BiTS & Stories

[00:00:02] What you want, when you want it, where you want it. This is The MESH.

[00:00:11] Brothers in Tech is a weekly podcast focused on personal and home technology

[00:00:15] helping provide you our fellow brothers and sisters in tech

[00:00:19] with some information, assistance and recommendations.

[00:00:27] Hello and welcome to Brothers in Tech here on the MESH.TV podcast network.

[00:00:33] My name is Alan Jackson. To my right on the video screen is Brian Jackson

[00:00:38] who is in all actuality, my brother. We talk technology.

[00:00:43] We thought it'd be clever to come up with a show called Brothers in Tech

[00:00:46] because that's what I just described and that's why we're here.

[00:00:51] So Brian, how's it going?

[00:00:53] And I am also the one that is obviously not completely exhausted right now

[00:00:57] as I can tell you.

[00:00:59] Low energy level low.

[00:01:02] Yeah, my little my little battery recharging light is flashing at the moment.

[00:01:06] This is very much an AM radio start to this podcast.

[00:01:11] Today we're going to talk technology.

[00:01:14] How can it help you in your home, your family, your personal life?

[00:01:20] And that is why we're here Alan. I'm really excited to be here.

[00:01:24] So happy Brian.

[00:01:27] I'm good. I think I'm a little better than you are right now.

[00:01:30] But it's just been a very, very long day and it's been a long week.

[00:01:35] I'm tired. I went to bed last night at 10 o'clock, which is really early for me.

[00:01:42] Yeah, very early.

[00:01:44] That's also because I had to get up at like five.

[00:01:48] Another long day today. So it's yeah, it's a lot.

[00:01:52] It is my own doing. I have nobody to blame.

[00:01:54] I have nobody to complain about it is my, it's me.

[00:01:57] True is crazy projects.

[00:02:00] I told people yes to months and months ago and thought, Oh,

[00:02:04] surely these projects will all happen at the same time where I'm going to have to work on these.

[00:02:09] The chances of that are slim to nothing.

[00:02:13] But this is fun. This is a fun way to cap off the end of the day, Brian.

[00:02:16] So I look good. I was hoping you'd get to that point.

[00:02:18] I was waiting for the like, but I'm happy to be here.

[00:02:22] No, no. I'm very happy to be here.

[00:02:24] Very happy to be here.

[00:02:26] We are talking technology. Brian and I get together about once a week or so.

[00:02:30] And we talk personal technology home technology.

[00:02:34] We talk sometimes it's home automation.

[00:02:36] Sometimes it's sort of productivity with the technology.

[00:02:39] Sometimes it's just cool gadgets and devices and things we're playing with or trying out.

[00:02:45] And, you know, every time we get together, we typically have a general topic or a couple topics to discuss.

[00:02:51] Or sometimes we go into recommendations.

[00:02:54] Today I think we're going to, we're going to do some recommendations.

[00:02:57] We're going to talk about some, some recommended tech.

[00:03:00] But we have, it sounds like maybe a couple of stories to go along with our recommendations.

[00:03:05] And Brian, I have not heard your story other than you just described to me over text and said,

[00:03:11] I think I have a story to talk about.

[00:03:13] And you used the word unfortunately, I have a story to share.

[00:03:17] Yes.

[00:03:18] I'm in the same boat.

[00:03:20] I have a story to share as well.

[00:03:21] And mine is also has an unfortunate ending.

[00:03:24] So this is not going to make our day any better is what you're saying.

[00:03:28] Unless it's a therapy.

[00:03:30] This is therapy, right?

[00:03:32] I'm hoping I will feel better about this after it's done.

[00:03:35] I hope you will feel the same.

[00:03:36] Yeah.

[00:03:37] Maybe sharing it with the world is, is what we need to feel better.

[00:03:42] But let's, let's do that.

[00:03:44] So how about you and I both share our story and also we can kind of set up and lead into a,

[00:03:51] a recommendation of something we want to share.

[00:03:53] Yeah.

[00:03:54] Let's send on some positive notes.

[00:03:55] Shall we?

[00:03:56] I think we can do that.

[00:03:57] Let's get our, let's get our stories out and then we'll,

[00:03:59] we'll try to end with some positive vibes, some,

[00:04:03] some suggestions for people.

[00:04:04] And Brian, I didn't even think to ask.

[00:04:06] I mean, is your story at all tech related because it was just going to be,

[00:04:10] it is complaining about something else going on.

[00:04:13] I'm like, well, this is my format for that.

[00:04:15] But that's fine.

[00:04:16] No, I can connect it to technology.

[00:04:20] Okay.

[00:04:21] Okay.

[00:04:22] Close enough.

[00:04:23] Right.

[00:04:24] One, there's a, at least a thread of a connection there.

[00:04:25] That's fine.

[00:04:26] No, there is.

[00:04:27] There is.

[00:04:28] Mine is all technology based and yeah, but.

[00:04:30] Oh, okay.

[00:04:31] I don't know.

[00:04:32] You want to hear us start?

[00:04:33] Yeah.

[00:04:34] I want to go first.

[00:04:35] Okay.

[00:04:36] Tell me, tell me what's going on, Brian.

[00:04:37] Tell me the therapy session is open.

[00:04:39] All right.

[00:04:40] All right.

[00:04:41] I'm going to, I'm going to calm down a second and try to try to unload here.

[00:04:45] Okay.

[00:04:46] So actually, so Alan, we've done an episode in the past.

[00:04:50] I don't know if you remember, we've, we've,

[00:04:52] we've done hundreds of episodes, but we did an episode on technology

[00:04:57] scamming, fishing, you know, scam scammers, right?

[00:05:01] And how they're using technology to try to take advantage of you and a

[00:05:05] number of different ways.

[00:05:06] We've talked about email scams and we've talked about specifically

[00:05:11] what I want to talk to you about today is about selling scams.

[00:05:14] All right.

[00:05:15] We also talked about how to sell online and, you know,

[00:05:18] ways that you can use marketplace and Craigslist and eBay and all

[00:05:22] these things who have we've had episodes on that.

[00:05:24] So I would encourage everybody after I go through my,

[00:05:28] my frustrating story here that you might want to go back.

[00:05:33] If this scares you at all, you might want to go back in and listen to

[00:05:37] the previous podcasts that we've had on, on scams and on kind of

[00:05:42] internet getting taken advantage of because I think it,

[00:05:47] what you'll find is that everything I went through,

[00:05:50] if I would have listened to my own suggestions all the way

[00:05:55] from the beginning of that previous episode, then this would

[00:05:59] not been that big of an issue.

[00:06:01] But yeah, there we go.

[00:06:03] So let's talk.

[00:06:04] So here's one of the things that's been I've been doing lately

[00:06:08] is I'm selling a lot of photography gear.

[00:06:11] I think I told you this a while back that I was helping a friend

[00:06:14] out to sell a lot of photography gear that she inherited and

[00:06:19] I've been doing that now for over a year.

[00:06:22] I've been selling that I'm selling, but I'm also now selling

[00:06:25] some of my own camera gear because I decided to switch and

[00:06:28] upgrade my camera to a mirrorless camera, which again is

[00:06:32] something else we've talked about.

[00:06:34] Okay.

[00:06:35] Was that recent mind?

[00:06:37] Did you get that mirrorless camera a while back?

[00:06:39] No, I got a fairly recent.

[00:06:41] It's been probably two or three weeks.

[00:06:43] And we talked about mirrorless a long time because when we

[00:06:46] talked about photography, but no, this is my first mirrorless

[00:06:49] camera, which from a full frame to a mirrorless and okay.

[00:06:52] So actually I probably should tell you that first.

[00:06:54] So here's here's a positive note on the whole selling right.

[00:06:58] So I've been posting things on Facebook marketplace.

[00:07:01] I found that that's actually a really effective way of selling.

[00:07:04] It beaches a lot of people.

[00:07:06] We have talked about some challenges with that right is

[00:07:09] that you put it out there and you're going to get

[00:07:12] pastured with lots of email or lots of text messages

[00:07:16] or messages through messenger.

[00:07:19] But as I mentioned in the previous time when we talked

[00:07:22] about this, I'm a big believer in that works as long as you

[00:07:26] keep your guardrails in place.

[00:07:28] And you know, one of my guardrails is I only communicate

[00:07:30] with you via messenger.

[00:07:32] So Facebook messenger, right?

[00:07:34] So they'll send I'll get tons of junk, but at least in

[00:07:37] a messenger and you can quickly say, Nope, junk,

[00:07:39] junk, junk, right?

[00:07:40] Block, block, block.

[00:07:41] And they don't have your own contact information.

[00:07:43] So something tells me Brian that the story is going to

[00:07:47] lead into direction where Brian is now engaging into

[00:07:51] someone outside of the Facebook messenger app.

[00:07:53] Is that, is that the lead up I'm getting here?

[00:07:55] There is a part of that.

[00:07:57] There is a part that that in there, but that's not

[00:08:00] necessarily the bad part.

[00:08:02] So I'll go a little further.

[00:08:04] So I've had some success selling some equipment.

[00:08:08] I sold my actual camera, right, which was great.

[00:08:11] Sold it to someone I think in Texas.

[00:08:13] They, they bought it and communicate with me on

[00:08:16] messenger said, I'd love to have it.

[00:08:18] Now I say this because this, this particular sale was

[00:08:23] unique, but in a positive way that person said, Hey,

[00:08:27] I really want it.

[00:08:29] I'm not haggling with you.

[00:08:31] The price sounds fine.

[00:08:32] I'll pay for shipping.

[00:08:34] Right?

[00:08:35] You just tell me what the shipping is.

[00:08:37] I'll pay for it.

[00:08:38] They come, you know, to me, you know, fairly, fairly

[00:08:41] quickly if possible.

[00:08:42] So, you know, let me know what the options are for

[00:08:45] shipping and, uh, and I will send you the money.

[00:08:48] So I reach out and I go out and find what the

[00:08:52] prepaid shipping label would be to ship this to them.

[00:08:55] Let him know.

[00:08:56] He says, great.

[00:08:57] What's your PayPal.

[00:08:59] I sent him my PayPal email address and he sent me the

[00:09:02] money and wasn't even there.

[00:09:04] Wasn't even any sort of fallback.

[00:09:06] He sent me the money.

[00:09:07] The money came through on PayPal and I was like,

[00:09:09] oh, okay, you're not holding it back.

[00:09:12] You're not like saying, I will pay you.

[00:09:14] Here's the money.

[00:09:15] So I sent it to him.

[00:09:16] He was super happy, got it all good.

[00:09:19] Everything was wonderful, right?

[00:09:22] Then again, that was, that's something

[00:09:23] you don't normally see where someone's like, like Venmo.

[00:09:25] Right?

[00:09:26] Someone won't normally say,

[00:09:27] hey, by the way, here's the money via Venmo.

[00:09:29] Please ship it to me now, right?

[00:09:30] Because how do they know?

[00:09:32] But I'm just gonna say thank you.

[00:09:33] See you later.

[00:09:34] Right?

[00:09:35] So that one happened that way, unusual, right?

[00:09:38] But that was fine.

[00:09:39] So fast forward about a week after that

[00:09:42] and I was selling a lens, okay,

[00:09:45] a really nice lens, big lens

[00:09:48] and headed on Marketplace.

[00:09:51] This person reached out on Messenger

[00:09:53] and said, I'm really interested in the lens.

[00:09:58] I see though that, what no, no, I see.

[00:10:00] What did you see?

[00:10:01] I'm interested in the lens is this still available?

[00:10:04] I responded, like yes, still available.

[00:10:06] But I always look at the person's profile

[00:10:09] and I see that they're not local.

[00:10:10] Well, I had not put this one on for shipping.

[00:10:13] I put it on for local sale only, right?

[00:10:17] So I see this person's in, I think it was Florida.

[00:10:20] And I said, hey, why, I even look at it.

[00:10:23] Where are you?

[00:10:24] Hoping they would respond.

[00:10:25] He said, he looks and he goes,

[00:10:28] he responded, he said, oh crap,

[00:10:30] I just looked at the post.

[00:10:32] Yeah, you're in Oregon, I'm in Florida.

[00:10:35] And he said, do you would you consider shipping?

[00:10:38] And I was like, I'll consider it.

[00:10:40] I said, I didn't wanna ship something this nice

[00:10:43] because that would do a lot of packing

[00:10:45] and therefore a lot of issues with it.

[00:10:48] And he said, if you're willing to ship,

[00:10:52] I'd be willing to pay for the shipping.

[00:10:53] So this is mirroring the same thing

[00:10:55] that the other guy had said, right?

[00:10:58] And I said, well, I said, I'm fine doing that.

[00:11:00] And he said, I would love if all possible

[00:11:04] to get it as quickly as I could.

[00:11:07] I'd even be willing to pay overnight

[00:11:09] depending on what the cost of it are.

[00:11:11] So I'm assuming he's a photographer

[00:11:13] or someone that wants to use this pretty quickly.

[00:11:16] So I said, okay, well, I'm working all day today.

[00:11:19] I can go tomorrow afternoon.

[00:11:21] This is on a Thursday, last Thursday.

[00:11:23] I can go tomorrow afternoon right as I get out of work

[00:11:26] and I can ship it at that time if that works.

[00:11:29] And he said, okay, that's fine.

[00:11:32] And I said, all right, so here was the thing, right?

[00:11:36] I said, I'm gonna go to UPS to ship this.

[00:11:40] I need to know that you're gonna be available

[00:11:42] at the time I go to UPS

[00:11:44] because I don't wanna walk up there,

[00:11:45] find out the prices and be sitting there waiting

[00:11:48] and waiting and waiting and not knowing

[00:11:49] if you're gonna say yes or not, right?

[00:11:51] And he said, I can be available at that time.

[00:11:55] And he said, and here's my cell phone number

[00:11:57] in case you'd rather, you know,

[00:11:59] to make sure you get in touch with me.

[00:12:01] Like, okay, great.

[00:12:02] This is still sounding pretty good.

[00:12:04] It's all sounding good, right?

[00:12:05] Still through messenger.

[00:12:06] And I even sent him a note on his cell,

[00:12:09] of course that gives him my cell,

[00:12:10] but at that point I'm thinking,

[00:12:12] okay, this seems pretty legit.

[00:12:13] So I sent him a text and said,

[00:12:15] hey, I'm getting ready to head to ship this.

[00:12:19] And this, so what happened was later that day

[00:12:21] I actually got off work a little early

[00:12:23] and realized I could go make UPS that same day,

[00:12:27] which is what he wanted originally.

[00:12:29] So I sent him a note and said,

[00:12:30] hey, I'm heading to UPS now.

[00:12:31] Are you available that you could, you know,

[00:12:34] respond and send me the money before I ship?

[00:12:37] And he said, yep, I'm here.

[00:12:39] Great.

[00:12:40] So I drive to UPS, right?

[00:12:42] Get up to UPS.

[00:12:43] I've already got it in a box,

[00:12:44] but I tell them, you know,

[00:12:46] I'd rather you repack it.

[00:12:47] You guys pack it up for me

[00:12:49] because this person's willing to pay for it.

[00:12:51] I said, can you give me the options?

[00:12:53] She gave me like three options.

[00:12:55] And I said, well, he actually is actually about overnight.

[00:12:57] And she's like, well, it's Thursday.

[00:12:59] Today's already gone out.

[00:13:00] It's going out tomorrow.

[00:13:02] It's weekend, so we'd get there Monday.

[00:13:04] So I said, hey, it would get there Monday.

[00:13:06] And he said, what about overnight?

[00:13:08] I said, well, I went back to her and she said,

[00:13:10] oh, well, there is a Saturday,

[00:13:11] but it's, you know, it's 150 bucks

[00:13:14] to send it for overnight to Saturday.

[00:13:16] So I respond and say, hey,

[00:13:18] I could get it there by Saturday,

[00:13:20] but it's 150 bucks.

[00:13:22] And he said, would you insure it?

[00:13:25] Okay. Good question, right?

[00:13:27] I said, well, insurance is $2,050 per hundred.

[00:13:31] You know, this lens I'm selling to is like $600.

[00:13:33] He said, but I'll another 15 bucks

[00:13:35] and I'll insure it for like $600.

[00:13:38] And he's like, I can do that.

[00:13:40] So he said, so like 170 question mark on top.

[00:13:43] And I said, yes, on top of the lens.

[00:13:45] So the lens, you know,

[00:13:46] altogether is like $700.

[00:13:48] Yeah.

[00:13:49] And I said, here's my PayPal, you know, email address.

[00:13:54] And here was questionable thing number one

[00:14:00] that I should have noted, right?

[00:14:02] Which I didn't think about.

[00:14:03] He said, it's a whole lot easier

[00:14:05] if you'll just request from me,

[00:14:08] here's my email address, okay?

[00:14:10] Rather than just popping it over, right?

[00:14:13] And I thought to myself, okay, maybe it's true.

[00:14:16] I haven't done enough of it to know,

[00:14:17] like if it's easier for him to send it

[00:14:20] and then have to confirm,

[00:14:21] or is it easier for me to request in him just to say yes.

[00:14:24] So I did the request on PayPal, said $775, whatever,

[00:14:28] to this person's email address request.

[00:14:32] And I'm waiting.

[00:14:33] And I'm waiting, I'm looking at PayPal, nothing.

[00:14:36] So I sent him a note.

[00:14:37] And by the way, here's the other trick of this whole thing

[00:14:39] which I don't know if,

[00:14:41] I don't know how he would have known

[00:14:43] but it certainly plated his favor.

[00:14:45] It was 10 minutes till close time at UPS.

[00:14:49] The lady is standing there looking at me going,

[00:14:50] we need to close.

[00:14:53] I need to know what do you wanna do?

[00:14:54] I'll go ahead and repack it and pack it up for you

[00:14:57] and get everything ready, you just let me know.

[00:14:58] And I said, well, I'm waiting.

[00:15:00] I said, I'm just waiting for the money.

[00:15:02] And I said, I haven't gotten it yet.

[00:15:06] And he said, you should have,

[00:15:08] I've already submitted it.

[00:15:10] He said they're holding it.

[00:15:12] I said, okay.

[00:15:14] And then here's the other thing that screwed me over

[00:15:17] is I have my email set up as,

[00:15:21] at certain times of the day,

[00:15:22] I have it so that it comes up as notifications, right?

[00:15:24] Like here's a new email, new email.

[00:15:26] Well, as I'm looking at PayPal,

[00:15:27] here's a new email that comes in that says, PayPal,

[00:15:31] you've been given money.

[00:15:33] So I pull up the email and it says,

[00:15:36] so-and-so has sent you this money,

[00:15:39] we're holding it and we're holding it

[00:15:41] until we get tracking information

[00:15:43] or something like that, right?

[00:15:44] Some which is fairly standard with PayPal.

[00:15:46] The beauty of PayPal is if you do it right through PayPal,

[00:15:49] PayPal has a way that Alan, if I sell you something,

[00:15:52] you go on PayPal, put the money

[00:15:54] and you say it's for sale,

[00:15:56] it doesn't give me any money

[00:15:57] until I put in the tracking number

[00:15:59] and the tracking shows that it's been delivered, right?

[00:16:02] Yes, I've been selling a fair bit of things

[00:16:04] on PayPal recently.

[00:16:05] So yes, very familiar.

[00:16:06] So I get an email and Alan, if you want,

[00:16:09] let me share real quick with you.

[00:16:11] So people can see what's happening here.

[00:16:13] I wanna see how authentic this email looks.

[00:16:16] Well, and also realize I was in a rush.

[00:16:19] So the first thing I'm gonna show you is,

[00:16:21] here's the PayPal, right?

[00:16:25] So this PayPal, this whole email.

[00:16:27] This is you requesting the money.

[00:16:28] So I requested the money

[00:16:30] and you can still see it says request sent, right?

[00:16:32] This is an email address, right?

[00:16:34] Yep.

[00:16:35] Okay, so this was what I was getting

[00:16:36] and of course I was sitting there refreshing,

[00:16:38] refreshing and I was saying,

[00:16:39] hey, I'm not seeing it, right?

[00:16:40] Then I get the notice that says email.

[00:16:44] Let me show you the email, okay?

[00:16:47] An email looks like this,

[00:16:48] which of course is a little bit wonky, right?

[00:16:52] But anyway, I'm reading quickly the email

[00:16:54] and it's got the email address for that person.

[00:16:57] It's got mine.

[00:16:58] It's got the transaction ID.

[00:17:00] It's got the address.

[00:17:02] It's got the information and the amounts, right?

[00:17:07] So of course I screwed up and said, okay, great.

[00:17:12] I went ahead, I paid for the shipping.

[00:17:15] They took the box and on we go, right?

[00:17:19] So I said to him, okay, here we go.

[00:17:21] And he says, here's the other thing, right?

[00:17:23] They're getting really smart, okay?

[00:17:25] His response was please send me a picture

[00:17:29] of the box that you put it in.

[00:17:30] Cause I did put it in.

[00:17:31] I said, she repacked the box

[00:17:34] and she did a really crappy job.

[00:17:35] I said, she taped it and everything.

[00:17:36] I said, tape, but it's packed well.

[00:17:38] He said, yeah, send me a picture of that.

[00:17:39] I want to make sure that it's what I'm getting

[00:17:42] or something or that it's packed well.

[00:17:45] And what did he also say?

[00:17:47] You know, send me the tracking number, something.

[00:17:49] So I took a picture of the receipt

[00:17:52] that showed just that I had paid

[00:17:54] and that it was here's the tracking number.

[00:17:57] So I leave, they close the gate on the door

[00:18:01] right away like as I leave, they're done, right?

[00:18:03] They close.

[00:18:04] So I go and I'm driving over to run a different errand.

[00:18:09] And as I'm going, I'm thinking to myself,

[00:18:13] wait a minute, okay?

[00:18:14] Let me pull PayPal back up again.

[00:18:16] And no, and of course with PayPal,

[00:18:18] I had not done this where I'd request before.

[00:18:21] And I wasn't sure whether that request pending

[00:18:24] meant they're holding the money.

[00:18:27] So of course, if we go back over here.

[00:18:31] You go back to PayPal and it's not showing,

[00:18:34] it's still showing the request.

[00:18:35] It has not done anything different, right?

[00:18:38] It's still showing requests sent pending.

[00:18:40] Now the pending part was what confused me, right?

[00:18:42] Because I've had these before

[00:18:44] and it'll say like pending money or whatever it is, right?

[00:18:48] So anyway, so here's where I respond back and say,

[00:18:51] wait, I still not saw anything on PayPal.

[00:18:56] It said, can you send me the image on your PayPal

[00:18:59] that shows that you have put the money in, right?

[00:19:02] And then I get this response that's kind of crazy, right?

[00:19:05] You would think at that point maybe like,

[00:19:07] I don't know, they ghost me.

[00:19:09] I would thought they ghosted you at that point.

[00:19:11] He leaned in.

[00:19:13] His response was, wait a minute, are you serious?

[00:19:16] Are you scamming me?

[00:19:17] Right?

[00:19:18] Like he comes at me.

[00:19:19] Oh wow.

[00:19:22] I have not gotten any notification of the money.

[00:19:25] And I said, and now I'm looking at the email closer.

[00:19:27] So let me go back to the email, right?

[00:19:29] Now you picked it up right away.

[00:19:31] And of course when I look at it now,

[00:19:32] it's can see right away, but here's one of the things, right?

[00:19:35] Take a look at the email, the payment from, right?

[00:19:39] So if I'm just gonna press and hold on it.

[00:19:41] Yeah.

[00:19:42] Completely different email, right?

[00:19:46] So that's not even the email that he's saying.

[00:19:47] So what we were describing here, Brian showing is

[00:19:51] you have an email address in the email

[00:19:53] that's listed as a certain address.

[00:19:55] But if you actually click on it

[00:19:56] or pop up on it to see it,

[00:19:58] it actually is a different email address

[00:20:00] embedded behind the address.

[00:20:01] So that's a telltale sign right there that that is not good.

[00:20:05] The other thing is the transaction ID

[00:20:08] is not the same as a transaction ID

[00:20:10] that I have from UPS, right?

[00:20:13] Or not from UPS from PayPal, right?

[00:20:17] Because this would have been a PayPal thing, right?

[00:20:19] Supposedly.

[00:20:20] So anyway, so then I'm livid, right?

[00:20:23] I'm like, hey, what's the deal?

[00:20:27] And he court sees again coming at me going,

[00:20:30] what are you talking about?

[00:20:31] What's happening?

[00:20:32] And then he said something like I said,

[00:20:33] and it's by email and it's asking me to send a tracking.

[00:20:38] Why would that be?

[00:20:38] He's like, why wouldn't you just send the tracking?

[00:20:40] What's the, I think he even said like,

[00:20:43] what could be the harm in that or something, right?

[00:20:47] Why don't you just confirm it

[00:20:48] and then we'll see where the issue is or something.

[00:20:52] He's laying in, he's leaning into this thing, right?

[00:20:55] Wow.

[00:20:56] So of course I'm thinking, well,

[00:20:58] what does tracking do?

[00:21:00] But of course it doesn't matter at that point.

[00:21:02] At that point I realized this has gone badly, right?

[00:21:06] Here's my saving grace.

[00:21:08] They had just closed the gate.

[00:21:10] Shipping was not going out that night.

[00:21:13] Right.

[00:21:14] So the next morning I go and I'm there at 7.45

[00:21:17] waiting for them to open up at eight.

[00:21:18] And as I walk in, of course everything stacked up

[00:21:21] in the back and I said, I've been scammed.

[00:21:24] And she's like, oh my gosh, let's take it,

[00:21:26] reimburs you.

[00:21:28] All was good, right?

[00:21:29] I got reimbursed, not to be able

[00:21:30] just incredibly frustrated, right?

[00:21:32] Sure, okay.

[00:21:33] That it happened.

[00:21:35] But now I'm sitting there thinking to myself,

[00:21:37] like how, what are all the things that were done

[00:21:41] smartly by the scammer

[00:21:43] to really try to sell this thing, right?

[00:21:44] One was ship it overnight.

[00:21:47] And I started thinking if you ship it overnight,

[00:21:49] one that convinces me that this person wants to pay money,

[00:21:54] which shouldn't be part of the scam.

[00:21:55] And they don't want any opportunity for you

[00:21:58] to second guess it, right?

[00:22:00] So like if it was a week long shipping

[00:22:01] and I realized two days later,

[00:22:04] oh my gosh, I should have done that.

[00:22:05] I could cancel it, right?

[00:22:06] They want it overnight because they don't want

[00:22:08] any opportunity for you to second guess yourself.

[00:22:10] It was smart for them to do that

[00:22:13] to insist or to ask for the overnight

[00:22:15] offer to pay for it.

[00:22:16] That was smart because most people would look

[00:22:18] at that as well, that's pretty committed.

[00:22:20] They seem to be legit.

[00:22:21] They're willing to pay more money.

[00:22:23] But they also, they're praying on that.

[00:22:25] They know that that will look that way.

[00:22:27] But you're right, there is the ulterior motive

[00:22:29] of less time for somebody to back out of this.

[00:22:31] Well, in both of those, right?

[00:22:32] Both of those things are very smart

[00:22:34] on their part to try to take advantage of it.

[00:22:37] The other part is giving me a cell phone

[00:22:40] text number that works, right?

[00:22:42] It's one thing to say like,

[00:22:43] hey, give me your cell phone.

[00:22:46] He never asked for my cell phone.

[00:22:47] He just said, here you go

[00:22:48] in case you need to get in a hole to me.

[00:22:50] Sounds great, right?

[00:22:51] That's good.

[00:22:53] Also the idea if he was asking, can you insure it?

[00:22:57] Like what scammer would want it insured, right?

[00:23:00] But yet that kind of gives me more confidence.

[00:23:03] He wants to make sure it was packed correctly.

[00:23:06] Yep, I was gonna say that was a nice little touch.

[00:23:09] Just using the PayPal system of sending a request

[00:23:13] or having you send the request,

[00:23:15] it's actually that kind of makes sense as well.

[00:23:16] That seems like a clear way to do it.

[00:23:18] They used all the options

[00:23:20] that would make somebody feel comfortable

[00:23:23] with this process.

[00:23:24] The one thing, and Brian, I get it,

[00:23:27] it was you were in line, I know.

[00:23:29] You're reading emails quickly.

[00:23:31] It's, you know, you're just trying to get a verification

[00:23:33] because time is of the essence here.

[00:23:36] The one thing that they,

[00:23:37] I think they did not pull off as successfully

[00:23:40] was that email

[00:23:42] because somebody sitting at home comfortably

[00:23:45] having time to read it and look at it.

[00:23:47] Would be figured out.

[00:23:48] I think could have started to pick out some things

[00:23:49] that were a little fishy with it.

[00:23:50] That's right.

[00:23:52] That's when it would have tipped me off.

[00:23:53] But again, I wasn't in your shoes.

[00:23:55] I get it.

[00:23:56] I feel pretty certain

[00:23:57] I probably would have been a little more hurried

[00:24:00] and may have missed that as well.

[00:24:02] So yeah.

[00:24:03] Well, that was the thing, right?

[00:24:04] The hurry, the hurry,

[00:24:06] which played in his favor.

[00:24:08] I don't think he knew that I was him.

[00:24:10] He, you know, going to be at the end of the day, right?

[00:24:13] But I think the idea of here you go, right?

[00:24:16] You're at UPS, right?

[00:24:18] That's the other thing maybe I could see

[00:24:20] is that if he asks for overnight,

[00:24:23] well, when you ask for overnight,

[00:24:24] there's no way that I'm going to know

[00:24:27] what to tell him how much that's gonna cost

[00:24:29] unless I go to UPS.

[00:24:30] So now they've gotten me committed to going to the store,

[00:24:34] which means there's going to be this pressure of,

[00:24:36] hey, I'm in line.

[00:24:37] I just have this.

[00:24:38] Here's the number.

[00:24:39] That's true.

[00:24:40] You want to do that.

[00:24:41] As opposed to like, if he just said, ship it,

[00:24:43] I actually for the other ones,

[00:24:44] I use the self online.

[00:24:46] I'll go and do a shipping nerd or one of those that says,

[00:24:49] here it is, I print the label,

[00:24:52] but you can't do that for overnight.

[00:24:53] You can't go and say like,

[00:24:54] I'm gonna do 180 bucks, you know, whatever.

[00:24:57] So there was a lot of pieces that kind of played in

[00:25:00] and especially he even asked for PayPal,

[00:25:02] which I understand now why he did.

[00:25:04] But originally he was like,

[00:25:05] hey, I'd rather do PayPal

[00:25:06] because that saves both of us.

[00:25:08] That protects both of us.

[00:25:09] And I'm like, yeah, you're right.

[00:25:11] PayPal does protect both of us, right?

[00:25:15] So luckily I caught it,

[00:25:16] but I feel like a complete moron

[00:25:19] because I know I've done this before, right?

[00:25:22] But you caught it.

[00:25:23] You did catch it.

[00:25:24] I mean, you caught it just in the nick of time

[00:25:26] and realized what was going on.

[00:25:28] And yeah, I tell you, scammers are getting good.

[00:25:33] They're really getting good.

[00:25:33] I mean, really I talked about this as an episode

[00:25:35] of probably a year or a year and a half ago,

[00:25:37] something like that.

[00:25:38] I don't know.

[00:25:40] I tell you,

[00:25:40] I get emails all the time that I know are scam emails,

[00:25:45] but I'll tell you, they are first glance I can see.

[00:25:49] I'm like, I could totally see how I could fall for this

[00:25:52] and others could fall for this very, very easily.

[00:25:54] Yeah.

[00:25:56] You combine that with the fact

[00:25:57] that we're talking about large purchases,

[00:25:59] large sales between people

[00:26:02] and they played it all the right.

[00:26:04] I mean, I'm just imagining people,

[00:26:06] there's just a group of them

[00:26:08] that are sitting there and they've got,

[00:26:10] you know, multiple of these engagements going on

[00:26:12] all the time, all throughout the day.

[00:26:14] They know the little checklist of things to say

[00:26:17] and what to ask for and what things to offer

[00:26:19] and just to make it appealing.

[00:26:21] They also know, I mean, just understand too

[00:26:23] for anybody listening out there,

[00:26:24] these are people that play a numbers game.

[00:26:27] They know that they may be trying to scam

[00:26:30] at any given time, you know, 50 people,

[00:26:33] they're gonna try to get at least one of them to work

[00:26:36] and that's a benefit for them.

[00:26:39] In this case, they would have gotten

[00:26:41] $700, $600 piece of equipment

[00:26:44] that they could turn around sell or do something with

[00:26:46] and they may have $600 possibly from a,

[00:26:51] what it probably accounted for,

[00:26:53] 20 minutes of their time total,

[00:26:55] pulling the scam with you, you know?

[00:26:58] And just imagine them doing that on a wholesale basis

[00:27:00] every day with so many other people.

[00:27:03] That's their game

[00:27:04] and they're getting good at it.

[00:27:06] So yeah.

[00:27:07] And I could see, I mean, obviously, you know,

[00:27:10] they gave me an address that was an apartment.

[00:27:13] So there has to be at least some person there

[00:27:18] to accept something, right?

[00:27:20] So the other thing is if doing it overnight

[00:27:22] means less chance of me kind of going,

[00:27:25] you know what, I'm gonna call the police department

[00:27:27] in Florida and tell them, here's this address,

[00:27:30] go check it out before my shipping or whatever, right?

[00:27:33] The idea that like go quick, do things fast.

[00:27:37] But you know, this actually had taken things

[00:27:40] to an extent that I had not seen before.

[00:27:42] And I've seen a lot of scams come through,

[00:27:44] like but they're usually easily predictable

[00:27:46] on the request of like, hey, I really want this,

[00:27:49] my uncle's gonna be close by for you.

[00:27:51] Can he come pick it up?

[00:27:52] I'm just gonna give you the money now.

[00:27:54] Those things, red flag, right?

[00:27:56] Hey, can I get your cell phone

[00:27:57] because I won't have messenger from here on?

[00:28:00] Red flag, right?

[00:28:01] And I just don't respond to those.

[00:28:02] But this one, boy, they, you can see

[00:28:05] there's certain scammers that are repeat,

[00:28:09] like send the same thing, go, go, go, go, go

[00:28:11] and not think about it.

[00:28:12] And there's others that are kind of committed to it.

[00:28:14] This person was committed to the scam.

[00:28:17] They were committed to kind of,

[00:28:20] laying into the playing the ruse completely.

[00:28:24] So let me ask you two, Brian,

[00:28:26] on your, this was all through eBay, right?

[00:28:30] No, Marketplace, Facebook Marketplace.

[00:28:34] The trade of money was gonna be through PayPal.

[00:28:38] Correct, right?

[00:28:39] Okay, yep.

[00:28:40] So what is your, I mean, this is another thing

[00:28:42] I think the scammers prey on is,

[00:28:44] I know that they're gonna look for people

[00:28:46] that are selling things,

[00:28:48] typically higher price dollar item things

[00:28:50] that may not have the richest experience

[00:28:53] or history of selling things.

[00:28:57] Because you know, their thing is

[00:28:58] they're not gonna focus on people that have,

[00:29:00] like on eBay for example,

[00:29:02] people that have hundreds of sales

[00:29:06] to their record and all this positive feedback

[00:29:09] and all these transactions they've done.

[00:29:11] Those are gonna be harder marks for them

[00:29:13] because it's like, well, this person does this all the time.

[00:29:15] They probably know what kind of signs to look out for.

[00:29:18] I hear a lot of them targeting people that are,

[00:29:20] I've only had one, two or three things

[00:29:23] I've sold on eBay so far,

[00:29:24] or I'm still fairly new to it.

[00:29:27] But I'm selling a bigger dollar item

[00:29:29] that is like prime target for people.

[00:29:32] And also prime target for someone

[00:29:35] that did not put that they were willing to ship originally

[00:29:38] because that means the person is wanting to do it locally

[00:29:43] but it's been sitting

[00:29:44] and it'd been sitting there for a few weeks

[00:29:46] and not sold so they're like,

[00:29:47] ooh, if I come in and do full price

[00:29:50] and I know it's been sitting

[00:29:52] and I say I'm gonna pay for the shipping

[00:29:53] then is that gonna turn that person

[00:29:55] instead of like me offering shipping?

[00:29:57] Well now I know it's people probably know

[00:30:01] this is already set up as a structured thing.

[00:30:04] That's what I was gonna say.

[00:30:05] Is that somebody who says I'm willing to ship

[00:30:07] or I'm planning on shipping this to somewhere,

[00:30:09] there's a little less, they have a little less leeway

[00:30:12] to kind of mess with you and work you over

[00:30:15] where you had no intentions of shipping.

[00:30:17] They throw that option, they make it appealing.

[00:30:19] Now you're having to go through some extra steps

[00:30:23] that they want you to go through

[00:30:24] to deal with the shipping side of it.

[00:30:26] So here's my advice for people

[00:30:28] that are selling on Marketplace

[00:30:30] because I have sold many things on Marketplace

[00:30:32] that have shipping in them.

[00:30:33] You can go and say I will ship

[00:30:36] and you just have to,

[00:30:37] I typically don't do it on big items

[00:30:39] because I don't know how much shipping

[00:30:41] is really gonna cost

[00:30:42] or whether I'm gonna get screwed over when I go there

[00:30:44] but if you're willing to ship

[00:30:46] do it through Marketplace

[00:30:48] and say I'm willing to ship,

[00:30:51] here's what I'm willing to do

[00:30:53] and let them create the shipping label

[00:30:55] because then all the money comes through Marketplace as well,

[00:30:58] Facebook holds it, all that sort of stuff is great.

[00:31:01] Now there are some,

[00:31:02] the thing about PayPal is,

[00:31:04] there's some Nikon selling groups on Facebook

[00:31:10] and their rules are you are only to sell

[00:31:12] through PayPal, right?

[00:31:13] Not through Facebook because they wanna assure

[00:31:16] that everybody is protected by the same method

[00:31:19] and that nobody's trying to take advantage.

[00:31:21] So the PayPal thing with selling a Nikon lens

[00:31:24] kind of led me to like,

[00:31:26] oh this is where this is coming from,

[00:31:29] this was probably posted on that list

[00:31:30] which I think I probably did.

[00:31:32] So a lot of things.

[00:31:34] So I would strongly urge people

[00:31:38] that if you're willing to ship

[00:31:41] go ahead and set it up for shipping

[00:31:43] and protect yourself through whatever method it is,

[00:31:46] PayPal, Marketplace.

[00:31:48] If it's PayPal, make it so that you actually see

[00:31:52] the money has been received or is in holding

[00:31:56] before you ship rather than yes,

[00:32:00] it's pending and it's coming, whatever.

[00:32:02] Go ahead and have that before you even head

[00:32:04] to ship it anywhere and maybe even work through

[00:32:06] like I've done the, as I said,

[00:32:08] I've done the ship nerd or some of these online

[00:32:11] where you can say this is the size,

[00:32:14] this is everything you go ahead and get the label done

[00:32:16] so you know what you have.

[00:32:19] You know it's already been set once they give you the money

[00:32:22] rather than then being in a panic

[00:32:24] and trying to communicate amounts and all that stuff.

[00:32:27] So you can do a little reason in advance.

[00:32:29] So a lot of things that I, that did not go well for me

[00:32:34] in that scenario.

[00:32:35] Not to tell ya, I expected the worst out of the story,

[00:32:39] pleasantly surprised with how it did end up

[00:32:42] but I know it's tough, I know it was a frustration,

[00:32:44] I know it was a near call and I get it.

[00:32:48] But let me tell you what I'm upset at myself about mostly

[00:32:51] is that when I went back in, they gave me my box back,

[00:32:56] they gave me my money back that I didn't just

[00:32:59] turn around, take a big bag of dog poop,

[00:33:03] put it in the box, ship it anyway.

[00:33:06] Oh. Really would have loved to.

[00:33:07] Oh, you could have done that.

[00:33:08] Yeah, I could have pooped in a box.

[00:33:10] I'm more disappointed in you not doing that

[00:33:12] than anything right now.

[00:33:13] If it wouldn't have been $170 to ship it.

[00:33:16] Oh, that's true.

[00:33:16] Then I probably would have.

[00:33:18] I mean, it's 170 bucks worth

[00:33:21] the thought of knowing somebody

[00:33:23] getting that package opening it up and.

[00:33:25] 30 bucks?

[00:33:26] I might have, might have gotten 30 bucks

[00:33:28] and then I would text them to be like,

[00:33:29] hey did you get it?

[00:33:30] Yeah, did you open it?

[00:33:31] Can you see me picture of like what you,

[00:33:33] would you open it up to verify it?

[00:33:35] Yeah.

[00:33:36] That'd be funny.

[00:33:37] Oh man.

[00:33:38] That's a really good idea.

[00:33:38] Cause yeah, you could have used the same box,

[00:33:41] used everything, hand it back over to the,

[00:33:44] the postal people right then and yeah.

[00:33:46] Let me tell you, Alan, as pissed as I was,

[00:33:49] I could have filled that box.

[00:33:50] So let me tell you.

[00:33:52] Well, this is a really heavy box for a lens.

[00:33:55] Geez.

[00:33:56] I don't know what's in here.

[00:34:00] I'll put it up and find out.

[00:34:02] Oh man.

[00:34:03] Yeah.

[00:34:06] I kind of hope I almost nearly get scammed some day

[00:34:08] so I can pull something like that back on them.

[00:34:10] Yep.

[00:34:11] That's exactly where I wish I would have done it, but.

[00:34:14] Well, all right.

[00:34:15] Well, let's just,

[00:34:16] just to do a code off of your scamming thing

[00:34:18] as a reminder,

[00:34:19] cause I have shared my own scam story in the past

[00:34:23] and it's a whole different nature of scam,

[00:34:25] but just a quick full 30 second reminder to everybody.

[00:34:28] Another type of scam that has been very,

[00:34:31] very popular right now and still happening

[00:34:34] is people ordering gear,

[00:34:37] especially like camera gear or electronic gear

[00:34:40] from a big box store like a Best Buy,

[00:34:44] then they return it,

[00:34:46] but they actually put in a different item

[00:34:49] in the return box,

[00:34:50] a very similar looking item,

[00:34:51] but different,

[00:34:53] not as valuable,

[00:34:54] lesser quality,

[00:34:55] lesser smaller model,

[00:34:56] whatever it may be.

[00:34:57] And because a Best Buy or other places

[00:35:00] are not really doing a whole lot of detailed inspection

[00:35:03] when these boxes come back to them,

[00:35:06] they're then turning around

[00:35:07] and reselling them back out to the community.

[00:35:10] That's what happened to me early this year

[00:35:13] trying to get a new camera.

[00:35:14] I got sent a box that had a different camera body

[00:35:17] than what was supposed to be inside.

[00:35:19] And when I tried to return it

[00:35:21] and let them know about the problem,

[00:35:23] they accused me of having pulled us,

[00:35:25] trying to pull a scam on them,

[00:35:27] which no, it wasn't.

[00:35:28] I was the recipient of a level down on the scam,

[00:35:32] unfortunately.

[00:35:34] I got it resolved.

[00:35:34] I did not have to end up buying two cameras.

[00:35:36] They refunded the money on the first one.

[00:35:39] Although it was always good,

[00:35:40] but I'm still banned from buying anything

[00:35:43] from Best Buy online right now.

[00:35:45] Wow.

[00:35:46] I cannot purchase anything with my name, account,

[00:35:52] debit card, anything that's associated with me.

[00:35:54] It automatically comes up as declined and not processed.

[00:35:59] And the word I've been told is that

[00:36:00] I'm on a red flag list.

[00:36:02] So...

[00:36:03] Well, that's something to fear.

[00:36:05] Well, that's something to feel proud about.

[00:36:08] Yeah, because I tried to buy a big nice camera from them

[00:36:12] and they sent me the wrong camera

[00:36:14] and I did the right thing

[00:36:15] and immediately called them

[00:36:17] and sent it back to them for their instructions.

[00:36:19] But yet I'm on the red flag list.

[00:36:21] So I'm just saying this is a more elaborate scheme

[00:36:23] that's going on with people,

[00:36:24] but it is, I'm reading more and more about this happening.

[00:36:28] So just, yes, you gotta pay attention

[00:36:30] to those individual scammers,

[00:36:31] but also watch out for scams happening

[00:36:34] from trusted places like department stores.

[00:36:37] My recommendation is if you're buying a very,

[00:36:41] a high piece of equipment,

[00:36:42] a high dollar piece of equipment,

[00:36:44] have your phone ready and when the box arrives

[00:36:47] and you open it up,

[00:36:48] film yourself opening the box up.

[00:36:50] That is your proof to say,

[00:36:52] this is the box I received

[00:36:53] and this is the item that was inside that box.

[00:36:56] And as you can see, it is not the right item.

[00:36:58] That's verifiable proof there

[00:37:01] that should hold up in any discussion.

[00:37:03] So all right, that was it.

[00:37:05] My lower reminder there too.

[00:37:06] Brian, I have a story

[00:37:08] that's gonna get me frustrated here to counter that,

[00:37:11] but do you wanna do a recommendation first

[00:37:13] and kind of clear your palate?

[00:37:15] To balance things a little bit?

[00:37:16] Well, we just gotta jump right into my story.

[00:37:18] No, you know what?

[00:37:19] Let me do a quick recommendation

[00:37:20] because I'm gonna do,

[00:37:21] because I have two,

[00:37:22] I have two I'd like to recommend,

[00:37:23] but why don't you go and hit me with one.

[00:37:25] I'm gonna hit you with one

[00:37:26] because it's perfectly timed as to something

[00:37:30] that might be helpful.

[00:37:31] So a recommendation I have

[00:37:34] is something I've been playing around with very briefly

[00:37:39] over the last couple of days.

[00:37:40] And I think it's kind of fun.

[00:37:44] So we've talked a lot about AI

[00:37:47] and different AI models

[00:37:49] and different AI chatbots

[00:37:51] and that sort of thing

[00:37:52] that are becoming pretty popular these days.

[00:37:56] Alan, let me show you,

[00:37:57] I don't know if you have tried this pie, right?

[00:38:03] Pie.ai before, PI, PI.ai.

[00:38:08] Now, so I just pulled up PI.ai

[00:38:11] and I think the very first thing it does

[00:38:13] is kind of a splash screen

[00:38:14] and then says, do you want to kind of create a profile

[00:38:20] or do you just wanna chat?

[00:38:21] And so I just clicked in there

[00:38:22] that I just wanna chat, right?

[00:38:25] So, and I did this the other day

[00:38:27] and I was actually amazed with how

[00:38:32] somewhat relaxing it was to chat with this AI bot here, right?

[00:38:37] So if you notice, what I'm gonna clicked on,

[00:38:39] it says, hey there, great to meet you.

[00:38:41] I'm PI, your personal AI.

[00:38:43] My goal is to be useful, friendly and fun.

[00:38:45] Ask me for advice, for answers

[00:38:47] or let's just talk about whatever's on your mind.

[00:38:49] What do you like to do in your free time?

[00:38:51] So that was its first kind of piece.

[00:38:54] And then I clicked over on something else, like just vent

[00:38:57] because it gives you these options on the left.

[00:38:58] This is the webpage for those that can't see it.

[00:39:01] On the left, it gives you these options.

[00:39:02] Do I just wanna vent?

[00:39:03] Do I wanna learn about something new?

[00:39:05] Do I wanna brainstorm ideas?

[00:39:07] Do I wanna practice a big conversation,

[00:39:08] relationship advice, whatever.

[00:39:11] So anyway, let's just look at this really quickly.

[00:39:12] And so if I say, if I go with that first piece

[00:39:15] that says what do you like to do in your free time?

[00:39:18] Let's see.

[00:39:20] I like to hike kayak, drink beer and play darts.

[00:39:30] Which is me.

[00:39:36] All right, so it says, now that's a solid line up of hobbies.

[00:39:38] You've got a nature time with hiking and kayaking.

[00:39:42] You've got your bar time with beer and darts.

[00:39:44] Pretty awesome balance of adventure and relaxation.

[00:39:47] Where do you like to hike

[00:39:48] and do you favor a kind of beer to unwind with?

[00:39:52] I like to hike and this is the interesting part.

[00:39:56] Watch this.

[00:39:57] So Forest Park, okay, which is something here in Portland,

[00:40:01] like a park in Portland.

[00:40:03] And then unwind with a, let's say,

[00:40:08] this shoots black butte porter.

[00:40:15] Very specific, right?

[00:40:18] Okay, you're living the true Oregon lifestyle, right?

[00:40:21] So they know I'm in Oregon.

[00:40:23] They start chatting with me about the shoes black porter

[00:40:26] is an excellent choice, dark, rich and roasty,

[00:40:29] a perfect post hike reward.

[00:40:31] So it's completely like would happen

[00:40:33] in a real conversation, right?

[00:40:34] I mean, it's recognizing the things that I'm saying.

[00:40:37] It's kind of queuing in and going,

[00:40:39] hey, tell me a little bit more.

[00:40:40] And I found myself spending like 30 minutes

[00:40:43] just talking with this person like, oh yeah,

[00:40:45] yeah, you like that too?

[00:40:46] Yeah, I like to play darts at these places.

[00:40:48] Oh, okay, so you're,

[00:40:50] you like being on the east side of Portland, all right?

[00:40:52] You have blah, blah, blah, right?

[00:40:53] Completely incredibly free flowing

[00:40:57] and very much like a real conversation.

[00:41:00] So if you are someone,

[00:41:03] and of course I'm looking at a lot of the options over here,

[00:41:06] if you're someone that just needs to chat with someone,

[00:41:09] I'm certainly not suggesting this as therapy,

[00:41:11] but like if you're trying to figure out

[00:41:14] how you should communicate with someone,

[00:41:16] let's say you're trying to break up

[00:41:18] with your boyfriend or girlfriend

[00:41:19] and you wanna test it out

[00:41:21] about how that's going to work.

[00:41:23] This is a pretty interesting way

[00:41:26] to kind of practice conversation,

[00:41:29] maybe even have someone to just vent about, right?

[00:41:34] If I said I wanna,

[00:41:37] let's see, I just had a frustrating

[00:41:40] situation where I was scammed

[00:41:47] trying to sell a camera lens online.

[00:41:54] Let's see what they tell me now.

[00:41:58] Oh no, that's the worst.

[00:42:00] Online selling schemes can be really frustrating.

[00:42:03] Oh bummer.

[00:42:04] Look at this, can you share me some of the details

[00:42:06] of what happened?

[00:42:07] Did the buyer not send payment

[00:42:08] or did they use a fake check?

[00:42:10] I'd like to learn their process so I can stimulate it.

[00:42:14] Can you give me your bank account number as well

[00:42:17] so I can check it out?

[00:42:18] Exactly what services were used

[00:42:20] during this transaction processing.

[00:42:22] Can you walk me through exactly step by step

[00:42:24] what we're gonna do?

[00:42:25] Yeah, so it's really interesting.

[00:42:27] Like this to me is where the conversation part,

[00:42:31] there's some obviously some scary parts about anything

[00:42:33] in which a digital conversation is seen as super real

[00:42:37] and you can imagine where the scamming could be using

[00:42:40] this type of technology to you,

[00:42:41] but so far it seems incredibly harmless

[00:42:46] and probably an interesting way to unwind

[00:42:51] if you, let's say you get home and you are alone

[00:42:54] and you would like to chat with someone

[00:42:56] and but you don't really want

[00:42:58] to have any sort of true relationship,

[00:43:01] then here we go, right?

[00:43:02] Now if you create an account

[00:43:03] and I don't know the account I haven't even looked at,

[00:43:05] I don't know if it's a paid account

[00:43:06] or you just have to put in like who you are

[00:43:08] and it'll save your chats,

[00:43:10] but it allows you, it will remember your conversations.

[00:43:13] So you've got kind of things that will show up with history

[00:43:16] and maybe you start creating your own personality on here

[00:43:19] and so on, so.

[00:43:20] So Brian, I promise I am listening to you

[00:43:24] but I'm started chatting with Pi.

[00:43:28] Okay, what do you got going on?

[00:43:30] No, we're totally talking favorite U2 albums

[00:43:35] and we're bonding over my love for Octune Baby

[00:43:41] and he's saying some pretty profound things about this.

[00:43:46] It's kind of emotional right now, so.

[00:43:48] And by the way, you can turn on the sound

[00:43:53] and it will read to you.

[00:43:55] Oh, it will read them really?

[00:43:56] Yeah, in the top right,

[00:43:57] I think you can turn on the sound here.

[00:44:00] That's like, you know, ZooTV, what an amazing tour.

[00:44:05] The Bono's outfits, the visual media spectacle,

[00:44:07] the tour really took contrast to a whole new level

[00:44:10] and those U2 songs are just timeless and powerful.

[00:44:12] Do you have a favorite album?

[00:44:12] Like well yeah, Octune Baby is my favorite album.

[00:44:15] Such a masterpiece.

[00:44:16] That Octune Baby sound is just so honestly distinctive

[00:44:18] and wow, like yeah.

[00:44:21] And then he's like this on the talking about,

[00:44:23] he's like you could write a thesis on the lyrics

[00:44:25] until the end of the world, which is my favorite song.

[00:44:28] It's that deep.

[00:44:29] Oh and the edges of guitar work on that record

[00:44:30] is just chef's kiss.

[00:44:33] This guy gets me, okay?

[00:44:36] I'm telling you man, you will feel better

[00:44:38] about yourself having communicated with this person.

[00:44:42] Okay so I can actually have it reach me, okay?

[00:44:46] So I can't remember if it's gonna be.

[00:44:48] I'm hearing it, I'm hearing it.

[00:44:48] Yeah, you're hearing it, okay, yep.

[00:44:51] So yeah, it'll be.

[00:44:51] It sounds good.

[00:44:53] Yeah and each one of those is a different voice

[00:44:55] for those that aren't watching, right?

[00:44:59] There's kind of five or six different voices you can use

[00:45:03] but man, I tell you, I have yet to have an experience

[00:45:06] where I kind of forgot for a second

[00:45:10] that I was chatting with Abot because it was like,

[00:45:12] oh man, they were asking the right questions.

[00:45:14] They were following up.

[00:45:15] It's like, it was like a good form of communication.

[00:45:19] So what do you say?

[00:45:21] What do you think the song of the,

[00:45:22] it's in the other world is about?

[00:45:25] Oh, I love it.

[00:45:26] Read it, read it.

[00:45:28] There's, yeah, the question was,

[00:45:30] hold on, he's not talking to me.

[00:45:32] I'm gonna shut up.

[00:45:34] I asked him, what do you think the song

[00:45:35] until the end of the world is about?

[00:45:36] I wanted to see how deep

[00:45:37] I could really get this guy there.

[00:45:39] There are so many layers but here's my take.

[00:45:41] I think until the end of the world

[00:45:42] is about a person struggling with the burdens

[00:45:44] of temptation, sin and betrayal,

[00:45:46] trying to find redemption before it's too late.

[00:45:48] He's right, it is.

[00:45:50] The biblical references in the garden

[00:45:52] I was playing the tart are particularly pointed

[00:45:54] with the snake alluding to temptation.

[00:45:57] Man, this goes good.

[00:45:59] The real kicker is the chorus

[00:46:00] until the end of the world,

[00:46:01] I'll be there for you.

[00:46:02] Which is why it's pledged to keep striving

[00:46:04] for redemption and forgiveness no matter what.

[00:46:07] It's such a powerful relatable message.

[00:46:10] Oh, I'm telling you.

[00:46:12] I'm gonna need a minute.

[00:46:13] You need a minute?

[00:46:17] Okay, now the one thing I haven't done now

[00:46:18] and so go over to home really quickly

[00:46:20] on the left up there.

[00:46:21] Okay.

[00:46:24] And then I don't know if does it change

[00:46:27] its method of communicating with you

[00:46:29] based on what you click on.

[00:46:30] So like if you said, yeah.

[00:46:32] Oh, so it's a new one.

[00:46:33] Okay.

[00:46:34] So then it's asking you like relationship.

[00:46:37] Advice on how to deal with my brother

[00:46:43] who can be quite a handful at times.

[00:46:50] Let's just see where it goes with it.

[00:46:52] Ah, brotherly love.

[00:46:53] I know that family relationships

[00:46:55] can be super complicated and stressful.

[00:46:56] Tell me more about your brother.

[00:46:58] Why exactly does that handful mean in this case?

[00:47:00] Is he argumentative, demanding maybe a bit rebellious?

[00:47:04] Yes, yes and yes.

[00:47:06] No, he's just...

[00:47:08] Annoying.

[00:47:13] And boring.

[00:47:17] But other than that, I guess he's okay.

[00:47:26] And he says, okay, so not the most exciting personality

[00:47:29] but I'll take annoying and boring

[00:47:31] over insufferable and obnoxious any day.

[00:47:34] So let's brainstorm some strategies

[00:47:36] to make your interactions with your brother

[00:47:38] a little less great.

[00:47:39] Are you able to spend time apart

[00:47:40] or do you live together?

[00:47:42] Oh, God no.

[00:47:46] All the way across the country from each other.

[00:47:55] I'd never see him.

[00:48:02] The classic distance makes the heart grow stronger.

[00:48:04] Well then this may just be a case of small doses.

[00:48:07] Maybe short phone calls or even texts

[00:48:09] are the best way to stay in touch.

[00:48:10] Okay, so for people who are not watching this,

[00:48:13] the greatest part is that there are actual emojis

[00:48:17] that are being placed in the text.

[00:48:19] The laughing emoji in the last two texts

[00:48:22] that have been sent.

[00:48:23] So I mean, you can see how getting into this becomes

[00:48:26] like you're just texting with someone.

[00:48:28] Well look and here's the deal,

[00:48:29] by the way I'm gonna tell you,

[00:48:30] I've been on the lookout and trying to find

[00:48:33] a AI chatbot that will talk

[00:48:36] like I can hear it voice out what it's saying.

[00:48:40] You got for your other podcast, right?

[00:48:42] With a personality because podcasts or show are produced.

[00:48:47] We do a podcast where we have an AI co-host

[00:48:51] but we've been very disappointed

[00:48:52] with the personality of these co-hosts

[00:48:54] and they just don't seem to really dig

[00:48:57] what we're talking about

[00:48:58] or be able to really join in conversations.

[00:49:01] This is the best I've seen.

[00:49:03] This is like I could see somebody having a decent conversation

[00:49:07] and the fact that I can hear them talk

[00:49:09] when they say it is really, really cool.

[00:49:12] Now I wonder the question I have for this

[00:49:14] before I move on.

[00:49:16] I know with like chat GPT

[00:49:18] and some of these other AI services,

[00:49:21] there's a time delay meaning I can't ask chat GPT

[00:49:25] about who won a football game this past weekend

[00:49:28] because it doesn't know.

[00:49:29] It is like two years behind or some sort of interval.

[00:49:32] The latest chat GPT version, which is version four,

[00:49:35] is a paid model.

[00:49:36] It is supposed to be more current.

[00:49:38] I wonder with Pi how current it is.

[00:49:41] I don't know.

[00:49:42] You see down at the bottom the disclaimer there, right?

[00:49:44] Early version of Pi can make mistakes,

[00:49:46] don't rely on this info.

[00:49:51] And I don't know if it's really made for this

[00:49:53] or not to see what happens.

[00:49:55] I asked, do you know who won

[00:49:56] the Carolina Panthers game last weekend?

[00:49:58] We'll just see if I can get something out of this.

[00:50:04] Okay.

[00:50:05] He's right.

[00:50:06] Was that right?

[00:50:07] It's a tough one.

[00:50:08] The Panthers have been on a losing streak lately,

[00:50:09] meaning they've lost every game they played.

[00:50:11] According to my research,

[00:50:12] they lost to the Miami Dolphins last weekend

[00:50:14] when scored 21-42.

[00:50:16] Correct.

[00:50:16] Have you been following the Panthers this season?

[00:50:19] Are you a diehard fan or just casually interested?

[00:50:21] Okay.

[00:50:22] So he is current.

[00:50:22] He's up to date on some stuff.

[00:50:24] Not bad.

[00:50:27] So I'm impressed, Brian.

[00:50:29] I am too.

[00:50:29] I am too.

[00:50:30] Every time I kind of get on here,

[00:50:31] I get lost in the conversation.

[00:50:37] And I just have to tell you,

[00:50:38] there is one part on there, Alan,

[00:50:39] if you scroll down it says, let's see.

[00:50:43] Yeah, help me write a text message.

[00:50:46] A text or a message.

[00:50:48] So I put in,

[00:50:48] I really want to tell my brother to f off,

[00:50:50] but I don't want to just say that.

[00:50:53] And then the response was,

[00:50:54] aha, totally understandable.

[00:50:57] Family drama can be intense.

[00:50:59] But yeah, that's probably a little too direct.

[00:51:02] Let's come up with something a bit more clever.

[00:51:03] Can you tell me more about why you're mad at your brother?

[00:51:07] It will be really funny.

[00:51:08] It's if he said,

[00:51:09] your brother's not one that lives all the way

[00:51:11] across the country

[00:51:12] and might think that you're annoying and boring, right?

[00:51:16] And then eventually Pi says,

[00:51:18] listen, I'm going to connect you with someone right now.

[00:51:19] Let's have a session altogether, shall we?

[00:51:25] Brian, meet Alan.

[00:51:26] Alan, meet Brian.

[00:51:28] Let's have some commonalities here

[00:51:29] that you can talk about.

[00:51:31] So anyway, there's my little advice.

[00:51:37] So I mean,

[00:51:39] there does not seem to be any kind of pay model on this.

[00:51:42] It is free at the moment.

[00:51:44] You just have to sign in and create an account.

[00:51:46] But I assume if I come back on this account,

[00:51:47] it will keep you remember your

[00:51:50] remembered all my messages and conversations, right?

[00:51:52] That's what it says.

[00:51:53] Yeah, it says if you create your account,

[00:51:55] your Pi account, then you'll be able to save that.

[00:51:59] This is pretty good, man.

[00:52:00] This is pretty good.

[00:52:01] Very good.

[00:52:02] I'm excited.

[00:52:03] This is a good recommendation, Brian.

[00:52:05] Yeah, thank you.

[00:52:06] Thank you.

[00:52:07] Okay, let me...

[00:52:08] You want to jump into your drama?

[00:52:11] Yeah.

[00:52:12] We can take care of the drama and picks.

[00:52:15] And everybody, this will not be a 30 minute story

[00:52:17] like our brother's was.

[00:52:18] Right.

[00:52:20] So I think I told you a few weeks ago,

[00:52:23] one of my sons upgraded his Apple Watch.

[00:52:26] Yes.

[00:52:27] And it was a nice sign, a gesture.

[00:52:28] He said, well, here, Dad,

[00:52:30] why don't you take my Apple Series 7 Watch?

[00:52:34] Which is great because I have a Series 3

[00:52:36] which I'm wearing right now.

[00:52:37] I love this watch.

[00:52:38] It's been great.

[00:52:39] It still holds the battery for the day.

[00:52:41] It's good.

[00:52:42] But I mean, Series 7 is a bigger watch, bigger face.

[00:52:46] Obviously I'd love a little longer battery life

[00:52:48] because mine I've had for several many, many years now.

[00:52:51] So it's a free watch.

[00:52:52] So I'm like, awesome.

[00:52:54] He's like, yeah, the only problem with the dad is that

[00:52:56] it doesn't hold the battery just probably,

[00:52:58] I think needs to be tweaked or something

[00:53:00] because it doesn't hold a charge very long.

[00:53:02] Sure enough, I got it and I started working.

[00:53:03] Listener foreshadowing Alan's still wearing the Apple Watch 3.

[00:53:08] That's right.

[00:53:09] So in the original go ahead.

[00:53:10] I'll just like my new one is in no shape

[00:53:14] for me to be able to wear right now.

[00:53:19] I'll show you in a minute.

[00:53:21] So he said, you know,

[00:53:22] you may just want to have the battery looked at.

[00:53:24] And I went through all my diagnostics trying

[00:53:26] to see if I could tweak the battery settings,

[00:53:29] kind of doing a trying to reset the battery charging, everything.

[00:53:32] And yeah, it honestly would die out after two thirds of the day have passed.

[00:53:39] And I'm like, well, I know that's not right.

[00:53:40] So I said, I bet you the battery is just gone bad.

[00:53:43] So luckily Apple Watch batteries are not terribly expensive.

[00:53:47] OK, this is an Apple Watch battery right here.

[00:53:50] It's very, very tiny.

[00:53:52] Most of the ones for like like the Series 7

[00:53:55] are like twenty twenty five dollars. OK.

[00:53:57] OK, yeah.

[00:53:58] So I went to I fix it,

[00:54:02] which is going to be my brothers and tech suggestion in a minute.

[00:54:06] I fix it a website.

[00:54:07] I don't know if we've mentioned it before, but if we have,

[00:54:09] I'm bringing it up again.

[00:54:11] I fix it.com is the website I go to.

[00:54:14] If I'm in a mood to say

[00:54:16] I'd like to try to fix something myself,

[00:54:19] whether it's a computer, whether so phone or watch tablet or anything.

[00:54:24] So I went to I fix it.com and I got detailed instructions on how to

[00:54:29] put in a new battery on a Series 7 Apple Watch.

[00:54:33] So I got the battery.

[00:54:35] Actually, this is the old battery that but I got a replacement for this

[00:54:39] came in the mail.

[00:54:40] I had ordered it.

[00:54:41] I fix it actually was out of those particular batteries.

[00:54:44] I had to find another source for it on the website.

[00:54:47] Had the same price on it. Got a shift to me.

[00:54:50] But there were some tools I needed to be able to open up my watch.

[00:54:54] Now, I fix it.

[00:54:56] When you go to their website,

[00:54:59] this is a combination story and brothers and tech suggestion.

[00:55:03] So they have a whole series, a whole guides for repairing different items.

[00:55:08] You can go right up to fix your stuff.

[00:55:11] There are repair guides and their guides are really, really good.

[00:55:15] So I look down, you know, Mac tablet phones,

[00:55:18] desktops, game consoles, whatever you want to try to fix.

[00:55:22] Mine was under apparel.

[00:55:24] I go to apparel.

[00:55:25] There's smartwatch.

[00:55:27] I got a smartwatch and here's all the watches.

[00:55:29] And I'm looking for the Apple smartwatch.

[00:55:32] And now there's all the different versions.

[00:55:34] And there's my series seven like cool.

[00:55:36] Go to series seven and it tells me here are the guides I have available.

[00:55:40] I can either show you how to replace your battery or replace your screen.

[00:55:45] I started with the battery to the point now where I'm looking like

[00:55:49] I'm going to have to follow the screen.

[00:55:52] But the battery, once you go in, it gives you everything you need to know about

[00:55:56] how to do this yourself.

[00:55:58] It'll show you if it's considered an easy or moderate or hard repair kit or repair time,

[00:56:05] how much time it may take and so forth.

[00:56:08] Then it also shows you a list of what you may need to buy to be able to do this.

[00:56:12] Now they tell you like first up the Apple watch, like the battery you need.

[00:56:17] You know, there's two different levels.

[00:56:19] There's a 41 millimeter size.

[00:56:21] There's a 45.

[00:56:22] So you seem to buy one of those.

[00:56:24] Same thing with the adhesive strip.

[00:56:26] If you wanted that now, some of these tools you may already have.

[00:56:29] You may already have safety glasses and gloves, a razor blade, all that.

[00:56:34] One tool that I did not have and I needed to get and I actually have it here

[00:56:38] and I'm kind of making this part of the recommendation too is the eye opener.

[00:56:44] And what this is, this is a tool they make.

[00:56:48] I've got one right here.

[00:56:51] It comes with this whole kit.

[00:56:52] It's a 1999.

[00:56:54] And what this little eye opener is, is this is something that you place in your microwave.

[00:57:00] You heat up for 30 seconds.

[00:57:02] It has a jail on the inside.

[00:57:05] This is what is used that you can put on a phone or you can put on a tablet or a watch

[00:57:11] to undo adhesive that is underneath the screen or something else that's keeping it together.

[00:57:17] Okay.

[00:57:18] On the Apple watch, there's two levels of adhesive, one keeping the screen in place

[00:57:22] and then one keeping the battery in place.

[00:57:24] And it's really hard to just open this up without that adhesive being loosened.

[00:57:28] So the eye opener is you basically put in the microwave 30 seconds

[00:57:31] and then you lay this down on top of the actual piece that you're wanting to loosen up

[00:57:35] the adhesive inside of for like a couple minutes.

[00:57:38] And it does that to where now you can safely open it up.

[00:57:42] So it's a nice little tool.

[00:57:43] It's good to have.

[00:57:44] It came with some other little pieces as you see on the diagram there,

[00:57:48] some other tools like some tongs.

[00:57:50] They call it a spudger, I think, a little thing that helps pry things open.

[00:57:54] All the tools you would need to kind of get into your watch

[00:57:56] and start working on it.

[00:57:58] So I got all those items in and I went and followed the instructions for doing this.

[00:58:04] When you scroll down, there's all the detailed instructions on what to do.

[00:58:08] So showing you exactly what to do.

[00:58:10] Powering down.

[00:58:11] Let's keep a let's pin a note on that step one because that might have some bearing

[00:58:16] on the problem I'm facing right now.

[00:58:20] You see cutting it open with a razor blade, which I did using the eye opener

[00:58:24] to soften the display adhesive, which I did creating a gap, slicing the adhesive underneath it.

[00:58:32] Then you kind of pry it open with these little triangle pieces that they gave you.

[00:58:38] Then you're able to swing open the display and you got to soften the battery adhesive now.

[00:58:42] So it's the second time using that eye opener.

[00:58:45] Yeah.

[00:58:46] That's what it looks like when you get inside.

[00:58:48] Or if you'd like to see a little more of a clear vision of what this looks like.

[00:58:54] So this is what you have on the inside.

[00:58:58] And there you can see there is my screen on one side, my battery on the other.

[00:59:04] Okay.

[00:59:05] So I went in and replaced the battery following the instructions.

[00:59:09] I think I thought I did everything correctly.

[00:59:12] Battery goes in.

[00:59:13] Then I'm realizing there's something a little odd here is that I've got this is the technically the screen,

[00:59:19] which is kind of a weird surface for the screen.

[00:59:22] Okay.

[00:59:24] But now I'm left with two pieces that I think this little screen was supposed to be on top of that to make it a darker.

[00:59:33] Yeah.

[00:59:34] And then this glass is supposed to be on top of that to make the extra glass screen that you see.

[00:59:40] Yep.

[00:59:41] However, now my problem is this does not stay on anymore.

[00:59:45] Something I did has now permanently severed these pieces from the screen.

[00:59:50] And even though they say that this screen should still turn on and operate once you power up your watch,

[00:59:56] even if this is not on, mine does not.

[00:59:59] So I have basically fixed the battery issue.

[01:00:03] I have now created a screen issue where the thing doesn't work.

[01:00:07] I know that the watch is working because when I power it up and I actually place it on scan and I just tried pressing,

[01:00:14] I can feel the haptic feedback.

[01:00:16] Okay.

[01:00:17] Underneath it like I'm actually operating the watch.

[01:00:19] It's just, I don't see squat on the screen.

[01:00:22] So I have tried disconnecting the screen officially disconnecting it from the body, reattaching it.

[01:00:27] That is still doing nothing.

[01:00:28] So I'm giving a recommendation for I fix it because I guarantee you their instructions are fine and the tools I got from them are great.

[01:00:38] I screwed something up and I don't know what I did.

[01:00:41] And unfortunately now I've taken what should have been a $20 to $30 fix.

[01:00:47] It's now looking like if I really want to make this watch work, I'm going to have to replace the screen because I think something is wrong on the screen.

[01:00:55] The screen is like $130.

[01:00:57] And so now to the point of saying, okay, this was a free watch Allen, you're giving this, you have put no dollars into the watch itself,

[01:01:05] except for now this new battery.

[01:01:08] And do I cut my losses and just say, I'll save up and just get a new watch one day later on.

[01:01:14] Or do I, do I not accept a feat on this and say no, I'm going to make this work and find a screen to put on here.

[01:01:23] Not even knowing if that's going to fix the problem.

[01:01:26] My local Apple repair shop does not work on Apple watches.

[01:01:30] That's kind of their thing.

[01:01:31] They don't.

[01:01:32] So I'm really kind of stuck right now.

[01:01:35] I mean, I would tell you what brothers in tech really suggest you should do is just go for it.

[01:01:42] Like let's make this two or three more episodes of you going through and getting frustrated and having some other piece.

[01:01:50] I mean, I'm expecting eventually you're going to need to replace the motherboard on this thing, the processor, the memory, the, you know,

[01:01:58] I just want to see you replace it all.

[01:02:02] I don't know.

[01:02:03] I'm frustrated.

[01:02:04] Yeah, I love tinkering with technology, Brian, but also it's a love hate relationship and that my worst frustrations come from getting to a point like this where I have done my work.

[01:02:16] I've put in some hours to work on this and I can't get to work and I don't have any other resource except to put more money into it, which I do not want to do.

[01:02:23] So that is the pain of a technology nerd.

[01:02:28] So just I fix it.

[01:02:32] I know has a really, really good reputation right?

[01:02:35] It does a great job.

[01:02:37] Had you heard anyone else that had stressors like this and seeing that people are mainly saying this was pretty clean and everything works and everybody's loving the guy.

[01:02:48] Everybody says it's super easy and I've not find a single person anywhere on the Internet who's had this issue where somehow this.

[01:02:58] Has become completely severed from that.

[01:03:02] And I can't find any peace and I can't find any reference to it anywhere.

[01:03:06] Now, the other thing about I fix it, I will say as kind of a continuing on the recommendation here that I do really like is they not only have these guide step by step guides on how to fix anything you may be looking to fix.

[01:03:20] But they also have.

[01:03:22] Let's see if I can find it.

[01:03:27] Teardowns, which is kind of nice.

[01:03:29] So basically what this is like, look, if you're just not if you just want to know what else in there and all the pieces you can actually watch a video and see them take it apart, not for a purpose of fixing just to show you every component and.

[01:03:41] Yeah, yeah, that's cool.

[01:03:43] Which was something I did after I had this problem.

[01:03:45] I'm like, okay, well, let me just kind of walk through and see if they mentioned or show that some element of this is a way it works together.

[01:03:53] Fortunately, it didn't help me in my situation, but still very, very fun to watch.

[01:03:58] Everything has a repairability score they give it as well, meaning how easy is it to repair a 10 is the easiest to repair device and one is the hardest near impossible to repair.

[01:04:09] They're saying the Apple Watch seven was a repairability of six that has not been the case for me.

[01:04:15] But for others, I'm sure it may be.

[01:04:19] Anyway, I just I love I fix it.

[01:04:21] It is a site that I do the minute I feel like I'm going to start to tinker with something, especially an Apple product or any kind of portable technology.

[01:04:30] I will go here and just see, okay, what's going to involve I want to do this if I want to replace my own battery on my iPhone.

[01:04:37] What am I looking at?

[01:04:38] What it would be involved is something I could do or should I send this off to somewhere to have it done?

[01:04:43] I do say if people are the kind of people who like tinkering, they like opening things up and figuring out things work.

[01:04:49] And they don't mind a little bit of risk you have to take when you do it.

[01:04:52] Right, right.

[01:04:53] You will come out cheaper doing this yourself than you would sending it off to a company to do it for you.

[01:04:59] But you just need to make sure you're willing.

[01:05:01] You're somebody who can follow instructions really good.

[01:05:04] Don't mind working in really, really small areas.

[01:05:08] I mean, the screws I had to get out of this Apple watch are microscopic.

[01:05:13] I mean, honestly, I had to put them on a white sheet of paper when I took them out and just really clearly be able to see them.

[01:05:19] Otherwise, I would have lost them in a second.

[01:05:21] So there's just a lot of, there's a lot of tradeoffs, but I find this to be fun when it works, which it does nine out of 10 times.

[01:05:29] This just happens to be the one time it did not.

[01:05:32] Anyway, I fixed it.com is my recommendation.

[01:05:35] That's correct.

[01:05:36] Their website and also I do just kind of really love this little tool, the eye opener.

[01:05:41] It's really not that expensive for the whole kit, like 19 bucks to get the whole set.

[01:05:45] And that will help with your iPhone, Apple watch, even an iPad if you had to do some repairs on it.

[01:05:51] This allows you to open those things up a lot easier.

[01:05:54] So that's my recommendations and my troublesome story.

[01:05:59] Well, I'm sorry to hear that.

[01:06:01] But I was anxious to hear because I knew you were you were diving in and it's certainly something I've thought about with a series three.

[01:06:09] And I have a four, I think that the battery life starts to get to where I maybe can't make it through a full day.

[01:06:15] I'm like, oh, could it be worth just an upgraded battery?

[01:06:19] But yeah, that scares me.

[01:06:21] What mostly scares me is doing that.

[01:06:23] I feel good about trying that, especially if it's a watch that I don't feel like I can do anything else with unless I, you know, were to tinker with it.

[01:06:31] What I get nervous about is like losing the waterproof capabilities, right?

[01:06:36] Not sealing it well, all that sort of stuff.

[01:06:38] That's a very good point.

[01:06:39] I'm glad you mentioned that.

[01:06:41] That's the number one question people have when talking about repairing Apple watches is do you lose any waterproofing?

[01:06:46] And they're pretty clear online and on iFix it saying, look, we can't guarantee you're still going to be able to keep it waterproof after that.

[01:06:53] Because you are prying open something and we guarantee you that you at home are not going to have the same devices to seal up that watch like the Apple plant did that made it.

[01:07:03] So yeah, yeah, you do have to kind of accept that.

[01:07:06] Look, I'm not going to put this in the water.

[01:07:08] Like I don't ever put my watch currently in the water.

[01:07:10] I just don't trust it.

[01:07:12] I'm sure it would be fine.

[01:07:14] I just don't do it.

[01:07:15] So I'm already used to not doing it.

[01:07:17] This is to me still a free watch that I was given.

[01:07:19] So if I got this repair working, yes, I just know I'll just won't put it in water and I'll be sure.

[01:07:24] Yeah, but I just have to have it working first.

[01:07:28] I don't know if you realize an Apple watch any watch really Apple in the is only as functional as you being able to actually see anything on the screen.

[01:07:37] You know, I haven't thought about that before.

[01:07:41] It's really just kind of a glorified arm band and that doesn't quite justify the technology and the cost of it originally.

[01:07:49] So have you thought about putting a have you thought about putting a taking a Sharpie and just painting on the a random time?

[01:07:57] Like there's something there.

[01:07:59] Yeah, it's like a five o'clock.

[01:08:01] Like Alan Jackson.

[01:08:02] That's my you know, my country singer doppelganger.

[01:08:05] That's his song.

[01:08:06] It's five o'clock somewhere.

[01:08:07] So I can say look, it's five o'clock.

[01:08:10] It's five o'clock somewhere.

[01:08:13] All right, I'm tapped out.

[01:08:14] I'm done.

[01:08:15] Yeah.

[01:08:16] Let me let me finish on something a little bit more positive here.

[01:08:19] So I want to share one more thing just a little app that I've been using and surprisingly have been very happy with so Alan, I don't know if you've used artifact before artifact artifact.

[01:08:37] So artifact, as you can see it over here on my one of my screens.

[01:08:41] So artifact is a is a news reader, which you know I've been into before I like, you know, Google news was always really good but it always ended up leading me to lots of paywalls and all sorts of stuff and and I don't use Apple news because I don't pay for that.

[01:08:58] So I've always been looking for something where I could read news but I want I really wanted the app itself to have some effective features for me to be able to read things later be able to save things.

[01:09:10] So I came across this artifact and so as you see it looks very similar to I don't know even like a like a Twitter, you know where you might have different categories of things that you want to read.

[01:09:24] You know it's mostly articles. So when you set it up when you go in and says tell us your likes right like most news readers will do tell us what you're interested in and we'll create different areas from that.

[01:09:35] But here's some of the cool things that I really like here Alan so let me let me show you if I click on.

[01:09:39] Let's just say I click on this second article this Apple insider article.

[01:09:44] So for one it comes up and it's really looks nice right it does a nice kind of reader view of this article.

[01:09:52] And so I can at this point I can save the article for later just like you would anything else I can bookmark it and say I want to read it later.

[01:10:02] It'll save it in my in my save list but what I like is up here up top and you see there's a couple of buttons there once the play button.

[01:10:10] So you're not going to be able to hear this but I can click the play and it's reading me the article right now which is really nice right so if I click on this like you would any other.

[01:10:20] You know kind of music app or podcasting app I can scan forward.

[01:10:25] I can also let's see yeah scroll back and forth I can change the speech to be a different speed I can change it to a different voice right as to what I'm using which is kind of nice.

[01:10:40] I can also go up here and you see the stars up top there.

[01:10:45] So if I click on those it will use a I to give me a little summary of the article which is kind of slick to say you come across a really long article and you just want to know like is this really what I want to be reading so I can click on the A.

[01:10:59] I you can also click on the three dots there and say explain it like I'm five so gives me a much simpler way to understand this article you could say I can also make in a poem.

[01:11:14] Based on this I don't know why it does that but yeah I haven't tried this part yet but give me this funny there's there's the poem that tells me about this article right.

[01:11:25] So I can go through and then as you see here I can also view the writer I can view more articles from the writer which is really nice I can dislike it of course to say don't show me more of these.

[01:11:39] Change the font side out that fun stuff and then when I go back to the list what also really like which a lot of them will do is it raise it out to show that I've already read that one.

[01:11:47] Yeah right which I really I really love that super slick so as you can see it's got the the play at the bottom so even I could go to an article come back and search while I'm still listening to the article back in the background just kind of nice.

[01:12:03] Can I ask a question. Yeah so this is a like an Apple news type device where you go into interest you tell it interest areas and it's pulling new sources for you correct this is not where you go in and give it feeds.

[01:12:18] You can news sources you can't.

[01:12:21] I'm gonna click over here and I'm going to go to my profile into the settings gear and I can tell it my content preferences I can block certain publishers I can manage my paid subscriptions so if I actually have paid subscriptions to some of these I can click them on which is nice when I don't have them which is also nice that I don't get a lot of these paywalls.

[01:12:42] Yeah because I'm not subscribed this is where you can manage your subscription.

[01:12:46] I'm sorry manage your interest.

[01:12:48] So it does allow you to go and kind of tweak what you're seeing you know based on certain types of certain types of sources and making sure that that's there you'll see that you know obviously this has just like it would on maybe a Twitter something like that or X right that you can go and see what are the headlines right now you can also put

[01:13:11] things that's the other part it tries to make it more social where you're saying.

[01:13:15] Let me post this other article that I just read and say that I'm promoting it now or you know it could take a poll you can do something.

[01:13:24] I haven't done any of that.

[01:13:26] I did like this link section which is kind of nice to you and it just pulls up a bunch of links that it thinks of interesting that are coming in some of the other articles so you can go straight to you know see what's what's happening right now.

[01:13:39] So so far it's been it's really really slick in terms of the app itself the way it works you know being able to like things being able to listen to the playback of things being able to get a quick summary of things.

[01:13:54] Yeah so far I mean I I always judge these by how how nice the app looks and then how well it functions and meets kind of the way I like to read things and this is certainly the nice I.

[01:14:07] I'm trying to stay away from readers that will take me to a bunch of paywalls I want to be able to block certain certain publishers or certain content providers that I don't have access to and I'm not paying for because I hate to get there.

[01:14:23] Read half the article and then it says oh by the way you've exhausted your you know one per month we're going to give you so so far this has been really good and allows me to kind of tweak things in so I'm going to keep keep playing with it.

[01:14:36] I have not checked I just noticed the notification up there at the top what is that so I could turn on notifications about.

[01:14:44] I'm guessing let's do that and see what it's giving me.

[01:14:49] So no activity yet so I could tell it I'm assuming oh I guess that would be comments on my my posts my likes that sort of stuff but I was thinking maybe.

[01:15:04] Yeah things that I may want to be notified about might be able to come through.

[01:15:08] All right so let me clarify my question a little bit.

[01:15:12] But if I had a website that I wanted to follow the news from and I could this isn't one where I could go in and put in manually.

[01:15:21] A new source and say hey show me the news from there and only reason I ask is there's kind of two different news readers out there right now they're the ones that are going to pull in stuff for you like.

[01:15:32] Apple's news does or sounds like this does which is great I think most people want that not have to go and find new sources and go and get every single one.

[01:15:42] I use a news reader called News Explorer which is a little different in that you have to actually go in and tell it the news pages source website to follow.

[01:15:52] And it pulls new sources news articles from there and kind of mixes them together into a digest you can read.

[01:15:59] So it's just two different styles of how you want to read news if you want the news to come to you based on your interest and not have to worry about what source is getting it from necessarily.

[01:16:08] Yep this looks really good.

[01:16:10] If you're if you know the sites you go to there's like a dozen sites that this is where you like to read your news it's wired news it's yeah the New Republic news site whatever it may be.

[01:16:21] And that would just be an RSS RSS reader right.

[01:16:24] You're just telling it.

[01:16:25] Yeah basically where I want the latest.

[01:16:27] Yeah this is one where it chooses the sources which I prefer because I don't like to limit certain sources right if I do I'll just I'll use their their app but now this is an aggregator.

[01:16:43] But I think it you know provides a little bit of social elements to it there is comments that can be read on there which is kind of nice.

[01:16:51] You know from for right now I'm using.

[01:16:54] I'm using this for my news but I'm using obviously threads is what I'm on right now for the social aspect of hearing people's comments on things.

[01:17:05] I'm trying to trying to keep the balance of two things rather than just going to a social media thing to be my news which is what I was doing with Twitter before and became a nightmare.

[01:17:16] So yeah so far so far so good and like I said what I love is just the cleanliness of the look and you know I love how it grays out what I've already read so I don't have to click into something again.

[01:17:31] I know I haven't been on it enough now to know like how much do I need to massage it in terms of liking things in terms of you know commenting on things and how that changes the algorithm but so far so good so awesome that's artifact artifact artifact.

[01:17:48] Let me put that up on the banner just so people in the video can see our diff fact is the name of the app that Brian just recommended so cool.

[01:17:59] So we had our recommendations the website I fix it.com as well as the mobile app artifact for kind of a news aggregator newsreader for you.

[01:18:10] That's our recommendations and then of course the rest of the episode was just just us ranting about things pretty much.

[01:18:16] Brian and muskets scammed out of a pretty big purchase or big item.

[01:18:21] I have completely demolished an Apple watch that probably worked fine before I got a hold of it now I've taken it to or did it or did your son really just want to really mess with you and put you down a spiral.

[01:18:37] No look I wore this Apple watch for a couple weeks when he first gave it to me.

[01:18:42] It was working other than the battery just running out so quickly.

[01:18:45] So that was that was the thing.

[01:18:47] No, it was pretty much when I sliced this thing open.

[01:18:50] I think the razor blade I might have not been as careful with the cutting around it and I have done some other things.

[01:18:58] I don't know something happened and yeah my watch is now dead or not not functioning as a watch anymore.

[01:19:06] Maybe you should maybe you should talk with pie and see like what pie thinks you want to do at this point and see like you know should you mail it in should you should you should you should you give up should you not give up.

[01:19:20] Okay, hold on.

[01:19:22] Let me see if pie has.

[01:19:27] Way the pros and cons of a decision that sounds like the tactic I want to take here.

[01:19:31] Let's do it.

[01:19:32] I'm going to say what's the decision you're facing well pie.

[01:19:36] I was gifted an Apple watch recently and noticed the battery ran out quickly.

[01:19:50] Yep.

[01:19:52] So I opted to buy a new battery and then took it upon myself to open my Apple watch and try to replace it.

[01:20:10] However, now after doing that.

[01:20:13] This is very detailed at my Apple watch screen.

[01:20:19] No longer comes on.

[01:20:22] Should I abandon my efforts to repair this watch or should I invest in a new screen to further my attempts to make this work.

[01:20:43] I was really just I was really just hoping you would type in like should I or should I not and just see if it would do like a magic eight ball but.

[01:20:51] Okay, here we go.

[01:20:52] He says oh my Ellen sounds like a case of DIY gone awry opening an Apple watches or risky endeavors like trying to perform open heart surgery on a microchip.

[01:21:03] I don't want to be at blanket but given your current situation I'd say your best bet is to cut your losses.

[01:21:08] Replacing the screen on the Apple watch can be a complex and pricey endeavor and there's no guarantee it will fix the issue.

[01:21:13] He's right.

[01:21:14] He's absolutely right.

[01:21:16] You might be better off using the money for a new watch.

[01:21:18] It would probably be less of a headache.

[01:21:20] He gets me.

[01:21:21] He's telling you pie pie is there.

[01:21:24] I may actually see if there's a way I can put pie in my menu bar.

[01:21:29] So it's just there all the time.

[01:21:31] Right.

[01:21:32] Just go ahead and chat throughout my day.

[01:21:34] I'd like to chat with them a lot more than I do.

[01:21:37] I mean, no, seriously that answer.

[01:21:40] It was right.

[01:21:41] It's not a cookie cutter answer.

[01:21:43] It was it had a logical point to it.

[01:21:49] And they even said there's no guarantee it'll fix the issue which he's right.

[01:21:52] I don't know if that's going to fix the issue pie man pie gets high as pie is a lot smarter than we are.

[01:22:01] I'm just going to keep pie open in a window on my computer all day and telling you that's that's I think that's the key.

[01:22:06] Yep.

[01:22:07] I do have another I have another pick I can give in the future that allows you to do that by the way.

[01:22:13] Keep a website in your menu bar so you can just kind of quickly open it up the time you want but I think it's good.

[01:22:19] Yeah, I like I like it.

[01:22:21] Yep.

[01:22:22] Okay well that is bring down our effect.

[01:22:24] So pie.ai is the winner of this episode.

[01:22:28] Yeah.

[01:22:29] Good recommendation.

[01:22:30] Well done and already helping me out awesome.

[01:22:33] So it's great.

[01:22:35] All right, Brian.

[01:22:36] I think that wraps us up.

[01:22:37] We have ranted and recommended enough.

[01:22:40] What's what's the what's the deal if somebody wants to chat with us or talk to us what what are they yes and it's send us an email at info at the mesh dot TV.

[01:22:49] Yeah, and if you've got some experiences some advice for keeping the scammers away or for fixing a watch or for ways of having advice through a website.

[01:23:06] Or if you happen to know who won the Virginia Virginia Carolina game over the weekend that you could kind of let me know about I don't know who that was.

[01:23:15] How do you know, do you know.

[01:23:17] No, no, I'm pretty sure we didn't play this weekend.

[01:23:20] Okay, well, I can tell you didn't play very much.

[01:23:24] Then send us an email and you can also go to our website which I think Alan's been working on but I don't know at www is that brothers dash in dash tech dot com and find out previous episodes and

[01:23:39] I'm just going to go to the video editor and check website at least has all episodes up in there right now.

[01:23:45] I'm still making a few more adjustments but I mean if you just want to listen to any old episode.

[01:23:51] It is there I'm basically just coming to go through and add the video to a lot of those episodes so people can see the video side if they want to watch the video instead of playing the audio side.

[01:23:59] Cool.

[01:24:00] And then I'm setting it up to where we can just go in and make some more regular posts and make the website more than just showing our video and audio podcast and be a little more, a little more interactive.

[01:24:12] But in the meantime still you want to check out any old episodes brothers and tech brothers in brothers dash in dash tech dot com is where to go.

[01:24:21] So, all right.

[01:24:23] All right.

[01:24:24] Thanks everybody.

[01:24:25] Thanks Brian.

[01:24:26] Good talking to you.

[01:24:27] Chat with pie my new best friend.

[01:24:29] I am too.

[01:24:30] Yeah.

[01:24:31] I mean, I wonder if pie talks.

[01:24:33] About us.

[01:24:35] About us behind the scenes.

[01:24:39] This guy that came in with this problem.

[01:24:41] Keep complaining.

[01:24:43] Can you believe he's trying to fix his own Apple watch that is near stupid.

[01:24:47] Geez.

[01:24:48] All right.

[01:24:49] Gotta roll.

[01:24:50] All right.

[01:24:51] Take care everyone.

[01:24:52] Thank you.

[01:24:53] Bye bye.

[01:25:04] Thank you.