Practical help.
Honest limits.

Tommy Thurman

Tommy Thurman is an entrepreneur in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He wrote Scams Change. The Rule Doesn’t. after a call that sounded like his son asking for bail money, and after more hours than he’d like to admit on the phone with scammers, learning how their scripts work. He built the book so families can put a plan in place together, over one weekend, without a parent giving up independence or an adult child having to take over.

Why This Book

I got tired of the stories. A friend’s mother who wired money to a “grandson.” A relative who almost did. The segment on the news about someone who lost their life savings to a voice on the phone, and the way people react to those stories: how could anyone fall for that?

I also got tired of the calls. Like everyone, I get them constantly, and over the past few years I’ve watched them get better. The scripts are tighter, the caller ID looks right, and the voices sound local, official, or familiar.

One of them sounded like my son. The voice said he’d been in a bad accident, might have badly hurt the other driver, and needed bail money. He sounded scared and panicked, and the voice was eerily close to my son’s.

I was ninety-nine percent sure it was a scam in the first few seconds, but I still opened Life360. It showed his phone at school, and that was enough to let me breathe. With that much reassurance in hand, I did what I’ll spend this book telling you not to do: I played along. Are you hurt? Where are you? How much do you need? We went back and forth until I kept pressing for details the caller didn’t have, and he hung up.

Two things stayed with me from that call. The first is the one percent. Even nearly certain, even knowing better, I had to check before I could think straight, and that sliver of doubt is exactly what a scammer works with. The second is where I went to check: outside the caller’s story. That instinct is the heart of this book, but I stopped there. I should have ended the call and reached my son, or someone who was actually with him, through a number I already knew to confirm what had happened.

After that I started doing something I don’t recommend. When a scammer called, I stayed on the line, sometimes for hours, partly to waste their time but mostly to learn. I wanted to hear how the pitch was built: where the urgency came in, how they handled a doubt, what they said when I asked for a number to call back, how fast they moved from “we can help you” to “don’t tell anyone.”

What I learned is the reason this book exists. Scams change. The costume changes, the technology changes, the story on the front end changes every season. The moves underneath don’t. A family that knows the moves, and has agreed in advance on what happens when they show up, doesn’t need to recognize this year’s story to stop it.

I don’t want you spending hours on the phone with these people. I want you to have a plan instead: one built on what the FTC, the FBI, and the banks already tell people to do, shaped by what those hours taught me about how the pressure really works, and simple enough for a family to put in place over one weekend. And I want your parent to come out of that weekend feeling more independent, not less, because “be careful” has never been enough, and “give me your passwords” has never been right.

That’s what this book is for: a way for a family to pause, check an unexpected request through a channel it already trusts, and know what to do next, without anyone feeling watched or managed.

Tommy Thurman

Sources and scope

This guide draws on published consumer-protection guidance, official provider information, and selected research. Source notes identify the basis for factual claims. Practice scenarios and sample scripts are teaching tools. Procedures and contact details can change; readers should use current official sources for their situation.

The book does not replace emergency services, affected providers or qualified advice for an individual situation.

How this book was made

I used ChatGPT and Claude, which are AI tools, to draft and revise parts of this book and its companion toolkit. I chose the approach, contributed my own experiences, and made the final editorial decisions. I’m responsible for what I publish. I also used AI to create the cover artwork.

Publishing and contact

Charles Thurman publishes under the author name Tommy Thurman. For book and toolkit questions, email secondcheckpress@gmail.com.