How to avoid scammers after a natural disaster

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• 00:10

  NPR Natural disasters leave devastation behind.

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  Charred houses, flooded streets, lost possessions, and often tragically, loss of life.

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  But for many survivors, the danger doesn't end there.

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  That's when another crisis hits.

• 00:25

  contractor scams.

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  This is the Indicator from Planet Money.

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  I'm Waylon Wong, and I'm here with reporter Navina Sadasivam from GRIST,

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  a nonprofit newsroom covering climate change.

• 00:35

  Navina, thanks for coming on the show.

• 00:38

  Hi, thanks for having me.

• 00:39

  So you have been reporting on the disaster economy as your beat,

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  and that is like the systems that turn disaster recovery into a marketplace.

• 00:48

  Exactly.

• 00:49

  Yeah, when people lose their homes to natural disasters, they're really desperate to rebuild.

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  And that's often when scammers strike.

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  In 2024, weather-related disasters caused 183 billion in infrastructure losses.

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  So that's why contract of fraud has essentially become a really lucrative business.

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  One estimate suggests in recent years that roughly 10% of post-disaster spending is lost to scams every year.

• 01:18

  So today on the show, how these scams work and what people can do to protect themselves.

• 01:22

  Plus the story of one fire damaged homeowner in Southern California whose personal disaster turned into a legal and financial nightmare.

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