Don't fall for these common email scams

answer the questions you send me. I'm the tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles, and I'm a little distracted because whenever I do my podcast in front of the live audience on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter, it's a little distracting. But I love it because I get the instant feedback. People are talking, people are chatting, but it's a little distracting, so I'm reading what people

are saying. So it's something in that. You know. Typically, if I do a show without the live feedback, it's a little bit easier, but it's more fun to do the show when people are listening because they respond and they say stuff. And so anyway, I have been off for a week now, so I'm just getting back. It's weird. I usually I typically if I go on vacation, like to do it from you know, the weekend to the weekend, right, so you don't come back to work in the middle

of the week. But this time, just because of scheduling, we actually went away and came back yesterday. And so it's been weird because I went back to work on a Thursday, which is totally odd. Right, So I'm just kind of I'm totally discombobulated, and I my wife and I were discussing this. We went to Scottsdale by the way, Arizona, which was beautiful, great place. The weather was perfect, everything

was really We had some amazing restaurants that we went to. Actually, our favorite restaurant was a little tiny place called Pomo Pom in Scottsdale. Look it up. It was I'm from New Jersey. You know I love my pizza. You know I love my Italian food. It was excellent. We had a great, great time, and so it was a really nice place. And we kept saying our joke the entire time.

You know, when you go on vacation, you don't like typically go to the same place twice, But our joke the entire time was, let's just go to Pomo again. It was like this casual little place, but it was so good. And some of the other restaurants we went to that were super hyped up and much more expensive. You know, they left a little bit to be desired. But we overall thought the city was beautiful. Everything was clean, everything was really nice, brand new. It's so different than La.

Like La it seems like an old city compared to Phoenix or Scottsdale. Everything looks brand new. I'm so not used to that. Like every single building seemed like it was new construction, which I don't really understand. I mean, I feel like it's been around for a while, but it's just a very different kind of different landscape, I guess. And here everything is much more compact, right like when you see a Best Buy store. Here it's like wedged in between like two other places or three other places.

But there everything is just so grand and big, and like, I guess, they just have a lot of space to put stuff in and so they just build these places. Like I could not believe the chain restaurants we were seeing, like just something as simple like a Chili's or like a Maggiano's, or you know, all these steakhouses and stuff. They were all so big. I mean, so big. I was like, how do they fit? Like, what's with all the people? Like do they these these restaurants must see

a thousand people if not more. But anyway, it was a nice time. It was a quick drive. We drove from Los Angeles. It was probably like seven hours. We actually just drove. My trick was on the way there. We stopped over and over and over and over. We stopped for food. We stopped for this, we stopped for that, and way back we only stopped for restroom breaks and we just ate snacks the whole time that we had

packed and the drive went really really fast. So I kind of I've talked about this on the podcast before. Growing up, you know, my parents never stopped, and so I kind of when I started doing road trips with my kids, I would stop, just like the kids would be like, I think I've to go to the bathroom. I'm like, all right, let's stop, no problem. And you know, now it's like I'm kind of pulling back a little bit because I realized it takes so much longer to

do that. So all right, let's get to the podcast. And so during the vacation, I revisited the Samsung Galaxy S twenty two Ultra. I figured it was a good time since I was off. I didn't switch my SIM card back into the phone, but I did use the phone for the week and just to kind of revisit things. There's been like three major software updates since I initially reviewed the phone, and I will tell you the Samsung Galaxy S twenty two Ultra is is is is the

best phone of twenty twenty two when it comes to androids. Now, when I talk about phones in general, like I still really really like the iPhone, and there's certain things that I like about the iPhone, especially when it comes to like the total package, but when you look at the S twenty two Ultra, it's just like there was things I was able to do on it that you just can't do on the iPhone, like zoom, and a couple things in general, like like turning around the video, like

just being able to flip while you're recording front facing camera or sorry, the back camera, then you can just flip to yourself and record yourself as well, so that was kind of cool. You can also record both of those cameras at the same time, although there's an app on iOS that lets you do that. Called double take. What was the other thing? So my main takeaway was the fact that on iOS, I feel like I'm constantly

trying to outsmart the operating system. So just having voice search alone on the Android was so refreshing because I'm so not used to that with iOS, and so I was doing by the end of the week, ninety nine point nine percent of my searches were just voice and so I would just start by asking a question or just saying a bunch of search terms, and nine times out of ten that would like bring me to what

I needed. The other thing I felt like is that the operating system is much more cohesive on Android because it feels like everything works together. So when you set like a default for an app, it just works. Like when I was clicking, I noticed myself like not having to worry about clicking links because they would take me

to the right app. So if I wanted, like if I clicked an address, it would take me to my Google Maps instead of on iOS, right, I know not to click links for addresses because it's going to take me to Apple Maps and I have to go copy and paste things into the maps Google Maps app. On the flip side, I felt like, you know, like on iOS, everything kind of brings you back to Apple stuff, like it's always trying to push you into Apple, Apple, Apple Apple.

And I feel like with Android it's like much more you know, I've said this before, but it's much more customizable, so it becomes what you want it to be. If you want to change the entire look and feel of the operating system, you can do that. So I felt like that stuff was pretty interesting. What else did I observe in that time? I mean, I just felt like the camera was really good. It was really solid. My only problem with the S twenty two Ultra is that

it's a really big phone. And oh the other thing I really really liked is the charging was just so fast. I'm so not used to that on the iPhone because the iPhone charges pretty slow still, especially if you're using wireless charging. But the the Samsung, you plug it in and I'm telling you, it's just like it's so fast, it's unbelievable. If you have the right charger and it

just really charges up fast. I never I don't think I ever dropped below fifty percent charge the entire time, because I would just come back to the hotel room to do something real quick, plug it in for fifteen minutes and be done. And so it was it was really really interesting to kind of to play around with it for another week. And you know, I'm tempted to switch, but it's definitely I see the pros and cons of both.

I think it really comes down to preference, you know, and also not just preference, but kind of like what you're already into. So it's like if you're already if you have an Apple Watch like I do, I just I love the Apple Watch and it's really tough to give that up just to switch over to Android. And so it's thees little things. I think some of the apps work better on iOS, but then a lot of stuff works on Android as well. Let's see, we've got a question here on the live stream. What do you

think of iPhone thirteen? What is your advice on getting a new iPhone weight for next year when I upgrade. I think it's a good time to get one. I think the iPhone thirteen is a really, really solid phone. It's definitely the best best iPhone that Apple has ever come out with, and I see no problem with continuing to get it, even in this late in the game. I know it's April. The new iPhone comes out in September October. I think that you'll be perfectly happy with

the iPhone thirteen. There is literally not a thing on that phone that I'd improve. So it's just it's really just a matter of deciding, you know, do you want the smaller one, do you want the bigger one? Dutch Boy Az says, I love my Android Samsung F twenty So yeah that. I mean, look the Samsungs of the world, they really do give you a lot of choices. So, oh, I should mention. I saw this article from droid Life

right now. If you're if you want to upgrade, you're if you have a Galaxy S twenty one, they are giving you one thousand dollars off the S twenty two if you trade in the Galaxy S twenty one Ultra. So it's interesting because Mkbhd, the you know, the pre

eminent tech reviewer on YouTube. He actually, even after a bunch of software updates, said that he is still sticking with the S twenty one Ultra as his daily driver over the S twenty two Ultra, which is pretty bold, and I think his main reasoning is that he feels like the cameras aren't considerably better, and also the stylus. He's not using it, so why carry around a bigger phone?

I would say, I still think the cameras are a bit improved, especially in low light and the video with the S twenty two Ultra, I agree with the fact that I don't need the stylus, and so I feel like I'm carrying around a phone that is a little bit bigger, a little bit bulkier, for a feature that

I don't need. And so I do agree with him on that the S twenty two the standard one S twenty two plus for me personally as a power user, they don't offer the power that I need with the speed of video editing, and so that's just kind of a deal breaker for me. And also, if I'm going to have something that's different than the iPhone, you want

something that's better than the iPhone. And so the reality is when it comes to the camera, you can zoom in ten x on the S twenty two Ultra, something that you just can't do on the iph and so that would lead me to believe that I just need to use the S twenty two Ultra over the iPhone. Thirteen pro if I was gonna switch, that's what I'm saying. I didn't say I'm doing that. And Tommy says, do you what can I do to make Android messages come clear when I send to iPhone? You can't. You've got

to You've got to switch to a messaging app. So you've got to get You've got to get the person to switch to Telegram. There is a setting in the Messages app on Android that lets you send photos through Google Photos. If you go into your settings, you can toggle that on, and basically it sends people a link, which is not perfect, but it's better than just if you try to send a message from an Android to an iPhone, a video message, it's gonna look like garbage.

It just is because SMS was not meant to send large files, and so it's just not gonna be very good. And I'm getting a message that says Signal is a good messaging app. Signal is great. It just it really depends on what your friends are on, so just pick one and stick to it. So, for instance, with my family, we all decided Telegram a couple of years ago. During the holidays, we all joined up. We all made a

group text and It's been fantastic. It has been so good because a couple of us are on iPhone, a couple of us are on Android, and none of it matters. It doesn't matter what people are on. Everything works perfectly. Yo iPhone says, how do I get my Tesla to recognize my wife's iPhone? It doesn't seem to know which phone is close. There is a setting in Tesla that lets you say, prioritize a certain phone, So you can list your phones in there and it will let you

prioritize her phone or your phone. My wife does not. She doesn't go near the Tesla because she doesn't like the idea of the phone key. I'm like, what's the difference you have your You have your phone near you at all times, that's your key. But she doesn't like that. Although I haven't actually set up her phone as the key, so maybe that's part of the problem. All right, let's get to the first question of the show. I know

I got so many questions. I've said this before, but I need to do a version of this show that is just one hundred percent questions from Instagram, and that could be an entire hour, super easily. But I do want to get to some of these questions that I do have prepared here that people email me at Hello at richontech dot TV, Steve says, good evening, love the show. Like what you did there, Steve. Since I have unlimited data on Verizon, I rarely need to use Wi Fi

when I'm out and about. But even when I've signed on to Wi Fi, say at Kaiser, which is a local hospital here or healthcare facility in Los Angeles, I find the service so slow as to be useless. Do you ever run into that problem? Thanks Steve, Steve one hundred percent? So I agree with this. In fact, I never use the Wi Fi anywhere unless I have to. I also have an unlimited data plan I happen to be on Verizon as well. I use gobs and gobs

of data. I have never been slowed down. I'm on five G and I find that Verizon service is so solid. Nine times out of ten it is faster than the Wi Fi than I'm on. Now, with that said, what I do whenever I get into a hotel room or somewhere where I'm gonna be using Wi Fi, like let's say a sports stadium, I do two speed tests. I open up my meteor app met EO R, and I do a speed test of my standard signal on my

cellular carrier. Then I do I connect to the Wi Fi and then I do a speed test with that as well, and I just see which one's faster nine times out of ten. Unless I'm in a place with a really good Wi Fi signal, I just leave my Wi Fi off and I will use my data. I'm paying for a big data plan. My plan is so expensive it's ridiculous, and so I'm going to get my use out of it until they decide to slow me down. And I've yet to see a place or a time when I've been slowed down. The only thing we've come

close to on this last road trip my kid. We're using my wife's hot spot, and it did say that you came like ninety percent close to using all the data on your hot spot. And after these certain data was used, I think, I don't know how many gigs you get, they do slow that down. So that's an example of where it told me that. But I've never gotten an email or a text that says, hey, you've used you know, one hundred gigabytes this month. We are

going to start slowing you down. I'm getting some texts here on the live stream saying about dead zones in different places. Yeah, when you're in these big box stores like a Walmart or a best Buy or a hospital even a lot of times there are a lot of dead zones where your cellular is not going to work that well, and so in those cases it's it's critical to have those Wi Fi connections. So, for instance, at the hotel I was staying at recently, the Verizon signal

was not very good. I happen to have a T Mobile account and so I was using that to test against. T Mobile was like super duper fast. They must have had a Tea Mobile cell site on property or something, because I was getting like over one hundred down on T Mobile and I was getting like five on Verizon. And then the hotel Wi Fi, I can't remember, it

was like twenty five something in the middle. So I did use the hotel Wi Fi when you know, when I figured when I could not get a signal whatsoever, like in the room and in certain areas of the hotel, and also when I'm at different places, like if you're a if you're in a big box place, that's like a big metal box store. A lot of times your cell phone signal doesn't work as well. I've noticed this in like a home depot things like that. It just really depends where you are. But that's what I do.

I typically do the two speed tests if I'm going to be in that place for a while, and whatever one's faster, I'll just stick to that disconnect from the regular Wi Fi and that's it, and I'll use my cellular data. I think it's more security user cellular in general. It's just you know, we talked about it on the last show. Is Wi Fi safe? Most of the time? It's perfectly safe. But I do think that, of course cellular is going to be the same because it is

a very secure connection. It's not a public connection. All right. Let's talk about everyone's favorite topic, uh, Netflix. So I posted about Netflix losing subscribers. Anytime you post about Netflix, I'll just tell you this right now. It is very, very controversial. People they love Netflix, they hate Netflix. They think it's too expensive, they think it's a great deal. It's one of those things that has become so prevalent in our lives that we have formed a lot of

opinions about it. And that's fine. I personally sit somewhere in the middle in the in the middle in the middle with Netflix. I feel like I'm paying too much. It's twenty dollars a month. It's my most expensive service. Yes, I am sharing my service with other people. It's just the way it is. When they decide to clamp down on that, of course, I will tell the people that i'm sharing with, sorry, you got to you gotta pay for your own service. And I'm sharing with you know,

household members and things like that. But you know, there may be some people that still have my password that I'm not really sure what's happening, and maybe they're using it. I don't know, but it just happens. You share it once and next thing, you know, these people they cling on forever. So quarter one in twenty twenty two, big big loss for Netflix. They lost Let's see, they had two hundred and they have two hundred and twenty one

million subscribers, so overall they're doing great. But they lost two hundred thousand subscribers, which is I mean, absolutely horrible. You would think this service would still be growing. I'm not going to get into I'm not like a Wall Street person So we're not going to get into all these like wild numbers with Wall Street, but let's just put it this way. Investors expected them to gain two and a half million subscribers. They lost two hundred thousand subscribers.

That is just wild. Now, they're still up four million subscribers year over year, they still have two hundred and twenty one million subscribers, but the reality is they gained four million subscribers Q one last year. They lost two hundred thousand overall this year. So that is really really bad for Netflix. If you've been following the news, their

stock price went way down. They said that part of it was getting out of Russia, but Russia only had seven hundred thousand subscribers, so that really wasn't that big of a deal. US and Canada they lost six hundred thousand subscribers. So what does this tell us? When I posted on my Facebook page that Netflix was putting that price increase in once again, people were like, I say, I'm canceling, this is the last straw. People were serious.

Six hundred thousand people in the US and Canada. They didn't break down exactly how many in each cancel their service. They lost six hundred thousand. That is that is a huge loss, and that's a net loss. So we don't know how many people actually joined and still you canceled. But the reality is are people getting streaming fatigue? Probably this was you know, Netflix has enjoyed ten years of growth, maybe twenty years of growth, whatever it's been since they started.

Things just kept going up, up up. Now they're getting to a point where every move they make is being analyzed by their subscribers and and people are just saying, you know what, I only watched two shows on Netflix last year. Maybe I'll just subscribe to it for six months. That's actually an interesting way to look at this service. Do you cut your price in half by just subscribing for six months out of the year. Now, when Netflix, and this is why it always comes down to hit shows.

When services have a hit show, you do not want to get rid of them. So what these services try to do is get a hit show that ends and then they get another hit show. But Netflix puts all their shows, they let you binge them, so you could theoretically join for six months and then join for another you know, drop out for six months and then join for another six months. John says, I dropped cable, but now how I pay the same with all these services.

The perceive value is gone. That is one hundred percent correct, And that's what I've talked about. When we first joined these streaming services, it was a money saving There was a money saving aspect to it, and now that that money saving aspect is gone, we can be more critical about these services and which ones we pay money for. So for me personally, I feel like I'm not getting my value out of Netflix. I'm not definitely not getting my value out of HBO Plus or whatever max or

whatever it's called. I feel like I'm not totally getting my value out of my YouTube Premium because I'm not using their music. I'm paying for Spotify. So it's this thing where you're just constantly evaluating. But some of these prices are so low that you're like whatever. Some of their bundles you're like whatever. But the reality is when you really add up all the fees that you're paying for these various services, it does add up to a lot of money, and it's sometimes you feel like maybe

it's not enough to cancel. You know, when you look at Netflix, you go, oh, twenty bucks and I always call it the beer comparison. You know, you spend twenty bucks on you know, a round of drinks for so well, not in la around of drinks like fifty bucks here, but you know, you get a you know, you buy a beer, it's five ten bucks and it's okay. That lasted a half an hour to an hour versus Netflix for twenty dollars lasts for a whole month of entertainment

for the entire family plus some klingons. But the reality is it's one of these situations where we're all kind of looking a little bit closer and saying, Netflix, if you raise it another two dollars, you know, I don't know, I don't know, that may impact our relationship. And so Netflix. The other thing that they said, which is kind of interesting is that they have one hundred million people that are sharing passwords, thirty million in the US. And I know,

I put this on my Facebook page. A lot of people said, look, you know, as long as they're let me do it, I'll do it. You're either a password share or you're someone who's leeching off of someone else. Either way, it's been very acceptable for Netflix. And Michael just said, yeah, for about the price of a pizza once a month, and that is true. If you ever order takeout or if you ever get fast food, you

see how fast that adds up. So, for instance, you go to the grocery store, you spend one hundred bucks. Right last night we order you know, two nights we ordered pizza and it was like thirty forty bucks I think for pizza and a salad. Here in Los Angeles, it's it's absolutely incredible how much things cost some times here. But you know, we order pizza on a salad for forty dollars. We got one meal out of that. So again it's like, okay, for twenty dollars, I'm getting a

whole month's worth of entertainment. So it really comes down to how you spend your money and also what you prioritize in life. If you're going out to eat dinner, it is a very expensive thing to do. If you can afford it, that's great, but the reality is that is a very expensive way to eat. Netflix still in the scheme of things, for twenty dollars a month is

still a very inexpensive way to get entertainment. You go to one movie and the ticket's going to be twenty bucks at least here in Los Angeles, and so that is not a very efficient use of your money. Is it enjoyable? Is it a good experience? Sure, it's fun, It's different. It's just it depends how you look at this stuff. And so it all comes down to what you prioritize and how you decide to spend your money.

You know, if you have one hundred dollars to spend on entertainment a month and you or let's say you only have twenty dollars to spend on entertainment, Netflix is great, and it's a really good way of getting a lot of entertainment for cheap. But if you're paying twenty dollars for Netflix, plus twenty dollars for this, plus twenty dollars for that, plus you're going to the movies, plus you're doing this, that is a very expensive way to get your entertainment. So again, it all comes down to kind

of what you want. But I'm just saying be prepared for Netflix to really start looking into this idea of people sharing their passwords and sharing their entertainment with other people. Because they they can do it, they can turn on, they can crank it up very quickly and just say okay, computers. From now on, when people start to log in from different locations on this account, we're gonna be a little bit more critical about how we allow that login to happen.

So just be aware that if Netflix starts trying to look for ways to cut costs and to I guess increase the value out of their memberships or increase I don't know what the term is, but they're basically trying to crank things up just a little bit. They might put the pressure on people to stop sharing passwords. They

might not make it as easy. The other thing they said they're going to do is look into add supported plans, something they've never wanted to do, but I think it's inevitable at this point because if they can make a ten dollars plan that has ads a lot of people, we'll go over to that plan for sure. All right, next question, let's see here. Oh, this is a okay, So this is a good one because I got this

email from Sandra. She attached an email to the email she sent me, which was a screenshot, and the subject line was new billing proof your order will be processed soon. Please check the following attachment for more information, and Sandra said to me, hey, Rich, I didn't make this purchase. It doesn't look authentic. It says click on cancel, and I did. I still wasn't sure. I checked my bank accounts and no purchase shows just yet. What should I do?

Thank you, Sandy, Sandy, you made one mistake here and that was clicking the links to cancel, because that's exactly what they want to do. So I made a video about this scam email on my Instagram and I posted it, so if you want to check it out, check out my latest post at richon Tech on Instagram. What happened here is a very common common scam and it's been

going on forever. And so this example is she got a receipt it looks like an Apple receipt for a in app purchase of thirty dollars and it's for some Marvel I don't know game or something. And so what they want you to do is look at this and say, well, I didn't make that purchase. And it's so convenient that right inside that same email are too easy links to cancel your purchase and to also change your password, because clearly someone has access to your account. But beware, do

not click the links inside these emails. So if you look a little bit closer at these emails, and this one was actually pretty good because it looked kind of authentic. It looked like something that Apple might send. But if you look closely at the links. So when you're on a phone, it's a little bit trickier because you can't hover over the link. You can do it's called a peek at the link, but that's a little tricky too.

But if you are on a desktop, you can just hover your mouse over a link and in the lower portion of the of the browser or right kind of near the link, it will give you the full URL of that link, and so it will tell you where that link goes to. So if you're on Chrome, it shows you in the lower left hand corner. If you're on different apps, it may just kind of show you the link near the or show you the full URL near the link. But the reality is you need to

be very concerned about emails like this. Number one, do not click the links. I'm telling you do not click the links for a reason. Even if you're smart like me, and you're a tech savvy person that knows technology and knows a fake email when they see it. Pretty much instantly, you don't want to click these links because guess what,

they are tracking the people that click those links. So as soon as you click that link, even if you don't type anything in, it immediately sends the bad people a signal that says, oh, we got a good email address, we got a hot one, Let's send them more emails. And so that's why you don't want to click on the links at all. In fact, I go so far as to have all images turned off in my emails, so my email programs do not load images by default. The reason for that is that means they can't see

when I load images. These scammers have gotten so good they put tiny, little, tiny little pixels in their emails, and when that pixel gets loaded from a remote server, it goes ding ning, ning, ning ning. It says, we got a hot one, we got an email address that actually works, we got a human that's actually checking this email. Let's send them more emails, let's target them even more. Same things happened, Same thing happens with with spam texts. So this is the reason why you don't even want

to interact with these emails at all. Don't click on subscribe, don't click the links in them, don't even test things out, just delete. And the reason why I tell you this is because this is a problem over and over and over the problem is that when you click these links, it's saying, oh, cancel your membership, or cancel this product,

or get a credit. What they're really trying to do is that link is going to bring you to a log in page for Apple, and it looks just like the Apple login page, but you can type anything into that Apple login page and it will still accept it because it is just trying to capture your password and

your user name as soon as humanly possible. And the second that you type those two things into that page, it immediately alerts someone with a big red alert and they say, oh, we got a good email and we got a good password because this person didn't realize the scam. And next thing you know, they are logging into your account. They're changing the password, they're changing your two factor authentication or turning it on with their stuff, and they are

now taking control of your account. And that's when the real scam happens, because that's when they take control and they really make some purchases and do stuff, and by the time you realize that you just typed into a page that doesn't go anywhere, it's too late. They've already taken control of your account. So please do not fall for this stuff. If you are ever typing your information into a web page, I want you to go to

that web page yourself. If it is an Apple thing, you need to go to Apple dot com and navigate to the pages. I don't even care if you google it. Honestly, if you do like Apple refund for purchase, you should. It should bring up a support page for Apple, and then you can click where the actual sign in page is Report a problem dot Apple dot com. And so this is how these scams work. It happens so fast that people don't realize it, and they tell me all

the time. Believe me. I get these emails every single day they say, Rich, my Instagram was hacked. Your Instagram was not hacked. What happened was you fell prey to a social engineering email. And that social engineering email, which I get every single day of my life, says, hey, there's been a problem with your Instagram account. Please log in here and we'll figure it out for you. As soon as you log in, it is it is taking

your information, so don't do that. Okay. With that said, a couple couple takeaways from Herember one, just don't log in ever, ever, ever, ever, unless you know and trust the website. Make sure you look at the link that you are clicking. Don't even click the link. Some of you are asking about unsubscribed links. Here is how you deal with unsubscribe. You only unsubscribe to websites that are legitimate, so again to review. If Apple officially sends you an email, yes,

you can on subscribe. If Macy sends you an email, you can unsubscribe. If best By send you an email, you can safely unsubscribe. Even if the real ator that you went to an open house start sending you text to your phone, you can safely unsubscribe to those texts by typing stop. If you get a random text message that says you can grow more hair or you know whatever these text messages say. You know what I'm talking about. You've seen them all. You cannot write stop to those

text messages. Do not even don't do anything, just delete them because it's believe me, it just makes you get

more stuff. And right now I'll be honest, we are in a primetime right now where I don't know about you, but I am getting so many spam emails on a daily basis because what these spammers do is they go through all the leaks, all the hacks out there that you know, when target gets hacked and a big bunch of email addresses are out on the web, when you know, anyone gets hacked, and all these email addresses get out on the open web, they go through, they parse those

email addresses, and they start spamming them like crazy until things settle down and they move on to the next list. So believe me, right now, the spam texts and the spam emails are at an all time high at least for my accounts, and it's taking all my energy every day to just be like, what is happening. Oh my gosh, this is absolutely wild, So just ignore them if you want. If you can go into your email program and turn

off loading of images, that is really smart. So you can just google, like, let's say you use the iPhone iPhone mail app turn off images. Let's see if that brings you to it. Yeah, it'll tell you how to stop images from automatically downloading an email, so just do that, Panda Bearer. Panda Bear says, it's called phishing. Yes, it is called phishing, and it's a terrible thing. And basically when people say they are hacked, honestly they are. It is being hacked in a certain way. But you're really

being fished, you're being scammed, You're being socially engineered. They are preying upon the fact that you get this email that says, oh, just confirming your purchase for eighty dollars, and you're like what, and you're so mad that you're like, I didn't make that purchase. Let me click the link to get rid of that purchase. It says here, click this for a refund, and you click it and next

thing you know, that's how you've been socially engineered. I was at a gas station when we were traveling last week. I was at a gas station and I used Tap to pay, like I have recommended for you to use. I used Tap to pay and it said sorry, it doesn't work. And I said, huh, that's weird. I'm like, am I hacked? Tried tap to pay again, gas station didn't work, and so I said, that's weird. And so I went into the gas station, tried I used a different card. I went to the gas station, tried tap

to pay again, didn't work. Next thing you know, I get back to my car. I had like three texts from my bank saying was this you trying to use your card at this gas station? And sure enough it was, but I didn't see the text. But here's the deal again, these bad people are socially engineering even those texts. So they're sending you a text that says, did you just make this purchase? Press one for yes, press two for no, And you're confused because you're like, oh, that's weird. I

didn't make that purchase. You pressed two. But it's actually just a fake spam text. And now they know that your phone number is alive. So these spammers believe me they are smart, and they are they're working NonStop to try to trick us out of our money and hand over our credentials in ways that we have not thought of. If you know me, well, you're like, rich, hold on, why did you Why did you drive a gas car?

I thought you had a tesla? What's going on? We actually took my wife's car because it was she didn't want to deal with the drive and charging and all that stuff. So I said, okay, that's fine, we'll not We'll take the regular gas car. It's very different. I'm so used to driving the Tesla that it drives so different than a gas car. That anyway, all right, good question. So I think I went really long on a question to just explain that. But I feel like it's very

very important to explain. So let's get to the next Let's see next story on the podcast. Amazon has a new way to shop. Okay, so this is actually pretty smart. Amazon has a new program called Bye with Prime. I know, Amazon is kind of like Netflix, either love it or hate it. I think probably more people hate Amazon than they do Netflix. But Amazon is definitely getting up there

with with the hate. And whenever I post something about Amazon because they've gotten so big, I mean, it's it's realistically the situation where Amazon has become the pre eminent search engine so for shopping. So if you're searching for some information, you're going to go to Google. If you're searching for something to buy, if you have Amazon Prime, if you have a Prime membership, you're probably gonna go to Amazon first and just search inside that box for

what you're looking for. That item may be cheaper on other websites, it might be available on other websites, but because you're an Amazon Prime member, you turn to Amazon first. And so with that in mind, Amazon has gotten some you know, some blowback or pushback, whatever you want to call it for kind of taking over the web and making people shop just at Amazon, and especially small sellers who.

Let's put it this way, you are shopping for something and it is either one click to purchase it on Amazon, or you can go to another website that you've never shopped on before and purchased a similar item. But you have to sign up, you gotta log in, you got to put your credit card number in, you gotta wait for this really long shipping process. And so nine times out of ten you're gonna go, eh, I'll just buy it on Amazon. I'll give you an example about this.

So I like the soaps from doctor Squatch, right, and so Doctor Squatch is a website that they advertised during the Super Bowl. I made fun of them. A couple weeks later, here I am ordering soap off their website. Now, when I ordered soap off their website the first time, it took so long to get to my house that I was like, Eh, never mind, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna buy here anymore. And I was like, ah, but I like this soap so much, so let me keep shopping there. The second time order it again, it

just took so long. Oh my gosh. So the third time I ordered, I said, you know what, let me just buy it off Amazon. Let me search for Doctor Squatch soap on Amazon. They didn't have the same selection. It was more expensive, but I did order it from Amazon because it was like overnight shipping. But then I was like, ah, that's much cheaper through the direct website.

Let me order it there again. Fourth or fifth time I ordered the soap, it was this shipping was really fast, so I think it was a COVID thing that's a shipping took really long. But I tell you all of this because imagine the next time I go to this Doctor Squatch website and they have enabled this new buy with Prime button. So what this button does is it

lets you check out using your Amazon Prime membership. So if you have an Amazon Prime membership and you're on this random candle website or soap website or whatever website, it says, hey, buy with your Prime, and you buy with Prime. Next thing, you know, your shipping information is all is all kind of preloaded, your payment information is preloaded. You're also going to get fast free delivery and easy

free returns. So again, it's a really easy way of expanding the Amazon kind of experience to any website that wants to offer it. So let's say I don't want to put my stuff on Amazon, but I want to continue selling on my own website, so I can sort of control the experience, but I can still offer that Prime membership kind of benefit. So will this be successful. I'm not sure because a lot of these small sellers, like I said, have a love hate relationship with Amazon.

They love Amazon because they know that they can get their stuff out in front of a lot of people, and a lot of people go to Amazon first to search for something like candles, and next thing, you know, they buy them through there. But they don't like Amazon because they take a large part of the profit, or they don't want to be Okay, Let's say your candle

sells for forty dollars and you search candles. The next thing you know, the candle underneath is the same flavor and it sells for twenty dollars and the person goes, I'll just buy that one for twenty bucks. So again you can kind of build a better, more boutiquey business but still give that Amazon Prime membership benefit to your customers. And so we'll see what happens. This buy with Prime checkout button is going to start appearing on websites soon.

We'll see if if it kind of takes takes up, or if retailers say, I'm a little scared of doing that on my website. But if you notice already, if you look at these websites that you shop on, when you go to any independent website, you can check out with PayPal, you can check out with Chase, you can check out with Visa, you can check out with Apple pay, Google Pay, Shopify. There's so many ways to kind of buy through these websites, but they don't give you that benefit.

Shop Runner is another one that gives you like that two day free shipping. So now Amazon's getting into this game, it could be pretty competitive for a local seller. So if you do have a small business, it is something to look into because again it's one of these things that Amazon people are going to shop on Amazon, and so if you can expand that and say, hey, you can buy your candle from my website, but you're still going to get those Amazon benefits, kind of a smart

play on Amazon's part. We'll see if it happens, all right, Sharon says, I trust your advice, so please help me. Do I need antivirus on my iPhone? Verizon has an antivirus program called Safe, not sure if I need to install it or another one that you recommend. I appreciate your advice, and I know this sounds weird, but you don't need it. There's no such thing as antivirus for the iPhone. So the reality is the iPhone is built in such a way that there is no antivirus that

actually works on the iPhone. In fact, if you really look closely at the things that these programs that say their anti viruses do, they really can't protect you from viruses because so far, there has not been a quote unquote virus for the iPhone. There has been malware, there has been exploits, but the way that the iPhone works, every app works or lives in its own little sandbox, so apps are not able to interact with the operating system. At large or other apps in a way that they

can on androids. So on Android, yes, I would recommend an antivirus program if you want, but on iPhone you do not need it. So it's just the way that the phone is built that makes it where antivirus doesn't even like an antivirus program historically kind of monitors in real time what you're doing on that device, and then alternatively you can kind of do a scan of the entire device. So there's no app out there that can scan Apple's iPhone root settings or system because it doesn't

allow access to that. So that's the reason why I don't recommend it. Now. With that said, and as Hortensias says on the live stream, please mention folks should still not click links. Yes, this goes back to what I was explaining earlier. When in doubt, do not click links that you don't know the origin of or if you are unsure of those links. And when in doubt, you know a lot of times people will get these pop ups they say your phone is infected, you know, call

this number or you need to run this program. You know, on the iPhone, you can just close out that program and that's it. You're not going to see that that thing happen. It just shuts that off. So kind of on Windows computer, it's a little bit trickier because it can be a little bit more convincing, but it's the same exact thing. Whenever you see those pop ups, it's basically what I call malvertizing. It's malware masquerading as advertising.

So sometimes it takes over advertising where it's just this big box on your screen that says, you know, you got to do this, you got to call this number, or you know, install this antivirus, or your system is infected. You can ignore almost all of that. It is usually bogus. Just close out that app, force close it, and you should be good to go. But the problem is, you know, since you're listening to me on Instagram, you're probably a

little bit tech savvier than the average folks. And that's the problem is that they are targeting average people that may not be as savvy, and so you just have to be aware and really tell people, tell your friends and family, like explain the stuff that I'm telling you to them and so that they understand. A lot of folks in the chat talking about password managers recommending different ones Yeah, dash Lane is a great one. Another part of this is do not use the same password over

and over. I know. It is a total pain in the you know what to make unique passwords for every website to save them in those password managers. It is a total pain. It's a pain for me. I hate it. I have all my stuff with two factor authentication. I cannot stand it. It's so annoying when I want to log into a website because it takes me twenty five seconds to do it instead of one second typing in the password that I remembered for many many years that

I used over and over. So don't do that. Just take the extra two minutes to create a unique password. Turn on that two factor authentication, especially for your main apps, and it will really save you a headache. I've had so many people get in touch with me about their accounts being hacked that I feel bad for them, But I also don't because I asked them the same two questions. I say, did you have two factor authentication on? No?

What's that? Did you back up your pictures? No? I know I should have back up your pictures, back up your files, back up your computer, and make sure that you use strong passwords and two factor authentication, and that will help you out of ninety nine percent of these situations you might get yourself into. Even if you're tricked a lot of times, if you have these protections in place, it'll save you against yourself because let's say you got tricked.

Let's say you got tricked on Instagram into giving up your password, right and you had two factor authentication turned on. Let's say you gave up your password. Next thing, you know, they would try to log in, and they would try that two factor authentication would pop up and say, oh can you put in this code? That code would be texted to your phone and you go, oh my gosh, oh no, oh no, hold on, and you would not

give them that code. Now, it's still going to be a problem that they have your password, but it's just going to be a little bit of friction. So you just really need to be careful about this stuff because it is a nightmare if you actually end up getting hacked. So good question there, and the reality is no antivirus, but be be be on the lookout and be safe

and just be aware. That is the number one thing is just take your time, don't just go boom boom boom, boom boom, because you need to just kind of look at the screens that you're tapping through, because that's really what's happening, is that all these scam artists know that we're doing everything so fast, and we're doing it all from memory, that the quicker we just kind of click click click click click. They know that they're gonna they're gonna hook us and get us, so just be aware.

All right, let's talk about best Buy. They've got a new program called Standalone Haul Away Service. I'm telling you this because I feel like in California it's pretty easy to get big bulky electronics taken away from your house. But not every state has these programs. So if you've ever tried to recycle electronics, it's easy, but it's also tough. So Staples had a really good They may they may have reinstated it. They had a really good program where

you can base drop anything off. Best Buy has a really good program too, but it depends in some states they charge you. In California they do not. You can basically bring them a whole bunch of little things and it should be fine. So hold on, I got to block someone here because they're just being not so nice on here. So anyway, the reality is it depends where you live on how easy it is to actually recycle stuff, and so in LA, in California at large, it's pretty easy.

In fact, when you buy something that's in electronics in California, look at your receipt next time. You're paying a little premium for this recycling program that is yours. So in California it's pretty simple. But outside of California, and you may even need this in California if you want. But they've got this new standalone holloway service at best Buy which will come to your house and help you recycle

big bulky electronics. And that includes appliances like refrigerators, TVs, dishwaisures, whatever, and you don't have to buy it from best Buy. They will just come to your house for two hundred dollars. Dimension that it's kind of expensive, yeah, two hundred dollars, and they will bring two large products, they will haul those away and select smaller products like laptops, cameras, cords, gaming consoles and more. Again, this is called best Buy

standalone halloway service. You may say, rich, I can bring stuff to best Buy why would I pay them money. Yes, you can bring stuff to best Buy and they will take it. That's typically smaller gadgets, so you can't really bring a refrigerator to best Buy and have them recycle it. If you live in Los Angeles, they've got this app called my La three point one. You can request bulk electronics pickups through that. It is free as far as I know, they might charge you. This is the weird thing.

So I've done this a couple of times. I can't tell if they charge you or not, but it asks if you're if you're getting the pickup for yourself or if you're getting the pickup for someone else, And if it's an abandoned product, they'll pick it up for free. If if it's yourself, I don't know. Do they charge you. I'm not really sure. I've done it a bunch of times. I can't tell if they've charged me on my LEDWP bill or not. But the reality is it is available

to you. So again, if you're looking to recycle stuff a couple of different things. If it's something that's valuable like a smartphone, definitely get a trade in value, So go to best Buy. They'll trade it in for you and give you a gift card, or you can go to gizmo Go, which I've talked about gizmogo dot com. I've done a story on them. They will buy your old electronics from you, or if it's something that doesn't have much value, you can just go ahead and recycle it.

And you want to do this properly. You don't want to just throw this stuff in the trash because there are a lot of materials that can be safely reclaimed from these old gadgets, and you can also bring some of them to like Goodwill. They'll take certain things that are you know, if they still have a life to them, that's good. If it's something like a laptop you definitely want to clear your personal information, or a phone, you definitely want to clear your personal information off of that.

I understand that some people may not know how to do that. So if you're not going to clear your personal information off of it, which I highly recommend you do, you know, do a little quick Google search on how to do that, get a friend that might know how to do it, or at the very least bring it to a place where they will do it in front

of you. Or it's safely done. So a lot of places, you know, you just have to make sure that they know what they're doing and they're not, you know, you're not just like leaving this thing somewhere where someone could get your personal information. Let's see, so that two hundred dollars actually includes two large products including major TVs, major appliances, all in one computers and monitors, and smaller products like laptops, cameras, cords,

gaming consoles, and more. So for two hundred dollars, if you're just trying to like clear out your house, it's not a bad deal if you want someone to come to you and take this stuff away from you. But again, if you can do it yourself, that's going to be cheaper and in many cases free, depending on where you go. Last time I check Staples recycling program, Let's see if it's still there, because last time I checked, it was paused for COVID, and it looks like it is still okay.

It looks like it looks like Staples still has a recycling program and it is up and running. So it looks like they have brought it back and they will take pretty much anything. It's not somewhere you would never necessarily take, but they will accept for free recycling all in one computers, cable and satellite receivers, camquarders, Blu ray players, coffee brewers up to forty pounds, computer speakers, copiers, desktop computers,

digital cameras, fax machines, gaming consoles, GPS, mobile phones. I mean, all kinds of stuff. So if you want to recycle something, that's pretty good because they will take it for free seven items per day. That's the limit as Staples, So definitely check how much it depends. Like someone is commenting here on the on the live feed saying best Buy does charge for some stuff, including monitors. I'm not sure.

Let's see if that's the case in California. I know in certain states they do charge a fee, so products they recycle for free. Depends on what they do, but it all depends on the state that you live in. Let's see, Yeah, it depends on the state. So anyway, just go to best Buy Recycling or Staples Recycling and check it out. Just giving you options. Options are good.

Mama G via Instagram says, hey, Rich, I've been using ghost sund smart plugs, but recently upgraded my Spectrum home router and now it's only five g which the ghost und plugs don't work with. Do you have any suggestions for smart plugs? I currently use three and see some plugs can run up to thirty dollars each. So two things here number one. A lot of times in your router you can there's mode. Typically it's turned off by default, but on your router you can turn on two point

four gigaherts. So if you use a lot of smart home devices, you've noticed that many of them, because it's cheaper to just run on two point four gigaherts, they have to pay for the more expensive antennas or include various antennas, they will just run on two point four gigaherts, and so a lot of times if you try to connect them to a five gigahertz network, which a lot of the speedy, fast newer networks are, they don't connect

and so you'll have problems. Now, if you have a modern Wi Fi system, you should be able to go into your settings on your router and toggle on the two point four gigahertz system, and that way you can connect your smart products. So I think you should be able to do that even on the spectrum routers. I can't imagine that they're only five gigaherts. But if you want a recommendation for a smart plug, the Kasa Smart Wi Fi Plug Mini. I've had great, great, They've They've

worked perfectly for me. So I've bought them in a four pack and they're really good. Now do they work with two point four gigaherts is a good question. So I think I connected them without any sort of problem with my WiFi. But I also have a Wi Fi where I can turn on two point four gigaherts when I need to, So anyway, I would check into those. But they But yeah, when you're buying smart home stuff, if you only have a five gigahertz network, you definitely need to do a quick Google search to see if

that product works on a two point four network. Sometimes the cheaper ones don't because they're just they're that they're cheap. They do the job, but they're cheap. And by the way, always always always make sure that you change the password on your smart home stuff. Your IoT products do not use the default password, because that is another way that

they hack you. I was just thinking about this the other day when you see those stories on the news about people getting their ring products hacked or people getting their you know, their cameras hacked or whatever. A lot of times they're not being hacked. They're just using the default password and they're finding your network and you're using the faultassword and that's how they're getting it. So that's what's happening there. All right, let's end the show with

a little robot news. Chili's is expanding Rita the Robot to fifty one more stores. And this is a trend we are seeing over and over and over robots everywhere, automation everywhere. So there are two things happening in our world. The cost of labor is going up, but a lot of these businesses are going to automation and also robots. And we just I just tweeted out today that Amazon is opening up three more grocery stores in southern California,

and all three of them are basically cashier list. All three of them use what's called their just Walk Out technology, which I've tested, which basically, you walk in to the store, it recognizes you with a whole bunch of cameras, recognizes not you, but what you're buying, and it will just charge you on the way out, So you have to understand that as we you know, as we're going forward, I'm seeing more and more of this. So this is a trend. And Chili's I did not realize was using

this server robot. They are, and this server robot I saw at CS it it's basically it doesn't look like a traditional robot. It basically looks like one of those server trays on wheels, so it moves around and it can kind of be programmed to do different things. And so these fifty one more restaurants are getting it, and

that's going to surprise a lot of people. They started it in ten restaurants since twenty twenty, so these Rita is the name of the robot, by the way, and eighty two percent of guests in Chile's survey felt better, the experience was better. Overall. Seventy seven percent of them said that their servers spent more time with them due to Rita. So here's what this robot does at the restaurant. It can lead you to your table, so it takes

over for the host, which is scary. When I worked in a restaurant, the host was kind of the first person that greeted you. Right, They walked you to your table. They'll probably still have someone greeting you, but now that person can actually just concentrate on greeting customers and doing all the you know, the reservations and stuff while this rida. The robot leads the person their party to the table,

which is just wild to me. It also pitches you for the my Chileese reward program while they're walking you to the table, which is just wild. It can run food, so it will take food from the back of the house, so the kitchen to your table, which is I think that's actually a pretty smart thing because if you've ever gotten a cold item because it's been sitting in the back, because your waiter is what's called in the weeds, and they're working on all the different tables, and your food,

you could tell has been sitting in the back. It's happened to me. It's happened to be on both sides, as a server and also as someone on the receiving end waiting for my food. You could tell, like when you get it, it's been waiting under the lights for a while. So the robot will run the food from the back to your table, and that's actually pretty helpful.

Because you can have people that are dedicated in the back just putting food on these robots, and as soon as that food is hot, it's ready to go, it

goes out to the table. That's pretty smart. It also carries dishes back, but it can't take over for existing runners because you know, if you think about it, this robot does not have arms, so it just takes you know, when the server can pile the food or the I guess whoever, can pile the food on the empty dishes on the robot, and the robot will then take it back, which again frees up a couple minutes of the server's

time to go to the next table. Instead of having to run that stuff back, scrape it all off and put it in the dishwasher, they can just go on to the next table. And this is what I thought was the funniest part of this server or this robot. It can actually sing, so now this is so wild. It can now lead the same the birthday song and

deliver a scoop of ice cream to celebrate. It doesn't say whether the birthday song is only sang by the robot, which would be really sad, but it does bring your scoop of ice cream and sings the song for you. So this robot is made by California based Bear Robotics. I saw this bear, this server at or this robot at CS. It just basically looks like a robot. That is the arm, you know, the top of it. It's like got two trays on it. So it just it's

just a tray basically on wheels. It could be programmed, but I'm just telling you you heard it here first. You are going to see many, many, many more robots, much more automation. It is happening fast. It is happening in a big, big way. We are just at the beginning of this stuff. So you just have to be under understand what's out there, Understand what's happening. Understand the world that we're living in. And these companies are looking

to cut costs, they're looking for efficiencies. Humans are sick, they call in sick, They they talk to other humans. They you know, they take break, they do things wrong. Sometimes we are human, that's what happens, that's built into us. Robots don't make those same mistakes. They are highly efficient, they don't take breaks. So you have to understand why these companies are moving towards these things. It's not replacing humans one hundred percent of the time, but it is

definitely definitely moving into places where humans traditionally were. We need to be aware of that, and we need to understand why this is happening and also understand for our future kind of where we fit in as humans and the evolving nature of jobs. Oh my gosh, well you know what that music means. That means. That's going to

do it for this episode of the show. If you would like to submit a question for me to answer, just go to my Facebook page, Facebook dot com, slash rich on Tech, hit the big blue send email button, or go to Richontech dot tv and hit the email icon. I would also love it if you would rate and review this podcast. Just go to the listening app of your choice and write a quick line about what you like about this show to help other people understand why

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