It's the John Phillips Show on this Jimmy Buffett Friday. Johnny is back on Monday. It's Randy Wang here and the phone number to join us is eight hundred two two two five two two two one eight hundred two two two five two two two. You can email us at Johnny Don't Like show at gmail dot com and search for the John Phillips Show wherever you get your podcasts.
Right at the top of the show, let me just say that I walked in here about an hour and a half ago, and Lewis, my program director, points at the TV and says, that's the saddest thing I've seen all day. And that is how I found out that comedy legend, if there ever was one, Catherine O'Hara, who you know from SCTV Home Alone, all the Christopher Guest movies, Beatlejuice, and of course the sitcom that I can't even say on the radio, Blank's Creek, which is one of my
favorite shows of all time. My wife and I just finished our fifth or sixth rewatch. It was our It's our bedtime show that we have in rotation with so many other shows. She was incredible. She is hilarious, so unbelievably talented, and finding out today that she passed away at the age of seventy one, it's it's heartbreaking. I mean, I am my entire life considering that, you know, I was about five when Home Alone came out, So I've been a fan of her my entire life, and she
will be missed. But one of the beautiful things about somebody who's that talented is she has an incredible life of work that is all accessible at our fingertips. So Catherine O'Hara dead at the age of seventy one, she will be missed. Okay, now onto some thing pretty exciting. I'm very excited to tell you that I am now making sure that you have the ability to get every single story that we curate for this show. What am I talking about? So let me tell you how my
day works. I wake up at about six, maybe seven if I had a little too much to drink, and I immediately start prepping for this noon to three show and my five o'clock show on KABC, and I start scrolling
through YouTube. I am subscribed to so many YouTube channels. Specifically, the ones that are important are our local news stations in southern California, our local news stations in northern California, in the Bay Area, the Sacramento stations, the San Diego stations, the Central Valley stations, even if you in the North State. I subscribe to all of them, and so I scroll through, I look at what happened the night before I fly,
and I put it in my Watch Later folder. And then around nine o'clock, I go on my walk with my dogs and I listen to all these stories, and whichever one's I don't finish listening to on the walk with the dogs, I finish on my car. Right here, when I'm sitting on the four or five Freeway coming from the Valley to Culver City, I am listening to all of the stories that we bring you here. I am previewing them, seeing if they're worth the air, if
it's something that we want to talk about. Curating all the crime blotders, because you know how much Johnny loves those, So then I organize everything into a little cut sheet so it's easy for john and I to navigate. Here's what's going on today, Here's what was going on yesterday. And for the longest time, I've just been putting all this together and just sharing it with myself and Johnny
and I don't know why. Inspiration struck at about six am, where I was like, you know, since I'm already curating all of this, since I know not to toot my own horn too much, but I have a better sense of what's important to this audience than probably almost anybody.
And since we almost never get to all the stories that I put together, what if I started putting them out in a deliverable way where you can get all those stories and then you can share them with your friends, your family, your social media, the local news that really matters in southern California, the Bay Area, Sacramento, San Diego, Central Valley, and of course crime blodder stories. So I am proud to announce that I have just launched a new sub stack. It is completely free. There's no way
I'm ever looking to make money off of this. This is just a way to share with you, the audience, the stories that we're doing every single day, and then if you want to share them on social media. You want to share the what I'm calling the California Report, how original is that you can share it and you can show everyone everything that's going on the local news that you might not have seen all over social media because everyone's so obsessed with what's going on in Washington, DC.
So if you would like to check out all the cuts, all the videos, all the YouTube videos of all the news stories that I collect every single day, I am now putting them on a daily substack. It'll post right before the show starts every day. But you can also subscribe to the substack and then it goes in your email and you can see the new stories, the ones that interest you. You can watch them on your own time, and you can share them and you can comment on them.
So you want to be a part of this, you can subscribe to my new substack where you can see the California Report, which is going to be what this is called till I come up with a better name, Randy Wangradio dot substack dot com. That's Randy Wangradio dot substack dot com. And you can check out today's California Report. Now the best story on the California Report today. It comes from ABC seven in the Bay Area. And you know, we try to do our best to highlight the incredible
reporters that we have up and down the state. We had a lot of fun talking with Matthew Sedor for Fox eleven yesterday. We had mar Leteas on earlier in the week. But we've shouted out so many great people. We feature a lot of Ashley Zavala, the political director for Ksey Orra three. We love Julie Watts, who is the investigative reporter for CBS Sacramento, but one investigative reporter in the Bay Area. Anytime he has a story, you know it's gonna be good. His name is Dannis and
he's been around for a very long time. In fact, there are videos of Dan Noise getting yelled at by then Mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom for being too much of an investigative reporter because there were stories circulating at the time about Gavin having a drinking problem. Gee, I wonder where they got that. Anyway, Dan Neis you might know through this show because Dan Neis is usually the first person to break any news related to Shang E Tal.
Absolutely absolutely, and.
So I'm always excited when Dan Noise has a new story. He also was the first person on the scene to report the insanity going on with then Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price.
She called me a crime boss.
Where when she first got inaugurated, she held this bizarre meeting at the Colisseum where she needed to be addressed as Madame District Attorney by all of her employees and the press was not allowed in to hear what she was saying. Really weird anyway, Dan Neis has a great story and it's also a ghost story, but not the kind of ghost you're thinking about. We don't need to call the ghostbusters for this one. It's about ghost students and the AI scammers that are trying to get money
out of California community colleges. For more on this, we get ABC seven in the Bay and Dan Nois.
We are losing millions of tax dollars right now to what are known as ghost students, online scammers who enroll in community colleges and get away with a financial aid meant for actual students from.
The Bay Area.
ITEAM reporter Dan Noise is here with the results of a joint investigation with ABC News Dan Larry and Christen. These ghost students scammers mainly come from overseas and they are problem throughout California and across the country. They often use artificial intelligence to expand their reach and evade fraud
detection controls. Admission staff for San Jose's community colleges are stretched then trying to catch ghost students who you've stolen or fake identities to enroll in classes and obtain financial aid.
So we now have scammers that are trying to get grants and loans from our community college system and obviously take that money and run with it. This is wild.
The online scammers have had a real impact.
So we would have courses where we'd have fifty seats and another one hundred plus on a waiting lists, and we would find that maybe.
Six, So those actual and rollees or students.
Wait a second, can we hear that one more time?
So we would have courses where we'd have fifty seats and another one hundred plus on a waiting lists, and we would find that maybe.
Six, So those actual and rollees or students.
So they had almost one hundred and fifty people enroll for a class, there's only fifty spots. There's one hundred on a waiting list for a class at a California community college, and only six of them are real people. Okay, how easy is it to scam California Community Colleges College of the Canyons. I'm looking at you. That's the community college I went to. My high school biology teacher used to call it College of the Crayons.
And the rest were fraudulent account school students.
Doctor Chida has explained she sees the most fraud and asynchronous courses in which students can work online at their own speed.
But also, okay, so apparently you can get an AI chatbot that can apply to go to community college in online only courses and somehow also apply with stolen social Security numbers and stolen ID to get financial aid. And I'm guessing it's working, or they wouldn't be doing it.
In person classes. Fifty eight year old Morat Meyer is a business analyst with a PhD. He has no interest in attending community college, but as he started applying for financial aid for his teenage son, he discovered that scammers had stolen both of their identities, signing the father and son up for community college classes across the country.
Oh so this isn't just California. What is going on? Well, you know the old Chris rockbit. Is the thing with community college is anybody in the community can go. I think we now have automatic enrollment to California community colleges, and community college is supposed to be free. Apparently this is open the door to the scammers.
He noticed that there are a lot of activity.
There are a lot of applications, loan applications, grant applications on dan we panicked.
California Community Colleges confirms that in twenty twenty four, the most recent data available, thirty one point four percent of all applications to the states one hundred and sixteen community colleges were fraudulent.
One third of all applications to California community colleges are fraudulent. That is a problem.
The scammers are sometimes able to navigate the system of enrolling, getting accepted, and applying for financial aid to get away with millions of your tax dollars.
Can you give okay, how do we shut this down immediately?
Can you give me an idea of the amount of money that was actually sent to the bad guys over the past three, four or five years, right.
Without preventing you an actual amount, I can tell you that it is in the millions.
So they were able.
To yet another example of waste, fraud and abuse this on the abuse side of it, scammers finding ways to defraud California Community colleges by applying for phony financial aid, so they.
Were able to fraud the system of millions of dollars, and those millions of dollars would have gone directly.
Who are are students? I mean financial aid resources.
The total loss to financial aid fraud in twenty twenty four, according to California Community Colleges, about three million dollars in state funding and ten million dollars in federal funding.
Oh boys.
The Apartment of Education reports the federal government has lost more than three hundred and fifty million dollars to go student scams over the past five years.
That is a lot of money going out the window. How do we shut this down now?
The DOES Inspector General has launched some two hundred investigations coast to coast.
As you're stilling identities, these loans are not being repaid. They're being assigned to people they don't even know they have a debt with the US Department Education. Or you get some letter from the Department or the servicer or the Internal Revenue Service that says you owe the Department Education money for something you don't even know.
About community colleges are fighting back, hiring consultants such as Maury Simpkins, the former.
I mean, shouldn't it be easier? Maybe we need to do I don't know, Like when you're applying for a credit card, you need to show them a picture of your face. You know there's some credit cards. Now you have to show them a video of yourself. Hell, when I added a new YouTube channel, Google made me shoot a live video of myself to show that I'm a human being. Maybe there's some more guardrails we can put on applying for financial aid when we've got millions of
dollars flying out the window. And this isn't just state money, it's also federal money.
Former NFL linebacker and his wife run a software security firm that's now screening students as they apply to more than one hundred and fifty schools nationwide.
That's essentially the way I like to look at it. From a football term, it's an offensive line.
Simpkins says they found digital footprints from criminal rings around.
The world Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria. Most recently, we've been seeing some Russian data where I mean it's actually coming in Russian characters in some instances.
Oh my, and we're still saying yes, how much of this stuff is automated?
California Community colleges are deploying machine learning that recognizes false applications, multi factor of.
We're going to combat AI with AI.
Multi factor authentication that includes selfies or live video, resistance to bots and automated script attacks. They are also counting on professors to catch a name on their roster who never appears in class. Gener Luchitas tells me these efforts have vastly reduced the number of ghost students who get through.
It's still happening, so we still remain diligent. You know, we want to make sure that we're serving actual students.
We're providing financial.
Resources to actual students, not losing those resources to g students to the criminal activity still happens, and that's where we remain diligent.
I spoke with one professor who told me the scammers will sometimes answer an email, even complete a classroom assignment just to keep the financial aid money flowing, and once they get that money, they disappear.
Okay, so now we've actually got the AI enrolling in school and they're completing the subjects so the scam can keep going. This is gonna be a tough one to fight. But oh my goodness, there you go. You never heard this term before, but you'll never forget it. Go students at California Community Colleges. And how exciting is this. We're going back to Gladstone's in Long Beach a week from today. We're heading to Gladstone's in Long Beach for our next
live broadcast, and you're invited. Come enjoy the great food, good vibes, and a fun afternoon by the water. John Seigmeister is gonna take care of you. We're gonna have special guests like Susan Shelley from the Howard Jarvis Taxpay Association, who, by the way, will be on this show at one o'clock. She'll tell you more about your taxpayer rights and protecting Prop thirteen because the courts have made it easier to raise your taxes. Come by and sign the petition to
save Prop thirteen. The deadline is coming fast. She needs all those signatures by February seven, so come hang out with us, grab a bite. Peep part of the broadcast Friday the sixth, from noon to three at Gladstone's in Long Beach and let's do this right now, seven ninety KABC welcomes Luke Bryan The Word on the Street Tour at the Long Beach Amphitheater August fifteenth. Tickets are on
sale next Friday at ticketmaster dot com. But right now, calling number nine at one, eight at eight seven ninety five to two to two two gets a pair of tickets to the show. Tickets furnished by Live Nation. Good luck diling, download or go to my new substack if you want to see all of the videos that we curate for this show every day, I'm posting them every day Randywangradio dot substack dot com and you can follow along and share it with your friends. Now, look, I
get it. California is severely overregulated. I understand. The legislature crafts nearly one thousand bills every single year, and most of them are full of nonsense that just make it more difficult to do business in this state. That being said, I am one hundred percent behind this new proposed bill because it has to do with probably the most irritating time in most of our lives. No, not sitting on the four or five freeway, the other most irritating time
of your life sitting on hold with customer service. A new bill working its way through Sacramento would require companies that have customer service departments to make sure you can get to a human in less than five minutes and you don't have to sit there over and over and over again in these endless phone trees where you're constantly screaming at the AI get human agent. Seriously, it might be the angriest some people get is when they are screaming at the robot to connect them to a human being.
For more on this, we got a Fox forty in Sacramento.
Oh, we've all been stuck on hold for well over an hour trying to get past AI chatbox.
Now the right to hear, By the way, I just want to make sure will this bill, if passed, also apply to the State of California. What I mean by that is will it apply to governmental agencies? Because we need a level playing field. And I think everybody remembers how awful and insane it was to try to get a hold of ed D during the lockdown days next Thanks Babs and people were literally going on Reddit and hiring people to sit on hold because it was that
bad and people navigating those phone trees. So if we're going to do it for private industry, we also got a do it for the DMV. We got to do it for EDD, we got to do it for city Hall. I'm all for it, though I am so tired of talking to robots. When you call customer service, you should be able to reach a person without having to navigate the world's longest phone tree.
Now, the Right to Human Customer Service Act would require companies to connect customers with a human representative within five minutes between the hours of six am and eight pm.
Due to high call volumes, we are now providing customers automatic callbacks.
Assembly Bill sixth.
Yeah, I always get worried about that one. Do you trust the automatic callback? Every once in a while, I'll do it, and then I'm convinced they're never calling me back. Whenever you've got an issue with an airline, that's when it's really tough. Although I will say I have a pretty good track record when I have to call American Airlines. So I have to call American Airlines every time I book a flight because I always book a flight with my Alaska Points because it's cheaper and I have just
a ridiculous amount of Alaska point. It's not worth it to explain all that to you right now, But I have to call them because you cannot change your frequent flyer account on the online reservation. You can't do it on the app, you can't do it on the website. And if I book through Alaska, I can't put in my advantage number, and I have to put in my advantage number so I get my free check bag. So every time I book a flight, I have to call them.
And it's real simple because they know exactly who I am. They know my phone number. It's creepy. As soon as I call them, like hi, we'll connect you right away. You sit on hold for a minute or two, but then they pick up and it's like, hey, can you add this to my reservation? And it's great, But having to go through a computer for that would be a nightmare. Due to high call volumes, we are now providing customers automatic callbacks.
Assembly Bill sixteen oh nine would also ensure customers are not placed on hold for more than five minutes after their initial call is answered. Large business serving.
You know, because at some point some people just give up, especially when you're dealing with a return or some kind of a complaint.
Large businesses serving California consumers online would also be required to offer a phone based customer service option and post that number on their website.
That's another thing. Sometimes it is really difficult to find the phone number to contact these companies. And no, no, no, no no, we want you to mess with our AI chatbot. That's another thing. It drives me crazy. And maybe we can apply this to it as well. You're like, okay, I don't have the patience to sit on the phone tree, so why don't I? It says, right there, contact us on the website, use our helpful chat and you explain your situation, and then you get a automated response that says, oh,
that's awful. Is it one of these five things?
No?
Oh, is it one of these five things?
No?
Okay, we'll connect you with an agent. Then ten minutes later you get connected with a human being and you have to explain your problem all over again.
How can I help you customer service?
Well that's a long wait. Oh boy, there might be people's blood pressure that is rising just hearing this piece. Okay, would you like to speak with a team member yes.
It would also require large businesses to disclose whether customers are speaking with an artificially generated operator or a human Democratic Assembly Member Rick Chavezber.
Oh boy, I'm so glad I did this story today. So we have a rule on this show unless it's absolutely necessary if we're doing anything involving Assemblyman Rick Chavezbur, we have to do it on a day that Johnny's not here, because john will be tempted to do his voice for Rick Chavez Bur and it will blow out his throat.
Democratic assembly Member Rick Chavezber introduce the bill.
I'm here for constituents all the time, their frustration at how technology is not helping them satisfy their needs but is really in some cases inhibiting it.
Adding it would require customer service platforms to monitor and track compliance so that.
Someone can actually go to someone who is not following the law and say, give us the data that shows whether or not people have actually had their calls answered.
Sacramento area residents we spoke with are on board.
That sounds like a great idea.
Would say what I mean, if there was ever a bill to get unanimous consent, I mean sure this might be an extra hindrance and even though it's a California law, pretty much every company that operates in California, what they're going to have a different system for all other for United States. But still, this is a situation where maybe a little regulation is needed because customer service is getting so irritating.
That sounds like a great idea. It'd save a lot of time.
Yeah.
Actually, recently I've been trying to get my dental insurance reinstated.
Oh boy, Yeah, that's probably the worst. Maybe the first playpool that we can apply this to is the insurance companies.
That would have been really hopeful.
How often do you speak to people who are frustrated with the amount of time they've had to wait on the phone to speak with you.
That's great. They actually interviewed the person at customer service for this piece.
All.
We also asked a customer service representative about their thoughts on the new bill.
And by the way, this is like one of the first categories of jobs that was victim to oversea shipping of jobs offshoring. It was also one of the first categories of jobs that has been a victim of the AI transition. Because no, we don't need an operator, the robot will tell you what to do. And before we even had the voice activated ones, we had the phone trees.
Press one, press two, press three, press seven, And even if you know what number you gonna press, you can't press it until they ask for it or it's not gonna work. What a nightmare.
We also asked a customer service representative about their thoughts on the new bill. How do you feel about the chat box? Do you feel like it's your competition? Do you feel like your job is safe?
And I think it's really helpful because it relieves some of the general questions and it filters out to.
Help us be able to target the more complex question. But share by the way, and I know that they're probably we're recording the phone like on a camera, But it is just one of the things that bothers me with as incredible as technology is getting, with how advanced AI is and all the evolution that's going on with quantum mechanics, phone quality sucks. It's only getting worse. Why is that?
But shares that it can be frustrated.
Listen to like old YouTube videos of like old radio stations including like KABC, They've got you know, air checks from this station or other radio stations from like forty years ago, and you hear shows that took calls and everyone was on a landline and it was crystal clear. Right now, at least one guest a week we've got some phone issue with.
But shares that it can be frustrating when she's on the other end.
I have, you know, three.
Kids and a life and a full time job, and I'm a student, and I don't always.
Have the time to sit here online and get pushed around on different phone calls.
Now, we'll be sure to keep you updated on the progress of this bill. And that is the very latest for now, reporting live at the Capitol, covering local news that matters. Juliette Smith, Fox forty News.
Again, I understand that California is overregulated. That being said, this is one regulation I am all for. If you'd like to email us, you could do so at Johnny don't like show at gmail dot com. Pete writes in customer service is like law enforcement and should be retitled as a lack of customer service. Hello, and thank you for calling the lack of customer service department. Please hold it's pretty good. Eight hundred two two two five two
two two is the telephone number. This is pretty exciting. BART is announcing a drop in crime, which, again we don't usually trust it when agencies say crime is down but ridership is up, which can tell you that crime must be going down, and crime is going down because they have actually cracked down on it, unlike Los Angeles. For more on the lowering crime on Bart, here's NBC in the.
Bay A safer ride, that's what BART is boasting. The transit agency.
That is some alliteration right there, boasting Bart.
Bart is boasting.
The transit agency says it's trains and stations are becoming much safer. The new crime stats show that overall Bart's crime rate is down by forty one percent last year.
I think an overall crime rate doesn't mean a lot, because you could be weighing things like sexual assaults much lower than you're weighing the constant just robberies and drug use. But if ridership is up, that'll tell you something.
I'm see Barry.
Jodi Hernandez is at the BART station of Walnut Creek Forest.
Jody, the Burt police chief, tells me they've worked really hard to make positive changes, and it appears that work is paying off.
When I first started on BART three years ago, didn't feel very comfortable.
But writers like it, Yes, And because all the transit agencies were still going through the hangover of COVID times when Gavin Newsom decided to make transit free, and Bart and Muni and La Metro and the rest of them turned into roaming homeless shelters.
But writers like Andrews say they've seen much needed changes aboard BART that have made them feel much more at ease.
Within the last year, I've noticed that everything's been safer. I've been I felt more comfortable being on BART, and I do think it's from the gates and also I think it's from the increased presence of the BART authorities.
Look at that. You put more cops on the trains and people start to feel safer. Isn't it incredible how the narrative has changed.
The safest way to travel around the Bay is what we like to say.
Bart that rhymes hey.
Bart Police chief Kevin Franklin says the system has seen a significant drop in crime over the past year.
Overall crime is down, with a violent crime down thirty percent and property crime down forty three percent.
Auto thefts and robberies are also on the decline. The chief credits that change to Bart's new faregates at all fifty stations.
And see look at this. They put in these locking faregates at every single station. There is no point of entry or exit where it is that's not controlled who gets in and who gets out. You look at what La Metro is doing. They have put these fare gates and these tap to exit gates at like three stations. That'll do it. And there's still no answer for how exactly you police the bus system. But this is great for BART. Now if they could just clean the tunnels, then people would feel even safer.
The chief credits that change to Bart's new faregates at all fifty stations, improvements and cleanliness and increased police visibility.
We've really allocated.
We've really come a long way from the defund the police movement. That is still we are recovering from the kill to morale that that did and the fact that so many people did not want to be a police officer because they felt that the public did not have their back. I think we're turning that corner. It's slow, but this is a good improvement for BART and i'd love to hear this because I would like to be writing Bart the next of them in the Bay area
and feel comfortable doing so. Because I don't know if you know this about me. I can't stand driving. It is the worst part of my day.
We've really allocated.
Of course, I live in La County where there is minimal public transit and it is unsafe and it doesn't go anywhere, so I'm stuck in my car really, But in the Bay in certain areas it can really work for you.
We've really allocated every available employee. Both are sworn police officers and are unarmed civilians who are in uniform to be out and about and riding the system.
The drop in crime comes as right, is that what they're calling ambassadors now unarmed civilians who are in uniform.
The drop in crime comes as ridership has grown. The system saw five million more trips last year than in twenty twenty four, and with the Super Bowl on tap, the chief says BART police will be out in force to ensure sports fans remain safe.
Will be out in present.
What about the sports fans that go to those Oakland events? Will they be safe? Well? To be safe on Bart? They get out the call see and that's on them.
We'll be out and present in the areas that we're expecting to see additional ridership to reassure people that BART is the safest way to travel to San Francisco for the NFL experience and traveling to Levi Stadium for game.
Day because the game's actually in Santa Clara.
Writers we talked to say they have definitely noticed the difference.
They improved the Saints sal again and definitely.
Cleaner, cleaner, safer. People want to ride it. This is a whole New Bay area.
It's fast.
I think now that they could just figure all the service interruptions, I.
Think it's great.
I think.
Something that I don't know, like I said, I live in San Francisco, is something our city definitely needs.
But I think it's great that the time is going on.
If that's true, the overall crime is down, Aggravated assaults actually roast lightly last year, but the chief says things are definitely moving in the right direction in the East Bay. Jody Hernandez NBC Bay Area News.
So they're actively policing the station, they've got the faregates. They're really taking this seriously. They're trying to keep the trains clean, so ridership is going up. So if everything is moving in that direction, does Bart still need to bail out in November or will this problem correct itself by I don't know, making the trains an attractive place for people to use, because there are plenty of people that don't want to be sitting on the Bay Bridge.
Let's go to rich In Robert park Rich Hello.
Hello, I'm calling about the customer service issue. I was a buyer at a major home improvement store in northern California, and I can't tell you how many times I had presidents of companies in my office and I challenged them to call their own customer service service area and and try to negotiate their own company service. And they look all look at me with the with this blank look
on her face. I hand him to the phone and say call your customer service and ask him for my order, and tell tell show them how much time I waste in my day chasing their product. It's just mind boggling. Another one, another one was you call up Kaiser Permanente and it says if you're having a medical emergency, call what nine one one? If not put in your medical ID number. You put in your medical ID number. Who do you want to talk to? I want to talk
to my doctor. You go to your doctor and the doctor's not the doctor, but the doctor's nurse says, what's your medical ID number?
It's so infuriating. It's like, what does the robot actually record when you put in your information? It seems like nothing.
I just enter it. I want to I want to say. I can't cuss right now, but that's what I want to do. My pressure, my blood pressures going to the roof.
Just recounting this experience. His blood pressure is going up. Rich, Thank you so much for the call. Appreciate it. Hey, we got two more hours to go on this. Jimmy Buffett Friday, Susan Shelley from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association will join us. Next. It's Randy Wang here on The John Phillips Show.