving evidence can matter after an attack.
Cybersecurity often fails at the point where trust is easiest to exploit. This episode follows that weakness from social engineering aimed at vendors and BPOs to the real harm caused by extortion.
Technology's mechanisms, power's consequences.
Dave, Joe, and Maria break down phishing kits, deepfakes, and social-engineering scams weekly.
An interview with Joel Larsgaard about personal finance, covering the importance of financial literacy and practical money management tips.
Host Chris Parker interviews Dr.
["Easy Prey's \"Privacy vs Reality\" pairs Chris Parker with Yael Grauer, a Consumer Reports cybersecurity research program manager and investigative technology reporter, to compare security advice with what people actually have to do on their phones and accounts.", "Grauer says the basics are a password manager, unique passwords, multi-factor authentication, deleting unused accounts, and software updates, with the email password as the first account to reset.", "She argues that many problems come from insecure-by-default products, from router firmware that never gets updated to social platforms with confusing visibility and tagging rules.", "The conversation also covers phishing, scam refunds, Global Privacy Control, Signal, and why sensitive messages need disappearing mode."]
Chris Parker hosts Easy Prey and interviews Talley, a cognitive neuroscientist at UCL and MIT whose books include The Optimism Bias, The Science of Optimism, and Look Again.
["Scammers don't just steal money, and Tracy Hall says Hamish McLaren stole $317,000, trust, confidence, and safety during an 18-month relationship.", "Hall says she met him as Max Tevita, a Bondi surfer and 'chief investment officer,' then moved her superannuation into a self-managed super fund.", "A Crime Stoppers arrest video in mid-July 2017 exposed Max as McLaren, later tied to 15 Australian victims and $7.6 million in one case.", "The episode focuses on similarity bias, authority bias, and the advice Hall repeats: 'trust, but verify,' then meet friends and family early."]
Easy Prey opens with Chris Parker framing phishing as a password-theft problem and device-bound identity as a way to change the security equation.
Some of the biggest security failures don't start with code; they start with people, and Chris Parker uses that idea to frame Easy Prey's When Cybercrime Gets Personal.
Easy Prey host Chris Parker interviews YouMail CEO Alex Qualicci about robocalls, scam texts, impersonation, and the systems used to trace fraudulent traffic.
Brooklyn Lyon recounts how a stolen work bag in Texas in October 2024 exposed her to months of identity theft beyond maxed-out cards and missing money.
Irumar Briner, G2A’s fraud manager, explains how emotional pressure, low-cost digital goods, and stolen cards create fraud opportunities in online marketplaces.
Jeff White tells Chris Parker that modern organized crime operates like a multinational business, with recruitment, competing services, and distributed trust networks.
Leslie Carhart, Technical Director of Incident Response at Dragos, explains why trains, power plants, water systems, and manufacturing equipment require a different cybersecurity approach from ordinary IT.
An interview with Cynthia Hetherington about open source intelligence and how everyday data can be used to track and protect people.
An interview with fraud fighter Freddie Massimi about his career combating scams and supporting victims, highlighting the human stories behind fraud statistics.
An interview with cybersecurity analyst Ritesh Kotech about how AI is transforming cybercrime and simple habits to protect against scams.