The Troubleshooter 1-22-25

Yeah, ripped off news, need advice when.

You don't have.

Come running just as nass as we can.

Shooter's gonna help coming.

Man.

This is the Troubleshooter Show. Now Tom Martine.

Good morning. This is not Tom Martine. This is John Fuller filling in for Tom, who'll be here later this morning. And those of you that know me know that I am a personal injury attorney here in town, have been for a long time, and so I really like coming to the program where we can talk about just all things that are going on with you. As you know, we solve problems, answer questions, take complaints, do all the normal fun stuff that we do here, and we look

Well have you seen all the executive orders that Trump has signed?

It is just amazing. Why is that news to anybody? Though?

What amazes me is our system where Joe Biden can come in or any president could come in and sign executive orders and then four years later all those executive.

Orders can be undone.

I mean, the variability of it seems to me a little bit crazy that for four years you do something and then it's undone four years later. Whether it's Democrat or Republican, it just seems like a crazy system.

Yeah, it is.

I mean, that's kind of the I mean, that's the world we live in, though, I mean, to do otherwise would require, you know, the entire lawmaking process of going through the House and the Senate and back and forth sixteen times and getting something that you could get this, you know, all these people to agree upon and finally to get a law to be signed. It's just never

But I think there's just no time.

I mean, you think about, even in your personal life, how quickly a month goes by in six months, and stuff that blitz in the White House has to go by in just a blink of the eye, and terms of all the stuff that they deal with, and particularly that lucky guy that's the president. But Biden did the same thing. He unwound all the stuff that Trump had done in the prior administration.

They all do that, you know.

I was not it was not. My point was not that it was it was wrong or right of each president. Just the system seems crazy that that can be done.

What's crazy to me is if you hear people like our attorney general and the other twenty two people that were that were lined up to immediately file a lawsuit that you know, challenges this alleged birthright citizenship, you know, executive order that he signed. I mean, that didn't just happen overnight. It's not like he signed that executive order, and they sat around and said, what should we do? Gosh, we should do? You think we should file a lawsuit?

Well they knew it was coming, I guess, And.

I always thought it was crazy that two illegal slash undocumented aliens can come in have a baby and then that.

Baby becomes a citizen.

It seems to me a big loophole in what was intended with the fourteenth Amendment, which is really for slaves and for Native Americans. It was not for this kind of anchor baby situation.

Yeah, if you guys listened to Michael Brown this morning, he gave an excellent history lesson on the meaning behind the fourteenth Amendment and the legislation that was going on at the time that it was enacted. And it's pretty clear that it's being interpreted in a way that arguably was not consistent with how the founders, you know, what the founders had in mind when they wrote that. But that's the that's the that's the system that we have.

I just wanted to think, Tom Martina, show both people. They help me if an issue, the issue didn't get resolved.

But what kind of issue, Gary, Well, I heard.

This company source one one source. Well, they charged me like thirty three hundred dollars for a fifth door.

Part for a fifty dollars part.

Well, the worst part is I took it down and all this is a hard copy. I gave copies to mister Bowle. Took it down to established electrical company here and there was never nothing wrong with the pro part. They refused to talk to us to Boom. The ratings on them are, oh my god, I put it out there. None that so many these people ripping so many people off.

So but we were able to help them in some small way there.

At least put the word out that they're not a good business to do with.

Sometimes that's all you can do there. Gary, Well, good luck in the future. Thanks for following up with this. We appreciate it and let us know if we can help you in the future.

So I have a follow up. If you want to hear something, yeah, go ahead.

So this eighty nine year old lady Jesse was charged five thousand dollars in change with Amergas and she doesn't know why. So it took quite a while, but we finally got into America Gas and it turns out that they weren't sending her the bill. It was a collection agency. So going over her papers to find out when she got propane. Once she didn't get propane, she actually found a bill that showed that her account was paid in full. So I told her, you know what.

Makes see collections and if her account was paid in full, Ken, Well.

America Gas apparently didn't know that.

They sent her that bill detail detail, So I told her to make a copy of it, send it to the collection agency, you know, certified mail return receipt, requested, saying his proof that at this paid stage, I had no I owed no money on my bill, and please do not try to contact me any further otherwise I'm going to initiate legal action.

Did she hear back yet, Well, this is just yesterday.

Oh okay.

It took us forever to finally get in touch with somebody at Americas, and then I was going over it with them, and then she tells me, you know, it's not an Americas, it's a collection agency.

Wow.

And I wonder if that's h her credit then, John, wouldn't that be like credit slander or something if she legitimately had that bill paid and it's sitting there on her credit as a ding.

Wellyeah, they didn't think of credit. They were just trying to collect the money. So hopefully she'll send a copy of that statement and it will all retake care of it. I will keep you posted. But she's eighty nine years old. I had no idea what was going on.

Just crazy.

I've got a story to tell you guys about something remotely similar here, and we'll.

Get to that right after this break. We'll be right back.

Go with a sure thing Denver's Best roofer Excel Roofing dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content. Time for an insurance checkup free, no obligation comparison call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find out now three O three seven to seven to one help. You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank durand the real estate Man dot com to list your home with Remax Alliance three three nine two zero sixteen twenty two.

Hey, good morning, John Fuller. Back with you in the studio with me today is the wonderful and lovely Suzanne Majors and the wonderful and not so lovely Doc. Appreciate the compliment, right, We got to keep it real here today we are going to go to the calls. We have Eduardo on the phone right now. What's going on, EDWARDO, good morning.

How you doing, good man? What's going on?

Well, a little bit of problems. I got hired by. I got hired by these ladies. Their mom was a hospital for emergency and uh, ill, so I'm gonna ill that she's's dealing with. So, uh, the lady, the mother, she can't come home from hospital because you know, the house was all healthy and very dory and nasty. So I got hired to remodel the house and do whatever.

We need to do to make.

The house more believable so she can come home.

Okay.

So after all, I mean, project went good. Everything I finished up the way they want it. And then uh, after all, you started getting calls from uh the these uh you know banking They said, you know the there is a charge back about you. And then decide, I don't know anything about it. Then I found out it.

Okay, let me ask you a couple of questions here. Did you have a contract with it? Were were the people that you dealt with the daughters of the lady in the hospital. Were they family members?

Yeah, the daughters and mom okay, moments in the hospital.

Gotcha.

Did you have a contract with them specifying what you were supposed to do and how much you were going to get paid?

Yeah, everything is uh, it's in writing.

Okay.

And and so if I understand you, you're saying they did pay you, but now the bank is trying to charge back the Was it a check or a credit card or what they how they pay you?

Well, they paid me with the credit cards. Okay, they modeled. They give the guarded power and attorney letters so she can use, you know, the funds to remodel the house doing before she comes to this.

So did they dispute the charge then? Or Eduardo, is that what happened and there was a charge back? Because usually in my experience with that, you can, you know, give a response to the dispute and then the credit card company will make a determination on that.

Well, we did a dispute. We did a formal dispute with the credit card and just as the bank respondents unfortunately, when I UH able to help, you know, just they say the.

Lady, when did they say why?

Yeah, they said there was not a sufficient information. But we put a very strong report. I have the before and after picture. We have all everything documented.

And so are they Are they saying that sorry? Are they saying that the daughters didn't have the authority to hire you or or something is wrong with the power of attorney? Or what are they what's their complaint? Why are they saying you don't deserve to get paid on this?

Well, the letter, the attorney letter is everything is fine, you know, it's just the bank, like right now, the credit card bank is the one is trying to get my money. You know, they want to need to pay back.

Yeah, I understand that, but that's a dispute really between you and the and the credit card company. Is there a dispute between you and the daughters or you and the mother about the work that you did or what you're entitled to?

Uh, we haven't started. That's what I'm looking for help because I.

Don't know how much was the charge back?

Yeah, it's about seventeen k Okay, that's a lot of money. So have you contacted the daughters and said, what's going on? Why are you guys trying to dispute my charges?

Well, I've been talking to the daughter and she said it's nothing that I can do. It it's off my hands.

And so.

No, no, no, no, no good response, no positive response, no nothing to say who signed?

Who signed the contract? Yeah, who's your who's your contract with?

Just with the daughters.

So it is a contract in the mom's name by the daughters through their power of attorney.

No, the contract is to the daughter, to the daughters because they are the one to hire me. I never talked to the grandma because she was under in the hospital.

Right question, John, So maybe you know this if he filed a lien on the house, if the mother owns the house, but the daughters signed the contract, would he even have a balance.

Yeah, that's what I was going at. He may not have the ability to actually put a lien on the house. Hey, when did all this go down? Give me a timeframe of this whole project and everything.

This is happening. Then the last three months?

Okay, So.

I'm concerned exactly what you're saying, Suzanne, that if his contract is with the daughters as opposed to with the mom by the daughters. In other words, you know, if your contract was basically with the homeowner, but it was handled via the daughters by some authority, either a power of attorney, or or something. Then your contract would effectively be with the homeowner, and then you would have all the rights to go and file a lean on the.

House and stuff.

But I'm not so sure why you couldn't sue the daughters directly and in court to go after the seventeen thousand Was it mom's credit card or one of the daughter's credit cards?

Is the mom's credit.

She's the one to start the charge for.

That, right disputing? Is she still alive?

Yes, she is.

Do you know if she actually owns the home?

She owns the home the mother does.

Yeah, the mother, she owns the home, and the daughter was supposed to move in after we finished the project, right, the daughter was supposed to move in to help her after her living is on, so you know, so they can have a different house to leave.

I understand what's the time limit on, if you guys know, on filing a mechanic's lean or.

I don't know the exact time limit, but I'm relatively certain he's within the time limit of lean.

Or one hundred and twenty days or something like that.

Yeah.

I almost wonder about getting the daughter on colin her and ask her what the heck?

Yeah, God, are the daughters trying to avoid paying you, or is it the bank that's giving you the problem.

No, the daughter's is doing very nice and having to help it.

She's she she can't be that nice.

Somebody had to file the complaint with the credit card company.

You know, when the daughter disputed the charge, Eduardo, you would have gotten you received some sort of statement saying exactly what she was disputing.

Do you have a copy of that that you can send us?

Yeah, we have, we have copy.

Can you email over everything when we go on break and so we can look at the paperwork and try to make sense of it for you.

Yeah, I mean I have all the documentation that I think is just enough to to.

Prove okay, and everything.

We do is right.

All right, We're gonna put you on hold Edgardo and Kelly, you'll get with you and and and be able to help figure out emailing that documentation to us. We want to take a look. We want to try to give you a hand. Okay, hang on, We're going to go to a break real quick with you right back.

Go with a sure thing. Denver's Best roofer excel roofing dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content. Time for an insurance check up free no obligation comparison call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find out now three O three, seven to seven to one help. You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank durand the real estate Man dot com to list your home with Remax Alliance three three nine two zero six ten twenty two.

All right, all right, all right, we're back on the air. This is John Fuller. I am a personal injury attorney in Denver. Here I'm filling in for Tom today. He'll be in a little bit later on, but in the meantime we are rocking and rolling through the issues. We've got a couple open lines, so if you have something you'd like help with, give us a call and we

Have no excuse.

There's multiple ways to get ahold of us before the break. We're dealing with Edgardo and his issue with a contracting job. We've got Corey on the line. We're going to talk to him just a moment. We are getting Frank Ball on the line to help us. Frank is a collections attorney here in town. But in the meantime, we've got Zach on the line that's going to help us with some additional information. So, Zach philis and what is going on here?

Oh?

Yeah, my name is Zach Ben. I'm a friend of at Gardo's. I met him about two years ago and he helped me with a remodel job at my house. And yeah, this has been kind of friends since and I've been trying to help au Guard through this situation. So, as a Gardo mentioned, there was a chargeback initiated on a completed job about a month or two months after he completed the job. The mom said it was unauthorized and that she did not approve of that credit card to be used on her house.

Got it.

So now we're trying to get this figured out. So we submitted all the documentation over to Visa, and Visa came back and said, unfortunately, since the name on the invoice did not match the name to the credit card.

They sided with.

The customers, and now we're Edgardo was trying to figure out what next steps are in Small Flaims Court is too small. The mount is greater than Small Flames Court, but I believe is seventy five hundred.

That's exactly Right's.

They're going to go to the court that at Gardo unfortunately just doesn't have the funds to hire and attorneys that we're trying to figure out what other options we could pursue without having to put Edgardo aut more you know, financial harm right now than he already has been.

So Zach, Here's what I don't understand. If the daughters are I mean, if there's no dispute between the daughters and Edgardo over his you know, the work that he did. We're not disputing the quality. If we just got Mom that shows up out of the hospital saying wait a second, I never authorized this, and you.

Know no way know how what's going on with the daughters.

Why are the daughters not saying Mom, we talked about this, you absolutely wanted us to do this and getting paid And.

Also real quick, I'll interject for those who missed it, or for Frank Ball, who I know is listening. Mom has been in the hospital, she's elderly. Daughter's hired contract her to do some remodeling in mom's house. The contract is with the daughters, the house is in mom's name. The daughters used her credit card to pay the seventeen thousand dollars bill, and that's where it got disputed.

Just to recap that.

Let me ask you this, Zach, is there any issue about capacity of the mom?

I mean, is she all together there?

And so?

Yeah, so I had the conversation. I actually recorded the conversation with the daughter.

She's she's a very nice woman.

But yeah, you're exactly right that the mom doesn't have the mental capacity. And she apparently has a history of disputing charges. She's done this many times, supposedly, and she just most recently did it so at guardos. So because of all this, they had power of attorney signed to the daughter then, who made to go forward with the remodel. And the reason the daughter now can't pay utgardos because she doesn't have the money to pay. The mom had

Wow. Wow, Okay, So I think at this point let's bring Frank on and start trying to sort through this. Frank, welcome to the show. This is John Fuller. I'm filling in today. I'm an attorney in town, but I do not do collections, and so we wanted your expert advice on where to go on this. At Guardo did the work. There's no dispute about the quality of the work. Nobody has any issue with the timeliness, with the materials, with anything at all.

But Mom of limited.

Capacity gets out of the hospital and says, I dispute the charges. And even though there was apparently a power of attorney that gave the daughters the authorization to enter into this contract, and even with an affidavit saying that Mom knew about this and wanted us to contract for these changes, the credit card company still sided with Mom and Edgardo is out seventeen grand. You're it.

Well, yeah, I don't think you have any ability to sue the mom. You didn't enter it, and Edward didn't enter into a contract with mom. They entered in a contract with the daughters. So I think you have to sue the daughters if it's seventy five and it's seventy five hundred for a small claims court. I mean probably don't want to sue in a small claims court and reduce your bound to that. So I think you're stuck

Right. Do we have any sort of argument about unjustin Richmond on mom that the value of our house has been improved by the additions that EDWARDO did or Edgardo.

I'm sorry, is there.

Any avenue like that? I mean, I get what you're saying. Colorado has seventy five hundred in small claims, and I think what county court is twenty five grand, But you know he I would not advise him to go in pro se meeting without an attorney into the county court. I just don't think that would be the best deal. And you've got an ability to pay issue with the daughters. I think the daughters are saying, look, we don't have any dispute with you, but we don't have seventeen grand

Well, it sounds like the daughters authorized the work to be done. In terms of the daughters, they may not have the ability to pay it this second, but certainly perhaps they could enter into an agreement to pay it over time. Also, in terms of Eduardo, it's probably not the smartest thing in the world not to get some kind of money up front, because then you're setting yourself up for a situation like this where they say, sorry, you know, I don't I don't like the way you

And Frank, this is Suzanne here.

What about I guess the daughters had a power of attorney for their mom with that play into.

It at all.

As far as being able to make financial decisions, I think.

It would make a difference if the contract was in mom's name by the daughter of a POA. That would be a whole lot different case.

And I agree with that. I mean, the power of attorney only gives them permission to act on her behalf. But they didn't act on her behalf. They acted on their own, on their own right. That's why they owe the money. And you have some other creative causes of accent against the mom because she was enriched. But I would try to work whatever deal I could, because it's just not the cleanest deal. And even if you get a judgment against the daughters, who knows if you're ever

I do wonder if these daughters knew exactly what they were doing and Eduardo got clothes.

It seems like, you know, that's an easy leap to make. But then to sign up a David saying you know that mom knew what was going on and stuff that doesn't seem to be really the work of somebody that's trying to build up a scam and then get out of pay.

Why aren't they talking their mom into paying this poor guy?

Just agreed?

Mom, Come on.

We did this for you, thinking you wanted this done. Pay this poor man and his seventeen grand John. Why are they advocating for him?

I really get one of the sisters on the air. Can we do that?

Good try? And that's Frank Ball three o three six two nine seven thousand.

Thank you, Frank, Okay, thank you?

All right, thanks guys, Edgardo. We're gonna we're gonna keep working on this. In the background, hang on, we got to take a quick break.

Go with a sure thing Denver's best roofer Excel Roofing dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content. Time for an insurance checkup, free no obligation comparison call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find out now three oh three seven seven to one. Help. You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank durand the real estate Man dot com to list your home with Remax Alliance three oh three nine two zero sixteen twenty two.

All right, all right, good morning, John Fuller. Here we are moving rapidly forward on a whole bunch of different issues on the Troubleshooter Network.

I'm filling in for Tom. He's going to be in a little bit later.

We've been talking to at Gardo about his issue getting paid on a contracting job. We're going to try to wrap that up at Gardo. Here's the basic deal. You really have a choice to make in this. I think the lesson going forward is don't ever contract with anybody

And who knows.

If you put one of those daughters in the position of having a judgment against them individually, they may very well go to mom and say, Mom, you got to pay this guy. This is not funny anymore. And that may, you know, prompt Mom to pay, inspire her to get right in the head about paying. I don't know that, but it leads you to have a judgment that you could enforce. Maybe you can get some payments or coup some of your money over time. It's a tough situation.

I think John, in talking to Frank Ball, he's going to get more informed to be able to make that decision. Am I better off in small claims or not?

Right now?

I think that's a I think that's exactly right.

So we three six two nine seven thousand.

Eduardo is Frank Ball's phone number, and Kelly can give that to you off the air as well.

All right, good luck to you, sir. I appreciate the call. Corey.

You've been holding for a long time. You have an issue about personal injury. What is going on, Corey?

How's it go on?

Good?

Well, My question kind of to you would be my sister was recently, at the end of twenty twenty four in a auto pedestrian accident.

Okay, which one was?

She was walking, she was the pedestrian.

Okay, she's okay.

She went to the hospital, got some stitches in her head, some CT scan, She had some vertigo, dizziness for a few weeks afterwards, bruising on the torso and all that. Other than that, she is good and she's okay. Now, the question I have is the first law firm she went to, they didn't take her case because she doesn't have auto insurance. Because she doesn't drive, she only walks. That's why she was walking to work that day, and I'm just wondering why they wouldn't take her case because

Did the person that hit her have insurance?

Yes?

Did they pursue a claim against that person's insurance company?

They wouldn't take the case. Luckily, she did go through another law firm that is taking the case, but saying they asked the same questions wanting insurance through her, but she had to explain multiple times that she doesn't have auto insurance, so't she's never owned a car, She's always just walked to work.

Okay, So I don't know about your sister's case in particular, but here's some of the issues that I'm sure is going on. First and foremost is that when you're hit as a pedestrian and you have auto insurance, your medical payments, coverage and stuff would kick in and offer some relief for some of the medical bills that you might encour

With a sure thing Denver's Best roofer Excel Roofing dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content. Time for an insurance check up free, no obligation comparison call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find out now three all three seven to seven to one help. You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank durand the real estate Man dot com to list your home with Remax Alliance three all three nine two zero sixteen twenty two.

Ripped.

So you don't have come running as fast as we can.

Shooter's gonna help come.

Six is the Troubleshooter Show Now, Tom Martinez, all.

Right, welcome back to the Troubleshooter Network. This is John Fuller filling in for Tom, who will be with us in a little bit.

Here.

We were working through some caller issues before the break. We're going to try to go back to Corey here for moment. Just to follow up, Corey's sister was involved in a pedestrian auto accident a little while back, and she's having trouble finding an attorney. Although she's finally found one the first one's passed on the case because she did not have her own insurance. And so, for the listeners on the air, of conversation ensued over the break,

On the other side.

And so, without knowing any of the details about the ad fault driver, I was explaining to Suzanne that, you know, Colorado has this ridiculously low minimal limits of only twenty five thousand, but it's not the lowest around the country, and so we've got other states that have even lower like California which only has fifteen thousand. We've got Texas and only has twenty. We have Florida where you're not

I don't believe she does. She might, I know the law firm is actually trying to tag on to her husband's insurance. He has auto insurance, but she is, okay on, she's not covered under his policy.

I don't believe.

Is she an excluded driver under that?

I wouldn't even know. I don't believe she even has the driver's license. In all my life, she's been afraid to sit behind.

The wheel of a car.

Oh okay, So I mean even that raises up a whole bunch of Go ahead, sir, I'll.

Say to tag onto that twenty five thousand that you were saying, is that's what the law firm told her they were able to get her. My worry is her medical bills are kind of tacking on, and it seems like they're upwards of thirty thousand, maybe even thirty five thousand.

Yep.

Just wondering what step she should take to get.

This paid for. Okay, So sure.

That's a great question and one that a lot of listeners have have brought up over the years. Here's the basic deal. The Apohl driver is responsible for all of the medical bills, and so you know, if the bills are thirty or fifty or even one hundred thousand dollars and we only have twenty five thousand dollars of coverage. The way that we normally handle that is just negotiating

Thanks for the call, Corey, We appreciate it. We are going to move right along here.

Quick toime question about excluding a driver on your insurance. So where's that line.

You know, you have a twelve year old who doesn't have a license, do you have? You don't exclude them from your policy.

But you have a grown wife who doesn't have a license, you you should exclude her anyway.

No, So exclusions normally come into play when somebody's got a really bad driving record and the insurance company said, look, we're not okay with this insurance extend to you know, let's say Ken had you know five d UIs okay, and we just don't want him to drive another car, so we would exclude him and say, look, he's in the household. We understand that you could always let him drive the car. But if you do that, there's no

So she may very well have such insurance. He just needs to wait and explore.

Say again, yeah, I did see that, so this is an interesting deal. Let's uh, let's go to line six. This is Joanna. Joanna, I understand that you are the daughter of the mom that owns the house that Edgardo did all the work on.

Is that correct, Yes, that is correct.

Thank you for calling in to us. Help us understand what's going on here, Joanna.

Oh, we have a.

Person with a mental illness, got it. Long story short.

She had open heart survey h August thirty. First, some weird catastrophe happened to her, My daughter.

My whole entire family. We helped her as well as at Gardo. His whole entire team helped us purge a home that was hoarding.

We had to fix the sheet, we had to fix water, we had the big electrical there was It took us hours to clean up the refrigerator where there were dead flies, maggots. So when you do you hoard somebody's home and take away their ability to expose their mental capacity. Then her retaliation has She's done throughout all of the years to distribute all of the charges I turned over to all of the banking institutions a.

Power of attorney.

We showed her pictures, we showed her videos, We included her into everything. And so now we're just down to a mental illness. And so I doesn't know what to do.

I don't know what to do.

Yeah, have you guys thought or have you pursued taken over mom's finances and and getting some sort of a court order that puts you guys in charge of her of her affairs.

She's put in a situation where we couldn't How is that. I'm a single person, I'm self employed. She's been coming after my accounts. I don't have a bank account anymore because of her situation.

Mom's coming after you.

Yeah, she's been calling the police.

She's been trying to evict.

Us, like it's very you have no idea. How hard has this been?

So glad somebody's listening.

So in this home entire situation.

So what.

Does your mom have resources? Is your is your mom financially sound in a good place.

She's with her fiance boyfriend, who supposedly has.

A lot of power.

And what respect.

Money.

She's also into the situation. Fiance is also contributing. He's part of the consistent harassment, one of the problems advising her of how to of how to go through the process of trying to evict us and trying to cause financial distress for everybody, just Gardle, but for myself, like none of us can move forward. We had to break leases in order to assist her through her heart situation. She agreed upon that, and then she flipped because she didn't.

Want to pay.

She flipped the script and nobody's listening. Now called crisis centers. We've had recess at our house seven times and nobody is doing anything.

Joanna, I have a bunch of other questions, and I really appreciate you calling, and if you could just please hang over a break.

We've got to we've got to take a real quick break and we'll be right back.

Hang on just a second, go with a sure thing. Denver's Best rufer excel roofing dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content than time for an insurance checkup free no obligation in comparison, call Compass insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find out now three all three seven to seven to one.

All right, all right, all right, John Fuller here filling in for Tom. We are back on the Troubleshooter Network and we are going right back to the phones. We have Joanna just to give us a little bit of background here. In the first hour, we had Edgardo call us and at Gardo is a contractor who was hired to do some work on a house that was owned by a lady who was in the hospital after suffering

And then in the last.

Hour, we got a call from Joanna, the daughter of Mom, and we've been talking with her, and Joanna, thank you for calling the show. We appreciate it, and thanks for sharing your story with us. So you were telling us that Mom is just to recap here. Mom is suffering from some mental illness and disease, and it's quite the struggle for you and I understand kind of from some of the off the air conversations, and help me make

She was living.

Alone, but he was visiting her quite frequently. He has several properties.

Okay, how old is your mom?

She's now eighty three?

Eighty three years old, living in a hoarding house and has a sometimes Beyonce that you've described as being you know, is wealthy the right term, that's her term.

What's what's his? Have you met this guy? What's his investment in this whole time?

I'm not quite sure that's the problem. He supposedly is a security guard for a church where they help a lot of people. And I'm with all of the things that we discovered with a guardo working on the home, we were baffled by. If he's able to help her, why wasn't he able to do the things before? The right and then and and it's it's just a very weird, very sick scenario.

Are you concerned that this boyfriend is trying to take advantage of your mom and that she's an at risk adult?

I feel like he's been doing it to all of us. But she's not an at risk adult. She's a willing participant. From the things that I found within the home. Tell me more about that, just by how she is so codependent on him. Ope, and she's currently staying with him. Since August thirty first or October thirty first, they both have been coming to the house trying to cause chaos. He came with her and they took the back door. Knob off. We have an infant in the house, sixty heat.

Did you and your sister move in after your mom went to the hospital and you had this work done?

My daughter, my whole family, Your whole family.

Gave her own least my daughter, my son.

In law, my granddaughter, myself. I'm fifty two years old. I used to work for them and brothers when they fought bankruptcy and New York Exchange stock exchange. It was a former mortgage line up theer, so like I have very skill of a high skill set of how to fix and flip a home.

Sure, And but just so we're clear, you you weren't living there before she went to the hospital, and you and your whole family moved in after the work was done, and after they de hoarded the property and all that stuff.

Is that right correct? And you said something about a lease. Did you sign a lease with mom.

We provided her leases. We were going to help her pay for that. The whole job, that was the intention is to take care of her.

Hey, what does that mean? We provided her leases? What does that mean?

We gave her cop We gave her copies of leases. We told her we will help you pay for this. We're moving in to assist you and pay for the job.

You basically drew up your only with your mom as the purported landlord and signed it and gave that to your mom, saying, look here, mom, here's a source of income that's going to help you pay for these repairs. Correct, But your mom didn't ask for the leases. Your mom didn't sign the leases. She's not really a party to these contracts. They were just put together to help she.

She did sign the leases, okay, fully cognitive. She signed the leases and the power of attorneys. She was fully aware of what we were getting ready to do. I took seven days before we decided to after her major open heart surgery. I waited till she was off all machines and into a different position in order to be cognizative, in order to sign leases and power of attorneys. And we have witnesses hundreds of witnesses within the hospital. So she stayed in rehab for forty five days that we

And so she's dug.

Herself into a big legality and she's trying to make it look like that she is the victim, But she's the one that executes and goes through this, executes a contract and then goes through a buyer's remorse. And that's that mental illness. She has a history and a pattern of that, and I have documentation of that.

When you talked about welcome to mental illness and stuff, what do you think your mom's suffering.

From extreme narcissism, Well.

That's not you mean like dementia or Alzheimer's, right, I'm a clinical diagnosis.

I mean she might be at that point now because she's in her eighties. But schizophrenia, bipolar personality, I know.

But narcissism is not really a qualifying diagnosis that would let a court come in and say you need to step in and take over your mom's finances here. You know, I don't want to give you legal advice. I'm going to turn it here in town, but that's not my role here, and I don't want to do that. But it seems to me that you're in a real pickle, and I don't envy the situation you're in. You know, I also think that Edgardo has got to pursue every

But it sounds like.

She's trying to constructively evict you at the same time.

Yep, guys, just crazy. Yeah, doct do you have any ideas on where to go with mom?

The only thing is, have you spoken to any of our doctors about getting them to give you a clinical diagnosis.

Yeah, and he my, go just wait it out.

Okay, So basically.

They're not willing at this point to identify with a specific disease. Okay, That's all I had, John, I thought maybe that would be an avenue to pursue.

Yeah. I think you're I think you're right.

I mean, if if mom is you know, at worst, you know, it has a personality defect that, you know, God, I'd be I'd be gone a long time go, you know, But it doesn't sound like she truly has a mental you know, a mental illness diagnosis. And that's what it's going to take as a doctor, thinking that somebody needs to step in on her behalf to help manage your affairs. And and unfortunately, it sounds like she is pretty able

Will be getting to you in just a moment.

Go with a sure thing Denver's Best roofer Excel roofing dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content. Time for an insurance check up free, no obligation. In comparison, call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find out now three oh three seven seven to one help. You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank durand the real estate Man dot com to list your home with Remax Alliance three oh

I'll send it to Kelly.

I have this phone number. Let's get him on standby. Let's get him on standby, and then I'll be shooting questions at him. And again, this is not jeopardy. He doesn't have to know the answer. He can simply he can simply find out the answer. Joey has a hot tub issue. Joey, what the heck is going on?

Hi?

Tom? Can you hear me? Hi?

Tom, hear me?

I can hear you? What's happening?

Okay?

Great, very very long story short. I have a hot tub. I've had it less than a year. It is under warranty, and it was scheduled.

For Where'd you buy the hot tub? Where'd you buy it? Where'd you buy it?

Colorado Springs hot Tubs?

Okay, and you've had it less than a year. What's wrong with it?

Yes?

One, it's a manifold, a defective manifold. It's leaking.

Okay.

It's in an airbnb. When I purchased it, I went in there looking for a hot tub for an Airbnb, a no frills, kind of heavy duty hot tub, and I worked directly with the owner, Dusty, he's the one who sold me the unit. This is the unit, he pointed me too.

How much did you pay for it?

Eleven thousand?

Okay, well, you know that's not unheard of if it's a big one. I don't know when you say a defective manifold. My obvious question is this, why is somebody on my sheet here?

Okay?

My obvious question is why didn't they fix it?

Okay? So it is covered under warranty and they didn't get the part. I was scheduled for repair January twentieth, but because I left the once review for the or quality hot tub it has. It's had a lot of issues since I bought it, but little things that I can still use a hot tub.

Yeah, so you know what?

Okay, So they didn't like that you left the one stary? Did they refuse to fix it?

He canceled. I've been only dealing with the owner. He canceled the service, so the part came in. I had to wait for the party came in. I was scheduled for the twentieth, Like I said, he canceled the service and said they would not fix it unless I removed the review. I then went and talked to the manufacturer. They've been helping me. They've been very cool about it. They talked to the owner, and the manufacturer confirmed Yep,

So well, listen, I listened, hold on, hold on, Let me weigh in on that. Let me weigh in on that.

I'm listening.

I don't like it.

I don't like it, but it's all up for negotiation. There's no laws broken there. If you want to do it, If they fix it to your satisfaction and you want to agree to that, fine, I mean it's not going to hold any weight if they don't fix it. So I don't see any harm in that if they if they ultimately come through. Maybe he felt you you posted the review prematurely. I'm not going to debate your rights. You have the absolute right to do it and to get warranty service. But he can also refuse and then

Well, So there is a little.

Bit more so I've been talking to the manufacturer. He pointed me to the next company that could fix it. They're in Denver. They okay, they're okay, sure, they're not going to fix it. So I have no other choice. This is the only company that can fix this warranty repair. Okay, if I go, if I have somebody else fix it, it will avoid my warranty. Okay, that's the issue. I am forced to use this company to happen.

Let me ask you something, what tell me something? Tell me something. If if they want to come through and fix it, and they do fix it, what do you have against putting up an accurate review? Saying at first I was dissatisfied they came through, they did a good job or whatever, or or just taking it down. What is your issue with that?

Well, I don't like the coersion and extortion. There are cusumer protection laws about that.

There is no there aren't no no and it is there are no laws concerned. There are no laws concerning this. You can you can, you can imagine all you want, there aren't. Now listen, I don't like the coheresion either, But in this case, I want to know why did you put up the one story route? Were they ignoring you before it or what what was happening?

No, No, my review was very simple. It's only a few lines. It is simply what happened with the hot tubs, of the things that broke along the way, and then the the man. You know that it's leaking. It's less than a year old.

It's a poor but it's not their fault. That was all Springs hot tubs. They didn't manufacture it, right.

I just put up a review about the product that they sold me. I actually gave them a five star review for their service, but I gave those one.

Star for the product.

Joey, Joey, don't give in, don't negotiate, keep your review up, and then you're not going to get service. You're going to have to sue them for what's called specific performance. John weigh in on this, wigh in on the practicality here, John Fuller way in on a meal.

You know, we have these calls over and over again, and we always, you know, wonder about the propriety of leaving a really scorching review before you're done doing business with the company, and it just never it just never works out the way you want it to. You know, if it was simply a matter of saying, these people never call me back, period. And you left a scorching review and they called you back and stuff, then you know, maybe it's maybe it's.

Worth going in and removing the review and waiting un till later on.

But here's what I want to ask you, John, I want to ask you something. If she refused to do it, she flatly refused, and if she totally just flatly refused and they won't come out, there is a such thing as specific performance under that warranty, right, I mean you to take there are tons of money.

Yeah, you'd have to look at the contract and see exactly what rights you have. I'm also concerned. I believe that Magnuson Moss Act, you know, gives you the ability to get you know, there's way you're not beholden to one company only to do the warranty work. So I don't know if she may not have some other rights

I mean, it's really hard to make somebody.

Why I'm telling her it's it's not worth it. It's just not worth it.

I think, catch Tom.

If she, if she signs that document says I won't do you know, get it done, and then if it's done, she puts a factual review on some website, can they go after hard because I thought that as long as what you're saying is true, that's a uh.

Anybody can go look at anybody. Anybody can go after anybody for anything. Okay, that is not the practical answer. The practical answer is why the hell do you have to be so stubborn? Don't let him give it a little catch him. You don't want to give it in, don't give in. Go to court, go with John. How much will a specific Horman's loss food cost her?

Well, if you're paying an attorney by the hour, it could easily be ten to fifteen grand by the time you get.

A cor Go to Mark.

And by the way, you're not going to get attorney's fees. I'm Tom Martino more coming up. Go with a sure thing Denver's Best roofer Excel roofing dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're contenth time for an insurance check up free, no obligation. In comparison, call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find out now three oh three, seven to seven to

Listen.

I want to go to Raylan real quick here, waterpros dot net the best water systems, the lowest prices anywhere, and I mean it. You can get a system for around thirty five hundred bucks the whole shooting match. You can get drinking water at the kitchen sink for eleven hundred dollars. Triple filter, reverse osmosis. They're wonderful people. Three oh three eight six two five five five four Raylan, stay tuned by the way from Fixing twenty four to seven.

Well, this morning I received a call Fromanta by saying that my credit card declined, and I said, what why did you get my time?

Did you get my Democrat?

And they said to the paperwork, But.

I said, all the wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, Raylan, Hold on, Raylan, I thought they were paying for your loaner car.

They were, but apparently they stopped in nine man of rears.

Are four hundred and twelve dollars so far?

Okay, hold on, Raylan. Next question, you're let me back up your twenty twenty one buick Envision was under warranty, right.

Yes, sirs? Third thousand miles?

And why why? As I remember it, they told you you could drive it if you wanted to while waiting for a part.

Is that right, yes, sir?

But as I've been reading on the internet that part could have stopped my vehicle at any time while I was driving and cutt me a major ex.

Right, go with a sure thing Denver's best roofer Excel Roofing dot com. You don't pay a cent until your content wait time for an insurance check up free, no obligation. In comparison, call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find out now three all

Ridd news need advice?

Who you don't have? Run in just as fast as we can.

Shooter's gonna help come MANX is the Troubleshooter Show.

No Tom Martine, Hey Tom Martino here, Welcome to the show. Three O three seven one three talk seven one three eight two five five. You are in the best show ever. Why because we solve problems, we answer questions, we take complaints. We make your life a little easier With the whole team. The whole team, including John Fuller, our attorney at law, who is our bench strength. He fills in when we need him. And then we have Major Mark Mouth Major, Major Mark Major, and he is on his way home

A shifter shift?

What do you mean by I do you do you mean?

Do you mean a.

Module that control? Uh huh, Raylan, Raylan, just answer my Raylan answer. I'm asking a specific question. Is it a the literal shifter that you put your hand on and move or is it something like a control module?

You know?

They the way they identify it was a module transmission to theion.

That's what it is. It's a TCM. Okay, got it, Thank you? All right? Can we get Kevin on again and see if that is nationally back ordered on a twenty twenty one view a convension. Also, I'm gonna have Deputy D call over there to them.

God, there's something else that Raylan told us that, which is her debit card was declined at Enterprise. So it sounds like she's been paying for Enterprise all along, Raylan?

Is that you know, here's what I think happened. Maybe maybe, but I think they've been paying and then recently refused and she was the backup guarantee. That's what I think. But Raylan, if you're only four hundred dollars behind, that's doesn't represent a big period of time. How much do they say, four hundred dollars is for a month, a week or what I think a week? Yeah, so they have been paying, She's had this for months.

They just recently stopped and apparently just now.

All right, I'm gonna have Deputy D look at I'm gonna have Deputy D Raylan, Raylan, we want to help you. Hang on, Deputy deal be calling you. I promise I'm not trying to shut you down. I know your concerns. Well, we have to figure out. And I'm gonna ask Kevin Caulkin if this is a safety issue or not. Okay, because if it's not, Raylan, We're not We're gonna have a tough time making an argument. You can't use your car, Okay. I'm not saying you have to. Let's find out. I'm

It's Logan.

Adam is going to be there. Logan is just hanging on the phone for Adam, and he's going to get Adam when we need him. So tell me when Adam is available. Okay, I'm available. Now, I'm gonna okay Adam, Hey, Adam, are you there?

Yeah?

How's it going?

Guys?

All right?

Man, listen. So, from what I could find out, she has a sixteen hundred and fifty four square foot one story ranch flat roof two point five inch foam insulation walls have about sixteen what do you call it in density wool rock?

Sixteen? What do they call it?

Sixteen? Yeah, that's right, sixteen are so I get it? Okay, I get it? Say it again? Our value? Okay? Sixteen. And she has a new double pane windows. And from what I can find out, it would take about in sizing in heating and air. First, let's talk about sizing. From what I can find out, she's going to need about she's gonna need about a furnace size of about forty nine or fifty thousand BTU and an AC size

So just to backtrack just a little bit, it's great enough you try to size equipment based on the size of the house, but that's relatively irrelevant based on the size of the duct work. Because yeah, it's great we put in a pump that pumps one hundred gallons of water per minute, But if we only have a hose that can handle fifty.

What does that matter?

So we need rising equipment based on duct work, the r value, the insulation, all that stuff is great to know because that's that that correlates to heat loss, right, But we need to know the size of the duct work, and then based on the duct work we can appropriately size the piece of equipment.

Okay, because it's useful to put in one that the ducks can't handle, and some of the older homes might have smaller duct work. Is that right?

Yeah?

Is there anything you can do to retrofit duct work or is that just too cost prohibitive?

Anything is possible, tom, but yeah, you know, with enough money something, Yeah, there are some things that can be done, like turning veins, dampeners, yeah.

Stuff like that.

So there are things vans be done.

Yeah, exactly like you can you can get booster.

Next question, vans.

Next question. When you have a certain tonnage of AC and certain bet you of furnaces are are they matched? In other words, you're not going to have a giant AC in a smaller furnace or a smaller or a larger furnace and a smaller AC. They're kind of matched. Is that right?

Yes?

Okay, Now, then what I don't understand, and as I remember this, Genie, didn't they also repurpose your repurpose your swamp cooler duct.

The swamp ducks in the ceiling are now considered calder returns.

According to that, Adam, I'd never heard of anything. I've never heard of anything more screwed up. They literally repurposed the ceiling duct work that was used for a swamp cooler. And is this ceiling duct work in your attic, Genie.

No, it's a slat roof.

So where is the duct work? Literally? Can you see it when you look up in your house?

Yeah? I can take the vents down and look right through it.

Okay, So the ductwork is literally exposed on your ceiling is that right?

No, the vents are camping, the venting, they're flushed to the the ceiling.

Okay. So then even though you have a flat roof, there has to be room in that flat roof between your ceiling and the outside for the duct work. Correct, okay. And they cut off the swamp cooler, and now they're using that duct work to return air to the furnace.

Is that right?

The swamp cooler remains on the roof because it's a farm roof, and they blew the farm up along the planum on the four sides of the swamp cooler. I would not let them remove the swamp cooler away because they did not want water coming between the.

Farn Okay, left, But the duct work, the ductwork is no longer be being used by the swamp cooler. Is that correct?

Correct?

Okay? Now, Adam, I've never heard of such a thing of having ceiling duct work for return air. Shouldn't return air be at the bottom of the room.

Not necessarily. First thing I got to ask is, so if you have a flat roof and you have no attic, where is your furnace.

The furnace is in the hall closet towards the rear of the building where the.

Three bedrooms are.

Got it, thank you?

So ideally right in the.

Floor, Adam, the duct work for the heat is in the floor.

Yes, he's got it. So they have a closet furnace, they have ductwork in the floor and ceiling return air. And you're telling me that you've heard of high returns as opposed to low returns in.

A perfect world.

Do you want both? I've always I've always thought, Adam, Adam, correct me if I'm wrong. I've always thought you want return air at the bottom of the room and then the supply air. I don't know, I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. So return air is the return air is the air that's going back to the furnace or the ac to be recirculated, right, correct, So expound on that. Where do you want it?

Adam?

Yeah, So let's let's just let me explain real quick how that works.

Right.

So heat rises good, right, So towards the ceiling, the air is going to be warmer, where on the ground it's going to be colder. If you want an equal temperature throughout your home, you want to be pulling the hot air from up top and then the cool air from down below so that you can have an equalized temperature throughout the home, so that you're not dealing with you know, up at six feet where your head is, it's super warm and down at your feeling it's twenty

I get it. That's good, Okay, I didn't know that. So now, so her main issue right now, I think, Geenie, you say it's pretty noisy, Is that right?

Yes?

They had a bedroom. There's a uh shower stall, toilet. Next to that is a changing vanity room and closets that has one air ducked in the toilet area and a cold air return in the changing section. You step into the bedroom, there's a swamp cooler vent right over the doorway, and there's two four events for heating. There's five vents total in that room. That is the noisiest room. Of course, that's my beat.

Sometimes I don't think. I don't think you can. I don't know. They might have oversized it. They might. There's so many things that could be done. Here's going to be the problem. You just had this system installed when Monday the thirteen, and did they put a four ton AC in that place?

Yes, they did, with a three and a half choil for the AC underneath it. And they did not finish putting the condenser in because I stopped them. They were going to put the condenser in the day after on Tuesday. I said, no, you're not. You put in a four ton furnace. And the proposal is all equipment will be three and a half.

And what about the furnace. What size is your furnace four ton? Well, no, it's not. Your furnace is measured by bt US.

Well the furnace, Adam's going a question for you.

Hold on, I really want to get to one topic before we hop to another. Hold on a second. You need to get this system analyzed. But here's the problem. How much was the entire entire estimate for this HVAC system?

Hold your head, I'm seventy four hundred.

That's not a lot of money. That's not a lot of money at.

All that price.

I'll let everybody else well this quote.

Yeah, but here's the thing. What good is seventy four hundred for a half asked half price if it's not done right? Hold on, I got to take a break. I got to take a break. Hold on, I'm Tom Martinez. We're gonna come back with more right after this. Go with a sure thing Denver's Best Roofer Excel dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content. Time for

Help.

You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank durand the real estate Man dot com to list your home with Remax Alliance three oh three nine two zero sixteen twenty two. Hi Tom Martino, you're a troubleshooter three oh three seven. Once you talk, I'm gonna go back and forth to this HVAC thing. But right now, Adam Hannah wanted to ask, is this part of the free

We'd probably end up having to start from scratch.

Yeah, and would you even reuse the equipment?

No?

Yeah, So this woman, it doesn't sound like it doesn't sound like they did it the right way. But I'm not sure if they did or not. But you can at least give her an opinion, right happily? Okay? Would that be a free second opinion?

Yes, that is correct.

Okay, Geenie, we're gonna hook you up for that. Really, it's silly to keep going without knowing what the problem is. And listen, I'm sure if there's a simple fix here or there, they might make a recommendation. But please understand, no matter who you call, no matter who you call, very few people will work with a previously in solved system because.

They own it.

When they do that, anyone else who wants a free second opinion fixmihome dot com or seven to zero five two six thirty nine, thirty nine, Kevin Caulkin. I had a question for one of my listeners who I've been working with, Raylan, who had this twenty twenty one envision. Hey, keV, Hey is this TCM on a twenty twenty one buick in vision? I think I may have asked you this is that nationally back ordered?

Do you know a lot of them are yeah, yeah, you get okay, I can verify it. But yeah, we're having trouble with a.

Lot of them.

Yes, I'm gonna have Deputy D call you after he talks to her. He's trying to work with her. But here's what I want to know. Is it a safety item? She said? They say, look, we don't want to pay for a loaner because she can drive her car, and she says, no, I can be stuck or stranded. Well, tell me about it. What would a TCM do that could make her stranded?

It could do a number of things. I mean, it could be as it maybe it won't shift, maybe it'll shift erratically. I mean it'll run the whole gambit to even just put a check engine line on and affect it no other way. So it's it's kind of put.

It screw her up, though not put it strand her somewhere.

Any car can strand you anywhere at any time. I mean, it's but it just depends on the fault. But I have not really seen a TCM shut the transmission down completely, you know, just out of the blue.

You know what I would do, and I'm going to ask Deputy D to do this. Maybe what we do is have her get her car, with the understanding that if she stranded, they would come get the car.

Oh.

Absolutely, yeah, yeah, see I speak exactly.

I think I need to speak with a servicing dealer just to get a really good understanding of what the issue is. She keeps saying shifter, we're saying TCM. Now, then she's then she said a transmission module. That's what she said. Yeah, she did say that. Yeah, So I'd like to speak with them first, and I'd also like to resolve the issue of whether or not they were even obligated to provide a loaner.

No, they're not, that's what I thought. They're not. Technically they're not. But all over the country this is happening right keV. Where people are their cars are down for six months?

Yes, some are not even drivable down for six months and they don't get loan of them.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'll follow up on this.

I think my first step is going to be speaking to speak with the dealer. Then I'll call Kevin and then we'll come up with this some kind of a resolution to this.

Thanks.

Kevin shared an auto tech dot com three oh three, four five, five, seventy two forty two that shared an auto tech dot com. Okay, Amy, what's going on?

I am having a lot of problems with myself phone carrier.

I what was them about?

Probably about eight months ago and bought a phone, and then about six months ago in October, the cell phone tower, one of their cell phone towers went out, so I lost all my pictures, I lost my data.

I wasn't told wait wait wait, no, no, no, a cell tower going out.

That doesn't make sense.

No this, No, you're at sus. You were taking the words right out of my mouth, Amy, having bad service or even no service would not affect the cloud or the card in your phone or the memory. So I don't understand how you equated poor service or a downed cellular tower with lost data. Tell me who made that connection for you?

Well?

Actually, so my phone went completely white, and I couldn't I couldn't get you any service. So I went into the phone store and she.

Said, okay, you're just gonna have to buy another phone. And I thought it was me and I was like, what, you know, I didn't do anything to my phone, and then so I bought another phone. Well, after I bought the phone, I went to pay my next bill and she said, oh, by the way, our towers went out that day. So there was a cell phone tower that went out that day. A lot of people had to

Bought well that listen, of course not, you would have not needed a new phone. They used it to sell you a new phone. You have two issues here. Listen carefully, Okay, you have two issues. One is whether you needed the phone or not. But the other issue is that's when you lost your dat is when they transferred you to a new phone. So yeah, with that particular cricket service, is your data stored on the SIM card, in the memory of the phone, or in the cloud?

Do you know.

It's stored in the memory of the phone. I believe I have a flip phone I had to get because of a stalker situation. So yeahh wait a minute, you.

Had to get a flip phone because of a stalker. Yeah, yeah, so how did that flip home? I'm curious, how did the flip phone help you? Because it had less I don't know. Was it not hackable or what? What do you mean?

Yeah, they're they're more, they're harder to hack. And I wouldn't access the Internet on there. There's a weight. There would be a way to access the Internet through my through my end, but I felt like it would be safer.

I was told, oh, I get it.

So you had a pretty much you got as low tech of a phone as you could get.

Yeah, way too low tech. So and then you know my new phone. Yeah, I used for a couple of months, but I'm unemployed and I needed to change carriers. So I called Consumer Cellular. I said I need to I'm on a different plan through through a family member, and so I got set up with them. Well, when I called Cricket, I said, I need you to unlock my phone, and they said, oh, we can't. You have to have that phone for six months.

Great, and I was very.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, that's because when they give you a phone or upgrade you, you commit to a certain amount of time so they can repay themselves for that. Oh yeah, Now here's what I want to know. It is, so are you still hold on? Are you still with Cricket or are you with Consumer Cellular? No?

I went with Consumer Cellular. But now I can't, you know, put the new SIM card in the phone because the phone is locked.

Well what when I was locked?

The flip phone that I got through Cricket?

Okay, because it's the second phone, the first phone, or the second Cricket phone, the second Cricket the one that does work. Okay, So the second Cricket phone, did it have your data on it? The second one?

No, it didn't have any of my pictures or anything.

No, So I did your.

First Cricket phone have it?

Yeah?

Well where okay? Hold on? Then then you don't need to transfer anything from the second Cricket phone, the first Cricket phone. Where were your pictures stored on the SIM card?

No, they were stored in the phone. They don't store those on the SIM card. That's what I was told.

Okay, So is there a way to take the first cricket phone and transfer your pictures.

No, they're gone because of the cell phone tower. The phone just went completely white.

So no, no, they're not gone because of the cell phone tower. Dear, they're not gone. If they were in that first phone, they're still in that first phone.

Does the first phone turn on anymore or do you still.

Just get the white screen?

Yeah?

No, it doesn't turn on anymore. I just got the I get the white screen when I turn it on.

Okay, I think that's our answer, even if that's what happened. The phone broke and so did its memory. That's where your pictures are. No one's to blame for it. It just happened. But what is your issue right now? We can help you with I need to ask you that, and we want to try to help you. Right after this, go with a sure thing Denver's Best roofer Excel roofing dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content.

The insurance companies.

Okay, so they keep a central database and does that sometimes show up people who are continually putting in claims and they get a low score.

Is that kind of thing you're thinking, There's two different things that we're referring to here. The CLUE report would be the actual losses. So the Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange is what that abbreviation is for CLUE, and that's going to be So the claims.

Don't have anything to do with a score.

It's just a matter of, oh, he's got two claims. This insurance company doesn't take two losses in the last five years. That only take one loss that kind of thing. It's not a score. The score is the insurance score, and that is heavily based off of credit. But it's all internalized for these different insurance carriers. In other words, I don't see a score when I'm rating it. I just probably would be able to tell they don't have a great insurance score because the price is high for

So someone wants to know this. They want to know if you have price higher claims or lower claims. Does that affect the clue report like the amount of the claim.

No, it doesn't. So you know here and I know I'm not trying to be wishy wash you with you. The fact of the matter is if there are losses, and that's what the clue report's going to show. If there is losses on your property, it will show whatever there is. So if there is some carriers, even couent, if you have a zero pay loss, in other words, the fact that you have a loss still is underwritten against.

Can talk to.

And if you had a loss that was you know, fifteen hundred box and it was easily explained, it was you know, let's say, you know whatever, a small leak underneath the sink and it was easily cleaned up, no major damage, professionally fixed whatever you want to say, whatever the details are, that makes a difference versus if they had a seven many five thousand bar water loss, because the thought would be there.

Could be continually, you know, continual.

Problems with mold or something else. So it matters if you're dealing with a company that will underwrite and talk to you about it. But this is just if there's a loss, there's a loss, all right.

Now, hold on Compass Insurance Group. I have a question concerning covering stuff, and hang on for that because I really need to come back to that. And Amy, I haven't forgotten about your cricket issue. We're going to come back to you to find out what do you need right now today, Right after this, go with a sure thing Denver's Best roofer Excel Roofing dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content. Time for an insurance

Man hey?

Brother? So, so about six months ago, I bought a twenty fourteen CADILLACUS r X from a dealership it's called Hucci's Auto Sales in Inglewood, and unfortunately a bottom line it's wait, it's.

Called hucis what could go wrong? Did you buy Hoochie's?

Yeah, it was a family who.

How are you spelling that?

Man?

Hhrophees?

Got it? Okay? And what happened?

So unfortunately, about a month ago the transmission went out. So I have this stupid warranty because you know they always I'm nineteen years old at my first car, just just got an apartment, got custody of a six sixteen year old, and I needed, you know, reliable transfer.

All right, So so you you bought wait wait, wait, you bought it six months ago and the transmission went.

Out, Yes, and then the engine just went out as well?

Well, how many miles on it? How many miles on it?

I got it with eighty seven thousand, and it had one hundred and one when the engine went out and the trans.

Okay, but listen, I want to I want to let me, let me just rush right to it, Paul. Let me give you the sad news. First, they don't owe you anything. Man, you buy a used car, anything can happen unless listen to the unless, because when I say this, everyone says, oh, yeah, I was defrauded. Unless you were defrauded. That means they knew of a defect and lied to you about it or covered it up.

Type of thing.

A warranty, and I do have a warranty. So unfortunately they're asking me to pay fourteen hundred dollars out of pocket. And I've gone back and forth with the leadership kind of about you know, hey, you guys, no way to call Paul.

Paul, you have a warranty. What does that mean? What does that mean? Tell me about the warranty.

So the full coverage warranty, the insurance is called like it's something Dino go.

With a sure thing Denver's Best Roofer, Excel roofing dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content. Time for an insurance check up free no obligation. In comparison, call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find out now three all three seven to seven help. You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank durand the real estate man dot Com to list your home with Remax Alliance three all three nine two zero sixteen twenty two.

D News. Need that so you don't have come running just as fast as we can.

Shooter's gonna help come Man.

Dix is the Troubleshooter Show.

Now Tom Martino, Hey, Tom Martino here, Welcome to the show. Three O three seven one three talk three all three seven one three A two five five Always here to help you solve problems, answer questions, say complaints, make your life a little easier each and every day. I have fixed at twenty four to seven in the house by way of Hannah and her experts, and we're answering questions about the house coming up home services of all plumbing, heating, cooling,

Yep.

And man caves are getting pretty common where people are restoring cars or just having watching the game with friends. It's amazing some of the things and people want to know about ensuring their stuff, their tools and their stuff, but not ensuring necessarily the structure or all of that are there. Coverage is available.

Yeah, So with those man cads, I've written many, many of those. Usually it's similar to what a condo, like a second home almost a condo would be where there's an HOA or that is actually covering the exterior, but then they still might have the responsibility of the inside,

Okay, so what about liability.

Yep, liability would be included in that. So a lot of times if we're going to call it a second home, where you add the liability is on the primary home, and you can just put an additional coverage an endorsement on the policy that extends liability to another address. So that's pretty easy and very inexpensive. So in other words, if you're just like I don't really care about the personal property, and that's another thing to keep in mind.

Well, Brian, but if it's not a second home, if it's a man cave, or a hangar or a garage. Is that considered like a second home.

Well, a man cave could be because there's actually usually there's a bathroom in there, there's uh, there's a living area that you could there if you wanted, So that would be an appropriate way to classify it. Hangars are a little more difficult because there's an airplane involved with it, so those a lot of carriers, standard carriers are not going to be interested in insuring the maand case that becomes so common that it's it's easier to talk that through with an insurance company.

Okay, So what about if you're restoring a car in a man cave or garage or you have an aircraft in the hangar, none of that's going to be.

Covered, right, Yeah, so you would need to get insurance for the actual thing you're restoring, and that is very for a parados, it's easy, like a company like Haggarty has a policy for cars that are being restored.

Okay, thank you, Brian, I appreciate it. Brian Burns Compass Insurance. It's the Insurance Health Center dot com three h three nine ninety six nine three or three nine ninety six nine thousand for the insurance checkup. Now, Paul, back to you. Hey, Paul, So, you bought a twenty fourteen Cadillac SRX and you bought an extended warranty. I want to give you the straight facts first, then we'll talk about it. When you buy a warranty, your subject to the terms and conditions of

Or what?

What is the main issue?

Paul?

So, I to be honest, I know that there's really denominated happen the papers.

How to fuck.

It's just it's just how the game goes in the car industry. But what I'm worried about is the warranty. People had told me to go to Auto Care Plus and I talked to them, and so that the owner of the place where my.

Car is getting has gone I don't understand the warranty people told you to go where.

They they They told me that I had to go to Auto Care Plus with my warranty.

What is that? What does that mean?

What?

What does that even mean? I don't understand what you're talking about.

So so when I when I openly claim to be able to get my car looked at, when I called.

That they have to he's talking about a third party company that manages that warranty. Tom the dealership is saying they don't have anything to do with the actual administration of the warranty.

And that's called auto care.

Yeah, auto Care Plus, Go ahead, go ahea.

What is it?

What's the name of it?

Autocare Plus is an auto repair shop on Hampton Okay?

Is that where you went?

Yes, that's that's the auto repair shop where it's at.

Okay, So now what is your issue with Autocare Plus?

So when I was when I was talking to them, to me, it sounds like the people from Hoochie's, the owner from Hucci's and the owner at this mechanic shop, they're they're best friends. They've known each other for a really long time. They go way back, and all right, they prior before buying the vehicles. They never mentioned anything about anything being inspected, and so when we when I called about all my issues.

Nothing nothing, bro nothing has to be inspected.

Okay, Well, kind of what I'm worried about is I feel like that mechanic shop was fully aware of the things that was wrong with that vehicle, and I really do.

Well, you'll never Paul. They could be fully aware of it. In fact, the dealer could be fully aware that the engine is on its way out. Being aware is not a crime. Lying about it or covering it up is. But if they sold it as is, they don't have to tell you what's wrong with it, Paul. I'm not saying this to be a smart ass. I'm not trying to trick you or hook you. I don't like saying it,

Okay?

So let me let me ask you what did you pay for this car?

The car was lit, I mean it was listed at thirteen thousand. With everything put together, it was like nineteen and I put down two and it totaled it out to seventeen. And I'm all about fourteen ish on it. I've been making large amount of payments trying to get it paid off.

But the purchase price, the purchase price was about nineteen.

Right, It was about thirteen thousand, and then total finance was nineteen, correct.

Yeah, but that doesn't count. The purchase price is what counts. Because when we purchase a house and we asked what we paid for it, we don't count the mortgage payments. We count what we paid for it. So you paid about thirteen for it, is that right? Correct? And then if you pay every payment, it's going to amount to about nineteen.

Correct, okay?

And on the thirteen did that include the warranty?

Yes?

Okay? How much five thousand four, Paul, No, it's finance charges. We already went over that real quick here, Paul. What I want to know is this, how much out of pocket to get it fixed, including the previous repair? How much would you be all in? How much on the repairs?

Fourteen m.

At about eighteen hundreds, so.

It would be thirteen it would be fourteen eight basically, Yes, Okay, Well that's not the end of the world. I mean, I'm not saying you should be happy about it, but I don't think you need to. I don't think you're gonna get anywhere arguing. I really don't. They sold your car as is. The warranty's covering a good part of it. You owe eighteen hundred if you add it to your

Yeah, Well, you know I've noticed through their reviews they had, they had, They've had two websites. One is like they've tried to kind of diministrate or do what they could with it, but it's still up and it has terrible reviews.

So they had to get another one. And this one they have a ton of fake five star reviews.

And yeah, well you know, that's a whole different story. But by the way, that's good to let people know that's a whole different ballgame. Give up, give Kachina off the air those websites and we'll look into it. Thank you, Paul, I'm sorry man three oh three seven one three A two five. I've listened Frank around. The real estate Man dot com will do a free market valuation of your home.

Man.

That the here's the here's the here is the longest short of it. You're ready now. My water pressure is low. I'm on City water. Can I boost it?

In theory, that's not that speak not a simple question.

But in theory, no, that's good though, no, no expound on it. Man, go ahead.

So in all honesty, I'm the HVAC service manager. That would be a significally better question to ask my plumbing manager.

But there are Okay, good, Then here's what we'll here's what we'll do, man, pass it down the line. We'll try to answer before the end of the show, or we'll do it tomorrow. That's why we're on.

Man.

This is all casual. This is all open and honest, and and I love that you told me that. So that's how do we alter pressure? And we'll talk about that. But right now, I want to go back to back to my questions. Okay, I'm confused on how to size my furnace. After your discussion, nac are they measured for the size of the house. You said, there's a number of factors quickly go over them and do people have to You can't do that on the phone? Can you

How many return vents you have, how many supply vents you have? How big your trunk line is, how many if you have louvers turning veins, if your trunk line goes in two directions or a single direction.

If you have.

Multiple floors where the furnace is located its longest run length, then you have your return side, which has the same exact variables. How big is your return drop relative to the side of the return trunk line? Does your return trunk line go multiple directions? Do you have return vents on the lower part of the wall and the higher portion of the wall, meaning you get both your hotter air that's risen and the cool air that's down at the ground level. Where are those return vents located in

There's wait a minute, Adam, Wait a minute, Wait a minute, Adam, are you really that smart. I mean, do you guys truly do no, I'm serious, Do you do a complete calculation? Even if they already have a system and you're just going to replace it, you really should, okay, because the original system may not be correct?

Right? Correct?

All right?

Somebody else wants to know. Can I zone an existing system? Should you?

And could you are two different questions.

Could you?

Yes?

Keep going?

Probably not?

Why?

Well, at this altitude, it's just causes a lot of airflow problems. Traditionally, if you oh zone a system and you cut it in half, well, you still have a pump that's pumping you know, like we're using earlier hundred gallons of water per minute, but you've only got a hose that can handle one hundred gallons, right, Well, then you cut that in half. Your pump is still pumping one hundred gallons of water, but you cut hose half of the hose off. Now you can only pump fifty.

Wow, do you know what? You guys did a furnace for me for that very reason. It was not that old. And one of your guys said, look, Tom. I know it's only twelve or fifteen years old, but you have a zone system and it cuts down the life. That's what they told me. It's a totally it's a Honeywell zone system with pneumatic opening and closings. So anyway, that's just a side thought. So that you guys asked me, do I want to keep the zoning? And I said yes,

I assume what you got in is either.

A variable speed communicating or a variable speed modulating where it has an automatic rambrange and it's able to adjust accordingly.

Good, excellent. Now I moved into a home and in the furnace room there's an open pipe that goes near the bottom of the furnace and then it goes to the outside. It seems like a waste of energy.

Do I need it?

Yes?

That's fresh air, isn't it. It's your fresh air.

It's your combustion, are right, that's correct?

So is that why you want that furnace room cut off, right, you want it shut off from the house.

Right, doesn't necessarily have to be I'm sure for it's more for us, but that.

Doesn't that doesn't waste a lot of energy having that open pipe.

No, if you look at it from the perspective of combustion, right, you need oxygen for flame. So if you're just sacrificing and taking the oxygen in your home, well, that can create some pretty serious problems, woun't you think. So that's why we have the fresh air to come in to the furnace room, so it supplies it with fresh like oxygen for combustion purposes, so that we can have a nice, bright, healthy flame.

Okay, Adam, this goes right along with that. I sifted through this for this reason. I'm finishing my basement and we're going to enclose the furnace. Now, how big or how small can I make that room around the furnace?

So to be hones, you would have to consult with one of the city inspectors. I'm not sure what your municipal code is, but I'm sure there's some form of regulation revolving around that you'd want to cite that.

Or if you would like.

Obviously, obviously being big isn't the problem. It's being too small that's going to be the problem. Choking it right?

Correct?

And safety? Don't they want a certain amount of space around it?

Correct? I'd love to say, are.

You saying different cities have do different cities have Do different cities have different uh specifications on that? Or are they about the same?

Yeah, they're everyone's a little bit different.

Okay, all right, now we got more coming up. I'm Tom Martine.

What's that.

If?

Is eighteen inches on all sides plus I think twenty inches in front.

Okay, we got one more coming up. You can call me about anything. We are highlighting home services, but it doesn't have to be just home services. Three oh three seven one three talk and of course you can always call three oh three Martino three O three six two seven eight four six six. Renew Home Innovations does beautiful shower conversions. I mean they're beautiful. What they do are porcelain sheets. Oh my god, it looks like a million bucks.

Help.

You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank durand the real estate Man dot com to list your home with Remax Alliance three oh three nine two zero sixteen twenty two. Hi Tom Martino here. Three oh three seven one three talk seven one three eight two five five. Waterpros dot Net Remember kitchen drinking water reverse osmosis to the lowest price ever. I think it's like eleven hundred bucks man Waterpros dot Net three oh three eight six

Right, So you've got you've got one single speed, right, which is me that has one one button on go means you get one temperature, one to let, one electrical draw.

That's it.

Then you have multi speed, right assuming when you're going into air conditioning systems, I'm assuming we're talking about the condensing unit, which means that you can get two different stages of cool ink or more. There are various kinds. But then which the higher you go, the more electricity you're going to use, but the more cold are that

Okay, So is variable speed always better than single stage?

Right?

Not necessarily, but more often than not.

Yes, not necessarily, meaning if your house isn't you know, I mean you could do overkill in other words, correct? Okay. Now I have a high recovery water heater. Again, this might be for plumbing. We'll get you back. And it's set on very hot in the summer. I almost never run out of hot water, and it comes out very hot in the winter, the water doesn't get us hot and runs out quicker? Why would this matter if the water tank is in a heated basement?

So again, that's a really good question that I would love to defer to plumbing department.

Hanna, Are you going to take that.

To give you enough?

Okay? How difficult is it to move heating registers?

It depends on the way your home is designed.

So if you I imagine, if you have an open basement, it would be way easier, right, correct? Okay. I stayed at a friend's house during a recent vacation.

They have.

All in floor radiant heating. I love it. Are they difficult to install?

You guys?

Do it?

They don't ask if you guys do it. I'm asking if you guys do it? Are they difficult? Do you guys do it?

By the way, that's actually something we're in the process of rolling out.

Yes, okay, man, their beauty. It's a beautiful system. But they are they save energy too because they don't.

Have to heat the whole room, correct, Yeah, instead of the next question. It heats the space much more efficient.

Yeah.

Yeah. And when you stand on the floor, you come out of a shower, you feel great. I have in I have some in floor heat. Somebody wants to know what's the best way to heat a garage.

Oh, that's kind of a trick question.

Okay, this is a tough one.

Yeah, there's there's there's too many variables that go into play, too many factors.

Well let's look okay, hold on, then let's talk about not the best, but the different ways. You have the hanging heater that everyone sees in the corner, right, m I mean I like those, they're pretty good. What about this tube you see in some of them there's a tube that almost glows ye that.

I'll be honest, I'm actually not the genius who designed them. And understand how they function, but I will tell you they are. They're my preferred method when it comes to heating spaces that aren't lived in spaces.

Okay, because it takes too long space the air, right, because if you use a hanging heater or a space heater, it's got to go on and on and on to get over the air. Right. But if you use a radiant heater and you're standing under it, you're you're warm.

Yeah.

Correct.

It heats the space, the it heats the the material Instead of just blowing hot air around to heat everything up, it actually heats the materials and the floor and the stairs itself.

See you next time.

Okay, here's a basic one. I think I know the answer. How often should I replace my furnace filters?

Depends on the type of filter, but traditionally once a month unless they're using some form of electronic air cleaner and air purifire.

Do you like the electronic stuff? This sadic stuff.

That's what I use in my own.

Okay, But if you don't have that, you want the wispiest filter there is. You don't want a thick filter that's going to choke it. Right.

Traditionally, yes, depends on if the system's oversized, undersized, or perfectly sized.

Okay, but you want something though that.

Breathes easy, right traditionally, Yes, sir.

Okay, we got more coming up. Three all three seven to one three talk. We have a comment on hot water. Go ahead, jail, let you make that comment.

Go ahead, Hey, Tom, Yeah, when you're heay not getting quite as good as hot water in the winter. What you've got to realize is in the summer, if you run your cold water, it never really feels that cold. In the winter, you're yeah, a little bit. It feels like it's coming out of the refrigerator.

I mean it's super cool, right.

So as you're filling your water tank, it takes a lot more energy and time to bring it up to temperature than it does in the summer.

That's because of the outside coming into the house, right, Yep.

Doesn't matter where it's located, it's just that water so darn cold in the winter.

Okay, that makes sense. I appreciate that. We got more coming up. I'm Tom Martinez. Three oh three seven one three talk seven one three eight two five five. Don't forget K and H Home Solutions. They have the solutions for you for siding windows, doors and more. KNH has which you're looking for, one of the oldest home improven companies in all of Colorado. I really like these guys. They've been around for years. They've been supporting me for years,

Wait.

Time for an insurance check up free, no obligation. In comparison, call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find out now three all three seven

All right?

First off, thanks to Adam Sap for taking all those questions today.

Oh, it was great questions from your people.

Tom.

Yeah, okay, So let's get to the special, our maten and special where we come in and do that deep clean to make sure your system is ready. Tom, We've seen so many breakdowns during the cold snaps that could have been avoided.

So what we're doing is that deep clean, the extreme.

Clean you call it. I call it the extreme clean for your people. The first ten it's going to be nineteen dollars.

You know that.

Can I just say something, Yes, you can't. That's extremely low, because even thirty nine is ridiculous. H it really is, because you guys go in for more than an hour, sometimes two hours, two and a half hours, and truly, when you see this, you're going to be shocked. So many people w called this show and said what I mean they went, they said, I can't believe the time they spent. And they give you a no break Dad,

Nineteen ninety five, nineteen dollars flat nineteen.

Flat for the first ten right now? Seven two zero five two six thirty nine, thirty nine nineteen bucks for the first ten then thirty nine bucks. Thirty nine and thirty nine is cheap too, honest to good?

Yes, it's normally on hundred and ninety nine.

Yeah, well and even that, I mean god, okay, So anyway, thirty nine bucks, and it has to be people who have not had it before. Don't take advantage.

Now.

That doesn't mean you have to be a new customer, just you've never had this done before. Because their whole idea of doing this is to show you what they can do. That's their whole idea is to show you what they can do, so you'll be sure to call them, all right, I want to sneak in right here another comment. I've been talking to a ton of people and I'm so happy. Oh let me give that a three zero three. By the way, seven two zero five two six thirty