It's time for the b a qa a to be a qa What to say, it'd be a q a man, be a q a tiffin, the b a qa a Hey.
Man, are you doing rural? Hello? I'm doing great. I don't know why I'm British, but here it is.
If you want to do this, the disclaims that people don't sue us.
Oh yes, please get to salt shakers out, y'all, and please take everything we say in the ba q and a with a huge dose of salt, because we are not your financial advisors, your planners, your investment advisors, your insurance brokers, your mom and your daddy, your auntie, your lawyer or your attorney, any of that. We are your financial besties.
What do you usually say?
We're gorgeous, we're smart.
Yes, we're all things, but we are legally like bound to you.
Yeah exactly. Okay, so don't come for us, Just enjoy, enjoy some of this tea that we are about to spill about your financial and your career questions. Yeah, today the theme is money, and today the theme is what are we calling it? Red flag?
Yeah?
Yes, red flags, financial red flags.
Yes.
So this has come up a lot. So this is actually not from the mailback, but this has just.
Come up a lot. Me and Mandy we're talking like you know, kiki and giggling.
We always do on like some of the some of the goings on in our community. When it comes to scam it feels like, right, Mandy, in the last especially during COVID and beyond, a big uptick in scamme rations.
Yeah, especially around financial I mean financial and business and finances in business. And by that it's like do this thing to get rich, do this thing to start your own business, or do this thing so you never have to work again. And it all sounds really too good to be true. But I guess the scam that like we're going to talk about today, or you're gonna talk about because you're going to educate me on it is like a case of a celebrity lends their face to
what turns out to be a scam. That's when your team fails you.
And I know Rose and Logan would never put you. And here's the thing.
So so in our space, like Mandy and I really like, well Mandy you know is new to the other side of the financial education space. You know, she was on like the like the corporate side at you know, as a as an editor working at Yahoo Finance, like on the journalists side, and then I've been on the like I guess, the personality side of personal finance.
You know, it seemed then, you know, people kind of are on the up and up right. I don't know that.
I remember one time you did say there was an article you had to make sure like looking at bank accounts because someone had lied about how much they made in a.
Business or something like that.
You know, man, so you had to be you know, but that was the biggest thing back then. It's like, oh I made more than I said. It was like, show me your bank account in order for me to you know, write this article. Now the girls are out here like every type of investment, like on the total real estate fund, and that guy who you know, I think he collected like twelve million dollars worth of business
has basically lost it all. And there's just so many financial scams where you know, people promised she among us returns you know, uh Bernie made out as scams where it's it's period scam, period schemes. And the worst is like these scams where they will tell you periods a pyramid look at me period?
Who child that period? Oh my god? Where of those? Those are interesting pyramids?
I mean, I pay you a lot of money if he promised me, I never had to have one again.
Pyramid schemes, right, but recently.
I'm like, so you also you've really meant Ponzi.
But Ponzi yeah, no word pyramid skins. You know, the pyramid.
Schemes like Bernie made Off wasn't a pyramid. He was a ponzi.
Yeah, he was a ponzi. I didn't mean ponzi. But also pyramid is that is a scam? It is, right, Yeah, But there's all these games happening.
And so the most reason one that that has gotten like really blown up is DJ Envy.
He is a very popular DJ on the Breakfast Club.
And club boys are always getting into trouble.
So you know, well, you know, Charlemagne is just because his mouth. But he partnered with the along with Penias Is.
He partnered with I guess a gentleman named mister Penias and he was like, I guess he was a real estate investor and he you know, DJ Envy promoted him on the platform.
It seems like they partnered. I mean this is all.
Alleged because you knows. And so mister Pinias then went ahead and basically it seemed seemingly has taken the money and not done what he said he was gonna do. As I read a little bit deeper, it seemed like, and I mean, I have been victim of a scam too.
We're gonna talk about kind of like the breakdown of scams, right.
Is that you would, don't you know, you you would invest whatever amount of money and you were supposed to get thirty percent, like you know, from the project. So it was like, you know, you invest fifty thousand dollars he was supposed to buy you know, use that money to write homes or other commercial properties or whatever, and then you would get thirty percent you know of like
you know, whatever that investment was going to yield. Which as I did dug a little deeper, people were like, that doesn't actually make sense to get thirty percent because if you were to like borrow money from a hard
money lender. So a hard money lender is someone who has a bunch of cash, and you're a real estate investor and you don't have the cash, and so you say, hey, Mandy, can I get one hundred thousand dollars from you, and in a month, when I fix up the property and sell it or whatever, I'll give you your hundred thousand dollars back plus ten percent, which is a lot of money. So you get one hundred and ten thousand dollars back or you get the property back. So if a hard
money lender it's about ten fifteen percent. Why would I do an investment with somebody and give them thirty percent when I could just do a hard money lender, which is easier quote unquote, And so those numbers basically adding up, and sure enough they didn't. A lot of people lost a lot of money. But the reason why it's blowing up is that DJ Envy is famous, you know, breakfast clubs, like lots of views, and it's like, how did you get yourself mixed up with someone who was not truthful?
Now Here are some of the components of a scam that I have been seeing this it's odd in our community. Mean, I don't know if you've seen this, but like so for example, Jay Morrison who did the Tulsa real estate.
The premise is hey, same.
Thing with mister Pinies who saw all this money allegedly I am an ex convict, which I'm like, ooh, stop right there, begin and end right there. No, shay, you know, I know sometimes people make mistakes who they're younger, but not with my money, honey. I am someone who just came home and I'm making a better life for myself. And because I just came home and I didn't have access to like other ways of like work or whatever, I have started. Whatever this venture is, you should invest
in it. So I'm like, I don't know what it is about our community, but why is that a selling point that I used to be in jail for whatever reason? And you know, I'm not here to shame someone who was once incarcerated. But if you've been incarcerated, especially if it's due to fraud, I'm like, doesn't that sound like that's what you do?
Like yeah, so that about wallf of Wall Street guy, I mean like he's you know, out and now making a lot of money.
I mean, yeah, So that's one.
I feel like the anatomy of a scam is one the character of the person and kind of like what their background is. Two, you know, sharing things that are too good to be true, a thirty percent return when everybody else is giving five or six percent. Is it's you know, it's one thing to say I'm doing an eight percent return everybody else is giving six, but thirty when everybody else is giving ten. You know, the good,
the too good to be true part. It's a huge red flag when it comes to scams, right when someone says, like, now, the problem of a of a really good scam is that some people will make money, because that's the part is that what happens is usually the people who jump in early, they indeed get their fifty twenty thousand whatever
and they're like, oh my gosh, this thing's legitimate. And that's the point, is that a really good scam will pay some people in the beginning because it will attract other uninitiated people and then they get to keep their money.
So that's another anatomy of a scam that the.
Too good to be true part actually is paid out early on, but by the time you get there, not so much. And anything else I'm missing, like for when people are looking at scams like that, like ugh.
I think the big one also is well, the pressure to make a decision quickly. So and this also happened. Mean's a sales tactic. You know, in general, it's one of those things that's like, it's not the tactic is in a scam, but this tactic can certainly get you, make you more likely to fall for a scam if you let it control you, like the sense of like, you know, I experienced this when I was shopping to
refinance my mortgage. You know, those mortgage lenders that you talk to, they want you, they want you to refine with them, They want your business, and it's like I can get you this rate, you know, but you know, you really want to make a decision today because I can't promise it's going to be here if you don't lock it in so anyway, but having the groundedness to say, I'm going to take my time to look into this, you know, that will save you from a scam in and of itself a lot of times.
And the hard heart heart pressure sales is potentially Oh yeah, Sam, I'm.
Talking else like Jesus crypto. If you're asking you for crypto.
Yeah, oh yeah.
The way they ask me to pay yes, hit me up on social media, which is kind of scary. So a woman hit me up and said, tifany is this you I'm like, no, that on TikTok or whatever. There's somebody who's trying to scam people out of money using
my image. And what's really scary is, she said, Tificany, the part that was scary is they called me on Instagram or TikTok or whatever, and it was a video of you talking, but I couldn't hear you well, so I thought it was really you calling me and they went back to texting, like, oh, my connection is bad.
I was like, wait, is that that's the same thing that Gail King? Have you seen this? So Gail King went on ig and shared a video of that looked legit through AI because they can they can if you have a enough speaking I can see how they could take an episode of like you speaking of this podcast or like any of your other engagements and uploaded into AI and be like, can you generate a statement about my business with Tiffany's voice, yes, and then put it with some blurry footage and you talk yeah.
Really like I couldn't believe. And she was like, you know, but I know that you never asked me for whatever it was. It was. The English is really bad. As far as the texting, she was like that doesn't sound like differenty, So she wrote me like all my budget, Lisa, and you would think that like, oh, cause you know I have the blue check.
So that's another scam, which is like if someone who normally wouldn't reach out to you was asking for money, Like if they're asking for money in ways that you cannot get a refund, like they're wanting you to cash app, they're wanting you to crypto, It's like that's another like hallmark of a scam where it's like why do I have to pay this way? There's no paper trail, you know,
why do I have to pay this way? Also too, if the person doesn't have knowledge, like I look at like, for example, the Tulsa real estate fund guy, he had never bought a house or sold a house, so how was he running you know, a ten million dollar plus fund where he had no previous experience, and so like really looking into like well like so for example, there's a lot of like especially during the pandemic, a lot of coaches popped up to like to teach you how
to manage a business. But the only business they've ever had was to teach you how to manage a business. So It's like what came first to chicken or the egg? You know that the ass and so you want to be want to be mindful that Like wait a minute.
If it's one thing like say, for example, you owned like a retail company and you know you you like you know, you sold jeans for twenty years, and now you are teaching people how to have a real retail company, then it's like okay, because you have the underlying business and you're teaching me how to do a thing you've been doing versus my business is to teach you how to have business. It's again, how do you know how to have business when this is the only business you
ever had. So that's another huge like red flag, Like they're only in the business of the thing if you're teaching you So yeah, I mean you guys ask stuff like this all the time, like if it's a scam reviews, honestly literally googling such and such name scam or such such name.
Reviews and see what pops up, you know what I mean?
Like sometimes really fund policy if there's no protections like that, if there's no way to get in touch with them but a complaint, yes, call the number back and see who answers, especially for those bank scams like my friend who lost my friend of a friend who lost like eight grand because the bank called her on her phone but it wasn't really her bank and she ended up zelling them a bunch of money.
Yeah, well yeah, and honestly too.
Whenever those things happen, the best thing to do, especially if it has is to say I'll call you back, because you can call Like if Wells Fargo called me to say, hey, you you know you owe us money, blah blah blah, I'm like, I'm gonna call you back on the Wells Fargo line. Hey, someone from Wells Fargo called me to say that, because they'll connect you if that's true.
Yeah, you know, and so yeah, but I.
Mean, I know, in the moment, it does seem so real. It's so hard because like I said, I've been scammed before, and so like, yeah, we'll just shame around it, but it is there is a lot of shame around it.
Now that AI is involved. Like, oh my gosh, no one's safe if they learn how to get your voice and you call me and it looks like your number and it's like maybe I need ten thousand dollars right now, I'd probably be like, oh, that's Tiffany, she wouldn't do that. You know, I could see myself doing maybe not ten grand. You know. Wait what you listen to this episode, like I'm stuck at the airport and they're not letting me you know what, it cant on my flight bitcoin go.
It's so scary, honestly.
So it's just really, if something feels like a scam, doesn't feel right, it's it's better to just opt out and just say you know what, because on the off chances actually does work out. Okay, you missed out on the thing, not really, you know, But it's just asking questions, are there other people who have signed up? But like I said, you want to be mindful because those early adopters oftentimes will get their money and then you'll be
it's like hot potato. You know, eventually the hot potato is gonna stop, and it's likelihood as you're gonna be one holding the hot potato at the end.
You know. And so yeah, just asking those questions.
Sometimes you guys will sign to my dms, will ask me about specific people I'm not gonna I mean, I named a couple of people that are like are known like you know, scammers, but also too like I think I mentioned this before. One of my favorite YouTube channels is coffee Zilla, And so what I like is that I forget his real name. I don't even know what
he said shares his real name. He exposes like the internet scammers of the day, and I'm not necessarily looking for particular because mostly the Internet scammers, he's just exposes our white boys.
So I'm not really looking at that.
I'm more so looking at the scheme set up so I can recognize it out in the wild when it comes to our community.
And so that's just a great way. I mean. Also, there's place there's a instagram called baller Alert. It's so called baller alert, I think.
So where he will also expose like specific scammers that you know, Like I said, most of them are white boys. So you might not be like, oh, that doesn't affect me, But what happens is is that scammers will have like a specific playbook and if it works, they will share with each other and eventually it does get to your community, but with a face that looks like.
Yours, and you're like, oh, that's the you know, that's the Nike shoebox scam.
I saw that on Baller Alert, So I like to keep up to date so that way when something comes to me, I'm really mindful about this. Like if you notice, I used to beginning partner with a lot of people, and unfortunately I don't anymore because there's not too many people in the space that I feel really comfortable sharing with my audience.
Because there's other like influencer educator type people.
Yeah, because there'd be people who started off great, but you know, there's a lot of I'm not gonna lie.
There's a lot of money and.
Not navigating so great with your community, and sometimes people will do things that are not a scam, but they're not quite up.
To snuff for me, you know.
So there is this great area where it's like it's not illegal, but it's not right.
And so I don't partner like I used to.
I used to write it all the time, but I don't partner like I used to because I'm just like, very few people are navigating in a way that I feel really comfortable sharing with my audience. And they passed what I call my Lisa rule, which is if I wouldn't share if my baby sister, Lisa, I'm not gonna share with y'all.
So yeah, just.
Keeping you know, keeping an eye out, asking questions, not making quick decisions if the money sounds too good to be true it is, and you know, really like looking in their comments to see what other people are saying, because oftentimes people be in a comments roasting people and you're like, oh, you know, and just be safe.
Out there, child, be safe.
Yeah, question, Yes, I want to take a quick break and taking another like scammer Jason.
Questions a scamblet.
Yes, let's do it. Be right back from with more ba Qa and we're back with another question from the well. This is our first question, a question from the reader mail bag, right, ba fam. If you want to send me your question to be answered on the show, it's really easy. You can slide into our dms at Brand Ambission Podcast on the gram. You can also email us directly Brand Ambition podcast at gmail dot com or head over to our beautiful website, brandambis podcast dot com and
click contact us. All right, this question who interesting? This is one of those like I know, we call it a scam let scam it because it's like one of these things that's not outright a scam.
Yeah, but has is this smell a little something.
Has questionable ulterior motives? Do you want me to read it or do you want to read it?
I'm glad you can read it.
Well, thank you? All right?
Interesting?
Okay, so my fake name for the pod is Autumn.
This question is from Autumn.
Autumn says my husband and I started working with a financial advisor to make sure that we are doing the right things with our excess money outside of investing in diverse portfolios through betterment, maxing out our retirement saving, being frugal, etc. As two high earners in it six figures for each of our incomes. Okay, we see, we love it. Our
financial advisor works for an insurance company. He's advised my husband to take his rolled over four to one k and roth IRA and roll it into an annuity for instance URA RLA ascend due to the potential for faster growth and there's no risk of us removing the money from the account. My retirement fund so far isn't as high, so I'm not eligible, which is fine as I'm a chicken with moving money. I've never heard of this as
a way to grow retirement savings. I've never heard anyone advocate for moving large amounts of IRA into anything else. We still have more research to do, but I was curious if you'd heard of this type of fund and what would be your next steps in weighing the pros and cons of considering all of this outside of just more research as two people who work with financial professionals to play on your finances. Thanks ladies, Autumn.
Well, first, let's get clear on what in annuity is, Can I can? I sure?
Yes?
So okay.
Definition, an annuity is a long term contract from an insurance company, which makes sense because your financial advisor works for insurance company where you invest your money. In return for your investment, you get income in the form of regular payments through an annualization or guaranteed lifetime income benefit
that is available at an additional cost. So basically, they take your money, they invest it, and they say, hey, from the investment that we invested, obviously they're going to keep some and they're going to pay you from the money that they've invested.
You know. So, so here's the thing.
Certainly having an annuity can have like this, like annual income generated to you, like you're gonna receive regular payments, and these regular payments can be guaranteed rates of return. But the problem is, I'll say this that like they can be pretty pricey, meaning like you would be likely better off. This is like I remember Angelie and my
financial advisor. I asked her about annuity because I knew a friend of had that had one, and she said, the problem is about money most annuities is that they can get pretty expensive. And typically insurance companies are gonna charge about one to to like one and a quarter percent of your return, which.
Is gonna be like it seems like low, but like when.
You think of compoundly how much that's gonna cost you over time, then it might be better off.
For like what your money is just.
Grow without you know, without the help of this insurance company.
Now, the problem like let me see, let me see, let me say.
So, like returns on an annuity also might not match investment returns, and.
So like the problem is that for all that trouble.
With an annuity, you could just have your money exactly where it is in your wealth Iraya four one K and doing what it does and you get to keep your money. Now, because here's the real problem that I see this, so it's not a scam, but the fact that your financial advisor works for an insurance company and they're trying to sell you a product from the insurance company. Let you know who they work for, not you. I'm gonna say that again. My dad would always say, he
who pays the piper determine the determines the tune. So who is paying the piper, which is like, you're a financial advisor, his company is So his job or her job is to sell you products and services, not necessarily to make sure that what's best for you.
And I could tell by the fact that they offered you this annuity.
Hey, give me all of your money so I can put into the company I work for, so I can get a kick back and not a kick be because it's legal.
You know.
I'm sure they work on commission whatever it is that they get as a result of rolling over, But is it actually best for you?
Likely not.
This is why having a financial advisor that's independent of a financial company is ideal. Like Angelie, I know Helen doesn't work for specific your financial advisor, Mandy, you know it's.
A fee based not just an independent but a fiduciary.
Yes, so notified financial planners.
Because what juduciary means they have to act in your best interest or else the advice are giving you is illegal.
So this person, I'm not sure if they're a CFP, doesn't sound like it, and.
For you know what they probably are, but they sell insurance products for a Nationwide on the side, So I wonder if like he's sort of doing or she im not going to like gender it, but anyway, like yeah, like you know, got this client and then has you know, and is thinking, oh, well, they have money, so let me like also dip into my you know, my work with Nationwide and get a little, like you said, a commission off of this as well, because they help that need to invest.
I like to think like I want you to think about like when you know how like when you bought your house, Mandy. I remember at the time when I bought my first condo that my my mortgage broker told me ideally for me to hire everyone separately, Like I found my own inspector, I had my own mortgage person, I had my own attorney. And because when they're all together, they throw each other deals in a way that doesn't it doesn't benefit you. I like Angelie. I hired Angelie independently.
What I like about Angelie is she told me you're under insured, and I said, okay, and she said, go to you whatever insurance company you want, and I will give you the language to get them. But she doesn't get any kickback from whatever because she doesn't work for nj M. She doesn't work for whatever insurance company.
She works for me.
And so whenever Antealie like, the only thing only product that Ali sales is her services to the individual. She doesn't tell insurance. She doesn't you know, doesn't tell anything other than that, And so you want to just be mindful of that.
Because this concerned me.
I asked Angelie about annuities, and I vaguely remember her saying that only for small percentage of people doesn't make sense, and she said the likelihood is it age too, and so like. So I'm not here to speak on like whether the annuities are great or bad whatever, because I don't know enough about them.
I'm just sharing what she shared with me.
And then and then, for the vast majority of people, the expense of the annuity is not worth the return of most annuities. But my bigger concern is that you're working with somebody who might have conflicting You can't serve two masters that's going to have conflicting, you know, like desires or who they're going to help.
Can I weigh in? I didn't think I would have much to add, But when I read r I LA something in my brain said, I've heard of this recently, and typically when I hear from I'm going to assume that Autumn is a woman of color like our audiences, because typically when I start hearing the same thing from people from the same community, I'm like, there are a lot of info out there about this r I L
A thing. Because in a recent group coaching call of mine, I was speaking one of I take questions and I'm you know, I have questions every other week with them and they can ask me anything, and this woman asked about our I L A annuity and she was describing it to me, and I hadn't heard of it before, and I'm like, I'm not going to give you life insurance advice or insurance advice or whatever, an annuity advice, but it's it's it's this like, this is the second
time I've heard of it in the row, and it's so just to like quickly define it, registered index linked annuities, they are they are sort of meant to entice people by saying, well, this is going to be mirroring an index, which, if you hear people like us, we talk really highly in favor of index funds, which which track an indicies like the stock market, the S and P five hundred or whatever. So you've heard us talk about that positively.
So what I feel like when someone's like, oh, this annuity tracks an index, it may feel like, oh, well, this is a good thing, right, It's like enough of a However, it's also you know, supposed to be you know, a boon or like a benefit for investors because it helps you grow your like it helps you grow your investment and have it there's some kind of like tax deferral or some kind of tax advantage to doing it.
But my and so when I when I read that that it's about this like tax deferred status of your gains, I'm like, well, if four one K is already a tax advantage to account, I don't necessarily know of what the benefit is of rolling it away from your tax advantage for one K account into an annuity like that just gives me pause. And also the fact that I'm hearing about it in a couple different like two times in a row within a short period of time. I'm just like, my spidy sense already goes up. So I
don't know how to tell you. I don't know what to tell you about it, Like I don't know how to say definitively this is bad for you. But my spidey sense, I trust it, and that's how I avoid things that are bad for me. And I'm just like, mmmmm, I don't know. I mean, yeah, yeah, this is what's.
The return versus what the cost is going to cost you? And can you make that return without the cost someplace?
Elf?
And just from the little bit of resource that I've done, it looks like, yes, that's the case, but like bigger, honestly than the annuity. I'm not so much concerned about that is I'm just wanting you to like maybe open up, like and say, is.
This the way financial advisor?
You know? Because what other tools and resources is this person likely to sell you because it benefits them in the company's bottom line versus you? And so I just would not recommend financial advisors specifically from you know, that sells other things other than their advice.
Yeah, you know, yeah, that'd be a deal breaker for me. You give me one, you give me a piece of advice that I can't verify it's the best for me, and I'm just like, why don't trust you?
Yeah, exactly to someone else exactly.
Well, thank you Autumn for opening up and asking us your question. I'm really glad that you did, and hopefully that gives you some food for thought.
Like I said, that's not a scam, but it's scam likely. You know, you get to eat that before Jason, you know, we.
Got to call the let's call for producer, you mind, let's call the the also called it the podcast, I mean the episode scam likely.
All right, y'all until next time.
Yes, don't forget to leave us reviews because we really we read them all the time, and so leave us reviews so we can.
Also too real quick before we jump off.
I mean, sometimes you guys ask us questions like you know that are not necessarily money related directly. I mean you might be like, oh, my boot, what should I do? Or like, what what do y'all use because Mandy's hair is always pull up in? Or like you know, skin is skinning, like, honestly, we're open to answering other questions too, as your favorite bestie cousins, you know, brown girl Bessie cousins, so you know you can ask us to.
Be Yeah, it doesn't have to be money or career related, we are open to it.
Yeah. Well we'll slip them things into you know.
So so we're here for that because you know, you know, me and many are friends in real life. So we talk about not just I mean, certainly we'll talk about like financial things with each other, but we talk in broader terms too. We thought, you know, it'd be.
Nice to have that chatout with y' all as well.
So until next week, Bye bye bye