Speaker 1: Google changes its messaging apps once again. Instagram adds Amber
Speaker 1: Alerts a cool place to stay this summer. Plus your
Speaker 1: tech questions answered. What's going on? I'm Rich Damiro and
Speaker 1: this is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk
Speaker 1: about the tech stuff I think you should know about.
Speaker 1: It's also the place where I answer the questions you
Speaker 1: send me. I'm the tech reporter at KTLA Channel five
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: Hope you're having a fantastic week.
Speaker 1: So one thing I love about my job is that
Speaker 1: I get to do a lot of stuff before anyone else.
Speaker 2: Or get to see stuff that people don't get to see. Well,
Speaker 2: in this.
Speaker 1: Case, I guess I just got to see it before
Speaker 1: anyone else. So Amazon's got this new high tech clothing
Speaker 1: store here in Los Angeles. It's at the Americana at
Speaker 1: the Brand and they invited me inside, which was kind
Speaker 1: of cool. Now, yeah, one can go in at this point,
Speaker 1: but I got to go in before anyone got to
Speaker 1: go in, and I got to bring my cameras in,
Speaker 1: so that was kind of cool.
Speaker 2: We got to shoot a segment for KTLA about this.
Speaker 1: So why does Amazon have a new clothing store when
Speaker 1: they just closed all of their physical stores that they
Speaker 1: opened that were the bookstores and the four Star stores. Yes,
Speaker 1: they still have the grocery stores and the whole foods,
Speaker 1: although they're closing some of those as well. Not the
Speaker 1: fresh but the whole foods. I think they announced like
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of Nation why that they were closing anyway.
Speaker 1: So the Amazon style is our clothing store, and of
Speaker 1: course it's Amazon, so they got to put like a
Speaker 1: little twist on kind of the experience, and it's a
Speaker 1: high tech twist. And the big thing about this store
Speaker 1: is that when you walk in, they don't have like
Speaker 1: a bunch of colors and sizes stacked up to the ceiling.
Speaker 1: They have one of each. And then you scan a
Speaker 1: QR code and you say, send to my dressing room.
Speaker 1: And that's how you shop. So you send a bunch
Speaker 1: of stuff to your dressing room, and then you go
Speaker 1: to your dressing room. The stuff is in there, and
Speaker 1: you unlock the dressing room with your phone. It's all
Speaker 1: very high tech and cool, but the secret is all
Speaker 1: in this dressing room. So when you get into this
Speaker 1: fitting room, there are a couple of things. Number one,
Speaker 1: it's the clothes that you asked for are in there
Speaker 1: already hung up and they look all nice. Then there's
Speaker 1: a touch screen that tells you what you already have
Speaker 1: in there, and they have put in other clothes that
Speaker 1: they think you'll like, well, the computer will think you'll like.
Speaker 1: So they have an algorithm that says, Okay, Rich likes
Speaker 1: these kind of shirts. Let's give him three more of
Speaker 1: those types of shirts. We'll hang him up in there.
Speaker 1: When he gets in there, he'll look at him and
Speaker 1: try him on. Then, to top it all off, there
Speaker 1: is a special closet inside the fitting room, and I
Speaker 1: call it the magic closet because it has double doors
Speaker 1: on it. It's got one door that you can open
Speaker 1: on your end, and then it's got a back door
Speaker 1: that the that the employees can open. And so when
Speaker 1: you request a different size or color from on that
Speaker 1: touch screen, the employee goes and gets it and puts
Speaker 1: it inside that closet, and you magically open the closet
Speaker 1: and it's there. So they've done this thing for privacy
Speaker 1: where when the employee is opening the back door, your
Speaker 1: front door to that closet is locked and closed, and
Speaker 1: a little red light comes on that says, basically, you
Speaker 1: can't open the door, and then when they close that
Speaker 1: back door, the red light goes off. Your door is unlocked.
Speaker 1: And you also hear this like chime sound and a
Speaker 1: nice big bright light or I guess a glowing light
Speaker 1: kind of illuminates the entire closet from behind, and so
Speaker 1: that signals to you that, okay, your closer in there.
Speaker 1: It's really cool, it's fun. It's very different. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: you can have a bunch of associates that are just
Speaker 1: running closed back and forth, like if you say, you know,
Speaker 1: if you told a human like in another department store,
Speaker 1: like oh, can you go grab me a thirty four
Speaker 1: by thirty three instead of this thirty two, and they
Speaker 1: can go look for it and come back. So it's
Speaker 1: the same thing, except a little bit more automated, a
Speaker 1: little more high tech. And so I thought it was
Speaker 1: really cool. I think the big thing that's going to
Speaker 1: make or break this store is the amount of time
Speaker 1: it takes the employees to not only stock these dressing
Speaker 1: rooms with your initial stuff, but also the replenishment. So
Speaker 1: when I was there, it took a good ten minutes
Speaker 1: to get your fitting room stocked. Like when you say
Speaker 1: you scan a close a piece of clothing and you say, okay,
Speaker 1: I'd like this. It took a good ten minutes for
Speaker 1: that to show up inside the dressing room. So and
Speaker 1: then when I requested another size, it took i'd say
Speaker 1: probably like five minutes.
Speaker 2: So you know, it does take some time.
Speaker 1: I think if people are frustrated with that time, they
Speaker 1: won't come back. But otherwise, this has a lot of potential.
Speaker 1: It's definitely a cool way to shop, especially if you're
Speaker 1: by yourself, because you don't need to scream out across
Speaker 1: the room like I usually do my wife, like, hey, len,
Speaker 1: can you grab me a different size or a different
Speaker 1: color because this one doesn't fit? And you won't have
Speaker 1: to do that. So and of course while you're in
Speaker 1: that room, you can also rate things on that touch screen.
Speaker 1: So the touch screen has a whole bunch of clothes
Speaker 1: on it and it says okay, So while you're sitting
Speaker 1: there waiting for your next stuff, it says like, oh,
Speaker 1: you want to go through some clothes and kind of
Speaker 1: thumbs up or thumbs down some of this stuff, and
Speaker 1: that can help the algorithm sort of understand you better.
Speaker 2: So it's a cool thing. It's called Amazon Style.
Speaker 1: It's now open at the Americana at the brand and
Speaker 1: I'd say check it out if you're in the LA area.
Speaker 1: Definitely worth a checkout. I'd like to go back and
Speaker 1: do some wor shopping. I bought a pair of jeans,
Speaker 1: I bought some shampoo, and again, Amazon is using a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of data and algorithms to help stock this store,
Speaker 1: so they know if these yoga pants do really well
Speaker 1: on Amazon dot Com and they've never been sold in stores,
Speaker 1: they're probably gonna do pretty well in stores because they've
Speaker 1: got a thousands of good five star ratings or whatever.
Speaker 1: That's similar to what they did in their other stores.
Speaker 1: But I guess they realized in those other stores that
Speaker 1: they opened the kind of the Amazon four star and
Speaker 1: the Amazon bookstores that people like to buy books online.
Speaker 1: It's simple, it's easy. You hear about a book recommendation,
Speaker 1: you don't really need to flip through it.
Speaker 2: You can do that all online.
Speaker 1: You can get an idea for what the book is,
Speaker 1: you can read review use, and then you know you
Speaker 1: don't really need to go into a store to buy it.
Speaker 1: Even though bookstores still hold a very a very warm
Speaker 1: spot in my heart.
Speaker 2: I love those bookstores.
Speaker 1: I just get so many ideas when I go in there,
Speaker 1: but again, they just realize people like to buy stuff online.
Speaker 1: Clothing a little different. You want to touch it, you
Speaker 1: want to feel it, you want to see it. And
Speaker 1: so this could really work for clothes and maybe boost
Speaker 1: the clothing sales on Amazon, although I don't think one
Speaker 1: store would, but I think it'll give them a lot
Speaker 1: of data if they want to open these up at
Speaker 1: malls across America. All right, let's get to the first
Speaker 1: question of the week. Richard F says, how do I
Speaker 1: block ads on a Samsung Android phone? The S twenty
Speaker 1: one fe Great question? Great phone. I gave that phone
Speaker 1: a very high rating. It's I think four hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty dollars for a very good phone, and I loved it.
Speaker 1: So how do you block ads on it? Good question?
Speaker 1: So you can download an app that blocks ads, like
Speaker 1: something like block Blowkatta Blockotta block coatta b l O
Speaker 1: c k A d A, something like that.
Speaker 2: There are a whole bunch of apps that.
Speaker 1: Will There's ad Guard, there's ad block, I mean, there's
Speaker 1: so many things that will you origin.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's so many.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they have an app for the
Speaker 1: phone but there's so many ways you can block ads
Speaker 1: these days. I'm both Android and iOS, but the easiest
Speaker 1: way that I know to do it on Android is
Speaker 1: to go into your settings, and you go into Settings,
Speaker 1: and you go into Connections, and then you go into
Speaker 1: more Connection Settings, and then you select private DNS and
Speaker 1: you type in under private DNS provider host name. You
Speaker 1: type in the letters d NS dot ad guard dot com.
Speaker 1: So again you go into Settings, Connections, More Connection Settings,
Speaker 1: Private DNS, Private DNS provider host name, and you type
Speaker 1: in DNS dot ad guard dot com. What does that do.
Speaker 1: It's not an app, it's not a VPN. It's literally
Speaker 1: just routing all of your phone address information, you know,
Speaker 1: like when you're looking up a website, it's routing it
Speaker 1: through this ad Guard DNS server, and so when it
Speaker 1: gives the phone like, okay, here's how you find Yahoo
Speaker 1: dot com, Here's how you find Google dot com, here's
Speaker 1: how you find.
Speaker 2: eBay dot com.
Speaker 1: Oh, you want a link for double click, we can't
Speaker 1: find that because they're blocking anything that serves up ads.
Speaker 1: And so on your phone, you'll notice where the ads
Speaker 1: typically are. Either there'll be a blank space space, there'll
Speaker 1: be no AD or there'll be a big giant web
Speaker 1: URL that says cannot be resolved error, and that's a
Speaker 1: little annoying, but you know it's better to see that
Speaker 1: and you know there was an AD there.
Speaker 2: But that's really the easiest way.
Speaker 1: Ad Guard is a company that a service, whatever you
Speaker 1: want to call it, that you know, provides ad blocking
Speaker 1: on pretty much all of the different platforms. It works
Speaker 1: a little bit differently on all the different like whether
Speaker 1: you're on desktop, MACPC, or iOS or Android, it works
Speaker 1: a little different, but at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: it's it's just a super simple way to get rid
Speaker 1: of ads on your phone and it works. Now if
Speaker 1: you're ever having trouble with a website, whether it's not loading,
Speaker 1: whether it's an app is not working, you always have
Speaker 1: to remember that you put in that DNS dot adguard
Speaker 1: dot com and if something's not working on your phone
Speaker 1: as it should be, you can go back into there
Speaker 1: and turn that off and you can turn it off
Speaker 1: temporarily and then just go enable it once you're done again. Now,
Speaker 1: I block ads across my whole network in my home
Speaker 1: using euro and it does present some problems sometimes for sure.
Speaker 1: I don't know why, but just you know, like the
Speaker 1: other day, I was trying to log into an app
Speaker 1: and it was like, Nope, can't do it because we
Speaker 1: can't reach something. And you'll notice that sometimes websites don't
Speaker 1: load or sometimes there's like an error, and so if
Speaker 1: you ever run into that, you can temporarily disable this
Speaker 1: ad blocking. The other thing I've noticed is when I'm
Speaker 1: searching Google on my phone at home, sometimes these ads,
Speaker 1: you know, the first like you know, the first three
Speaker 1: results are typically ads, and most people don't even realize that.
Speaker 1: I've watched so many people use Google, and I've watched
Speaker 1: them as soon as they search or something, they literally
Speaker 1: click the first link at the top that is marked AD,
Speaker 1: but nobody notices that, and nobody scrolls down like I
Speaker 1: always do to get to the actual what we call
Speaker 1: organic results. And so I've just noticed people over and
Speaker 1: over they just click those ads right at the top,
Speaker 1: and typically it will bring you to what you need
Speaker 1: because either Amazon's buying it or you know, whoever you're
Speaker 1: searching for has.
Speaker 2: Purchased that keyword.
Speaker 1: But it's just it boggles my mind that so many
Speaker 1: people just default to that top, that top result, and
Speaker 1: I guess that's why Google makes billions and billions of
Speaker 1: dollars because most people are not very discerning about what
Speaker 1: they click on the Google results, and Google knows that,
Speaker 1: which is why those ads.
Speaker 2: Do really well for them.
Speaker 1: So sometimes if I'm at home and I search for like,
Speaker 1: let's say someone asks me a question about something, I
Speaker 1: go to research it and the first link that comes
Speaker 1: up is that company. I'll sometimes click it or it
Speaker 1: comes up, but I'm like, oh, that's interesting, let me
Speaker 1: click that. I can't because it'll literally say like, sorry,
Speaker 1: we can't find the server. So if that ever happens,
Speaker 1: you can just go in and switch things up.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Speaking of Google, Google, you know, I give them a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of trouble for always changing things.
Speaker 1: Google just loves to change things up, and especially when
Speaker 1: it comes to messaging. I feel like Google has been
Speaker 1: all over the place lately, especially with a pixel phone
Speaker 1: and with some of the products they just they're always different,
Speaker 1: Like the pixel phone, you know.
Speaker 2: It's like I just wish that Like if you look
Speaker 2: at the.
Speaker 1: iPhone from day one until now, it has been this
Speaker 1: really natural slow evolution. You know, it's always been a
Speaker 1: piece of glass or a you know, glass screen back metal,
Speaker 1: whatever you know, material they're using at this at the time,
Speaker 1: kind of the.
Speaker 2: Same form factor.
Speaker 1: Yes, they've made it bigger some years, smaller some years,
Speaker 1: but it kind of looks like an iPhone every time
Speaker 1: you see it, as opposed to the pixel. Every time
Speaker 1: you get a pixel every year, it's completely different. Like
Speaker 1: everything about it is different. The design language, the look,
Speaker 1: the feel, the curves, everything is different. And so it
Speaker 1: just really bugs me that they like can't evolve something
Speaker 1: to like just slowly change it and just make it
Speaker 1: better every year. And you know, they just make these
Speaker 1: really big harsh changes sometimes at Google, except with search.
Speaker 1: With Search they kind of kept the same for many
Speaker 1: years now, but all the other stuff they kind of
Speaker 1: make these big like twists and turns and moves and
Speaker 1: lefts and rights and like we're left, Okay, well I
Speaker 1: like this yesterday. Now it doesn't work that way. I
Speaker 1: like this this feature.
Speaker 2: Oh it's gone. Anyway.
Speaker 1: All that to say that Google is eyeing Google Duo
Speaker 1: and Google Meet. These are two different video services that
Speaker 1: they run. Google Duo is more for the mobile phone,
Speaker 1: Google Meat is sort of for the desktop. If you
Speaker 1: want to think of these in terms as Google Duo
Speaker 1: is a competitive FaceTime. Google Meat is an alternative to Zoom,
Speaker 1: and they both have different features. But Google says, you
Speaker 1: know what, We're just going to go ahead and merge
Speaker 1: these two things together, and we're gonna call it Google Meet.
Speaker 1: So Duo is going away. It's gonna be called Google Meet.
Speaker 1: If you have the app on your phone, they're going
Speaker 1: to rename it to Meet later this year, and it's
Speaker 1: gonna be one way to video chat using Google products
Speaker 1: across the board. So if you want, you know, like
Speaker 1: Duo was really good at video chatting link to a
Speaker 1: phone number, and so Meat was really good at sending
Speaker 1: a link to someone and they can video chat. Now
Speaker 1: it's gonna be all mixed together. So you can video
Speaker 1: chat using a link, you can video chat using a
Speaker 1: phone number, you can video chat using you know, whatever
Speaker 1: way that they want you to do it.
Speaker 2: You know what is it?
Speaker 1: So you got a link, a phone number, user name
Speaker 1: I guess, and then a text message.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but that's it. So just know that
Speaker 2: that's happening.
Speaker 1: Those features are going to be merged soon and Google
Speaker 1: Duo sadly is going away. I remember the day it
Speaker 1: came out, and now it's going away. Lupita says, my
Speaker 1: dad is eighty, he wants a smartphone. What is the
Speaker 1: best cheap phone I can get him? He only wants
Speaker 1: it for Internet use, for movies and music. He already
Speaker 1: has a flip phone. Smiley face, Thank you, Lupita, Lupida,
Speaker 1: great question. But if your dad already has a flip phone,
Speaker 1: why does he need another smartphone. I think that you're
Speaker 1: missing the obvious answer here, and that is an Amazon
Speaker 1: Fire Tablet. If he wants something that is just inexpensive
Speaker 1: and can do what you're talking about, I think that
Speaker 1: the fire Tablet is the way to go, and they're
Speaker 1: super cheap. You can go with the fire Tablet seven
Speaker 1: and that is sixty dollars. They just revamped it. It's
Speaker 1: brand new. It's got sixteen or thirty two gigs of storage,
Speaker 1: ten hour battery, two gigs of RAM, which doesn't sound
Speaker 1: like a lot, and it's probably not probably a little
Speaker 1: slower than you'd want it to be, but for music
Speaker 1: and movies it's going to be just fine.
Speaker 2: It does have USBC on the bottom.
Speaker 1: Now, if you want to slight upgrade, you can go
Speaker 1: to the eight and that's gonna be ninety dollars, So
Speaker 1: for thirty more dollars, you can go with the eight
Speaker 1: and that's gonna give you an HD screen, a little
Speaker 1: bit more battery life, and a bigger screen as well.
Speaker 2: But I would recommend that.
Speaker 1: I don't think that your dad wants another phone, unless
Speaker 1: he's planning on activating this with a cellular line, which
Speaker 1: I don't think he would if he's looking for an inexpensive,
Speaker 1: cheap phone. You said cheap, So if you're looking for cheap,
Speaker 1: I doubt dad wants to pay thirty dollars a month
Speaker 1: for another line to put data on this phone and
Speaker 1: where he can use it anywhere he wants. So I
Speaker 1: would say just go with the tablet. I think that's
Speaker 1: gonna be the easiest way to do it. And if
Speaker 1: he wants a cheap smartphone, a couple of options. There
Speaker 1: is the Samsung S twenty gosh is it the S
Speaker 1: twenty one FC S twenty one FV. I think we
Speaker 1: just reviewed this one. They're not up to the S
Speaker 1: twenty two. No S twenty one. Oh no, sorry, not
Speaker 1: the fe I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It's the Samsung. Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, hold on, it's the h A thirty. Hold on,
Speaker 1: hold on, I gotta look at my story I just
Speaker 1: did on KTLA. So we did the Samsung A fifty
Speaker 1: three five G. That's the one that I would recommend
Speaker 1: for him. So the Samsung A fifty three five G
Speaker 1: is wow. Yeah, it's as low as like I think
Speaker 1: three hundred and thirty dollars or sorry, four hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty dollars. But you can get that on sale or
Speaker 1: even cheaper. So let's see do I say the price tonight?
Speaker 2: Did I really? Oh? Wow?
Speaker 1: I said for about four hundred dollars, so I would
Speaker 1: go for that. I think that that's uh. So it's say,
Speaker 1: this is the problem with with Samsung's website. You go
Speaker 1: to look at the price and they actually include all
Speaker 1: this stuff. So it's looking like if you do an
Speaker 1: unlocked it looks like it's four hundred and forty nine.
Speaker 1: See it says it has a trade in, so you're
Speaker 1: getting one hundred dollars for your trade in. So the
Speaker 1: price of the phone is four hundred and fifty dollars,
Speaker 1: but you can get that for cheaper. You just trade
Speaker 1: in any phone, you get one hundred dollars off. Then
Speaker 1: I'm looking at honey, they give you another eighty dollars off,
Speaker 1: so you can get that for considerably cheaper than the
Speaker 1: price tag. That's one option. The other thing I would
Speaker 1: look at is the TCL phones. They've got the TCL
Speaker 1: twenty series.
Speaker 2: And the TCL thirty series.
Speaker 1: Those are pretty inexpensive as well, so I would do
Speaker 1: I would look into those, but good question, and just
Speaker 1: go with the tablet much much cheaper. And Dad's gonna
Speaker 1: get as Netflix as Hulu Music, if you have Spotify,
Speaker 1: Amazon Prime, whatever he needs. I think you can go
Speaker 1: with it that way, all right. Instagram this week is
Speaker 1: bringing Amber alerts to the platform. This is a big
Speaker 1: deal because when I grew up, we had we had
Speaker 1: missing children on the back of milk cartons, and you know,
Speaker 1: that was good because a lot of kids were reunited safely,
Speaker 1: but it was also not perfect because you know, the
Speaker 1: children that they had to feature could be on a
Speaker 1: wide swath of wherever those milk cartons were delivered. So
Speaker 1: with Amber alerts on Instagram, there's a couple advantages. Number One,
Speaker 1: they're going to show these in the news feed or
Speaker 1: in your feed on Instagram. It's going to have a photo,
Speaker 1: it's going to have a description, and it's also going
Speaker 1: to have a link to local law enforcement, So whatever
Speaker 1: law enforcement that is handling that child's case is going
Speaker 1: to be linked up right through the app, which I
Speaker 1: think is is very smart and as opposed to the
Speaker 1: cell phone those only show text descriptions, so by having
Speaker 1: the picture, it's going to be a big advantage to
Speaker 1: this and reuniting these kids safely. Now, the other thing
Speaker 1: they're going to do is they are using geotagging, So
Speaker 1: it's going to use a variety of signals to show
Speaker 1: these to people. And that could be the city that's
Speaker 1: on your profile, it could be your IP address or
Speaker 1: where you're located, or if you have location services turned on,
Speaker 1: they'll use that as well. And so I think that
Speaker 1: this is pretty smart that these these alerts will be
Speaker 1: super localized to where they think they need to be,
Speaker 1: and that's a pretty big deal. Now, Instagram did tell
Speaker 1: me that they have been doing this on Facebook since
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, and it says they've assisted law enforcement in
Speaker 1: hundreds of successful child endangerment cases in the US and
Speaker 1: globally and anyway.
Speaker 2: So something to be aware of.
Speaker 1: And this Amber alert system, by the way, has led
Speaker 1: to the successful recovery of more than eleven hundred children
Speaker 1: since it's founding in nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 2: Now, I'm just when you think.
Speaker 1: About the seriousness of this, like even one child missing,
Speaker 1: not where they should be with their parents or their family,
Speaker 1: their guardians, is incredibly sad and heartbreaking. And so the
Speaker 1: fact that eleven hundred have been found, you can only
Speaker 1: imagine how many were or still unresolved. This is completely
Speaker 1: just absolutely heartbreaking. And I think that if Instagram reunites
Speaker 1: one child with a family, that is just one hundred
Speaker 1: percent worth it. And you know you will see those
Speaker 1: as you're scrolling through. I know a lot of people
Speaker 1: get really angry about the Amber alerts on their phones
Speaker 1: and they always turn them off for any sort of
Speaker 1: like Silver alert or you know whatever, these like emergency
Speaker 1: wireless messages. And I get it, they interrupt us, they're loud,
Speaker 1: they're annoying, but the reality is they do help. And
Speaker 1: when you can get a lot of people to say, oh, interesting, okay,
Speaker 1: let me see let me be on the lookout for that,
Speaker 1: it could really really make a difference, all right. Bobby says, hey,
Speaker 1: Rich is Oro a legitimate company identification protection and by
Speaker 1: using my cell phone to register my banking information? Will
Speaker 1: the information be at risk? Thank you, Bobby and Alexandria Louisiana. So, Bobby,
Speaker 1: I had to do some research on ORRO. I actually
Speaker 1: think you mean Aura A. You are A and I've
Speaker 1: seen this. It says it protects your identity, your finances,
Speaker 1: and your sensitive All plans include a million dollar insurance
Speaker 1: policy that covers eligible losses. You can try it for
Speaker 1: fourteen days free, and if I look on the website,
Speaker 1: the pricing is twelve dollars a month individual, twenty two
Speaker 1: dollars for a couple, or thirty seven dollars a month
Speaker 1: for family. But those are if you pay for a
Speaker 1: year in advance. If you pay monthly, it's basically fifteen,
Speaker 1: thirty or fifty dollars a month.
Speaker 2: That's a lot of money. And what does it do?
Speaker 1: It gives you identity, theft insurance, White Glove Fraud Resolution
Speaker 1: twenty four to seven, Customer Service anti virus a VPN
Speaker 1: safe browsing, password manager, online account monitoring, personal information and
Speaker 1: soci security number monitoring, spam call junk mail, people search
Speaker 1: site removal. Oh wow, that might be worth it right there? Ooh,
Speaker 1: that's amazing. Identity verification, monitoring, home title and address monitoring,
Speaker 1: criminal and court records monitoring, lost wallet, and then for
Speaker 1: the family you get the child's sociecurity number. You get
Speaker 1: credit monitoring, credit lock, bank account monitoring, four one K
Speaker 1: investment account monitoring, monthly credit score, annual credit reports.
Speaker 2: So you get a lot.
Speaker 1: Is it safe, Yes, I'm sure it's safe. I'm sure
Speaker 1: it's legitimate. It looks like this is a reputable website.
Speaker 1: It does a lot of stuff. And do you need it,
Speaker 1: I think is the big question. And is it worth
Speaker 1: the fifteen twenty nine or I guess we should say
Speaker 1: twelve to fifty dollars a month? Is it worth that
Speaker 1: amount of money to have this protection? I mean that depends.
Speaker 1: I think that identity theft is a huge problem. I
Speaker 1: think that if they can help you recover things, or
Speaker 1: they can help monitor if your social Security number or
Speaker 1: one of your accounts.
Speaker 2: Gets out there on the open web.
Speaker 1: But this stuff is happening a lot, and you know,
Speaker 1: our information is out there, and it's out there in
Speaker 1: a big way. Every time one of these services gets hacked,
Speaker 1: there's a bit of information about us that gets out,
Speaker 1: whether it's our email address, whether it's our phone number,
Speaker 1: I mean physical address, email phone number is pretty much
Speaker 1: out there, SOLI security number. Only when we see these
Speaker 1: major hacks of like a you know, a big company
Speaker 1: that had it that you know, that's when we see
Speaker 1: those floating around. But I think for what you're getting,
Speaker 1: if you don't mind the cost, it's probably not a
Speaker 1: bad deal. If you ever have your identity hacked or stolen,
Speaker 1: it is a big pain to get that information resolved.
Speaker 1: And the fact that they do it white Glove Fraud Resolution.
Speaker 1: Our plan gives you access to our US based White
Speaker 1: Glove Fraud specialists. They're highly experienced and dedicated to help
Speaker 1: you recover your identity and assets of your victim of fraud.
Speaker 1: So I mean, yeah, that could be worth it. And
Speaker 1: I think that this is, you know, it's definitely something
Speaker 1: to look into. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna fault
Speaker 1: you for having this. If this gives you peace of mind.
Speaker 1: Along with the other things you get like the VPN,
Speaker 1: the safe browsing, the password manager, all this account monitoring,
Speaker 1: credit monitoring, credit lock I mean, that's.
Speaker 2: That's pretty good.
Speaker 1: It is a little bit expensive, but I think that
Speaker 1: I think it's not a bad thing. To have, So
Speaker 1: if you want to go for it or au R
Speaker 1: is again what it's called good question? You know what,
Speaker 1: Let's go right into this next question from Ken. Ken said,
Speaker 1: hey again, after hearing about your recent experience of leaving
Speaker 1: your credit card at the restaurant in Anaheim, I just
Speaker 1: had to share my practice of putting a label on
Speaker 1: each of my credit cards. I still believe that most
Speaker 1: people are honest and appreciate my making it easy for
Speaker 1: them to reach me in the event I misplaced one
Speaker 1: of my credit cards, my cell phone, or other important items.
Speaker 1: I make my own labels that have a simple message,
Speaker 1: please call my cell phone number, and they put the
Speaker 1: number on if this card is left behind. The sad
Speaker 1: or maybe good news is that, as it has worked
Speaker 1: many times over the years. I also display the same
Speaker 1: message on the lock screen on my iPhone. It's like
Speaker 1: chicken soup.
Speaker 2: It wouldn't hurt.
Speaker 1: I've attached images and I trust that you're.
Speaker 2: Not going to share them.
Speaker 1: No Ken in San Diego, So, Ken, I love the
Speaker 1: fact that you are trusting of humans, and I love
Speaker 1: the fact and I agree with the fact that most
Speaker 1: humans are good natured, and I think that if you
Speaker 1: leave your credit card somewhere. Yes, they will call you
Speaker 1: and say, hey, I found this and do you want
Speaker 1: to take it back. The problem is, in my case,
Speaker 1: number one, I left this at Disneyland, so I was
Speaker 1: not going to go back to get my credit card.
Speaker 2: Number two.
Speaker 1: I would always be concerned about the number on that
Speaker 1: card being compromised. Even if the person who found it
Speaker 1: is a nice person, you don't know how many hands
Speaker 1: it went through before that person, or how many hands
Speaker 1: it will go through. Like let's say a waiter found
Speaker 1: it at a restaurant. They give it to their manager. Well,
Speaker 1: maybe the manager is nice and says, oh, let me
Speaker 1: call this person. Maybe the waiter took a shot of
Speaker 1: it and a picture of it and sent it to
Speaker 1: a friend and sold the number for one hundred bucks.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm just I don't think they would do that,
Speaker 1: but you never know, so I would be worried that
Speaker 1: down the line, this credit card could be compromised in
Speaker 1: a different way, so you can do this. I also
Speaker 1: don't like the idea of putting my phone number on
Speaker 1: a credit card, because I don't want anyone to have
Speaker 1: more information about me than they need. I don't even
Speaker 1: sign my credit cards anymore because I know, and I mean,
Speaker 1: when was the last time someone looked at a signature
Speaker 1: on a credit card? They just don't, so I don't
Speaker 1: even sign them because then they don't have that signature.
Speaker 1: I mean, do you remember when you used to write
Speaker 1: a check at like the dry cleaners or something.
Speaker 2: They used to write every piece.
Speaker 1: Of information on that check that was yours, your driver's license,
Speaker 1: your phone number, your you know, sometimes your date of birth.
Speaker 2: Maybe I don't know, maybe they didn't do that.
Speaker 1: Your address, they had your you know, your checking account
Speaker 1: number was right on the bottom. I mean, it was
Speaker 1: pretty wild what we used to give up back in
Speaker 1: the day. And now my default is like I'm not like,
Speaker 1: if I fill out those forms of the doctor's office,
Speaker 1: I leave my social Security number off. I mean, if
Speaker 1: someone really needs it, I will give it to them,
Speaker 1: But otherwise it's like, no, the default is you're not
Speaker 1: getting that and you will have to give me a
Speaker 1: reason why you So just keep that in mind, like,
Speaker 1: don't give people more information than they need about you,
Speaker 1: because it's better to let them really give you a
Speaker 1: reason why before you hand it over.
Speaker 2: So that's a good good practice.
Speaker 1: But ken, I get it. Yes, people are good. I
Speaker 1: think that this is fine if it works for you.
Speaker 1: I personally am not comfortable with doing that because I
Speaker 1: just don't want any more information on my card. And
Speaker 1: what I did is I locked my card on the app.
Speaker 1: So I just went on my app, I locked the card.
Speaker 2: It was fine.
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, when I locked the card,
Speaker 1: the physical card is locked, but it could still be
Speaker 1: used for like online transactions, like things that you're that already,
Speaker 1: like recurring subscriptions and stuff. And then after a week,
Speaker 1: when I realized my card was not showing up, like
Speaker 1: I wasn't going back to Disney to get it, but
Speaker 1: I thought maybe I left it in like my pants
Speaker 1: pocket or something didn't show up.
Speaker 2: I called I got a new card.
Speaker 1: And then, of course, as soon as you cancel that
Speaker 1: old card, all the emails started coming in. Oh, Rich,
Speaker 1: we can't charge your card. We can't charge your card,
Speaker 1: We can't charge your card. And it's like, h I
Speaker 1: put a lot of the recurring stuff on the credit
Speaker 1: card instead of the debit card because my debit card
Speaker 1: was taken a while back, and so you know, once
Speaker 1: I did that, I was like, ah, it's just easier
Speaker 1: for the credit card and you can't win no matter
Speaker 1: what if you if your card number is stolen. It's
Speaker 1: just a headache, it really is. So anyway, can good
Speaker 1: comment there? So I don't fault you for that, but
Speaker 1: I just I'm a little bit more, uh, I guess
Speaker 1: less trusting.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Son Nos now has voice control. This is a new
Speaker 1: voice experience that lets you control your music and your
Speaker 1: Sonos system with what they call unmatched privacy. So now
Speaker 1: if you have a son No speaker that's voice compatible,
Speaker 1: which is only a handful of them, like in my home,
Speaker 1: I think two of them are, but you can now
Speaker 1: set up this Son's voice control and you can ask
Speaker 1: sons to do stuff. And I think there's a big
Speaker 1: advantage to this because I do have Google and Alexa
Speaker 1: support on the on the speaker that I have. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I know you missed something, Alexa. Sorry you missed the
Speaker 1: command because I wasn't actually talking to you. I know,
Speaker 1: I'm talking to Alexa here. She doesn't have an answer
Speaker 1: for that. So the problem with the using the historic
Speaker 1: commands like the Google or the alex a is that
Speaker 1: there are other things in your house that respond to that.
Speaker 1: So I actually think this is quite smart that you
Speaker 1: can say hey, Sons and it will only trigger your speaker,
Speaker 1: which when you want to play music. That's very handy.
Speaker 1: And so I will tell you I've tried this. I
Speaker 1: set it up, and so far I've not been able
Speaker 1: to use it because I first tried Spotify. It was like, sorry,
Speaker 1: we're not compatible with Spotify, and I was like, okay, fine,
Speaker 1: YouTube Music, Sorry we're not compatible with YouTube Music. Okay,
Speaker 1: what are you compatible with? So it's compatible with Sonos, Radio,
Speaker 1: Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, and Pandora. More services and
Speaker 1: markets to follow, And the keyword again is hey, Sonos.
Speaker 1: And by the way, they're using the actor Giancarlo Esposito,
Speaker 1: who's best known for his roles in Breaking Bad, Better
Speaker 1: Call Saul and the Mandalorian. He is the voice behind
Speaker 1: the new Sons voice control, so kind of cool. Anyway,
Speaker 1: there you go. If you have Sonos, definitely check it
Speaker 1: out in your app, and maybe you have one of
Speaker 1: those services that actually works with because I don't. Rick says, hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: your advice is always helpful. My PC has slowed down.
Speaker 1: I keep getting pop ups as shown in the attached pictures.
Speaker 1: Can you recommend a registry cleaner? To resolve some of
Speaker 1: these issues. Any help would be appreciated.
Speaker 2: Rick.
Speaker 1: All right, so I'm looking at this picture that Rick sent.
Speaker 1: Your PC suffers from from slow down and clutter. There
Speaker 1: are one and fifty seven issues to fix and forty
Speaker 1: six thousand megabytes to clean up. Broken registry system, junk
Speaker 1: PC health problems, junk programs, programs slowing down your PC
Speaker 1: browser cache and tracking in other cookies. Okay, this is
Speaker 1: totally scam city. This is being served up by I
Speaker 1: think it looks like a vast maybe and it's some
Speaker 1: sort of program that you have in your computer that's
Speaker 1: just telling you this stuff that it wants you to upgrade,
Speaker 1: It wants you to pay, it wants you to do something.
Speaker 1: So I would get rid of this program, uninstall it.
Speaker 1: And the couple things that I would do is the
Speaker 1: ways that I clean up the computer is number one,
Speaker 1: the registry cleaner.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm not a huge Windows person, so maybe the registry
Speaker 1: is like a big thing, But like, I don't think
Speaker 1: you need to be cleaning out your registry all the time.
Speaker 1: I think that that's just become like a term that
Speaker 1: these systems use because it's scary and there's always these errors,
Speaker 1: and there's always these things that can be corrected, and
Speaker 1: you don't really know what's going on in there, so
Speaker 1: it looks like you're doing something when realistically you're probably not.
Speaker 1: So what I would do is things number one, uninstall
Speaker 1: this program. Go through your programs on your UH uninstall
Speaker 1: and in system preferences, and just literally what's it called
Speaker 1: in Windows Control Center control panel, go through the uninstaller
Speaker 1: and just literally go through the list of programs and
Speaker 1: anything you don't recognize.
Speaker 2: Just uninstall.
Speaker 1: If you don't need it, you didn't install it.
Speaker 2: Just just get rid of it.
Speaker 1: Restart your computer, do all the software updates on your computer,
Speaker 1: and you know, you can clean out your your browser
Speaker 1: and all that stuff, like just clear the history and
Speaker 1: stuff manually. But that's what I would do, and then
Speaker 1: make sure all your Windows is up to date. And
Speaker 1: if your computer's still really slow, what I would do
Speaker 1: is just give it a fresh start. Depending on how
Speaker 1: old this is, like literally you can go to Windows
Speaker 1: and refactory format your PC and start fresh, and that'll
Speaker 1: give you like a whole new life on this computer.
Speaker 1: If it's like four years old, five years old, that
Speaker 1: you haven't done this The other thing you can do
Speaker 1: is check out clean my PC. I do actually trust
Speaker 1: that program, and so I would say that's probably a
Speaker 1: better program than Oh, they're no longer developing it. Oh no, oh,
Speaker 1: that's it. I guess it's over. Just they just did this,
Speaker 1: huh wow since December first, okay, twenty twenty one, so
Speaker 1: it's been a couple months. Okay, Well, anyway, Windows eleven
Speaker 1: is the last time they're they're supporting it, So maybe
Speaker 1: use that. The other app is what's it called Should
Speaker 1: I remove it? They've got that which you can look
Speaker 1: up kind of the bloatwear on your computer and see
Speaker 1: what's going on there. But these Windows computers come pre
Speaker 1: installed with a lot of bloatwear, and they come they
Speaker 1: come slow out of the box, which is kind of funny.
Speaker 1: But that's what I would recommend doing. I don't I
Speaker 1: don't know this. This program is just kind of scaring
Speaker 1: you into into, you know, paying for something that you
Speaker 1: don't need. So that that's my recommendation. Rick, All right,
Speaker 1: let's talk about Sounder. So I was doing some research.
Speaker 1: I have no idea how I came across this. Maybe
Speaker 1: it was in a magazine maybe whatever. Someone mentioned it
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I looked it up and like,
Speaker 1: how do I not know about this? So Sonder is
Speaker 1: kind of a mix between Airbnb and a hotel. So
Speaker 1: it's a company that buys rental properties and sometimes they
Speaker 1: could be as big as a hotel. Sometimes they are
Speaker 1: as small as like a two unit, three unit, four
Speaker 1: unit place, and they rent them out kind of self
Speaker 1: service style, so you rent it on an app, obviously,
Speaker 1: but you also check in on the app. You unlock
Speaker 1: your door from the app. They're not really staffed by people,
Speaker 1: so you kind of come and go as you please.
Speaker 1: And you know, there's like self storage service lockers for
Speaker 1: like your luggage. So I went and I called up Sonder.
Speaker 1: Took a while to get this figured out, but we
Speaker 1: finally met up. It took me to a location near
Speaker 1: lax called the Sonder Lum, which I guess is an
Speaker 1: old hotel that they're they redid but now they're rebranding
Speaker 1: it to a different name. I forget what it's gonna
Speaker 1: be called. But you know, they showed me kind of
Speaker 1: what this is all about. This is in thirty cities
Speaker 1: around the world, at least thirty cities, and the big
Speaker 1: thing is that it's kind of like an Airbnb because
Speaker 1: it's very like DIY, but it's also has the quality
Speaker 1: standards of a hotel chain, so they have like people
Speaker 1: that professionally clean it, that restock the room.
Speaker 2: The rooms are very uniform.
Speaker 1: Maybe not across the whole portfolio, but you're gonna get
Speaker 1: like the same things, like a nice comfortable bed, a
Speaker 1: bright airy room, good coffee, a coffee maker, a refrigerator,
Speaker 1: a good Wi Fi, a TV that has a Roku
Speaker 1: with streaming services on it, and so it's it's just
Speaker 1: like a really cool like kind of mix between these
Speaker 1: two things. And they actually rent a lot of these
Speaker 1: out on Airbnb as well and the hotel websites, so
Speaker 1: you know, and since there's no one at the front desk,
Speaker 1: they've got this thing called the essentials cabinet, which has
Speaker 1: like extra toilet paper, extra towels, extra coffee pods there,
Speaker 1: you know, and some of them are really elaborate, like
Speaker 1: they could have like a gym like the one I.
Speaker 1: Of course, the one they took me to was like
Speaker 1: the best case scenario, right. It was like a really nice,
Speaker 1: brand new proper had a nice big pool, had a
Speaker 1: big gym, It had the you know, everything was perfect
Speaker 1: and brand new. Now I'm not saying all these aren't
Speaker 1: like that. I just have not stayed one stayed at
Speaker 1: one of these personally, and so I can't really say
Speaker 1: like how great they are because I haven't stayed. But
Speaker 1: I think it looks really cool and it's a good alternative.
Speaker 1: And it's also a little bit cheaper than a lot
Speaker 1: of the places that you might be looking at in
Speaker 1: that area because it is a DIY.
Speaker 2: I mean, think about it.
Speaker 1: They are it's kind of like a hotel or an airbnb,
Speaker 1: but they are literally running these things tech forward, which
Speaker 1: means you know, you're checking in from your phone.
Speaker 2: There's no restaurants.
Speaker 1: There's just a lot of overhead in these giant hotels,
Speaker 1: like when you go to any hotel chain, there's.
Speaker 2: Just a lot of overhead.
Speaker 1: Like they've got to pay the cleaning people, They've got
Speaker 1: to pay the you know, the front desk people. They've
Speaker 1: got to pay a plumber to be there, you know,
Speaker 1: like all these different things, maintenance, valet, you know, all
Speaker 1: this stuff. And so by doing away with a lot
Speaker 1: of the personnel and just having people that are very flexible.
Speaker 1: So like let's say you run these hotels in San Diego,
Speaker 1: and you've got you know, these places in San Diego.
Speaker 1: You've got three locations. You may have a crew of
Speaker 1: thirty people shared between those locations, so they're always kind
Speaker 1: of moving between those three locations instead of having, you know,
Speaker 1: a Hilton in ten different locations in that in that city,
Speaker 1: and every one of those Hilton's has a staff of
Speaker 1: one hundred people. You know, it's so that staff is
Speaker 1: very expensive. So by by divvying this up and kind
Speaker 1: of coming from a tech forward way where most people
Speaker 1: are just coming and going on their own, it does
Speaker 1: save a lot of money, and so they're passing some
Speaker 1: of that savings onto you. So this is called Sounder.
Speaker 1: You can check it out. I would like to stay
Speaker 1: at one of these to see just how cool it is.
Speaker 1: I was very impressed with the room.
Speaker 2: It was great.
Speaker 1: What I liked about the Roku is that you set
Speaker 1: your checkout date, so you can sign into your Netflix
Speaker 1: and your Hulu and you choose your checkout date, and
Speaker 1: on your checkout date, it just automatically wipes the Roku clean,
Speaker 1: so it actually reformats the whole thing and wipes all
Speaker 1: those user accounts off of it. So that the next
Speaker 1: person isn't using your Netflix, unlike you know my world
Speaker 1: where everyone's using my Netflix anyway, So all right, Sherry says, Hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: I was wondering if you had a chance to check
Speaker 1: out the Fetch application. You take pictures of receipts to
Speaker 1: get points, and after you get so many points, you
Speaker 1: can get gift cards. Do you think it's okay to
Speaker 1: use the app? And do you think it's safe? Thanks, Sherry. Sherry,
Speaker 1: I specifically have not seen Fetch, but I know what
Speaker 1: it's all about. It's kind of like we did a
Speaker 1: story with Drop a long time ago. Let's see if
Speaker 1: that's still around. Yeah, Drop is still around. Let's see
Speaker 1: what other ones are. There's upside. There's so many of
Speaker 1: these apps, so upside versus let me do my favorite one, Fetch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's so many. Let's see there's.
Speaker 1: Fetch versus Ibota. I mean, there's so many of these
Speaker 1: And the reality is the apps are all the same
Speaker 1: at their heart, and what they're doing is it's a
Speaker 1: total data play. You are handing over your data and
Speaker 1: they are giving you points, and those points add up
Speaker 1: eventually to a gift card or some sort of reward,
Speaker 1: and there's nothing wrong with it.
Speaker 2: These are totally cool, they're totally legal.
Speaker 1: Yes, you're handing over a lot of information, and that's
Speaker 1: the reality of this. It really depends how comfortable are
Speaker 1: you with handing over all of your data and if
Speaker 1: you're taking pictures of your receipts or whatever. I mean,
Speaker 1: what they're trying to do is see what you're buying,
Speaker 1: trying to see your spending habits, You're trying to just
Speaker 1: they're just getting a lot of data and then they
Speaker 1: sell that data to big brands. So if Huggy says, hey,
Speaker 1: can you give us an idea.
Speaker 2: Of who buys our.
Speaker 1: Diapers, and they say, yeah, we know all these people
Speaker 1: because they all sent us their receipts. Obviously, when you
Speaker 1: first sign up, you probably fill out a demographics form
Speaker 1: that says you know, male, female, your age, where you live.
Speaker 2: How much you may all this good stuff.
Speaker 1: So again it's all just a data play and they're
Speaker 1: collecting as much data as possible so that they can
Speaker 1: sell that data. On the other end, it's the same
Speaker 1: thing that a lot of these websites do that collect
Speaker 1: your that want access to your email program like I
Speaker 1: think Ratuken, I think is one of them. But like
Speaker 1: you know, you can like give access to your your
Speaker 1: email and they will slice and dice your email like
Speaker 1: I do one, uh for a service. And the reality is,
Speaker 1: you know, they look in my emails for my travel
Speaker 1: receipts and they kind of put it all onto one thing.
Speaker 1: And it's great, but they're probably collecting data about how
Speaker 1: I travel, where I go, and they're selling across that
Speaker 1: or selling against that as well. So not a bad thing.
Speaker 1: It's just business, and it just depends on how much
Speaker 1: you want to share. You can look at their privacy policy.
Speaker 1: Uh so yeah, I mean here's what they do, uh information.
Speaker 1: We collect name data, birth, email, billing, shipping, telephone number,
Speaker 1: any photo, any other information. We collect consumer account and
Speaker 1: email log in or credentials on digital receipts.
Speaker 2: I mean there's a whole bunch of stuff that they do.
Speaker 1: So again, it's just it's one of those things where
Speaker 1: you know, are you comfortable with giving up that data?
Speaker 1: If you are, and you can game the system and
Speaker 1: make a couple bucks, twenty five dollars, fifty dollars, whatever
Speaker 1: it is, I mean, that's fine, that's up to you.
Speaker 1: So that's but they're legitimate and they're fine, And just
Speaker 1: make sure that if you go with one of these apps,
Speaker 1: it is a legitimate app. You don't want to be
Speaker 1: giving access to like a whole bunch of different apps
Speaker 1: or you know, your credit card or all this stuff.
Speaker 1: Like a lot of them want your logins to your
Speaker 1: credit card and your bank account so that they can
Speaker 1: track those transactions for you as well.
Speaker 2: And you know, again if you're getting a value out
Speaker 2: of that.
Speaker 1: Like I used to use this thing called true bill
Speaker 1: and it would look in your bank account and give
Speaker 1: you a list of all the different subscriptions you had,
Speaker 1: and I thought it was great, But then, you know,
Speaker 1: I kind of realized that they're collecting all the data
Speaker 1: on my transactions and using that, you know, to sell
Speaker 1: against and I just like, eh, you know, I'll just
Speaker 1: keep a spreadsheet of my own of my own subscriptions
Speaker 1: and see how much they cost, and I'll do it myself.
Speaker 1: And you know, same thing would drop, we did, a story,
Speaker 1: would drop. I ended up signing up, and then I
Speaker 1: was like, am I really comfortable with them seeing every
Speaker 1: transaction I do online on my credit card, debit card,
Speaker 1: bank account just to get these points? And I just
Speaker 1: said no, all right now, here is a loyalty discount
Speaker 1: that is real. So a couple of weeks ago, I
Speaker 1: got a text from Verizon. They said, hey, if you thanks,
Speaker 1: you're eligible for a loyalty discount of ten dollars a
Speaker 1: month off your current plan. And I was like, what,
Speaker 1: give us a call at this phone number for this
Speaker 1: limited time offer. And I was like, all right, that
Speaker 1: definitely sounds sketch, Like why is Verzon texting me this?
Speaker 1: And I tweeted about it and I never called. And
Speaker 1: then I saw that droid Life sent a wrote up
Speaker 1: an article about people on Verizon getting these texts, and
Speaker 1: they said, yeah, it's legit, and so I called up
Speaker 1: Verison yesterday, took a little bit, and sure enough, the
Speaker 1: guy was like, all right, for ten dollars off every month.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, uh for how long? He's like, uh,
Speaker 1: just every mo. And I'm like, okay, there's no end date.
Speaker 1: So if you get one of these texts, it is real.
Speaker 1: Apparently I've not seen the ten dollars off of my
Speaker 1: account just yet. Maybe i'll see it next month, but.
Speaker 2: I would call.
Speaker 1: I mean, make sure anytime someone's texting you a phone
Speaker 1: number to call you really want to double check that,
Speaker 1: make sure that phone number is the actual number, because
Speaker 1: this could totally be a scam where they could say, Hey,
Speaker 1: AT and T customer, we're gonna give you twenty dollars
Speaker 1: off your phone bill every month. Call us at this
Speaker 1: number to confirm you call the number. They say, Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome to AT and T. Now, can we have your
Speaker 1: account number? Can we have your driver's license number to
Speaker 1: verify you are who you say you are? Can we
Speaker 1: have your which credit card you use to pay your bill?
Speaker 1: And you say, oh, here's my credit card number? And
Speaker 1: the next thing you know, they're scamming you. So you
Speaker 1: got to be careful with this stuff. But the reality
Speaker 1: is this seemed to be real. I didn't have to
Speaker 1: change my plan. I'd have to sign up for anything.
Speaker 1: They tried to sell me on a free phone and
Speaker 1: I said no. But apparently I'm saving twenty dollars or
Speaker 1: ten dollars off a month. It seems like it's just
Speaker 1: for one line. Some people are getting ten dollars a month,
Speaker 1: others are seeing fifteen, Others are seeing as much as
Speaker 1: twenty five dollars off a month. There's an entire Reddit
Speaker 1: thread dedicated to it, and if you're tempted to just
Speaker 1: call and say, hey, can I get ten dollars off?
Speaker 1: I guess people are doing that and Verizon's just like, no,
Speaker 1: if it's not marked on your account, you're not getting it.
Speaker 1: So I guess this is probably a test because Verizon's
Speaker 1: last earnings report, it was revealed that they lost.
Speaker 2: A whole bunch of customers.
Speaker 1: Like there's only a couple hundred thousand, but still that
Speaker 1: is not good.
Speaker 2: These companies have been gaining.
Speaker 1: Customers for a very long time and the fact that
Speaker 1: that's now going retreating is not good for them. And
Speaker 1: I'm sure that they're trying to stop some of that
Speaker 1: bleed from happening by offering this. All right, another Verizon
Speaker 1: story starting now. You can activate an eSIM on a
Speaker 1: device you already have right from Verizon's website. You can
Speaker 1: go to Verizon dot com slash bring it, or you
Speaker 1: can use my Verizon app, and you can activate select
Speaker 1: phones that have an eSIM. And a lot of the
Speaker 1: new phones, like the Samsung's that p sols, the iPhones,
Speaker 1: they all have an eSIM. And what an eSIM means
Speaker 1: is that you don't need to go to a Verizon
Speaker 1: store to get a SIM card. You don't need to
Speaker 1: go to Target or Walmart or wherever and buy one
Speaker 1: of the SIM cards and pop it in your phone.
Speaker 2: You can now literally go to the Verizon website.
Speaker 1: Type in the IMEI number off your phone, which is
Speaker 1: like the special code off your phone, see if it's compatible,
Speaker 1: and then they'll ask you for the eSIM number. You
Speaker 1: type that in and it will activate the phone wirelessly.
Speaker 1: I mean, you don't have to put anything into your phone.
Speaker 2: It's so cool.
Speaker 1: And I want to activate this phone I have sitting
Speaker 1: right in front of me, this pixel, just because I
Speaker 1: can do that. But I don't want to pay the
Speaker 1: thirty dollars or whatever it is a month to activate
Speaker 1: a second line.
Speaker 2: But it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: So anyway, if you have a phone that you want
Speaker 1: to activate, you don't feel like going anywhere, you want
Speaker 1: to see what the plans are on Verizon. If you
Speaker 1: have a compatible e SIM device, just go to Verizon
Speaker 1: dot com slash bring it and you can activate it
Speaker 1: right from there. All right, final story, Chipotle is now
Speaker 1: accepting bitcoin now. It's through a third party kind of
Speaker 1: digital currency app and this is called Flexa, and Flexa
Speaker 1: is like a company that enables retailers to take digital currencies.
Speaker 1: So they support like almost one hundred different digital currencies,
Speaker 1: not just bitcoin. Bitcoin is just the easy, popular thing
Speaker 1: to mention, but they also support doge coin, They support,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of if you scroll through this list,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff that they support. So if
Speaker 1: you want to use this at Chipotle, what do you
Speaker 1: have to do? You have to download an app and
Speaker 1: you have to download the Flexa. There's two apps that
Speaker 1: you can download, and let me see what those are called,
Speaker 1: because I downloaded one of them and it is let's see.
Speaker 1: You have to download Gemini or the spend in sped
Speaker 1: n app and you go to you link that up
Speaker 1: to your crypto wallet and then you go to Chipotle
Speaker 1: and you ask them you pay with bitcoin. Now, when
Speaker 1: you ask them to pay for bitcoin, they are going
Speaker 1: to look at you like, what are you talking about?
Speaker 2: What do you what do you mean? There's no bitcoin here?
Speaker 1: So a lot of people, I guess, we're discussing this
Speaker 1: online saying that the employees weren't fully aware or wasn't
Speaker 1: fully working. But I guess the trick is what they
Speaker 1: need to do is press gift card and once they
Speaker 1: press gift card. You you'll see a little QR code
Speaker 1: on your phone.
Speaker 2: That's how you pay.
Speaker 1: But once you see gift card, once they check gift card,
Speaker 1: you scan your QR code on your phone. You know,
Speaker 1: they have those scanners at the checkout and that will
Speaker 1: that will take the bitcoin out of your account. Now,
Speaker 1: here's the funny thing about bitcoin is that the price
Speaker 1: has been up and down, up and down.
Speaker 2: Right now, it's really been down.
Speaker 1: But that's this is the this is the really tricky
Speaker 1: thing about bitcoin is that people have been talking about
Speaker 1: bitcoin being in a you know, a good alternative to
Speaker 1: the different you know currencies out there like you know, AMX, Visa, MasterCard,
Speaker 1: cash coin, PayPal, whatever. But the problem is nobody wants
Speaker 1: to use it to pay for anything because right now,
Speaker 1: let's say you put one thousand dollars in bitcoin, it's
Speaker 1: probably down to five hundred or down to three hundred,
Speaker 1: depending on when you bought it, right And so you're
Speaker 1: sitting there saying, I want this money to come back
Speaker 1: up to what I put in, like at least, you know,
Speaker 1: break even.
Speaker 2: And so why would you go and spend this money.
Speaker 1: On a burrito when it's like worth thirty forty fifty
Speaker 1: percent less than how much you paid for it. And
Speaker 1: so I think that's the big problem with bitcoin. It's
Speaker 1: like this chicken versus the egg thing is that we
Speaker 1: need people to start using these cryptocurrencies on a daily
Speaker 1: basis at places like grocery stores and and you know,
Speaker 1: gas stations and you know, different convenience stores and restaurants.
Speaker 1: But nobody wants to because right now, a lot of
Speaker 1: people see bitcoin as sort of a quote unquote investment.
Speaker 1: You know, they're just they're just kind of playing with it,
Speaker 1: and it's not really a thing that they're using in
Speaker 1: their lives day to day.
Speaker 2: So it's good that Chipotle is doing this.
Speaker 1: You know, three thousand restaurants overnight that accept bitcoin is great,
Speaker 1: but it's it's one of these things where people are
Speaker 1: gonna be a little hesitant.
Speaker 2: To use it.
Speaker 1: A because it's a little confusing, and b because they're
Speaker 1: just like, nah, I'm good right now, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna buy and hold, you know, and just
Speaker 1: keep this stuff in my account. So anyway, if you
Speaker 1: do want to use it, they will give you ten
Speaker 1: percent off your next purchase at Chipotle. I might do
Speaker 1: it just for fun. I mean, like everyone my bitcoin
Speaker 1: is down, and I'm kind of like, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: just maybe just not going to look at it for many,
Speaker 1: many years and see what happens in ten years, you know.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I think it's kind of cool,
Speaker 1: like I would love to start using bitcoin to you know,
Speaker 1: when my brother I had to pay them back one
Speaker 1: time for something, I sent them bitcoin, you know, instead
Speaker 1: of like paying them back with Venmo, and I just
Speaker 1: thought it was so cool.
Speaker 2: It's just kind of fun to do that, because.
Speaker 1: You know, it is a it is a very neat
Speaker 1: way of doing things and kind of a you know,
Speaker 1: a very not perfect.
Speaker 2: It's not perfect, but it's a I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, you could send it to anyone in the world,
Speaker 1: the same way you can send it to someone in Japan.
Speaker 2: You can send it to.
Speaker 1: Someone in Italy, and you can send it to someone
Speaker 1: in London. You can send it to someone across the street.
Speaker 1: Like there's no there's just it works the same everywhere.
Speaker 1: And I love that about it. That's so cool, all right.
Speaker 1: That sound means that's gonna do it for this episode
Speaker 1: of the show. If you'd like to submit a question
Speaker 1: for me to answer, go to my Facebook page, Facebook
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Speaker 2: You can find me on social media.
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Speaker 1: of my TV segments on demand. My name is rich Dmiro.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening. There are so many ways
Speaker 1: you can spend an hour of your time. I do
Speaker 1: appreciate you spending it right here with me.
Speaker 2: Talk to you all soon.