Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, Southeast Texas. I hope you're enjoying this beautiful day.
I am so excited to share some incredible topics with
you today with Blaine Kaye with First Financial Bank, also
Tony Malley with Malle Law Firm. They are going to
be discussing so many different things that are going to
apply to you, So stay tuned. You're not going to
want to miss it. But for most of the people
(00:21):
out there, you really have been asking me, Dana, how's
the market, you know, with things that are going on nationally,
things that are going on locally, what is the market doing.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Well.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
We did start to see a little bit of a
pickup in our market and the phones have been ringing,
and we are hopeful that in the next couple of
weeks and months that the market will continue to grow.
You know, we have billions of dollars of economic growth
happening here in Southeast Texas. So the outlook is definitely positive.
The FED didn't raise rates the last time, and so
(00:56):
that's a positive note. We have Lauren with the National
Association of Realtors, just spoke a couple of weeks ago
and seems to think there are some positive things potentially
coming for us, So I'd say the outlook is good
and we will be cautiously optimistic as we move forward
(01:17):
into the summer. But before we get there, if you
have any questions, thoughts and you need to know how
is the market in your specific neighborhood. You know that's
what we do every day, so we'd love to sit
down and visit with you. You can call my office
at four O nine eight six six eight three two six,
visit with one of my team members and we can
(01:37):
set an appointment to review what are your goals, what
do you have, and what do we think the market
is doing in your neighborhood. But if you want to
do something just for fun, you can go onto our
website Dana Simons real estate dot com and you can
fill out one of our little tools that will give
you an estimate of your market value. Now, of course
it's AI driven, and AI, while it's good, doesn't replace
(02:00):
people and they don't consider all the little things that
you've done to your home the way we do. So
just for fun, you can fill that out and it'll
give you at least an estimate of where your value
may be. That's Dana Simmons real Estate dot com and
you can look up your value. We're going to go
ahead and get started, and before we talk business, I'd
(02:20):
like for you to get to know the guests for
just a bit, so blame Kaya. You've been here for
a while in Southeast Texas, so tell me a little
bit about Tell I know a little bit about you,
but tell everyone else a little bit about you.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Yeah, I am.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
I am currently I'm the president's CEO of First Financial
Bank for our Southeast Texas region. I am born and
raised here in Southeast Texas, live in Orange. My family's
all from Orange and I've been here my whole life.
So I'm a graduate from Lamar University and have been
with the bank for roughly about fifteen years and married
to my wife, Regina. We have three kids, Clara, Jet
(02:55):
and Gabrielle, and they are a handful, but they're the
thing that's ever happened to us. But very active in
the community. Serve on several local boards throughout Orange and
Jefferson County. But really we're just very excited to be
on the show today and thank you for having us.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Yeah, and I'll tell you those three kids you and
Regina make beautiful children. I'm telling you. Those are the
cutest kids, and I don't know how you keep up.
I mean, I see you guys on Facebook and I'm like,
how in the world do you do it?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
All?
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Regina there?
Speaker 4 (03:30):
Regina, Regina, Regina lovely for her she drives the bus
and keeps them in line, and without her it would
not be possible.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Well, she does a great job. And I love that
they're involved in so many things and so many activities.
And that's the one benefit to Facebook. You get to
enjoy those kinds of things there. You know, there are
so many things about it that are pooky.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Yep, I agree, but that's.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
One of the things I really love is that I
don't get to see you that often and see your kids.
But what's great is that I I get to see
them on Facebook and watch how they're growing.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
I agree.
Speaker 4 (04:03):
Now, I'm the exact same way with other with with
people that I haven't seen in years. You get to
keep up with them and keep up with their family
and how they're doing.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
So it's a great tool for that. It is also
with us Tony Malley and you are with Malle Law Firm.
I am just happens to be your last name.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Conveniently yeah, yeah, I had. I worked for more Landry
law firm before that, and there was Floyd Landry and
he was in a way a mentor to me, a
great guy. And he came into my office one day
and he slapped his legs. He's real vocal, out spoken.
He slapped his thighs and he said, Tony boy, don't
(04:42):
you ever work your whole life at a place that
doesn't have your name on the door. And he walked out.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Now I always wanted my own firm, But when he
said that, and it's more Landry, Yeah, his name on it,
I thought, maybe it's time we get moving. So, yeah,
I have my own firm. I have a lawyer that
works for me, some staff. We are based out of
Beaumont office in Houston. We handle litigation all over Texas.
(05:12):
We're a little bit in Florida, We're a little bit
in Tennessee, Louisiana.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
We're everywhere.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
I've stayed in Beaumont because it's where I was born
and raised, where my parents are. I grew up here,
high school, grade school, raised three kids here, have my
wife of twenty two years, and then I've started a
real estate brokerage. We do farm and ranch all over
the state, and so that's called Texas Land Brokers. And
maybe one of these kids that I'm spending so much
(05:37):
money on for college and school will roll in and
take over one of these things that has their name
on it.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Absolutely what a gift, you know. I worked for another
broker for twenty three years before I ever opened my
own as well. And now my daughter, who went to
school to be a speech therapist and was a director
of rehab, is now our broker also with me at
my office and has been you know, she did real
estate while she was in college going to college, so
(06:05):
she's had our license for you know, fifteen years or something.
But yeah, it is really nice to be able to
have one of your kids come into the business with
you and to be able to participate in that.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah, I would love to work with one more, all
of my children and probably also strangle them at the
same time we work.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
So that's part of it, though, you know. I mean
there are moments, and I will tell you there are
moments that we don't see eye to eye, But on
most days it's a joy to get to work with
your to work with your own flesh and blood. And
then of course as grandchildren come, it enables you because
you know, every now and then she'll bring her daughter
(06:45):
in Hattie, which I absolutely adore, and she can break
into my office any time of day that she wants to.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
So that's fantastic. But I'm only like one or two
years removed from Weston Little League.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
They're pushing it. Yeah for that, Yeah, yeah, you have
a little bit of time left before you get to
that grandparent stage. Well, we have an exciting show, and
I am thrilled that our guests are born and raised
local people. That's one of the things I love about
Southeast Texas is that I love when people grow up here,
(07:19):
go to college and bring their businesses back here if
they want to May to college, or if they go
to college here at Lamar, and then they stay in
our community. It's how we're going to grow our community
to be a better place. And so I love that
both of you are local community people. When we come back,
we're going to connect with Blaine and talk a little
(07:40):
bit about what is going on in the financial world
and how can that apply to you. So don't go away.
This is the Dana Simmons Show. Welcome back. This is
Dana Simmons and I am joined today by Blaine Kaye,
First Financial Bank, President and CEO of Southeast Texas First
Financial Bank, and also Tony Malley with law firm. But
(08:01):
first we're gonna chat with Blaine a little bit. And Blaine,
let's talk a little bit about First Financial Bank. So,
you know, there is a difference in the way banks
do business. There is a little bit about what First
Financial Bank does and how it is different than other banks.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
Absolutely, you know, first, I'll kind of tell you a
little about First Financial Bank. So a lot of people
that are listening today you'll probably remember the name Orange
Savings Bank. That's kind of where I started. And then
we sold the First Financial Bank about twelve years ago.
And so First Financial Bank. We're headquartered in Abilene, Texas,
where Texas based bank. We're about fourteen billion in assets.
(08:38):
We're pretty pretty good sized community bank. But we operate
as eight regional banks throughout the state of Texas. So
my region is the Southeast Texas region, and it's Orange, Jefferson, Hardin,
and Newton County, And for example, we have a Houston region,
we have a Brian College Station region Fort Worth, and
there's eight throughout the State of Texas. And the unique
thing about our bank is we have we make local decisions.
(09:01):
Each region runs their bank the way they want to
run it, and we have local boards of directors for
each region. Each region has a president, CEO and so.
But we run the bank the way we want to
run it. Our board makes local decisions and the benefit
of that is our board today it consists of ten.
We have ten board members. They're all Orange Jefferson Hardin
(09:22):
County folks, and they know what's going on in our area.
They know the industrial they know what's coming, they know
about the gold triangle polymers, they know about the L
and G facilities, they know how the housing market is.
And so it really benefits us when we're making decisions
not just approving loans, but also just as far as
our growth in our region, where we want to be next,
(09:43):
where we want to grow, where do we want to
open up a new location at and so you know
with that, you know our region today we have seven locations.
We're in Orange, Maurice Field, Weider, Newton, Port Outhor Beaumont,
and Lumberton, and then we have our second location being
built in Beaumont. It'll be our eighth location Friar Region,
(10:05):
and we're building. We're at eight sixty five South eighth Street,
which is actually it's on College in eighth Street, so
it's on College. It's right next to Baptist's Hospital, and
if you haven't been in that area in a while,
it's being revitalized right now. Baptists just finished there forty
million dollar cancer facility. There's the VA Clinic coming in
(10:26):
across the street. There's just a lot of good things
happening in that area, and we're very excited. It'll be
a full service branch and it'll be fully staffed, and
we're very excited. We should be opening up right around
June first, So.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
So exciting and making local decisions makes a big difference. So,
for instance, I'll name the bank I'm working on a
transaction that there is a Chase lender involved. Okay, I'm
telling you when you go through that email, there are
eight different people's names on that email from Chase that
(11:01):
are handling that. And so when we're emailing them to
say are we closing, I can't. For a week and
a half could not get an answer, well, this is
where we are, Well, this is where we are. Well
that's not my department. That's I've ce seed so and
so it's in her department and it's frustrating. Then yesterday
(11:24):
all of a sudden, oh, we're closing tomorrow. Well, I've
said since day one my clients are out of town,
Anita heads up, and we've said that for the last
two weeks. You know, we need to know. The seller
has to plan because they want to be here for closing.
They don't want to do any other way. And so
the challenge when you're dealing with a big bank is
just that is that you're dealing with emails because you
(11:48):
it's almost impossible to get them on the phone. There's
they're in Timbuktu. There's no way I can go walk
into their office. But when it is a local person
making that decision, and I try to help all of
our clients understand that if I can walk into their
office and say, hey, if you're not answering my phone
and you're not returning my emails, I'm going to go
(12:09):
to your office and talk to you because I'm going
to hunt you down because I need a response on
an exactly. But most of the local people here they
respond to you. You know why I'm going to see
you in the grocery store.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
It's all about relationships. That's one of the that's the
biggest thing you ask the difference between us Chase US
and our competitors. It's about we value relationships and we
relationships us for everything. And so I mean we hire
bankers in their experienced bankers, but it really it boils
down to the relationships you have. We can train anybody
to be a banker, it's not rocket science, but the
(12:45):
relationship building part of it is very critical in our industry.
And just an example you have, if you have a relationship,
you're able to pick up the phone, call your banker,
call their cell phone, call your mortgage originator, whoever it
may be, and have the relationship where we can get
things moving. And then also it just with us being
local and making credit decisions, especially on the secondary mortgage side.
(13:09):
You know in our industry, you know with all the
industrial the refineries in our area, you know, we have
a lot of welders. Kind of think welders normally their
job hopping. They all make good money, but they may
be work for one company one day and then six
months later somebody else make a life overtime and so
if you're dealing with a mortgage company that's not down here,
(13:31):
they may look at their application say he's had you know,
ten jobs over the last four years. We understand that's
the norm, and so we're able to make that decision
say no, it's that's the norm for that industry, and
so able to make a proper decision.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
So yeah, and you speak South East Texas too, we do.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
We do.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
So whatever I call in any kind of terminology, you
guys understand you know when I say y'all and all
the other things that's part and I can understand you.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
And all of our bankers or our cell phones are
on our cards. I mean, we're in the community. We
get to know people were doing business with and we're
available a big phone.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Call me you need me.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
My cell phone's on my card. You can call me
Saturday morning, Sunday night, Tuesday night. I mean, I'm gonna answer.
I'll get right back with you. And that's that's what
we're here for.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Well, love that. One of the things that I think
is on top of mind for a lot of people too,
is what's going on with the interest rates. You know,
while we can't we don't can't quote anything exact. We
can talk about what happened last year is that rates
went up a bit, but we've seen that kind of
soften here exactly the last.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
So rates went up, I guess last year actually being
twenty four is when they spiked, and then last year
they started trickling down some. Actually, the FED met this week,
they finished up yesterday, and they decided to keep rates.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
There was a there.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
Was a it was questionable if they were gonna reduce
rates again to another cut or there was even topics
about high and you know, doing another hike and bumping
them up some. They decide to keep rates flat and
don't make any adjustments.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
You know.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Based on what they said, it looks like that they
may do one more rate cut in twenty six and
then possibly another rate cut next year. They meet again
in June of this year to determine kind of what
it's gonna look like. And you know, I'm still optimistic,
you know. Prior to this meeting this week, the talk
was there was gonna be two more rate cuts in
(15:30):
twenty six. Now they're saying one more rate cut in
twenty six, and so it's a I think everybody's you know,
crystal ball is about as foggy as it's ever been,
and it's kind of you know, five years ago, ten
years ago, or I guess longer than five before pre COVID,
everybody kind of had a good kind of feel and
you could really judge the market, what you know, what
(15:51):
next year is going to look like, what it's going
to like six months from now. Right now, it's hard
to make make a decision or even you know what
the future holds, because it's just like a moving target
right now.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
I agree. And same thing in real estate, you know
when people say, what are prices going to do? I've
done this thirty years, and in the first twenty three
twenty five it was so much easier. I mean, while
you couldn't predict exactly, there was a little bit of
a rhythm and you could kind of follow and flow
with it. But right now, just yesterday, I was sitting
(16:24):
at a listing appointment and talking to someone and I said,
the thing I know now is I know enough to
know I don't know. I can tell you what I
have today exactly. I can give you the information from
the last six months and what we have today, but
what's going to happen tomorrow? I don't know, and with
everything that's going on nationally, I don't think it's real
(16:46):
easy to predict that. We're hopeful. We have economists who
are telling us lots of things, but none of us
really know, and so making decisions based on what you
have today is really the best you can do. And
it's almost impossible to predict like we used to be
able to do. It's just a challenge today.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
You're one hundred percent right to do that.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
But well, when we come back, we might touch a
little bit on fraud. Something happened to me last week
and I didn't even know what happened, and First Financial
had had it under control before I even knew. So
don't go away. This is Dana Simmons. We'll be right back.
Welcome back. This is Dana Simmons and I have Blaine Kaye,
(17:26):
First Financial bank president and CEO. We've been talking a
little bit about what's going on in the market and
how our rates and what do we think is going
to happen, and both of us say we're going to
have to just watch and see. He's given us a
little insight. So if you want to go back and
listen to the first segment, we can do that on
the iHeartRadio podcast, So feel free to go back and
(17:48):
listen to any part that we did today. Also, one
of the things that we were talking about is fraud
and Blaine. That's happening a lot, and it's happening every day, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
It is, and it changes daily. It's at all time
high right now, and really right now, we're seeing a
whole new level of fraud. For for for decades, we've
seen check fraud, We've seen email compromise, we've seen where
you know, everybody's everybody's won the Nigeria lottery at some
point in their life and I've got that email and
and you get your debit card hack. But all that
(18:18):
stuff it still happens daily. But now we're seeing, well,
we're getting, you know, fraudulent statements. We're getting fraudulent tax
returns where they're just bogus, they're not even accurate. We're
getting fraudulent financial statements where somebody will send there Edward
Jones or trolls schwab statement to us and it's just
it's AI generated and it's it looks amazing. If you're
not an expert, you can't tell. I mean, it has
(18:40):
local addresses, it has a local UH representative from from
Schwab on there and it's just it is scary. And
we're seeing more and more of that. We're seeing more
AI generated where people are recording voices, they can call
in and you know, imitate you. And you know, if
you click on something, they get access to your you know,
(19:02):
access to your drive, your computer. It's so easy for
them to get your social anything about you, and then
they can call the bank and imitate you. And so
you know, one thing we have at our bank, we
have a software it's called Voice Biometrics, and it it
doesn't record your voice, but it records certain tones in
your voice and so it knows that when you call in,
it is you calling in. And so I would check
(19:25):
with your bank to see if they have that product.
But there's there's so many other products with positive pay
and just you know, text alerts and you know the
biggest thing and it kind of boils down to what
we were talking about earlier. Make sure you have a
relationship with your banker. No matter where you bank, you
need to have a relationship. But if you're at a
big bank, a national bank, you know that you know
(19:48):
you don't have a relationship. You need to get somebody
local that you could if something happens, if you something,
you see something, it doesn't sound right, you need to
build a pickfuon calls somebody and say hey, you know,
is this is this accurate? And so and with us bankers,
and I encourage a lot of business owners to do
the same. And it's unfortunate, but you can't trust anything
(20:09):
these days. You have to pick up the phone and
call your contact, call your customer, verify everything, and verify
it with the bank too. If you see something coming
across fishy, pick up the phone and call your contact
that the bank and talk to them and say, hey,
you know, is this accurate?
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yeah, it just happened to me last week. As I
was saying, I had several charges come through that were
from a company that I would charge things to. It
was a place that I shop and if my my
husband watches our account like crazy, so he's watching everything
that comes through. But if that would have come through,
(20:45):
he would have thought it was me shopping. But even
before anything happened, I got an alert that the charges
were stopped and I needed to return my card because
there was fraudulent activity. So how first Financial Bank knew
it before before my husband or I knew it because
normally he's watching everything, and so they caught that and
(21:08):
I don't even know how it happened, but I was like,
I was grateful.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
Well, I'm glad we were able to catch it. There's
there's certain things that will that will set it off
and trigger it for it to get caught. But one
thing on that topic that I will bring up it's
very important is check your accounts daily. And it's you know,
for me, there's times where I go days without checking it,
but check your account daily because that's where a lot
(21:32):
of people. You'd be surprised with a lot of small
business owners who don't check their account daily, and they'll
come to us, come to the bank and say I
had fraud, but it was you know, it was back
in January. I just now saw it. Yeah, And so
it's harder to get your money back. And so the
more you check it, the quicker you can identify it,
the quicker we can react and get your money back.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Regrettably, I got attacked on this and I have been.
I got from February to May of twenty five. It
was next level, like I had to go to the FBI.
I had to work with them. It started with a
check in the mail. So I've learned a lot. As
I go through this quick story, I'll tell you what
(22:14):
I've learned for whoever's listening to to take care of
for the future. Learn from my mistakes.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
I guess you could say, yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Checks in the mail. So the way Bumont Postal Service
works now is unless you do like a certified mail,
you go up there and you go to a location
in line. What's going to happen if you don't do
that is going to go into a bin and it's
going to sit in that bind and you know what
they don't have on that bend. They don't have cameras.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Then it's gonna ship to Houston and then over you
know what's at Houston the distribution center. No cameras. Yeah,
So in the back when they're sorting, anything goes. That's
what I've learned from the FBI and bu my PD
anything goes somehow another my routing numbers and my check
numbers got probably.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Sold on the black market. Yep, yep.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
I end up with Chase Bank being hacked, local bank
being hacked, not yours. A mortgage being hacked. They started
calling and impersonating me at the bank location, saying they
were me. They called AT and T and somehow without
(23:31):
my social Security number, convinced AT and T to reset
my SIM on my phone to one of their phones.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
So then they could log into all the banks they
realized I had, which I did not know this at
the time. This is all hindsight knowledge, and get reset
passwords to reset everything at all the banks I had. Chase,
You call Chase, I'm getting a notification of money being spent.
I'm in driving from San Antonio to Beaumont. In that
four or five hour drive, I couldn't get a human
(24:02):
being in the fraud department at Chase to communicate with
me to the point where I drove into the Chase
bank location, confirm the fraud, talk to the location, close
my accounts, and then the next few days later, got
a cashier's check, took what was remaining out, shut everything
down there. Like you don't need to do that. I'm like,
if I can't get a hold of someone to let
them know that money's being stolen in five hours.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Like, what good are you to me?
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Problem?
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Exactly, it's a problem. So I would absolutely lock your credit.
I learned that it's important because you'll get notifications. Go
to the three credit bureaus. Lock your credit down. For
the love of Sweet Baby Jesus to quote that movie,
I love it, Will Ferrell. Make sure you do not
use the same password for everything. I was guilty of that.
(24:45):
I mean, it was a good password. It wasn't just
my last name or Malley Law firm. It was better.
But I tend to use that on you know, ten
different things, and a different password on ten things because
it allows you to remember it. Go get something like Keeper,
which is an encrypted app that can be on your
phone or on your computer. Put all your family passwords,
(25:06):
everything you got in there, and every password needs to
be distinctly different. We all hate the exclamation points and
the semicolons and the up downs, left rights.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
You need that because they.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Got into my email, they got into everything, and they
were wiring money. I also learned that they, like you're
talking about, check your accounts. Unfortunately, now the text that
you get on your phone that says there's fraud going
on is the fraud if you click on it. So
now you're scared to click on the text to report
the fraud.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Well, why it is the fraud.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
That's why having a local bank that I can immediately
which is what I did when I got that message,
is immediately messaged my bank and said for First Financial
my contacts at First Financial and said what do we
need to do and they said you need a new card.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
YEP, I'll tell you a cool thing that we're doing
our bad and I don't know anybody else that's doing it.
But there's actually when you get into your online banking,
you can see all the communication where we have contacted
you text call. So if you do get a fraudulent text,
or if you get a legit text and you're like
this is this accurate?
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Is this real?
Speaker 4 (26:15):
You can go your online banking it'll say since you
a text this number regarding this, or if it's a
phone call, somebody calls you from customer service to tell
you about hey, your debit card has been hacked. You
can go in there and see the communication that that's helpful.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Yeah. The other thing that you guys do is you
have a fraud lunch and learn.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
We do.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
That is so helpful.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
We do a lot of office.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Did that and we thought we were covered. I mean,
you know, I've heard all these things. I know all
these things that you're saying. We know all that. So Michelle,
my director of operations and I she's like, okay, we'll go,
but we're already doing it all we left there with.
Because it's new, there's always something new.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
It changes. Like I said, it changes daily. There's a lot.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
But just when we think we're like all right, we're
on this, we're going to prevent it, it's something else happens,
and it's just it's it's it changes so fast.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
And and what we do.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
When we do our fraud presentations, we tried doing, we
doing for church, we doing for business, We're doing for
whoever wants to hear it. We'll do it, and we
tell you what we tell you we're seeing. Yeah, we
go in there and tell you the real life. Hey,
here's what's happened at the bank. Here's what we saw
happened last week. Here's this story, here's this story, and
just share it with you. And obviously we'll tell you
ways that you know we can prevent it. Make sure
(27:29):
your own pause to pay, make sure you're doing all
these things.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
But but it's yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
It's so helpful to have a personal example, though I
had sure it, though.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
I wish I had not. Yeah, yeah, and I guess
you can speak to this we. What I also learned is,
like you said, check your accounts regular. I mean I was.
I thought I was on it when I was when
I was being attacked, I was checking it at thought daily.
But if you miss something, I guess the institutions want you.
The financial institutions want you to report the fraud within
thirty days because a few things, I'm like, are you
(28:02):
kidding me? Like, I'm like, I'm in April, and are
you kidding me? I didn't even know they went to
my son's little personal checking account and took money two
months back. And unfortunately it was a you didn't let
us know. Sorry, we'll try to get it back, but
it's on you. So you got to report it quick.
And oh and I'm happy to plug this. I in
(28:22):
my opinion, I would never ever ever use PayPal or
those folks again. Yeah, I mean, you have no activity
for the law firm in PayPal, none, because we don't.
We just don't use PayPal much. We had it one time. Yeah,
you go and look, I'm like, you know what I
want to check on my PayPal and Venmo, which by
the way, are owned by the same people PayPal on Venmo,
(28:45):
and you're like, okay, here is a name that I
cannot enunciate or spell, who took several thousand dollars out
over the course of several days and multiple increments about
up to about ten grand in euros. But PayPal and
Venmo didn't flag it. You're saying, I haven't used it
(29:05):
at all. And then someone oversees pulls money out, does
a test run of a dollar, Yeah, does another test
run of a dollar, then pulls out about ten grand
over three days. So I disputed it with PayPal. I
sent the FBI report. I sent the By the way,
the FBI won't get involved in this. Some millions involved.
I did not have that nowhere near that, But they
(29:26):
don't get involved in some millions involved, so you can
talk to them, but nothing happens. I sent the Bullmont
PD report. I requested arbitration, and they still found that
they thought it was legitimate.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
That Yeah, thousands of dollars were stolen.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
I mean, and then you know you're talking about the
voice activation. I'm not trying to put you on the spot,
but you know, now they say, if you get a
random call, hang up because if you start talking, they
record you. Flip it around, use AI to use your
voice to now call in. So now I don't want
to answer the phone. I don't want to answer a text.
I don't want to do anything.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
You don't want to click on any email I know, don't.
It's really a sad state that we're in. And it's
why those relationships are so important that you can know
them personally and I can call Blame on his cell
phone and say, hey, what's up with this? Is this
real or is this not?
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Yeah, that's what I had to go to, where nothing
could go out unless I walked into the local bank
and said I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Yeah. Yeah. It's a really scary world. But what I
do love is that fraud presentation that First Financial Bank does.
It's free. You can do it with your civic organization,
like you said, your church, your office, and you guys
will come and give you just a whole list of
things that you can do to protect yourself.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
And we need that and it's Taylor made. We can
do it. We can do it in fifteen minutes, we
can do it in two hours. We can on what
you want to get in the weeds. You tell us
what you want.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
So that sounds great.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
I know it is so good. Well, when we come back,
we're going to talk more with Tony Malley about all
kinds of things, but we won't mention anymore fraud. I
know that had to be so tough.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
It's losing control to wake up every day and you go, now,
who has taken what is happening? Yeah, loans in your
names in control?
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Yeah, Well, I appreciate you sharing that with our audience
and hopefully they'll learn something from it and give them value.
So when we come back, we'll be visiting with Tony.
Don't go away. This is the Dana Simmons Show. Welcome back.
This is Dana Simmons, and we have been visiting with
Blan Kaye, a First Financial bank. He's the president and CEO,
(31:32):
and also Tony Malley with Melly Law Firm. Last segment,
so good. Talking about fraud and fraud is just everywhere.
Something that we ought to be talking to our family
members about. And those are things that we need to
talk to our moms, our dads. I remember having a
conversation with my dad. Don't click on anything. And then
he was something about his passport came up and he
(31:54):
clicked on it, and I'm like, Dad, don't do it.
And so I had to shut all that down. But
you know, when you're talking to fans, sometimes you got
to talk about hard things, and that's one of them.
But another item that is hard to talk about is
a state planning and wills and all of that. So, Tony,
that's something that you do on a daily basis, right,
you work through some of that.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
I as a trial lawyer, with doing personal injury, personal
injury defense, I even do breach a contract my practice.
I am not a day in, day out set your
a state planning like a CPA lawyer or trust up.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
But but you see the challenges if you've not done that, well.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Well, what I have to what I do?
Speaker 2 (32:36):
What does kem across my practice often both whether it's
call ins or involving in my cases peripherally, is no
one's taken care of planning for death. And I don't
mean like you have a lot of money, So we're
gonna set the CPA up and we're gonna set the
trust up and put it for life. That's not what
I'm talking about. I'm talking about bare bones. Do you
(32:57):
have a will? Do you have your medical power of attorney?
Do you have a statutory power attorney? For those that
don't know what that means, that means, Okay, medical is
who's going to make decisions for me if I'm I can't?
And then statutory power attorney is who's going to keep
paying my car note, who's going to keep paying my mortgage?
(33:18):
Things like that, who can go to the bank and
get some information. That's a statutory power attorney. And then
you have a medical directive, which you don't have to have.
But that's what every medical facility wants to know is
are you are we pulling the plug or not? And
if you care that much about it and you want
to some people are like, do not I want? I
want to be in a coma for twenty years or
(33:39):
another's or I want to go. Now, those are basic
four documents you've got to have that I bump into
like impersonal injury matters, you know, with wrongful death and
things like that that we almost I end up having
to do it too, and so I do a lot
of that. I do it for friends and family. It's
not something I market that I want you want to
(34:00):
come into but I think it's such an important topic
that everyone listening needs to know, even if you're not
what I would call statistically near the death age right.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
And that's a big key because you know, I have
lots of people in my world. I know that the
spouses have passed away young, and we think that that's
something that you need, you know, once you get seventy
or eighty. But you know, even my parents who are
in their eighties, man, I struggle having those conversations with
(34:32):
them and trying to get them to get together what
we need should anything happen. So even at that age,
it's hard. But those are things that even as a
young person, if you have a family, you need to
have that in place.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
There seems to be something with and you know, both
my parents think fortunately are healthy and alive and doing great,
but there seems to be something. As people get older,
they don't like putting their name down and stuff. They
don't like planning on it. The closer they get to
that that time period where they fear that something may
happen to them, they don't want to talk about it,
(35:07):
they don't want to write it down. They have this attitude.
I'll let everybody else deal with it, and you need
to deal with it because it makes it miserable for
the ones you leave behind if you did not do
a basic planning. And regrettably, terribly something recently has occurred,
and not in my family, but with one of my cases.
And you know, you have a young woman in her
(35:29):
twenties with no paperwork, and who would have thought, you know,
I need to go do a will and a power
of attorney. But there was a terrible injury, and then
that requires someone to speak on her behalf, someone to
speak to doctors. You know, a few sheets of paper
could have could alleviate that, and then there's a passing.
And then if you just had a simple, you know,
(35:50):
two page will, this is in charge now. It's not
because there's so much assets. It's really because if you
can't speak for yourself, you need to have someone who
can hand in your banks and your crept me if
from wrong, blame but your banks, because they got to
cover their rear end. They can't just have someone go
in a safety to pause a bat or even take
over a twelve hundred dollars checking account. They have to
(36:12):
have the right legal paperwork and your physicians in your hospitals.
They don't want to Okay, we are going to operate.
We're not going to operate. Do you want life support?
Do you want extra blood? Do you not want extra blood?
They have to have someone to speak to, and you
might get the right physician that will bend the rules
for you a little bit. And I don't mean that inappropriately.
I mean that in a good way. But they're really
(36:34):
supposed to have some sheet of paper once that person
is over eighteen that says they can as grim as
it feels like. It's almost like trying to do a
prenup a marriage. You feel like that means we're going
to fail. And I think a lot of people I've found,
like I don't want to do a will or a
power attorney for my twenty year old. I had my
(36:55):
eight she's twenty now. I had her come in. She's
at University of Texas. I'm like, look, sign on these
forums putting daddy in charge of you. Nothing's ever going
to happen to you, Daddy.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
You'll be great.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Yeah, everything's fine. Just sign all these forms for me, though,
in case there's a car wreck and you're in Austin,
Texas and no one will speak to us because they're
not allowed to, and I need to be able to
say something on your behalf.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Yeah, and it's sad, but in your position in doing
personal injury and that side of the law, you really
get to see the challenges and all of that, and
so that enables you to see what are the things
that need to be in place. And we don't think
about that though on a daily basis.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
And unfortunately the dark side of the human nature is
doing the personal injury work. But even just knowing my friends,
I mean, I've done some probate fights not related to
personal injury. Once someone passes. Everybody that was friends, siblings
that were getting along, everybody that was standing over the
bed that was great. They're fighting over control of the
(37:59):
estate of the and we have the twelve hundred dollars
of a stupid you know, ten thousand dollars Honda car
whatever and on up. But they're they're they're fighting over that.
And a little bit of paperwork, I mean, just bare
minimum will save.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
You, Tony.
Speaker 4 (38:13):
You can update them in anytime, anytime, So get it
done early and then throughout your life, you know, when
things change, go in and get it updated.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
It's it's it's very The basic will is very simple.
You can update all day long. We if we had
a longer show, which I'd love to come back, but
I can give some pro tips that I've seen as well.
But uh, the will is.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
What I call in like baseball, it's the backstop.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Yeah, it is not. It is essential, but it is
not what you really need for a state planning. If
if those of you that are listening right now, are
you know, have assets and cars and houses or a
second home or a beach home or or shoot, even
if you've got debt and that's your bigger problem, that's
not that's going to the bank like your place, right,
(38:59):
going to first financhel, sitting down with your banker, putting
down a payable on death beneficiary, putting down rights or survivorship.
That trumps a will, right, I'm talking about just get
the will so you're a pointing who's going to be
in charge? Who do you want coordinating everything when you're gone?
And then there's multiple steps. As I tell people, the
(39:20):
will is really just the bare minimum.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
Yeah, and you know, the topics we've covered today have
been kind of hard because they're not happy topics. When
we're talking about fraud when we're talking about the need
for you know, a will or the documents that you're
talking about. But those are things we have to have
conversations about in order to not get caught with challenging situations. Now, Tony,
(39:43):
we don't have a lot more time today, and yes,
we will definitely have you back. But if someone has
questions based on the things that you've said, how would
someone get in touch with you to visit with you
about you know, how you can help them in different ways.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Malley Law Firm has a website. It is currently being remodeled.
I felt like it was a little bit dated. I'm
a ball guy and it's basically the point now where
I need to update and make it look a little pressure.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
But now, did you have hair in that old website?
Speaker 3 (40:10):
That website is almost that old.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
So but Mally Law Firm has a contact form and
in about a month it'll have an entirely new site.
But we have a contact forming and reach out. And
I'm local. I have a Houston office and I've had
a Beaumont office off a Dallen Road right there at
Wellington Circle by Rogers Park, and they are welcome to
reach out to us.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
And you can google your telephone number.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
You can google me and you can find me quick.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Yeah sounds great. Well, it has been such a pleasure
to have you and yes that you have a lot
of information to give and we will definitely have you
back on the show. Blaine, thank you for being on
the show. If someone wants to get in touch with you,
how would they contact you or get in touch with
anyone at First Financial Bank.
Speaker 4 (40:54):
Com by any of our locations. We're always willing to
help you out. You can look us up on our
website FF dot com or you can uh, you can
even reach me. I'll give you my My direct office
is a four oh nine six seven zero nine four
five to one, And I tell everybody I don't know
all the answers, but I got a team that does,
and I'll get you in touch with somebody that can
(41:14):
help you out.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
So yeah, and you can make applications on that website
as well. Well. This has been a great show, And
while it has been a little bit of a harder,
heavier show, I think it's so beneficial for people to
be educated on things so that they're not put in
the situations like which you are Tony and UH be
able to make better choices to have better outcomes. So
hope you are having a wonderful Saturday. Go out there
(41:37):
and bless someone's life. This is the Dana Simmons Show.
Hello, Southeast Texas. I hope you're enjoying this beautiful day.
I am so excited to share some incredible topics with
you today with Blaine Kaye with First Financial Bank, also
Tony Malley with Malle Law Firm. They are going to
be discussing so many different things that are going to
apply to you, So stay tuned. You're not going to
want to miss it. But for most of the people
(00:21):
out there, you really have been asking me, Dana, how's
the market, you know, with things that are going on nationally,
things that are going on locally, what is the market doing.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Well.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
We did start to see a little bit of a
pickup in our market and the phones have been ringing,
and we are hopeful that in the next couple of
weeks and months that the market will continue to grow.
You know, we have billions of dollars of economic growth
happening here in Southeast Texas. So the outlook is definitely positive.
The FED didn't raise rates the last time, and so
(00:56):
that's a positive note. We have Lauren with the National
Association of Realtors, just spoke a couple of weeks ago
and seems to think there are some positive things potentially
coming for us, So I'd say the outlook is good
and we will be cautiously optimistic as we move forward
(01:17):
into the summer. But before we get there, if you
have any questions, thoughts and you need to know how
is the market in your specific neighborhood. You know that's
what we do every day, so we'd love to sit
down and visit with you. You can call my office
at four O nine eight six six eight three two six,
visit with one of my team members and we can
(01:37):
set an appointment to review what are your goals, what
do you have, and what do we think the market
is doing in your neighborhood. But if you want to
do something just for fun, you can go onto our
website Dana Simons real estate dot com and you can
fill out one of our little tools that will give
you an estimate of your market value. Now, of course
it's AI driven, and AI, while it's good, doesn't replace
(02:00):
people and they don't consider all the little things that
you've done to your home the way we do. So
just for fun, you can fill that out and it'll
give you at least an estimate of where your value
may be. That's Dana Simmons real Estate dot com and
you can look up your value. We're going to go
ahead and get started, and before we talk business, I'd
(02:20):
like for you to get to know the guests for
just a bit, so blame Kaya. You've been here for
a while in Southeast Texas, so tell me a little
bit about Tell I know a little bit about you,
but tell everyone else a little bit about you.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Yeah, I am.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
I am currently I'm the president's CEO of First Financial
Bank for our Southeast Texas region. I am born and
raised here in Southeast Texas, live in Orange. My family's
all from Orange and I've been here my whole life.
So I'm a graduate from Lamar University and have been
with the bank for roughly about fifteen years and married
to my wife, Regina. We have three kids, Clara, Jet
(02:55):
and Gabrielle, and they are a handful, but they're the
thing that's ever happened to us. But very active in
the community. Serve on several local boards throughout Orange and
Jefferson County. But really we're just very excited to be
on the show today and thank you for having us.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Yeah, and I'll tell you those three kids you and
Regina make beautiful children. I'm telling you. Those are the
cutest kids, and I don't know how you keep up.
I mean, I see you guys on Facebook and I'm like,
how in the world do you do it?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
All?
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Regina there?
Speaker 4 (03:30):
Regina, Regina, Regina lovely for her she drives the bus
and keeps them in line, and without her it would
not be possible.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Well, she does a great job. And I love that
they're involved in so many things and so many activities.
And that's the one benefit to Facebook. You get to
enjoy those kinds of things there. You know, there are
so many things about it that are pooky.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Yep, I agree, but that's.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
One of the things I really love is that I
don't get to see you that often and see your kids.
But what's great is that I I get to see
them on Facebook and watch how they're growing.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
I agree.
Speaker 4 (04:03):
Now, I'm the exact same way with other with with
people that I haven't seen in years. You get to
keep up with them and keep up with their family
and how they're doing.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
So it's a great tool for that. It is also
with us Tony Malley and you are with Malle Law Firm.
I am just happens to be your last name.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Conveniently yeah, yeah, I had. I worked for more Landry
law firm before that, and there was Floyd Landry and
he was in a way a mentor to me, a
great guy. And he came into my office one day
and he slapped his legs. He's real vocal, out spoken.
He slapped his thighs and he said, Tony boy, don't
(04:42):
you ever work your whole life at a place that
doesn't have your name on the door. And he walked out.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Now I always wanted my own firm, But when he
said that, and it's more Landry, Yeah, his name on it,
I thought, maybe it's time we get moving. So, yeah,
I have my own firm. I have a lawyer that
works for me, some staff. We are based out of
Beaumont office in Houston. We handle litigation all over Texas.
(05:12):
We're a little bit in Florida, We're a little bit
in Tennessee, Louisiana.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
We're everywhere.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
I've stayed in Beaumont because it's where I was born
and raised, where my parents are. I grew up here,
high school, grade school, raised three kids here, have my
wife of twenty two years, and then I've started a
real estate brokerage. We do farm and ranch all over
the state, and so that's called Texas Land Brokers. And
maybe one of these kids that I'm spending so much
(05:37):
money on for college and school will roll in and
take over one of these things that has their name
on it.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Absolutely what a gift, you know. I worked for another
broker for twenty three years before I ever opened my
own as well. And now my daughter, who went to
school to be a speech therapist and was a director
of rehab, is now our broker also with me at
my office and has been you know, she did real
estate while she was in college going to college, so
(06:05):
she's had our license for you know, fifteen years or something.
But yeah, it is really nice to be able to
have one of your kids come into the business with
you and to be able to participate in that.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah, I would love to work with one more, all
of my children and probably also strangle them at the
same time we work.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
So that's part of it, though, you know. I mean
there are moments, and I will tell you there are
moments that we don't see eye to eye, But on
most days it's a joy to get to work with
your to work with your own flesh and blood. And
then of course as grandchildren come, it enables you because
you know, every now and then she'll bring her daughter
(06:45):
in Hattie, which I absolutely adore, and she can break
into my office any time of day that she wants to.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
So that's fantastic. But I'm only like one or two
years removed from Weston Little League.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
They're pushing it. Yeah for that, Yeah, yeah, you have
a little bit of time left before you get to
that grandparent stage. Well, we have an exciting show, and
I am thrilled that our guests are born and raised
local people. That's one of the things I love about
Southeast Texas is that I love when people grow up here,
(07:19):
go to college and bring their businesses back here if
they want to May to college, or if they go
to college here at Lamar, and then they stay in
our community. It's how we're going to grow our community
to be a better place. And so I love that
both of you are local community people. When we come back,
we're going to connect with Blaine and talk a little
(07:40):
bit about what is going on in the financial world
and how can that apply to you. So don't go away.
This is the Dana Simmons Show. Welcome back. This is
Dana Simmons and I am joined today by Blaine Kaye,
First Financial Bank, President and CEO of Southeast Texas First
Financial Bank, and also Tony Malley with law firm. But
(08:01):
first we're gonna chat with Blaine a little bit. And Blaine,
let's talk a little bit about First Financial Bank. So,
you know, there is a difference in the way banks
do business. There is a little bit about what First
Financial Bank does and how it is different than other banks.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
Absolutely, you know, first, I'll kind of tell you a
little about First Financial Bank. So a lot of people
that are listening today you'll probably remember the name Orange
Savings Bank. That's kind of where I started. And then
we sold the First Financial Bank about twelve years ago.
And so First Financial Bank. We're headquartered in Abilene, Texas,
where Texas based bank. We're about fourteen billion in assets.
(08:38):
We're pretty pretty good sized community bank. But we operate
as eight regional banks throughout the state of Texas. So
my region is the Southeast Texas region, and it's Orange, Jefferson, Hardin,
and Newton County, And for example, we have a Houston region,
we have a Brian College Station region Fort Worth, and
there's eight throughout the State of Texas. And the unique
thing about our bank is we have we make local decisions.
(09:01):
Each region runs their bank the way they want to
run it, and we have local boards of directors for
each region. Each region has a president, CEO and so.
But we run the bank the way we want to
run it. Our board makes local decisions and the benefit
of that is our board today it consists of ten.
We have ten board members. They're all Orange Jefferson Hardin
(09:22):
County folks, and they know what's going on in our area.
They know the industrial they know what's coming, they know
about the gold triangle polymers, they know about the L
and G facilities, they know how the housing market is.
And so it really benefits us when we're making decisions
not just approving loans, but also just as far as
our growth in our region, where we want to be next,
(09:43):
where we want to grow, where do we want to
open up a new location at and so you know
with that, you know our region today we have seven locations.
We're in Orange, Maurice Field, Weider, Newton, Port Outhor Beaumont,
and Lumberton, and then we have our second location being
built in Beaumont. It'll be our eighth location Friar Region,
(10:05):
and we're building. We're at eight sixty five South eighth Street,
which is actually it's on College in eighth Street, so
it's on College. It's right next to Baptist's Hospital, and
if you haven't been in that area in a while,
it's being revitalized right now. Baptists just finished there forty
million dollar cancer facility. There's the VA Clinic coming in
(10:26):
across the street. There's just a lot of good things
happening in that area, and we're very excited. It'll be
a full service branch and it'll be fully staffed, and
we're very excited. We should be opening up right around
June first, So.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
So exciting and making local decisions makes a big difference. So,
for instance, I'll name the bank I'm working on a
transaction that there is a Chase lender involved. Okay, I'm
telling you when you go through that email, there are
eight different people's names on that email from Chase that
(11:01):
are handling that. And so when we're emailing them to
say are we closing, I can't. For a week and
a half could not get an answer, well, this is
where we are, Well, this is where we are. Well
that's not my department. That's I've ce seed so and
so it's in her department and it's frustrating. Then yesterday
(11:24):
all of a sudden, oh, we're closing tomorrow. Well, I've
said since day one my clients are out of town,
Anita heads up, and we've said that for the last
two weeks. You know, we need to know. The seller
has to plan because they want to be here for closing.
They don't want to do any other way. And so
the challenge when you're dealing with a big bank is
just that is that you're dealing with emails because you
(11:48):
it's almost impossible to get them on the phone. There's
they're in Timbuktu. There's no way I can go walk
into their office. But when it is a local person
making that decision, and I try to help all of
our clients understand that if I can walk into their
office and say, hey, if you're not answering my phone
and you're not returning my emails, I'm going to go
(12:09):
to your office and talk to you because I'm going
to hunt you down because I need a response on
an exactly. But most of the local people here they
respond to you. You know why I'm going to see
you in the grocery store.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
It's all about relationships. That's one of the that's the
biggest thing you ask the difference between us Chase US
and our competitors. It's about we value relationships and we
relationships us for everything. And so I mean we hire
bankers in their experienced bankers, but it really it boils
down to the relationships you have. We can train anybody
to be a banker, it's not rocket science, but the
(12:45):
relationship building part of it is very critical in our industry.
And just an example you have, if you have a relationship,
you're able to pick up the phone, call your banker,
call their cell phone, call your mortgage originator, whoever it
may be, and have the relationship where we can get
things moving. And then also it just with us being
local and making credit decisions, especially on the secondary mortgage side.
(13:09):
You know in our industry, you know with all the
industrial the refineries in our area, you know, we have
a lot of welders. Kind of think welders normally their
job hopping. They all make good money, but they may
be work for one company one day and then six
months later somebody else make a life overtime and so
if you're dealing with a mortgage company that's not down here,
(13:31):
they may look at their application say he's had you know,
ten jobs over the last four years. We understand that's
the norm, and so we're able to make that decision
say no, it's that's the norm for that industry, and
so able to make a proper decision.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
So yeah, and you speak South East Texas too, we do.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
We do.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
So whatever I call in any kind of terminology, you
guys understand you know when I say y'all and all
the other things that's part and I can understand you.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
And all of our bankers or our cell phones are
on our cards. I mean, we're in the community. We
get to know people were doing business with and we're
available a big phone.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Call me you need me.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
My cell phone's on my card. You can call me
Saturday morning, Sunday night, Tuesday night. I mean, I'm gonna answer.
I'll get right back with you. And that's that's what
we're here for.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Well, love that. One of the things that I think
is on top of mind for a lot of people too,
is what's going on with the interest rates. You know,
while we can't we don't can't quote anything exact. We
can talk about what happened last year is that rates
went up a bit, but we've seen that kind of
soften here exactly the last.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
So rates went up, I guess last year actually being
twenty four is when they spiked, and then last year
they started trickling down some. Actually, the FED met this week,
they finished up yesterday, and they decided to keep rates.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
There was a there.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
Was a it was questionable if they were gonna reduce
rates again to another cut or there was even topics
about high and you know, doing another hike and bumping
them up some. They decide to keep rates flat and
don't make any adjustments.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
You know.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Based on what they said, it looks like that they
may do one more rate cut in twenty six and
then possibly another rate cut next year. They meet again
in June of this year to determine kind of what
it's gonna look like. And you know, I'm still optimistic,
you know. Prior to this meeting this week, the talk
was there was gonna be two more rate cuts in
(15:30):
twenty six. Now they're saying one more rate cut in
twenty six, and so it's a I think everybody's you know,
crystal ball is about as foggy as it's ever been,
and it's kind of you know, five years ago, ten
years ago, or I guess longer than five before pre COVID,
everybody kind of had a good kind of feel and
you could really judge the market, what you know, what
(15:51):
next year is going to look like, what it's going
to like six months from now. Right now, it's hard
to make make a decision or even you know what
the future holds, because it's just like a moving target
right now.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
I agree. And same thing in real estate, you know
when people say, what are prices going to do? I've
done this thirty years, and in the first twenty three
twenty five it was so much easier. I mean, while
you couldn't predict exactly, there was a little bit of
a rhythm and you could kind of follow and flow
with it. But right now, just yesterday, I was sitting
(16:24):
at a listing appointment and talking to someone and I said,
the thing I know now is I know enough to
know I don't know. I can tell you what I
have today exactly. I can give you the information from
the last six months and what we have today, but
what's going to happen tomorrow? I don't know, and with
everything that's going on nationally, I don't think it's real
(16:46):
easy to predict that. We're hopeful. We have economists who
are telling us lots of things, but none of us
really know, and so making decisions based on what you
have today is really the best you can do. And
it's almost impossible to predict like we used to be
able to do. It's just a challenge today.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
You're one hundred percent right to do that.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
But well, when we come back, we might touch a
little bit on fraud. Something happened to me last week
and I didn't even know what happened, and First Financial
had had it under control before I even knew. So
don't go away. This is Dana Simmons. We'll be right back.
Welcome back. This is Dana Simmons and I have Blaine Kaye,
(17:26):
First Financial bank president and CEO. We've been talking a
little bit about what's going on in the market and
how our rates and what do we think is going
to happen, and both of us say we're going to
have to just watch and see. He's given us a
little insight. So if you want to go back and
listen to the first segment, we can do that on
the iHeartRadio podcast, So feel free to go back and
(17:48):
listen to any part that we did today. Also, one
of the things that we were talking about is fraud
and Blaine. That's happening a lot, and it's happening every day, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
It is, and it changes daily. It's at all time
high right now, and really right now, we're seeing a
whole new level of fraud. For for for decades, we've
seen check fraud, We've seen email compromise, we've seen where
you know, everybody's everybody's won the Nigeria lottery at some
point in their life and I've got that email and
and you get your debit card hack. But all that
(18:18):
stuff it still happens daily. But now we're seeing, well,
we're getting, you know, fraudulent statements. We're getting fraudulent tax
returns where they're just bogus, they're not even accurate. We're
getting fraudulent financial statements where somebody will send there Edward
Jones or trolls schwab statement to us and it's just
it's AI generated and it's it looks amazing. If you're
not an expert, you can't tell. I mean, it has
(18:40):
local addresses, it has a local UH representative from from
Schwab on there and it's just it is scary. And
we're seeing more and more of that. We're seeing more
AI generated where people are recording voices, they can call
in and you know, imitate you. And you know, if
you click on something, they get access to your you know,
(19:02):
access to your drive, your computer. It's so easy for
them to get your social anything about you, and then
they can call the bank and imitate you. And so
you know, one thing we have at our bank, we
have a software it's called Voice Biometrics, and it it
doesn't record your voice, but it records certain tones in
your voice and so it knows that when you call in,
it is you calling in. And so I would check
(19:25):
with your bank to see if they have that product.
But there's there's so many other products with positive pay
and just you know, text alerts and you know the
biggest thing and it kind of boils down to what
we were talking about earlier. Make sure you have a
relationship with your banker. No matter where you bank, you
need to have a relationship. But if you're at a
big bank, a national bank, you know that you know
(19:48):
you don't have a relationship. You need to get somebody
local that you could if something happens, if you something,
you see something, it doesn't sound right, you need to
build a pickfuon calls somebody and say hey, you know,
is this is this accurate? And so and with us bankers,
and I encourage a lot of business owners to do
the same. And it's unfortunate, but you can't trust anything
(20:09):
these days. You have to pick up the phone and
call your contact, call your customer, verify everything, and verify
it with the bank too. If you see something coming
across fishy, pick up the phone and call your contact
that the bank and talk to them and say, hey,
you know, is this accurate?
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yeah, it just happened to me last week. As I
was saying, I had several charges come through that were
from a company that I would charge things to. It
was a place that I shop and if my my
husband watches our account like crazy, so he's watching everything
that comes through. But if that would have come through,
(20:45):
he would have thought it was me shopping. But even
before anything happened, I got an alert that the charges
were stopped and I needed to return my card because
there was fraudulent activity. So how first Financial Bank knew
it before before my husband or I knew it because
normally he's watching everything, and so they caught that and
(21:08):
I don't even know how it happened, but I was like,
I was grateful.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
Well, I'm glad we were able to catch it. There's
there's certain things that will that will set it off
and trigger it for it to get caught. But one
thing on that topic that I will bring up it's
very important is check your accounts daily. And it's you know,
for me, there's times where I go days without checking it,
but check your account daily because that's where a lot
(21:32):
of people. You'd be surprised with a lot of small
business owners who don't check their account daily, and they'll
come to us, come to the bank and say I
had fraud, but it was you know, it was back
in January. I just now saw it. Yeah, And so
it's harder to get your money back. And so the
more you check it, the quicker you can identify it,
the quicker we can react and get your money back.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Regrettably, I got attacked on this and I have been.
I got from February to May of twenty five. It
was next level, like I had to go to the FBI.
I had to work with them. It started with a
check in the mail. So I've learned a lot. As
I go through this quick story, I'll tell you what
(22:14):
I've learned for whoever's listening to to take care of
for the future. Learn from my mistakes.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
I guess you could say, yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Checks in the mail. So the way Bumont Postal Service
works now is unless you do like a certified mail,
you go up there and you go to a location
in line. What's going to happen if you don't do
that is going to go into a bin and it's
going to sit in that bind and you know what
they don't have on that bend. They don't have cameras.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Then it's gonna ship to Houston and then over you
know what's at Houston the distribution center. No cameras. Yeah,
So in the back when they're sorting, anything goes. That's
what I've learned from the FBI and bu my PD
anything goes somehow another my routing numbers and my check
numbers got probably.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Sold on the black market. Yep, yep.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
I end up with Chase Bank being hacked, local bank
being hacked, not yours. A mortgage being hacked. They started
calling and impersonating me at the bank location, saying they
were me. They called AT and T and somehow without
(23:31):
my social Security number, convinced AT and T to reset
my SIM on my phone to one of their phones.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
So then they could log into all the banks they
realized I had, which I did not know this at
the time. This is all hindsight knowledge, and get reset
passwords to reset everything at all the banks I had. Chase,
You call Chase, I'm getting a notification of money being spent.
I'm in driving from San Antonio to Beaumont. In that
four or five hour drive, I couldn't get a human
(24:02):
being in the fraud department at Chase to communicate with
me to the point where I drove into the Chase
bank location, confirm the fraud, talk to the location, close
my accounts, and then the next few days later, got
a cashier's check, took what was remaining out, shut everything
down there. Like you don't need to do that. I'm like,
if I can't get a hold of someone to let
them know that money's being stolen in five hours.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Like, what good are you to me?
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Problem?
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Exactly, it's a problem. So I would absolutely lock your credit.
I learned that it's important because you'll get notifications. Go
to the three credit bureaus. Lock your credit down. For
the love of Sweet Baby Jesus to quote that movie,
I love it, Will Ferrell. Make sure you do not
use the same password for everything. I was guilty of that.
(24:45):
I mean, it was a good password. It wasn't just
my last name or Malley Law firm. It was better.
But I tend to use that on you know, ten
different things, and a different password on ten things because
it allows you to remember it. Go get something like Keeper,
which is an encrypted app that can be on your
phone or on your computer. Put all your family passwords,
(25:06):
everything you got in there, and every password needs to
be distinctly different. We all hate the exclamation points and
the semicolons and the up downs, left rights.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
You need that because they.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Got into my email, they got into everything, and they
were wiring money. I also learned that they, like you're
talking about, check your accounts. Unfortunately, now the text that
you get on your phone that says there's fraud going
on is the fraud if you click on it. So
now you're scared to click on the text to report
the fraud.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Well, why it is the fraud.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
That's why having a local bank that I can immediately
which is what I did when I got that message,
is immediately messaged my bank and said for First Financial
my contacts at First Financial and said what do we
need to do and they said you need a new card.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
YEP, I'll tell you a cool thing that we're doing
our bad and I don't know anybody else that's doing it.
But there's actually when you get into your online banking,
you can see all the communication where we have contacted
you text call. So if you do get a fraudulent text,
or if you get a legit text and you're like
this is this accurate?
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Is this real?
Speaker 4 (26:15):
You can go your online banking it'll say since you
a text this number regarding this, or if it's a
phone call, somebody calls you from customer service to tell
you about hey, your debit card has been hacked. You
can go in there and see the communication that that's helpful.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Yeah. The other thing that you guys do is you
have a fraud lunch and learn.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
We do.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
That is so helpful.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
We do a lot of office.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Did that and we thought we were covered. I mean,
you know, I've heard all these things. I know all
these things that you're saying. We know all that. So Michelle,
my director of operations and I she's like, okay, we'll go,
but we're already doing it all we left there with.
Because it's new, there's always something new.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
It changes. Like I said, it changes daily. There's a lot.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
But just when we think we're like all right, we're
on this, we're going to prevent it, it's something else happens,
and it's just it's it's it changes so fast.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
And and what we do.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
When we do our fraud presentations, we tried doing, we
doing for church, we doing for business, We're doing for
whoever wants to hear it. We'll do it, and we
tell you what we tell you we're seeing. Yeah, we
go in there and tell you the real life. Hey,
here's what's happened at the bank. Here's what we saw
happened last week. Here's this story, here's this story, and
just share it with you. And obviously we'll tell you
ways that you know we can prevent it. Make sure
(27:29):
your own pause to pay, make sure you're doing all
these things.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
But but it's yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
It's so helpful to have a personal example, though I
had sure it, though.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
I wish I had not. Yeah, yeah, and I guess
you can speak to this we. What I also learned is,
like you said, check your accounts regular. I mean I was.
I thought I was on it when I was when
I was being attacked, I was checking it at thought daily.
But if you miss something, I guess the institutions want you.
The financial institutions want you to report the fraud within
thirty days because a few things, I'm like, are you
(28:02):
kidding me? Like, I'm like, I'm in April, and are
you kidding me? I didn't even know they went to
my son's little personal checking account and took money two
months back. And unfortunately it was a you didn't let
us know. Sorry, we'll try to get it back, but
it's on you. So you got to report it quick.
And oh and I'm happy to plug this. I in
(28:22):
my opinion, I would never ever ever use PayPal or
those folks again. Yeah, I mean, you have no activity
for the law firm in PayPal, none, because we don't.
We just don't use PayPal much. We had it one time. Yeah,
you go and look, I'm like, you know what I
want to check on my PayPal and Venmo, which by
the way, are owned by the same people PayPal on Venmo,
(28:45):
and you're like, okay, here is a name that I
cannot enunciate or spell, who took several thousand dollars out
over the course of several days and multiple increments about
up to about ten grand in euros. But PayPal and
Venmo didn't flag it. You're saying, I haven't used it
(29:05):
at all. And then someone oversees pulls money out, does
a test run of a dollar, Yeah, does another test
run of a dollar, then pulls out about ten grand
over three days. So I disputed it with PayPal. I
sent the FBI report. I sent the By the way,
the FBI won't get involved in this. Some millions involved.
I did not have that nowhere near that, But they
(29:26):
don't get involved in some millions involved, so you can
talk to them, but nothing happens. I sent the Bullmont
PD report. I requested arbitration, and they still found that
they thought it was legitimate.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
That Yeah, thousands of dollars were stolen.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
I mean, and then you know you're talking about the
voice activation. I'm not trying to put you on the spot,
but you know, now they say, if you get a
random call, hang up because if you start talking, they
record you. Flip it around, use AI to use your
voice to now call in. So now I don't want
to answer the phone. I don't want to answer a text.
I don't want to do anything.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
You don't want to click on any email I know, don't.
It's really a sad state that we're in. And it's
why those relationships are so important that you can know
them personally and I can call Blame on his cell
phone and say, hey, what's up with this? Is this
real or is this not?
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Yeah, that's what I had to go to, where nothing
could go out unless I walked into the local bank
and said I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Yeah. Yeah. It's a really scary world. But what I
do love is that fraud presentation that First Financial Bank does.
It's free. You can do it with your civic organization,
like you said, your church, your office, and you guys
will come and give you just a whole list of
things that you can do to protect yourself.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
And we need that and it's Taylor made. We can
do it. We can do it in fifteen minutes, we
can do it in two hours. We can on what
you want to get in the weeds. You tell us
what you want.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
So that sounds great.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
I know it is so good. Well, when we come back,
we're going to talk more with Tony Malley about all
kinds of things, but we won't mention anymore fraud. I
know that had to be so tough.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
It's losing control to wake up every day and you go, now,
who has taken what is happening? Yeah, loans in your
names in control?
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Yeah, Well, I appreciate you sharing that with our audience
and hopefully they'll learn something from it and give them value.
So when we come back, we'll be visiting with Tony.
Don't go away. This is the Dana Simmons Show. Welcome back.
This is Dana Simmons, and we have been visiting with
Blan Kaye, a First Financial bank. He's the president and CEO,
(31:32):
and also Tony Malley with Melly Law Firm. Last segment,
so good. Talking about fraud and fraud is just everywhere.
Something that we ought to be talking to our family
members about. And those are things that we need to
talk to our moms, our dads. I remember having a
conversation with my dad. Don't click on anything. And then
he was something about his passport came up and he
(31:54):
clicked on it, and I'm like, Dad, don't do it.
And so I had to shut all that down. But
you know, when you're talking to fans, sometimes you got
to talk about hard things, and that's one of them.
But another item that is hard to talk about is
a state planning and wills and all of that. So, Tony,
that's something that you do on a daily basis, right,
you work through some of that.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
I as a trial lawyer, with doing personal injury, personal
injury defense, I even do breach a contract my practice.
I am not a day in, day out set your
a state planning like a CPA lawyer or trust up.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
But but you see the challenges if you've not done that, well.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Well, what I have to what I do?
Speaker 2 (32:36):
What does kem across my practice often both whether it's
call ins or involving in my cases peripherally, is no
one's taken care of planning for death. And I don't
mean like you have a lot of money, So we're
gonna set the CPA up and we're gonna set the
trust up and put it for life. That's not what
I'm talking about. I'm talking about bare bones. Do you
(32:57):
have a will? Do you have your medical power of attorney?
Do you have a statutory power attorney? For those that
don't know what that means, that means, Okay, medical is
who's going to make decisions for me if I'm I can't?
And then statutory power attorney is who's going to keep
paying my car note, who's going to keep paying my mortgage?
(33:18):
Things like that, who can go to the bank and
get some information. That's a statutory power attorney. And then
you have a medical directive, which you don't have to have.
But that's what every medical facility wants to know is
are you are we pulling the plug or not? And
if you care that much about it and you want
to some people are like, do not I want? I
want to be in a coma for twenty years or
(33:39):
another's or I want to go. Now, those are basic
four documents you've got to have that I bump into
like impersonal injury matters, you know, with wrongful death and
things like that that we almost I end up having
to do it too, and so I do a lot
of that. I do it for friends and family. It's
not something I market that I want you want to
(34:00):
come into but I think it's such an important topic
that everyone listening needs to know, even if you're not
what I would call statistically near the death age right.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
And that's a big key because you know, I have
lots of people in my world. I know that the
spouses have passed away young, and we think that that's
something that you need, you know, once you get seventy
or eighty. But you know, even my parents who are
in their eighties, man, I struggle having those conversations with
(34:32):
them and trying to get them to get together what
we need should anything happen. So even at that age,
it's hard. But those are things that even as a
young person, if you have a family, you need to
have that in place.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
There seems to be something with and you know, both
my parents think fortunately are healthy and alive and doing great,
but there seems to be something. As people get older,
they don't like putting their name down and stuff. They
don't like planning on it. The closer they get to
that that time period where they fear that something may
happen to them, they don't want to talk about it,
(35:07):
they don't want to write it down. They have this attitude.
I'll let everybody else deal with it, and you need
to deal with it because it makes it miserable for
the ones you leave behind if you did not do
a basic planning. And regrettably, terribly something recently has occurred,
and not in my family, but with one of my cases.
And you know, you have a young woman in her
(35:29):
twenties with no paperwork, and who would have thought, you know,
I need to go do a will and a power
of attorney. But there was a terrible injury, and then
that requires someone to speak on her behalf, someone to
speak to doctors. You know, a few sheets of paper
could have could alleviate that, and then there's a passing.
And then if you just had a simple, you know,
(35:50):
two page will, this is in charge now. It's not
because there's so much assets. It's really because if you
can't speak for yourself, you need to have someone who
can hand in your banks and your crept me if
from wrong, blame but your banks, because they got to
cover their rear end. They can't just have someone go
in a safety to pause a bat or even take
over a twelve hundred dollars checking account. They have to
(36:12):
have the right legal paperwork and your physicians in your hospitals.
They don't want to Okay, we are going to operate.
We're not going to operate. Do you want life support?
Do you want extra blood? Do you not want extra blood?
They have to have someone to speak to, and you
might get the right physician that will bend the rules
for you a little bit. And I don't mean that inappropriately.
I mean that in a good way. But they're really
(36:34):
supposed to have some sheet of paper once that person
is over eighteen that says they can as grim as
it feels like. It's almost like trying to do a
prenup a marriage. You feel like that means we're going
to fail. And I think a lot of people I've found,
like I don't want to do a will or a
power attorney for my twenty year old. I had my
(36:55):
eight she's twenty now. I had her come in. She's
at University of Texas. I'm like, look, sign on these
forums putting daddy in charge of you. Nothing's ever going
to happen to you, Daddy.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
You'll be great.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Yeah, everything's fine. Just sign all these forms for me, though,
in case there's a car wreck and you're in Austin,
Texas and no one will speak to us because they're
not allowed to, and I need to be able to
say something on your behalf.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Yeah, and it's sad, but in your position in doing
personal injury and that side of the law, you really
get to see the challenges and all of that, and
so that enables you to see what are the things
that need to be in place. And we don't think
about that though on a daily basis.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
And unfortunately the dark side of the human nature is
doing the personal injury work. But even just knowing my friends,
I mean, I've done some probate fights not related to
personal injury. Once someone passes. Everybody that was friends, siblings
that were getting along, everybody that was standing over the
bed that was great. They're fighting over control of the
(37:59):
estate of the and we have the twelve hundred dollars
of a stupid you know, ten thousand dollars Honda car
whatever and on up. But they're they're they're fighting over that.
And a little bit of paperwork, I mean, just bare
minimum will save.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
You, Tony.
Speaker 4 (38:13):
You can update them in anytime, anytime, So get it
done early and then throughout your life, you know, when
things change, go in and get it updated.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
It's it's it's very The basic will is very simple.
You can update all day long. We if we had
a longer show, which I'd love to come back, but
I can give some pro tips that I've seen as well.
But uh, the will is.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
What I call in like baseball, it's the backstop.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Yeah, it is not. It is essential, but it is
not what you really need for a state planning. If
if those of you that are listening right now, are
you know, have assets and cars and houses or a
second home or a beach home or or shoot, even
if you've got debt and that's your bigger problem, that's
not that's going to the bank like your place, right,
(38:59):
going to first financhel, sitting down with your banker, putting
down a payable on death beneficiary, putting down rights or survivorship.
That trumps a will, right, I'm talking about just get
the will so you're a pointing who's going to be
in charge? Who do you want coordinating everything when you're gone?
And then there's multiple steps. As I tell people, the
(39:20):
will is really just the bare minimum.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
Yeah, and you know, the topics we've covered today have
been kind of hard because they're not happy topics. When
we're talking about fraud when we're talking about the need
for you know, a will or the documents that you're
talking about. But those are things we have to have
conversations about in order to not get caught with challenging situations. Now, Tony,
(39:43):
we don't have a lot more time today, and yes,
we will definitely have you back. But if someone has
questions based on the things that you've said, how would
someone get in touch with you to visit with you
about you know, how you can help them in different ways.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Malley Law Firm has a website. It is currently being remodeled.
I felt like it was a little bit dated. I'm
a ball guy and it's basically the point now where
I need to update and make it look a little pressure.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
But now, did you have hair in that old website?
Speaker 3 (40:10):
That website is almost that old.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
So but Mally Law Firm has a contact form and
in about a month it'll have an entirely new site.
But we have a contact forming and reach out. And
I'm local. I have a Houston office and I've had
a Beaumont office off a Dallen Road right there at
Wellington Circle by Rogers Park, and they are welcome to
reach out to us.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
And you can google your telephone number.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
You can google me and you can find me quick.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Yeah sounds great. Well, it has been such a pleasure
to have you and yes that you have a lot
of information to give and we will definitely have you
back on the show. Blaine, thank you for being on
the show. If someone wants to get in touch with you,
how would they contact you or get in touch with
anyone at First Financial Bank.
Speaker 4 (40:54):
Com by any of our locations. We're always willing to
help you out. You can look us up on our
website FF dot com or you can uh, you can
even reach me. I'll give you my My direct office
is a four oh nine six seven zero nine four
five to one, And I tell everybody I don't know
all the answers, but I got a team that does,
and I'll get you in touch with somebody that can
(41:14):
help you out.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
So yeah, and you can make applications on that website
as well. Well. This has been a great show, And
while it has been a little bit of a harder,
heavier show, I think it's so beneficial for people to
be educated on things so that they're not put in
the situations like which you are Tony and UH be
able to make better choices to have better outcomes. So
hope you are having a wonderful Saturday. Go out there
(41:37):
and bless someone's life. This is the Dana Simmons Show.
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