Speaker 1: It's the John Phillips Show on this Jimmy Buffett Friday.
Speaker 1: Johnny is back on Monday. It's Randy Wang here and
Speaker 1: the phone number to join us is eight hundred two
Speaker 1: two two five two two two one eight hundred two
Speaker 1: two two five two two two. You can email us
Speaker 1: at Johnny Don't Like show at gmail dot com and
Speaker 1: search for the John Phillips Show wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Right at the top of the show, let me just
Speaker 1: say that I walked in here about an hour and
Speaker 1: a half ago, and Lewis, my program director, points at
Speaker 1: the TV and says, that's the saddest thing I've seen
Speaker 1: all day. And that is how I found out that
Speaker 1: comedy legend, if there ever was one, Catherine O'Hara, who
Speaker 1: you know from SCTV Home Alone, all the Christopher Guest movies, Beatlejuice,
Speaker 1: and of course the sitcom that I can't even say
Speaker 1: on the radio, Blank's Creek, which is one of my
Speaker 1: favorite shows of all time. My wife and I just
Speaker 1: finished our fifth or sixth rewatch. It was our It's
Speaker 1: our bedtime show that we have in rotation with so
Speaker 1: many other shows. She was incredible. She is hilarious, so
Speaker 1: unbelievably talented, and finding out today that she passed away
Speaker 1: at the age of seventy one, it's it's heartbreaking. I mean,
Speaker 1: I am my entire life considering that, you know, I
Speaker 1: was about five when Home Alone came out, So I've
Speaker 1: been a fan of her my entire life, and she
Speaker 1: will be missed. But one of the beautiful things about
Speaker 1: somebody who's that talented is she has an incredible life
Speaker 1: of work that is all accessible at our fingertips. So
Speaker 1: Catherine O'Hara dead at the age of seventy one, she
Speaker 1: will be missed. Okay, now onto some thing pretty exciting.
Speaker 1: I'm very excited to tell you that I am now
Speaker 1: making sure that you have the ability to get every
Speaker 1: single story that we curate for this show. What am
Speaker 1: I talking about? So let me tell you how my
Speaker 1: day works. I wake up at about six, maybe seven if
Speaker 1: I had a little too much to drink, and I
Speaker 1: immediately start prepping for this noon to three show and
Speaker 1: my five o'clock show on KABC, and I start scrolling
Speaker 1: through YouTube. I am subscribed to so many YouTube channels. Specifically,
Speaker 1: the ones that are important are our local news stations
Speaker 1: in southern California, our local news stations in northern California,
Speaker 1: in the Bay Area, the Sacramento stations, the San Diego stations,
Speaker 1: the Central Valley stations, even if you in the North State.
Speaker 1: I subscribe to all of them, and so I scroll through,
Speaker 1: I look at what happened the night before I fly,
Speaker 1: and I put it in my Watch Later folder. And
Speaker 1: then around nine o'clock, I go on my walk with
Speaker 1: my dogs and I listen to all these stories, and
Speaker 1: whichever one's I don't finish listening to on the walk
Speaker 1: with the dogs, I finish on my car. Right here,
Speaker 1: when I'm sitting on the four or five Freeway coming
Speaker 1: from the Valley to Culver City, I am listening to
Speaker 1: all of the stories that we bring you here. I
Speaker 1: am previewing them, seeing if they're worth the air, if
Speaker 1: it's something that we want to talk about. Curating all
Speaker 1: the crime blotders, because you know how much Johnny loves those,
Speaker 1: So then I organize everything into a little cut sheet
Speaker 1: so it's easy for john and I to navigate. Here's
Speaker 1: what's going on today, Here's what was going on yesterday.
Speaker 1: And for the longest time, I've just been putting all
Speaker 1: this together and just sharing it with myself and Johnny
Speaker 1: and I don't know why. Inspiration struck at about six am,
Speaker 1: where I was like, you know, since I'm already curating
Speaker 1: all of this, since I know not to toot my
Speaker 1: own horn too much, but I have a better sense
Speaker 1: of what's important to this audience than probably almost anybody.
Speaker 1: And since we almost never get to all the stories
Speaker 1: that I put together, what if I started putting them
Speaker 1: out in a deliverable way where you can get all
Speaker 1: those stories and then you can share them with your friends,
Speaker 1: your family, your social media, the local news that really
Speaker 1: matters in southern California, the Bay Area, Sacramento, San Diego,
Speaker 1: Central Valley, and of course crime blodder stories. So I
Speaker 1: am proud to announce that I have just launched a
Speaker 1: new sub stack. It is completely free. There's no way
Speaker 1: I'm ever looking to make money off of this. This
Speaker 1: is just a way to share with you, the audience,
Speaker 1: the stories that we're doing every single day, and then
Speaker 1: if you want to share them on social media. You
Speaker 1: want to share the what I'm calling the California Report,
Speaker 1: how original is that you can share it and you
Speaker 1: can show everyone everything that's going on the local news
Speaker 1: that you might not have seen all over social media
Speaker 1: because everyone's so obsessed with what's going on in Washington, DC.
Speaker 1: So if you would like to check out all the cuts,
Speaker 1: all the videos, all the YouTube videos of all the
Speaker 1: news stories that I collect every single day, I am
Speaker 1: now putting them on a daily substack. It'll post right
Speaker 1: before the show starts every day. But you can also
Speaker 1: subscribe to the substack and then it goes in your
Speaker 1: email and you can see the new stories, the ones
Speaker 1: that interest you. You can watch them on your own time,
Speaker 1: and you can share them and you can comment on them.
Speaker 1: So you want to be a part of this, you
Speaker 1: can subscribe to my new substack where you can see
Speaker 1: the California Report, which is going to be what this
Speaker 1: is called till I come up with a better name,
Speaker 1: Randy Wangradio dot substack dot com. That's Randy Wangradio dot
Speaker 1: substack dot com. And you can check out today's California Report.
Speaker 1: Now the best story on the California Report today. It
Speaker 1: comes from ABC seven in the Bay Area. And you know,
Speaker 1: we try to do our best to highlight the incredible
Speaker 1: reporters that we have up and down the state. We
Speaker 1: had a lot of fun talking with Matthew Sedor for
Speaker 1: Fox eleven yesterday. We had mar Leteas on earlier in
Speaker 1: the week. But we've shouted out so many great people.
Speaker 1: We feature a lot of Ashley Zavala, the political director
Speaker 1: for Ksey Orra three. We love Julie Watts, who is
Speaker 1: the investigative reporter for CBS Sacramento, but one investigative reporter
Speaker 1: in the Bay Area. Anytime he has a story, you
Speaker 1: know it's gonna be good. His name is Dannis and
Speaker 1: he's been around for a very long time. In fact,
Speaker 1: there are videos of Dan Noise getting yelled at by
Speaker 1: then Mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom for being too
Speaker 1: much of an investigative reporter because there were stories circulating
Speaker 1: at the time about Gavin having a drinking problem. Gee,
Speaker 1: I wonder where they got that. Anyway, Dan Neis you
Speaker 1: might know through this show because Dan Neis is usually
Speaker 1: the first person to break any news related to Shang
Speaker 1: E Tal.
Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely, and.
Speaker 1: So I'm always excited when Dan Noise has a new story.
Speaker 1: He also was the first person on the scene to
Speaker 1: report the insanity going on with then Alameda County District
Speaker 1: Attorney Pamela Price.
Speaker 3: She called me a crime boss.
Speaker 1: Where when she first got inaugurated, she held this bizarre
Speaker 1: meeting at the Colisseum where she needed to be addressed
Speaker 1: as Madame District Attorney by all of her employees and
Speaker 1: the press was not allowed in to hear what she
Speaker 1: was saying. Really weird anyway, Dan Neis has a great
Speaker 1: story and it's also a ghost story, but not the
Speaker 1: kind of ghost you're thinking about. We don't need to
Speaker 1: call the ghostbusters for this one. It's about ghost students
Speaker 1: and the AI scammers that are trying to get money
Speaker 1: out of California community colleges. For more on this, we
Speaker 1: get ABC seven in the Bay and Dan Nois.
Speaker 4: We are losing millions of tax dollars right now to
Speaker 4: what are known as ghost students, online scammers who enroll
Speaker 4: in community colleges and get away with a financial aid
Speaker 4: meant for actual students from.
Speaker 2: The Bay Area.
Speaker 3: ITEAM reporter Dan Noise is here with the results of
Speaker 3: a joint investigation with ABC News Dan Larry and Christen.
Speaker 3: These ghost students scammers mainly come from overseas and they
Speaker 3: are problem throughout California and across the country. They often
Speaker 3: use artificial intelligence to expand their reach and evade fraud
Speaker 3: detection controls. Admission staff for San Jose's community colleges are
Speaker 3: stretched then trying to catch ghost students who you've stolen
Speaker 3: or fake identities to enroll in classes and obtain financial aid.
Speaker 1: So we now have scammers that are trying to get
Speaker 1: grants and loans from our community college system and obviously
Speaker 1: take that money and run with it. This is wild.
Speaker 3: The online scammers have had a real impact.
Speaker 5: So we would have courses where we'd have fifty seats
Speaker 5: and another one hundred plus on a waiting lists, and
Speaker 5: we would find that maybe.
Speaker 2: Six, So those actual and rollees or students.
Speaker 1: Wait a second, can we hear that one more time?
Speaker 5: So we would have courses where we'd have fifty seats
Speaker 5: and another one hundred plus on a waiting lists, and
Speaker 5: we would find that maybe.
Speaker 2: Six, So those actual and rollees or students.
Speaker 1: So they had almost one hundred and fifty people enroll
Speaker 1: for a class, there's only fifty spots. There's one hundred
Speaker 1: on a waiting list for a class at a California
Speaker 1: community college, and only six of them are real people. Okay,
Speaker 1: how easy is it to scam California Community Colleges College
Speaker 1: of the Canyons. I'm looking at you. That's the community
Speaker 1: college I went to. My high school biology teacher used
Speaker 1: to call it College of the Crayons.
Speaker 2: And the rest were fraudulent account school students.
Speaker 3: Doctor Chida has explained she sees the most fraud and
Speaker 3: asynchronous courses in which students can work online at their
Speaker 3: own speed.
Speaker 1: But also, okay, so apparently you can get an AI
Speaker 1: chatbot that can apply to go to community college in
Speaker 1: online only courses and somehow also apply with stolen social
Speaker 1: Security numbers and stolen ID to get financial aid. And
Speaker 1: I'm guessing it's working, or they wouldn't be doing it.
Speaker 3: In person classes. Fifty eight year old Morat Meyer is
Speaker 3: a business analyst with a PhD. He has no interest
Speaker 3: in attending community college, but as he started applying for
Speaker 3: financial aid for his teenage son, he discovered that scammers
Speaker 3: had stolen both of their identities, signing the father and
Speaker 3: son up for community college classes across the country.
Speaker 1: Oh so this isn't just California. What is going on? Well,
Speaker 1: you know the old Chris rockbit. Is the thing with
Speaker 1: community college is anybody in the community can go. I
Speaker 1: think we now have automatic enrollment to California community colleges,
Speaker 1: and community college is supposed to be free. Apparently this
Speaker 1: is open the door to the scammers.
Speaker 2: He noticed that there are a lot of activity.
Speaker 6: There are a lot of applications, loan applications, grant applications
Speaker 6: on dan we panicked.
Speaker 3: California Community Colleges confirms that in twenty twenty four, the
Speaker 3: most recent data available, thirty one point four percent of
Speaker 3: all applications to the states one hundred and sixteen community
Speaker 3: colleges were fraudulent.
Speaker 1: One third of all applications to California community colleges are fraudulent.
Speaker 1: That is a problem.
Speaker 3: The scammers are sometimes able to navigate the system of enrolling,
Speaker 3: getting accepted, and applying for financial aid to get away
Speaker 3: with millions of your tax dollars.
Speaker 1: Can you give okay, how do we shut this down immediately?
Speaker 3: Can you give me an idea of the amount of
Speaker 3: money that was actually sent to the bad guys over
Speaker 3: the past three, four or five years, right.
Speaker 5: Without preventing you an actual amount, I can tell you
Speaker 5: that it is in the millions.
Speaker 2: So they were able.
Speaker 1: To yet another example of waste, fraud and abuse this
Speaker 1: on the abuse side of it, scammers finding ways to
Speaker 1: defraud California Community colleges by applying for phony financial aid,
Speaker 1: so they.
Speaker 5: Were able to fraud the system of millions of dollars,
Speaker 5: and those millions of dollars would have gone directly.
Speaker 2: Who are are students? I mean financial aid resources.
Speaker 3: The total loss to financial aid fraud in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 3: according to California Community Colleges, about three million dollars in
Speaker 3: state funding and ten million dollars in federal funding.
Speaker 1: Oh boys.
Speaker 3: The Apartment of Education reports the federal government has lost
Speaker 3: more than three hundred and fifty million dollars to go
Speaker 3: student scams over the past five years.
Speaker 1: That is a lot of money going out the window.
Speaker 1: How do we shut this down now?
Speaker 3: The DOES Inspector General has launched some two hundred investigations
Speaker 3: coast to coast.
Speaker 7: As you're stilling identities, these loans are not being repaid.
Speaker 7: They're being assigned to people they don't even know they
Speaker 7: have a debt with the US Department Education. Or you
Speaker 7: get some letter from the Department or the servicer or
Speaker 7: the Internal Revenue Service that says you owe the Department
Speaker 7: Education money for something you don't even know.
Speaker 3: About community colleges are fighting back, hiring consultants such as
Speaker 3: Maury Simpkins, the former.
Speaker 1: I mean, shouldn't it be easier? Maybe we need to
Speaker 1: do I don't know, Like when you're applying for a
Speaker 1: credit card, you need to show them a picture of
Speaker 1: your face. You know there's some credit cards. Now you
Speaker 1: have to show them a video of yourself. Hell, when
Speaker 1: I added a new YouTube channel, Google made me shoot
Speaker 1: a live video of myself to show that I'm a
Speaker 1: human being. Maybe there's some more guardrails we can put
Speaker 1: on applying for financial aid when we've got millions of
Speaker 1: dollars flying out the window. And this isn't just state money,
Speaker 1: it's also federal money.
Speaker 3: Former NFL linebacker and his wife run a software security
Speaker 3: firm that's now screening students as they apply to more
Speaker 3: than one hundred and fifty schools nationwide.
Speaker 8: That's essentially the way I like to look at it.
Speaker 8: From a football term, it's an offensive line.
Speaker 3: Simpkins says they found digital footprints from criminal rings around.
Speaker 8: The world Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria. Most recently, we've been seeing
Speaker 8: some Russian data where I mean it's actually coming in
Speaker 8: Russian characters in some instances.
Speaker 1: Oh my, and we're still saying yes, how much of
Speaker 1: this stuff is automated?
Speaker 3: California Community colleges are deploying machine learning that recognizes false applications,
Speaker 3: multi factor of.
Speaker 1: We're going to combat AI with AI.
Speaker 3: Multi factor authentication that includes selfies or live video, resistance
Speaker 3: to bots and automated script attacks. They are also counting
Speaker 3: on professors to catch a name on their roster who
Speaker 3: never appears in class. Gener Luchitas tells me these efforts
Speaker 3: have vastly reduced the number of ghost students who get through.
Speaker 5: It's still happening, so we still remain diligent. You know,
Speaker 5: we want to make sure that we're serving actual students.
Speaker 2: We're providing financial.
Speaker 5: Resources to actual students, not losing those resources to g
Speaker 5: students to the criminal activity still happens, and that's where
Speaker 5: we remain diligent.
Speaker 3: I spoke with one professor who told me the scammers
Speaker 3: will sometimes answer an email, even complete a classroom assignment
Speaker 3: just to keep the financial aid money flowing, and once
Speaker 3: they get that money, they disappear.
Speaker 1: Okay, so now we've actually got the AI enrolling in
Speaker 1: school and they're completing the subjects so the scam can
Speaker 1: keep going. This is gonna be a tough one to fight.
Speaker 1: But oh my goodness, there you go. You never heard
Speaker 1: this term before, but you'll never forget it. Go students
Speaker 1: at California Community Colleges. And how exciting is this. We're
Speaker 1: going back to Gladstone's in Long Beach a week from today.
Speaker 1: We're heading to Gladstone's in Long Beach for our next
Speaker 1: live broadcast, and you're invited. Come enjoy the great food,
Speaker 1: good vibes, and a fun afternoon by the water. John
Speaker 1: Seigmeister is gonna take care of you. We're gonna have
Speaker 1: special guests like Susan Shelley from the Howard Jarvis Taxpay Association, who,
Speaker 1: by the way, will be on this show at one o'clock.
Speaker 1: She'll tell you more about your taxpayer rights and protecting
Speaker 1: Prop thirteen because the courts have made it easier to
Speaker 1: raise your taxes. Come by and sign the petition to
Speaker 1: save Prop thirteen. The deadline is coming fast. She needs
Speaker 1: all those signatures by February seven, so come hang out
Speaker 1: with us, grab a bite. Peep part of the broadcast
Speaker 1: Friday the sixth, from noon to three at Gladstone's in
Speaker 1: Long Beach and let's do this right now, seven ninety
Speaker 1: KABC welcomes Luke Bryan The Word on the Street Tour
Speaker 1: at the Long Beach Amphitheater August fifteenth. Tickets are on
Speaker 1: sale next Friday at ticketmaster dot com. But right now,
Speaker 1: calling number nine at one, eight at eight seven ninety
Speaker 1: five to two to two two gets a pair of
Speaker 1: tickets to the show. Tickets furnished by Live Nation. Good
Speaker 1: luck diling, download or go to my new substack if
Speaker 1: you want to see all of the videos that we
Speaker 1: curate for this show every day, I'm posting them every
Speaker 1: day Randywangradio dot substack dot com and you can follow
Speaker 1: along and share it with your friends. Now, look, I
Speaker 1: get it. California is severely overregulated. I understand. The legislature
Speaker 1: crafts nearly one thousand bills every single year, and most
Speaker 1: of them are full of nonsense that just make it
Speaker 1: more difficult to do business in this state. That being said,
Speaker 1: I am one hundred percent behind this new proposed bill
Speaker 1: because it has to do with probably the most irritating
Speaker 1: time in most of our lives. No, not sitting on
Speaker 1: the four or five freeway, the other most irritating time
Speaker 1: of your life sitting on hold with customer service. A
Speaker 1: new bill working its way through Sacramento would require companies
Speaker 1: that have customer service departments to make sure you can
Speaker 1: get to a human in less than five minutes and
Speaker 1: you don't have to sit there over and over and
Speaker 1: over again in these endless phone trees where you're constantly
Speaker 1: screaming at the AI get human agent. Seriously, it might
Speaker 1: be the angriest some people get is when they are
Speaker 1: screaming at the robot to connect them to a human being.
Speaker 1: For more on this, we got a Fox forty in Sacramento.
Speaker 6: Oh, we've all been stuck on hold for well over
Speaker 6: an hour trying to get past AI chatbox.
Speaker 1: Now the right to hear, By the way, I just
Speaker 1: want to make sure will this bill, if passed, also
Speaker 1: apply to the State of California. What I mean by
Speaker 1: that is will it apply to governmental agencies? Because we
Speaker 1: need a level playing field. And I think everybody remembers
Speaker 1: how awful and insane it was to try to get
Speaker 1: a hold of ed D during the lockdown days next
Speaker 1: Thanks Babs and people were literally going on Reddit and
Speaker 1: hiring people to sit on hold because it was that
Speaker 1: bad and people navigating those phone trees. So if we're
Speaker 1: going to do it for private industry, we also got
Speaker 1: a do it for the DMV. We got to do
Speaker 1: it for EDD, we got to do it for city Hall.
Speaker 1: I'm all for it, though I am so tired of
Speaker 1: talking to robots. When you call customer service, you should
Speaker 1: be able to reach a person without having to navigate
Speaker 1: the world's longest phone tree.
Speaker 6: Now, the Right to Human Customer Service Act would require
Speaker 6: companies to connect customers with a human representative within five
Speaker 6: minutes between the hours of six am and eight pm.
Speaker 1: Due to high call volumes, we are now providing customers
Speaker 1: automatic callbacks.
Speaker 6: Assembly Bill sixth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I always get worried about that one. Do you
Speaker 1: trust the automatic callback? Every once in a while, I'll
Speaker 1: do it, and then I'm convinced they're never calling me back.
Speaker 1: Whenever you've got an issue with an airline, that's when
Speaker 1: it's really tough. Although I will say I have a
Speaker 1: pretty good track record when I have to call American Airlines.
Speaker 1: So I have to call American Airlines every time I
Speaker 1: book a flight because I always book a flight with
Speaker 1: my Alaska Points because it's cheaper and I have just
Speaker 1: a ridiculous amount of Alaska point. It's not worth it
Speaker 1: to explain all that to you right now, But I
Speaker 1: have to call them because you cannot change your frequent
Speaker 1: flyer account on the online reservation. You can't do it
Speaker 1: on the app, you can't do it on the website.
Speaker 1: And if I book through Alaska, I can't put in
Speaker 1: my advantage number, and I have to put in my
Speaker 1: advantage number so I get my free check bag. So
Speaker 1: every time I book a flight, I have to call them.
Speaker 1: And it's real simple because they know exactly who I am.
Speaker 1: They know my phone number. It's creepy. As soon as
Speaker 1: I call them, like hi, we'll connect you right away.
Speaker 1: You sit on hold for a minute or two, but
Speaker 1: then they pick up and it's like, hey, can you
Speaker 1: add this to my reservation? And it's great, But having
Speaker 1: to go through a computer for that would be a nightmare.
Speaker 1: Due to high call volumes, we are now providing customers
Speaker 1: automatic callbacks.
Speaker 6: Assembly Bill sixteen oh nine would also ensure customers are
Speaker 6: not placed on hold for more than five minutes after
Speaker 6: their initial call is answered. Large business serving.
Speaker 1: You know, because at some point some people just give up,
Speaker 1: especially when you're dealing with a return or some kind
Speaker 1: of a complaint.
Speaker 6: Large businesses serving California consumers online would also be required
Speaker 6: to offer a phone based customer service option and post
Speaker 6: that number on their website.
Speaker 1: That's another thing. Sometimes it is really difficult to find
Speaker 1: the phone number to contact these companies. And no, no,
Speaker 1: no, no no, we want you to mess with our AI chatbot.
Speaker 1: That's another thing. It drives me crazy. And maybe we
Speaker 1: can apply this to it as well. You're like, okay,
Speaker 1: I don't have the patience to sit on the phone tree,
Speaker 1: so why don't I? It says, right there, contact us
Speaker 1: on the website, use our helpful chat and you explain
Speaker 1: your situation, and then you get a automated response that says, oh,
Speaker 1: that's awful. Is it one of these five things?
Speaker 9: No?
Speaker 1: Oh, is it one of these five things?
Speaker 9: No?
Speaker 1: Okay, we'll connect you with an agent. Then ten minutes
Speaker 1: later you get connected with a human being and you
Speaker 1: have to explain your problem all over again.
Speaker 6: How can I help you customer service?
Speaker 1: Well that's a long wait. Oh boy, there might be
Speaker 1: people's blood pressure that is rising just hearing this piece. Okay,
Speaker 1: would you like to speak with a team member yes.
Speaker 6: It would also require large businesses to disclose whether customers
Speaker 6: are speaking with an artificially generated operator or a human
Speaker 6: Democratic Assembly Member Rick Chavezber.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, I'm so glad I did this story today.
Speaker 1: So we have a rule on this show unless it's
Speaker 1: absolutely necessary if we're doing anything involving Assemblyman Rick Chavezbur,
Speaker 1: we have to do it on a day that Johnny's
Speaker 1: not here, because john will be tempted to do his
Speaker 1: voice for Rick Chavez Bur and it will blow out
Speaker 1: his throat.
Speaker 6: Democratic assembly Member Rick Chavezber introduce the bill.
Speaker 9: I'm here for constituents all the time, their frustration at
Speaker 9: how technology is not helping them satisfy their needs but
Speaker 9: is really in some cases inhibiting it.
Speaker 6: Adding it would require customer service platforms to monitor and
Speaker 6: track compliance so that.
Speaker 9: Someone can actually go to someone who is not following
Speaker 9: the law and say, give us the data that shows
Speaker 9: whether or not people have actually had their calls answered.
Speaker 6: Sacramento area residents we spoke with are on board.
Speaker 2: That sounds like a great idea.
Speaker 1: Would say what I mean, if there was ever a
Speaker 1: bill to get unanimous consent, I mean sure this might
Speaker 1: be an extra hindrance and even though it's a California law,
Speaker 1: pretty much every company that operates in California, what they're
Speaker 1: going to have a different system for all other for
Speaker 1: United States. But still, this is a situation where maybe
Speaker 1: a little regulation is needed because customer service is getting
Speaker 1: so irritating.
Speaker 2: That sounds like a great idea. It'd save a lot
Speaker 2: of time.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Actually, recently I've been trying to get my dental insurance reinstated.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, Yeah, that's probably the worst. Maybe the first
Speaker 1: playpool that we can apply this to is the insurance companies.
Speaker 2: That would have been really hopeful.
Speaker 6: How often do you speak to people who are frustrated
Speaker 6: with the amount of time they've had to wait on
Speaker 6: the phone to speak with you.
Speaker 1: That's great. They actually interviewed the person at customer service
Speaker 1: for this piece.
Speaker 5: All.
Speaker 6: We also asked a customer service representative about their thoughts
Speaker 6: on the new bill.
Speaker 1: And by the way, this is like one of the
Speaker 1: first categories of jobs that was victim to oversea shipping
Speaker 1: of jobs offshoring. It was also one of the first
Speaker 1: categories of jobs that has been a victim of the
Speaker 1: AI transition. Because no, we don't need an operator, the
Speaker 1: robot will tell you what to do. And before we
Speaker 1: even had the voice activated ones, we had the phone trees.
Speaker 1: Press one, press two, press three, press seven, And even
Speaker 1: if you know what number you gonna press, you can't
Speaker 1: press it until they ask for it or it's not
Speaker 1: gonna work. What a nightmare.
Speaker 6: We also asked a customer service representative about their thoughts
Speaker 6: on the new bill. How do you feel about the
Speaker 6: chat box? Do you feel like it's your competition? Do
Speaker 6: you feel like your job is safe?
Speaker 11: And I think it's really helpful because it relieves some
Speaker 11: of the general questions and it filters out to.
Speaker 1: Help us be able to target the more complex question.
Speaker 1: But share by the way, and I know that they're
Speaker 1: probably we're recording the phone like on a camera, But
Speaker 1: it is just one of the things that bothers me
Speaker 1: with as incredible as technology is getting, with how advanced
Speaker 1: AI is and all the evolution that's going on with
Speaker 1: quantum mechanics, phone quality sucks. It's only getting worse. Why
Speaker 1: is that?
Speaker 6: But shares that it can be frustrated.
Speaker 1: Listen to like old YouTube videos of like old radio
Speaker 1: stations including like KABC, They've got you know, air checks
Speaker 1: from this station or other radio stations from like forty
Speaker 1: years ago, and you hear shows that took calls and
Speaker 1: everyone was on a landline and it was crystal clear.
Speaker 1: Right now, at least one guest a week we've got
Speaker 1: some phone issue with.
Speaker 6: But shares that it can be frustrating when she's on
Speaker 6: the other end.
Speaker 2: I have, you know, three.
Speaker 12: Kids and a life and a full time job, and
Speaker 12: I'm a student, and I don't always.
Speaker 1: Have the time to sit here online and get pushed
Speaker 1: around on different phone calls.
Speaker 6: Now, we'll be sure to keep you updated on the
Speaker 6: progress of this bill. And that is the very latest
Speaker 6: for now, reporting live at the Capitol, covering local news
Speaker 6: that matters. Juliette Smith, Fox forty News.
Speaker 1: Again, I understand that California is overregulated. That being said,
Speaker 1: this is one regulation I am all for. If you'd
Speaker 1: like to email us, you could do so at Johnny
Speaker 1: don't like show at gmail dot com. Pete writes in
Speaker 1: customer service is like law enforcement and should be retitled
Speaker 1: as a lack of customer service. Hello, and thank you
Speaker 1: for calling the lack of customer service department. Please hold
Speaker 1: it's pretty good. Eight hundred two two two five two
Speaker 1: two two is the telephone number. This is pretty exciting.
Speaker 1: BART is announcing a drop in crime, which, again we
Speaker 1: don't usually trust it when agencies say crime is down
Speaker 1: but ridership is up, which can tell you that crime
Speaker 1: must be going down, and crime is going down because
Speaker 1: they have actually cracked down on it, unlike Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: For more on the lowering crime on Bart, here's NBC
Speaker 1: in the.
Speaker 13: Bay A safer ride, that's what BART is boasting. The
Speaker 13: transit agency.
Speaker 1: That is some alliteration right there, boasting Bart.
Speaker 14: Bart is boasting.
Speaker 13: The transit agency says it's trains and stations are becoming
Speaker 13: much safer. The new crime stats show that overall Bart's
Speaker 13: crime rate is down by forty one percent last year.
Speaker 1: I think an overall crime rate doesn't mean a lot,
Speaker 1: because you could be weighing things like sexual assaults much
Speaker 1: lower than you're weighing the constant just robberies and drug use.
Speaker 1: But if ridership is up, that'll tell you something.
Speaker 14: I'm see Barry.
Speaker 13: Jodi Hernandez is at the BART station of Walnut Creek Forest.
Speaker 14: Jody, the Burt police chief, tells me they've worked really
Speaker 14: hard to make positive changes, and it appears that work
Speaker 14: is paying off.
Speaker 12: When I first started on BART three years ago, didn't
Speaker 12: feel very comfortable.
Speaker 1: But writers like it, Yes, And because all the transit
Speaker 1: agencies were still going through the hangover of COVID times
Speaker 1: when Gavin Newsom decided to make transit free, and Bart
Speaker 1: and Muni and La Metro and the rest of them
Speaker 1: turned into roaming homeless shelters.
Speaker 14: But writers like Andrews say they've seen much needed changes
Speaker 14: aboard BART that have made them feel much more at ease.
Speaker 12: Within the last year, I've noticed that everything's been safer.
Speaker 12: I've been I felt more comfortable being on BART, and
Speaker 12: I do think it's from the gates and also I
Speaker 12: think it's from the increased presence of the BART authorities.
Speaker 1: Look at that. You put more cops on the trains
Speaker 1: and people start to feel safer. Isn't it incredible how
Speaker 1: the narrative has changed.
Speaker 11: The safest way to travel around the Bay is what
Speaker 11: we like to say.
Speaker 1: Bart that rhymes hey.
Speaker 14: Bart Police chief Kevin Franklin says the system has seen
Speaker 14: a significant drop in crime over the past year.
Speaker 11: Overall crime is down, with a violent crime down thirty
Speaker 11: percent and property crime down forty three percent.
Speaker 14: Auto thefts and robberies are also on the decline. The
Speaker 14: chief credits that change to Bart's new faregates at all
Speaker 14: fifty stations.
Speaker 1: And see look at this. They put in these locking
Speaker 1: faregates at every single station. There is no point of
Speaker 1: entry or exit where it is that's not controlled who
Speaker 1: gets in and who gets out. You look at what
Speaker 1: La Metro is doing. They have put these fare gates
Speaker 1: and these tap to exit gates at like three stations.
Speaker 1: That'll do it. And there's still no answer for how
Speaker 1: exactly you police the bus system. But this is great
Speaker 1: for BART. Now if they could just clean the tunnels,
Speaker 1: then people would feel even safer.
Speaker 14: The chief credits that change to Bart's new faregates at
Speaker 14: all fifty stations, improvements and cleanliness and increased police visibility.
Speaker 11: We've really allocated.
Speaker 1: We've really come a long way from the defund the
Speaker 1: police movement. That is still we are recovering from the
Speaker 1: kill to morale that that did and the fact that
Speaker 1: so many people did not want to be a police
Speaker 1: officer because they felt that the public did not have
Speaker 1: their back. I think we're turning that corner. It's slow,
Speaker 1: but this is a good improvement for BART and i'd
Speaker 1: love to hear this because I would like to be
Speaker 1: writing Bart the next of them in the Bay area
Speaker 1: and feel comfortable doing so. Because I don't know if
Speaker 1: you know this about me. I can't stand driving. It
Speaker 1: is the worst part of my day.
Speaker 11: We've really allocated.
Speaker 1: Of course, I live in La County where there is
Speaker 1: minimal public transit and it is unsafe and it doesn't
Speaker 1: go anywhere, so I'm stuck in my car really, But
Speaker 1: in the Bay in certain areas it can really work
Speaker 1: for you.
Speaker 11: We've really allocated every available employee. Both are sworn police
Speaker 11: officers and are unarmed civilians who are in uniform to
Speaker 11: be out and about and riding the system.
Speaker 1: The drop in crime comes as right, is that what
Speaker 1: they're calling ambassadors now unarmed civilians who are in uniform.
Speaker 14: The drop in crime comes as ridership has grown. The
Speaker 14: system saw five million more trips last year than in
Speaker 14: twenty twenty four, and with the Super Bowl on tap,
Speaker 14: the chief says BART police will be out in force
Speaker 14: to ensure sports fans remain safe.
Speaker 11: Will be out in present.
Speaker 1: What about the sports fans that go to those Oakland events?
Speaker 1: Will they be safe? Well? To be safe on Bart?
Speaker 1: They get out the call see and that's on them.
Speaker 11: We'll be out and present in the areas that we're
Speaker 11: expecting to see additional ridership to reassure people that BART
Speaker 11: is the safest way to travel to San Francisco for
Speaker 11: the NFL experience and traveling to Levi Stadium for game.
Speaker 1: Day because the game's actually in Santa Clara.
Speaker 14: Writers we talked to say they have definitely noticed the difference.
Speaker 2: They improved the Saints sal again and definitely.
Speaker 1: Cleaner, cleaner, safer. People want to ride it. This is
Speaker 1: a whole New Bay area.
Speaker 2: It's fast.
Speaker 1: I think now that they could just figure all the
Speaker 1: service interruptions, I.
Speaker 12: Think it's great.
Speaker 7: I think.
Speaker 12: Something that I don't know, like I said, I live
Speaker 12: in San Francisco, is something our city definitely needs.
Speaker 3: But I think it's great that the time is going on.
Speaker 14: If that's true, the overall crime is down, Aggravated assaults
Speaker 14: actually roast lightly last year, but the chief says things
Speaker 14: are definitely moving in the right direction in the East Bay.
Speaker 14: Jody Hernandez NBC Bay Area News.
Speaker 1: So they're actively policing the station, they've got the faregates.
Speaker 1: They're really taking this seriously. They're trying to keep the
Speaker 1: trains clean, so ridership is going up. So if everything
Speaker 1: is moving in that direction, does Bart still need to
Speaker 1: bail out in November or will this problem correct itself
Speaker 1: by I don't know, making the trains an attractive place
Speaker 1: for people to use, because there are plenty of people
Speaker 1: that don't want to be sitting on the Bay Bridge.
Speaker 1: Let's go to rich In Robert park Rich Hello.
Speaker 10: Hello, I'm calling about the customer service issue. I was
Speaker 10: a buyer at a major home improvement store in northern California,
Speaker 10: and I can't tell you how many times I had
Speaker 10: presidents of companies in my office and I challenged them
Speaker 10: to call their own customer service service area and and
Speaker 10: try to negotiate their own company service. And they look
Speaker 10: all look at me with the with this blank look
Speaker 10: on her face. I hand him to the phone and
Speaker 10: say call your customer service and ask him for my order,
Speaker 10: and tell tell show them how much time I waste
Speaker 10: in my day chasing their product. It's just mind boggling.
Speaker 10: Another one, another one was you call up Kaiser Permanente
Speaker 10: and it says if you're having a medical emergency, call
Speaker 10: what nine one one? If not put in your medical
Speaker 10: ID number. You put in your medical ID number. Who
Speaker 10: do you want to talk to? I want to talk
Speaker 10: to my doctor. You go to your doctor and the
Speaker 10: doctor's not the doctor, but the doctor's nurse says, what's
Speaker 10: your medical ID number?
Speaker 1: It's so infuriating. It's like, what does the robot actually
Speaker 1: record when you put in your information? It seems like nothing.
Speaker 10: I just enter it. I want to I want to say.
Speaker 10: I can't cuss right now, but that's what I want
Speaker 10: to do. My pressure, my blood pressures going to the roof.
Speaker 1: Just recounting this experience. His blood pressure is going up. Rich,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for the call. Appreciate it. Hey,
Speaker 1: we got two more hours to go on this. Jimmy
Speaker 1: Buffett Friday, Susan Shelley from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association
Speaker 1: will join us. Next. It's Randy Wang here on The
Speaker 1: John Phillips Show.