The Troubleshooter 2-2-24

Yeah, ripped off that news. You need advice, so you don't have come. Run in just as fast as we can. Shooter's gonna help coming man. This is the Troubleshooter Show. No Tom Martino. I'm Tom Martino. Welcome to the show. Three oh three seven one three Talk three oh three seven one three eight, two five five. It's Car Day today, as it is every Friday. Now that doesn't mean we only talk about cars, but we emphasize cars. We talk a little bit about cars. So

welcome to that. We have Kevin Colkin with us Sheridan Auto Tech. You can give us a call at three oh three seven one three Talk every day. You can use that number, but you can also use twenty four to seven three oh three Martino three three six two seven eight four six six. So we will be talking about cars a little. Do you know that the states with the biggest car loans? Interesting? Where do you think car loans

have gone up the most in the last few years? Where? For some reason, this website while at hub, did a survey to find out the states with the most or the fastest increasing car loans. The biggest balance is compared to the past. This state blows me away. I would have never believed it. What would you say? What would you say? I mean, obviously you're gonna you only have a one in fifty chance. Is it a one in fifty chance of being right? Yeah? Well, I first

bet would have been California. No, Wyoming. Wow. In fact, I don't see a rhyme or reason. But Wyoming has the fastest growing car dead well, the price of trucks has gone up crazy. You think that has something to do with it? A lot of trucks up there? Hreh? Does? It depends on what statistic they're using. What's that, doc? It depends on what statistic they're using. If you saw it with five

and you double it to ten, it's one hundred percent increase. But if you saw with one thousand and double it to two hundred, it's only twenty percent. So it depends on what they're using as their baseline. Okay, how about this if we looked at it another way. But that's a good point, Doc, You're you're right. Whenever they say crime is doubled, and you only had one homicide, now you have two, it's still pretty damn good, isn't it. But in any case, they also say this

that it's still a trend because they're taking many. I mean, for example, Wyoming, South Dakota is next, Texas, Delaware, Minnesota. The states with the most stable car balances, they haven't gone up or down. Rhode Island, Missouri, Utah, Montana, Connecticut. Where's Colorado? Colorado? As far as increasing car loans, is it in the top ten? Yes, in the top ten. Florida is right after that, and then

Alaska. Now Alaska interestingly has the highest. Now this one you can rank, and this one would be accurate because no matter how you look at it, Alaska has the highest monthly car payments. Texas has the next highest payments, California has the next highest payments, and then Florida. I don't get any of that. Colorado ranks number seven, No excuse me, ranks eleventh,

I'm sorry, eleventh in the country for highest car payments. Let's go to the phones and anything you want to talk about, give us a call. But I find that very interesting people. I would say ninety percent of the people buy cars with loans. A lot of people like paying cash. What do you do do you pay or do you get a loan? And it depends I think on the cost of money for a lot of that.

And I mentioned this before for the first time in my life. I mean, I haven't actually done it yet, but I may consider leasing a car because I put so little miles on it. And so really, if you think about it, leasing is very efficient because you're not paying for the car you're not going to use. You're only paying for the part of the car you're using, which is the use of the car, the depreciation of the

car. And then you don't have to struggle to sell it at the end to get your money back, whereas when you buy a car, you're buying all of it, you're using some of it, and then trying to get your money back. Now, if you're in a good equity position, that would not be that bad. But let's talk to Aaron who has a tax question. I have my expert on, Michael plantinga from Larsen tax relief. Aaron, what was your question? I think you came up yesterday. We

had our attorney on you said you used TurboTax. Oh it was this the TurboTax one, No, Aaron? Was it? Yeah? So as a turblet test one that deleted all the files and I heard your comments yesterday about pigs flying, but it happened. But by the way, Aaron, honest to goodness, Aaron, everywhere I look. But let's let's take the question

for Michael first. Michael, bottom line, Aaron lost a lot of data files from the past, not just his return, but his support documents, depreciation schedules and what else, my Aaron, not just the PDA for the go ahead. Yeah, basically all that stuff and I, you know, sent into the tax department before. Now. Now when you say all that stuff, you're talking about depreciation schedule, what else's schedules? You know, basically the whole lot the whatever was included. Did you have ten ninety nine

stored in your data file? It probably would have been there, some ten ninety nine there, and then the different schedules for business Okay, not just the first two, not just the two pages of the ten forty right right, exactly. Yeah, Michael, here was his immediate question. He lost his PDFs, He lost his files. If he goes to the IRS to

download a transcript, does he get all that. You can order tax return transcripts TOM for the past three years, and you can order waiting income transcripts, which contained ten ninety nine and W two information going back eight years. What about the appreciation? What about the schedules? The schedules, those are not anything that can be ordered from the IRS and sent to a taxpayer. Unfortunately, wait, wait, but you do submit them? Do you submit

them? Oh? No, you don't, do you Those are not filed with the Social Security Administration, So they're not a handy. I mean, iimmy with the IRS. With the IRS, now, okay, Michael, next question. Then he ordered whatever he could get. He put in a request for with the IRS and November and paid for it. Is that right on the November? It was an August August mailed in the Yeah, mailed

in the full? Uh that the I don't remember the exact number of you know, I wrote them a check for the forty five bucks per return and I still have not seen anything from them. So just to confirm, Aaron ordered a tax return transcript. Yes, the full one, not the one from online. I can get that one, but the actual full one. What would be the difference, Michael, That's what we're wondering. What's the difference from the full transcript that he orders and pays for or the free one

that he downloads. What's the difference as far than the free one and the one that he orders is one and the same. Just you can only go back three years. I don't know if he's trying to go back farther than three years ago. See, that's what I don't understand either. Though. You seem to think, Aaron, you're going to get more information from the paid one. And yeah, michaelas yeah, that's what it kind of led to believe by reading the stuff online. But you know I might be wrong.

Well, Larsen Tax Relief orders more transcripts than anybody I know. So Michael, what's the story. Do you get more on the down more on the hard copy or the download? Well, they're one and the same when it comes to a tax return transcript for a Form ten forty tom. But again, you can only go back three years, so I don't know if he's trying to go back farther. And perhaps that's the fee that he paid for no just two thousand and twenty onwards. Well, Aaron, you spent

that money for nothing. You might want to try to get it back because what Michael Plantenga is telling us that Larson Tax Relief is that you can go online and get the same thing today. Yeah, well I did download the online version and that's Can I ask something? Are you trying to get your depreciation schedule because you want to pick up where you left off and you want to make sure you're consistent basically, Yes. Now I have another question for

Michael. Michael, this is neither here nor there, and I'm sure Aaron's tired of hearing about it. But when you did, are you familiar with turbo tax at all? Michael? Yeah, I use it personally. Okay, listen, good when you do your TurboTax, not online though he has the TurboTax that he downloaded to his computer. Okay, And when he uses TurboTax, it creates a PDF file at the end, so then he has a PDF of his complete return. He said, when he took an update

for TurboTax, it literally, well he thinks it did. It erased all of his past PDFs. In fact, he has some PDFs on an external hard drive, and he said it went into that external hard drive and erased him as well. Now, Michael, like I said, Aaron didn't call that to hear he's wrong, but and maybe you feel he's not have you ever heard of such a thing. How. I don't know how an update could erase exterior or external files, but anyway, I've never heard of that

before. But if there's an issue, they do have a help death that he could reach out and see if they could take up those old PDFs and email them. Well he doesn't have them online though. That he never did it online is there was no online component. It was all local, got it you? You know? So it really sucks. But somehow in his update go ahead erin. So. Yeah, so I actually downloader program that's supposed to find deleted files on your computer, and I ran that program and

it actually found all the PDFs that were deleted. The only problem is it turned them into three thousand pages. Some pages have like two lines on it, some have three, some have a couple of figures. So I got all the files, but there's no way to reassemble them. Yeah, that tells me. That tells me that it was deleted. What you did was you got a recovery program for deleted files. And the way a computer works, what a lot of people don't understand is when you delete a file,

it doesn't literally go in and remove it from your hard drive. It removes the access to those files, and then it becomes a rewriteable space. So if you deleted something recently, there's a good chance of recovering it. The longer it stays, the more pieces of it get overwritten. And by the way, if you looked at a hard drive, we all think of files as being neatly enfolders and under file names, and they're not. Files are all over your hard drive. One file, one file could be in fifty

different places on that hard drive. I mean it's random access. Hard drives are random access, and they don't keep things in neat little packages like we think. But when you call for a file, it literally assembles the pieces and displays them. So when we delete them, when we delete them, we are deleting the access to those fragments and now telling our computer that that

fragmented space is now okay to overwrite, and then it overwrites. Now, there is a Department of Defense, and there are certain shredding files that literally get rid of it, not just not just the reference to it, but it gets rid of it. But most people don't have that. That's why you were able to recover the fragments still left on your hard drive. Now, Aaron, there are programs that can go into those fragments and identify them the breadcrumbs, and reassemble them. Did you know that? Well, I

guess as possible. But like the PDF, like I said, there's three thousand pages now, so you you have recovered three thousand PDFs, is what you're saying. Yes, separate pdf. I get it. And some of them like have one word on two words, No, I get it, But there are there are If you kept using your computer over and over and over, there's more than likely that you can't recover. But there are other recovery programs that go into your hard drive and reassemble. They don't just find

the fragments, but they also reassemble them. I'm sorry this happened to you.

I am to me. It deleted from twenty twenty on ones. It didn't touch anything from twenty nineteen, you know, sorry, you know anything with nineteen you know, nineteen four I don't get right yet, twenty fourteen or anything like that, but just anything from twenty and twenty onwards, it deletes it almost for it's just and I have not found one other person it has happened to online, not one other person you said you you read you have to give me a link, because I have not found one other person,

and I've done a searching. I went everywhere I could on the internet and could find nothing. So if you find that for men, I please send me some links. I need to find out what you're talking about, because and I want anyone listening and including our noisy YouTube morons they love talking about this. Give me some comments. I want to know if you've ever heard of such a thing. We have 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 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 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. Hi Tom Martino here, Welcome to the show. We are having

so much fun on and off the air. Hey, I get an email here this is a crazy email. I kind of like it, but I'm going to take my call first. What is Shay calling about? Shay? Yes, Hello, Hi, what's on your mind today? Well, my husband and I we were notified in the end of well in August of last year that our insurance was going to be going up an astronomical amount. They said it was doing. Now, what kind of insurance is it? Car

or house? Well, we had everything together, so it was everything, but it was the property insurance for a home that was going up a huge amount. Yeah, by how much. Well, we were paying in the lower threes and it was going up to sixty two hundred. Oh my gosh, yeah, huge difference. Well what this is happening to a lot of people? Yeah, yeah, So we were shocked, of course by that number, and we decided to shop around see if we could find less,

and we were did you go to did you go to? I have to mention this because I mentioned it every week on the Troubleshooter Show several times. Did you try Compass Insurance Group? No, we had It's called one Digital. It was the it was a broke insurance broker, and I think that's what Compass is. But compass does this unbiased look at like twenty five twenty six companies? What did you find when you shop? So we were able to obtain lower coverage and so from who notifying? You know, my husband

deals with it. But the time you recall what your do you recall what your do you recall who your carrier was on the three thousand that went to six thousand Travelers? Okay, that's a good company. And who did you You don't know who you switched to. It's all stays, Oh my god, the worst company you could have. I okay, now now I do want to I do want to tell you something. They're they're a legit company, but they suck with customer service. How much were you able to save

with them? Well, so here's the problem. The problem is we ended up notifying the broker that we were able to find cheaper coverage and that we wanted to cancel with Travelers, and they said, well, so it was before it renewed. But they said, because it goes through escrow with your and is held with your mortgage, they said they have already sent the check which was sixty two hundred dollars out of ours grow So the sixty two hundred

dollars went and we ended up. We told them we've canceled. We need you know that money needs to be reimbursed because it was sent off. If you hold on, if you actually had new coverage in place, even though all States sucks, if you had new coverage in place before the other one laps, you should get one of that money back right now. Here's the problem. Because it's a big company and everybody you know, you you don't

get anywhere with them. They have been holding our sixty two hundred dollars and we travelers will not speak to us because we obtained insurance through the broker and we have been dealing with different people. Well, the broker should help you, but but I'm there's something that's not adding up here. Who is your broker? It's one Digital? It's well one Digital here here's the problem. All State does not use brokers. Uh huh, No, no, no, how did you get one Digital? So it was the money was sent

to travelers, So no, I'm not asking that. Listen, just just listen to what I'm asking. How did one Digital find you All State and help you with All States? We we actually did. We obtained it on our own. We didn't use one Digital for it, because that's why that's why one Digital, that's why one Digital is not helping you now because you left them in essence right right, So they have sixty So basically the sixty two has been tied up. We have been basically my husband has talked to

this person and that person. We have all written records for everything that we've done. It's all been done you know, through email, so we have the every conversation that's occurred. But anyway, so now we're not having We have been going back and forth trying to do everything we can to get the sixty two hundred return. They said, oh, a checklist sent here, you know, and hey, will all State help you? Will your all State agent help you? Of course not no, no, So well,

well who is Let's call up the all State agent. Let's get they're the ones that did the policy. Let's call them up. They actually should have helped you here. Well, what else do they do? Just get commissioned? They have some there's something going on they're supposed to you know what, figure's what I'd like to do first and foremost you should have gone and I don't want to just rub your nose in it. But you should have gone

to Compass Insurance Group. In my opinion, there's no broker that has the level of service, but as a service to you, there's no obligation. Obviously, I want to get them on the phone to ask them how to handle this. You know, with all the insurance going up after those hailstorms, and even if we didn't have the hailstorms a year before we had the fires, everything's going up. And then of course across Colorado, the average you know, there's ones that go up way higher, but the average increase

in property taxes is forty two percent. People's mortgage payment that was two thousand, it's going to be like twenty eight hundred this year come March. I mean, people have no idea the predicament they're in. Hey, say, this is a very important question, okay, and that is when how much did you save? We ended up it was like in the low threes, so it was, and it was actually a slightly higher amount of coverage than we had with the travelers policy. So good, we ended up in a

better place. I wouldn't have thought to have All State help us, because you know, they were never involved in that transaction. So I hold on, We're going to come back to you. I want to get Compass Insurance Group on. I'm Tom Martino three oho three seven to one to three Talkwaterpros dot net the best drinking water ever at your kitchen, saying around one thousand dollars fully installed. Compare that to eight to ten grand from Plumbers. Water

Pros the best water systems at the lowest prices. Three all three eighty six two five five five four 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 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. Hi Tom Martino, You're troubleshooter three oh three seven one three talk three oh three seven one three a two five five Today's car day, by the way, So any car question. We we got to get to the funds. We have full lines. So bottom line,

we have Brian Burns from Compass Insurance Group. They do the insurance checkup. By the way, for those listening, if you were in Shay's position, or you're going to be where insurance is going up almost doubling and you need to figure something out, they go out and do a free insurance checkup. Now, they can't promise you the lowest prices and the best coverage all the time, but we've figured out about eighty five percent of the time they

do get you better coverage at better prices. But they're honest. They'll tell you if they can. Now, Brian Shaye, listen to Shay's story. I'm gonna I'm gonna sum it up. Shaye was facing a traveler's increase of about three grand, so she shopped around and found all State for around three grand for better coverage. She's satisfied, so we'll leave it at that. I don't you know, you know how I feel about it all State, But anyway, she got all State, and I don't blame her if she's

saving three grand, if she truly got better coverage. Good Now, bottom line, is this right before it expired? It wasn't expired, it wasn't lapsed. All state was there right at the right time. All of that took place properly. However, her escrow account for her mortgage sent the renewal check before it expired. Therefore, Travelers was paid before it expired, and they were paid six thousand some odd dollars. Now, she simply wants her

money back. It's that simple. Sure, and she is having a tough time because Travelers won't talk to her because they said, you didn't buy Travelers the broker did. No, that makes no sense at all. Yeah, No, she is the customer for Travelers. The agent would be just that her. She was a broker directly to them to cancel. Yeah, and have you ever heard of one? Have you ever heard of one digital? I have not? All Right, Well, these a holes who are insurance

brokers. They won't help her get her money back. Yeah, that's ridiculous. I'm happy to help have her. Give her our number. Offer here a policy number. We'll call over there and get this thing canceled. Now, listen, Shaye, did you just hear this? They're not even your company and they're going to help you. That's amazing. Let me specify what happened here and what's for telling us? Are saying there was a bulk tech that was issued from r escrow and sent to travelers and there was no distribution,

so they were saying they couldn't track it because it wasn't itemized. And so we're getting the run around because there was a tech issued. And then they said, oh, we're issuing you a refund, Chuck. And there's been two times now they've told us that there has been a check issued, a bulk check which included our funds, but there was no itemized statement that went and so it wasn't allocated, and so everybody is saying that they can't figure out where the funds are. Okay, no, I get that,

Shay. What they're saying is your mortgage company sent more than your premium. They sent a bunch of premiums, but your mortgage company should sure as hell have a record of what they sent, for God's sakes, exactly. Now, who's your mortgage company you're s grow the servicing company. I think it's Selects Portfolio. But I know we had one transition, and but I believe

that's what it is. My husband is typically the one that deals with this, but I he's been getting the run around, and I my dad suggested he's I called Tom Martino because at this point it's been you know, the end of August that we've being I know why, because your dad is old and wise, and he said, he's definitely you need to call someone wise. And so listen, here's what we're going to do. I want Brian

is gonna as a courtesy. Just look into it. But even with a bulk check, they're crazy if they say they don't know what policies they're for. Of course they do, Otherwise they would laps you. I mean, when it comes time to renewal, they know what damn policies were paid and what policies were not. It may have been done as a bulk check transfer or ach. I'll grant them that. However, somewhere there was an adjunct

There was an adjacent file showing what the payments were for. Otherwise your damn company could never travelers could have never applied the premiums to the proper policies. They are absolutely either lying or exaggerating that to say, well, we don't know what policies they go to I would have said, well, then how do you know which policies lapse? I mean, how would you know they're

full of crap? Brian c. You can speak up insurance, so when they spit a crap, it doesn't sound like it's not like they didn't cancel the policy. It sounds like the policy is canceled. It's now just like, well, we don't know if it's canceled. Shade. Did they renew your policy with Travelers? Do you have two policies? No, it was not renewed. We provided the cancelation in writing via email and it was confirmed

received. So there should be no issue with it being canceled and it being done with sufficient time before the date of the lab Okay, all right, hold on and we'll get you through three oh three seven one three talk seven one three eight two five five. By the way, your insurance check up at Compass three oh three nine ninety six nine thousand and one. Other thing. If you want a check up on your house and what it will sell for, call Frank Duran. He's not going to try to hustle you into

a into a listing agreement. No, no, he wants to know about the market. So if you want to know what your house will self or he'll do it free of charge. Maybe someday if you do list it, you'll think of them, but no obligation. He'll do a complete analysis of what you will make on that house based on all the current factors. Frank Duran, the Realestateman dot com three oh three nine two zero sixteen twenty two.

Go with a sure thing Denver's Best roofer Excel Roofing dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content than 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 oh three nine two

zero sixteen twenty two. I can't text you for my stupid jud Hi am I on Hello? Is this thing working? Hello? Unfortunately we can hear you. Would you would you clip that out for me? Please? Shannon. By the way I deal home loans my computer, Ideal home loans is still making loans, and this is really important. They have the interest rate guarantee and right now we need it. If rates go down, they refinance. You're free of charge. Three h three eight six seven, seven thousand

Ideal Home loans dot Com. Let me go to the phones in Jessica, Jessica, what's going on with you? Hello? Hi, Jessica, Hi, come on. Okay, wow, So my mom is getting sick and I've been her caregiver. How old is your mom? Seventy eight? And what is her illness? She has neuropathy, she's in a wheelchair. Does she have type two? Does she have type two at diabetes? She hasn't been diagnosed with that. No, okay, but she's not mobile at all

and she's just getting worse. Does she have a good doctor, I mean, does she have a doctor? Yes, she does. She has hospice now at the house, so we have to meet from hospice, and then we have nurses that come to the house. WHOA, So is she dying? Well, she's she's not getting better. And I know that eventually she's going to have to have full time care and she's going to need to be in a facility. No, okay, Jessica, we'll answer that question for

sure. We'll talk about that for sure. Go ahead. What's going on with her, Well, so we're just I've been taking care of her. I know she's going to be needing to go to Facilla soon, but we've been prolonging her care because we know that it's gonna She's only on Medicare, she doesn't qualify for Medicaid, so she has investments, and she owns a house, and so we're just worried that once she has to have full time care in the facility, we're worried that she's going to lose her house.

She's going to lose all of her investments. They'll keep her, They'll keep her in the house. Now wait a second here, Jessica. That's a possibility, but there are other things that can be done. But I need to know a few things about her, and we're going to run out of time, so I'm going to get one of the people from Integra on Integra Insurance, they're pretty smart about this. I'd also like to get I'd also like to get Dan McKenzie on or Kielan Park either one. This is a

serious issue and I'd like to I'd like to get you the experts. Since you took the time to call to get you the right time, wouldn't you agree in jen roll long as the mother's in the house, I've never heard of the government coming in and kicking her out of the house. Now, No, no, that's not 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 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 Ripped News. You need that who you

don't have? Run anxious ass as you can. Shooter's gonna help. Come man, This is the Troubleshooter Show. No Tom Martino, Hi Tom Martino, your troubleshooter. Welcome to the show. Three O three seven to one three talk seven one three eight two five to five. This hour brought to you by one Clear Choice Garage Doors for the best garage door company ever. I mean, I love these people. Twenty four to seven service for emergencies if you can't get your door open or closed, and they also do openers,

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one Clear Choice Stores dot Com. I've been using them for years. Now back to the phones and we have we're getting our experts on for Jessica and her mom's finances. Right now, we'll go to Bob. Bob, you have an issue with the United States Postal Service. Bob, this is a follow up. When did you call originally? Hey, Tom, good morning, thanks for packing hakel as Marie a month ago. Yeah, and what was the issue, Bob? Missing parcel the Yeah, local Brian explain the

situation. I'm looking for your original call here go ahead. So let's see my out of state private individual was getting older and was downsizing house and put about five or half a dozen maybe personal items in a cardboard box and site. There's no receipt, no photo taken, no appraisal. It's not and this was done okay. The bulk of packages going from point A to point B all right through a business like Amazon or Amazon Prime or eBay or whatever.

This is just two individuals and the only business involved is United States Postal Service. No, I get it. And you never got the You never got the package or the intended recipient. Who was the recipient? You me, okay, I'm the recipient. This thing, it's all done and over though. This is Robert right, yes, sir, Yeah. So the denial it basically says there was no barcode scans or proof to verify the method of mailing. So they denied it. But your main problem is you only

had thirty days from December seventh to appeal it. So, I mean, this thing is so in the rear view mirror. Man. Well, I go to the branch and ask to speak to somebody above the job level of the average clerk. They say that that's that time restriction should not be a Bob. Let me ask you something, Bob, Bob, Bob, I want to talk about it. Bob tried to get a Bob possessions just a super formally job. I love Bob. Okay, hang on one second, let's get right to the essence. Okay, let's get right to it.

I doubt that anyone at the postal service did this intentionally, and I doubt that there's a there's a solution. If you can't find the package, the package is gone. Let's assume the package is gone, You're never going to get it. What do you want? I really need to ask that. What what is your intention? Now? Well, my sender provided me with the original receipt, which says courtesy insurance. We are that promise to So is that what you want? Now? I guess okay, because that's really

all you're going to get, if anything. So, right now, you're saying, because you had one of insurance, you want the ins insurance at least right? Correct? Okay? Now are they refusing to give you that because they don't acknowledge it was mailed? I know it sounds half crazy. Well, the it seems like the original receipt is a proof that it was mailed? In my opinion, it is Mark. You have that receipt? Right? Did he email it to you too? I did? Yeah.

It seems to me what you're saying makes sense. So yeah, what are they saying about it? Are they saying, no, you didn't mail it? I mean, what do they say? I'll tell you exactly what it says, but I don't understand what it means. This letter is in response to the insurance claim referenced above. Based on our initial review, your claim has been denied because we have no barcode scans or proof to verify the method of mailing. So they're saying we can't prove it was even mailed. Really,

isn't that what they're saying. That's how I take it. And it says if you wish to appeal, and but you're it's too late to appeal now, right this was said? It says thirty days from December seventh. But other than the receipt, what other proof could he possibly provide them? That's what I don't know. And is this the receipt of mailing that you sent us? The one that says and really though it says domestic no where's your proof. I don't see a receipt for mailing where you didn't send it

to us? Where is it? There's a conditional page to the with that bar code on it. Yeah, but see that's what I'm saying. I can't even read the receipt, can you? No? But I imagine that they could. I mean, it's their receipt, for goodness sakes. I mean there's a bar when I put in this tracking number that's handwritten on here. I mean, there's nothing. It doesn't. It just says something went wrong. So I'm trying to see that bar code to see if I can. My bar code does not. It does not capture. Then, so

he already tried that, did you? The barcode on the original receipt is simply for the sender to fill out a survey of how they were treating Oh never mind? Okay, But but as Kevin said, what more do they want than the original receipt? What did they say? Did you say I gave you the receipt? That's proof? I believe? I mean to me, I don't blame you for being upset. I mean it sucks. I'm saying I don't have a receipt. For the for the for the collection for

the collector like items with which were the contents of the parcel. Oh, they're saying, we're not going to give you anything because you haven't proved that your stuff was worth a hundred bucks. Yeah, okay. Oh so even though there's okay, so go get a receipt for something or or what did she send you? By the way, Nick knacks the original receipt as a result of the transaction on the twentieth of October. Now, what did she send you? What did she send? What did she actually send you?

What was in it? Oh? On the items? Well it was well, there was a sort of a politically uncorrect book titled by Glenn Back and some things that were run arow like Nick knacks Man, Well, it's probably so, to be honest with you, they're not worth one hundred dollars. Well, regardless of what you should have done, it's too late. Now you should have just sent a receipt from Walmart prior to that date or anything. Who cares. But what I'm saying is, you know, obviously you

didn't lose a hundred bucks. Bro. I mean, I feel bad for you, but you didn't lose a hundred bucks. I mean, look at what I'm asking you, Bob, is you didn't get this package. I get it, but you didn't lose anything. I mean you lost a book and some other stuff. I mean, what, what's were these sentimental? I mean, what's the big deal on this? I think they had sentimental value. Yeah, okay, there's not much you can do about that. You know something, No, man, it is not like our post office

to wear a month two, three months later a package shows up. No, you mean it could happen. Well, it happened to me. The cluster box is shared by about twelve people, and their equipment says it was left. And one so called manager at the branch of USPS even told me verbally. He didn't put it in writing, but the regular carrier was off

the day this package was delivered. The person filling in for him. Yeah, I know, you know what, Bob, Like I said, But even with all of that, there is a limited liability, and it's that courtesy insurance is only for actual losses. By the way, I want to take this comment from Fernando on the turbo tax issue before we take a break. Fernando is weighing in on a problem where a guy claiming no. Where I wanted to try and do was clear up your caller with the forty five

dollars fee to get his copy of his taxes. Okay, go ahead, Fernando. Sorry, okay, Well, there's two forms you can fill out for your personal tax information. One of them is a forty five H six key which stands for transcript, and the other one is a forty five six without the key. He must have filled out the forty five six without the tea because that's the one that they charge, because he's actually asking for a

certified copy of what he sent into the IRS. The transcript forty five six t like, it's this, it's a transcript, it's a computerized print out, and it's free. Oh yes, hey, Fernando, Fernando. Another, here's an important question, the one that he requested. If it was without the tea and it's an actual certified copy, would that include the other schedules? As far as I know, it includes everything that he submitted. They actually go to the box, pull out his return and send them whatever

he's sent in. Okay, Well, that's good news for him because he'll get a lot of that stuff that he wanted now, Fernando, how do you know this? By the way, I've dealt with this issue. But I think the reason they charge is because someone actually has to go out to the warehouse. No, I get it. Yeah, and get his bands good. What's a little more labor? Thank you very much, Fernando. I'm Tom Martino. More coming up. Go with a sure thing Denver's best

rufer 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 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 oh three nine two zero sixteen twenty two. Hi Tom Martino here three oh three seven one three talk three seven one three eight two five five Dan Mackenzie, I want to go back. I want to go to our expert. He's with Mackenzie Law firm Coeoplans dot Co. And I want to ask something, Dan. I know you get this inquiry a lot. Jessica's mom is very sick. She's seventy eight, in a wheelchair at home, currently getting hospice. She fears she may need some full time

care at a facility. And she has some assets. Now, Jessica, explain the assets. What are we talking about? Is there equity in a home? In her home? And how much equity? How much equity? I don't know exactly, I don't know. Okay, Well I'll tell you that is it? Is it a big, beautiful home. Now, she probably would have about at least two hundred thousand that quick, okay, Okay. Now what about what other assets? Does she have any cash? She

has it all in stocks? About what is their stock portfolio worth? I don't I don't know that either, but it's okay, it's it's pretty probably about eighty thousand, Okay, Now here's the deal. Is that all she has? Yeah? Pretty much? Yes? Okay? Now, Dan, what happens if someone has to go into a facility they get medicare? Do they have to spend down their money before they get medicaid? How does that work? Yeah? Medicare is only there's there's a limit how much time they'll

cover anything. Actually, not for like long term care, there ares protection, so you would go to Medicaid after you've hit that time, and it's pretty short. So if we're talking about an extended stay in some sort of nursing facility, you would be looking at medicaid and medicaid famously. You know, yes, they want you to spend down your assets first and pay for your own care first before they kick in. And the threshold for someone who

is not married is to two thousand bucks and not not much. There are some protections in place for a house if the person intends to go back there, So I don't know if that could be something, and you know, no one knows. It's what does the person intend? So there is what's to prevent dan, what's to prevent people, what's to prevent people from saying they do intend to go back? Yeah, I mean that, like it's relatively easy to claim and hard to check, and so a lot of people

do make that statement. But you know, again, like okay, medicaid covers this. They're not necessarily going to force her to sell the home. But if there's a probate process, which there probably would be if she passes away because she has real estate, then Medicaid might show up and sort of creditors claim in that repaid for whatever they covered. I have a question, could my mom gift the house to meet my brother Jessica. Everyone asked that,

And let's talk about getting rid of assets. Dan, just go over the time limit. There's what's called a look back. Go ahead, Dan, Yeah, there's the five year lookback. So what medicaid does when you submit the application, as they do, look at any transfers that were made in the last five years for less than fair market value. So obviously a gift is way less than fare market value. It's nothing, and you know,

she's given away two hundred thousand bucks. Effectively, they're going to they're going to try and figure out, Okay, how much would that be covered in long term care if it's ten thousand dollars a month and we're probably talking, you know, twenty months and then and then it might kick in. So yeah, giving away that's going a kind of rush. That's why it's

very important for those listening. If you want to do long term planning and retirement planning, you have to plan for a spend down of assets or a gifting or a transfer prior to five years. Isn't that right, Dan? Yeah, yeah, yeah, So there are there are some things that can get done. I don't want to totally discourage you from looking further, because there are some ways potentially getting stuff. Can you give us a hint on some of those things that might be able you might be able to do.

Yeah, there's some. I mean, one of the more common strategies is like an purchasing potentially like an annuity that gives you some income. It's got to have certain it's got to be a Medicaid compliant annuity. There can be uh, Like like I said, there there can be some planning around the house. There are some special there are some when they when the main asset is the house, there are some potential options for like I say, staying

there and keeping it, keeping Medicaid out at least during her lifetime. And there are not necessarily lawyers that help with Medicaid applications that you could look some of those up too. So, Dan, what if, for example, she sold her stocks in her house and bought a lumps some annuity and then

had some income. That income would be counted against her. I don't mean against her in a bad way, but it would be, what would medicaid do with the income she's receiving if you take both her Social Security income and her annuity income. Yeah, that's the thing. It's like the Medicaid compliant annuity. I think she gets the income and it doesn't count towards the Medicaid. But then the reason is Medicaid compliant is because ultimately the annuity has a

death benefit that does compensate Medicaid for some of the costs of paid. That's not a bad idea. I mean, that gives her some income and it helps her. Now it doesn't help what might be what Jessica might be worried about, and that is her brother and herself as farn as they trust me. A lot of people have looked at into this like crazy. It's just the way it is. You know. Some people would even argue that if our tax dollars are paying for care, that's not fair. Docs on that.

That's my argument. Yeah, that's that I as a taxpayer. Yeah, yeah, but it doesn't matter because the rules are what the rules are. I'm not going to play god in this situation. I looked into it, and I mean when I looked into it, hell, I talked to Mackenzie. Remember I talked to you for a while about it. The bottom line is, here's a five year look back and you're not going to get around it unless if it's fraudulent. And then if it's fraudulent, I want

you to understand what happens to your mother. She gets kicked to the curb because they if they can't go after the cash and get the cash back and it was fraudulent, they will not pay for her care anymore. Is that correct, Dan? Right? Yeah, Yeah, fraud is bad. Yeah, do not commit fraud. But yeah, I've seen I've seen some people with you know, some out that's again, there are several organizations out there, and we would be happy to talk to you further to see if there's

some emergency planning that could be done. But generally, yeah, I mean the main mark is right, like Medicaid is stretched in and doesn't want to cover you know, what you're effectively asking them to do is protect your inheritance. That's not so much, that's exactly right, That's exactly And again, Jessica, we're not trying to make you feel guilty, but that's the way the government looks at it. Why should we protect your head. I'm going

to tell you this. If you talk to Dan McKenzie years ago, before your mom or dad or for anybody listening got bad, he would have said, what you need to do is this? Possibly one of the things is

you know she gives the house to you at that point. I'm not saying that there's lots of things to do, but when you're up against that five year o'clock and they're getting bad, that's a whole difference, straight Dan, Dan, gifting may not be a good idea because of the step up and basis or correct I don't know, but Dan question, but a trust could real, real quick, real quick. Hold hold on, Jesse, We're real quick. Dan. Does a trust help if five years ago they did

a trust? Yeah? I mean that's probably the most popular planning technique is to use. Is called a Medicaid asset protection trust. And the reason is like giving your house to your kids obviously has some drawbacks too. I mean they might not you know that they're going to lose the step up in big capital gain basis. They might lose the house if they have a creditor issue pop up, or get divorced. Like this is one hundred ways that like that could be a problem. You could have a falling out with them.

So a Medicaid asset protection trust gives you a way to put the house under somebody get get it out of your hands, basically, while also maintaining some semblance of control over it. So now, Jessica, what was your question? Go ahead? What if I were to buy my mom's house and then it was the house was under my name? Yeah, yeah, yeah, well then she care. Yeah, but the money if you buy your mom's house, it has to be for fair mark get value. And then she's

going to have money that she must spend down. Dan, how do they look at that money she has? Yeah, it's it's her money, right, so yeah, she would expected to probably money ye on the care Now what is okay? But but what if she spends it down? She can literally buy things, right, Yeah, And there's a lot of things you

can do. Actually, I think you and I talked about this time, Like, there's things you can you can preplay on funeral expenses, there's modifications you can make without engine She's in a wheelchair, so you can spend money on uh, you know, making the house more accessible to somebody who's not

quite as mobile. There's several expenses that you can spend down on and like it actually adds value to the het the But remember this, Jessica, you buying it, you really have to buy it, meaning you have to transfer money to your mom. So so even though she's spending down money, she's spending down your money. And if you're buying the house for fair market value and you're not absolutely in love with the house, why would you bother just

sell it on the open market. It's exactly the same. The cash asset's going to be looked at exactly the same, whether it's your cash or someone else's cash. The only real way around it is pretty much fraudulent under most cases, unless I guess dan she could take. Let's say she has cash, she buys a house for half a million dollars. Mom's got a half a million dollars, she has a house. Mom goes to Vegas and plays roulette for three days and loses everything. I guess that's okay, right,

Yeah, but she's losing real money. I know that. I know that it doesn't do what she's trying to accomplish. Yeah, you're basically losing money, and then you're qualifying yourself for Medicaid, which I think most people would really prefer. Data I would have some control over their care that you kind of lose if you have Medicaid, right, my understanding, Dan, And tell me if this is correct. The average facility these long term whether their

care facilities or Allheimer's, whatever it is. I mean, they could be easily ten thousand dollars a month. I think that's they are, So they can easily be a lot more than that. Frankly, Yeah, So, I mean it's crazy. You don't want to risk And this is all I'm trying to get through to you, because I've looked into this stuff. The last thing you want to do is risk your mom not having that Medicaid and that facility not getting paid and risk risk. I don't know what happens at

that point. It's not good. Yeah, No, I care more about her care than anything else. We lose, you know, and her investments go away. She doesn't want that. She wants to give that to us or her heritage. That's that's how it generally goes. It's the main important thing. So, but you know what, if you do the right if you do the right kind of annuity, whether it's Medicare medical, whether it's

approved or not. If you do the right kind of annuity, you could have enough money to pay off to have income and pay off or pay the

rent or whatever the care and have money left upon death. I mean literally, if you did the right kind of annuity seriously, with enough money, she could pay for her care and supplement it with well social Security and that, and then she could she could have a death benefit that just might possibly, since you're not paying back Medicaid, possibly be enough to get along and leave you guys something. I mean, the legit way could happen too.

Now I want to ask something. If they were to do a trust, Dan McKenzie, would the trust have to have been done prior to five years? Yeah, after you're putting in that trust is going to qualify for look back. So okay, So if you're going to do a trust, that has to be done five years prior. So, So that's the thing. Everyone listening, plan ahead. Thank you very much, Dan McKenzie, cooplans dot co eight three three co plans. Now again, let me ask this

another work. Let me ask Dan one more question quickly quickly, go ahead, Hey Dan, how many people I think I asked you this before. It might have been an attorney in Florida I was talking to. But how many people actually go into long term care with Medicaid? I mean, it's not as much as I thought it. I thought it was like twenty five

thirty percent. What's your opinion. Yeah, I would think it'd be half of that or less, just because they've done so much to try and you know, again try and make it a little bit of a challenge, just because they really can't cover the up very much at the expense level that it's at. So people that are plan ahead, That's all I have to say. And by the way, that's one of the reasons I'm telling you about ourpcenter dot com. Go to that website for our February eighth Retirement with a

Retirement a summit. This is one of the things we're going to talk about long term care rpcenter dot com. 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 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

oh three seven seven 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. Hi, Tom Martino, your troubleshooter. Three oh three seven one three talk three oh three seven one three eight two five five. Okay, let's see, let's see. Okay, who's okay? Doug? Hey, Doug. I don't know if we can help here, but we'll try. You're looking for an attorney for

what in show? I am so my dad? What's going on with your dad? What? What kind of attorney? I? Uh, he got in a car wreck and someone suing him. Oh so someone suing him. Okay, here's some good news. Here's some good news. He's being sued for negligence, right yes, and someone is claiming injuries. Right yes, his insurance company has a contractual obligation. I'm guessing he doesn't have insurance. Well, yes, he was. He used to work for us, the state, driving a bus and he got in a wreck in the bus.

So they already sued the state. Now they're coming after him personally. Yeah, but they have to cover him. The state has to cover him. Why how long ago was this accident? Probably four or five months? Okay? And did he has he since been fired or let go or did he quit? Did he quit after that happened? Okay? Hold on, all right. I want to get John Fuller on because John Fuller will give us the lowdown on who needs to defend him. But I sincerely doubt he is

all alone. I'm just curious just to go down that road a little bit, and I have no idea what the answer is. If he worked there at the time, I kind of understand the one side where they'd have to defend him, But then the other side is, you know, they he'd quit. He left, so like, how long do they have to represent him? Under any condition? Ours mark? They have to represent him, in my opinion, if he was employed at the time operating he wasn't.

Now remember he wasn't operating outside the scope. He wasn't doing anything like that. No, but did he do something like, for example, was your dad accused of drinking while this work was using the bus off duty? Does drinking or anything like that? Was he using the bus during the scope of employment. She was just driving on his normal route. That's called the scope of employment. So Mark, the answer would be this, they need to

cover him for as long as he's exposed before the statue elements. I mean, there's a statute of limitation. I'm just once again, I'm just my brain is ticking here. So I owned a bunch of good years, and if I had an employee, that would say bringing a customer home created an accident. And then you know, six eight months later, the liability on my side's done. My garage keeper steps in and I'm done with it. And this guy quit and left and went on with life. And then they

go after him and sue. You think my insurance at that point would come back and represent an employee I don't even have anymore. Here's what I'm thinking, in my uneducated guess, I am thinking that they would have to cover him if he truly was employed at the time. I'm dying to full on. But that doesn't But that doesn't go beyond the statute of limitations. Well, of course not. When we are told that Fuller is unavailable, we'll

get another Let's get another personal injury attorney. If we can't get him Mark Bendelli, Yeah, Bendinelli, Man, let's find something might have been down this road. I mean, really, you really need to find someone. I have to take this break more coming right up. 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. 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 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. Hi Tom Martino here three h three seven one three talk three oh three

seven one three A two five five all right. We're trying to find someone who can help us on this liability question. Meanwhile, Joe has a comment on Medicaid. Go ahead, Joe, what's your comment? Yeah, tom My, Tom is regarding Jessica's call. And the one point that I'd like to make is that anybody that's facing this decision and I've gone through it, fased all the things that you guys were talking about. Go and shop nursing

homes, and then you will find out. If you love your loved one, you do not want them anywhere near a facility that medicaid would cover. So come up with the money or keep them at home. But trust me, you do not want to. Yeah. But Joe, Joe, that's easier. That's so easier said than done. There's people that have dementia that I mean, you can't even move. I mean you couldn't. I don't

even know how you would take care of them at home. My grandmother in her last year when she was ninety three, I mean, she couldn't say a word. They fetter like through tubes. There's nothing anybody could do at home. But I understand what you're saying, man. But Joe, the other thing that you said. The other thing that you said, and you said it kind of cavalier, and that is come up with the money.

I mean there are people that just can't come up with the money. I mean no, I said, keep them at home or come up with the money. Come up with the money. Where do you come up with the money. I then keep them at home or put them into one of these facilities. But faith facts, they're horrid. Well, and I'm going to take I want to take a little disagreement there. I'm not saying they're all good, but the lump every facility that accepts Medicaid is saying they're horrible and

abusive. And I know you didn't say abusive, but what I am saying, Look, let's pretend I don't know. Let's say Medicaid pays twenty five hundred dollars a month. I'm saying that any facility where twenty five hundred dollars a month will cover it, the entirety of all your fees is going to be a rough place. It could be. It could be I mean, you get what you pay for. Joe is saying you get what you pay for. Hold on, let's go to Hank. Hank, what is your

issue with Medicaid or a previous employer? Go ahead, Hank, Hey, Tom So, I'm trying to figure out here the fate still has me employed with Elwood Staffing. It's been over three years. I'm trying to get my medicaid. Do the issues 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 oh three seven seven 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. Yeah Rift, you need that? Who you

don't have to run anxious as fast as you can. Shooter's gonna help. Come. Six is the Troubleshooter Show. Now Tom Martinez, Hi, I'm Martino here. This is the Troubleshooter Show. We discuss things no other shows discuss every day aches and pains, the things that make us take, the things that tick us off. Today's card day. We have Kevin Colkin from Shared and Auto Tech with us. We haven't had a lot of car calls, but we'll get to them. And here's the other thing. Crime.

Did you know there's a trend? Now? Do you know what people are stealing? You won't even believe it. The hearts and money of others. They're stealing from homes. What do you think they're stealing? Mark, you mean from a home that is being built or a home that's lived in, Just homes, regular homes, regular home microwaves. Well, they're not breaking in, they're stealing from the outside of Oh, sprinklers. Yeah I saw that. Man. Now I started thinking else, Well, hold on Haw's

to deal with sprinkling, landscape lighting. Yes, shrubberies that trace. You know why, because they went to one town and sold someone a landscaping job for X amount. Then they go out and just fulfill the orders. So think about that if you have shrubs that look good, trees, sprinkler system. The one on Fox or nine News you got me was a lady that was videotape and the guy stealing the sprinkler system in the front yard. Now

here's the thing that I find shocking. Crime is becoming so commonplace. It's almost like we don't I mean, really, were you outraged when you heard about it? I mean I'm not. I think, well, more of the same. I went the same, It's the same, yep, yep. Didn't even think twice about it. Man, Yeah, more of the same, more of the same. I mean, we do not prosecute. No, no prosecution, no prosecution. I mean, did you see those guys get bail that that kicked? And did the police in New York City

beat up? They beat up or assaulted two officers and they got, you know, let go. And they were illegal? They were illegal? And yes, I said, And on the way out, did you see him giving the finger? Oh? Yeah, of course I did. God dang it. It just I mean it's hard. It really is hard to take nowadays, isn't it. It really is. It's hard to take. Yeah, but we're getting immune to it. Yeah, Hank, what's going on with you? Hank? Welcome to the show. What's going on Hank?

Anytime? What's happening? You said your employed? You were? Yes, go ahead, No, I was employed through Eltwood working at Vestis a little over three years ago. Where were you employed? H Elwood through Vessus or Vestas through Elwood? What is that? Yeah? That's just you know, they make those oh vests, you mean the ones that make the winils. Yeah, the wind turbines or windmen make electricity. Yeah. So yeah, I was down there in Brighton. Okay, got it. We've worked God,

let go. I haven't worked for a while. I'm trying to get my Medicaid benefits and Elwood will not give me a letter saying that I have not worked for them. What do you mean they won't give it to you? I mean, why do you even need that? I mean they're telling me to call Experience. Well wait a second, were you a W two employee? Were you a W two? Oh? Absolutely, W two through Elwood? Topsis but Elwood? I wonder why they won't give them. Wait,

is this the Medicaid people asking you for that? I'm trying to get Medicaid. But are they the ones telling you you have to get proof you're unemployed? Exactly? Yeah, the state Medicaid is telling me saying, hey you go. They're saying, hey, you work for Alwood and haven't I would won't give me a letter? Well, how about a pay stuff? I mean, you must have something in your life to prove that you work there. No, no, he has to do just the opposite. Wait

a minute, he has to prove he doesn't work there. Oh, that you still don't work there? Yeah, that he's unemployed. In other words, how do you prove you're unemployed? For God's sakes, I have no idea I've never heard of such a thing. Are you sure, Hank? They're asking you to prove you're unemployed. Absolutely. I will give you the emails, uh, the numbers, anything you want, Tom. This is Medicaid asking you to prove that you're unemployed. State of Colorado. Yeah,

let's say, yeah, yeah, and and when you when you? I mean I've never actually I've seen just the opposite where you have to prove you're employed. How do you prove your un employed? I mean, it's ridiculous. How do you prove it? Give me a letter? Well, why won't they give you a letter saying you don't work there anymore? Ask them? They say, oh, you got to go through corporate. Then they say you got to go through it speedy end the credit like the credit agency.

You know, how long have you been out of there? Oh it's been three years? Bus three years? But why does the state this is this is important. There's some fraud going on. Why does the state have you listed as employed? Employed? Unemployed? Hold on, Hank, you're telling me that the state has you listed as working there? Yes, sir, why tell me, buddy? Did you have like a workman's comp claim? Never? All right? It just makes unemployment then and then that's the

way to prove you you're unemployed. Oh, that's done it over, that's years ago. Actually, maybe that those records within itself would work if someone if someone showed up that used to work for me and said, would you write me a letter that I'm not employed? I mean, I don't know why I wouldn't write it, but I could understand. In a big company, why people are going to be well, we don't do that, But why the state is asking them to do it is really more of the records.

He's there something, Well, they have a Social Security number, they can tell employment, they can tell if any money is taken out of his taxes that go to the state. I think there's a fraud going on up at Vestus. I mean you mean if if Vestus or maybe the state not necessarily fraud, but in cobody, somebody is paying a paycheck to somebody who doesn't work there anymore, and they're collecting it. That's exactly what's going on. That's the only reason they say he's employed. Did they ever give you

a clue? Like, the reason we think you're employed is because we see you're getting money each month or anything you know what I would do. You know what I would do. I would sue them for wages. I would sue them. You think I'm kidding, don't you. I would sue them for wages. Here's my reasoning. When I went to get Medicaid, the state told me I was still employed at Vestus. Vestus will not give me any any proof that I'm not working there. But Tom, the reality is,

this guy's trying to get on Medicaid. He can't afford an attorney, no small claims court. You go to small claims court for wages and you say that you are listed as working there, yet you're not getting paid and you need to get paid. They will have to write you a letter or say you're not employed there. I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding. That's one of the things I would do. Or I would go back to where I got unemployment and show them those records as they as they recommended earlier,

or they counter assume them for their time and effort. What I mean, But I did you ask the state why do they show you as why do they show you as employed? Did you ask Hank? Well, you know, I think Mark brought on something. I think pursuing a little sum might be the answer. But they won't tell me anything. It's all corporate numbers, emails, nothing. Who won't tell you anything? I'm asking you, why does statel Woods staffing? Elwood Staffing will not tell me anything? Elwood

Staffing from Brighton. I hit up the corporate office, I got a number, called them. They called me. Uh. They will not write a letter stating that I do not work for Woods. Was Elwood a temp agency? Yeah? Exactly. Uh. And they hired a lot of people for Vestas. I think they're committing fraud. I think they're still getting paid for you, Goad. That'd be crazy. No, I'm not kidding you.

I think I think you submit to Medicare or call them up. I saw an eight hundred number someone that will listen and then just show them your unemployment stuff. I really believe that they're committing fraud, and I I think we should have somebody call and say listen, we feel that you will not provide him with saying he's not employed, because somebody there is still collecting money for this guy. I mean it, I'm not kidding this reeks of fraud.

They are reporting you as being employed, your social security and number. I'm telling you that's what's going on. We need someone who can call up to Elwood and say, listen, this guy needs to get medicaid. He can't because the state thinks he's still employed by you people, and we think you people are collecting on him from Vestus. I mean, we think if I can give a letter saying that I have not been employed with them over three years and show that and show the state that I have not, that's all

I need. I understand that. What are you not understanding by me? Do you know why they don't want to write that letter because they've been getting paid by Vestis for you. Probably that's what I think. I think Elwood Staffing is being paid for you a funny business. Well what other reason? That's why I'm calling you, Tah. You know, do you have a contact that Ellwood you've been talking to. Yeah, if you want to send me over to your lady, I can give you a couple of numbers.

No, here's what I want you to do and then call us back. I want you to tell them that you talk to me on the radio and that I want to do an investigation because I believe Elwood is still collecting for you, and that's why they won't give you a letter. And if you don't get a letter within forty eight hours, you're busting the scam wide open because you believe you're not the only one they're collecting on. You do that,

I guarantee you that'll shake something up. Tom. I'm sure we'll figure out something by Monday or Tuesday. Got you, so you start call me back, You tell them exactly what I just told you. I'm Tom Martino three oh three seven to one three Talk 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 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. Hi Tom Martino or Troubleshooter three

oh three seven to one to three. Talk so a Denver Man, They say, scammed at least one hundred and twenty thousand or more from women he met on dating apps and at local gyms, promising massive returns on investments and a fake medical treatment project. It was a lawsuit filed by Colorado securities regulators on Wednesday. Basically, this guy would meet women and scam them with investment advice. Hmmm, crazy stuff. Three oh three seven one three talk seven

one three eight two five y five. There is just no shortage of scams. Jay's got a comment on Hank's issue. I said, the reason that this company won't say Hank is not employed is because they're showing that they're still getting paid on Hank and somebody there they suspect is probably committing fraud and they don't they they have to investigate it. So what's your comment, Jay?

I was just curious because oh, with stepping was using him as a tempt for investis called investis possibly see when the last time they paid for him, And it's a good idea. Yeah, that's a good idea. There might be a contractual relationship between the two. Yeah, he might say it for taxes or something. Maybe somebody's up in the mouth who knows just about Okay, thank you for Paul. That's for sure. It is worth call.

Sue. What is your comment? I agree it's third party payment, and I believe somebody scamming him or when COVID was happening, people were also getting stimulus money and staling IDs, and I'm hoping that you know, that might not that might be the case. Also regarding his ID. Maybe hopefully that's not the case that someone else's working saying they're him. You're right exactly, because that was a big situation. I had a friend, he was unaware

of it that somebody was stealing his uh what do you call it? Unemployment checks? And he took it took forever for him to settle it out. Oh man, we had so many of those going on, Sue. You know, I wonder if you added up all the fraud how much that would come to because of COVID. That was big time. The other thing, real quick, I was in forget the gentleman's name that was talking about, you know, assisted living and stuff. You know, I unfortunately had my

parents in a very very exclusive one back east. They were paying five years ago, fifteen thousand dollars. My parents were very, very competent they will put in against their will. I lived here, I was going back and forth to Boston, our suburb of Boston, and what happened was they were failing to thrive, they didn't like where they were staying, blah blah blah.

They got taken out of my house that I grew up in. And if it wasn't and I'm not trying to get kudos for me, but when I went to visit them, and I was doing home health care here in Colorado, my daughter does it here, and I will say they the nurses, the staff there are very limited and they do the best they can no

matter what you pay for the care. And what the gentleman was saying, I think if you're not your parents' advocate or your loved one's advocate to go and check on them randomly and frequently, they don't get the care that you wish they would, and I would be in a budsman or what that means is an advocate for your parents. So no matter what you pay, they're never going to get the care that you want them to get. So, yes, it's unfortunate, no matter if they have dementia or they're very capable

of care on their own. Just do the best you can to check in on them and to go to their doctor's appointments, because it is a very tough, you know, situation out there. The people working in those facilities, don't they try to do the best they can. Thank you, Thank you very much. Three all three seven to one three talk well said three O three seven one three eight two five five. Kevin, I'm sorry for the wait, sir. What's happening with you? Kevin? Yeah, Hi

Tom, good morning. Yeah. I was on your referral list looking for a plumber. Yeah, I have a main water line that I have to get replaced as a car washing parker. Who would you guys suggest? Oh my goodness, so it's a commercial t water line. I'll tell you who. Rocky Mountain Sewer and Drain. Okay, they're out of springs right, No wait wait wait, yeah, they are out of the springs. I'm hoping I said it right. Oh. I know what's weird about it?

It's literally Rocky MTN. I mean you can search just put in sewer line or plumbing on the referral list, they'll come up. But it's Rocky Mountain Sewer and Drain. Jose and his son. They're like a two man team. They do a ton of commercial work. They will go all the way up to Denver if the job's right, and they're going to save you a

ton of money. Brother. Okay, okay, Because it's the main line, it's about fifty feet and I've talked to a couple of plumbers and some of the plumbers say it might be the whole line, and then other one says it might be a kink in the line that's finally worn through, or well, how do you know it needs to be done? First of all, what are your symptoms? God, you know you have a problem because I got a little fountain coming out of the pavement. Oh do it.

That'll do it. That'll do it, that's for sure. No, no, no, did anyone do any exploring on what it is at all? Oh no no. The only thing I've done is shut off the main and it stopped, so I know it's on my side of the They can get out, they can come out and scope it and see if they can find it. Any of our people can do that, but a lot of them don't do commercial. But I'm telling you, these two they're really good guys. Do they actually scope fresh water lines. I have no idea actually,

now that you say that, I don't know. But in any case, I think that that's the way to go. These guys. We've had good reviews on these guys. I wouldn't say to you. Now you're just making me curious. Why wouldn't someone scope a fresh wild because it's under pressure. For one thing, they would have to discon they would have to turn it off, disconnected. I don't know. They could go through the water. That's easy enough. But also water lines are much smaller than sewer lines.

I mean, I imagine there's equipment we should ask someone. I mean, it's a good it's a good thought. These guys do it all though. Man, Okay, I think, well, I don't want other people to think they do normal plumbing when it comes to sewer lines or fresh water lines or anything for even new construction. Anything that's underground that needs a conduit they can do. But they specialize in the water stuff exactly exactly well, no matter what has no matter what happens, it has to be dug down to

and find the leak. Yeah, I'm telling you call them up, Pep Jose will probably be out there within I don't know, a couple of days, maybe over the weekend, and we'll tell you a kind of worst scenario, hopefully what it actually is. I mean, he's just going to be straight up, man, and they'll probably have the equipment right there. If you want to actually do that initial dig and try to figure out what it is, they'd probably knock that out when they show up. Man, Okay,

I'll give him a call. Thank you Kevin for waiting. Three oh three seven to one, three eight two five five Go with a sure thing Denver's Best roofer Excel Roofing dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're contenth wait 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 oh

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 oh three nine two zero sixteen twenty two. Hi Tom Martino, your troubleshooter three oh three seven one three talk three oh three seven one three eight two five five Ron has a question on electrician or gas line. Go ahead, are you there? Ron? Yes? Thank you, Tom? Yeah, man, what's going on? Oh? I I want to

add to my garage. Yeah, for some welding. So I'm I'm looking for electrician and and I'm also interested in bringing gas into my kitchen and my family room. Okay, so Christians, well we have a lot of people that can do that. I mean, it's how let me ask you what kind of service do you have it? It's you're talking about mainly like coming off from where. That's what I need to know. Where. Where's where's your uh, your main power coming into the property. It's coming in from

the north side of the house, the garage. Do you have property like land or is it just a house on a lot or what? Oh, it's a house on a lot, achoke. Okay, So the power is already there, right, and I would have to run it. It would probably run about fifty feet to get to the garage. And would that have to be underground? No, I could take it through the basement, which is unfinished. Well, what I mean is to get oh okay, so where your meter is? It could go through the basement to where you want

it. Correct. Yeah, they still have to hang it right or secure it. But okay, you don't have to do excavating. What about then, as far as the gas, where's the gas come in? Gas is still on the north side of the house, but it's it is probably twenty feet from the north. Yeah, this is relatively easy. Now I have to figure this out. Mark do our normal service plumbers and electricians. They'll do the No, No, they'll do the electrical. So you can go

to any one of our great electricians to do that. Yeah, get a few bits. I just had mine done. Now they don't. I wouldn't use them anymore because the guy sold, but I had it run. I've got three panels in my basement. They added a fifty amp or six actually a sixty ant breaker and they ran up from my charger from my car to my garage. The majority of it is outside in conduit, and it's all done legally, and it was actually less than a thousand bucks man. So

I would get some different ones on the gas. I've got a text into euro Plumbing right now to see that they if they do it, but I would think plumb line and fix it did it as well. But I don't know. I figured maybe you knew, Tom. No, you know what, when it comes to gas, I'm really not sure on the gas part. They'll do the electric for sure. You can call fix It twenty four

to seven seven two zero five two six thirty nine thirty nine. Or you can call plumb Line Services for sure plumb Line Services dot Com three h three five eight six ten eighty six. But I need to I need to, really. I wish I would have known that by heart, but I gas has always been a mystery to me when it comes I'm looking on their website right now, and they have plumbing here. Yes, they do gas lines at plumbline yep, okay, And I'm looking at fixmihome dot com right now.

But yeah, plumb Line specifically mentions gas lines. Let's see gas gas guess I'm looking here. You think we all get free estimates on that. I don't see it on fix it site. Yeah, if you get if you tell them the scope of work, they're going to give you an idea for sure. Well, the only thing I'm thinking is I should upgrade the house to have a you know, a gas furnace in my Wait a minute, wait a minute, what does it have now, just just a flu

that goes up through the roof. Wait wait, wait, but but how does it distribute the heat? Oh, I have a furnace for heat. It's just a wood fireplace. The house was built in seventy two. Wait so you have a furnace, but a gas fired furnace already, right? Correct? And how and you have duct work? Right? Yes? Okay, So what did you mean what did you mean when you said you needed a gas furnace? Oh, to burn gas or in in my fireplace as opposed to wood. Oh? Well you have you have wood fireplaces and you'd

like to convert them to gas. Yeah? Can you easily get to those from the basement? Actually yeah, very easily, very easily. Yeah. Now you're not going to like this, but that they can run the gas lines. But there's a whole different company you want for the actual fireplaces.

Yeah, got any suggestions? Yeah? I have some good ones. Now I don't know who we have on the referral list, mark, but I know that I found some gas people that did a great job for me when I could not find someone on them in the euro plumbing right now, Tom, Yeah, but see, but I'm talking about gas fireplaces. I don't think we have anyone that does. Smart might have a referral for that as

well. We just have I have a personal one that I've used. Let's see now the one that I've used is uh yeah, yeah, so hold on, hold on. Dimitar does do gas line so I get an estimate from him too. He'll come out and give you a free estimate. He's the guy that does water heaters for like thirteen ninety nine and fourteen ninety nine. You know. No, No, they're wonderful, but Mark, he doesn't do get and he can do the gas lines and bring it up to

where they need it. But as far as gas fireplaces, I don't think he does those, No, he doesn't. We have a company we have out every couple years to do the cleaning. Do they come from the referral list? No, we don't have any on their referral list. Well, I'm going to tell you that locally here in town they do a great job. Is Sage Solutions. I've actually had them what area in I'm in a tech center. Yeah, they'll come to the tech center for sure. Sage

Solutions. I don't think the one I used I was gonna give you. They charge it's they're so straightforward. They come out, they clean, they check it, they inspect it, and everything is one eighty nine. And that's for both of our fireplaces. If I recall, do they install new ones? I don't. Actually, the problem is they're Ada Parker. I think they do Douglas County and Douglas County only, So none of this matters. They're not coming out to you now. Like I said, I've had

them come out to my house and they've done a great job. So I can't guarantee them. But Sage Solutions was the name. Hold on, I'm going to give them one hold on fireplace. Oh dang it, man, they're one of our biggest clients on our credit card company. Oh my god, I can't think of it. Fireplace. Oh man, hold on, just keep listening. I promise, think about it. I'll give you the name. Okay, think about it. After the break. We got more

coming up. Go with a sure thing Denver's Best rufer Excel roofing dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content. 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. 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. Hi Tom Martino here three three seven one three talks seven one three A two five five. All right, let's talk. Let's find out what's on your mind? He real quick. I found these guys are great. They have been with merchants first, our credit card processing company, Tom forever. They're great. I got to get him on the referral list. But it's Colorado Hearth and Home. This is for that last guy. So the website is Colorado Hearth and I am

telling you all they do is fireplaces. They got at, they got gas, they got it all. They're great people. Now, Greg, you have a comment on TurboTax. Go ahead, Greg, And yeah, by coincidence, first call you had today when you were talking about the guy who lost all his turbo right information, he just said on an upgrade, on an update, and I think that's impossible. To go ahead. That's exactly what happened to me 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. In comparison, call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find out now three O 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. You don't have come runing just as

as we can. Shoot is gonna help? Come man, This is the Troubleshooter Show. No Tom Martino, Hi Tom Martino, your trouble Shooter three oh three seven one three talk seven one three eight two five five. We're here talking about problems. Question plays by the way, Kevin Calkins shared an autotech is here. As I said, had been a slow as far as the car day goes. But we've had a lot of calls and a great

called with an interesting comment. I want to revisit this. So one guy called and and if you know anything about computers and software and all this, you'll see why I was perplexed. A guy calls and says, Tom, I have the desktop version of TurboTax. And the best way to explain that is this. It's a simply a program. It's on your computer locally. You don't log on. You simply open it and you do your taxes and it creates a PDF file. This guy claims he had no online access,

simply his desktop. Now, maybe the desktop communicates with the server to make sure it's validated. I don't know like word does. But in any case, he opens it up and it says you need an update, or an update is available. You know how that happens when you open a program. So he accepted the update, so it updates it and reopens it. We've all done updates, he said. After that update, his individual PDF files

that were created for past tax returns were all deleted. In fact, he said, not only were they deleted on his hard drive, but some of them were kept on a remote hard drive which is plugged into or an external remote drive, and it went into that external remote drive and deleted them. And I thought, there's nothing that I know of. Ever. In fact, let's take for example, Final cut pro I have Final Cut Pro and it makes movies, right, I make movies. Once they're rendered, they

become a separate movie file. That would be akin to me upgrading Final Cut Pro and finding out it's done away with all of my associated files. So I don't know how it could happen. But Greg called and said Tom, because I said, to this guy, I can find no one this has happened to Greg calls instead it happened to me. Now, Greg, did you have the desktop version? Only right? I went down to Best Buy and I bought a CD, got it, and I download downloaded on my

computer. I created my income tax form, printed it off the PDF like you said, mailed. I mailed it in that time. I didn't do an electronic file to the I r S or anything. It was all what I sent in from TurboTax and and I got the upgrade thing. So, like you said, I think it's like Microsoft, when you log in they got a newer version, it recognizes you've got it on your computer. And so so that that was what happened. And then this was like the first

time I ever used Turbotype. No wait a minute, So when you updated it, you then lost your PDFs yes, it lost all of the files I had and disliked the guy that called this morning. I had an external hard drive where I saved the backup and the files were nowhere, and I called it was I mean, I am just blown away. I don't know how it happens. I mean they were It probably happens all the time.

But when you call up their Texas Park, they say, oh, you're the only one technically, technically, can you think how is Yes, I'll tell you, I'll tell you. Okay, technically it could be like this. The files one year were called dot whatever the hell, and then when they did the upgrade and they rename what the files are? When you go to try to open them up in the new version and you look, they're not there because they have a different ending, a dot something else mark,

they're PDFs. They're all PDFs. They have always you're asking me what I think could happen. I mean, I'm trying to think. I guess if they were not PDF? So Greg, were they PDF files or not? Well, sometimes the PDF is not a PDF, it's like an SPX. Well then that makes okay, Well then I every time I've saved anything from Turbo, it was a PD. Well maybe I'm saying it's a PDF and it's not. Maybe I'm just misleading you guys. So you're telling me the

data files. If the data files were truly saved by a TurboTax as a turbo tax file, then I can see where an upgrade could screw them. And that's apparently what happened. And I'll have to say when I called TurboTax, I spent about an hour and they did a lot of research on it, and then they said you can get your you know, the original file from the I R S And they paid for it for me to do that

because they said it was their mistake of some kind. And you know, I didn't have any really complicated income tax so it wasn't such a big Okay, here's what it says, and here's what it says. I I just went to my old standby chat GPT TurboTax uses a proprietary file format to store tax data files. Okay, there you go, So I am no longer mystified. I mean, this guy said pdf, pdf, pdf. Everyone was saying PDF. So it's not PDF. And okay, so if it

is a proprietary file, I'm going to tell you this right now. When I do Now, let me get back to Final Cut Pro. When I do Final Cut Pro and I make a movie, I export it as a separate, standalone file, and that could be exported if I don't know Final Cut but I know other stuff. You could do it in different extensions, right or is it only one that's right now? If I save the project within Final Cut Pro, it's proprietary to Final Cut Pro, just like my

audio programs are from Amadeus and all of those Adobe. Okay, so here Premiere. So here's what happens if I save it in the Final Cut Pro format and I update Final Cut Pro. Sometimes when I go to open that data file, it says it must convert it to the new format. So but I never saw it a race one. Still, but still I can at least see where there's a connection, because what I found shocking was how it would go out and search out PDF files and simply arbitrarily delete them because

it doesn't know it's even a TurboTax file. Now, at least we have I've shed some light on it. When Mark said maybe it's a different extension, and I looked at Chat, it says yes, TurboTax does not save its files as PDFs. You can export a PDF, but it normally has a proprietary file format. Now the mystery is solved to me. I mean, somehow it erased its own file, its own data files. Now, sometimes the way that happens is with updates, you have two ways to update.

One is to update, the other is to replace. Sometimes you can actually delete and replace. Some updates do that, Others just go in and update. And so maybe there was something there that destroyed the data files. Again, I'm just guessing. I have no freaking idea. I'm just guessing. So Mike has a comment as well. Go ahead, Mike, what

is your comment? Mital photographer and digital file management dictates that you have three copies of every file that you maybe one on your laptop, one on an external hard drive in your house, and one on an external hard drive at some other physical location or the cloud. I would urge everyone to put a reminder on their phone once a week to do their backup on the external hard drive and then disconnect it for the rest of the week, so that a

situation like this probably can't happen. Yeah, you know what, that's really wise, really I now. What I do is I have one locally on my computer. I have one in the cloud and one on a remote hard drive, which is digital, by the way, so I don't have the mechanical breakdown the digital you know, the the solid state drive. I totally agree with you, Mike, totally right, and just leave it disconnect the

rest of the time. Also, a good program for backing up your files is called good Sync GOO d S y n C, and it's smart enough to analyze the location of the files on your laptop and your external hard drive, figure out where there's a difference, and you can set it to make both sides equal so it will know which files are new, which files have been modified, and transfer copy the files from your laptop to your external hard

drive that need to be copied. Very good, Very good, and listen, I don't use the sync program because I simply do fresh installs when I do backups now, and there's a reason I do that. It's a long story, but I see the whiz them in some of these sink files now I do. I am a big believer in a cloud service. I use, of course Google Drive. I use also I have Google Drive and I have Dropbox. I think I have one drive just because it comes with Microsoft.

But then recently I got another cloud service that you can encrypt, and I just I don't know why I got to be, but I just wanted to have it so in case I have to encrypt stuff and leave it up there, I can. But do you like cloud services? No, because I have no control over who accesses the cloud or what they're using it for. Well, one of my files are on the cloud, okay, but you do have log in credentials, right, Are you afraid that a hack

could get to them. I'm afraid that a hack could get to them and steal them or use them however they see. No, I guess you're right. You know what's wonderful. And by the way, I agree with you. And that's why you air gap everything on the remote drive. I get it. Now. Here's the thing, and I think I hate even to say it because I don't want to jinx it. But Google has never been hacked. Now, accounts have been hacked, but no one has ever gotten

into the barge or on their servers or anything. And Rekavic, I don't know how they've done it, but Google has never been hacked. In that way where they've had massive data breaches on their drives. In two thousand and nine, a group of hackers working for the Chinese government penetrated the servers of Google and other prominent American companies such as Yahoo and Now Chemicals. But they didn't get data mark they got user information. Yeah, I don't know what

they got. But don't you think Google, I mean, maybe they're not. I mean, I don't even know how Google does some of the problems. Is you think of the US government. Most of the hacks we had were insiders. There were people that worked for the company and add access to it, and they copied it and got it out. So I mean, I would think a Google employee that was very upset with the hierarchy of Google could steal whatever they wanted, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, Yeah,

you're right, there's nothing to you can't. I guess you can't do away with dishonesty completely because a lot more hacks that we deal with on this show all the time, they're phishing schemes. They conned someone into giving them the password. It's not like they guessed it, I know it 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 content time for an insurance check up free,

no obligation. In comparison, call Compass Insurance paying too much your covering had 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, I'm Tom Martino. You're troubleshooter. Mike. You have a you have a question on a floor jack. I'm not

sure what it is. Go ahead, Service night. Yes, that's a question for Mark. Uh. I've borrowed aluminum floor jack from my neighbor and I put under the frame of a car. And uh it was on a piece of plywood because I have a dirt driveway, and uh to tilted a couple of times and I turn twisted to handle back counter clockwise rather abruptly,

and so it didn't tip over. But now when I tried to raise the frame up, there's something bent and it won't raise a frame and I'm wondering if Mark knows if there is a catch out of alignment inside the handle, or does he know what we might be able to do to say? Now, now, hold on a second. First of all, you're talking about you think the aluminum floorjack is bent or the vehicle? Yes, the floorjack, Mark, do you have any spece I heard this guy's voice before.

I'm very suspicious. I'm gonna leave it his d But no, I don't even know why he would ask Mark about a floor I don't know how to rebuild a floorjack handle, if that's your question. No, it's one of the floor jack summer what Harbor Freight sales from around one hundred and fifty. Why would Mark know about those? Because possibly he might have had some experience with him. I probably do own one, but it's never broke on me. So the floorjack is bent. It's aluminum, right, Yes, my

neighbor has advice on his work bench. Do you know of anything he could do with it to maybe put it in the advice and tab it with the hammer and bend it back straight? Well, well, why wouldn't you try that? I mean, how did I start off this conversation? Okay, you're suspicious. But why his voice? I just know I don't know him personally like this, it sounds like a pretty No, it just sounds like a weird question. You bent the floor jack. You want to know if

you can straighten it up? You try? I mean, what harm will it do? Yes? Yeah, yeah. I wondered if Mark was Famillier with a catch inside the handle that might be out of alignment, and he might be able to take the screws out of the handle and take it apart and find the catch. I have okay, put him on home. I don't even know where this call's going. I have no idea. Well, in about fifteen minutes, we'd know where it was going if we embrace it.

If you want to make a joke, though, Mike, the way to do it is quicker, because I don't know if he knows how to take the handle out and find the catch. But in any case, technically, if you had a floor jack, and I'm serious, and it bent being underneath the car for some reason, do you know that one of the best places for returns and replacements is Harbor Freight, even though they have a bunch of cheap craps. Some of it not all of it. Some of

it's really good stuff, honest to God. But they will almost take anything back and replace it if it had a failure, unless you just flat out were ridiculous, But they will. That guy waited a long time to as given there's a catch there is, I mean there always is with him. You don't recognize that voice. I'm shocked. Well, I think, as he's always gunning for me. I think, really, that's it. The he's one of my favorite haters that loves me and thinks about me all the

time. Why do you think that? Do you just recognize them? I recognize his voice. Mark's the skeptic by nature. That's the club that marks. That's is spelled paranoia. No, no, no, I'm telling you. Okay, maybe you guys shall know it. That's right, son to know something. Chicago is passing a bill that will now not permit cops. It will prohibit them from stopping cars for no license plates, expired license plates, or shootout speeding, or excessively tinted windows. Basically, this is another

way that this is the truth. This is another way this law reads. It's new Jack City down there, gang bangers, welcome to Chicago. Come one. Come all, you get your windows tinted as dark as possible and no license plates, no problem, do your drive bys. Don't worry about it. I swear to God. It is if just when you think people could not be more stupid, they pass laws every single day to make people it easier for people to be criminals. And why for the rest of us?

Now the reason the person introduced this bill one word. Guess what it is to avoid? What avoid? What? Racism? Exactly? Now? Seriously, you didn't even have to google that. So now, but think of how racist they are saying that. I mean, really think about this. They stopped enforcing shoplifting because of racism, They stopped enforcing heavily tinted windows because of racism. They stopped enforcing no license plates because of racism. What

are they saying about black people? For God's sakes? I mean they're insulting them. These very laws are insulting black people. I mean it's not it's oh my god, it's like, don't worry, little buddy, We're gonna take care of you. I don't know if I don't know if you know this, but a lot of law schools now starting I think in twenty twenty five. They got rid of the l SATs. You had to pass the EL SATs to get into law school or get whatever score. They're getting rid

of it because the L SATs are racist. So are the SATs. It's amazing are the acts, but some of the We're gonna have a very interesting group of lawyers over the next ten years. However, I will say this, Okay, all joking aside some of the SATs in the past and acts, I didn't I do know the point they're trying to make that I don't don't know if I call them racist, but they're biased towards certain demographics.

They really are, because some of them, you know, they take the form of the questions, and then the answers are within the court, you know, within the paragraph. They state it and then ask questions. But here's the thing on some of that stuff, they're stories that are mainly mainstream. In the past, they were mainstream white stories or white narratives. I could see that. Okay, Now you don't necessarily want you know, gang stories or or whatever, but you don't or or but you don't want it

all one way or the other. I don't know about L Satz. By the way. I have no idea as far as the form they take it. They're pretty standardized, man, I mean really, they're very much like the SATs. They're not looking for like a multiple choice answer. They're trying to figure out if you've got a brain to get through law school. But now anybody can basically get in. I just wonder how much money it's going to waste a lot of people, because I assume you still got to pass

the bar. Now, when they vote to get rid of the bar, which will probably happen in Denver pretty soon, then then it's going to be an all out wild wild West. Baby. You know, they're having several underdog where you can, if you can after you graduate from law school, if you are mentored in a law firm for one or two years, you don't have to take the bar exam. I've never heard of that. Oh come on, who said that? Tom? I will bet you at dinner

that there are states. I think it's California where you know, you have to graduate from law school, you have to be mentored in a law firm for one or two years, and then you get accepted. You don't have to take the bar exam. Okay, we'll see about that. How do you even get a bar number? Then you're saying you don't have to take the exam, but you pass the bar, Well, you have to be registered to take and break guys, hold on, I'm Tom Martino three oh

three seven to one three talk seven or three eight two five. Before we take a break, I want to tell you. Denver Region dot com. Go to the website to find out more about the semaglutide compounded for two hundred and fifty bucks a month with in Jeckson Supplies and Doctors UH Consultations for weight loss only two hundred and fifty bucks a month Denver Regen dot com. 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 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 A three nine two zero sixteen twenty two.

Hi Tom Martine. Here, Bob's got a question. Go ahead, Bob, Tom, So, just to refresh your memory a little bit, you helped me back in like nineteen ninety six or ninety seven with a crematorium in Lake wid Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, uh huh, all right, okay, So my reason recalling is evidently this year it's new and I found it actually on the Secretary of State's website. It's a form that you have to fill out if you own businesses. It's called Beneficial Ownership Information

Reporting Form What and yep, it's yep, yep. Is it a state form? This is? It goes actually to the FED. I guess so. And I verified this because I got this letter in the main Wait, wait, is it part of your tax return? No? No, this is a form you don't like when you when you own an LLC or a corporation or whatever, you have to fill out paperwork with the Secretary of State every year. So well you have to. Yes, that's right, it's a periodic report, right, right. So this is from the state of

Colorado. However, there's a company that sent this to me is called CPS out of Washington, DC, and they want to fill the form out for me. Now I understand what is it called. It's called beneficial what Beneficial Ownership Information Reporting Form? And you can find it on the Secretary of State's website. Okay, but again you keep going back and forth. Is it a state or is it a federal thing? It's on the state's site. But the way that I read it, it's called Financial Crime and Enforcement Network

goes to the United States Department of Treasury. So it's on the state's website. But evidently it's federal and it's a form that you have to fire. Tom. It sounds like a third party is just trying to do it to make no, of course, and that's the way they do it with corporate reports as well. They are with all kinds of stuff. That's right. They make it sound like they're official, and they charge you for it. Right. No, but this is official. It's on the Secretary of State's

webin. No, No, Bob, I'm not saying it's not official. I'm saying CPS is not official. I know that they want to charge one hundred and ninety five dollars and there's no way in hell I would pay that. No, I get it, right, tom right. So it's something I can fill out myself in ten minutes. You know, they just want to make one hundred nine. So what's the whole point though, No,

but you're right about that. But there are a lot of things like that that companies And how about those posters you got to put up that, you know, say if you get hurt on the job or your rights. They've got companies that'll that make it sound like you got to pay them four hundred bucks for these where you can print them out from the state, and companies that will get a passport for you for a feb That's not my point,

guys. My point is just to make you aware. If you didn't know that there's a form that you're required to fill out if you've had a business in effect since before January first of this year, you have one year to fill it out and if you don't, you can be fined. I've never heard of it before. And Suzanne, you've just renewed. I have sent you at least four or five renewals in the last month. I don't even know for what companies. Did you have to file any forms? No,

Mark, I just did the Secretary of State. That's what I'm Secretary of State. You know, periodic report is what I filled out. That's what I'm saying. This a whole new thing. I know. I'm looking at it. See what I'm saying. It says many companies. Okay, I required to report this, but beneficial Ownership Information reporting I'm reading about it. Apparently not all companies, but some. It says many. I don't know

what that means. It's well, there's a list of them that like, if you're a government agency, a bank, at credit union, so on and so forth, you don't have to do that. But for like myself that have a couplelcs, I'm going to be required to do that. My only reason for calling you was just to let you know that this just where is it? Though? Cow I'm I'm on SOS. Where is this info? Just just just do a search. I'm looking for it. I did a search of the of the form he talked about, and I'm finding it

Beneficial Ownership Information Reporting. There's all kinds of articles about it. It's January twenty twenty five, right, Yeah, but I never even knew about it started. It just started. That's that's my reason for calling guys, just to let you know, and I wouldn't have known about it if this third company wasn't trying to rape me for one hundred and ninety five dollars. Do you think the Secretary of State is going to contact every business in the state

and let them know they need to require this? Well, I don't know. How do people find out about this kind of stuff. I guess your accountants are something I don't know. If it wasn't for the third company, I wouldn't know about it, you know. And so what they said was you need to do this, and you started looking it up and found out, yeah, I really do need to do it, although I'm not going to have you do it exactly right. Okay, Well, thank you for

telling us. We'll look more into it. I mean, I never heard about it. I got to take a break. We got more coming right up. 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 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. Hi Tom Martino, you're shooter three oh three seven one to three

top seven one three eight two, five to five. Jill? What's going on? High? Jill? What's happening? She left? Okay, so we can finish up then with Kevin Caulkin. Hey, real quick, what that guy was saying? I just want to say there are so many exemptions. He was a little off. It's good information, but that new form is really for shady people. If you have a physical address, it's a real address, you're exempt. If you've owned the company prior to some date

in twenty twenty, you're exempt. I mean there's that. It says it'll affect maybe eleven percent of new companies, but I mean they are companies that don't have an address that they're probably shady to begin with. Okay, Hey, Kevin, somebody wants to know, is it, uh, which has which is worse on a car? The summer or winter? Oh? I would say the summer. The heat is always worse. The cold it'll warm up, you know, eventually, But yeah, the summer's brutal. That

heat really breaks down. Okay, we have so much more breakdown in the summer. Okay, And is it true? And I think I can answer this. Mark probably knows this. So if you leave your winter tires, if you have snow tires for these long periods of time in between, when you have warm, warmer weather and no snow, doesn't it wear them out quicker than regular tires? Softer compound. The it's a whole softer compound.

Yeah, the whole design weather tires. So yeah, all weather will still wear out faster than regular tires, and winter snow tires will wear it even faster than that. But there's got to be a happy medium. In Colorado, Colorado is really hard on snow tires because we don't have snow most of and we have very dry weather. It's just hard on rubber. It's hard on rubber period. But all seasons are just another tread. It's not a

different compound. Okay. Someone wants to know if they're storing a car and they store it and they don't drive it much like a sports car, do those tires we're out just sitting there. Yeah, you should take them off and not have the weight of the car sitting all really Okay, Hey, I love his I gotta say this. Sheridan Auto Tech nationwide warranty three years, thirty six thousand miles. This guy will give you great prices. Beat the dealer. Thank you, Kevin for sure. All right, thank you

that Shardan Autotech dot com. And by the way, we're out of time. Don't forget three ZHO three Martino. Save all your problems for me.