Speaker 1: Clickfix malware could infect your PC. I'll tell you how
Speaker 1: it works. Google launches its answer to Apple's affordable iPhone,
Speaker 1: which one wins. And Amazon Alexa is removing a key
Speaker 1: privacy option. What you need to know plus your tech
Speaker 1: questions answered? What's going on on richdmiro And this is
Speaker 1: Rich on Tech. This is the show where I talk
Speaker 1: about the tech stuff I think you should know about.
Speaker 1: It's also the place where I answer your questions about technology.
Speaker 1: I believe that tech should be interesting, useful and fun.
Speaker 1: Phone lines are open at triple eight Rich one oh one.
Speaker 1: That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 1: zero one. Give me call if you have a question
Speaker 1: about technology. Email is also an option. Just go to
Speaker 1: Rich on Tech dot tv and hit contact.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: We got a couple of guests this week. First off,
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe this story. We got someone calling in
Speaker 1: who got scammed out of thousands of dollars through a
Speaker 1: text message. Yes, we always say who answers these text messages?
Speaker 3: People do.
Speaker 1: It's a numbers game and this person fell for the scam.
Speaker 1: He will explain how they got his money. Then later
Speaker 1: we've got Mark Anthony Arena, the computer exercist. He's gonna
Speaker 1: explain why old school virus scans don't cut it anymore
Speaker 1: and the real dangers you should watch out for. And finally,
Speaker 1: later we've got Brett Fransen, founder of that death clock app.
Speaker 1: He's gonna tell us how AI can predict your life expectancy,
Speaker 1: biological age and more, plus why he created this app.
Speaker 1: All right, I thought it'd be kind of fun this
Speaker 1: week to go through some of the gadget milestones of
Speaker 1: my life. So some of you listening may have been
Speaker 1: around longer for me, some shorter. But I'm gonna tell
Speaker 1: you what has been interesting in my lifetime. Darting with
Speaker 1: the giant stereo system that my dad bought back in
Speaker 1: the day, New Jersey, grown up as a kid.
Speaker 3: It was a Sony.
Speaker 1: It was one of those rack systems that just had
Speaker 1: like a bunch of components.
Speaker 3: It was all silver.
Speaker 1: It has a record player, it had a cassette player.
Speaker 3: I think it was a was it dual cassettes? So
Speaker 3: that was number one.
Speaker 1: And I remember my dad bringing this thing home, probably
Speaker 1: a lot of money, and uh, it was just incredible.
Speaker 1: It was just like something we'd never seen before. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that was first I mean cable TV came after that.
Speaker 1: That wasn't that big of a deal, but whatever. But
Speaker 1: the second I think changing point in my life was
Speaker 1: the Nintendo Entertainment System. When I got this thing and
Speaker 1: you can play video games in your basement.
Speaker 3: Oh, we played the heck out of it. We had
Speaker 3: Nintendo Thumb, one of the swishies out the one I got.
Speaker 1: I tried something different from my headphone and they are
Speaker 1: not working. Okay, so let's try that less of a delay.
Speaker 1: So yeah, Nintendo was incredible. It was, you know, just
Speaker 1: RC pro am and we played so many games Mario Brothers.
Speaker 1: I mean, we just played the heck out of that thing.
Speaker 3: Now, that was great until we went portable.
Speaker 1: And then I got my Game Boy and I remember,
Speaker 1: this is one of the first things that I spent
Speaker 1: my own money on. I think it was ninety dollars.
Speaker 1: Went to KB Toys and bought the game Boy and
Speaker 1: played the heck out of Tetris toys.
Speaker 3: KB Toys. Yeah, back in the day, don't have that.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: This was when the mall had everything you needed in
Speaker 1: one place, you know, for everything from your your pretzel
Speaker 1: to your you know, your drink, to your games and
Speaker 1: your toys and the you know, CD player or not CDs,
Speaker 1: the cassettes.
Speaker 3: So that was that was awesome. The game Boy played
Speaker 3: the heck out of that.
Speaker 1: I think it actually took regular batteries, like double A batteries.
Speaker 1: And then later on it was a VCR. I remember
Speaker 1: specifically getting a new VCR at the house. This was
Speaker 1: a brand new kind of thing that went along with
Speaker 1: block Buster Video. And we would just every Friday night
Speaker 1: go to Blockbuster and rent tapes, and we'd rent like
Speaker 1: three or four of them at the same time, and
Speaker 1: of course you had to rewind them before you brought
Speaker 1: them back, and if you didn't bring them back, you
Speaker 1: were looking at a bill of like, you know, one
Speaker 1: hundred bucks, two hundred dollars whatever it was that a
Speaker 1: cassette tape they would charge you, which was just absolutely insane.
Speaker 1: Then later on, and I'm not sure all this is
Speaker 1: in a perfect order, because I just kind of brainstormed
Speaker 1: and I was remembering, so I tried to put it
Speaker 1: in the best order I could think of. Then we
Speaker 1: had the camquarter, and this was back in the day
Speaker 1: when at least growing up in New Jersey, you had
Speaker 1: a bunch of different electronics stores in New Jersey and
Speaker 1: New York and you would look in the back of
Speaker 1: the newspaper and they had all the listings for the
Speaker 1: gadgets that they were selling, and you'd see them at
Speaker 1: these places in New York City. And then you'd bring
Speaker 1: that newspaper to a place in New Jersey. I think
Speaker 1: it was like Crazy Eddies, and you would show them
Speaker 1: that price and be like, I could get this for
Speaker 1: this price, and they'd say, no, we want you to
Speaker 1: buy it here.
Speaker 3: We'll give you twenty dollars less than that price sold.
Speaker 1: So I remember Yashika was our camcord and it had
Speaker 1: like zoom and these little digital graphics you can put
Speaker 1: on there, and the only kind of transition you had
Speaker 1: was just a fade, like a fade to black, fade
Speaker 1: up from black, and that was it. But camcorder. I
Speaker 1: had that thing all the time, played on that a lot.
Speaker 1: Then I remember getting my one and ten cameras.
Speaker 3: This was a little.
Speaker 1: Pocket sized camera, took actual film, one hundred and ten cartridge.
Speaker 1: This was maybe the competitor of thirty five millimeter or before.
Speaker 1: And yeah, that was a new one because you had
Speaker 1: to take your photos, your film into a little photo
Speaker 1: developing place. It was like a little hot in the
Speaker 1: middle of a parking lot. You drop off your film
Speaker 1: through the drive through and you come back a couple
Speaker 1: of days later and get your pictures. You never knew
Speaker 1: what was going to be on that roll. Half the
Speaker 1: pictures were tossaways because they were so bad. Then we
Speaker 1: had projection TV again, so my dad was definitely on.
Speaker 3: The cutting edge of a lot of this stuff.
Speaker 1: We didn't have everything, but we definitely got He kind
Speaker 1: of I don't know if he maybe, now that I
Speaker 1: think about it, maybe he instilled my love of electronics
Speaker 1: because we got this big projection TV hue. Huge, it
Speaker 1: was heavy, it was bulky, but it worked and it
Speaker 1: was so cool because the picture was big. And I
Speaker 1: remember one time I sprayed index on the screen and
Speaker 1: ruined it, and yeah, that was not a good day
Speaker 1: in the DeMuro house. I kind of got in trouble
Speaker 1: for that. My cassette walkman. I remember having a cassette walkman.
Speaker 1: It was a Sony, it was yellow. It was like
Speaker 1: kind of the sport you pop a tape in there,
Speaker 1: maybe listen to the radio if you didn't have a
Speaker 1: good tape. And of course that was my first taste
Speaker 1: of portable music on the go. You could listen to
Speaker 1: anything anywhere. And of course that was my first taste
Speaker 1: of getting you know, cassettes at Sam Goodie on the weekend,
Speaker 1: spending all my hard earned cash. Then later I remember,
Speaker 1: now this is when I started getting into technology with
Speaker 1: my family. But I remember getting my family a cordless phone,
Speaker 1: and then we got caller ID and it was a
Speaker 1: separate box for the caller ID, and I remember my
Speaker 1: mom saying, why would I ever want caller ID? Why
Speaker 1: would I ever need to know who's calling. I'll just
Speaker 1: pick up the phone and ask them. Oh, we used
Speaker 1: the heck out of caller ID. Believe me. Then you
Speaker 1: stop picking up the phone. Oh that person's calling, don't
Speaker 1: pick it up. I'm not here, I'm not here, Tell
Speaker 1: them I'm not here.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 3: And then I remember going to a friend's house.
Speaker 1: They had a Tandy computer and I played with it
Speaker 1: for just about five minutes. Couldn't really do anything, but
Speaker 1: I fell in love and I wanted a computer. So
Speaker 1: then I dragged my dad to the store. I got
Speaker 1: a three eighty six SX sixteen tiny. It is just
Speaker 1: a big old honking computer. I think this was that PC,
Speaker 1: Richard and Son or the Whiz something like that. You know,
Speaker 1: I grew up in Jersey. All the electronics stores were
Speaker 1: regional back then. We didn't really have like a Best Buy.
Speaker 1: It was like all regional places. You'd go in there
Speaker 1: and you'd get a you know, you'd buy a computer,
Speaker 1: just grab the box, put it in your car and
Speaker 1: bring it home and turn it on. It didn't do anything.
Speaker 1: I mean it did basically nothing. No Internet back then.
Speaker 1: But also got a top top matrix printer. This was
Speaker 1: the printer that had the perforated edges on the side
Speaker 1: to the little holes and you'd prant it go. That
Speaker 1: was amazing. Fax machine. Don't forget the fax machine. I
Speaker 1: remember walking into the electronics store and getting my first
Speaker 1: demo of a fax machine and going, how does it know?
Speaker 3: How does it print out the same thing on the
Speaker 3: other end.
Speaker 1: Well, of course you realize that it takes a scan
Speaker 1: of the document and just print it out in the
Speaker 1: other end. It's not the exact same document you're sending
Speaker 1: through the internet or through the.
Speaker 3: Phone lines back then.
Speaker 1: Oh and then I upgraded my computer to a Gateway
Speaker 1: two thousand. If you remember this company, they had those
Speaker 1: iconic cowprint boxes. I was in love with this company,
Speaker 1: ted Waite Gateway two thousand. It was so cool and
Speaker 1: I loved it. And I got this big honkin tower
Speaker 1: of a computer with all the accessories, and I used
Speaker 1: to pop in all the peripherals, buy something new all
Speaker 1: the time, to pop it in and attach it. This
Speaker 1: was before USB, so everything had to be like put
Speaker 1: into the computer. I got a bubble jet printer that
Speaker 1: was the upgrade from the Dot Matrix, much quieter. Then
Speaker 1: I got a CD player. Bought my first CD player
Speaker 1: off of a friend's family member. I think it was
Speaker 1: twenty bucks. You sold it to me, and that was
Speaker 1: like a CD player, like a portable CD player, And
Speaker 1: it skipped so much. You could barely even walk around
Speaker 1: with that thing. Then I got my laptop in college.
Speaker 1: It was a win Book. I don't even think that
Speaker 1: company's around anymore. It was huge, but I loved it.
Speaker 1: Still no Internet on that thing, I mean it was
Speaker 1: still like maybe it was wired internet. I don't even
Speaker 1: remember TV and VCR combos, remember that. I remember waiting
Speaker 1: in line on Black Friday for one of those. The
Speaker 1: thing was on sale for sixty bucks at Sears. All
Speaker 1: the places. I'm telling you aren't even around anymore. All
Speaker 1: the technology. It's like, this stuff seems so lame at
Speaker 1: this point. DVD player coming home from college watching DVDs
Speaker 1: because we had this fancy new DVD player. I remember
Speaker 1: watching it and saying, that is so clear, the picture
Speaker 1: is so amazing. Fargo was our first DVD. Then I
Speaker 1: got my Motorola Star tac phone, my flip phone. I
Speaker 1: thought that was the best thing ever. My Palm Pilot,
Speaker 1: my Tvo. Then I went flat screen with a Visio.
Speaker 1: Thousand bucks on my first flat screen TV from Visio.
Speaker 1: It was incredible. I loved it. I made such a
Speaker 1: big decision on getting that. Should I buy this? Should
Speaker 1: I buy this? Kept that thing for like ten years.
Speaker 1: The BlackBerry. We all had one of those. We loved
Speaker 1: getting our email on the go. Then I was on
Speaker 1: a plane I saw the girl next to me had
Speaker 1: an iPod. I said, can I see that?
Speaker 3: What is that?
Speaker 1: And I immediately went out and bought one, the little
Speaker 1: iPad iPod Mini from Best Buy, my Motorola Q smartphone.
Speaker 1: Then I got the iPhone. That was when things really shifted. Now,
Speaker 1: all the gadgets I just told you could be built
Speaker 1: into a phone, and then the Kindle came out, and
Speaker 1: then the iPad after that, and then the Google Home
Speaker 1: Smart Speaker. Now this was when the time when I
Speaker 1: was starting in my career as a real tech journalist
Speaker 1: and starting to really get this stuff. Day in first
Speaker 1: day Apple Watch, I was there for the launch of that.
Speaker 1: I mean I was there for the launch of the iPad,
Speaker 1: the launch of the Google Home Smart speaker, the Apple Watch,
Speaker 1: the son No speakers. I was not there for the launch,
Speaker 1: but I was there for the first demo I ever
Speaker 1: got in New York City. It's like twelve hundred bucks
Speaker 1: for the system. I said, who's ever gonna get this?
Speaker 6: Now?
Speaker 3: I can't live without it, even though you know I
Speaker 3: have a problem with it right now.
Speaker 1: And finally, I think the thing that has changed the
Speaker 1: most or the biggest impact, has been the meta ray band,
Speaker 1: smart glasses, putting those on, snapping photos, taking calls, the AI.
Speaker 1: It's all pretty incredible, and now of course we have
Speaker 1: AI and everything. All right, Hope you enjoyed that trip
Speaker 1: down memory lane eight eight eight rich one O one
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich On Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you Talking technology at triple eight Rich one
Speaker 1: O one eight eight eight seven four to two for
Speaker 1: one zero one, the website for the show Rich on
Speaker 1: tech dot tv. David writes in from San Francisco, Hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: I like your show. I have a Galaxy S twenty two, which,
Speaker 1: as you know, has no headphone jack. I can't find
Speaker 1: an adapter which works so I can hear anything while
Speaker 1: I'm on a plane. I've bought three different adapters, none
Speaker 1: solve the issue. Do you have any advice? Is it
Speaker 1: also a headphone issue? It's incredibly frustrated. Yeah, it's probably
Speaker 1: a combination. I mean, the adapter is the only adapter
Speaker 1: to get is called the airfly. So the airfly is
Speaker 1: a Bluetooth transmitter. You basically plug it in to the
Speaker 1: seatback entertainment the headphone out jack on the seatback entertainment
Speaker 1: that will allow you to broadcast whatever is on the
Speaker 1: seatback you know, the movie you're watching, or the TV show,
Speaker 1: or the audio you're listening to to your phone and
Speaker 1: on your phone. You definitely are going to need some
Speaker 1: sort of bluetooth headphones that have noise cancelation. If they don't,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be really tough. You're gonna have to turn
Speaker 1: your volume all the way up. The other thing on
Speaker 1: your phone is just to check your audio settings, make
Speaker 1: sure that you don't have some sort of limit on there.
Speaker 1: But you don't really want to be listening super loud
Speaker 1: on your phone anyway, because on a plane there's a
Speaker 1: lot of ambient audio. So any sort of headphones that
Speaker 1: have noise cancelation will be great. I personally enjoy like
Speaker 1: the over the ears headphones, so something like the Sony's
Speaker 1: or the Bows or the Sonos of the World, all
Speaker 1: three of those are really great on the plane. And
Speaker 1: if you want a pair of earbuds, you got to
Speaker 1: go with something that's high quality because the cheap ones
Speaker 1: you're not gonna be able to hear them on the plane.
Speaker 1: You got to get something that's a little bit better.
Speaker 3: Good question. Thanks for that.
Speaker 1: Let's go to Bob. Let's see where is Bob online?
Speaker 1: For Bob in Garden City, Michigan. You're on with Rich.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Hi, Rich, I really enjoy your show.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 4: There are quite a few apps out there for recording
Speaker 4: on your phone. I have an iPhone fourteen and like
Speaker 4: I'm expecting a call from a medium that I would
Speaker 4: like to record and sometimes someone will call in a
Speaker 4: collection agency or you know, just for different reasons that
Speaker 4: i'd like to be able to easily just hit one
Speaker 4: spot to record the show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what what kind of iPhone do you have?
Speaker 4: It's a fourteen?
Speaker 1: Okay, so it's a iPhone fourteen. So do you have
Speaker 1: iOS eighteen on there?
Speaker 4: I believe I you.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, there's built in call recording now on the iPhone,
Speaker 1: so you when you're on a call, you'll notice in
Speaker 1: the upper left hand corner there's a little icon that
Speaker 1: looks like almost like a tape, and that's what you
Speaker 1: want to tap. And so when you tap that, it
Speaker 1: says this call will be recorded, and it'll tell the
Speaker 1: other person and that's it. It'll record the phone call.
Speaker 1: So I need to confirm. I'm looking on the support
Speaker 1: page for iPhone and it looks like it's just built
Speaker 1: into iOS eighteen. So it's it's not part of like
Speaker 1: I don't think you need like the latest iPhone model
Speaker 1: to get it, but that's one way to do it.
Speaker 3: So have you ever seen that icon when you're on
Speaker 3: the phone.
Speaker 4: No, I haven't noticed.
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, A lot of people haven't noticed because I
Speaker 1: mentioned it on my Instagram at richon Tech for another hack,
Speaker 1: I was sharing about scam callers. If they call you
Speaker 1: just tap that. Oh it looks like okay, So I
Speaker 1: got the screenshot of it. It looks like a little
Speaker 1: waveform with a recording button. It's in the upper left
Speaker 1: hand corner when you're on a phone call. And by
Speaker 1: the way, the Pixel phone does this, and so does
Speaker 1: the Samsung phones. They all have audio recording. Now, if
Speaker 1: you want a third party you said, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of apps out there, ninety nine point nine percent of
Speaker 1: the apps, none of them on the iPhone, at least
Speaker 1: that I know of, can tap into the audio on
Speaker 1: the iPhone. That's just not allowed by the Apple system.
Speaker 1: So what they do is they make you dial another number,
Speaker 1: a third party number, so it's almost like a three
Speaker 1: way call, and then you bring that three way call
Speaker 1: on the app and the app will record. The app
Speaker 1: on the back end will record that entire phone call.
Speaker 1: So the two apps, the one app that I know
Speaker 1: works really well is called Tape a Call tape acall
Speaker 1: dot com. And then the other app I've not tested,
Speaker 1: but it called rev Call Recorder. And this one purports
Speaker 1: to be free and unlimited and in one step. So
Speaker 1: I haven't tried that one, but you can try that
Speaker 1: and see if it works. The other way to do
Speaker 1: it on a phone is through Google Voice. So Google
Speaker 1: Voice will let you record any call that comes in.
Speaker 1: It has to come into your Google Voice, So if
Speaker 1: someone dials that Google Voice phone number, you can just
Speaker 1: tap I think it's like the four key or whatever.
Speaker 1: There's like a key that you tap, let's see record
Speaker 1: a call in Google Voice. It is let's see, yeah,
Speaker 1: you press the four key while you're on your call,
Speaker 1: and boom, it will record that call and you get
Speaker 1: a transcript there, or you get the recording you can
Speaker 1: make a transcript. And then the other way to do it,
Speaker 1: while we're on this topic, is a device called plod
Speaker 1: P L A U D the plod note, and this
Speaker 1: actually attaches to the back of your phone and it
Speaker 1: picks up the vibrations from your phone. So it's almost
Speaker 1: like those bone conducting earbuds where you put this on
Speaker 1: the back of your phone own you press record and
Speaker 1: it will record the call. Now with that, you do
Speaker 1: have to be aware because these other methods will tell
Speaker 1: the person that you're recording that one does not, so
Speaker 1: you need to tell the person. If you're in a
Speaker 1: state that requires you to do that, check your local laws.
Speaker 1: Thanks for the question, Bob. Eight eight eight rich one
Speaker 1: O one eight eight eight seven four to two four
Speaker 1: one zero one. Coming up, how someone got scammed out
Speaker 1: of thousands of dollars. They're gonna explain what happened to them.
Speaker 1: Right here, I'm rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking
Speaker 1: technology at Triple eight rich one on one. That's eight
Speaker 1: eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: We'll get back to those phone lines in just a moment,
Speaker 1: but first we've got a guest that you know. We
Speaker 1: talk about these scams all the time on this show
Speaker 1: and also on my Instagram. I'm always sharing the latest
Speaker 1: scams and thank you by the way for sending them
Speaker 1: to me. So if you see a scam that you
Speaker 1: think is new and unique and interesting, go ahead send
Speaker 1: it to me for sure, because I like to share
Speaker 1: it with folks so that the more you know about
Speaker 1: the things and the more you're aware of them, the
Speaker 1: more you can protect yourself and your family members from them.
Speaker 1: So you wonder who's who falls for these things? Right,
Speaker 1: And I always say it's a numbers game, and yes,
Speaker 1: people fall form young people, old people, people in the
Speaker 1: middle everyone. This is why scammers do this stuff. And
Speaker 1: so when I heard this story about a young guy
Speaker 1: named Connor that fell for one of these scams, I said,
Speaker 1: can you come on the show and talk about it?
Speaker 1: And he's happy to do that so that you can
Speaker 1: hopefully not have the same thing happen to you.
Speaker 3: Connor. Thanks for joining me today.
Speaker 7: Absolutely rich. How's it going man?
Speaker 1: Everything is good. So I heard your story. Tell me,
Speaker 1: first off, what you lost? How much money?
Speaker 8: So I lost five six dollars of my savings five thousand.
Speaker 1: Well, first off, amazing, kudos to you for having that
Speaker 1: much money in your savings. That's no easy feat. But
Speaker 1: that's that's incredible. But explain start from the beginning. I
Speaker 1: saw you sent me a screenshot of a text message.
Speaker 1: You got a text message?
Speaker 8: Yeah, so absolutely so. This is January tewod. I had
Speaker 8: just woken up in the morning. It was about ten o'clock.
Speaker 8: I went to a concert the night before, so I'd
Speaker 8: just woken up fresh thing first in the morning. I received, Yeah,
Speaker 8: what I thought was an automated text from my bank
Speaker 8: kind of warning me about the scam. I've gotten those
Speaker 8: a couple of times where they like kind of detect
Speaker 8: some suspicious activity or something and they kind of warn
Speaker 8: you like, hey, did you permit this wire chanser of
Speaker 8: X amount? Reply why if yes or n if no?
Speaker 8: And I obviously just replied and for no because I
Speaker 8: didn't really recognize it. And they said, well, someone's going
Speaker 8: to contact you shortly from your.
Speaker 3: Bank, okay, And so that's where it started.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's where it started.
Speaker 8: And I've had that happen before, you know, where I've
Speaker 8: tried to make a purchase and it's kind of flagged
Speaker 8: it on my account and someone from Wells Fargo, my bank,
Speaker 8: has called me.
Speaker 7: And so I didn't really think of anything.
Speaker 8: And then I got the call about ten ten eight
Speaker 8: minutes later, and the man kind of introduced himself.
Speaker 9: He gave the name.
Speaker 8: Albert Clark, Wells Fargo Frog Claims agent. Agent, gave me
Speaker 8: a badge number and everything and seemed, you know, really
Speaker 8: legit and kind of asked me like for some basic
Speaker 8: questions like my name and everything to verify who I was.
Speaker 7: But I didn't give him an account information or anything.
Speaker 8: Somehow he had access to my account because he then
Speaker 8: ran through a bunch of transactions with me from the
Speaker 8: night before that I had recognized and was kind of
Speaker 8: reading them off, and and then he started to kind
Speaker 8: of teeter towards some other like suspicious looking transact or
Speaker 8: sounding transactions that I didn't recognize. And so after going
Speaker 8: through those, I told him I didn't recognize those, and
Speaker 8: he said, well, so there's been some fraud detected on
Speaker 8: your account. Our system has flagged these as fraud. But
Speaker 8: you're gonna need to go to the nearest Wells Fargo
Speaker 8: branch and take out all your cash because they're trying
Speaker 8: to get into you accoun.
Speaker 6: Out right now.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, And what did you say to that?
Speaker 8: I mean, I was just I had just woken up.
Speaker 8: It was the first thing I had seen. I was
Speaker 8: kind of just in a panic, like I needed to,
Speaker 8: you know, take action and do what I needed to
Speaker 8: do protect my money.
Speaker 7: At that point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course, so I you know, got.
Speaker 8: My stuff, and he mentioned during the call, he said,
Speaker 8: and I should have noticed this as a little bit
Speaker 8: of a special suspicious but he said, I'm going to
Speaker 8: be on the phone through the entire time until we
Speaker 8: get your money out. And so at the time I thought, maybe,
Speaker 8: you know, he's he's really trying to work with me
Speaker 8: and make sure my money's protected. But that was definitely
Speaker 8: a little bit suspicious that he wanted to make sure
Speaker 8: that he was with me through the whole call.
Speaker 1: And so how did you go from that to starting
Speaker 1: to take out money? And did you take out cash?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 8: So he told me that what I needed to do
Speaker 8: was go to the nearest Wells Fargo bank, go up
Speaker 8: to the teller, and take out all the.
Speaker 7: Cash from my account.
Speaker 3: Okay, and you do that.
Speaker 8: So I, yeah, immediately grabbed my keys, drove to the
Speaker 8: new branch of my bank, walked into the bank, walked
Speaker 8: up to the teller, told him to just take out
Speaker 8: all my cash. He told me to do it. I said,
Speaker 8: for personal reasons. They're not allowed to ask you. He
Speaker 8: told me to just tell him personal reasons.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, they didn't. They didn't question you
Speaker 1: pulling out all this money.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's so one thing.
Speaker 8: When I went back to the bank later to talk
Speaker 8: to them, the teller kind of realized, like, oh, I
Speaker 8: I'm so sorry I didn't I didn't think of anything.
Speaker 7: It was kind of a young kid. He was a
Speaker 7: little bit younger than me, so yeah, I was. He
Speaker 7: was definitely a little taken back by it.
Speaker 3: But put out the money. You've got five thousand bucks
Speaker 3: in your hand. Now cash.
Speaker 1: Yeah, cash, So he says, okay, guys on the phone
Speaker 1: the whole time, still.
Speaker 7: Whole time, still on the phone, dedicated.
Speaker 3: One time you want to drop a signal, and you don't.
Speaker 3: I at that time I dropped.
Speaker 8: Yeah, forty five minute phone call, just walking me through this.
Speaker 8: That's why I just was in such disbelief that this
Speaker 8: man was, you know, taking all this time to get
Speaker 8: all this money from me. But anyway, after I got
Speaker 8: had got all my cash out, I went back out
Speaker 8: to my car and I said, okay, I have all.
Speaker 3: My cash out.
Speaker 8: He then told me, so, now what I'm gonna do
Speaker 8: is get your new accounts started right here. I can
Speaker 8: get it set up online. Your new debit card will
Speaker 8: be in the mail. It'll be there next day, overnight shipping.
Speaker 8: You know, the whole whole spiel they usually give you.
Speaker 8: And they said, well, right now, so we can get
Speaker 8: all this cash off your hand.
Speaker 7: What I can do for you is I can give
Speaker 7: you a temporary.
Speaker 8: Uh, temporary debit card that you can add to your
Speaker 8: Apple Wallet, which you can use tap to pay at
Speaker 8: the ATM.
Speaker 7: Which was the biggest mistake.
Speaker 8: It sounds it sounds, you know, like the like I
Speaker 8: want to get all this cash off me right now.
Speaker 7: Yeah, ATM's right here.
Speaker 8: So I added the card to the Apple Wallet function
Speaker 8: by just entering, and he gave me a you.
Speaker 7: Know, number, CVC code, date and everything.
Speaker 8: Use tap to pay at the ATM, and I put
Speaker 8: all my cash in the ATM and that was it.
Speaker 3: Could charge up the card somehow.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so it was it was a tap to It
Speaker 8: was an UH connected to a bank account that he
Speaker 8: has connection to.
Speaker 7: And he had me.
Speaker 8: Add the card to my Apple Wallet and then I
Speaker 8: tried to use the card later that day and he
Speaker 8: had canceled it.
Speaker 1: Okay, So basically, you added this virtual card to your
Speaker 1: Apple Wallet, then you went to an ATM that accepts deposits.
Speaker 1: You fed the money into the ATM, and somehow that
Speaker 1: money fed onto that card on your phone. Theoretically, yes, wow.
Speaker 1: And then and they wiped it all out and that's
Speaker 1: when they wiped it out.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 7: And then and then so that was all my cash
Speaker 7: that was gone.
Speaker 8: And then he said, you know, it's gonna take a
Speaker 8: little bit for your money to show up. It's a
Speaker 8: lot of money to you know, show up in the account.
Speaker 8: And I didn't really realize what had happened until later
Speaker 8: I got home and checked my account just to you know,
Speaker 8: see if it had hit you, and I saw both
Speaker 8: of zero's and then I had realized, like, oh.
Speaker 3: That was it.
Speaker 1: And you felt like you got scammed at that point
Speaker 1: you realized to scam And how did you feel it
Speaker 1: that moment?
Speaker 7: I just I just was in shock.
Speaker 8: I just couldn't believe that that actually happened. Like like
Speaker 8: you said, you know, you hear about these things all
Speaker 8: the time, and I think, you know, I'm a I'm
Speaker 8: a young guy. I'm pretty in tune with everything connected
Speaker 8: with like technology and everything. I figured that I wouldn't
Speaker 8: fall for something like that. But they just, like you know,
Speaker 8: they gain your trust. They know how to get under
Speaker 8: your skin and to talk to you the right way.
Speaker 3: What's your advice for folks?
Speaker 8: My advice for folks would be just don't respond to
Speaker 8: anything text wise, even even you know, be careful about
Speaker 8: phone calls too. If you have real concern about something
Speaker 8: that may be up with your account, call the number
Speaker 8: on the back of your card, you know, get in
Speaker 8: contact with your bank using the information the numbers that
Speaker 8: they have online.
Speaker 7: Don't don't listen to anyone trying to come at you.
Speaker 7: Go go to the go to your business or bank.
Speaker 1: And how are you doing personally? How are you moving
Speaker 1: forward through this because you haven't recovered any of this money.
Speaker 7: No, yeah, I haven't recovered any of the money. I've
Speaker 7: been doing.
Speaker 8: Okay, uh, you know, luckily at the time that it
Speaker 8: had happened, rent was paid aid, the car that I
Speaker 8: had at the time was paid everything. You know, it
Speaker 8: has put a lot of stress on me. You know, mentally,
Speaker 8: I've been thankfully I'm employed, I have a good job.
Speaker 8: I'm more working full time. I live with my girlfriend
Speaker 8: and she's been helping a lot. But it's definitely I've
Speaker 8: had to cut back on a lot of expenses and
Speaker 8: I even had to sell my car honestly.
Speaker 7: Because I just couldn't afford it anymore.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: Well, I thank you for sharing your story. I do
Speaker 1: appreciate it. I know you set up a gofund me.
Speaker 1: I'll link that up on my website. Rich On tech
Speaker 1: Dot TV. Connor, thank you man. I mean, at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, I mean, it's just it's it's
Speaker 1: great for you to share your story so that people
Speaker 1: can realize that this does happen to real people, regular people,
Speaker 1: everyday people, and it's just one of those things where
Speaker 1: somehow they got to you and they figured out a
Speaker 1: way in, and now it's like you're you're left to
Speaker 1: clean up this mess of this money that you'll probably
Speaker 1: never get back.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I like I said, I I right after I
Speaker 8: figured out it happened, I went back to the bank
Speaker 8: and sat down with a bank manager and filed a
Speaker 8: real fraud claim to Wells Fargo and they denied it.
Speaker 8: Went through the process of appealing it to the executive
Speaker 8: claims multiple times and both have been denied. The reasoning
Speaker 8: that they have is that I physically walked into the
Speaker 8: bank and took out the cash myself.
Speaker 7: Is they're they're not taking liability.
Speaker 3: Interesting, well, I do think that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's a tough one, and it's it's tough
Speaker 1: because you initiated that transfer, and I've heard over and
Speaker 1: over when that happens, it's tough to reclaim.
Speaker 3: All right, Connor, thanks for sharing your story. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Once again, I'll share his gofund me on the website
Speaker 1: rich on Tech dot TV. You can read it, read
Speaker 1: through what happened, and uh, you know, just hopefully never
Speaker 1: have this happen to you.
Speaker 3: Appreciate you joining me today, Connor.
Speaker 7: Yeah, thanks so much for having me on rich Good
Speaker 7: talking to you.
Speaker 1: Good luck eighty eight rich one O one eight eight
Speaker 1: eight seven four to two four one zero one. Follow
Speaker 1: me on Instagram so you don't miss these scale because
Speaker 1: I do explain the anatomy of scams on there at
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. All right, coming up, we'll take more
Speaker 1: of your calls. Plus we'll tell you about Google's new
Speaker 1: affordable smartphone. Welcome back to Kate, Katla, Welcome back to
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. Yeah, it's not my first day, I
Speaker 1: swear eight eight eight rich one O one eight eight
Speaker 1: eight seven four to two four one zero one. You know,
Speaker 1: when you've got multiple jobs, sometimes they just merge, and
Speaker 1: that's what happens.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: Let's go to Stacy in Rancho Cucamonga. Stacey, you're on.
Speaker 11: With rich Hi, Rich how are you doing?
Speaker 3: I am doing fantastic. How are you.
Speaker 11: I'm doing okay, just doing some yardwork on this playing
Speaker 11: Saturday ury.
Speaker 3: Nice.
Speaker 1: It's well if you got some beautiful weather in southern
Speaker 1: California this weekend, so enjoy that.
Speaker 3: What can I help you with?
Speaker 11: So my question is regarding BitLocker. I keep my company
Speaker 11: filed on a flash drive, which I know I probably
Speaker 11: shouldn't do, and trying to move away from that. But
Speaker 11: recently my work forced us to encrypt them using BitLocker
Speaker 11: if we wanted to continue to use them. So does
Speaker 11: that mean that my flash drive is going to be
Speaker 11: encrypted on any computer that I try to use it on.
Speaker 3: Yes? So have you turned on the encryption for the
Speaker 3: flash drive?
Speaker 11: Yes, it's working. Everything's great, but you know I keep
Speaker 11: work stuff plus person most stuff on it, and you know,
Speaker 11: just thinking for the future, what if I have to
Speaker 11: change laptop kind of thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you know, once it's activated and you're using the
Speaker 1: BitLocker to Go, I guess is that the built.
Speaker 3: In are using Windows or mac Windows? Okay?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So you're using the built in like BitLocker to
Speaker 1: Go service on Windows okay, yeah, So and you created
Speaker 1: a password for the for the drive. Yeah okay, So
Speaker 1: once you have that if you pop that drive into
Speaker 1: another computer, you're not gonna be able to unlock that
Speaker 1: drive or open or access it without that password. So
Speaker 1: that that means the encryption is doing its job. So
Speaker 1: not only is it you know, it's encrypted, but it's
Speaker 1: also password protected. That password will well, you know, decode
Speaker 1: the drive so that the computer can read it.
Speaker 11: And just to make sure I understand password, is the
Speaker 11: recovery key?
Speaker 1: Uh well, the recovery key is hmm, well, I mean basically, no,
Speaker 1: it has its own password. The recovery key might be
Speaker 1: a backup key that you can keep once you set
Speaker 1: that password.
Speaker 3: Okay, you see what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Like, the recovery key is basically, if you forget the
Speaker 1: password or there's a problem, you can use that recovery
Speaker 1: key to access the drive.
Speaker 3: So that's different than the password. Perfect all right, But
Speaker 3: I okay, I'm going to link up some help.
Speaker 1: I've got a little help page on this whole BitLocker
Speaker 1: thing for flash drives. I've got a nice page that
Speaker 1: kind of explains it. I'll link that up in the
Speaker 1: show notes rich on tech dot TV. But yeah, sounds
Speaker 1: like you've got it figured out as long as you've
Speaker 1: got that password on there and that encryption level. It's
Speaker 1: like I said, it's built into Windows and encryption basically.
Speaker 1: You know, when you have a flash drive, your files
Speaker 1: are on that flash drive. You copy files to it.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like one of those little USB thumb drives.
Speaker 1: You copy files to that. You can pug that into
Speaker 1: any computer and access those files. Well, if you're doing
Speaker 1: something that is corporate, you know there might be some
Speaker 1: sensitive information on those files, and they don't want that
Speaker 1: flash drive. It ever, just fell out of your bag
Speaker 1: and was on the ground, someone could pick that up
Speaker 1: and pop it into their computer and access to files
Speaker 1: on there. So if your company and they're saying, look,
Speaker 1: you know, most companies don't even like flash drives in
Speaker 1: general because they present very big security challenges for the company. Right,
Speaker 1: they can introduce viruses to the computers, they can have malware,
Speaker 1: they can again, you can lose your files, they can
Speaker 1: get into the wrong hands. But by encrypting that flash drive,
Speaker 1: it secures it to a level that if someone found
Speaker 1: that drive on the ground, there's not much they'd be
Speaker 1: able to do with it. Yeah, there's a chance they
Speaker 1: could break that encryption, but it would take a lot.
Speaker 1: I mean we're talking, you know, depending on the kind
Speaker 1: of computer resources they have, if ever to break that encryption,
Speaker 1: so that would be pretty tricky for the average person.
Speaker 3: Let's say.
Speaker 1: And then if you have that that you know, once
Speaker 1: they put that into their computer, they won't be able
Speaker 1: to access it. But you put into your computer, it
Speaker 1: will be able to access it. And then of course,
Speaker 1: if you have that password that you set on it,
Speaker 1: that's your main way of getting access to the data.
Speaker 1: And then the recovery key is if you forget that password,
Speaker 1: you'll be able to still recover the data on that computer.
Speaker 1: So good question, Stacey, Thanks for the call. Eighty to
Speaker 1: eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two four one zero one. So Google has unveiled
Speaker 1: their answer to the iPhone sixteen E.
Speaker 3: This is called the Pixel nine A.
Speaker 1: This is their most budget friendly device, starts at four
Speaker 1: hundred and ninety nine dollars, very you know, sleek phone.
Speaker 1: It's got a six point three inch display, so it's
Speaker 1: actually bigger than the previous model.
Speaker 3: It's also brighter.
Speaker 1: It also has two cameras, so it's got a forty
Speaker 1: eight megapixel camera thirteen megapixel ultra wide camera, unlike the
Speaker 1: iPhone sixteen E that just has one camera on it,
Speaker 1: so this you do get the ultra wide. It also
Speaker 1: has the best battery life ever for a pixel. They're
Speaker 1: saying over thirty hours, which you know, I never really
Speaker 1: believe that number unless you're not using your phone at all,
Speaker 1: but you know your your mileage may vary. It also
Speaker 1: has the AI features built in, so Google of course
Speaker 1: has Gemini with all their Circle to Search, the editor features,
Speaker 1: the call assist features, so it's got a lot of
Speaker 1: nice AI built in, plus seven years of software and
Speaker 1: security updates, so that is the standard pretty much for
Speaker 1: a lot of these Android devices from Google and also Samsung.
Speaker 1: They're offering seven years of updates, So seven years on
Speaker 1: this thing for five hundred bucks. That's like seventy two
Speaker 1: dollars a year. It's got better water and dust resistance
Speaker 1: than before, so IP sixty eight. And yeah, this competes
Speaker 1: directly with the iPhone sixteen E, but it's one hundred
Speaker 1: dollars less. The iPhone sixteen E, as you might remember,
Speaker 1: starts at five ninety nine. This is four nine. But
Speaker 1: here's the deal. This is Android. The iPhone is iOS
Speaker 1: and to some people it's a non starter. They're not
Speaker 1: getting an Android phone. They want an iPhone, and so
Speaker 1: I get it. This is why we have choices in
Speaker 1: our lives. This is why these are probably the two
Speaker 1: phones I'll be recommending the most over the next year,
Speaker 1: because they give you a lot at a great value. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's always gonna be the people that want the latest, greatest,
Speaker 1: best camera, they're a photographer, whatever, But the Pixel nine
Speaker 1: to A is going to have a lot of these
Speaker 1: great features. Also, it has a better screen a better
Speaker 1: refresh rate than the iPhone as well. So the only
Speaker 1: weird thing about the Pixel is that a I wasn't
Speaker 1: included in the briefing, which I don't know why they
Speaker 1: didn't send me one before like they did a lot
Speaker 1: of other people.
Speaker 3: I said, hey, Google, do you forget about me? What
Speaker 3: happened here?
Speaker 1: So I will be getting one when it launches, But
Speaker 1: they did delay the launch a little bit. It's supposed
Speaker 1: to be on pre order in March. Now they're delaying
Speaker 1: it until April because there's apparently some quality issue on
Speaker 1: a component, so Google's investigating that. So again, the Pick
Speaker 1: will ship sometime in April, not available for pre order
Speaker 1: just yet. But you know these are for people that
Speaker 1: just want a phone, right, They want a nice phone
Speaker 1: that just does everything. It's got all the modern features.
Speaker 1: And now you've got two great choices, the Pixel nine
Speaker 1: A and the iPhone sixteen E. Both well I haven't
Speaker 1: tested the Pixel nine A, but typically Pixels, you know,
Speaker 1: I've got a soft spot in my heart for them.
Speaker 3: I really do like them, all right.
Speaker 1: Eight and eight rich one O one eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four to two four one zero one. Coming up,
Speaker 1: we'll take more of your calls. Plus I'll tell you
Speaker 1: about this click fix scam that tricks you into installing
Speaker 1: malware on your PC.
Speaker 3: You are listening to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech, rich Tomuro here for
Speaker 1: another hour hanging out with you, talking technology. Now when
Speaker 1: I say another hour, I mean we have two hours left,
Speaker 1: but this is a new hour, so welcome back to
Speaker 1: the show. Eight eight eight rich one O one eight
Speaker 1: eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: I'm the tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: talking technology with you. Gadgets, apps, tips, tricks, reviews, all
Speaker 1: kinds of stuff. Scams coming up this hour got a
Speaker 1: unique guest, Marc Anthony Arena calls himself the computer Exorcist.
Speaker 1: Kind of has a different take on things when it
Speaker 1: comes to technology, so he will share his unique sense
Speaker 1: of point of view.
Speaker 3: I guess you could you could call it.
Speaker 1: And later on we've got Brent Brenton Brent Franson, founder
Speaker 1: of the death clock app. He's going to talk about
Speaker 1: why they created that to us scare you into getting healthy.
Speaker 1: I guess to live Longer eight ed eight rich one
Speaker 1: on one eight eight eight seven four to two four
Speaker 1: one zero. On the website for the show is rich
Speaker 1: on tech dot TV. There he can send me an email.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you about this before we get back
Speaker 1: to the phones. Here a new click fix scam trick
Speaker 1: you into installing malware on your computer. Here's how it works.
Speaker 1: You're on your computer, you're surfing, you know, you see
Speaker 1: those capture things that says, hey, are you a human?
Speaker 1: Verify it? But it's a trick. It tricks you into
Speaker 1: running a harmful command on your computer. So it asks
Speaker 1: you to press Windows plus R, then control V, then
Speaker 1: enter and this sequence will run malicious code that's hidden
Speaker 1: on your clipboard.
Speaker 3: Do not do it.
Speaker 1: It might install passwords, stealing malware, onto your computer right now.
Speaker 1: This is really targeting hospitality and healthcare workers using phishing emails,
Speaker 1: even disguised as hotel booking emails or chrome error pages.
Speaker 1: Be careful, so there might even be some of these
Speaker 1: clickfix attacks on legitimate looking websites. So the bottom line is,
Speaker 1: if you see one of these capshaws that asks you
Speaker 1: to verify that you're human, but it asks you to
Speaker 1: follow some key press instructions, do not do it.
Speaker 3: Do not do that.
Speaker 1: And if you're an organization and you run a bunch
Speaker 1: of computers at your work, you can disable the Windows
Speaker 1: plus R run command via the group policy. So if you're,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to keep people, trying to save people
Speaker 1: from themselves, that's what you gotta do.
Speaker 3: Let's go to Dana.
Speaker 1: And Tribute Tribute Tribuco Canyon, California.
Speaker 3: Dana, you're on with Wretch Hi Rich. Enjoy your show.
Speaker 3: Thank you. What's up?
Speaker 6: So it's kind of a convoluted question, hopefully not. But
Speaker 6: I have a HomePod, an older one, the kind of
Speaker 6: the barrel size that for years, really I'd just say
Speaker 6: to tell Siri play Kfi six forty and I'd listen
Speaker 6: to your show or whatever, And just in the last
Speaker 6: couple of weeks, I'll give it that command, It'll play
Speaker 6: the commercials and then go silent. Oh it and it
Speaker 6: does the same thing on my iPhone. It'll play the
Speaker 6: commercials and then it goes silent, never puts the show on.
Speaker 6: But if I give that same command to I also
Speaker 6: have an Amazon show. I give that command to Amazon,
Speaker 6: it plays the commercials and plays the show. So just
Speaker 6: in the last few weeks, okay, if I on iHeartRadio
Speaker 6: just won't play on the pod or my iPhone.
Speaker 3: And how are you calling up the station?
Speaker 6: Well, historically I'd just say, you know, hey, Siri, play
Speaker 6: KFI six forty and I would play it on the pod.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what if you add, like, now, what about other
Speaker 1: stations from other companies? You know, because you can you
Speaker 1: can ask for a wide variety of stations, you know.
Speaker 6: I haven't. Well, I actually tried just some random country
Speaker 6: music station on the iPhone today and it played it
Speaker 6: did okay, And if I bring up the I Heart
Speaker 6: app on my iPhone, I can play six forty k
Speaker 6: if I on the phone and it'll also broadcast to
Speaker 6: the home.
Speaker 1: Pod, right right, I mean, that's that's a given. Though,
Speaker 1: like because it you know, you're going through the app,
Speaker 1: but the functionality that's built in you're saying is not working.
Speaker 1: You know, I've got a couple of reports of people
Speaker 1: saying that these things work, sometimes they don't work. Sometimes,
Speaker 1: not just limited to the HomePod. Sometimes it could be
Speaker 1: the you know, the Amazons or the Googles out there
Speaker 1: with the home Pod specifically. Have you tried restarting it
Speaker 1: and tried any sort of software updates.
Speaker 6: It's fully updated and I've restarted it a.
Speaker 3: Couple of times.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, So the only thing, the only other
Speaker 1: thing I can think of. I can think of two things.
Speaker 1: First off, you might try to put at the end
Speaker 1: of the play the radio station, like on iHeartRadio and
Speaker 1: see if that helps.
Speaker 3: Have you tried that?
Speaker 6: Play it you mean via that I I'm sorry to
Speaker 6: say that again, Like you would say something like play
Speaker 6: KF I am six forty on iHeartRadio and see if
Speaker 6: that helps.
Speaker 1: And now it sounds like it's working because it's getting
Speaker 1: the commercials. So it's like getting at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the stream. It's just not getting the stream itself.
Speaker 6: So right, and at the beginning of the stream, it
Speaker 6: says KFI six forty I provided by iHeartRadio. It's it's
Speaker 6: it's the intro and the commercials all sound as it
Speaker 6: sounded for years.
Speaker 3: Really, Yeah, And when.
Speaker 6: I did a search, I saw issues about commercials playing
Speaker 6: and not and not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but searches will always you know, the problem with
Speaker 1: all the stuff online is that it doesn't matter because
Speaker 1: there's someone out there that has the same problem. They
Speaker 1: put it online and now everyone gets that search result,
Speaker 1: so it doesn't really help you, you know, and they
Speaker 1: give you all these like things to do that don't
Speaker 1: really you know, you go around in circles, so you know,
Speaker 1: I think the bottom line is I've got one of
Speaker 1: these at home. I will test it and see what happens.
Speaker 1: But I I will tell you that these things sometimes,
Speaker 1: you know, go through on the back end. The station's
Speaker 1: upgrade something or they change something, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of functionality that depends on it. So maybe there's just
Speaker 1: something that's changed in the past couple weeks. I will
Speaker 1: check it out. I do know that I discovered on
Speaker 1: the Apple Music app that you can search for pretty
Speaker 1: much any radio station and play it through the Apple
Speaker 1: Music app, which I thought was pretty interesting. So if
Speaker 1: you search like KFI. It's on there, you know. Let's
Speaker 1: just check as you one hundred New York. Yes, the
Speaker 1: one hundreds on there in different stations that are you
Speaker 1: know not let's see. Yeah, it doesn't even have to
Speaker 1: be an iHeart station. I'm looking at Audacity that's on there.
Speaker 1: So that's another little trick as you can call these
Speaker 1: up through the the Apple Music app as well. But
Speaker 1: it's it's Dana. I'm not sure what's going on there.
Speaker 1: I would say, uh, unplug the speaker, leave it unplugged
Speaker 1: for a little bit. It could be something going on
Speaker 1: with your network, if you have some sort of ad
Speaker 1: blocker running, that could be messing with it. But it
Speaker 1: sounds like you haven't really changed anything. So that's the
Speaker 1: true part is nothing on your end has changed. But
Speaker 1: now it seems like something definitely changed there, and that
Speaker 1: is frustrating for sure. I would say in the meantime,
Speaker 1: if you can't get it to work, you can, just
Speaker 1: like you said, airplay it through your phone. It's a
Speaker 1: pretty seamless process on the iPhone to the home pod.
Speaker 1: Hopefully we figure this out. I'll keep you updated next week.
Speaker 3: Thanks for the call.
Speaker 1: Eighty to eight Rich one o one eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four to two four one zero one, Zachary, I've
Speaker 1: just got two minutes.
Speaker 3: So what happened with you?
Speaker 1: You got you got scammed as well?
Speaker 12: Yes, sir, thank you for dicking my call. So on
Speaker 12: cash app, I had about a month and a half ago,
Speaker 12: I had some fraud going on. About five one hundred
Speaker 12: and eighty dollars were taken out of my account on
Speaker 12: three different charges. I was able to get one retracted
Speaker 12: for Amazon and then the other like two hundred and
Speaker 12: forty dollars from Walmart. We're rejected it from cash app,
Speaker 12: and I just wanted to know I had requested a
Speaker 12: new card. I got a new card about two and
Speaker 12: a half weeks ago, and then I'm still having like
Speaker 12: a lot of fraud attempted on my card. I keep
Speaker 12: that walked all the time. So should I leave a
Speaker 12: cash app at this point because maybe they're just not a.
Speaker 1: I would if they're not protecting your account. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's insane to have fraud on a brand new card
Speaker 1: like that unless someone has access to your account. Have
Speaker 1: you have you gone in and cleared out your old
Speaker 1: devices that have access to your cash app.
Speaker 12: I do have a Razor motorole Eraser. So I'm not
Speaker 12: sure if I should, you know, update to an iPhone?
Speaker 9: Would that be more secure?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 1: How are you using this if you don't have a
Speaker 1: if you don't have a smartphone, how'd you set this up?
Speaker 12: I set it up through my.
Speaker 3: Motorole Eraser.
Speaker 12: I have T Mobile as my service.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't When you say cash app, you mean
Speaker 1: cash like the what do you mean by cash app?
Speaker 9: Cash app?
Speaker 2: It's an app.
Speaker 4: It's an app that.
Speaker 12: Is supported by Wells Fargo is from what I understand
Speaker 12: about it.
Speaker 1: Okay, So are you as you're you're saying you have
Speaker 1: a motorol erasor you mean like the one that downloads
Speaker 1: apps like an Android?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Okay, god god, okay, I was I was confused. I
Speaker 1: was thinking like old school motor Erazor. I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: how's that one?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 3: Okay. I would go in number one.
Speaker 1: I would go into your security and privacy and look
Speaker 1: at your settings there for me, I just logged in
Speaker 1: and says your device is forty six. So I've got
Speaker 1: to go in and clear out my old all my
Speaker 1: old devices that I'm logged into the cash app on.
Speaker 1: You may be you know if they got access to
Speaker 1: your account at a at a root level, they may
Speaker 1: have somehow installed it on one of their phones and
Speaker 1: that's how they're getting access. I would also make sure
Speaker 1: that you have the highest level of authentication turned on
Speaker 1: as well, so two factor authentication if it supports that.
Speaker 1: But the best you could do is, if this keeps happening,
Speaker 1: they keep compromising your card number, you got to get
Speaker 1: you got to switch to something else. That's that's really
Speaker 1: not supposed to happen. I've had cash app forever. I've
Speaker 1: never had a problem. I don't use my card regularly,
Speaker 1: but I've had a card with them for a long time.
Speaker 9: I've had one with.
Speaker 12: Them too, for like a year and a half and
Speaker 12: then this just all started happening like a month and
Speaker 12: a half ago. So I just wanted to get your
Speaker 12: exercise on it. So I'm gonna definitely take your advice
Speaker 12: on that. And you know, I appreciate you taking my call.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks a lot, Zachary, appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I would also set up a new pin for sure,
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, be careful. And this is why you know,
Speaker 1: this is why you shouldn't use your your primary checking
Speaker 1: account linked to these things. If you're going to use
Speaker 1: like a cash card like this, maybe set up a
Speaker 1: secondary account that you only use for this kind of
Speaker 1: stuff on your bank instead of your primary account your
Speaker 1: day to day spending. Eighty eight Rich one O one
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech Rich DeMuro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you, talking technology at triple eight Rich one
Speaker 1: O one eight eight eight seven four to two four
Speaker 1: one zero one. Phone lines are open, Give me a call,
Speaker 1: or go to the website rich on tech dot TV.
Speaker 1: There you can get notes for everything we mentioned on
Speaker 1: the show. This is episode one fourteen. All right, let's
Speaker 1: go to uh Dino in Michigan. Dino your own with Rich.
Speaker 13: Hi, Rich, thanks for taking my call.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what's going on?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 4: I email large groups of people.
Speaker 13: And it's like fifty to sixty And the way I've
Speaker 13: done it the last ten eight to ten years is
Speaker 13: I put it in my notes and then I just
Speaker 13: copy paste all those emails in well, the last two
Speaker 13: or three updates. I'm not sure exactly when it happened.
Speaker 13: On the software on an Apple on the iPhone. Uh
Speaker 13: it it will not take the emails.
Speaker 3: It won't let you in the mail app.
Speaker 13: Yeah, it will, it will not let me mail that
Speaker 13: copy and paste oh.
Speaker 1: Of just all the different email addresses. Yeah yeah, interesting,
Speaker 1: Well they did update the mail app on the iPhone,
Speaker 1: so that might be it. And did it happen Did
Speaker 1: it happen when there was like the remodel of the
Speaker 1: app or what?
Speaker 4: Yahoo?
Speaker 3: Oh use yahoo?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Oh they changed their app too? Did it happen with that?
Speaker 2: I really I can't target it.
Speaker 13: I can't pick I can't pick the date when it
Speaker 13: happened as far as which iOS you know, level it
Speaker 13: was on, and it was it was quite a way ago, it.
Speaker 3: Was, Okay.
Speaker 1: I think the the way to get around this is
Speaker 1: to set up a list.
Speaker 3: Have you done that? Okay?
Speaker 1: So I think that's the way to do it because
Speaker 1: that's what I do. An outlook, I've got a group
Speaker 1: of people that I email. I've I've got two things.
Speaker 1: So first off, I know what you're talking about because
Speaker 1: I've got a group of people. I've got two ways
Speaker 1: that I email a group of people. So the first
Speaker 1: is I've got a whole group of people that I
Speaker 1: just copy and paste their email into Gmail. It figures
Speaker 1: out the email addresses, you know, it kind of parses
Speaker 1: them out and puts it in there. And that's fine
Speaker 1: if that's not working in Yahoo like it used to,
Speaker 1: because you know, they change the app and they just
Speaker 1: may not support that anymore. I don't use Yahoo Mail,
Speaker 1: so I can't really tell you because I haven't tried that.
Speaker 1: But typically if it doesn't work, the best second way
Speaker 1: is to just create a list. And so go into
Speaker 1: your your Yahoo Mail and then you got to click
Speaker 1: your contacts and there's a lists tab and it says plus.
Speaker 1: You click that plus button create list, and you just
Speaker 1: add your contacts, name the list, add your contacts, and
Speaker 1: press save, and then you should be able to use
Speaker 1: that list to send out the email once you you know,
Speaker 1: once you have that list, you can just send an
Speaker 1: email to that list of people. So that is probably
Speaker 1: the best way to do it, and then you can,
Speaker 1: you know, make a group email out of that. Looking here, yeah,
Speaker 1: the old way, yeah, I think that's going to be
Speaker 1: the best way to do it, you know, is just
Speaker 1: create a list in your contacts and I would you know,
Speaker 1: that's probably going to be easy and you can keep
Speaker 1: people updated on the list and all that good stuff,
Speaker 1: and just compose an email to that list of people.
Speaker 1: But I would continue to check every so often, you know,
Speaker 1: every time you you know, get an app update on
Speaker 1: the iPhone or whatever you're using, whatever platform you're using
Speaker 1: with Yahoo, Mel, just check and see if you can
Speaker 1: copy and paste the email addresses in. Sometimes when things
Speaker 1: are redesigned, right when an app gets a big redesign,
Speaker 1: they get the core functionality working first, and then as
Speaker 1: they do updates, just because they want to get the
Speaker 1: major redesign out there, they kind of add things as
Speaker 1: they go along, so not everything is supported all at once.
Speaker 1: And this is pretty apparent with the Outlook, with the
Speaker 1: Outlook application on computers, they've sort of been revamping that
Speaker 1: with a new version of Outlook, and I've noticed on
Speaker 1: my computer anyway, it's getting new features all the time,
Speaker 1: like everything was not there on day one. And we've
Speaker 1: talked about this before, because they let you go to
Speaker 1: what's called a classic Outlook. You can toggle between the
Speaker 1: classic Outlook and the New Outlook in the settings, and
Speaker 1: the reason they do that is because there's some traditional
Speaker 1: settings that people use, historic whatever that people needed, and
Speaker 1: they're no longer in the new app just yet. Eventually
Speaker 1: they'll make their way there, but they're not there just yet.
Speaker 1: But I think making a list is probably the best
Speaker 1: way to do it. I will link up in the
Speaker 1: show notes how to create and how to create a
Speaker 1: contact list in the new Yahoo Mail. But thanks for
Speaker 1: the question, do you know appreciate it? Eighty eight rich
Speaker 1: one oh one eight eight eight seven four to two
Speaker 1: four one zero one.
Speaker 13: Uh.
Speaker 1: Remember Claude this is the competitive chat GPT.
Speaker 3: It's an AI chatbot.
Speaker 1: It's the one that I used to use exclusively until
Speaker 1: someone convinced me to switch to chat GBT, And now
Speaker 1: I've been using that and now, of course, as these
Speaker 1: things get to know you more and more, it's tougher
Speaker 1: and tougher to switch away because they've kind of gotten
Speaker 1: what you like and what you don't like figured out.
Speaker 1: So with that said, one of the reasons, one of
Speaker 1: the big reasons I like chat GBT is because they
Speaker 1: got web searches, and that was now part of you know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of closer to what Google does. You can
Speaker 1: get real time web search results. Well, now Claude has that.
Speaker 1: So Claude AI now has web search access, letting you
Speaker 1: pull in real time information from the Internet so you
Speaker 1: can check current events, you know, do product comparisons, financial
Speaker 1: data research. It also provides direct citations so you can
Speaker 1: fact check sources, so instead of having to go through
Speaker 1: the search results yourself will it will show you exactly
Speaker 1: why it got that information. So this is available now
Speaker 1: for paid claud users in the US. Free users will
Speaker 1: get it soon. So if you want to use it,
Speaker 1: you can toggle on web search in your profile settings
Speaker 1: and then Claude will search the web when necessary, similar
Speaker 1: to what chat Gibt does. Anyway, Claude got some real
Speaker 1: time web search eight eight eight rich one on one
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 3: More rich on Tech coming your way right after this.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here talking
Speaker 1: technology with you at Triple eight rich one on one.
Speaker 1: That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 1: zero one. If you got a question about technology, give
Speaker 1: me a call. We'll get back to those phone lines
Speaker 1: in just a moment. If you want to link to
Speaker 1: something I mentioned, go to the website rich on Tech
Speaker 1: dot TV. Take very good show notes and anything I
Speaker 1: talk about is linked up right there. All right, we
Speaker 1: got an interesting guest to talk technology today, Mark Anthony
Speaker 1: Arena calls himself the computer Exorcist computer Exorcist, thecomputer Exorcist
Speaker 1: dot com author, podcaster and speaker Mark. I was going
Speaker 1: Marc Anthony. I was going through some you go by
Speaker 1: Mark or Marc Anthony either way, Okay, Mark, So I was,
Speaker 1: I was going through some of your talks. You sent
Speaker 1: me one of the talks you recently did, and it's
Speaker 1: it's a little jarring for people because you kind of
Speaker 1: take a very different approach to this stuff. And well,
Speaker 1: first off, just kind of how'd you get the name
Speaker 1: computer exercist?
Speaker 9: You know, it's a great question. This stuff just it
Speaker 9: acts possessed, right, All of this stuff acts possessed. It
Speaker 9: has a mind of its own. It does whatever it wants.
Speaker 9: So I thought, what an app's name, what a way
Speaker 9: to describe it? And people go, wow, that makes so
Speaker 9: much sense. My technology does whatever it wants.
Speaker 1: That is my favorite quote. When people tell me it
Speaker 1: just did this by itself. That's always like to me,
Speaker 1: like it seems like it does. And yes, sometimes things do,
Speaker 1: but there's usually a fix for things.
Speaker 3: Sometimes not.
Speaker 1: But first off, you say that viruses stopped happening in
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen, explain and what you think the real threats
Speaker 1: are to computer users today.
Speaker 10: I've been doing this job twelve hours a day since
Speaker 10: two thousand and nine, and I have not seen a
Speaker 10: tradition old virus in a residential setting since twenty thirteen.
Speaker 9: There are new threats.
Speaker 3: Out there, all right.
Speaker 10: Doesn't mean there are no threats out there. There are
Speaker 10: just new ones that are far beyond traditional viruses. So
Speaker 10: if you are paying for some antivirus product, that means
Speaker 10: it's a beautiful waste of seventy bucks a year down
Speaker 10: the toilet and it slows down your computer down to molasses.
Speaker 9: Sometimes slows your computer down by ninety.
Speaker 10: Percent, And you bring it to the store and they say, oh,
Speaker 10: your computer's old, it's slow.
Speaker 9: Put it in the garbage.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, we live in an economy where people, you know,
Speaker 1: a world where everything is tossable. So you don't think
Speaker 1: viruses are big iss You don't think people feel good
Speaker 1: about having that protection. Is that really what the whole
Speaker 1: business and industry is built upon?
Speaker 9: Exactly?
Speaker 10: It's all a false sense of security. That's what you're
Speaker 10: paying the money for. You're just rubbing dollar bills all
Speaker 10: over your computer and hoping that it helps.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 10: Everything in my industry is myth rumor legend, hearsay and superstition.
Speaker 1: But I mean, so what to our people up against.
Speaker 1: I mean, we just heard a person who is scammed
Speaker 1: by a text message out of like thousands of dollars.
Speaker 1: Do you think like phishing emails like that kind of
Speaker 1: stuff is really where the scams are these days?
Speaker 9: There's four new threats. Number one is legalized malware.
Speaker 10: Okay, the bad guys realize something, right, Let's say, rich,
Speaker 10: Let's say you and I want to rob a bank.
Speaker 10: So we go over to the bank and we walk
Speaker 10: in and we say, hey, everyone, stick them up.
Speaker 9: We're the plumbers.
Speaker 10: If we don't say we're bank robbers, we say we're plumbers,
Speaker 10: we get away with it.
Speaker 9: That's exactly what's happening here. So if I'm evil.
Speaker 10: And we want to create some kind of malicious software,
Speaker 10: we get an evil secretary and an evil water cooler,
Speaker 10: an evil fish tank, and we create an evil company,
Speaker 10: and we can call it a cleaner, an optimizer, a toolbar,
Speaker 10: or a customer participation program.
Speaker 1: Interesting, so you think all those things are just ways
Speaker 1: of getting information off of people.
Speaker 9: It's fully legal, so no virus scanner can ever find it.
Speaker 10: In your computer to a dude and he does a
Speaker 10: virus scan, it means he hasn't had updated training.
Speaker 9: It's like if you go to the doctor and your
Speaker 9: doctor says, hey, rich, do you have bubonic plague? No?
Speaker 9: All right, well then that's really that's all I know
Speaker 9: how to handle. So that's all I can help you with.
Speaker 1: So okay, so talk about you kind of mentioned this earlier,
Speaker 1: but the idea of like being forced to upgrade unnecessarily,
Speaker 1: So how long do you think a computer should last?
Speaker 10: That's so that's my second new threat, right, I talk
Speaker 10: about the four new threats, So updates are my second
Speaker 10: new threat. I have coined the term update attack to
Speaker 10: describe what's happening. Updates come from the publisher, right, whatever
Speaker 10: big tech company you bought the product from. The updates
Speaker 10: are from the publisher, and they mean well, right, they
Speaker 10: claim that they're going to patch something that they forgot
Speaker 10: to fix when they sold it to you, so they
Speaker 10: let it's it's always something like you'll hear it on
Speaker 10: the news. Right. Smartphone users are encouraged to update because
Speaker 10: if you don't update, we discover that a guy in
Speaker 10: Siberia wearing a green shirt on a Wednesday, and it's
Speaker 10: eight fifteen.
Speaker 9: And a high tide and a new moon cold to
Speaker 9: get into your computer.
Speaker 10: So it's some astronomically unlikely situation that they're worried about.
Speaker 10: And what happens you.
Speaker 9: Apply the update?
Speaker 10: And there are a lot of side effects, right, what
Speaker 10: happens after every update?
Speaker 9: What do people experience?
Speaker 1: It's slow, it crashes, It doesn't do the same thing
Speaker 1: that you used to want exactly.
Speaker 10: It scrambles the thing like scrambled eggs. It rearranges everything,
Speaker 10: and I can't.
Speaker 9: Find I used to be able to do this, and
Speaker 9: I don't know what happened.
Speaker 10: And other's an update, and it slows your machine down dramatically, right,
Speaker 10: And that's convenient, right, because all of a sudden, Oh
Speaker 10: you know what, my phone's kind of slow.
Speaker 9: It's a year old. I'll just put it in the
Speaker 9: garbage and buy another one.
Speaker 10: And it usually it fixes one thing and it might
Speaker 10: break ten other things.
Speaker 1: Do you remember I actually defended Apple for years and
Speaker 1: I was very angry at this. People would say, oh,
Speaker 1: my battery, you know, my phone feels like it's slowing down,
Speaker 1: slowing down after the software update, said, no, that's silly.
Speaker 1: It doesn't it gets better and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: Apple comes out and he said, oh, by the way, yeah,
Speaker 1: we were throttling phones because we wanted them to be
Speaker 1: smooth and have a good user experience as they got older.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, wait, so hold on, you were kind
Speaker 1: of lying all these years to me.
Speaker 3: Yes, they were.
Speaker 9: I've been saying this for years.
Speaker 10: I was on AMFM radio for ten years and now
Speaker 10: I do the podcast, and I've been saying it since
Speaker 10: twenty twelve, since I've been on any kind of talk shows,
Speaker 10: and it's yeah, all of these updates again, they might
Speaker 10: mean well, they claim to help you, but they do
Speaker 10: massive amounts of damage.
Speaker 1: All right, what about these fake tech support calls? You know,
Speaker 1: people get scammed. These happen all the time. People google
Speaker 1: a phone number, they call it, they get scammed. So
Speaker 1: how do you think someone could spot one of these
Speaker 1: scams quickly?
Speaker 10: And that's new threat number three. It's called the support scam.
Speaker 10: There's four ways you can get one. Either you go
Speaker 10: on the internet and search I need Outlook tech support,
Speaker 10: I need Aol tech support, I need whatever tech support,
Speaker 10: or a guy gives you a phone call out of
Speaker 10: the blue, because they're calling every number one at a time,
Speaker 10: Or you get a scary email that says geek squad
Speaker 10: invoice and it's from Cindi Luhu at aol dot.
Speaker 9: Com or something preposterous.
Speaker 10: Or you get a scary pop up right that full
Speaker 10: screen message on your screen and their sirens going off
Speaker 10: because they know senior citizens can't lower their volume, and
Speaker 10: there's loud noises and it says warning you have trojans
Speaker 10: and cookies and viruses and North Koreans and oh my,
Speaker 10: the sky is falling. So those are the four ways
Speaker 10: you can get a support scam. If you get the
Speaker 10: guy on the phone, then they give you a litany
Speaker 10: of scary sentences. That's all it is, folks, it's scary sentences.
Speaker 10: Your anti virus product can't protect you against a dude
Speaker 10: on the phone saying scary words, can it. So the
Speaker 10: trick is here. Just hang up on the guy and
Speaker 10: whatever you do, don't let him into your computer. As
Speaker 10: long as you hang up on the guy and ignore him,
Speaker 10: you're fine. If you let him into your computer, that's
Speaker 10: when you're in trouble.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we finally, what's the one piece of
Speaker 1: tech advice you wish every senior or non techie would
Speaker 1: know is.
Speaker 9: All this stuff can last ten years.
Speaker 10: You don't need a new one when the store tells
Speaker 10: you to buy a new one. I make buy money
Speaker 10: by saving people money instead of like pushing products and
Speaker 10: services on you. So in order to prove a point,
Speaker 10: I use computers that are at least ten years old.
Speaker 9: I have three laptops, my personal laptops. They're from twenty
Speaker 9: twelve and twenty fifteen.
Speaker 3: That's wild. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: Okay, well here I am trying to upgrade again after
Speaker 1: a year, but I guess I will stop. But I
Speaker 1: do tell people that, look, you can. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't recommend you upgrade unless there's one hundred percent need
Speaker 1: to do that. And by the way, you can get
Speaker 1: a lot of life out of a computer with the
Speaker 1: chromos Flex.
Speaker 3: Do you recommend that at all for people?
Speaker 10: Yeah, if the machine is more than ten years old
Speaker 10: and you just want it as a travel machine or
Speaker 10: you want to give it to your kids, sure you
Speaker 10: can put chrome os flex. That's pretty easy for a
Speaker 10: moderately experienced tech guy to do. I personally love a
Speaker 10: product called Mint. It's a lot more powerful. So it's
Speaker 10: not Windows, it's not Mac it's not Chrome. It's a
Speaker 10: fourth thing called Mint, and it looks just like Windows seven,
Speaker 10: so there's no learning curve. And I put it on
Speaker 10: ten year old computers and people just don't have problems anymore.
Speaker 10: Instead of milking people for fees, I just don't have
Speaker 10: problems anymore.
Speaker 9: I solve all their problems.
Speaker 3: Is that the Linux Mint?
Speaker 9: Yes? But I never say that.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say.
Speaker 9: The computer guy told me Linux is scary.
Speaker 1: Right, sounds way too scary for the apportrition. Okay, hold on,
Speaker 1: so we got through the updates, the update attacks, and
Speaker 1: the support scam.
Speaker 3: What's the fourth do we get to the fourth?
Speaker 9: The fourth one is ransomware? Okay right?
Speaker 10: Where something walks into your computer like a hot knife
Speaker 10: through butter. It scrambles your documents and photos and then
Speaker 10: begs you for a ton of money in ransom.
Speaker 3: How do you stay away from that?
Speaker 10: Don't usevite yourself, Windows and Heaven forbid outlook. But all
Speaker 10: you really need to do is a real proper backup.
Speaker 10: You duplicate your documents and photos onto an external hard drive,
Speaker 10: and then you disconnect the external hard drive.
Speaker 9: It's crazy.
Speaker 10: How seventy six percent of organizations end up.
Speaker 9: Paying huge amounts of ransom because.
Speaker 10: The guys they hire to protect them do not understand
Speaker 10: how to do that basic concept. You do a backup,
Speaker 10: you disconnect it, you put it in a fire safe.
Speaker 9: That's it.
Speaker 1: And then if your computer gets compromised, you just restore
Speaker 1: that backup. You erase the computer, restore the backup. Marc
Speaker 1: Anthony Arena, The Computer Exorcist dot Com. Fun to talk
Speaker 1: to you. This was excellent. Hopefully you'll come on the
Speaker 1: show again and share some more insights. Really appreciate you
Speaker 1: joining me today. Thank you all right, The Computer Exorcist
Speaker 1: dot com. I will link it up on my website.
Speaker 1: Richon Tech dot TV eight eight eight rich one O
Speaker 1: one eight eight eight seven four to two four to
Speaker 1: one zero one.
Speaker 3: Uh coming up.
Speaker 1: I got a message that my HP Instant eight prices
Speaker 1: are going up, so I did a little comparison. The
Speaker 1: biggest time to maybe jump ship. I'll tell you what
Speaker 1: that means. Coming up right here on rich On Tech.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich On Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you talking technology at Triple eight rich one
Speaker 1: oh one eight eight eight seven four to two, four
Speaker 1: to one zero one. Getting a lot of emails about
Speaker 1: the uh. The person that got scammed earlier, Connor Daryl
Speaker 1: writes in the caller that lost five thousand dollars should
Speaker 1: consider taking further action. The question is, and this is
Speaker 1: what Bobo and I were saying, how did the scammer
Speaker 1: get his transaction history from the bank. That is what
Speaker 1: we wondered, because all the other stuff, you know, you
Speaker 1: could see how they how they did that, how they
Speaker 1: orchestrated it. But how did the bank know about his transactions?
Speaker 1: The only way I can think of is that they
Speaker 1: somehow had access to his account account history. Daryl says
Speaker 1: the bank failed to exercise due diligence in protecting his
Speaker 1: account information. He should file complaints with various banking agencies
Speaker 1: and consider filing a small claims action. Remind listeners not
Speaker 1: to respond to calls, but to call the phone number
Speaker 1: on the back of the credit card, debit card ATM
Speaker 1: or the one on your statement. Yes, Daryl says, I
Speaker 1: got a call from my credit card about fraud of
Speaker 1: my card. They left a phone number to call. I
Speaker 1: called the number on the card and they transferred me
Speaker 1: to the fraud group. The number turns out to be legitimate.
Speaker 1: The fraud rep said, I did the right thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: never call back to the phone number. And especially with
Speaker 1: all these transcriptions that the phones do now in your voicemail,
Speaker 1: they make it really easy, right, It's like, oh, fraud department,
Speaker 1: and the phone numbers like highlighted. You can just call
Speaker 1: it right back. You can tap it. Do not do
Speaker 1: that when in doubt. Go to the back of your card.
Speaker 1: Anytime you have a problem, Go to the back of
Speaker 1: your card. Call the number on the back of the card.
Speaker 1: Go to your statement, and by the way, you should
Speaker 1: be printed out. You know, I have a binder. You
Speaker 1: should probably do this as well, a binder with like
Speaker 1: print out your statements, one from every account that you have,
Speaker 1: so you have the account numbers on there. You've got
Speaker 1: the phone numbers. And I know that you're gonna say,
Speaker 1: rich Oh my gosh, that sounds like a security nightmare.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's in your house. Put it in a
Speaker 1: safe place. I don't know what to say. You know,
Speaker 1: if something, if if everything went to hell tomorrow and
Speaker 1: we lost imagine you know, your bank tomorrow like somehow
Speaker 1: gets hacked or whatever and everything goes away, and like, well,
Speaker 1: what was your bank account number?
Speaker 3: I don't know. Well, how much did you have in there?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, what would you do? Okay, well let's start
Speaker 1: with this number. Do you have this account number?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 1: I don't have that either. Well, I mean literally, we
Speaker 1: don't know any of this stuff. We do not know
Speaker 1: any of this stuff. So print out a statement for
Speaker 1: all of your important accounts. What's your car insurance policy number?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, what's your vein number on your car? I
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean you don't know any of this stuff.
Speaker 1: Nobody does. So print it out, go through, take one
Speaker 1: day a year. Get a binder, go to office depot,
Speaker 1: get a binder, right, and then go through every single
Speaker 1: account you have, your your financial accounts, your investment accounts,
Speaker 1: your credit card accounts, your bank accounts, your life insurance accounts,
Speaker 1: your all of your major accounts. Right, and go through
Speaker 1: and print out the latest statement and put that in
Speaker 1: the binder. Get a three hole punch if you have
Speaker 1: to use the one at work, if you have to,
Speaker 1: put it in this binder and just have it. And
Speaker 1: if something ever happens, you have a record of your
Speaker 1: accounts and a little snapshot in time of what was
Speaker 1: going on. In those accounts. It makes sense. I know,
Speaker 1: I'm the tech guy. I'm telling you all about the technology,
Speaker 1: and I love tech, but sometimes we have to go
Speaker 1: low tech to protect ourselves from the high tech. And
Speaker 1: that's what you have to do. And so if anything
Speaker 1: were to happen to all your accounts and they're wiped
Speaker 1: off the face of the earth, and your bank says, well, hey, bobo,
Speaker 1: just tell me how much you had in your account
Speaker 1: and what your account number is and we'll restore it.
Speaker 3: Oh I don't remember, I don't know a million dollars. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 3: start with that. MS start high, but.
Speaker 1: Start you know, you're showing the account. Oh, here's what
Speaker 1: I had, here's my last snapshot. You know, let's let's
Speaker 1: work with this. Let's start with that. So again, it's
Speaker 1: just protecting ourselves. Do it, do it once a year,
Speaker 1: and just update it, you know, and maybe throw in,
Speaker 1: you know, something like any important access information. If something
Speaker 1: were to happen to you, people can understand, you know,
Speaker 1: where they can go, your loved ones to kind of
Speaker 1: recover some of this stuff. I know it sounds very
Speaker 1: low tech, and yes, please protect that binder. Hopefully have
Speaker 1: some sort of safe in your home or you can
Speaker 1: put that fireproof safe. But it's just to you know,
Speaker 1: if any if you ever had to like recover all
Speaker 1: this stuff, you'd find it very tough without having any
Speaker 1: of it. HP instant Ink prices are going up in April.
Speaker 1: So I've had this HP instant Ink subscription. H I
Speaker 1: don't like it, but I pay for it because it's easy.
Speaker 1: And the thing to know about it, and this is
Speaker 1: what kept me there is that once you're on the
Speaker 1: HP instant inc as far as I know, you can't
Speaker 1: just stop and use the ink cartridges that they sent
Speaker 1: you and leave them in your printer. No, those don't
Speaker 1: work anymore when you stop, when you get off the merry,
Speaker 1: go round the carousel, and you say, no, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: stop paying for this. You got to get new ink cartridges.
Speaker 1: So for me it was like, you know, over one
Speaker 1: hundred dollars, I'm like, wait, I gotta spend all this money.
Speaker 1: So starting April eighteenth, the instant ink price is going up.
Speaker 1: So you can pause, you can downgrade, you can cancel
Speaker 1: at any time if you want. So the new they
Speaker 1: also introduced a new twenty five page plan at three
Speaker 1: dollars forty nine cents a month. So if you just
Speaker 1: have you know, a couple of pages you need to
Speaker 1: print a month, that's not bad, right, three dollars fifty cents.
Speaker 1: But I would compare the price of a cartridge to
Speaker 1: how much you're spending on this service, and I did
Speaker 1: some math, So I looked at the three pack of
Speaker 1: color cartridges that's about seventy three dollars that lasts for
Speaker 1: seven hundred pages of color. Then you can get the
Speaker 1: Excel Black cartridge for fifty four dollars that lasts about
Speaker 1: two two thousand pages. So it depends on how much
Speaker 1: you print. Basically, I've decided on whether this costs you
Speaker 1: money or saves you money. Right, so go to your
Speaker 1: account on HP and see how much you're spending on
Speaker 1: your printing or how much you're printing every month. So,
Speaker 1: by the way, these are the new plans. One hundred
Speaker 1: pages a month seven ninety nine, three hundred pages a
Speaker 1: month sixteen dollars, five hundred pages twenty three to ninety nine.
Speaker 1: So basically the bottom line is it's cheaper if you
Speaker 1: print a lot of color, like a ton of color
Speaker 1: pages every month, it's probably cheaper to go with the
Speaker 1: HP instant ink plan. If you're only printing black and white,
Speaker 1: or you're not printing very much, or you're printing a
Speaker 1: ton rather, it's probably better to go with the cartridge.
Speaker 1: So roughly, if you're buying cartridges, color is about ten
Speaker 1: cents per page, black is about three cents per page,
Speaker 1: and then if you look at HP instant ink, it's
Speaker 1: about five cents per page whether you're printing black or white.
Speaker 1: So bottom line is, if you're printing a lot of color,
Speaker 1: probably better to go with the subscription. If you're printing
Speaker 1: a lot of black and white, it's probably better just
Speaker 1: to buy your coverage or buy your ink cartridges. I'll
Speaker 1: probably be canceling that at this point. I wish I
Speaker 1: could go back to my laser. I had an old
Speaker 1: brother laser printer. I love that thing. Dirt cheap at
Speaker 1: the ink cartridge last forever. The laser toner that my
Speaker 1: kids wanted. Color HP is like a razor. They sell
Speaker 1: you the printer for like five bucks. The razor blades
Speaker 1: are like ten thousand dollars. You're listening to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you, talking technology. Getting a lot of emails
Speaker 1: about these fraudulent transactions. We talked to the guy about
Speaker 1: his cash app. He had a bunch of issues there.
Speaker 1: Scams are happening. They are happening every day, all day.
Speaker 1: It is quite unbelievable, Randy says, your caller with using
Speaker 1: the cash app is a perfect example of why I
Speaker 1: tell people not to do financial applications on your phone,
Speaker 1: maybe except when you're at home and on your Wi Fi,
Speaker 1: doing on your computer, not your phone. You know, I
Speaker 1: actually don't agree with that. I think that you're fine
Speaker 1: on your phone. Actually, I think your phone is in
Speaker 1: many cases more secure than your computer because if you're
Speaker 1: on an iPhone or an Android, you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of those times, especially iPhone, everything's sandboxed, so if you're
Speaker 1: opening up your app, no other app can interact with
Speaker 1: your banking app on your phone. So I actually think
Speaker 1: it's quite secure on your phone, and I have no
Speaker 1: problem recommending that. The main thing and I do tell
Speaker 1: people is do not use Wi Fi public Wi Fi
Speaker 1: when you're doing any sort of secure transaction. So if
Speaker 1: you are doing any sort of banking transactions, or even
Speaker 1: if it's highly secure email transactions, things like that, I
Speaker 1: always recommend that you use just your cellular connection. So
Speaker 1: when you're on your phone, your cellular connection between your
Speaker 1: phone and your cellular carrier is a very secure connection,
Speaker 1: much more secure than Wi Fi. So when in doubt,
Speaker 1: just toggle off the Wi Fi and make sure you're
Speaker 1: not using Wi Fi and actually go into It's weird
Speaker 1: because on the iPhone, if you're toggling Wi Fi off
Speaker 1: in your control center, which is when you swipe from
Speaker 1: the right, that actually does not turn Wi Fi off.
Speaker 1: It just disconnects you from the current Wi Fi network.
Speaker 1: So if you actually want to turn off Wi Fi
Speaker 1: for sure on your phone, you have to go into
Speaker 1: your settings and where it says Wi Fi, you have
Speaker 1: to toggle it off there, and that way it will
Speaker 1: physically turn off the Wi Fi on your actual device
Speaker 1: versus just toggling just disconnecting from.
Speaker 3: The network you're on.
Speaker 1: But Randy, look, it's always good for people to kind
Speaker 1: of understand what they're up against and understand how to
Speaker 1: stay secure when you're doing any sort of transaction that's sensitive,
Speaker 1: which is usually financial. The other thing is, if you're
Speaker 1: using a VPN, make sure you trust that VPN because
Speaker 1: that's basically a middleman between you and whatever you're doing,
Speaker 1: and so just be very careful that you trust that VPN,
Speaker 1: especially if it's a free one. I would pay for
Speaker 1: it if you're going to use one, and make sure
Speaker 1: it's from a company that you like. By the way,
Speaker 1: if you're a T mobile customer, speaking of wireless, if
Speaker 1: you have the te Life app, you know that's the
Speaker 1: one that gives you like flee, free slurpees and all that.
Speaker 1: Those like two mobile perks that customers get. This is
Speaker 1: Temo report says, check the app because you might be
Speaker 1: getting a free phone line with almost no strings attached.
Speaker 1: And they said that this is a perk that's not
Speaker 1: been given out for over two years, but select customers
Speaker 1: can open up the app and it's targeted for your account.
Speaker 1: So basically, I don't know what the reasoning is, why
Speaker 1: you're getting it, why someone else isn't, But it's a
Speaker 1: loyalty kind of perk, and so you might get a
Speaker 1: completely free phone line. It's just a one time ten
Speaker 1: dollars device connection charge. You have to bring your own device,
Speaker 1: no financing allowed and not available if you already have
Speaker 1: two or more free lines but or maxed out lines
Speaker 1: twelve lines, so anyway, check it out. If you want
Speaker 1: a free line from T Mobile and you're a customer,
Speaker 1: check out the Tea Life app and see you might
Speaker 1: be eligible for one. I know last time we had
Speaker 1: this deal, it was like Verizon had something where if
Speaker 1: you open up the app, they would give you like
Speaker 1: ten dollars off a month. I took advantage of that
Speaker 1: worked pretty well. Let's go to Bob in Los Angeles.
Speaker 3: Bob, you're on with rich Oh hi Hei.
Speaker 14: So I'm calling in regards to I have about four
Speaker 14: Apple arm or Mac laptops that I've been you know,
Speaker 14: over the years I've on's either stopped working or I'm
Speaker 14: upgrading and so forth. But I've never got rid of
Speaker 14: them because I don't know this the best way to
Speaker 14: wipe the hard drive before I, you know, take it
Speaker 14: to eway so that information. I know, you can do
Speaker 14: a resep but it doesn't wipe it. What's the best way.
Speaker 8: Of doing it?
Speaker 14: I asked my son, who's a graphics specialist that has
Speaker 14: a lot of computers over the year, and I asked
Speaker 14: him what he did. He says, oh, I just smash
Speaker 14: it everything with a hammer. Well, I don't want to
Speaker 14: do that, particularly, I don't want to hit a with
Speaker 14: them battery and so forth. So I did here years
Speaker 14: ago people recommending use a strong earth magnet to either
Speaker 14: life or scramble or something. But I really have no
Speaker 14: idea what I'm supposed to do.
Speaker 3: I don't think that.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't think that's probably the best solution.
Speaker 1: And yes, there are there are some you know. Yes,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, you can drive a
Speaker 1: screw through the drive if you're you know, or a
Speaker 1: bit whatever you want to do with your you know,
Speaker 1: with your drill, but I don't really recommend doing that.
Speaker 3: That's probably not the best way to do it.
Speaker 9: So you're right.
Speaker 1: So in general, I would say unless you are dealing
Speaker 1: with like government files and things like that. For ninety
Speaker 1: nine percent of people, the you know, there are instructions
Speaker 1: on Apple's website on what to do before you you know,
Speaker 1: give your Mac away and the newest Max. There's two
Speaker 1: ways to do it. Basically, the Newest Max it's very simple.
Speaker 1: It's just like the iPhone where it's like erase all
Speaker 1: content in settings, so you can do that very simply.
Speaker 1: The other way to do it, if you have an
Speaker 1: older Mac, which is an Intel based Mac. You have
Speaker 1: to use the disc utility and so you use that
Speaker 1: to erase it and reinstall Mac os, and then they
Speaker 1: also tell you if you're using an Intel based Mac,
Speaker 1: there are some steps to reset the env RAM and
Speaker 1: so you can do that, which this clears user settings
Speaker 1: for memory and restore certain security related features.
Speaker 3: Now here's the thing.
Speaker 1: What you're saying is that even after you do this,
Speaker 1: there might be fragments of files that could be recovered.
Speaker 1: And that could be true. So what some people might
Speaker 1: do is actually just erase the Mac again, and I
Speaker 1: think for ninety nine percent of people that's probably going
Speaker 1: to be sufficient. But if you're still worried, then you'd
Speaker 1: have to turn to like a third party app and
Speaker 1: just looking online at a couple. I've used a couple
Speaker 1: over the years, but there's it's been a while I
Speaker 1: did this because now I just kind of erase it
Speaker 1: a couple of times. But there is one that gets
Speaker 1: good reviews. It's called Let's see do your Data super Eraser?
Speaker 1: So that one and you can do that because it
Speaker 1: will it offers military and government data erasure standards to
Speaker 1: permanently erase data and prevent potential data recovery. So again
Speaker 1: I don't think everyone needs to do this. I think
Speaker 1: that the standard erasing on the built in operating system
Speaker 1: will be fine for ninety nine percent of people, whether
Speaker 1: you're on Mac or Windows. But again, if you do
Speaker 1: have some secure stuff, you do that twice and that
Speaker 1: should be better. But you know, when hard drives are erased,
Speaker 1: they're not actually erased. It's more like they take away
Speaker 1: the directions that tell you where to find those files.
Speaker 1: So someone with the right software might be able to
Speaker 1: go through and actually recover some of the files on
Speaker 1: those computers. There's also one called shred os and this
Speaker 1: is believe this one's for Windows, So that's that's for
Speaker 1: Windows if you're trying to do that. And then where's
Speaker 1: the other one that I saw that I liked? H
Speaker 1: oh yeah, this one actually used which was pretty good.
Speaker 1: It was called disc drill, and that one was great.
Speaker 1: It helped me reinstall the operating system and apparently they
Speaker 1: can also help you wipe as well. Now, some of
Speaker 1: these are going to charge you, so you may have
Speaker 1: to charge you could look for you can look for
Speaker 1: some open source software.
Speaker 3: So typically what I do is I type in what.
Speaker 1: I want to use, So let's say disc drill, and
Speaker 1: so they usually have At this alternative two dot net website,
Speaker 1: you can type in software and it will give you
Speaker 1: the software that's similar that's open source. And so if
Speaker 1: you want like an open source disc wiping utility, you
Speaker 1: can look in.
Speaker 3: There as well. So there are a million and one
Speaker 3: ways of doing this.
Speaker 1: I have talked to a lot of the services that
Speaker 1: recycle computers, like especially if you go to any of
Speaker 1: the big companies like a Staples or a best Buy
Speaker 1: or an Apple or any of these services, you know
Speaker 1: they have systems in place where they say, look, you know,
Speaker 1: because not everyone's super techy, they're just dropping this stuff
Speaker 1: off to get recycled. They will say, hey, look we
Speaker 1: will take care of it. We will make sure that
Speaker 1: nobody can you know that we will erase your stuff
Speaker 1: responsibly before we do anything with it. And if you
Speaker 1: have a you know, worse comes to worse. If you
Speaker 1: bring your computer there and the hard drive is encrypted
Speaker 1: and you have a password on that computer, worst comes
Speaker 1: to worse. If you put your trust into these companies,
Speaker 1: you know, they theoretically can't get into that computer anyway.
Speaker 1: But I would at the very least. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: you should bring it with your password and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: I would at the very least wipe your computer at
Speaker 1: the operating system level, just to at least have it,
Speaker 1: you know, cleaned off.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 1: I do remember I brought my computer in one time
Speaker 1: twice actually, where they asked for the password on the
Speaker 1: device and I was like, I just laughed in their face.
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm not giving you the password to
Speaker 1: my device, no way. And they're like, all right, well
Speaker 1: we may have to wipe the hard drive then if
Speaker 1: we don't have that, Yeah, you can wipe hard drive again.
Speaker 1: It goes back to what our computer exercist said, make
Speaker 1: a backup of things that will save you so many headaches.
Speaker 1: If your computer hard drive goes out tomorrow and crashes completely,
Speaker 1: if you have a backup of your important files, you'll
Speaker 1: be fine. You just reinstall, you know, get a new
Speaker 1: hard drive, reinstall the operating system, copy over the files,
Speaker 1: and you're done. But it's when you don't have a
Speaker 1: backup is when you have problems. And there are so
Speaker 1: many ways you can do backups. For me personally, I
Speaker 1: don't need a full complete backup of my entire system
Speaker 1: because I don't keep anything on my system. I keep
Speaker 1: it all in the cloud, so I need a backup
Speaker 1: of my cloud networks, but I don't need a backup
Speaker 1: of my actual system. If my computer, if the card
Speaker 1: drive crash tomorrow, yeah I'd be annoying, but I would
Speaker 1: just reinstall Dropbox, reinstall Google Drive, reinstall Evernoe, go to
Speaker 1: my Google and yeah, everything would be there. So unless
Speaker 1: you have a big collection of photos on your computer
Speaker 1: that you don't have backed up somewhere, which by the way,
Speaker 1: that should never be the case, or a music collection or.
Speaker 3: Something, you know, just make a backup.
Speaker 1: And we talked last week with kimber Streams from a Wirecutter,
Speaker 1: and all they said is just go into the file
Speaker 1: history on Windows, or go into time Machine on Mac.
Speaker 1: It's built into the operating system. Go get a hard drive.
Speaker 1: Just go get a hard drive from best Buy or
Speaker 1: wherever or online, Seagate, Amazon, Just buy the hard drive
Speaker 1: a terabyte, two terabytes, it's like sixty bucks. Plug it
Speaker 1: into your computer. Now, if your computer doesn't say, hey,
Speaker 1: do you want to use this as a backup drive,
Speaker 1: then just go into file history on Windows or go
Speaker 1: into time Machine on Mac and just set it say hey,
Speaker 1: this is my backup. Or you can go to an
Speaker 1: online service and just use that to back up your
Speaker 1: whole computer.
Speaker 3: It's very, very simple. It's just most people don't take
Speaker 3: the time to do it.
Speaker 1: Eighty eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four one zero one the website rich
Speaker 1: tech dot tv. Coming up later this hour, we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk to the founder of the app death clock about
Speaker 1: how to use an AI to predict when you might die.
Speaker 3: Yeah, scary stuff. This is rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here talking technology.
Speaker 1: Coming up this hour, we've got the founder of the
Speaker 1: death clock app. Yeah, I think it scares you into
Speaker 1: being healthy. I say that as I eat my U
Speaker 1: vanilla cake bread. It's vegan though, that makes it healthy, right,
Speaker 1: isn't anything that's like vegan healthy?
Speaker 3: No? No, well it's just loaded with sugar some stuff, Yes,
Speaker 3: some stuff. Some vegan stuff has a lot of sugar.
Speaker 9: Add it.
Speaker 1: Here's actually how you know when something's unhealthy for you,
Speaker 1: Like if you buy a bag of like candy, it'll
Speaker 1: it'll highlight the least bad thing for you. It'd be
Speaker 1: like fat free. But it doesn't mention that it has
Speaker 1: like two percent of your sugar in.
Speaker 3: That bag or how much sodium is in it.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just yeah, I'd be like, I'd be
Speaker 1: like low low trans fats. You're like, oh great, but
Speaker 1: one hundred percent cholesterol whatever.
Speaker 3: This is a side story.
Speaker 15: I'm not going to say the name of the restaurant,
Speaker 15: but me and my trainer went to eat at a
Speaker 15: vegetarian spot because he's vegetarian. And he told him like, hey,
Speaker 15: I think it'd be a good idea if you guys
Speaker 15: put like the nutritional values of each thing, the protein,
Speaker 15: the calories like all that.
Speaker 3: He was like, yeah, no, we're not going to do that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: because it's bad for you. Yeah.
Speaker 15: Well yeah, he was like, well this last and that
Speaker 15: was the last time we ever went to our restaurant.
Speaker 3: I was two years ago.
Speaker 1: Again, just because something is vegan or vegetarian does not
Speaker 1: mean it's healthy. It just means it is vegan or vegetarian.
Speaker 1: I mean a vegan a vegetarian meal could be a
Speaker 1: casadia that's vegetarian. Sheese and a shit and by the way,
Speaker 1: she's you know, so I get it, but but I
Speaker 1: always think it's funny, like and he just look at
Speaker 1: the store when you go to the store next next time,
Speaker 1: just look at all the unk food and just look
Speaker 1: at the whatever's highlighted on the front of the drunk food.
Speaker 1: It'll be like, you know, no artificial colors, but it's
Speaker 1: like everything else is horrible for you in it.
Speaker 3: So uh okay.
Speaker 1: So we're getting a lot of a lot, not a lot,
Speaker 1: but enough people questioning. Some people are supporting Connor talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, how bad it is that this happened to him.
Speaker 1: Other people are questioning whether he's legitimate, and so let
Speaker 1: me just speak to that for a moment.
Speaker 3: Number One, he did not come to me.
Speaker 1: I heard his story through a friend and he told me, Hey,
Speaker 1: I know this guy that this happened to, and that
Speaker 1: was unprompted.
Speaker 3: It wasn't like that guy came to me.
Speaker 1: So my point is it was like there's like three
Speaker 1: levels of like, no, this guy did not seek out
Speaker 1: to come on a radio show and talk about this
Speaker 1: so that he could, you know, get us to go fundme.
Speaker 1: So it's nothing to do with that at all. I
Speaker 1: came to him and I said, hey, would you mind
Speaker 1: sharing your story on the radio because I heard this
Speaker 1: happen to you, and I think it could help other people.
Speaker 1: So if you're wondering if he's legit, Yes, he's legit,
Speaker 1: so I would not worry about that aspect of it.
Speaker 3: Let's go to Rod in Montana. Rod, you're on with Rich.
Speaker 2: Hi, Rich, and thanks for taking my call.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's up.
Speaker 2: I'm looking for a replacement for Skype. I've been using it.
Speaker 2: It's in some of my advertising and stuff going back
Speaker 2: to twenty ten the number, and I'm not wanting to
Speaker 2: lose that number, and really does what I need to
Speaker 2: do because I'm I travel a lot, I'm all over
Speaker 2: the world. I've got I'll make international calls all over
Speaker 2: the world, so I need to be able to dial
Speaker 2: out to a number that isn't a member of whatever
Speaker 2: organization is there. I want to port my number off.
Speaker 3: Well that's a question.
Speaker 1: So have you been in contact with Skype, because as
Speaker 1: far as I can tell, I'm not sure there's a
Speaker 1: way to port that number.
Speaker 2: They will release the number to you, they.
Speaker 3: Will, ye. Okay, how did you find that information?
Speaker 2: I googled it?
Speaker 3: Okay, well, yes, so did I.
Speaker 1: But it's there's nothing official. There's there's nothing official that
Speaker 1: I can find. I found one person I think It
Speaker 1: was on Reddit that said that they were able to
Speaker 1: do it. But I you know, you would think if this,
Speaker 1: if Skype would allow you to port that number, they
Speaker 1: would have an official help page on porting that number.
Speaker 1: So my question is what did you find for Like,
Speaker 1: you know, when you poured out a phone number, you
Speaker 1: need some sort of account number or code. Did you
Speaker 1: find what that would be with Skype?
Speaker 2: No, because I haven't figured out where I'm going to move.
Speaker 3: Okay, got it? So you haven't gotten for first? Okay,
Speaker 3: well I would.
Speaker 2: I don't want to waste my time because I can't.
Speaker 2: It turns out I can't.
Speaker 3: Port it right.
Speaker 1: Well, you may, you may find that you might not
Speaker 1: be able to. But here's my question. What are you
Speaker 1: trying to do with this with this phone number? So
Speaker 1: let's say, like like, are you making calls out? Do
Speaker 1: people call you? Call you on it?
Speaker 2: I've got about five things so that I would like
Speaker 2: it to do. But I'm currently doing with Scott. I
Speaker 2: pay to use their dial out so I can call
Speaker 2: anybody that's not just to have a Skype number, I
Speaker 2: can still call.
Speaker 1: It rod I'm getting I'm getting the uh, They're they're
Speaker 1: playing me off here? How is that such a short segment.
Speaker 1: I got to take this. Uh hang on the line,
Speaker 1: okay eighty eight. Sorry. Coming up, we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about the death clock app rich on Tech dot TV.
Speaker 3: We'll be right back. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 3: We're just doing the robot in here. Why not.
Speaker 1: We have a lot of fun here on the show.
Speaker 1: So I talked to Rod Off off air.
Speaker 3: He's in Montana.
Speaker 1: He's looking for a Skype replacement, and so he said
Speaker 1: he had five tenants that he needed for his his
Speaker 1: new replacement to do, which is dial out numbers. You
Speaker 1: had to be able to port a phone number in,
Speaker 1: use it with a VPN, accept SMS two factor authentication codes,
Speaker 1: and then also be able to dial out for international calls.
Speaker 1: And I said, I'm pretty sure that Google Voice checks
Speaker 1: all of those boxes. So I've had Google Voice since
Speaker 1: day one. It used to be called Grand Central. It
Speaker 1: was a startup. Google bought them in about three days
Speaker 1: after they started, and it was at the beginning, Google
Speaker 1: Voice was a way to have one phone number. This
Speaker 1: is back in the day when we had landlines and
Speaker 1: a work phone number and a cell phone number. So
Speaker 1: the idea is that you would call this Grand central
Speaker 1: number and it would ring all those phones at the
Speaker 1: same time. Now, of course we all have a cell
Speaker 1: phone and that's pretty much our primary device. We don't
Speaker 1: need that functionality. But Google Voice still has a lot
Speaker 1: of great features baked in, and I think, Rod, it's
Speaker 1: going to do all those things that you need. I
Speaker 1: think the biggest trick is going to be poorting your
Speaker 1: number out from Skype. I've not heard of a successful
Speaker 1: story on that yet. So maybe now that it's going away,
Speaker 1: we'll hear about how people can do that, and I
Speaker 1: might have to email Skype and ask them what the
Speaker 1: functionality is there. All right, thanks for the call. All right,
Speaker 1: Now we've got Brent Fransen. He is the founder of
Speaker 1: an app called death Clock. We talked about it on
Speaker 1: the show before. Now he's joining us to talk about
Speaker 1: what this app is all about. Welcome to the show, Brent.
Speaker 5: Thanks for having me Rich.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so when I first saw this, I didn't know
Speaker 1: if it was a joke or not. It's not a joke,
Speaker 1: so this is a real app that you created. Explain
Speaker 1: what the app does?
Speaker 16: Yeah, I mean the basic summary is we tell you
Speaker 16: when you're going to die, and then we help you
Speaker 16: live longer. What that means is you answer twenty nine
Speaker 16: questions and we've built a proprietary AI that looks at sleep, diet, exercise,
Speaker 16: family history, your answers to the questions, and then we
Speaker 16: predict two things. The date of your death, so the
Speaker 16: AI will predict an exact day eight, and then second
Speaker 16: it'll predict how much longer it thinks you can live
Speaker 16: if you change, if you change your habits, if you
Speaker 16: change the way that you're living your life.
Speaker 1: This is so wild because it's I know there's been
Speaker 1: things online, websites you can go to, you can pop
Speaker 1: in some of this information. I'm sure insurance companies all
Speaker 1: have this sort of information on the back end, but
Speaker 1: to have this in a very friendly consumer facing app,
Speaker 1: Like the app has a slick design.
Speaker 3: You know, it's free. Well for the base part.
Speaker 1: We could talk about the paid upgrades later, but what
Speaker 1: kind of like what was the impetus on this, Like
Speaker 1: why did you want to do this?
Speaker 16: I basically I think our health our healthcare system is
Speaker 16: more of a sick care system. I grew up around
Speaker 16: a lot of addiction, and so I've got a lot
Speaker 16: of disdain for the just the reactive nature of our
Speaker 16: healthcare system, and so I've been very focused on building
Speaker 16: technology that helps people manage the way that they're living
Speaker 16: their lives so that they can have better lives and
Speaker 16: longer lives and kind of fit in for the gap
Speaker 16: that we've gotten healthcare system. Our healthcare system is great
Speaker 16: if you get hit by a car, or you get
Speaker 16: diagnosed with cancer or something, if you're being if you're
Speaker 16: broken and being fixed in some way, but it's not
Speaker 16: good at preventing us from getting disease in the first place.
Speaker 16: And so I've been very focused on trying to build
Speaker 16: technology that helps people do that.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 1: When I first shared this app on TV and later
Speaker 1: the radio, people are like, well, is it just a
Speaker 1: data grab? Is you just trying to get all your
Speaker 1: personal information? I said, I don't think so, because the
Speaker 1: core functionality to get that life expectancy, that death date,
Speaker 1: you don't really have to give up much personal information.
Speaker 1: It's not asking you for your blood type or anything,
Speaker 1: or even your social or your I don't even think
Speaker 1: it asked for your email address. It just asked for
Speaker 1: like your name and your age. And then you answer
Speaker 1: these questions, right, Yeah.
Speaker 16: That's right, it's name, age, You answer the twenty nine questions,
Speaker 16: and yeah, we don't sell the data. I mean our goal,
Speaker 16: what we're really building is what we would call an
Speaker 16: AI health concierge. But basically the longer, the top factor
Speaker 16: that determines how long you're going to live is how
Speaker 16: much money you have, and the top one percent live
Speaker 16: on average fifteen years longer than the bottom one percent.
Speaker 16: There's a whole bunch of reasons for that, but the
Speaker 16: top reason is just you have access to better healthcare.
Speaker 16: So if you're really wealthy of a private doc who
Speaker 16: can give you preventive health care the way that you
Speaker 16: want it. So the business model, back to your question,
Speaker 16: is not to sell the data. It is to say, hey,
Speaker 16: you know you're going to live to seventy five. The
Speaker 16: way you're living your life today, we think you can.
Speaker 16: In the AI thinks you could live to ninety two,
Speaker 16: and we've trained an AI to help you live to
Speaker 16: ninety two. We don't want to see you go to
Speaker 16: seventy five. So that's how we try to make money,
Speaker 16: and that's what you pay for. You don't pay for
Speaker 16: the prediction, but you would pay and you'd get a
Speaker 16: free trial for the AI health concierge.
Speaker 1: So how do you know if you're successful with this? Like, obviously,
Speaker 1: I mean this is brand new. It's not like you
Speaker 1: have data to tell like if you're right on these numbers. Like,
Speaker 1: how do you tell if you're right?
Speaker 16: Well, we are able to use a whole bunch of
Speaker 16: existing data to tell us if for right. So we've
Speaker 16: got actuarial data. We've trained the AI on about twelve
Speaker 16: hundred longevity studies, and then there's the data that that
Speaker 16: you input their CDC data, et cetera. And then we've
Speaker 16: taken data sets from people who we know have died
Speaker 16: and we know something about and you can kind of
Speaker 16: retroactively train the data set and test whether or not
Speaker 16: your predictions are accurate. So we believe it's the most
Speaker 16: accurate death date prediction in the world. But what's more
Speaker 16: important than the prediction of when you're going to die
Speaker 16: is can we help you do the things that are
Speaker 16: going to help you live longer.
Speaker 5: You know, get the.
Speaker 16: Cancer screenings, take the supplements, you know, go talk to
Speaker 16: your doctor about the things that are most likely to
Speaker 16: kill you, and you know, take action so those things
Speaker 16: don't get you.
Speaker 5: That's where we're really focused on. Doing well.
Speaker 16: I mean, the mission of the business is to help
Speaker 16: one hundred million people live ten years longer, and so
Speaker 16: we're very focused on how do we help you do that.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about the app death Claw. It's available
Speaker 1: for iPhone and Android. The website is deathclock dot co.
Speaker 1: You can find a link to it on my website.
Speaker 1: Rich on tech dot TV. This is Brent Fransen, the
Speaker 1: founder of the app. So what are you finding? What
Speaker 1: are you finding in your data with people that are
Speaker 1: filling out this information and using this information to determine
Speaker 1: when they might die?
Speaker 16: I think so we're finding a couple of things. So
Speaker 16: one is the concept scares people. So people either love
Speaker 16: the concept.
Speaker 5: And they're drawn to it or they hate it.
Speaker 16: It can be scary to think about death, and I
Speaker 16: understand that now almost universally, when people go through it,
Speaker 16: they find it's fun.
Speaker 5: We've taken a pretty lighthearted approach to it, and so
Speaker 5: we don't.
Speaker 1: Really Yeah, you get to save the date card. By
Speaker 1: the way, at the end, it's like your death date
Speaker 1: is on a save the date card. I mean that's
Speaker 1: you know, a little tongue in cheek humor there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's a grim reaper flying Okay.
Speaker 16: I think the thing that I've been surprised with the
Speaker 16: most is that most people don't really know what they
Speaker 16: need to do to live a little bit longer. So
Speaker 16: we live in this like post Huberman Peter Atier era.
Speaker 16: We have these health influencers who are talking about a
Speaker 16: lot of really complicated things like should I be doing
Speaker 16: something cold plunge every day, or should I be taking
Speaker 16: met foreman or should I be getting a full body scan?
Speaker 16: And people, I think want to do the right things
Speaker 16: to stay healthy and live a good and long life,
Speaker 16: but they don't really know what to do.
Speaker 5: So we create what's called a longevity plan.
Speaker 16: But I've just been surprised at how much value there
Speaker 16: is and helping people cut through some of the noise
Speaker 16: and say, hey, okay, for you a forty three year
Speaker 16: old male, here's what matters and here's what doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: I think this app actually might have pushed me to
Speaker 1: get one of these heart calcium tests because I was
Speaker 1: wondering about that and I ended up I think I
Speaker 1: pretty much went I don't know if this was like
Speaker 1: in the back of my mind this app, because I
Speaker 1: went through it and I was like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: this is scary information, Like it's weird. It's information we
Speaker 1: all know. We know we're gonna die, But to have
Speaker 1: a date is in an age is really like eye
Speaker 1: opening for something that we all know is going to happen.
Speaker 16: Yeah, I feel I feel just knowing the decade in
Speaker 16: which you're likely to die. It's not you know, the
Speaker 16: math is very simple, even if you just look at
Speaker 16: you know, average life expectancy for a male or female
Speaker 16: in the US. It's very easy to do that math.
Speaker 16: But there's something jarring about saying like, oh, I'm likely
Speaker 16: to die in the twenty sixties. And then it's funny
Speaker 16: you mentioned the calcium scan. That's another one of those things.
Speaker 16: There's a whole bunch of really basic things that we
Speaker 16: can be doing that in that case, it's a CT
Speaker 16: scan that looks at calcification of plaque in the heart.
Speaker 1: And by the way, it's about three minutes to do.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was so crazy fast.
Speaker 16: It's inexpensive, and it can save your life. I mean,
Speaker 16: you know, I did it recently and I got a
Speaker 16: score of zero. Okay, that's good. I'm in a good place.
Speaker 16: But it can save your life. And like, it's kind
Speaker 16: of fallen through the cracks and the healthcare system, and
Speaker 16: so we've got to be really prove about managing our
Speaker 16: health journey.
Speaker 5: We don't. We don't have a healthcare system that's going
Speaker 5: to do it for us.
Speaker 3: No, we certainly don't.
Speaker 1: And like you said, it works really well when you're sick,
Speaker 1: but the preventative stuff is very tricky.
Speaker 3: It's it's funny.
Speaker 1: I went to my primary doctor a couple of years
Speaker 1: ago and they're like, hey, you know, why, why did
Speaker 1: you not come in for your physical? I said, well,
Speaker 1: no one ever told me, and I said, you're an adult,
Speaker 1: We're not going to tell you. They're like, you have
Speaker 1: to make your appointment. And it really like stuck with
Speaker 1: me of like, if you want to be healthy, you
Speaker 1: need to be in control of what you do and
Speaker 1: and you know, question everything. And this calcium scan it's
Speaker 1: funny because I talked to like a couple people about it,
Speaker 1: and I talked to my friend about it and it
Speaker 1: actually found a blockage in his heart, and you know,
Speaker 1: so it's like it was very Anyway, my point is
Speaker 1: we were talking about this stuff and it's like it
Speaker 1: does help. And I said, well, don't understand why everyone
Speaker 1: doesn't do this, you know, like why isn't this part
Speaker 1: of like the system. You know, it depends on insurance
Speaker 1: and all this, and I guess there's just so much
Speaker 1: mystery around healthcare and what's included, what's not included, what
Speaker 1: you should do and again and all these people you mentioned.
Speaker 1: By the way, I read that book, like the was
Speaker 1: like four hour Body many years ago, and it's like
Speaker 1: everything is so complicated. Like these people are taking like
Speaker 1: a blood test every day of their life. It's like
Speaker 1: that is not for the average person to be able
Speaker 1: to do, or these supplements and things. So, you know,
Speaker 1: for the average person, I think what it comes down
Speaker 1: to is you're working every day, you're going into a desk,
Speaker 1: you're sitting down, you're eating fast, and it's it's tough.
Speaker 1: It is tough to be healthy because you have to
Speaker 1: make a very concerted effort to do that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we're trying to simplify it. I totally agree.
Speaker 16: You know, there's this guy, Brian Johnson who's trying to
Speaker 16: basically his whole slogan is not dying on which I
Speaker 16: find to be ridiculous. But he's dinner at eleven am
Speaker 16: so he can sleep better.
Speaker 3: Or whatever, give me a break book.
Speaker 16: I've got a wife and kids. I'm not eating dinner
Speaker 16: right at eleven am. But there's also a very interesting
Speaker 16: post AI moment where I mean a lot of what
Speaker 16: we're trying to do is give you a place to
Speaker 16: put all of your health data. So if you have
Speaker 16: any blood tests on a twenty three in me or whatever,
Speaker 16: it is just your basic health profile. We should all
Speaker 16: have an AI that's trained on any health data that
Speaker 16: we have and that just sits around twenty four to
Speaker 16: seven and analyzes our data and tries to make it
Speaker 16: easy for us to be healthy and live longer. And
Speaker 16: this is this wasn't possible pre AI. So you know,
Speaker 16: taking the data set that is our unique health profile,
Speaker 16: seriously putting it in one place and then having an
Speaker 16: AI that's trained on it, I think allows all of
Speaker 16: us to have basically private doc level experience at a
Speaker 16: fraction of the cost.
Speaker 5: And that's what we're trying to do.
Speaker 1: All right, So scary name helpful app deathclock dot Co.
Speaker 1: Brent Fransen, founder of death Clock, thanks for joining me today.
Speaker 3: Thank you rich all right eighty.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry rich On tech dot tv for the link
Speaker 1: to that app. Rich On tech dot TV coming up.
Speaker 1: We're going to open up. The feedback is overflowing. I'm
Speaker 1: going to read some of the emails, the comments, and
Speaker 1: the questions that you sent me this week right here
Speaker 1: on rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich On Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich Demiro here talking technology with you, trying to get
Speaker 1: to the feedbag.
Speaker 9: Here.
Speaker 3: See if there's anything else I should mention before we
Speaker 3: open up the feedbag. Let's just you know what, let's
Speaker 3: just get to the feedback.
Speaker 1: We got so much in the feedback, We're just gonna
Speaker 1: just gonna open it up. Rodney from Tarzana writes in Hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: we wanted to use the whisper flow app you mentioned,
Speaker 1: but our Norton anti virus showed the website as safe.
Speaker 1: But when we downloaded the app, we got a warning
Speaker 1: that it was infected with a virus. We quarantined and
Speaker 1: deleted it. Any thoughts So I emailed the makers of
Speaker 1: whisper flow and they did email me back, and they
Speaker 1: said that some anti virus programs like Norton, Windows Defender
Speaker 1: and Kesperski are flagging the Windows version as a potential
Speaker 1: threat because the app requires access to your keyboard and
Speaker 1: text boxes. The company says they are working with the
Speaker 1: anti virus companies to get that fixed.
Speaker 3: So there you go. Hopefully it's a false alarm there.
Speaker 1: Bob from Palace Verdes writes in I read your article
Speaker 1: on AT and t's new device that's meant to bring
Speaker 1: back landline service. It's called AT and T Phone Advanced.
Speaker 1: My mom still has AT and T landline and a
Speaker 1: house full of wired phones. Many are rotary dial Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh. Unfortunately AT and t's device does not support
Speaker 1: rotary phones. They could have easily added the circuitry, but
Speaker 1: chose not to. Well, look, I understand there are probably
Speaker 1: not that many rotary phones out there, and so AT
Speaker 1: and T this is internet, internet based phone service. They're
Speaker 1: trying to help people out that don't have landline service,
Speaker 1: or they're trying to get people off landline service. So
Speaker 1: I understand that that they didn't put rotary in there,
Speaker 1: because I mean, come on, how many people? I mean,
Speaker 1: they know how many people are using rotary? Is how
Speaker 1: it's got to be like less than a tenth of
Speaker 1: a percent of people in America using rotary Stoll, But
Speaker 1: I get it.
Speaker 3: If it's you, I totally understand three people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it would have been nice if AT and T
Speaker 1: could use both cellular and home Wi Fi as a
Speaker 1: backup option.
Speaker 3: I think they can.
Speaker 1: Lastly, specifically, they say not to plug it into your
Speaker 1: house wiring, which makes it useless for homes like my
Speaker 1: moms with multiple wired phones. AT and T could have
Speaker 1: offered an installed device to properly disconnect the old feed
Speaker 1: and hook this up safely. Oh well, not usable for
Speaker 1: my mom. But I enjoyed your article and I always
Speaker 1: enjoy your newsletter. Well, Bob, one thing is clear that
Speaker 1: is that service is not for your mom's house. Melissa
Speaker 1: from Kistaic writes in I love receiving your newsletter and
Speaker 1: listening to you on KFI on Saturdays. You explain things
Speaker 1: in such an easy to understand way and have such
Speaker 1: a wealth of technoledge. Thank you for all you do. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's a nice part, now what I like to keep
Speaker 1: the apps on my iPhone organized, but I always have
Speaker 1: such a difficult time moving them from one page to another.
Speaker 1: I understand if you hold down the app and select
Speaker 1: edit home screen, but when I try to move the
Speaker 1: app to the edge, sometimes it moves easily, other times
Speaker 1: it's impossible. Is there an easier way to do this
Speaker 1: or am I doing something wrong? No, Melissa, I've been
Speaker 1: doing this for seventeen years. It never gets easier. Rearranging
Speaker 1: iPhone homescreen icons is horrendous. Huh horrendous. Apparently that's going
Speaker 1: to be fixed with iOS nineteen, but I'm not kidding
Speaker 1: my phone. I don't even arrange it because I can't
Speaker 1: I try to move one thing. I am so scared
Speaker 1: to put a widget on my iPhone home screen because
Speaker 1: I'm gonna mess up my whole thing that I've worked
Speaker 1: so many years to get perfected.
Speaker 3: I won't even try a new widget. It's that bad.
Speaker 1: Like Apple needs a way to save your home screen
Speaker 1: so you can try a new one and then go
Speaker 1: back to it if you mess something up. Joseph from
Speaker 1: Ellisville writes in can I listen to my iPod by
Speaker 1: using a wireless adapter for it?
Speaker 3: Yes? Twelve South Airfly perfect for this.
Speaker 1: You plug it in, creates a Bluetooth connection, allows you
Speaker 1: to pair any Bluetooth headphones twelve South Airfly.
Speaker 3: Let's see here what else?
Speaker 1: Olivia writes in, hey, rich on tech, I recently came
Speaker 1: across a website called card cash. You purchased gift cards
Speaker 1: at a discounted price.
Speaker 3: Is it true? Have you tried it?
Speaker 1: I'm looking to purchase a decent amount for an upcoming trip,
Speaker 1: but I've not heard about this. Please let me know.
Speaker 1: These types of sites are legit. You have to be
Speaker 1: very careful. There's so many scams around gift cards. Make
Speaker 1: sure it's a reputable site. I have not tried card cash.
Speaker 1: I looked up some reviews, kind of pros, kind of
Speaker 1: prop some pros, some cons. I have tried a website
Speaker 1: called raise dot com, and I think they change the
Speaker 1: name of their gift card site so it's no longer Raised.
Speaker 3: I think it's called g.
Speaker 1: What is it gcx gcx gcx dot raise dot com.
Speaker 3: I have tried that one. It is legit. Just be
Speaker 3: very careful.
Speaker 1: I'd buy small transactions before you buy a lot of
Speaker 1: big ones. Let's see here. Oh my gosh, so many emails.
Speaker 1: Let's do this one real quick. Judy from California writes
Speaker 1: in Hey, Rich, I've never emailed you, but I'm not
Speaker 1: sure who to trust. I'm not very tech savvy. I'm
Speaker 1: a retired senior. I'm getting more wary as time goes by.
Speaker 1: I'm curious if this anti theft card being touted on
Speaker 1: Facebook really works. They say RFID wallets and card sleeves
Speaker 1: are no match for portable scanners the new age pickpocketers use.
Speaker 1: I would appreciate your opinion. I disagree. I don't think
Speaker 1: you need it. I think that credit cards have a
Speaker 1: lot of security built into them. They're using one time codes.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's any major report of someone's credit
Speaker 1: card number being swiped with an RFID scanner. I just
Speaker 1: don't think it happens, honestly, I think that it could
Speaker 1: happen theoretically. I don't think it's a major issue. If
Speaker 1: you want to get one of these sleeves, go ahead.
Speaker 1: I would not spend a lot of money on it.
Speaker 1: Go on Amazon. Type in RFID sleeve. My wallet has
Speaker 1: RFID blocking. If you have a metal credit card, that
Speaker 1: will be enough to mess it up. You could even
Speaker 1: use a little piece of tinfoil. Well, but what are
Speaker 1: they gonna get. They're gonna get an encrypted card number
Speaker 1: that only works once, and they're not even able to
Speaker 1: decrypt it.
Speaker 3: So I don't think it's that big of a deal.
Speaker 1: I think it's a lot of companies are capitalizing on
Speaker 1: that advertising right now.
Speaker 3: That's gonna do it for this episode.
Speaker 1: You can find links to everything I mentioned on my website,
Speaker 1: rich on Tech dot tv. Find me on social media
Speaker 1: at rich on tech. Thanks so much for listening. My
Speaker 1: name is rich Demiro. I will talk to you real
Speaker 1: soon