Speaker 1: What's going on.
Speaker 2: I'm Rich Demiro and this is rich on Tech broadcasting
Speaker 2: live from Los Angeles, coast to coast. This is the
Speaker 2: show where I talk about the tech stuff I think
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Speaker 2: triple eight rich one oh one. Oh wow, that rhymes.
Speaker 2: I never realized that that's triple eight seven four to
Speaker 2: two four one zero one. Give me a call if
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Speaker 2: thing as a stupid tech question or a question that's
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Speaker 2: at the end. Now, I know there's gonna be a
Speaker 2: lot of good information in this week's show. You're gonna
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Speaker 2: and that is where you'll find everything I talk about
Speaker 2: today in real time. We've got some great guests this week.
Speaker 2: Julie Ramhold, consumer analysts with deal news dot com, is
Speaker 2: going to talk Black Friday strategies for shopping. Then we've
Speaker 2: got Edgar Dwarski, founder of Consumer World. He's gonna share
Speaker 2: top tips to get a deal on Black Friday. And
Speaker 2: Vitally Pacharski of Slick Deals is gonna highlight some of
Speaker 2: the top deals out there for the holiday shopping season.
Speaker 1: You see the theme in this week show.
Speaker 2: Yes, it is holiday shopping season in full swing, and
Speaker 2: I want to make sure that you get the best
Speaker 2: deals and don't.
Speaker 1: Get ripped off.
Speaker 2: So this week, like many folks that are a little
Speaker 2: bit early, I set up my holiday lights and I
Speaker 2: just wanted to tell you a funny little story about that.
Speaker 2: So I set up my holiday lights and I just
Speaker 2: did the inside because this is a big project. You know,
Speaker 2: I didn't even do the outside yet, but I did
Speaker 2: the inside. You know, you lug all the boxes in
Speaker 2: from the garage, you go through what you have number one.
Speaker 2: You think you're going to remember the changes that you
Speaker 2: made from the year before, like did I get new lights?
Speaker 2: Did I get this? How did I put that away?
Speaker 2: You forget everything. As soon as you put that stuff
Speaker 2: away in the garage. You do not remember a thing.
Speaker 2: You're like, oh, next year, I'll remember that I bought
Speaker 2: these new lights, or I put these lights on the tree,
Speaker 2: or I put these lights outside. Now you forget everything.
Speaker 2: So from now on, number one, I'm keeping a holiday
Speaker 2: lights journal, and I'm going to write in that journal,
Speaker 2: like here's the stuff I bought this year, Here's what
Speaker 2: I changed this year, Here's what I did. But that's
Speaker 2: besides the point. What I wanted to tell you is
Speaker 2: that I set up, of course, everything on the smart
Speaker 2: home system. So I plugged all the lights into smart plugs,
Speaker 2: and then I set up with Google a command so
Speaker 2: I can just say H Google H stands for hey,
Speaker 2: turn on the Christmas lights, and boom, all the lights
Speaker 2: in the house turn on. And I had them set
Speaker 2: up two ways to go off. I had it set
Speaker 2: up to go off after twenty minutes of no motion.
Speaker 2: And that actually turn out to be kind of a
Speaker 2: problem because it turns out I don't walk through my
Speaker 2: kitchen where the motion detector is every twenty minutes. And
Speaker 2: so I was sitting there scratching my head because the
Speaker 2: lights would go off in the house. I'm like, did
Speaker 2: you just turn those off? Did you turn them off?
Speaker 2: Who turned off the Christmas lights? And I remembered that
Speaker 2: I had them set on this motion sensor, so I
Speaker 2: disabled that. But I did come up with the command
Speaker 2: of turn off the plugs. H Google, turn off the
Speaker 2: smart plugs, and that would just turn off all the
Speaker 2: smart plugs in the house, which the only ones we're
Speaker 2: using are the ones with the Christmas lights. Well, anyway,
Speaker 2: I told my wife this and I guess she forgot
Speaker 2: and so I come home from work and I say,
Speaker 2: you know, turn on the Christmas lights whatever, And they're
Speaker 2: not working. Nothing's coming on, and I'm like, what is
Speaker 2: going on here? And I'm getting angrier and angrier because
Speaker 2: I'm like, this is why technology, this is why it's
Speaker 2: so tough for people, because a simple thing just doesn't work.
Speaker 2: I set this up yesterday and none of it works. Well,
Speaker 2: it turns out after much much anger on my part,
Speaker 2: and I wasn't really angry. I was just like this
Speaker 2: is so like, this is what I need to talk
Speaker 2: about on the show, Like you set this stuff up
Speaker 2: and it really doesn't work, Like people need to know
Speaker 2: that they're not alone in this stuff. And so I
Speaker 2: get a text from my wife and I forget how
Speaker 2: this all went. But long story short, she's like, oh,
Speaker 2: by the way, I forgot what the command was last
Speaker 2: night to turn off the lights, so I just unplugged
Speaker 2: them all.
Speaker 1: What.
Speaker 2: I go around to all of the holiday lights and
Speaker 2: I see all the plugs pulled out of the wall
Speaker 2: because she couldn't remember what the command was to turn
Speaker 2: them off. And I am I at this point, I'm
Speaker 2: actually my anger went to just laughing out loud because
Speaker 2: I said, this is this is hilarious. This is the
Speaker 2: reality of tech in our world. Yes, thank you Bobo.
Speaker 2: Oh so, anyway, I got a good laugh out of that.
Speaker 2: I thought that was just so funny because here it
Speaker 2: is all the planning in the world, all of the
Speaker 2: technology in the world, and still my wife just goes
Speaker 2: ahead and unplugs them, and you know, I'm sitting there
Speaker 2: trying to figure out what the heck is going on. Oh,
Speaker 2: I thought that was pretty funny. Anyway, just know the
Speaker 2: commands for your smart stuff. I thought this was interesting.
Speaker 2: This week, I got an email from AMC. I'm part
Speaker 2: of that Stubbs thing, and they said, oh, here, thanks
Speaker 2: for being a member, and here's how many movies you've
Speaker 2: gone too. I pay like twenty five dollars a month
Speaker 2: to see as many movies as I want. I thought
Speaker 2: it was a good idea, and I looked down the
Speaker 2: list and it's like, you've been a member since February
Speaker 2: and you've seen nine movies. So I did the math
Speaker 2: in my head. Okay, February to now whatever it is,
Speaker 2: ten months, I don't know. Times twenty five dollars a month,
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty dollars divided by nine movies. I was
Speaker 2: paying like double the I was paying more for movies
Speaker 2: than a movie ticket.
Speaker 1: And so I realized something.
Speaker 2: This same exact thing happened to me a couple of
Speaker 2: years ago when I got this same exact email for
Speaker 2: my gym membership and it was like, hey, Rich, thanks
Speaker 2: for being.
Speaker 1: A member of the gym. Here's how many times you
Speaker 1: went this year.
Speaker 2: And it was like, I did the math, and I
Speaker 2: was like, wait a second, I just paid like this
Speaker 2: much per gym session.
Speaker 1: Uh huh, and I canceled that day.
Speaker 2: Now the stubs I haven't canceled yet because I'm still like,
Speaker 2: I'm like, Okay, we're getting into the holiday season.
Speaker 1: I'll have some time off, maybe I'll see like two
Speaker 1: movies a week. Whatever.
Speaker 2: But it made me realize that if you run any
Speaker 2: sort of service where people are paying a subscription to you,
Speaker 2: do not send them an email with how many times
Speaker 2: they've gotten a use out of that subscription, because no
Speaker 2: matter what, someone's gonna do the math and they're going
Speaker 2: to realize, hold on, this is not a very good deal.
Speaker 2: Like can you imagine if NETFLI send you an email
Speaker 2: that said, hey, here's how much you pay, and here's
Speaker 2: how much hours you've watched, and you do that math,
Speaker 2: You're like, wait, I'm paying like twenty dollars an hour.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: Netflix, I think is a bad example because most people
Speaker 2: are getting their value. But let's say like one of
Speaker 2: these other services, maybe it's like a music streaming service,
Speaker 2: maybe it's like one of the lesser streaming services. People
Speaker 2: don't want to know this information. Don't give us the
Speaker 2: information because then we'll keep paying. So that's a little
Speaker 2: tip for your companies out there that want to get
Speaker 2: that subscription revenue. Don't give us the numbers. We don't
Speaker 2: want to know them. Yesterday at work, we had this
Speaker 2: friends giving which was really fun. I was kind of
Speaker 2: dreading it just a little bit because you know, when
Speaker 2: you get a whole bunch of TV people in a room,
Speaker 2: it could be interesting. You know, TV people have a
Speaker 2: lot of big personality. So I'm sitting there like, Oh,
Speaker 2: what's this going to be?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: Is there going to be booze? The answer to that
Speaker 1: was really no.
Speaker 2: So you know, we were literally at a brightly lit
Speaker 2: bar in Hollywood with no booze and a bunch of
Speaker 2: us are just standing around for like forty minutes, and
Speaker 2: it actually turned out to be really fun.
Speaker 1: We had a great time.
Speaker 2: I'm all the KTLA folks that I work with, we
Speaker 2: just had a great time. Even though there was no
Speaker 2: booze flowing. We had such a good time, and so
Speaker 2: it was a lot more fun than I thought it
Speaker 2: would be, and we didn't want it to end. In fact,
Speaker 2: we had a nice Thanksgiving dinner at this restaurant called
Speaker 2: Gwen in Hollywood.
Speaker 1: Curtis Stone is a big celebrity chef. He hosted us.
Speaker 2: But anyway, the reason I tell you this is because
Speaker 2: it was a given that everyone around the dinner table
Speaker 2: was taking pictures on their iPhone and they're like, oh, let
Speaker 2: me just air drop you those. And I will talk
Speaker 2: about how Apple is sort of bridging the gap between
Speaker 2: iPhone and Android in the next segment. But it's just
Speaker 2: it's still sad to me that people just use these
Speaker 2: proprietary eponyms like let me just air drop you, like
Speaker 2: everyone in the world has air drop and has that
Speaker 2: make someone feel that has a Samsung or a Pixel?
Speaker 1: Not very good.
Speaker 2: So again, number one, don't assume people have it, especially
Speaker 2: as the holidays come up. I know you're going to
Speaker 2: be exchanging pictures with folks, so let me just go
Speaker 2: over the three ways to share pictures. It's not just
Speaker 2: air rap, so you can say, let me send you
Speaker 2: those pictures.
Speaker 1: What do you have? Do you have an Android? Do
Speaker 1: you have a Samsung? Do you have a Pixel?
Speaker 2: So on iPhone, obviously it's air drop and you'd be
Speaker 2: surprised how many people don't know how to activate this.
Speaker 2: You swipe from the upper right hand corner that will
Speaker 2: bring up control panel. Then you tap, just tap like
Speaker 2: a press and hold on like the Bluetooth icon, that
Speaker 2: will bring up a menu that says air drop. You
Speaker 2: press and hold on that and it says everyone for
Speaker 2: ten minutes, and that will enable you to share stuff
Speaker 2: with everyone that has an iPhone for the next ten minutes. Now,
Speaker 2: if you're on Google, they have something on Android for
Speaker 2: all Android phones called Nearby Share, and this is really handy.
Speaker 2: So if you go into Settings Google Nearby Share, you
Speaker 2: can turn it on, set it up, name your phone,
Speaker 2: all that good stuff. But then when you want to
Speaker 2: share something, just use the share menu and look for
Speaker 2: nearby Share and that will share it with other Android
Speaker 2: users and they will be able to accept that as well.
Speaker 2: They might have to toggle this on in their quick settings,
Speaker 2: but it's very simple and it's basically Android's version of
Speaker 2: air Drop.
Speaker 1: Now, if you're on.
Speaker 2: Samsung, they have a really cool feature that is called
Speaker 2: quick Share, and this is a feature that actually works
Speaker 2: with both iPhones and other Androids. And so you go
Speaker 2: into the gallery okay, and you press share and you'll
Speaker 2: see something called quick Share and you can share with
Speaker 2: other Samsung devices. But what's neat about this is that
Speaker 2: there is a little icon with a QR code. You
Speaker 2: can hit that and it will generate a QR code
Speaker 2: that the other phone, no matter what phone they have,
Speaker 2: can scan, and that QR code will easily have your
Speaker 2: photos and videos that you want to share in that
Speaker 2: link and so anyone can download those.
Speaker 1: That is a very simple way to share stuff.
Speaker 2: I know people get a bad rap for having an iPhone, Android, iPhone, Samsung,
Speaker 2: Samsung whatever.
Speaker 1: So that is three super simple ways.
Speaker 2: To share your photos and videos this holiday season that
Speaker 2: does not require airdrop or iPhone to iPhone.
Speaker 1: All right, coming up, what the heck happened to Open AI?
Speaker 2: We'll talk about that plus your calls at Triple eight
Speaker 2: rich one O one. That's eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 2: to two four one zero one. This is rich on Tech.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging
Speaker 2: out with you, talking technology at triple eight rich one
Speaker 2: oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two
Speaker 2: four one zero one. You can follow me on social media.
Speaker 2: I'm at rich on Tech on Instagram, Facebook and threads.
Speaker 2: And if you want to link to something I mentioned
Speaker 2: on the show, you can go to richon Tech dot
Speaker 2: tv slash wiki. Let's kick things off this hour with
Speaker 2: Morris in studio City Morris, you're on with Rich Yeah,
Speaker 2: good morning.
Speaker 4: I have a situation here. I have a one target drive.
Speaker 5: CD burner and uh, I'm burning making copies of CDs
Speaker 5: and they're skipping. They're skipping on the from the drive mechanism.
Speaker 5: Is it I'm burningham too fast? Should I slow the
Speaker 5: speed down? I don't know what to do about it?
Speaker 1: What? What kind of CDs? Are these? Just standard like
Speaker 1: audio scenes.
Speaker 4: Standard the music CDs and but the CD burner I
Speaker 4: have also burns Blue Ay disc and DVD also okay,
Speaker 4: but I'm not burning Blue Ay Disc or DVD right now,
Speaker 4: just standard CDs and make them duplicates. But they're skippy, okay?
Speaker 1: And are they skipping when you play them?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Okay, so when you play them they skip? Okay.
Speaker 2: So it's been a while since I have since I
Speaker 2: have duplicated a CD. I mean, I'm talking it's got
Speaker 2: to be ten years at this point, maybe eight nine,
Speaker 2: ten years. But I think a couple of things could
Speaker 2: be playing could be at play here. So number one,
Speaker 2: the CDs themselves could be damaged, so they could be scratched.
Speaker 2: I mean, CDs have been out for a while, so
Speaker 2: these CDs. Your source CDs could be scratched, they could
Speaker 2: have dust, they could have dirt on them, they could
Speaker 2: just be deteriorated because they're kind of old. So maybe
Speaker 2: that's that's one problem. I think the second side of
Speaker 2: this is maybe the software and or the hardware. So maybe,
Speaker 2: like you said, you can try doing a slower duplication
Speaker 2: because I know back in the day these DVD drives
Speaker 2: and they used to have like one x two x,
Speaker 2: four x eight x, So it might be that your
Speaker 2: computer can't handle the higher speed duplication, so maybe try
Speaker 2: lowering down.
Speaker 1: I would assume you've tried that.
Speaker 2: The other part is really the software, so make sure
Speaker 2: all of your software is up to date and make
Speaker 2: sure that you are running the latest software for no
Speaker 2: matter what you're using for both the drive, the drivers
Speaker 2: for that, and also the duplication software. And just clean
Speaker 2: the CD so you know, use like maybe a microfiber
Speaker 2: cloth or something to gently wipe the CD before you
Speaker 2: do it. If it's happening with every CD that you try,
Speaker 2: I would assume it's a hardware or software issue. If
Speaker 2: it's happening with just some of the CDs that you're dupating,
Speaker 2: that I think it would be a dirt issue or
Speaker 2: an issue with the lens on the drive or something
Speaker 2: like that. But that's what I would do. That's what
Speaker 2: I would try see if that helps. And you know,
Speaker 2: it's hey, you know what, some people are still using CDs.
Speaker 2: I guess it's been a while for me, but I
Speaker 2: remember how simple they were. It's like you popped one in,
Speaker 2: it played the ten songs that were on there, and
Speaker 2: you moved on to the next thing. And I played
Speaker 2: the heck out of some of my CDs back in
Speaker 2: the day. I mean I really did. It was like
Speaker 2: it was like, man, those things. Thankfully they didn't wear
Speaker 2: out because I would have worn them out. Thanks for
Speaker 2: the call, Wars appreciate it. So this is huge, huge,
Speaker 2: huge news.
Speaker 1: In the world. Apple.
Speaker 2: Let's file this under can I say hell Hell freezes over?
Speaker 2: Because it has. Apple has announced our CS support for
Speaker 2: the iPhone coming in twenty twenty four. This means that
Speaker 2: the big vide between iPhones and Android when it comes
Speaker 2: to text messaging has been bridged. I can't believe that
Speaker 2: this is happening. It is such a surprise that Apple
Speaker 2: made this announcement. So what's gonna happen. Apple is basically
Speaker 2: bringing the standard which is called RCS Rich Communication Services
Speaker 2: to the iPhone. This is a standard that has been
Speaker 2: on Android phones for a while. It brings I message
Speaker 2: type messaging between the iPhone and Android.
Speaker 1: What does that mean?
Speaker 2: Yes, the bubbles are still gonna be green when someone
Speaker 2: texts from an Android to the iPhone, but they can
Speaker 2: now send full resolution pictures, full resolution videos, and you'll
Speaker 2: be able to see when they're typing. You'll be able
Speaker 2: to see when they've read something if you want. You'll
Speaker 2: be able to have just all the features that you
Speaker 2: would expect from modern messaging things that we have now
Speaker 2: turned to messaging apps like Telegram and WhatsApp that will
Speaker 2: now be cross platform. Now, I message is not going away.
Speaker 2: Apple still says I message is the best and most
Speaker 2: secure way to message between iPhones and that's still going
Speaker 2: to be the default. That's also end to end encrypted.
Speaker 2: So far, it does not look like the RCS messages.
Speaker 2: The text messaging between these two you know, Android iPhone
Speaker 2: is going to be end to end encrypted, but it
Speaker 2: will be encrypted to a certain level, so.
Speaker 1: It's not going to be the most secure messaging.
Speaker 2: But I think for everyday message messages, it'll still be
Speaker 2: pretty good.
Speaker 1: So why did they do this?
Speaker 2: Well, I think there's a lot of pressure on Apple
Speaker 2: right now because people are noticing that they are very
Speaker 2: proprietary with their systems, especially over in Europe, and Europe's
Speaker 2: been passing a lot of regulations. That's why we got USBC,
Speaker 2: That's why we may see a more open app store
Speaker 2: over there. But I think Apple is seeing what's happening
Speaker 2: and they're saying, you know what, We're kind of sick
Speaker 2: and tired of being the odd man out at this point.
Speaker 2: Let's just give the folks what they want, and what
Speaker 2: we want are more open systems and more cross platform systems.
Speaker 2: So this whole thing of if you have an Android
Speaker 2: and you're sort of lesser than that will no longer
Speaker 2: be the case because your messages will go through like
Speaker 2: they should, your pictures will look nice, your videos will
Speaker 2: look nice. Thank you Apple for doing this, finally getting
Speaker 2: on board with what the rest of the with the
Speaker 2: providers are doing. All right, Coming up, Julie Ramhold, consumer
Speaker 2: analyst with Deal News, gonna join us to talk Black
Speaker 2: Friday strategies. You are listening to Rich on Tech. Welcome
Speaker 2: back to Rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out
Speaker 2: talking technology with you at triple eight rich one oh
Speaker 2: one eight eight eight seven.
Speaker 1: Four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 2: I see you're already taking advantage of the website messages
Speaker 2: at richontech dot tv, so keep them coming. I'll get
Speaker 2: to a couple of those in a second, but let's
Speaker 2: bring on my guests. Julie Ramhold, consumer analyst with dealnews
Speaker 2: dot com. Julie, thanks for joining me me So deal
Speaker 2: news is one of my first stops each day. I
Speaker 2: check it each and every day. It's a great website
Speaker 2: for finding deals. Can you tell me a little bit
Speaker 2: about it? What you guys do there?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 6: So, we're kind of like a shopping comparison site, and
Speaker 6: basically we have a team full of live curators that
Speaker 6: go out online every day and sign the best deals
Speaker 6: so that we can list them on the site, and
Speaker 6: we provide a little extra context about why these deals
Speaker 6: are worth shopping. So we'll tell you that something is
Speaker 6: twenty percent off, or maybe that something's full price, but
Speaker 6: it's been out of stock all over the place, so
Speaker 6: now you can actually get whatever that item may be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is my favorite part about the website. Is
Speaker 2: that each and every post has a little bit of
Speaker 2: perspective with it. So, for instance, you've got this Black
Speaker 2: Friday headphone deals at best Buy, and it says we've
Speaker 2: pictured the Bows Quiet Comfort forty five bluetooth noise canceling
Speaker 2: headphones for one ninety nine, which is one hundred and
Speaker 2: thirty dollars off, and so or it'll I'll tell you like, hey,
Speaker 2: this is ten dollars less than we've ever seen this product.
Speaker 6: Things like that exactly, And that's really helpful, especially this
Speaker 6: time of year when you're trying to decide if the
Speaker 6: deals are worth shopping or.
Speaker 7: If you can safely wait until later.
Speaker 2: So I guess that's my number one question. I've already
Speaker 2: started sort of making my list and checking it twice,
Speaker 2: but I mean, it's coming up. So how do you
Speaker 2: think we come up with our strategy for Black Friday
Speaker 2: shopping lists?
Speaker 6: So Black Friday has kind of become this elongated season now,
Speaker 6: so I feel like if you haven't started making a
Speaker 6: list yet, you might be a little overwhelmed, just because
Speaker 6: some stores have already started their sales, some have been
Speaker 6: rolling out early Black Friday deals, so ultimately the information's
Speaker 6: kind of out there and your approach now maybe a
Speaker 6: little bit more reactive rather than proactive, but it's not
Speaker 6: too late by any means. It's just now's a good
Speaker 6: time to start browsing the ads and checking out your
Speaker 6: favorite retailers to see what kinds of deals are available.
Speaker 6: And then also that'll give you a heads up on
Speaker 6: what's coming later in the week as well.
Speaker 2: So do you guys post the actual ads or do
Speaker 2: you just post like the best parts of the ads?
Speaker 6: We go through all the ads and basically pull the
Speaker 6: offers that jump out at us as being the best
Speaker 6: that they're offering, and so we'll post those to like
Speaker 6: our store guides as well as the general site too.
Speaker 6: So we don't list the ads in their entirety, but
Speaker 6: that's probably a good thing because some of them get
Speaker 6: really really long and can be kind of convoluted. So
Speaker 6: we pull all the best parts out of the ads
Speaker 6: and put them up so that our users can have
Speaker 6: an easier time of tracking it.
Speaker 2: And I love how you list You've right now, You've
Speaker 2: got three hundred and ninety five total offers. Biggest discount
Speaker 2: ninety two percent off, average savings two hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: three dollars and fifty three cents coupon codes fifty three,
Speaker 2: and you can also filter out kind of the three
Speaker 2: hundred and ninety five Black Friday offers that you've identified.
Speaker 7: Absolutely.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we've definitely made a lot of strides in the
Speaker 6: last five years or so to make the site even
Speaker 6: more user friendly so that you can get as broad
Speaker 6: or as granular with your searches and your deal alerts
Speaker 6: that you want and spend as much time with us
Speaker 6: as you'd like to.
Speaker 2: It's so interesting to me that Black Friday used to
Speaker 2: only mean waiting in line at the store in store,
Speaker 2: and now it is kind of both. It's online and
Speaker 2: in store. Have we seen that shift in recent years?
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 6: It's definitely shifted more online in recent years because of
Speaker 6: the pandemic. I think we were already sort of seeing
Speaker 6: things like in store doorbusters disappear.
Speaker 2: I think those videos from uh Walmart, We're not going
Speaker 2: to see those this year because those are always so fun.
Speaker 6: We definitely have not seen any stories about tramplings in
Speaker 6: the last few years, at least.
Speaker 7: That I can recall.
Speaker 6: But it's true like retailers have kind of already moved
Speaker 6: away from that to some degree, and the pandemic really
Speaker 6: just accelerated that whole situation.
Speaker 7: So you basically can.
Speaker 6: Find doorbusters online now, and you have a bunch of
Speaker 6: major retailers that are closing for Thanksgiving Day, so the
Speaker 6: pressure to do at least your initial shopping in store
Speaker 6: has kind of disappeared.
Speaker 2: So you deal with this stuff on a daily basis.
Speaker 2: What do we need to know in year twenty twenty
Speaker 2: three for Black Friday?
Speaker 6: So first of all, I would say check now, because
Speaker 6: some major retailers have already started their sales. Amazon started
Speaker 6: theirs yesterday, Best Buys started theirs yesterday.
Speaker 7: Targets is due.
Speaker 6: To start tomorrow, Walmart's will start on the twenty second,
Speaker 6: So if you haven't started looking at the big eaes yet,
Speaker 6: it's a good time to do so, just to get
Speaker 6: an idea of what's coming. But also know that most
Speaker 6: stores are probably gonna be closed on Thanksgiving Day, and
Speaker 6: so that doesn't mean you have to wait until Black
Speaker 6: Friday to do your shopping. The sales will start online
Speaker 6: if they haven't started already, so be sure to carve
Speaker 6: out some time in between carving the Turkey to take
Speaker 6: a look at what's online and take advantage of any
Speaker 6: early deals online that you can so that you can
Speaker 6: kind of avoid the chaos that can.
Speaker 7: Come with Black Friday shopping.
Speaker 2: Where are we seeing the biggest discounts? Is it across
Speaker 2: the board? Is it on electronics? Is it on TVs?
Speaker 1: I heard laptops are going to be pretty hot this
Speaker 1: year with the discounts.
Speaker 6: Laptops are definitely seeing good deals. I will say one
Speaker 6: thing that really stood out to me about TVs this
Speaker 6: year is it's become apparent how much more affordable they are.
Speaker 6: So a few years ago, I know that we were
Speaker 6: all really excited to see like a seventy five inch
Speaker 6: name brand TV for six hundred dollars or so, and
Speaker 6: that's kind of become a mainstay thing for Black Friday
Speaker 6: since then. But it's not six hundred dollars anymore. It's,
Speaker 6: you know, five hundred eighty dollars, five hundred and fifty dollars,
Speaker 6: depending on where you're shopping and what brand you're looking at.
Speaker 6: So in general, TVs have gotten so affordable that you
Speaker 6: should be able to find something on Black Friday that
Speaker 6: fits any budget. But if you don't, you can also
Speaker 6: shop at other times of year. So check back again
Speaker 6: in January if you don't see a TV that fits
Speaker 6: all of the boxes that you want. But the truth
Speaker 6: is that there's so many on sale, and it's so
Speaker 6: many different price points. I would be surprised if you
Speaker 6: can't find something to fit your budget.
Speaker 2: What about getting taken because this is an easy time
Speaker 2: to see a deal that's too good to be true.
Speaker 2: You do a search on Google, it comes up with
Speaker 2: the price, it's some retailer you've never heard of. You
Speaker 2: end up pressing by and next thing you know, it's
Speaker 2: not what you expected or I don't know.
Speaker 1: Does that happen these days? And how do you avoid
Speaker 1: that it does?
Speaker 6: And I generally say that it's best to kind of
Speaker 6: make a list of stores that you know you want
Speaker 6: a shop for Black Friday, or the ones that you're
Speaker 6: comfortable with visiting if you need to. So maybe you
Speaker 6: want to do all of your shopping at Target, but
Speaker 6: they sell out of an iPad or something. Rather than
Speaker 6: rely on this potentially shady business online that you've never
Speaker 6: heard of, be ready to go to Walmart and best
Speaker 6: Buy and even check warehouse clubs if you're a member
Speaker 6: of like Costco or Sam's Club or BJ's Wholesale. Just
Speaker 6: because they may not officially price match, but a lot
Speaker 6: of retailers essentially will charge the same prices for the
Speaker 6: really popular items this time of year.
Speaker 7: So if it does sell out at one.
Speaker 6: Place, you absolutely should be able to find it at
Speaker 6: another reputable retailer without having to go online and do
Speaker 6: some heavy hunting.
Speaker 2: I've heard that a lot of these retailers, if it
Speaker 2: says Black Friday deal, they won't price match. So can
Speaker 2: you touch upon the return, exchange and price match policies
Speaker 2: we should know about.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So in general, I say that if you're shopping
Speaker 6: for Black Friday, it's a safe bet to just assume
Speaker 6: that there will be no official price matching. Like I
Speaker 6: said before, that doesn't mean you won't be able to
Speaker 6: find the same prices elsewhere. But if you see something
Speaker 6: at Target and Walmart is closer, and you try to
Speaker 6: get Walmart to price match for Black Friday.
Speaker 7: That's not going to happen.
Speaker 6: So instead of taking that step, what I encourage people
Speaker 6: to do is look at what holiday price guarantees some
Speaker 6: retailers are putting into place. So, for instance, Target has
Speaker 6: its holiday price guarantee that started on October twenty second,
Speaker 6: and essentially anything you buy at Target.
Speaker 7: Okay, I shouldn't say anything.
Speaker 6: Most things you buy at Target from October twenty second
Speaker 6: through December twenty fourth will fall under this guarantee. So
Speaker 6: if you bought them at Target and then they drop
Speaker 6: in price before December twenty fourth, you should be able
Speaker 6: to get a price adjustment. There's going to be some exclusions,
Speaker 6: of course, but for the most part, you should be
Speaker 6: able to safely pick up these items now, even if
Speaker 6: they have Black Friday Deal on them or whatever, and
Speaker 6: know that you're getting a good price, especially because I
Speaker 6: don't think Target wants its associates to be doing a
Speaker 6: lot of price adjustments later on.
Speaker 7: So the author kind of good that if you see.
Speaker 6: Something labeled a Black Friday Deal at Target, that's probably
Speaker 6: the lowest price on that item you're going to see
Speaker 6: this season.
Speaker 2: All right, I've got about thirty seconds left. Should this
Speaker 2: be fun? Is this a fun time of year or
Speaker 2: is it super stressful for the shopping I think it.
Speaker 7: Should be fun.
Speaker 6: I say to you, all your shopping online, and if
Speaker 6: you want your item sooner, opt for in store pickup,
Speaker 6: and then that makes the whole thing significantly less stressful
Speaker 6: in my book.
Speaker 2: All Right, Julie Ramhold, consumer analyst with dealnews dot com.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for joining me today. I really like
Speaker 2: the website. Any any feature on the website people should
Speaker 2: look for first, just click that big banner that says
Speaker 2: Black Friday.
Speaker 1: Huh, I would.
Speaker 7: Say, click that big banner and check out all the
Speaker 7: Black Friday deals.
Speaker 1: All right, thanks so much for joining me today. Appreciate it.
Speaker 7: Thanks for having me, all right.
Speaker 2: More of your calls at triple eight rich one O
Speaker 2: one eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 2: zero one. My name is Rich d'miro and you are
Speaker 2: listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 2: Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology at
Speaker 2: triple eight rich one on one.
Speaker 1: That's eight eight eight.
Speaker 2: Seven four to two four one zero one website rich
Speaker 2: on Tech dot TV. I got a message from Jen
Speaker 2: She said, what the heck? Whose side are you on, Rich,
Speaker 2: The wealthy companies, not the people who are forced to
Speaker 2: pay subscriptions. Of course, we should know how much per
Speaker 2: item view we're paying, and then we can make an
Speaker 2: informed choice or continue or not.
Speaker 1: Very strange. Yeah, I was kind of joking.
Speaker 2: I mean, Louck companies could do whatever they want, but
Speaker 2: I just thought it's funny. I think it's funny when
Speaker 2: they send something that I think the reality is they're
Speaker 2: trying to show you the value you're getting out of
Speaker 2: your subscription, and in some cases like mine, you realize
Speaker 2: just how bad of a value it is. So it's
Speaker 2: kind of tongue in cheek. Jen, thank you for listening,
Speaker 2: Thanks for the feedback.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: But you know, sometimes I kind of you know, you
Speaker 2: have to have a lighthearted sense of humor. Here, Bob
Speaker 2: from Oral Valley, Arizona, you're on with Rich.
Speaker 3: Hi.
Speaker 8: Rich, I have a question the Higher App. I've got
Speaker 8: everything enabled, everything blocking. Every few weeks, I get one
Speaker 8: call after the other, maybe twenty or thirty calls within
Speaker 8: a minute from a Chevrolet dealer in California. So I
Speaker 8: don't want to mention them because they might legitimate. Well
Speaker 8: they can't leave a message, but it's annoying. It's just
Speaker 8: I can see all the numbers of the calls on
Speaker 8: the Higher App. So is there any way to even
Speaker 8: block those or just let them come through? And what's
Speaker 8: the reason for that same number coming through every few
Speaker 8: weeks twenty or thirty calls at a time.
Speaker 1: Well, do you have a car that they're trying to repossess.
Speaker 8: Well, it's funny, you know. It's funny because the day
Speaker 8: after I get those messages, I get a message saying, hey,
Speaker 8: it's not my name. They say, hey, Johnny, are you
Speaker 8: ready for a car alone? So I just send that
Speaker 8: to I think it's seven seven two six When that's
Speaker 8: reported as a spam.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think that. I think that it
Speaker 2: could be. So it's the same number every time that's
Speaker 2: calling you, same.
Speaker 8: Number as the Chevrolet dealer in California, and I checked it.
Speaker 8: Although that number for this Chevrolet DIY it'll looks different
Speaker 8: than this one. It has their name. So I don't
Speaker 8: know how they got my number and why they just
Speaker 8: send twenty sometimes it's you know, thirty calls at a time,
Speaker 8: just an a loop.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's that's weird. I mean, I don't think the
Speaker 2: dealership would be calling like that unless.
Speaker 1: It is I think so, unless it is a case.
Speaker 2: Of mistake and identity and they are trying to reclaim
Speaker 2: a car or something, and that could be you know,
Speaker 2: they could just have your number popped in for someone
Speaker 2: that they're trying to reach.
Speaker 1: I have gotten those calls in the past. Are you
Speaker 1: on an iPhone or Android iPhone?
Speaker 2: Okay, So I think even though you're using this high app,
Speaker 2: if it's coming from the same number every time, I
Speaker 2: would just recommend using iPhones built in ability to block
Speaker 2: a number. And so what I would do is go
Speaker 2: into your recence, tap the little I that is next
Speaker 2: to the phone number, and then scroll all the way
Speaker 2: down and it says block this caller. And once you
Speaker 2: block that caller, they will not be able to I
Speaker 2: believe they It won't even ring your phone once it's blocked.
Speaker 2: It's just not going to come through. So again, go
Speaker 2: into your dialer app, tap the recens find this phone number,
Speaker 2: tap the I next to it, and then tap block
Speaker 2: this caller, and that should do it. There are similar
Speaker 2: ways of doing that on both the Samsung devices and
Speaker 2: the Pixel devices. So again it's the difference between using Hya,
Speaker 2: which you're using a third party call screening app, and
Speaker 2: using the built in kind of dialer on the phone
Speaker 2: to just take care of that call before it even
Speaker 2: reaches anything. So that's what I would do, and I
Speaker 2: think that should take care of it. Otherwise on the
Speaker 2: High app when and just in general with these spam calls.
Speaker 2: My recommendation is number one, generally, don't pick them up.
Speaker 2: So you don't want to pick them up, because when
Speaker 2: you pick them up sometimes it will register your number
Speaker 2: as a live number, so they just dial a whole
Speaker 2: bunch of numbers and if they see that someone picks
Speaker 2: up that number, they're like, oh, we got a good one,
Speaker 2: and they may try to call that number again. So
Speaker 2: that's generally what I would try to do is avoid
Speaker 2: picking up these spam calls at any rate. But for you,
Speaker 2: I think getting this number over and over and over,
Speaker 2: just go ahead and use your phone dialer to block
Speaker 2: that message. Let's go to Jim in Hysperia, California. Jim,
Speaker 2: you're on with Rich.
Speaker 9: I ain't Rich.
Speaker 10: How are you doing?
Speaker 1: I am doing great, good good.
Speaker 11: I have a question.
Speaker 10: I ask some speakers from Nests Well that's actually Google.
Speaker 10: You know, they're called the Nest Audio Speakers.
Speaker 12: You know.
Speaker 10: I bought them from the Google Store.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's like a it's like two speakers basically, they're like
Speaker 2: different colors.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 10: Yeah. So I have a Wi Fi Spectrum and I
Speaker 10: have a six E. It's one of the updated routers,
Speaker 10: and it's a it's called the six E router.
Speaker 1: That's the slatest.
Speaker 10: Yeah, so every time that I connect the speaker, it
Speaker 10: goes all the way through it and it catches it
Speaker 10: and it connects.
Speaker 11: But then.
Speaker 10: That it does something about an ap isolation where it
Speaker 10: has to be enabled or disabled called and I've called
Speaker 10: the spectrum and they've they've said, you know.
Speaker 1: Uh, you know, they can't help.
Speaker 10: You can't do that or something.
Speaker 1: So on your router.
Speaker 2: So ap isolation is basically a way to ensure that
Speaker 2: the items on your network are sort of isolated, almost
Speaker 2: like sandbox from other items, so that way they can't
Speaker 2: ruin things on your network. They can only access certain resources.
Speaker 2: So I think what's happening is it sounds like if
Speaker 2: it's giving you that message, either a you're connecting to
Speaker 2: a guest network on your router, which I don't think
Speaker 2: you would be doing, but if you are, that could
Speaker 2: be the number one thing is switched to the standard network,
Speaker 2: not the guest network. But if you're on the regular
Speaker 2: network and you're still getting this error message, I would
Speaker 2: go into your router settings and see if you can
Speaker 2: turn off the AP isolation. And there could be different
Speaker 2: names for this. It could be wireless isolation, client isolation,
Speaker 2: any of those settings. Just look for that and toggle
Speaker 2: that off. So the way to find your settings for
Speaker 2: any router, they're typically printed on the bottom, and so
Speaker 2: you flip your router over and that's the box that
Speaker 2: the cable company gives you. Printed on the bottom of
Speaker 2: that is usually an address. It usually starts with like
Speaker 2: so it's like one nine eight one six eight something
Speaker 2: like that. You type that into your web browser. That
Speaker 2: will bring you to the settings on your router. And
Speaker 2: usually there is a log in username and a password
Speaker 2: that is from the factory printed on the bottom of
Speaker 2: your router. So once you log in there, you can
Speaker 2: look for your settings and look for that AP isolation.
Speaker 2: It may take a little bit for you to find it.
Speaker 2: You have to go through all the Wi Fi settings
Speaker 2: and be careful because you don't want to change a
Speaker 2: lot of stuff because these things come from the factory.
Speaker 2: If you don't know what you're doing, it could be
Speaker 2: detrimental to your wireless setup. Now, if you mess something
Speaker 2: up and it's totally not working, there's usually a little
Speaker 2: push button on the bottom of your router that you
Speaker 2: can press and hold for like twenty or thirty seconds
Speaker 2: and it will put everything back to normal factory settings.
Speaker 2: So if worst comes to worse you mess something up,
Speaker 2: you can do that. But I would look into your
Speaker 2: settings and see if you can do that, and once
Speaker 2: you turn off this ap isolation, then hopefully these speakers
Speaker 2: can be able to get onto your network properly and
Speaker 2: talk to each other. The other thing I would do
Speaker 2: is just make sure the software on these speakers is
Speaker 2: up to date because these have been around for a while.
Speaker 2: But the problem is you may not be able to
Speaker 2: update them unless you get them on the network, so
Speaker 2: it could be a game of chicken and egg here.
Speaker 2: So good question, Jim, Thanks for the call today. Triple
Speaker 2: A rich one O one eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 2: to two four one zero one. This is rich on Tech.
Speaker 2: Welcome to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out
Speaker 2: with you, talking technology at Triple eight rich one on one.
Speaker 2: That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 2: zero one. You can find what I talk about on
Speaker 2: the website rich on tech dot tv. If you want
Speaker 2: to see what I talk about in real time, go
Speaker 2: to rich on tech dot tv slash wiki wiki. All
Speaker 2: the show notes are updated in real time. So if
Speaker 2: I mentioned something and there's a link that you want
Speaker 2: to get, you can get it right from there.
Speaker 1: The show was available as a podcast as well.
Speaker 2: Just go to rich on tech dot tv to subscribe,
Speaker 2: or just search rich on tech in your favorite podcast app.
Speaker 2: Of course, you can always listen to it right here
Speaker 2: and live, which is always the best way and the
Speaker 2: most fun. If you're listening to the podcast, by the way,
Speaker 2: do me a favor, rate and review it. That way
Speaker 2: more people will discover it, and that way we can
Speaker 2: be around here longer. So it's always a nice thing
Speaker 2: when people do that. Triple eight rich one on one
Speaker 2: eight eight eight seven four to two, four to one
Speaker 2: zero one big, big, big surprise change at open ai.
Speaker 2: This is wild. Now we know that ai is changing
Speaker 2: things day by day, but little do we know behind
Speaker 2: the scenes of open ai there were some issues. Sam Altman,
Speaker 2: CEO of open Ai, is gone. They booted him out
Speaker 2: the board of directors. Why they said, based on a
Speaker 2: review process they found he was not consistently candid in
Speaker 2: his communit locations with the board, which hindered their ability
Speaker 2: to fulfill their responsibilities. What does that mean? What's that crypticness?
Speaker 2: We don't know.
Speaker 1: All we know is that the board did not like
Speaker 1: what this guy was doing.
Speaker 2: This is the guy who invented chat GPT, the thing
Speaker 2: that has single handedly changed the world in the last year,
Speaker 2: and now he has moved on. Now he did tweet
Speaker 2: x whatever you want to talk about and he said, look,
Speaker 2: something's next.
Speaker 1: But this was not of his own doing.
Speaker 2: And it's very odd for a company that is yeah,
Speaker 2: they've been around for a bit, but just with their
Speaker 2: public product of chat GBT, that's only been around for
Speaker 2: about eleven months now or I guess almost a year.
Speaker 2: And by the way, they just did their developer day
Speaker 2: last week, which means this guy was on stage talking
Speaker 2: about how great this company is and all the great
Speaker 2: things that are coming.
Speaker 1: So he did not see this coming.
Speaker 2: He should have asked chat GBT, what's my future because
Speaker 2: he would have found out. Maybe maybe chat GBT knew
Speaker 2: before he did.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: So we don't know what's gonna happen.
Speaker 2: We don't know what this means for the quality or
Speaker 2: future of chat GBT, or if they had something like
Speaker 2: you know this, Uh, maybe they had like some humanoid
Speaker 2: that they were building that he was secretly hiding in
Speaker 2: like a you know, like one of those like alien tanks,
Speaker 2: Like maybe he had one of those in the office
Speaker 2: and they found it and they're just like, Okay, you
Speaker 2: gotta go, dude, this is getting weird. Chat GBT is
Speaker 2: getting too human. Anyway, I joke that is a joke, Jen,
Speaker 2: don't email me.
Speaker 1: Just kidding.
Speaker 2: Anyway, So we'll see what happens with chat GBT. But
Speaker 2: this was a big, big surprise. And I usually don't
Speaker 2: talk about, you know, employee changes on this show because
Speaker 2: that's not really consumer focused. But it's just very odd
Speaker 2: and it is definitely the story that is getting the
Speaker 2: most discussion I think I've ever seen on a tech
Speaker 2: story in recent years, because it is just wild for
Speaker 2: this guy to start such a transformative product and be
Speaker 2: booted from his own company.
Speaker 1: Let's go to Jack in Anaheim. Jack, you're on with Rich.
Speaker 12: Hi.
Speaker 11: Rich, I have a primary question, but then when you
Speaker 11: talked about chat g TP, I have a second follow up question.
Speaker 11: My first question is very simple. I was looking at
Speaker 11: some property on Zillo and the picture comes up in
Speaker 11: it's it's blurred or digitally sneered out, and I noticed
Speaker 11: when I went to Google the same thing. Is there
Speaker 11: that the house, the front of the house or the
Speaker 11: front of the property is is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's blurred. Yep.
Speaker 11: How would I do that for my property? That properties
Speaker 11: that I own?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can do this pretty easily. I actually did
Speaker 2: this for Zillo a couple of weeks ago, and I
Speaker 2: couldn't believe how fast they did it. So when I
Speaker 2: bought my house, all the pictures were on there, and
Speaker 2: even though I edited. I claimed my house and I
Speaker 2: edited and I said take these pictures off, they still
Speaker 2: just remain there like they just every time I said
Speaker 2: edit and remove photos, they still were there. And I'm
Speaker 2: not talking about the exterior. I'm talking about the interior.
Speaker 2: I was like, you know, you could just see in
Speaker 2: detail every single room of my home. And so I
Speaker 2: was like, eh, I don't really need that, Like why
Speaker 2: do I want people to take a tour of my house?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: And so I emailed Zillo and I just sent them
Speaker 2: my link to you know, the house, and they literally,
Speaker 2: within I think it was like an hour, they said,
Speaker 2: all right, your pictures are gone.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I didn't blur the outside. I didn't go that far.
Speaker 2: But you can do that. So on Zillo, you have
Speaker 2: to claim your house. If you've done that, you go
Speaker 2: through that process of just going to the website sign
Speaker 2: in claim your house and I don't know what it's
Speaker 2: been a long time since I claimed it, but basically
Speaker 2: you put in your address and somehow you get to
Speaker 2: be the owner. I think they check like the property,
Speaker 2: like some little bit of info, and you confirm it
Speaker 2: with like a couple of questions, then it becomes yours.
Speaker 1: So that's the first thing you have to do.
Speaker 2: If you haven't done that, you do that, and then
Speaker 2: you can edit the facts from the owner's view. And
Speaker 2: there's a box that says hide photos displayed on your
Speaker 2: home's Zillo page and you can save those changes and
Speaker 2: those photos will be blurred out and your your photo
Speaker 2: of your exterior of your house will be blurred out.
Speaker 2: So that's the number one way to do it.
Speaker 11: But I don't want to delete the other photos of
Speaker 11: the injurior because I've done so much so I want
Speaker 11: to be able to compare that when if I sell. Well,
Speaker 11: I like those photos, but I just want to blur
Speaker 11: out the front.
Speaker 2: Well, there are different there's you can there's options for
Speaker 2: the different photos, so you would just blur the photos
Speaker 2: from the outside, so you're doing the opsode what I did.
Speaker 2: Now on Google you can do the same thing on
Speaker 2: Google Maps. And on Google Maps you can. I'm looking
Speaker 2: at the directions here, let's see, so you've got to go.
Speaker 2: I don't have the actual directions on how to do it,
Speaker 2: but there is a way to do it.
Speaker 11: Yeah, you did great. That's all I need is I
Speaker 11: need a a sign pointing me the right direction. You've
Speaker 11: done that answer quick question.
Speaker 1: But hold on.
Speaker 2: Here's here's here's the main thing I want other people
Speaker 2: to know about. About the whole Google Maps and blurring
Speaker 2: out your house. You can never get it back once
Speaker 2: it's blow or it does.
Speaker 1: Not come back. So okay, you just need to know that.
Speaker 2: And the way you do it is actually you go
Speaker 2: to street View, you go to your house and there's
Speaker 2: report a problem, and then you can, you know, go
Speaker 2: through the steps and you can say my house request blurring.
Speaker 2: I didn't go that far because you know, I just
Speaker 2: I once I got to think about that, because once
Speaker 2: you do it, it's it's gone. And I have been
Speaker 2: on street View and I've seen some of that stuff.
Speaker 2: So I'll put those links on the show notes. But
Speaker 2: what's the second question.
Speaker 11: You just were talking about artificial intelligence, and I went
Speaker 11: on about two weeks ago to chat GPT or whatever
Speaker 11: it is, and I needed to ask you. They want
Speaker 11: so much information for me to upload it or access it,
Speaker 11: and I there was also actually like pictures of you know,
Speaker 11: black background with white letters, okay, like copy and paste
Speaker 11: to get it to work, okay, And it just seemed
Speaker 11: like to INVASI to me, is that How is that
Speaker 11: how I would sign up to use it?
Speaker 2: I don't think so, because I signed up in one click.
Speaker 2: So I think you're on either a third party site
Speaker 2: that is trying to hijack the chat GBT name.
Speaker 1: But the only.
Speaker 2: Website to access chat GBT, and it's free, by the way,
Speaker 2: is chat dot OpenAI dot com. So Jack, if you
Speaker 2: weren't going to that website, I would go to that website.
Speaker 2: I signed up. I rarely do this, but I did
Speaker 2: sign up. I signed in using my Google account, so
Speaker 2: I just signed in with Google. It gives you the
Speaker 2: option of signing in with a couple of different ways,
Speaker 2: but I just did that. Now, I did say, let
Speaker 2: me see if I see sign up. Okay, Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: just you know, ask you for email address. I do
Speaker 2: think you have to confirm your phone number though, for sure,
Speaker 2: because you know, they want to keep this from being abused,
Speaker 2: so you know. But you can also use Google, Microsoft
Speaker 2: or Apple to log in as well. I don't typically
Speaker 2: recommend that, but for trusted websites like an open ai,
Speaker 2: I think that's fine. But I would check out chat
Speaker 2: dot OpenAI dot com. That is the official website. They
Speaker 2: also have an app for the iPhone and for Android.
Speaker 2: But keep in mind there are a lot of what
Speaker 2: I call kling on apps. These are third party apps
Speaker 2: that are using the Chat GBT name, and you just
Speaker 2: have to be careful. And it gets a little confusing
Speaker 2: because here's the thing. Many products use GPT for or
Speaker 2: GPT that is a product from CHATGBT, and companies have
Speaker 2: the option of using chatgpt's technology to build their own
Speaker 2: AI products, and so it gets very confusing because yes,
Speaker 2: a product like Notion or a product like Everno or
Speaker 2: any app that you download nowadays, it says, hey we
Speaker 2: have AI and it's usually a GPT and usually on
Speaker 2: the back end it is being powered by OpenAI's GPT technology.
Speaker 2: But the official CHATGPT lives at chat dot OpenAI dot com.
Speaker 2: That is the website you want to go to and
Speaker 2: I actually have been using chat GBT more. I was
Speaker 2: using Claude by Anthropic, but with this latest I pay
Speaker 2: for the twenty dollars a month for chat gbt the premium,
Speaker 2: and it is just quite incredible what it can do.
Speaker 2: If you want to see an example, I actually posted
Speaker 2: a picture today on my Instagram uh and my stories
Speaker 2: at rich on Tech, and I ask people if they're
Speaker 2: watching the USC or UCLA game, and the picture I
Speaker 2: have on there is actually AI generated. It is just
Speaker 2: wild what this thing can do. All right, great questions, Jack,
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for the call today at Triple eight
Speaker 2: rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to
Speaker 2: two four one zero one. This hour, we've got Edgar Dwarski,
Speaker 2: founder of Consumer World, coming up, plus more of your
Speaker 2: questions right here on rich on Tech. Welcome back to
Speaker 2: rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you,
Speaker 2: talking technology at Triple eight rich one on one eight
Speaker 2: eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 2: Coming up this hour, we're going to talk to the
Speaker 2: founder of Consumer World, one of the websites that I
Speaker 2: visit every day, Edgar Dwarski. He's going to share top
Speaker 2: tips on how to get a deal on Black Friday. Plus,
Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you how to set up emergency
Speaker 2: services on your smartphone. Very very important. Let's go to
Speaker 2: Ken in Aurora, Colorado. Ken, you're on with rich All.
Speaker 13: Hi, thanks for taking my call. Well, I'm just calling
Speaker 13: on behalf of a friend of mine. Her relative is
Speaker 13: planning to buy her a brand new phone smartphone and
Speaker 13: then put that phone on the relative phone service company,
Speaker 13: and then the relative would then be paying that.
Speaker 1: Phone bill for her nice relative?
Speaker 13: Yeah, what's that?
Speaker 1: Nice relative?
Speaker 13: Yeah really, I've been I was a petted about that myself. However,
Speaker 13: my friend has a fairly new Moto Gen Android smartphone,
Speaker 13: and that of course has her photos and her phone
Speaker 13: list and all the apps that she enjoys. And so
Speaker 13: here's my question of instead of that relative buying a
Speaker 13: brand new phone and shipping it to it, would it
Speaker 13: be doable for my friends to ask her relative to
Speaker 13: use the I M E I numbers from the Moto
Speaker 13: g at the phone store to switch my my friend's
Speaker 13: phone service over to the relative's phone service by computer
Speaker 13: at the phone store without having without having the relative
Speaker 13: buy a brand new phone. Is that doable?
Speaker 1: Oh? You lost me? I'm confused.
Speaker 2: Okay, So so the okay, you've got you've got the
Speaker 2: Moto G phone.
Speaker 1: Is that already? Is that the old phone or the
Speaker 1: new phone?
Speaker 12: That's the old.
Speaker 13: Phone okay, once she had that at this moment.
Speaker 2: Okay, she's got that phone, and then she's she's going
Speaker 2: to get a new phone.
Speaker 13: Yeah, her, her, her, the relative wants to buy her
Speaker 13: a new phone.
Speaker 1: Okay. And the relative lives somewhere.
Speaker 13: Else correct, yeah, her relative of Oh.
Speaker 2: And the relative is going to pay for the phone,
Speaker 2: and she's going to pay for the service.
Speaker 4: Correct.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the relative should buy the phone where she lives,
Speaker 2: buy the phone, go into her carrier, activate the phone,
Speaker 2: and then ship it to the person that's going to
Speaker 2: use it.
Speaker 13: Okay, Yes, that's correct. That that that is the plan
Speaker 13: at the moment. Okay, but what but what I'm asking
Speaker 13: And to save this relative some money? Yeah, and to
Speaker 13: make it more straightforward for my friend to hang on
Speaker 13: to her her photos and her apps and the phone
Speaker 13: that that are on the old phone. Uh can uh?
Speaker 13: And my friend's relative takes the I N E I
Speaker 13: numbers from the Moto G to the phone store where
Speaker 13: she was planning on buying the new phone, and then
Speaker 13: just the employee there using those I am I numbers
Speaker 13: just uh kind of by remote controls with the phone
Speaker 13: service from the old phone.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Yeah, it's possible. It's possible.
Speaker 2: I'm a little confused, but it's one hundred percent possible
Speaker 2: that you can you can activate a phone using just
Speaker 2: the Imei numbers. That's that's pretty much how all of
Speaker 2: the carriers do it nowadays. But what's confusing is your
Speaker 2: friend has to procure the new phone. How's she getting
Speaker 2: the new phone?
Speaker 13: Okay, Well, the plan was, like you said a few
Speaker 13: months ago, the rug is going to go and buy
Speaker 13: the phone and put that phone on the relatives phone
Speaker 13: service and then then ship it to my friend. Yeah,
Speaker 13: well and but uh uh but that but there's nothing
Speaker 13: in that plan about saving my friend's photos.
Speaker 1: Well it's a friend, okay. So when that's on on
Speaker 1: the Moto G, when.
Speaker 2: The friend gets the phone, she transfers the stuff from
Speaker 2: the Moto G to the new phone. She's going to
Speaker 2: have both phones, so it'll be easy to transfer the
Speaker 2: stuff over. So it's whether the phone is activated or
Speaker 2: not doesn't really matter. I mean, it's going to be
Speaker 2: activated when she gets it. Now, if you're asking me
Speaker 2: if the if the relative, if the person that's getting
Speaker 2: this phone can go out and buy it themselves and
Speaker 2: then activate it like remotely on the other person's account,
Speaker 2: that could also be an option. And it's not that nothing.
Speaker 2: The carriers don't require a physical phone in their hand
Speaker 2: to activate it. If it's if it's being activated without
Speaker 2: a SIM card, usually it's it's being activated nowadays with
Speaker 2: an eSIM So you can do that online.
Speaker 1: You can do that on the phone.
Speaker 2: In fact, they don't want you to come into the
Speaker 2: store anymore because guess what that costs them money because
Speaker 2: they got to use one of their employees, so they
Speaker 2: would they would rather do this online. And yes, it
Speaker 2: can all be done online. But the question is, because
Speaker 2: this phone is being used by a third party that
Speaker 2: is not the person. Your your friend is not going
Speaker 2: to be able to active this phone on their own
Speaker 2: because she's not the account owner. So it may come
Speaker 2: into play where you have to put your the person
Speaker 2: who's getting this phone has to put the other person
Speaker 2: on the phone third party, and they have to get
Speaker 2: permission and be on the line to activate this phone
Speaker 2: because otherwise, you know, and I could just say, oh,
Speaker 2: I know your account number, and I can activate a
Speaker 2: bunch of lines.
Speaker 1: But that's that's how I would do it.
Speaker 2: I mean, it sounds a little complicated, but the bottom
Speaker 2: line is that your friend has this Moto G phone
Speaker 2: unless they're trading it in, which you didn't say that.
Speaker 2: Unless they're trading it in, she's still going to have
Speaker 2: that phone when the new phone arrives to her, whether
Speaker 2: your friend is sending her that phone, whether she's going
Speaker 2: out to Best Buy and purchasing that phone. But usually
Speaker 2: if you purchase a store like that, they want to
Speaker 2: activate it in the store. So your friend who is
Speaker 2: getting the phone or giving them the phone needs to
Speaker 2: buy this phone online from like an Amazon or an
Speaker 2: Apple dot com and just ship it directly to this person.
Speaker 2: And that's what I would do. When the person gets
Speaker 2: the phone, they can call their friend and you know,
Speaker 2: activate it with them on the line, call the you know,
Speaker 2: do a three way call whatever, and activate it through
Speaker 2: the cell phone company on that. But no, the phone
Speaker 2: does not necessarily need to be in the physical presence
Speaker 2: of the store to activate. Many of these activations could
Speaker 2: be done online unless the phone doesn't support an eSIM
Speaker 2: and then it would be a little bit of a problem.
Speaker 2: So Ken, thanks so much for the call. Hope they
Speaker 2: get that sorted out. But it sounds pretty straightforward. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's obviously it's easier to be in person, but these
Speaker 2: things can be done. Kids are at college all the
Speaker 2: time they get phones activated by their parents that are
Speaker 2: in different states that are still footing the bill. Because
Speaker 2: that's the best part about being in college. Your parents
Speaker 2: probably still pay for your stuff. Edgar Dwarski, founder of
Speaker 2: Consumer World, joining me next right here on rich on Tech.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here talking
Speaker 2: technology with you at Triple eight rich one on one
Speaker 2: eighty eight seven four to two four one zero one one.
Speaker 2: Another website I check on a daily basis, Consumer World. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I check a lot.
Speaker 1: Of websites on a daily basis.
Speaker 2: This is run by Edgar Dwarski, and Edgar is on
Speaker 2: the line.
Speaker 1: Edgar, thanks for joining.
Speaker 12: Me, Hi, Rich, thanks for having me on the program.
Speaker 1: Thanks for doing this.
Speaker 2: You posted about let's see ten tips to bag a
Speaker 2: Black Friday bargain. Now you've been covering this stuff for
Speaker 2: a long time. First off, just tell me about the
Speaker 2: website consumerworld dot org.
Speaker 12: Well, I started Consumer World probably back in nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 12: you know, three months after Amazon and eBay who were born.
Speaker 13: I should only.
Speaker 12: Make half their money, oh Man, or a tiny percentage
Speaker 12: of their money. It's basically consumer education website. I'm a
Speaker 12: consumer lawyer. I've worked at the AG's office in Massachusetts,
Speaker 12: and I try to teach people how to be smart
Speaker 12: with their money, don't get taken by scam. And since
Speaker 12: I'm a bargain hunter at heart, I always look for
Speaker 12: a bargain of the week and once a year I
Speaker 12: do my top tips to find Black Friday bargains. And
Speaker 12: let me tell you, it's getting harder and harder every
Speaker 12: year because of the way retailers have kind of jumped
Speaker 12: the gun.
Speaker 1: What do you mean by that?
Speaker 12: Retailers used to have Black Friday novel idea on Black
Speaker 12: Friday itself, and then they started offering deals on Thanksgiving,
Speaker 12: and then they started on Wednesday before Black Friday, and
Speaker 12: then Sunday before Black Friday. Now as soon as November
Speaker 12: rolls around, they do multiple things. I mean, for example,
Speaker 12: Walmart did part one of their Black Friday sale and
Speaker 12: it began I think on the eighth or ninth of
Speaker 12: the month, and it's already over, and those deals are
Speaker 12: not necessarily being repeated, so you don't know when to strike.
Speaker 2: Like the old days, you knew that you were getting
Speaker 2: the best on you know, Black Friday, if it was
Speaker 2: a doorbuster or whatever. Now it's just getting tougher because
Speaker 2: the time is getting longer, and so you're like, wait,
Speaker 2: do I get it?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 1: Do you think it's gonna be better closer to the holiday?
Speaker 1: So I understand that exactly.
Speaker 12: So it's very difficult to know. And this year the ads.
Speaker 12: You know, there are several websites that get the ads
Speaker 12: leaked to them so you can do your comparison, but
Speaker 12: even those were late this year. I mean, for example,
Speaker 12: home Depot and Low's still haven't put their ads out
Speaker 12: for Black Friday itself, so who knows what kind of
Speaker 12: great deals they're going to have then.
Speaker 2: Well, so your first tip is to read the ads.
Speaker 2: And so, like you said, it could be tough to
Speaker 2: get some of these, but to look at the ads
Speaker 2: that's obviously number one.
Speaker 12: Then look at the ads. Go to Blackfriday dot gottadal
Speaker 12: dot com. Most of the ads are there, so you
Speaker 12: can kind of let your fingers do the walking and
Speaker 12: begin to write down model numbers of ones that you're
Speaker 12: interested in, and then you say to valuate the deals, right,
Speaker 12: you know, getting getting a good price on allows your
Speaker 12: product is no bargain. So there are TV's galore, you know,
Speaker 12: go to I happen to Like r things dot com,
Speaker 12: r T I n G s dot com. I'm sure
Speaker 12: you've recommended to your listeners other places to check reviews
Speaker 12: and see is this really a good TV or not?
Speaker 12: And the same thing with other products, you know, go
Speaker 12: to consumer reports, read reviews, you know on Amazon and
Speaker 12: best Buy and Target. They want to be educated and
Speaker 12: not just be lured by, you know, forty percent off
Speaker 12: fifty percent off list price when no one ever pays
Speaker 12: the list price.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the website that has the funny name camelcammelcammel
Speaker 2: dot com. That's a great one for Amazon because you
Speaker 2: can pop in a ur L and you know, a
Speaker 2: product and you know, let's say Amazon is selling something
Speaker 2: for you know, eighty dollars. You can look at the
Speaker 2: price history. How has it been eighty dollars seventeen times
Speaker 2: this year? Or is this the lowest price it's ever been?
Speaker 2: And so that's a really good way to do it.
Speaker 12: Oh, absolutely, that was That was my third tip because
Speaker 12: most of us don't track product prices all year, so
Speaker 12: how do you know if what they're advertising really is
Speaker 12: a good deal or not. And as you say, you know,
Speaker 12: look at Camel, Camel Camel, see what the price history
Speaker 12: was at least at Amazon and some of the third
Speaker 12: party sellers.
Speaker 1: What's this triple play you're talking about?
Speaker 12: This is mostly at JC, Penny and Coal's. The idea
Speaker 12: is to maximize your savings. Look for great deals. To
Speaker 12: start with, is there a coupon so you can get
Speaker 12: an extra twenty percent off or five dollars off a
Speaker 12: twenty five dollars purchase, and then see if there's a rebate.
Speaker 12: So if you get all three, even though it's technically
Speaker 12: a triple play, I think that's a home run.
Speaker 2: Now, what about these you say to you know, the
Speaker 2: early bird gets the lacklustered doorbusters, and then you say
Speaker 2: to beat the early birds.
Speaker 1: What do you mean by that.
Speaker 12: Well, basically you need to be early. These are limited
Speaker 12: quantity deals, particularly on the better bargains, and sometimes you know,
Speaker 12: some places like Walmart, for example, puts the items online
Speaker 12: prior to it being available in the store, and you know,
Speaker 12: there's not unlimited quantities. You're not going to be able
Speaker 12: to get a rain check, so you got to be early,
Speaker 12: whether it's going online to get it as soon as
Speaker 12: the sale begins or going to the store when the
Speaker 12: door's open. I tell you, I miss the days that
Speaker 12: you have to get up at four in the morning
Speaker 12: and go out to Cohl's or Staples for a five
Speaker 12: am or six am opening.
Speaker 2: And I did that many many times in my earlier
Speaker 2: years because it was so fun. It was almost like
Speaker 2: you had this camaraderie with folks that were standing out there.
Speaker 12: Because absolutely you bonded with the other crazy people like
Speaker 12: you exactly and the doors open and to be this
Speaker 12: mad dash, all that's gone. As I said at the top,
Speaker 12: retailers have taken the fun out of Black Friday by
Speaker 12: stretching it out all month.
Speaker 1: Any other tip that you want to mention.
Speaker 12: Just, you know, get a gift receipt if you're going
Speaker 12: to give the thing as a present. And one of
Speaker 12: my big tips be sure you keep checking prices just
Speaker 12: because you think you've you know, filled most of the
Speaker 12: items on your shopping list. The shopping in comparison pricing
Speaker 12: doesn't end. There many stores have price match guarantees, So
Speaker 12: keep looking at the ads, and if there's a better
Speaker 12: price before the period runs out at the particular retail,
Speaker 12: go back to the store and get back the difference,
Speaker 12: and if they balk at it, return it and then
Speaker 12: repurchase it.
Speaker 1: There you go.
Speaker 2: Do you think people are getting scammed more now or
Speaker 2: back when you started? Consumer World?
Speaker 12: In general? I just think scams are far more prevalent.
Speaker 12: I mean, in nineteen ninety five, the internet was very new,
Speaker 12: you know, so we're talking about so many years later.
Speaker 12: I think scammed, particularly around the holidays. Just be careful,
Speaker 12: don't click on links, and I'm sure you've taught your
Speaker 12: listeners hover over the links, see where it's really going.
Speaker 2: My favorite the stuff, my favorite thing that you post,
Speaker 2: by the way, is the shrink flation stuff, because I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm not kidding, every product that I remember from you know,
Speaker 2: my childhood or whatever, it's all just smaller. Everything's just tinier.
Speaker 2: But it's like the same price, if not more, right.
Speaker 12: And if you don't pay attention to the net weight
Speaker 12: or the net count and size of sheets on paper
Speaker 12: towels and toilet paper, you're really getting less for your money.
Speaker 12: It's a sneaky way to pass on a price increase.
Speaker 1: All right, we're going to leave it there.
Speaker 2: Edgar Dwarski, founder of Consumerworld dot org.
Speaker 1: Check out his website.
Speaker 2: It is definitely a great a great stop each and
Speaker 2: every day to kind of see what the world is,
Speaker 2: what the world needs to know about shopping and deals
Speaker 2: and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's fine, I'll take I do it every day,
Speaker 2: but you know, but for yeah, once a week is great.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining me today.
Speaker 12: Thanks.
Speaker 2: Ch All right, let's see. Let me tell you about
Speaker 2: this quickly before the break. Apple is extending its Emergency
Speaker 2: SOS via satellite for an extra year for free. So
Speaker 2: when this first came out on iPhone fourteen, they said
Speaker 2: users were going to get it for two years. They
Speaker 2: have now extended that for a third year. And this
Speaker 2: is available on the iPhone fourteen and fifteen models. This
Speaker 2: allows you to text with emergency services even if you
Speaker 2: don't have a cellular or Wi Fi signal. It will
Speaker 2: reach up into space and find a satellite and get
Speaker 2: your message for help through. And I actually interviewed a
Speaker 2: woman who was on a hike and she fell. Actually
Speaker 2: she didn't fall, she just stepped on some ground that
Speaker 2: gave way and her ankle popped and broke basically, and
Speaker 2: she was stranded, and her friend tried dialing nine one
Speaker 2: one on their phone and it didn't work, and she
Speaker 2: goes here, try my phone, and lo and behold, it
Speaker 2: had this new feature. She even know about it, and
Speaker 2: it connected to the satellites. I interviewed the first responders
Speaker 2: and they said, yeah, these things are literally saving lives
Speaker 2: on a weekly basis. So I'm still waiting for Android
Speaker 2: to get this feature. But if you have it on
Speaker 2: your iPhone fourteen or fifteen, get familiar with it. It's
Speaker 2: called Emergency SOS via satellite. It could definitely save your life.
Speaker 2: The other takeaway I had from interviewing the first responders
Speaker 2: is don't discount texting nine one one, Like a lot
Speaker 2: of places will let you text nine one one, And
Speaker 2: even if you don't have this satellite feature, try texting
Speaker 2: nine one one if you don't have a signal, because
Speaker 2: sometimes that'll go through and it sounds like when you
Speaker 2: text nine one one, a lot of these places will
Speaker 2: get your location and other data about you that can
Speaker 2: really help them find you. So obviously calling nine one
Speaker 2: one still kind of like the gold standard, but texting,
Speaker 2: if it's available where you are, if you ever needed it,
Speaker 2: that's a really good way to get in touch with
Speaker 2: first responders. And a lot of people don't even realize
Speaker 2: that's a thing. So check it out. See if the
Speaker 2: city that you live in or the county you live
Speaker 2: in offers texting to nine one one. A lot of
Speaker 2: them do, which was very surprising to me. Coming up
Speaker 2: after the break, I'm gonna tell you how to check
Speaker 2: the emergency settings on the Samsung, on the Pixel on
Speaker 2: the iPhone, so you are fully prep no matter which
Speaker 2: phone you have for an emergency, hopefully you never need it.
Speaker 2: Plus your calls at Triple eight Rich one o one
Speaker 2: eighty eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 2: This is rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 2: Rich Demiro here talking technology at Triple eight rich one
Speaker 2: oh one eighty eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 2: zero one. Karen in Orange County, you're on with Rich.
Speaker 14: Hi, how are you? I gotta tell you I listened
Speaker 14: to Leo Laporte for yours and you were killing it.
Speaker 1: Oh thank you, I mean so much.
Speaker 14: I don't want to put him down. No, No, Leo
Speaker 14: it's justos for what you're doing.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I just take a little different approach. I
Speaker 1: love Leo.
Speaker 2: I think that he did a great job and still
Speaker 2: does on his.
Speaker 14: Show, an excellent job. I'm just yeah, it's pretty hard
Speaker 14: to step in somebody else and shoes and do that's
Speaker 14: a fine job that you're doing well. Thank you, And
Speaker 14: I'm very very untechi. You're gonna probably tell me in
Speaker 14: the second one I'm doing wrong. But I acquired a
Speaker 14: new credit card a few months ago for the bonus
Speaker 14: points of course, like those of us cent are into
Speaker 14: that du so, I could use it towards a airfare
Speaker 14: or a hotel and I always paid off within the
Speaker 14: next month.
Speaker 1: Okay, good this time.
Speaker 14: I mean I would never get a credit card unless
Speaker 14: I did that. I learned my lesson medi.
Speaker 1: So did I.
Speaker 2: I yeah, I got the free T shirt in college,
Speaker 2: and next thing you know, I had five thousand dollars
Speaker 2: worth of debt and I don't know where it went.
Speaker 2: I have no idea how I acquired it, but it
Speaker 2: took me.
Speaker 14: My friend talked me into doing it, and I could
Speaker 14: have killed him when all of a sudden, all these
Speaker 14: charges show up. That's why he's an X anyway. I
Speaker 14: you know, I study religiously my credit card statements, just
Speaker 14: like I do my checking out every morning. The first
Speaker 14: thing I do when I wake up, after I make
Speaker 14: my coffee is to see if there's any unouth right charges.
Speaker 14: So on this new credit card, and I don't know
Speaker 14: if you want me to mention the bank or not.
Speaker 14: There's this unouth right charge and it's PayPal. I don't
Speaker 14: use PayPal. I did years ago only to help out
Speaker 14: my nephew in another city because he needed money and
Speaker 14: I didn't. I didn't have a way to. I wouldn't.
Speaker 14: I don't send checks or I don't do anything like that,
Speaker 14: so it is right. I called the credit card company.
Speaker 14: Usually this is taking care of in a split second.
Speaker 14: They go, well, we have to call the party you
Speaker 14: paid the money to, And I said, why did you
Speaker 14: know who they are? And I do donate to several
Speaker 14: animal organizations, but that's why I've never heard of They're
Speaker 14: not even in the United States, They're in counter and
Speaker 14: so they go, well, we'll call them. I said that
Speaker 14: I'm telling you right now, it's not an osright churne.
Speaker 14: So they insisted on doing their thing, and then the credit.
Speaker 1: Card or the or PayPal.
Speaker 12: Credit card okay?
Speaker 1: Good? So credit card okay?
Speaker 2: So, I mean at the end of the day, since
Speaker 2: it is a credit card, you just don't pay if
Speaker 2: it's not, you know, you just dispute it.
Speaker 14: Look figure, But they keep putting it. They reversed charges
Speaker 14: and put it back on my billigin and I said,
Speaker 14: I'm not paying for something I never all run okay,
Speaker 14: And then I called the company and they're going, well,
Speaker 14: you know, we don't we can't control it. PayPal this
Speaker 14: you know they charged us to see if we reverse it.
Speaker 14: I excuse me, anyway, I still don't. I called back
Speaker 14: this credit card company and I said, are you kidding me?
Speaker 13: How how do you.
Speaker 14: I've never in my home and I've had I have
Speaker 14: a have a Who cares that my credit rating as
Speaker 14: above eight hundred? I said, who done this?
Speaker 12: Though?
Speaker 14: I said I didn't own ra take away all the
Speaker 14: company said that it went through faith.
Speaker 2: Now all right, well here's here's here's what I think
Speaker 2: you should do, Karen. So a couple things. Number One,
Speaker 2: ditch this credit card because they suck the fact that
Speaker 2: they are questioning your dispute is just absolutely insane to me.
Speaker 2: So you got to get a new card or no
Speaker 2: card at all if you want to avoid stuff like
Speaker 2: this in the future. And I understand it's scary to
Speaker 2: use debit because you know, if something like this happens
Speaker 2: with a debit card, it's on you and it's not
Speaker 2: on your credit card. So you got to this card
Speaker 2: is no good because there this company is really really bad.
Speaker 2: So that's number one. Number two, you got to go
Speaker 2: into your PayPal account. So it sounds to me like
Speaker 2: your PayPal account was either hacked or you did make
Speaker 2: some sort of payment on this account a long time
Speaker 2: ago and it turned into a recur or authorized payment,
Speaker 2: and this can happen, and this is what you know.
Speaker 1: These companies are set up like this.
Speaker 2: They want you to they want this to happen, and
Speaker 2: so they make it really easy to make these transactions recurring,
Speaker 2: and they make it really tricky to find the root
Speaker 2: of them. And I just logged into my PayPal to
Speaker 2: kind of see where all this stuff lives, and it
Speaker 2: took me a bit to find it. And I do
Speaker 2: have a couple of recurring payments on my PayPal and
Speaker 2: so you know, these are things that every year they
Speaker 2: surprise me. I go, oh, yeah, I forgot I put
Speaker 2: that on my PayPal And of course we all do this,
Speaker 2: and they love that we do this because everyone gets
Speaker 2: a little piece of these payments. So log into your
Speaker 2: PayPal count. If you can't remember what your information is,
Speaker 2: you got to do a password reset whatever. Get into
Speaker 2: your account, press the settings. First thing you need to
Speaker 2: do is just look at your your activity and see
Speaker 2: the activity on there. And if there's any activity that
Speaker 2: you don't recognize, like me, I've got a payment in
Speaker 2: August for thirty eight dollars. You can look at this
Speaker 2: payment and there's a re or a problem. So that
Speaker 2: is the number one thing you can do to figure out,
Speaker 2: you know, if that payment was wrong, you can press
Speaker 2: that button. The other thing is to see if these
Speaker 2: are recurring payments. So go into the settings. That's the
Speaker 2: gear icon upper right hand corner, and you will see
Speaker 2: what is labeled as payments up at the top, and
Speaker 2: you click that and you're gonna see online purchases, in
Speaker 2: store purchases, and then you scroll down it says automatic payments,
Speaker 2: View and update all of your subscriptions and automatic payments.
Speaker 2: Now I think this should be on the front page
Speaker 2: of PayPal. Of course, it is one, two, three, at
Speaker 2: least three clicks in and a scroll. So you go
Speaker 2: there and you can now see all the different things
Speaker 2: that you have linked to your PayPal, and for me,
Speaker 2: it's a whole bunch of stuff. Some donations I've done. Netflix.
Speaker 2: At one point I must have had connected to hear
Speaker 2: Skype Doctor Squatch, which I do like. I like their soap.
Speaker 2: I'll admit I made fun of them during the Super
Speaker 2: Bowl commercials and I end up buying it and I
Speaker 2: love it. So that's on my PayPal apparently. And then
Speaker 2: you can go to your inactive so if you want
Speaker 2: to get rid of those payments, go in there and
Speaker 2: make sure they are either stopped or disconnected. And then
Speaker 2: that will you know, says remove PayPal as a payment
Speaker 2: method on my bill aer here direct TV, and so
Speaker 2: you can remove that as a payment method, and it
Speaker 2: says this will cancel your auto pay for Direct TV.
Speaker 2: You can do that and then you can make sure
Speaker 2: that that will never be charged again. The other thing
Speaker 2: I would say to do is go to your wallet
Speaker 2: on PayPal and remove all of your payment methods. So
Speaker 2: right now I have at least one, two, three, four
Speaker 2: payment methods on there. You can go through and remove those,
Speaker 2: and they may be tricky and they may not let
Speaker 2: you remove like the last one, but hopefully you can
Speaker 2: remove all of those. And if that credit card that
Speaker 2: you're talking about is on there, you should remove that
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: So, Karen, that's what I'd recommend.
Speaker 2: And if you listen to this show, which just sounds
Speaker 2: like you do, you know, I'm not a huge fan
Speaker 2: of credit cards. I do try to default to cash
Speaker 2: and debit as much as possible, but I understand they
Speaker 2: are sort of a necessary evil, especially when you're playing
Speaker 2: the points game, which can be kind of fun, but
Speaker 2: you can also get burned. So just be careful out there,
Speaker 2: rich on Tech. That closes out this hour. We'll be
Speaker 2: back with more rich on Tech at Triple eight rich
Speaker 2: one on one eighty eight seven four to two four
Speaker 2: one zero one right after this.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 2: Rich DeMuro here talking tech at Triple eight rich one
Speaker 2: oh one eight eight eight seven four to two four
Speaker 2: one zero one. You can find me on social media.
Speaker 2: I am at rich on Tech on most of the media.
Speaker 2: I Instagram, Facebook threads. Oh I did something on Instagram
Speaker 2: which is kind of fun. I'm still trying to figure
Speaker 2: out what the point of it is. But it's called
Speaker 2: a broadcast channel, so it's called rich on Tech Direct,
Speaker 2: and if you join, I can basically send you links
Speaker 2: in your messages of you know, stuff I think is
Speaker 2: important or interesting.
Speaker 1: So I don't really know how you sign up.
Speaker 2: I guess you just go to my Instagram and just
Speaker 2: somehow on there it says join the broadcast channel. I
Speaker 2: think you can go to my stories too, But anyway,
Speaker 2: I got a couple thousand of you on there, and
Speaker 2: like last night, on a Friday night, I just sent
Speaker 2: a I sent a voice memo and so I could
Speaker 2: just like literally talk to you.
Speaker 1: It's so weird.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like, I guess it's kind of like
Speaker 2: the radio because you can't talk back, though that's the
Speaker 2: weird thing.
Speaker 1: You can't respond, so it's like a one way street.
Speaker 2: So I'm still trying to figure out like what the
Speaker 2: point of it is, but it's kind of fun, I
Speaker 2: guess for links anyway, So if you're on Instagram at
Speaker 2: rich on Tech, check out the rich on Tech Direct
Speaker 2: And if you want a link to anything I mentioned here,
Speaker 2: just go to.
Speaker 1: Rich on Tech dot tv.
Speaker 2: I'm coming up and going to tell you how to
Speaker 2: set up the emergency settings on your Samsung, on your Pixel,
Speaker 2: on your iPhone. But first, let's Bill's been on hold
Speaker 2: for a while, So let's get to Bill in Altadena, California.
Speaker 1: Bill, you're on with Rich.
Speaker 3: Hey.
Speaker 9: Rich, So I have an Alexa and we got a
Speaker 9: smart plug and we gave it a command to go
Speaker 9: on at a certain time, and it's been the wrong
Speaker 9: and we've been unable to cancel that instruction keeps going
Speaker 9: on at the wrong time of day.
Speaker 2: Okay, I lost you a little bit there. So you
Speaker 2: basically set up a smart plug. You you gave it
Speaker 2: a routine, and now you can't get rid of that routine.
Speaker 3: Correct.
Speaker 1: Okay, have you gone into the Alexa app, Yes, and.
Speaker 9: Deleted the routine, but it still continues on.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, on even after the routine is dead.
Speaker 15: Uh yeah, Well you sound like my story at the beginning,
Speaker 15: because these things seem to have a mind to their own.
Speaker 15: An Alexa specifically, it seems to really like root its
Speaker 15: way into a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2: Now, there's a couple of things that could be happening here.
Speaker 2: Number one, have do you do you want to just
Speaker 2: remove this plug altogether from your Alexa or do you.
Speaker 9: Still want to be able to remove it and reinstall it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's an option that's like the nuclear option.
Speaker 2: If you want to try that, that might be the
Speaker 2: best way to do it if you can't figure it out.
Speaker 2: But there's a couple of things. So Alexa does this
Speaker 2: thing called hunches. I don't think it's that because it's
Speaker 2: happening at the same time every day, the exact time that.
Speaker 1: You set it.
Speaker 8: Correct.
Speaker 2: Okay, So it sounds like either this plug is sort
Speaker 2: of like hard coded to turn on and off. Did
Speaker 2: you use the Alexa app to create this routine or
Speaker 2: did you use the what's the brand.
Speaker 1: Of this plug?
Speaker 9: Amazon?
Speaker 1: Oh, it's Amazon's own plug Okay.
Speaker 9: So it is the but use we use the Alexa
Speaker 9: to create it?
Speaker 1: You did use the Alexa to create it? Okay?
Speaker 2: So I think, uh, it sounds like you want to
Speaker 2: remove this from your Alexa altogether. Have you tried doing
Speaker 2: that by going into devices and then and then settings
Speaker 2: and then trashing that device?
Speaker 1: Have you tried that?
Speaker 12: Uh?
Speaker 9: Oh, trashing the whole Alexa device?
Speaker 1: No, well, the the just the smart plug.
Speaker 9: No, we haven't.
Speaker 1: So that's the.
Speaker 2: First thing I would do. So open up the app
Speaker 2: and open up go to all device or go to
Speaker 2: devices and then go to all devices, select that device
Speaker 2: whatever that plug is. If you have a bunch of them,
Speaker 2: it may may take you a little bit to figure
Speaker 2: out which one it is. Uh, select that plug and
Speaker 2: then choose settings, and then there's a way to trash
Speaker 2: it and that will remove it from your Alexa completely,
Speaker 2: and then you want to go through the repairing process
Speaker 2: of setting it back up with your Alexa, which.
Speaker 1: Should be pretty quick and easy. Yeah, yeah, added device.
Speaker 2: That would be probably what I would do first. The
Speaker 2: other thing you can do is just factory reset the
Speaker 2: actual plug, and usually that will erase all of the commands.
Speaker 2: The problem is if once you repair it and Alexis says, oh,
Speaker 2: it's the same plug, it may just send it that
Speaker 2: command again, and that that could be a possibility. So
Speaker 2: I have some of these smart plugs, and I'm not kidding, Bill,
Speaker 2: I have set up like five, six, seven years ago,
Speaker 2: and they still every year I plug them in for
Speaker 2: the holidays and they still just follow the routine that
Speaker 2: I put on them, like literally eight years ago. And
Speaker 2: so these things do last or like a you know,
Speaker 2: it's like a zombie, they just continue to follow the
Speaker 2: same thing. And then the other side of this is
Speaker 2: that some of these devices, like a Weimo or a
Speaker 2: Genie or a Greenie, whatever the name is, sometimes they
Speaker 2: have their own apps, and if you set up the
Speaker 2: routine or the time on off through those apps, they
Speaker 2: may continue to follow through with that routine even if
Speaker 2: you're not using that app, or if you delete it
Speaker 2: from your phone. So it kind of hard codes the
Speaker 2: device to say, hey, go in on this time, going
Speaker 2: on that time, or does it from.
Speaker 1: A server level.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of different ways that these things
Speaker 2: can get very very confusing, very fast. But what I
Speaker 2: would do is just delete that device altogether, maybe do
Speaker 2: a factory reset on it, and you can just Google
Speaker 2: for the instructions on how to do that for that
Speaker 2: specific device, but I think that should help. Once you
Speaker 2: repair it, it should be gone. But just make sure
Speaker 2: you go into your routines and make sure that those
Speaker 2: that that routine is not still in there, because these
Speaker 2: things have a way of kind of like living on forever,
Speaker 2: and Alexa has an interesting way of finding these devices
Speaker 2: even when you've sort of said stop doing stuff with them.
Speaker 2: So it's meant to make things easier. Sometimes it can
Speaker 2: make things a little tougher. But Bill, keep me posted. Okay,
Speaker 2: give me an email on the website. Let me know
Speaker 2: if you got it figured out, because I do want
Speaker 2: to help you change this from happening. Okay, I promised
Speaker 2: you instructions for this, so I talked about Apple extending
Speaker 2: the Emergency SOS. But on any phone, whether you have
Speaker 2: an iPhone, whether you have Samsung, or whether you have
Speaker 2: a Pixel, there are emergency settings that you need to
Speaker 2: set up on your phone. So number one, iPhone, go
Speaker 2: into your settings, go into Emergency SOS, and there's a
Speaker 2: couple of things you need to do. Number one, there
Speaker 2: is an option called call after Severe Crash. So the
Speaker 2: recent iPhones have a way to detect if you've been
Speaker 2: in a crash, and they will alert your emergency contacts
Speaker 2: and or nine will one, So you want to have
Speaker 2: that turned on. The other thing you want to have
Speaker 2: turned on is your emergency contacts. So if you have
Speaker 2: not set up your emergency contacts, set those up. Take
Speaker 2: a second to do that. And the way that you
Speaker 2: do that is right underneath emergency contacts. It'll say edit
Speaker 2: in health and that'll bring you to add an emergency
Speaker 2: contact add someone and they can get a text with
Speaker 2: your location, the fact that something happened to you, and
Speaker 2: they can hopefully help out if something or did happen.
Speaker 2: The other thing you want to do is, if you
Speaker 2: have an iPhone fourteen or fifteen, get familiar with this
Speaker 2: emergency SOS via Satellite demo. So scroll all the way
Speaker 2: down under Emergency SOS in the settings and if it
Speaker 2: says emergency SOS via Satellite Demo, try it out. It
Speaker 2: won't actually call nine one one, but it will look
Speaker 2: into the satellites in the sky and help you, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of coordinate your phone because you do have to
Speaker 2: have a clear vision of the sky or a clear
Speaker 2: view of the sky, and you do have to move
Speaker 2: your phone around to get that clear view.
Speaker 1: And so you can just try that out.
Speaker 2: And then in the health app, so open up the
Speaker 2: health app on your iPhone and set up your medical ID.
Speaker 2: So to do that, you go to your profile which
Speaker 2: is in the upper right hand corner. You tap medical
Speaker 2: ID and you put in your information your basics. You
Speaker 2: know your height, your weight, and also any allergies you
Speaker 2: might have. And then you want to make sure both
Speaker 2: of those emergency access options are enabled, and that will
Speaker 2: enable a first responder to access this information from your
Speaker 2: home screen or I should say your lock screen, even
Speaker 2: without being able to unlock your phone. Very very important
Speaker 2: on Samsung. Go to Settings Safety and Emergency again, Settings
Speaker 2: Safety and Emergency, tap Medical Info, hit the pencil in
Speaker 2: the upper right hand corner, add edit your Info. Make
Speaker 2: sure that show unlock screen is enabled again, that will
Speaker 2: enable a first responder to access this information without unlocking
Speaker 2: your phone. Then tap Emergency Contacts. Add those again, make
Speaker 2: sure show onlock screen is enabled, and finally, under Emergency SOS,
Speaker 2: make sure share info with with Emergency Contacts is enabled,
Speaker 2: and then just check the settings under emergency Sharing. I'll
Speaker 2: share a funny story real quick. I was setting this
Speaker 2: up on my Samsung device and I put my mother
Speaker 2: in law in to test it out, and I'm not kidding.
Speaker 2: I hit an option that actually sent her a text
Speaker 2: that said something had happened to me, and it sent
Speaker 2: a picture and the picture of was my legs like
Speaker 2: between my life thanks because that's where the phone was.
Speaker 2: Thankfully I was wearing pants because that would have been
Speaker 2: really embarrassing. She goes, what's this picture you just sent me?
Speaker 2: And I said, oh my gosh, what and sure enough
Speaker 2: the phone had sent a picture. So be careful when
Speaker 2: you set up these settings that you're not actually doing
Speaker 2: the test on pixel. Go to settings safety and Emergency
Speaker 2: and make sure the medical information and emergency contacts is
Speaker 2: set up. Make sure emergency SOS and car crash detection
Speaker 2: is turned on. Yes, the pixel has car crash detection.
Speaker 2: Then you want to open up the personal safety app
Speaker 2: on the pixel. Fill out your medical information and your
Speaker 2: emergency contacts, and make sure that emergency info access is
Speaker 2: enabled so that nine will one call centers will get
Speaker 2: your location if you ever called them or texted them.
Speaker 2: All this information is on my Instagram. Go to Instagram
Speaker 2: at rich on tech and you'll see it is pinned
Speaker 2: to my profile. It says, don't wait, set up these
Speaker 2: life saving phone features today. All those instructions I just
Speaker 2: gave you you on Instagram at rich on tech. All right,
Speaker 2: coming up, we've got more of your calls, more of
Speaker 2: your questions. Plus we're gonna talk to Vitally Pacharski of
Speaker 2: Slick Deals to highlight some of the top deals out
Speaker 2: there for the holiday shopping season. Eighty eight rich one
Speaker 2: on one eighty eight seven four one zero one.
Speaker 1: This is rich On Tech.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to rich On Tech. Triple eight Rich one
Speaker 2: O one eighty eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 2: zero one. Coming up this hour, we're talking to Vitally
Speaker 2: Pacharski of Slick Deals.
Speaker 1: He's going to highlight some of.
Speaker 2: The top deals out there for the holiday shopping season.
Speaker 2: Buzz is in Walnut Creek, California. Buzz you're on with Rich.
Speaker 16: Hey, Rich, So I'm not here on I five actually
Speaker 16: driving along with all the other not yet. And it
Speaker 16: could to be that a dash cam would be kind
Speaker 16: of a nice add on, not a test list. So
Speaker 16: it just because do you have any I don't know,
Speaker 16: Buyer's guide suggestion, something that will help filter the million
Speaker 16: reviews and that sort of thing. I'd like to be
Speaker 16: able to see the front camer just in case here
Speaker 16: is a collision, I can at please put that video evidence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and here's the thing. The interesting thing about the
Speaker 2: rear camera is that unless it's on your bumper, you're
Speaker 2: not really going to get a full kind of rear video.
Speaker 2: So there are some cameras that I've seen in the
Speaker 2: past that do attached back there, but most of them
Speaker 2: just have like a front facing camera and a camera
Speaker 2: that faces inside the car. And so, of course, the
Speaker 2: one time that I needed this, and I do have
Speaker 2: a Tesla, the one time I needed it, I wasn't
Speaker 2: rolling and so it wasn't recording when I got hit
Speaker 2: and run on my car. So yes, I do think
Speaker 2: a dash cam is definitely I'm just gonna mute you
Speaker 2: there because here's some I hear the I five in
Speaker 2: the background there. But you know, I do think that
Speaker 2: the dash especially in California or anywhere. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: just it's kind of like peace of mind. And so
Speaker 2: I agree. There are many many reviews out there, and
Speaker 2: I've tested a couple of these over the years. I've
Speaker 2: test tested a company called Nexsar, which is which makes
Speaker 2: some really nice dash cams and they connect nicely to
Speaker 2: the iPhone that's any Xaar. I've also connect tested a
Speaker 2: company called Vava va Va and they have some really
Speaker 2: great dash cams as well, and they're pretty inexpensive, so
Speaker 2: and I thought they were really This one was really great,
Speaker 2: the Vava ten ADP dual dash cam. And so I'm
Speaker 2: looking at this dash cam. It actually looks like you
Speaker 2: can put the front lens. It's interesting. It looks like
Speaker 2: there's a little lens that you can put kind of
Speaker 2: in the back, which they didn't have when I had this,
Speaker 2: so that may be able to go, yeah, into the
Speaker 2: rear of your car. So that's one hundred and nineteen dollars.
Speaker 2: The other brands that some of the other review sites like,
Speaker 2: and I know you said there's a bunch of reviews
Speaker 2: out there, Yes there are, but some of the brands
Speaker 2: kind of come up over and over, and that is
Speaker 2: Van True v A N T r U E. Wirecutter
Speaker 2: has them as a top pick. And then another brand
Speaker 2: that a lot of reviewers seem to like is called
Speaker 2: Thinkware T h I N K W A R E,
Speaker 2: Nextspace n E X T B A s C that's
Speaker 2: another one that a lot of them like.
Speaker 1: And Garmin Garman.
Speaker 2: You might know that brand name from other products, but
Speaker 2: they apparently make some decent dash cams. But you want
Speaker 2: the front and back cameras for sure. Some of the
Speaker 2: features I would look for is, you know, it's really
Speaker 2: comes down to the software, the ability to download the
Speaker 2: video from these cameras if you ever need it, and
Speaker 2: the SD card. So you want to have expandable memory.
Speaker 2: You want to have nice software. You want to have
Speaker 2: high quality video, because some of these the video is
Speaker 2: just not very good, Like if you ever needed to
Speaker 2: get a license plate or something, you wouldn't be able
Speaker 2: to see it. So those are the things that I
Speaker 2: would look for personally. The one that I really like
Speaker 2: is actually the Ring dash cam, and I know it's
Speaker 2: gotten kind of mixed reviews, but I really like it
Speaker 2: and I think it works pretty well, and so I
Speaker 2: would check that one as well if you do have
Speaker 2: Ring devices in your house.
Speaker 1: If you don't, then don't worry about it.
Speaker 2: But the Ring, what I like about it is it
Speaker 2: has cellular connectivity, which means if something happens to your car,
Speaker 2: it will upload that video to the cloud, and so
Speaker 2: even if they stole the camera or something like that,
Speaker 2: you'd still have that video. And so it's a little
Speaker 2: bit more on the pricey side, but it looks like
Speaker 2: it's out of stock actually, but all of these cameras
Speaker 2: are going to be on sale for the holidays, so
Speaker 2: it's probably a good time to get them, and they're
Speaker 2: probably going to be a good a good stocking stuffer
Speaker 2: this year. So the other thing is I would look
Speaker 2: for a G four sensor so if someone knocks into
Speaker 2: your car, it will automatically start recording, So you want
Speaker 2: to have one that does that as well. And the
Speaker 2: other thing to look out for is really the power.
Speaker 2: Some of these can be kind of bulky. You do
Speaker 2: have to run a power cable to your you know,
Speaker 2: to your car somehow, and they all kind of connect differently, like,
Speaker 2: for instance, the ring one connects to the oh gosh,
Speaker 2: I always get this name wrong.
Speaker 1: OBD Gosh, is it the OBD two port? I think
Speaker 1: that's what it's called.
Speaker 2: But it's like this little kind of plug in the
Speaker 2: lower left hand corner of your car, near the near
Speaker 2: your your driver's side like foot, and so that gets
Speaker 2: its power from there. Other others go into like a
Speaker 2: USB port or what you would call twelve volt used
Speaker 2: to be called the cigarette lighter.
Speaker 1: Now it's called the twelve vault.
Speaker 2: So buzz. Hopefully you got some good suggestions. They are
Speaker 2: good things to look for. Also, keep an eye out
Speaker 2: for deals, because I'm sure a lot of these things
Speaker 2: will go on sale throughout the holiday season. Zell this
Speaker 2: is important. Zell is finally going to start refunding people
Speaker 2: if they get scammed. This is a big, big change
Speaker 2: for ZEL. So if you've tried Zel, it's the one
Speaker 2: that's built into your bank account. It's the one that
Speaker 2: the big banks started to combat all the people using
Speaker 2: venmo and PayPal. So this was started by all these
Speaker 2: big banks like Chase and Bank of America. They said, hey,
Speaker 2: we want a little piece of that, and so they
Speaker 2: started ZEL and they made it really easy because Zell
Speaker 2: is built into your app on your phone that you
Speaker 2: already have from your bank, and the money goes straight
Speaker 2: into your bank account. And there really are no fees
Speaker 2: that I've seen on this. But the problem is because
Speaker 2: it's so easy and because it's so integrated into your bank,
Speaker 2: the scammers love it because as soon as they got
Speaker 2: the money from you, there is nothing you can do
Speaker 2: to get that money back. At least with venmo and
Speaker 2: PayPal you might have a little bit of a fighting
Speaker 2: chance of saying, hey, wait a second, this wasn't fair.
Speaker 2: But now Zell has kind of gotten with the times
Speaker 2: and they said, okay, we are actually going to start
Speaker 2: refunding victims of it imposter scams. And I think US
Speaker 2: regulators were kind of pressuring them to do this. But
Speaker 2: now people who are duped into sending money to scammers
Speaker 2: that are pretending to be government agencies, banks or service riders.
Speaker 2: Now you can ask Zel for your money back and
Speaker 2: they will actually figure out a way to go into
Speaker 2: the other person's bank account that you send it to
Speaker 2: grab that money back out and give it back to you.
Speaker 2: It's not gonna be instant, it's not gonna be every
Speaker 2: single time, but you definitely have a better fighting chance.
Speaker 2: So thank you Zell for doing something good for the consumer.
Speaker 2: Coming up next, we'll talk slick Deals on rich on Tech.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here talking
Speaker 2: technology with you at Triple eight Rich one oh one
Speaker 2: eighty eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 2: If you want links to anything I've mentioned throughout the show,
Speaker 2: just go to the wiki rich on Tech dot tv
Speaker 2: slash wiki. Joining me now is Vitally Pacharski of Slick
Speaker 2: Deals and uh, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Hey, Rich, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining me. I know we talked.
Speaker 2: The listeners don't know this, but we talked this week
Speaker 2: at KTLA. We did a segment that's going to air
Speaker 2: Monday on TV. But you were such a great resource
Speaker 2: for TV that I said, Hey, can you come on
Speaker 2: the radio show and talk about some of the top
Speaker 2: deals out there. So thanks for joining me today, and
Speaker 2: let's talk about slick Deals number one. Because I've mentioned
Speaker 2: throughout all the guests today have been from websites I
Speaker 2: visit on a daily basis, Slick Deals is another one
Speaker 2: of those. Explain what slick Deals is all about.
Speaker 17: Well, stick Deals is really all about helping shoppers. It's
Speaker 17: not just a website at this point. We have the website,
Speaker 17: of course, which has been with us for quite some time.
Speaker 17: We have a very active mobile app, and we also
Speaker 17: have a browser extension to help you fill coupons and
Speaker 17: find the best deals. But really what we are is
Speaker 17: a community of twelve million strong shoppers who come to
Speaker 17: the site or to the platform daily posting, sharing, vetting,
Speaker 17: voting up commenting on the best deals from your favorite
Speaker 17: retailers like Amazon, Walmart, Dell, Lenobo.
Speaker 2: That's what I love about the website is that anyone
Speaker 2: can submit a deal and it can be voted up
Speaker 2: to the top. And that means that since you have
Speaker 2: all these crawlers out there on the web, and I
Speaker 2: mean crawlers by like regular people that are always just like, oh,
Speaker 2: I found something really good. They post it and other
Speaker 2: people kind of vet it and say, Okay, this is
Speaker 2: really good, let's vote it up. And then a lot
Speaker 2: of times those things sell out because they're so popular.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right.
Speaker 17: I think that's that's the most powerful feature that we
Speaker 17: have is the community. Without them, the site would be
Speaker 17: not nearly as stressworthy. I said, it's twelve million people, right,
Speaker 17: I think of them as toll million friends, the good
Speaker 17: friends that will tell you how good your product or
Speaker 17: your deal that you found is or how bad it is,
Speaker 17: and provide unbiased feedback.
Speaker 2: So how can people use this to find the best
Speaker 2: deals this holiday season?
Speaker 17: Depending on how you like to shop, we have probably
Speaker 17: something for everybody. If you are on a portunistic shopper,
Speaker 17: the website and the mobile app are your best destinations.
Speaker 17: Mobile app is something to keep on the go. The
Speaker 17: website is something that you keep with you on your computer.
Speaker 17: But if you're more of a casual shopper, consider also
Speaker 17: using a browser extension. It kind of lives with your browser,
Speaker 17: whether it's Chrome, edged Safari, or Firefox, and once you
Speaker 17: install it, we'll let you know if we have additional discounts.
Speaker 17: Anytime you browse the popular shopping site, or if we
Speaker 17: have amazing deals happening right this moment, as you're shopping
Speaker 17: on Amazon, Macy's, Coals, you name it, we'll pop up
Speaker 17: a little small notification saying, hey, by the way, while
Speaker 17: you're here, we have a couple of amazing community vetted deals.
Speaker 17: If you're interested, you can absolutely participate.
Speaker 2: Okay, So how are the deals shaping up this season?
Speaker 1: Are they better than yours past?
Speaker 17: The deals are really good this Friday. We've already seen
Speaker 17: a lot of retail this block Friday, in Cyber Monday,
Speaker 17: we've seen a lot of retailers start early as they
Speaker 17: have done in the years past. We definitely are seeing them,
Speaker 17: have seen them as early as October. And one thing
Speaker 17: that we are noticing is you already mentioned rich deals
Speaker 17: do tend to sell out. So if you come to
Speaker 17: the site of the mobile app and if you see something,
Speaker 17: grab it. But guess what, we're not only about in
Speaker 17: the moment shopping. If you're looking for something that we
Speaker 17: currently don't have today, we also provide an amazing feature
Speaker 17: called deal Alerts. So if you're looking for something like
Speaker 17: Legos or PlayStation five, or Airpod's pro or a new grill,
Speaker 17: or as me, I'm building a home theater, I'm looking
Speaker 17: for speakers and receivers. Right now, come to the site
Speaker 17: or the mobile app and set yourself a deal alert
Speaker 17: and we'll let you know through either email, SMS if
Speaker 17: you sign up with a phone number, or a push
Speaker 17: notification on the mobile app the next time a good
Speaker 17: deal drops.
Speaker 2: So this is always sort of a debate, But what
Speaker 2: do you think are some of the best categories this
Speaker 2: time of year? Employees wondered do I buy a TV
Speaker 2: during Black Friday or during the Super Bowl season.
Speaker 17: Electronics is usually a great thing to buy and Black
Speaker 17: Friday in Cyber Monday, and really majority of categories are
Speaker 17: on sale, whether it's apparel, whether it's grills. But what
Speaker 17: we usually see gaming, smart home devices, headphones, video games,
Speaker 17: lots of tabletop kitchen appliance is everything from the most
Speaker 17: basic five dollars toaster, which we can actually have a
Speaker 17: few this Black Friday, all the way up to the
Speaker 17: higher end appliances like maybe a Ninja blender or maybe
Speaker 17: even something more even more expensive like a really nice
Speaker 17: kitchen aid mixer.
Speaker 3: Discounted gift cards can batteries.
Speaker 17: Can never have enough of those, especially for that holiday
Speaker 17: morning when you opened your boxes. Streaming and subscription services,
Speaker 17: this is a great time to get those. A lot
Speaker 17: of them will come out with you know, significant discounts,
Speaker 17: especially if you prepay for a year, security, cameras, sporting goods, equipments,
Speaker 17: really anything.
Speaker 3: It's it's a really broad thing.
Speaker 17: One thing that we don't see as much of is
Speaker 17: major appliances, you know, washers, dryers, dishwashers, probably not the
Speaker 17: best time to buy, but we'll see an occasional deal
Speaker 17: here and there.
Speaker 2: Are you seeing any new trends with the way retailers
Speaker 2: are discounting things? You mentioned that with the streaming services.
Speaker 2: I've noticed that, Yeah, when you pay in advance, like
Speaker 2: I just paid for like a year of Disney Plus
Speaker 2: and I got a pretty good deal on that. So
Speaker 2: any kind of pricing trends you're seeing with discounts.
Speaker 17: You know, I think a lot more and more merchants
Speaker 17: are thinking about sort of creating a premium customer segment.
Speaker 17: We've seen this with Amazon Prime many years ago, and
Speaker 17: now Amazon Prime is sort of like almost a must
Speaker 17: to have if you're an Amazon shopper, Walmart Plus has
Speaker 17: been doing the same thing. In fact, some of the
Speaker 17: best Black Frieda deals get early access if you have
Speaker 17: Walmart Plus.
Speaker 3: We suspect that more and more.
Speaker 17: Merchants will have similar programs coming out in years to come. Additionally,
Speaker 17: a lot of the times, having a credit card that
Speaker 17: is issued by the stores, such as an Amazon Prime
Speaker 17: Visa or say a Target Red Card, we'll get your
Speaker 17: additional benefits, whether it's discounts or free shipping.
Speaker 3: So it's worth looking into as well.
Speaker 2: It's interesting with the Walmart Plus and the best Buy
Speaker 2: or sorry Walmart Plus and Amazon. Best Buy is also
Speaker 2: doing that with their drops. And so I've noticed because
Speaker 2: they've been sending me emails about some of their deals.
Speaker 2: A lot of them you get, like if you have
Speaker 2: to like their I think it's like total something.
Speaker 1: It's like best Buy.
Speaker 2: It's like some sort of membership program that best Buy
Speaker 2: has you can get a bigger discount on some of
Speaker 2: their deals, so that.
Speaker 3: It's called total tech almost like rich on Tech.
Speaker 2: There you go, rich on Tech, Total tech. All right,
Speaker 2: what about travel deals?
Speaker 3: Is it? You know?
Speaker 2: I know people are just trying to get through their
Speaker 2: budget with their gifts they want to get, But is
Speaker 2: it a good time to book travel.
Speaker 17: It is it, actually, it is, especially if you live
Speaker 17: near a one of the major airports like Los Angeles
Speaker 17: or New York or Chicago. Lots of deals going on.
Speaker 17: I'll give you one example right now. Short short trip
Speaker 17: fairs like LA to San Francisco on Jet Blue or
Speaker 17: United are down to seventy eight bucks normally and ninety
Speaker 17: eight dollars. If you don't live next to a major airport,
Speaker 17: don't you know, don't worry. We actually have a deal
Speaker 17: on a Southwest gift card that is discounting twenty percent off.
Speaker 17: It's a five hundred dollars Southwest gift card on sale
Speaker 17: for four hundred bucks, and that's happening at Sam's Club.
Speaker 17: So you do have to have a SAMs Club membership,
Speaker 17: but if you already do and it's actually not that expensive,
Speaker 17: you can get this deal. There's another one if you
Speaker 17: like vacations and if you like staying at places other
Speaker 17: than hotels or maybe having some fun activities.
Speaker 3: We do have a their BnB gift card at best Buy.
Speaker 3: It's a four.
Speaker 17: Hundred dollar Airbnb gift card and comes with an additional
Speaker 17: seventy five dollars best Buy gift card for free, so
Speaker 17: you pay four hundred dollars basically for four hundred and
Speaker 17: seventy five dollars value.
Speaker 3: And then always check your credit cards that you have.
Speaker 17: There are some credit cards that are scifically geart to travelers.
Speaker 17: American Express, for example, always will run different promotions, but
Speaker 17: also check the rewards. A lot of the times, credit cards,
Speaker 17: especially today, will offer sign up bonuses, so look for
Speaker 17: additional sign up points, and you can always come to
Speaker 17: Slick deals. We actually have plenty of interesting offers on
Speaker 17: credit cards specifically too.
Speaker 2: I just went to your website and I always check
Speaker 2: out the front page deals, and one that made it
Speaker 2: there is this Uber one. So a year, I pay
Speaker 2: like ten bucks a month for Uber one, and you've
Speaker 2: got to Slick deals here for forty seven to fifty
Speaker 2: for the whole year, which is a huge savings. Now,
Speaker 2: some of these deals, and this is probably something we
Speaker 2: should talk about, are sort of what's called targeted, So
Speaker 2: these companies will only offer them to a certain segment
Speaker 2: of their customer base.
Speaker 17: Right, that's true, and that's what our community does really well.
Speaker 3: They'll quickly explain to you.
Speaker 17: It's like, hey, if you're not a new customer, then
Speaker 17: you won't qualify, so you can kind of look through
Speaker 17: this bypass those deals if you know.
Speaker 3: Longer are eligible for these promos.
Speaker 17: And again, that's kind of one of the biggest powers
Speaker 17: that the superpower of flictos is having this community of
Speaker 17: people who do this, who sort of completely demystify and
Speaker 17: really let you understand what's for you and what's not.
Speaker 2: Well, look at this, I just found this deal inside
Speaker 2: my Uber app sixty percent off for the year. So
Speaker 2: that's I love it. And it's like one of these
Speaker 2: things and we'll kind of end on this. But when
Speaker 2: you get a deal, even though we are spending money
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, why does it feel
Speaker 2: so good to get that deal?
Speaker 3: You know, I'll give.
Speaker 17: You a quote that one of our shoppers left with us.
Speaker 17: We do regular shopper interviews and this is verbatim. My
Speaker 17: biggest happiness from online shopping is not the shopping itself,
Speaker 17: but finding a really good deal. I think a lot
Speaker 17: of us are either sports fans or are just competitive
Speaker 17: people by nature, and I think it always feels like
Speaker 17: scoring when you find that amazing deal. And yes, as
Speaker 17: you said, you still spend money, but it makes you
Speaker 17: feel good that you spend your money smartly.
Speaker 2: I'm paying right now one hundred and nineteen dollars a
Speaker 2: year for this uber plan, and this deal that I
Speaker 2: just found on your website is forty eight dollars for
Speaker 2: the year. That's four dollars a month, so sixty percent off.
Speaker 2: So it was money I was going to spend anyway,
Speaker 2: and now I'm spending less of it, so it does
Speaker 2: feel good. And again, the website is slickdeals dot net
Speaker 2: and my guest Vitally Pacharski of slick Deals, thanks so
Speaker 2: much for joining me today.
Speaker 3: Thanks so much for having me Rich.
Speaker 1: I know you have your eye on something. What do
Speaker 1: you have your eye on this this holiday?
Speaker 11: See?
Speaker 1: What are you shopping for?
Speaker 3: I'm shopping for a home theater setup.
Speaker 17: I'm building kind of a closed room, dark everything home
Speaker 17: theater so receivers, speakers and a really nice for K projector.
Speaker 1: M very nice.
Speaker 2: I was just looking at my Sonos today thinking, hmm,
Speaker 2: I wonder if I should update my soundbar.
Speaker 1: It's been a while, all right. Thanks so much for
Speaker 1: joining me on the website.
Speaker 2: If you want a link to it, just go to
Speaker 2: Rich on tech dot tv slash wiki and you can
Speaker 2: get the link to Slick Deals again. Slick Deals front
Speaker 2: page is a great place to start your day if
Speaker 2: you like that hunt, you know, if you like shopping,
Speaker 2: and if you like these deals and if you like
Speaker 2: finding stuff that you might want to purchase. And the
Speaker 2: explanations are the best because they make it really clear
Speaker 2: as to why this is a good deal and why
Speaker 2: you might want to jump on it, and how to
Speaker 2: do it most importantly, all right, coming up, we'll close
Speaker 2: out the show with a couple more stories and your feedback.
Speaker 2: You are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to
Speaker 2: rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you,
Speaker 2: talking technology, and it's time for your favorite segment feedback.
Speaker 2: But before we get to that, let me get through
Speaker 2: a few other stories. I wanted to mention Verizon now
Speaker 2: offering unlimited individual cloud storage for fourteen bucks a month.
Speaker 2: So this is a new cloud storage plan for individual
Speaker 2: person fourteen dollars a month month. Let's you store photos, videos, documents, PDFs,
Speaker 2: whatever you want from both your phone and computers. So
Speaker 2: it's basically a cloud drive that's unlimited.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: According to the Verge, individual files can exceed ten gigabytes
Speaker 2: daily uploads or limited to fifty gigabytes, but for most
Speaker 2: people this will pretty much be unlimited. They also have
Speaker 2: a group unlimited plan for twenty dollars a month, which
Speaker 2: lets you have five friends and family have their own
Speaker 2: unlimited storage. So I actually signed up for that just
Speaker 2: to test it out. For some reason, Verizon was offering
Speaker 2: it to me for fourteen dollars a month. I don't
Speaker 2: know why, but I signed up. But you get one
Speaker 2: month free, So I just pulled the you know, just
Speaker 2: decided to do it and see what it's all like.
Speaker 1: And so I installed it on my computer.
Speaker 2: I have not installed it on my phone, but basically
Speaker 2: it lets you back up. I'm trying to figure out
Speaker 2: if you can drag stuff into this and drop it in.
Speaker 2: It seems like you can, but it's a little I'm
Speaker 2: still working on it, but anyway, it's kind of a
Speaker 2: good deal for fourteen dollars a month unlimited, it's not bad.
Speaker 1: So if you want to back up your photos or whatever.
Speaker 2: The only thing is it is linked to a carrier
Speaker 2: like Verizon, so not everyone wants to link their online
Speaker 2: world to their cell phone carrier. Amazon is going to
Speaker 2: start selling cars online. Yes, Hyundai and Amazon have teamed
Speaker 2: up to offer online vehicle sales, which is just incredible.
Speaker 2: I hope this is as good as it seems. So
Speaker 2: Amazon is going to launch online vehicle sales starting with
Speaker 2: Hyundai in twenty twenty four. You can purchase a car
Speaker 2: on Amazon and pick it up from your local dealer.
Speaker 2: The question is will this be a nice kind of
Speaker 2: experience or will the dealers muck it up? I hope
Speaker 2: they don't. I really really hope this is like you
Speaker 2: see the price, you pay it, and you go pick
Speaker 2: up your car. Let's hope it's just like that. But
Speaker 2: that's a great start. And one of the things I
Speaker 2: did buy my car online last time, and it was incredible.
Speaker 2: The entire process was online from start to finish, and
Speaker 2: then they just delivered it to my driveway. And it
Speaker 2: was such a great process because guess what, I didn't
Speaker 2: have to go in that back room where the guy
Speaker 2: sits there with the four squares and starts writing down
Speaker 2: payment monthly, this, that, and then you got to go
Speaker 2: back how much you offer them. It's like buying a
Speaker 2: car is the worst experience in the world. And I
Speaker 2: always say, these people that are selling the cars, they
Speaker 2: are doing it every single day, and they know exactly
Speaker 2: how to do it. We go in once every three
Speaker 2: to six years to negotiate and guess who's gonna win
Speaker 2: in that circumstance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they are.
Speaker 2: And I got an email from a listener that said
Speaker 2: they got an email from Spectrum.
Speaker 1: Here's what the email says.
Speaker 2: During the week of December twelfth, twenty twenty three, We're
Speaker 2: going to introduce a new default video resolution setting a
Speaker 2: four to EIGHTP for our unlimited plus mobile customers, allowing
Speaker 2: better data management over the cellular network. Uh huh, better
Speaker 2: data management for who? For Spectrum, they buy their service
Speaker 2: from Verizon, So this means they're going to switch this
Speaker 2: setting to be lower for all of their customers, which
Speaker 2: means they have to pay Verizon less because they're using
Speaker 2: less data. It does not benefit the customer in any way.
Speaker 2: And Spectrum says, if you want to change the video
Speaker 2: resolution back to seven to twenty P once the feature launches,
Speaker 2: please visit our support page to learn more. So this
Speaker 2: actually inspired a post on my website, rich on tech
Speaker 2: dot TV. All of the carriers AT and T, Verizon,
Speaker 2: T Mobile, they all have a dirty little secret, and
Speaker 2: that is they reduce the quality of the video that
Speaker 2: you get on your smartphone, even if you pay for
Speaker 2: a higher resolution. But you can go in and change
Speaker 2: this if you're on an unlimited plan that allows it.
Speaker 2: So it's four eighty which is DVD quality by default,
Speaker 2: you can go in and change it to either ten ADP.
Speaker 2: Most of the time it's just ten ADP or four
Speaker 2: k T and Verizon T Mobile. You can do it
Speaker 2: from the website or from the app. I've put all
Speaker 2: the instructions on my website. Rich on tech dot tv.
Speaker 2: If you're paying for unlimited, you might as well get
Speaker 2: the HD streaming, all right. Now, let's get to the feedback. Oh,
Speaker 2: I only have a minute here. Hey, Rich, loved hearing
Speaker 2: your report about Korea. I've been an Apple guy for
Speaker 2: a long time. As you were discussing the Samsung Fold,
Speaker 2: I was walking past the best Buy yep, I walked
Speaker 2: in in real time you were speaking with the Samsung guy.
Speaker 2: My initial impression was the resolution was impressive. I'm an
Speaker 2: iPhone fourteen Pro Max owner doing a side by side
Speaker 2: unscientific evaluation. They are pretty close and clarity and definition.
Speaker 2: Upon closer inspection, I realized the screen attached to the
Speaker 2: body looked a little honky tonk technical term cheap. I
Speaker 2: cannot unsee the crease in the fold, which I can
Speaker 2: only envision cracking. Finally, that improved hinge looks glaringly to
Speaker 2: my eye like an obvious workaround. Do you love the
Speaker 2: idea of a foldable device? I remember innovations attempted by Sharp,
Speaker 2: but that usually ended up half baked. Love your show, Greg,
Speaker 2: Thanks for the feedback.
Speaker 1: Greg.
Speaker 2: Yeah, foldable phones. They're making in roads, but they're not
Speaker 2: there just yet. If you can believe it, that is
Speaker 2: going to do it for this episode of the show.
Speaker 2: It always goes by so fast. Once again, you can
Speaker 2: find me on social media. I am at rich on tech.
Speaker 2: I'm on Instagram, Twitter, all the good places there Actually
Speaker 2: not Twitter, what am I saying? That's on autopilot, No Instagram,
Speaker 2: Facebook threads, and honestly I'm starting to phase out Twitter
Speaker 2: or at X whatever they call it. Next week we're
Speaker 2: going to talk to Matt Swider of The Shortcut. He's
Speaker 2: going to talk tech deals plus the latest report from
Speaker 2: Privacy not included. Thanks so much for listening. There are
Speaker 2: so many ways you can spend your time. I do
Speaker 2: appreciate you spending it right here with me. Thanks to
Speaker 2: everyone who makes this show possible. My name is Richdmiro.
Speaker 2: I'll talk to you real soon, Happy Thanksgiving,