The Troubleshooter 06-08-26

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Forty five years strong, solving your problems, answering questions, taking complaints.
This is the Troubleshooter Show. No Tom Martino.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hey, hey, hey, I'm Tom Martino. Welcome to the Only Show.
If it's kind you know, to say that is quite
a privilege, going on forty five years in Denver, and
it's more than fifty years if you count outside of Denver.
I came to Denver in my mid twenties and I
wanted to set the world on fire. Someone said, what
do you want? What do you want to accomplish here?

(00:35):
When they hired me over at Channel four, and I said,
you know, I would like that when people are having
a problem, for them to say. I want to hear
people say I'm going to call Tom Martino now. Of course,
things have changed over the years. With social media. People
can bitch and moan online all day long, get advice

(00:55):
from friends and neighbors. Nothing wrong with social media, but
nothing solve problems like this show.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
Nothing nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
We have retired experts, pros professionals you know, and executives
and doctors and lawyers and accountants and people on our
referral list that we can tap at any time to
be our expert to help you solve problems, to answer questions,

(01:23):
to take complaints. By the way, today brought to you
by Apple Air, Apple Heating and Air. That's Apple Air
with an E. And I've known Todd Terry and his
family for years. They've been in business since eighty eight.
His two sons grew up in the business. They run
it with him. This is a wonderful company. Remember, you're
buying more than products when you buy companies. You buy

(01:45):
the company, the family, the heritage Apple Air that's air
with an E, Appleair dot Com Heating and Cooling. And
they have twelve year parts in labor warranties, six years
on the replacement, no question as, no proration for the
first six years. Something goes wrong, they can replace the

(02:05):
whole thing with no proation. So I want you to
call me today and tell me what's on your mind.
Do you have a product that doesn't work, a service
you're unhappy with, someone lied to you, or cheated you,
or ripped you off. I'm going to tell you what's
on my mind. Okay, A couple things. First and foremost contractors,
more and more people just taking money and not doing

(02:30):
the job. This I wish they would start making arrests.
I really do. I wish that it.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
Would become a crime.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
It is a crime, by the way, under the Contractors
Trust Act.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
It's a civil action at first.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
The Contractor's Trust Act says that you're supposed to take
money down and put it aside for that particular job.
You're not allowed to co mingle funds. So, in other words,
if you took ten grand down on a job, that
ten grand is to be used for that job, And

(03:06):
if you take another five grand from someone else, that
five grand is for that job. And you're not supposed
to if you run out of money on one job.

Speaker 3 (03:15):
Borrow from another. You're just not supposed to.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
But worse than that, you're not supposed to spend the
money on yourself when you're not doing the job. It's
against the Contractors Trust Act. And if you do it enough,
or do it intentionally or flagrantly, it becomes a crime.
It's also something you can sue on. But this is

(03:38):
right now the number one problem facing us in the
consumer world. Okay, going through the problems, there's a lot more,
but this is the number one, and I hate talking
about it because there are so many good contractors but
there are more bad ones.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
Did you hear what I just said?

Speaker 2 (03:57):
There's more of a chance of getting ripped off than.

Speaker 4 (04:01):
Not, especially Tom when these people give half down half
the money up front and then they just never come
back to finish the job. And you're right, they're supposed
to put it in an escrow like an attorney, and
they spend it on the next job.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
We've had to be bo. Yeah, I couldn't have said
it better that when they How many problems have you
checked on where people have paid for you go out
and look at a lot of our HVAC jobs. How
many times have you gone out and checked on jobs?
And you can't believe you can't believe it, You can't

(04:35):
believe it, and it was already paid for right.

Speaker 4 (04:39):
And in two years I've been here, I've only had
one contractor caller actually get the right attorney general that
take criminal charges.

Speaker 3 (04:49):
You know, it was out here's the thing.

Speaker 5 (04:50):
But out of all of them there was only one.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
We don't have good consumer enforcement here.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
One. Let's talk to you. Welcome to the show. I'm
Martino Wan. What's going on in your life? Yeah?

Speaker 6 (05:05):
Hey, Tom So, I actually grew up in Colorado, which
was how I knew of you, and you're the only
person I could think to call because I've been unraveling
a situation that has been affecting the entire Medicaid system in.

Speaker 7 (05:21):
The state of Nevada.

Speaker 6 (05:23):
It's a kind of a doozy. Would you like me
to kind of break it down real quick?

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Absolutely? Now, why do you live in Nevada?

Speaker 6 (05:31):
I do.

Speaker 8 (05:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (05:31):
I relocated from Denver to Las Vegas last year and
I had actually suffered a broken neck in Colorado. I
had to get reconstructive surgery on my spine. I moved
because of altitude affecting my injury. Right like, I got
a spinal implant, and I had done some business at

(05:52):
sea level and felt so much better. Came back to Denver.
Long story short, I was able to travel a bit
and it was very clear that I need to move
down in elevation. I found an off okay, in Las Vegas, and.

Speaker 3 (06:04):
I pursued it.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
All right, So now tell your story and let's unravel
what you call a scam.

Speaker 3 (06:10):
Go ahead, okay?

Speaker 6 (06:12):
Yeah, So essentially it started with me becoming a Medicaid
patient and following up on my care. You know, I
deal with chronic pain. I can't lift more than ten pounds.
So I'm going down the disability route. I get to
Las Vegas, I get on Medicaid, pretty smooth, getting on
my doctor you know, picks me up and says, hey,

(06:36):
you know, we can't take your state information from Colorado.
We need you to retake your MRIs, your cat assurance
all right, and we need you get a nerve conduction study. Okay, okay,
a very painful process. Your listeners, who's had one?

Speaker 2 (06:48):
They already I've had a nerve I've had a nerve
conduction study, and You're right. They can be painful. They
do the electric shocks and stuff to trace your nurse.
So one, so they did all of the diagnostic work.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
Then one.

Speaker 6 (07:08):
Okay, so essentially they didn't do the diagnostic work. I'll
lined up and it just happened to be for January, second, third,
and fourth, I had three very important meeting zeno with Medicaid.
It can take three four months to get these appointments. Well,
I made sure I had a week where I could focus,
knock it out. Everything just happened to be January, second, third,

(07:30):
and fourth. Well, okay, in November, there was a letter
that had gone out saying hey, we're going to be
adding a new provider named care Source, and that if
you do don't want to be switched to care Source,
or you want to say you can, you can switch
to the new one, you can stay with the one
you had. I elected to stay with Anthem, Blue Cross,

(07:51):
Blue Shields turned back in my paperwork. Well, January second
comes around. Okay, I go and I go to Disappointment.
I've been waiting three months for it, and they say, hey,
your insurance and pay for it. It's been denied. And
the one that you have tomorrow, I call on it,
that's been denied. And the fourth they're like, hey, your
payment didn't come through. So I go right to HSS,

(08:12):
which is the people who give you Medicaid and foods,
right and there's the Department of Human Service.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
So are you basically one? Are you basically calling about
claims that were denied?

Speaker 6 (08:25):
Essentially you would think that's where it started. What happened
was when I went to HSS, they just said, hey, no,
your insurance is still good. That's all we can tell you.
I was calm and I was escorted out by a guard,
which I thought was kind of hard.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
But what's going on. Wait, wait, we can't just hey, Mark,
I didn't know you were there. Mark, I'm sorry, I
didn't know you were there.

Speaker 9 (08:45):
No, listen what he just said, he got escorted out.
That doesn't people don't get escorted out generally for no reason.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
That's what I was going to say, Like, how did
that turn in? How did that turn into a conflict?

Speaker 6 (08:59):
It wasn't a I was really calm. I had waited
four hours, the office was busy. I sat down. The
lady was really like had strong boundaries, we'll put it
that way. And I was calm, I'm I'm, I'm, I'm but.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
How'd you get escorted out?

Speaker 7 (09:14):
Like?

Speaker 3 (09:14):
What led to you getting escorted out?

Speaker 6 (09:16):
One? Uh, okay, so this is what happened. I said, well,
where's my coverage? You know I have ANSWM blue cross
blue shields. She just said, all I can tell you
is that your your claim is valid, and that's all
I can say. Have a nice day. And before I
could say anything back or react, you know, there was
already a guy behind me and she was signaling hey,

(09:37):
and he was like time to go, and he politely
just walked me out. There was no confrontation at all,
But I thought it was really odd, and I noticed
that there were a lot of the security people in
the office, and everybody was really on edge that day,
Like even when I came in the office, I walked
in the same time as the person before me, and
they yelled at me and said, you have to wait,

(09:57):
like everybody.

Speaker 10 (09:58):
Was on edge.

Speaker 2 (09:58):
All right, one, let's get to the heart of the matter.
Your claims, look, were denied? Why?

Speaker 6 (10:05):
Yeah, they said they were left pending. And what happened
was I was dropped by Blue Cross Blue Shields and
I was picked up by care Source. But care Source
was never told that my claims even existed. So instead
of Blue Cross Blue Shields, who I thought I was
with because I elected to stay with them, I was
forced by the state off of my care in favor

(10:26):
of being on their new care source again.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
Whatever. But it's all under the umbrella of Medicaid. So
I don't want to And just for the purposes of
this call on, I want you to I want you
to play ball with me here. For the purposes of
this call, I want to keep things. I don't want
to get into every little tiny detail. So far, what
we have is you're having problems with your Medicaid case.

(10:50):
What I need to know is where does it stand
right now? Are you getting the care that you have coming?

Speaker 6 (11:00):
So essentially, yes, I was able to get the appointments
after I had talked to the people who were like
running the diagnostic companies, and they were all wondering what
information I had because the entire state was just kind
of didn't know what was gone.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
So you finally you finally got you finally reversed the denial.
Is that safe to say?

Speaker 1 (11:21):
Uh?

Speaker 6 (11:21):
You know, I still I guess you could say that
I got put back on Blue Cross Blue Shield a
month later, even though I had requested to not go
back to them and just stay with Kars.

Speaker 2 (11:31):
Where's the systemic fraud? Yeah? I don't understand where we're
going with the story because I don't care about the
actual provider. I want to know what's going on with
your case.

Speaker 6 (11:43):
Okay, okay, So with my case, essentially, what happened was
I was put back on Blue Cross Blue Shield. Everything
kept going, but I had kept asking questions about, hey,
what happened? You know, what happened January first? Because this
didn't just happen to me. I was told this happened
to a third of the people on Medicaid in the
state of Nevada. So luckily with my case, I was

(12:06):
able to reschedule and get those things figure out. God it,
I'm sitting thinking about the people who are on blood centers,
people on life saving medications, and so I had recently
just had a call with a Blue Cross Blue Shield representative.
I've been calling for these answers for.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
A while and one I don't understand one.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
One.

Speaker 2 (12:30):
I know that in your head right now, and I
got to take this break in your head. You have
all kinds of context, and I know you think you're
making sense, but you're not. You're not telling us what
you're going to war about. You said all these other
people on Medicaid. If you're talking about screwing up schedules
and canceling appointments and having to fight for what's covered,

(12:53):
that's pretty common with Medicaid in some cases.

Speaker 3 (12:57):
Hold on, though, just hold on.

Speaker 2 (12:58):
I need to get to the point on what exactly
you're talking about now. Now Bob uh has a question
on insurance acts. Ask Bob and Mike to hang on.
I'll go back to them after the break, and then
we'll pick up with Wan. I'm Tom Martino three three
seven one three eight two five five. John Fuller is
a personal injury attorney who's there for you right now.

(13:20):
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get started on your case immediately. No need for a
long scheduling block or to be put off for weeks
and weeks. Call John three oh three five nine seven
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(13:45):
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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
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to one help. You'll think you're his only customer when

(14:07):
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to list your home with Remax Alliance three all three
nine two zero sixteen twenty two stuff. Hi Tom Martine here,
Welcome to the show. Three O three seven one three
talk seven one three A two five five man. We

(14:28):
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(14:49):
oh three nine zero four two thousand renew home innovations
dot com. So I want to go to Bob real
quick and then Mike, and then I'm going to go
back to Wan, but we have I want to take
some quicker questions here and then get I want to
get more detailed with one. Bob, your turn. What's going
on with you?

Speaker 3 (15:09):
Bob? Welcome, Thank you.

Speaker 7 (15:12):
I closed on a house about three weeks ago. Yeah,
and I'm not really happy with my insurance company. And
during my closing process, I had reached out the compass,
but somebody was on vacation. All got kind of dropped there. Yeah,
I'm paying I think a very high premium and I
have very little roof coverage and I don't mind taking

(15:34):
the high deductible on the roof. I don't have a
problem with that if we get a big hailstorm. But
I'm trying to find a better premium. So, okay, Compass,
if you knew.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
Bob compass, Compass should be the compass is the one
I call first. And then, by the way, when you
say a high deductible, have you heard of that special
insurance that covers specifically high deductibles. Here's what it does.
Here's what it does.

Speaker 7 (16:03):
Your show.

Speaker 2 (16:04):
Yeah, and it's excellent. So if you live in an
area if sola Sola, if you live in an area
that's hit with a with a hailstorm and you have
a high deductible, you get and you have this insurance.
If you have this insurance, you literally get a check
written to you mark. It doesn't even matter if they

(16:25):
heal damage or not done well, no, that's not true.

Speaker 9 (16:27):
It's got to have even minimal damage. It doesn't matter.
But over one inchail is the big one, but generally
one in chail is what's causing the damage.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
Right. So, but what they do is they don't look
at your roof. They just look at the weather.

Speaker 9 (16:41):
And then they even care what you do with the money.
So let's say you get twenty five grand of sola coverage,
and there was one inchail reported in your area, and
you have even minimal damage, maybe even just to a
gutter or something, Bam, they write you a check for
twenty five grand. They could care less what you.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
Do with it, right, and so it's meant to cover
high deductibles. But what is your premium by the way,
just out of and how much does your house? How
much did you pay for your house?

Speaker 7 (17:09):
Oh? I paid five twenty seven for that house. I've
getting insured for about three forty five, which is a
little low. The deductibles two percent went inhil on the roof.
So my out of pocket on the roof is seventy
six fifty right around there.

Speaker 2 (17:24):
Seventy six fifty What do you mean seventy six fifty
seventy six six, six hundred and fifty dollars something about it?
That's a small that's a small deductible nowadays. Wow, nowadays,
that's not even a.

Speaker 7 (17:38):
Consent roof on for I can put a new roof
on top for about ten oh.

Speaker 3 (17:42):
So you're it's a pretty small house then.

Speaker 7 (17:46):
Yeah, no, it's a small house.

Speaker 3 (17:47):
It's okay, gotcha.

Speaker 2 (17:49):
Well, listen, Bob, are you telling me that compass insurance
didn't call you back when you called for an insurance checkup.

Speaker 7 (17:58):
They got backed me, but it was a couple days later.
In the meantime I had had to make a decision,
so I didn't have a chance to really get.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
Yeah, but you can switch without penalty. You can switch
without a penalty. Did did they do an insurance checkup
for you? Not?

Speaker 7 (18:15):
At that point? Should I just call them back and
have them.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yes, yes, now absolutely, And then look at that SOLA
coverage as well. Again, that's not going to be that
expensive for you, because your deductible's not that bad. But
I would call Compass and by the way, for those
listenings three oh three nine nine six, nine thousand, and
I would ask for the insurance checkup, and yeah, let

(18:38):
us know, Please let us know what happens, because they're
usually pretty good at helping people get through this.

Speaker 3 (18:44):
So thank thanks for calling.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
Let us know though, And then again, people remember the
coverage we're talking about is for high deductible for wind
and hail only, so it covers your deductible. That's all.

Speaker 3 (18:57):
It covers for.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
Wind and hail, and you usually the today's policies are
being written for hail and wind high deductibles. Some of
them are a percentage of the home value. Some of
them are a percentage of the damage. It depends on
how they're written. Some you just get actual cash value
for the roof. You don't get replacement cost, and you

(19:21):
have to make up the difference. Mike, Welcome to the show. Mike,
what's going on with you? Welcome?

Speaker 8 (19:28):
Thank you very much. I appreciate this. This is a
good topic. I heard everything you talked about. I'm getting
ready to review my insurance policy, and the question I
have for you and Mark is I'm going to give
Compass a call. I'm very familiar with the solo. It's

(19:49):
a wonderful it's a good, great way to go good.
The other thing what I'm concerned about is what you
have experienced in your show, Mark, as to the insurance
companies that are are good at at working and paying
and the ones that want to fight you all the way,

(20:10):
which which I'm concerned about now I'm I'm looking to.

Speaker 9 (20:14):
Do They all fight you, every damn one of them fights.
Yet except for the high end stuff.

Speaker 8 (20:19):
You're absolutely You're absolutely right. I was just about to say,
generally speaking, they're all gonna argue, but there.

Speaker 2 (20:27):
Are some worse than others. There are some worse than others.

Speaker 9 (20:31):
You know, I think in Colorado now though, I mean
I agree with your time with State Farm in All State,
but I got a farmer Safeco safe Co. At one
point wasn't bad. Then all of a sudden they're horrible.
I mean, when there's a lot of hailstorms, they all suck.

Speaker 2 (20:47):
Yeah, they will fight you, but but definitely, definitely State Farm,
all State Farmers and American Family are bad news.

Speaker 8 (20:56):
Okay, all right, thank you very much that I had
Farmers and I spent I can't. I swam upstream with
them for a year on the last hail storm I
had in Highland's Range.

Speaker 2 (21:09):
Now, I'll tell you some good ones. Chubb is a
good one, Travelers is a good one. And auto Owners
and even though they say auto owners you can get
you can get home with it pure p u R.
I believe it is pu ARE. There might be an
E on it, but it's called pure Insurance. And I'm
telling you they they are really good companies. And and

(21:32):
by the way, Safeco is a good company, but they
have been giving people a little bit of a go
when it comes to adjusting the claims. But as Mark said,
a lot of them are going to give you problems
because we're a high risk state. Yeah.

Speaker 8 (21:48):
No, I recognize that we're in hale Alley here so
and Tornado Alley. But I've also realized that, you know,
replacement value is the only way to go. I'm not
too worried about the premium, although I don't want somebody
to retire on it, but I want to make sure

(22:09):
I've got coverage to replace my house in the worst
case scenario and take care of them.

Speaker 9 (22:16):
You know, all we had a show years ago when
Brian was on and we were going over all the
people affected by the Boulder fire, and it was absolutely
absurd that like ninety six to ninety eight percent we're
under insured.

Speaker 3 (22:33):
That has always blown me away.

Speaker 9 (22:35):
Can you imagine you still owe a mortgage and you
don't have coverage to rebuild your house.

Speaker 3 (22:41):
So you're screwed. You're one hundred percent screwed.

Speaker 8 (22:44):
Yeah, So that was that was something that that was
germane to my decision years ago, was that superior Boulder
fire when all of those people went, how do I
do this? And they were all to reshirt and they
lost their equity.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
Yep, they all lost their equity. They they had no
equity walking away. They broke even at best with zero equity.
So if they would have sold their home, they could
have gotten hundreds of thousands of dollars, but because it
burned down, they got ACV and ended up with nothing.

Speaker 3 (23:21):
It was It's terrible.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
It wiped out so many nest eggs for people. It
was incredibly bad. Three oh three seven one three Yes anything, Okay,
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(23:45):
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(24:09):
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 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, I'm Tom Martino along with

(24:33):
Major Mark. Major. Wan said he's really pissed off a
Medicaid so he's had a fiasco getting his claims paid,
so we're gonna revisit him. He talked about scams. I'm
not sure if there's a scam going on or if
it's just a big you know, they just have a
cluster sometimes handling claims. So Wan, continue your story, Sir,

(24:54):
you fall for yourself and you got your claims covered,
and you said you were really pissed.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
Off at the system.

Speaker 6 (25:01):
Go ahead, Yeah, I don't think I said I was
pissed at the system, but definitely frustrated.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
So okay, frustrated.

Speaker 6 (25:09):
My assertion here is that the state of Nevada forced
a third of the people on Medicaid off of whatever
plan they were on against their will to a new
company named care Source. And when care Source we got
switched over, they didn't have the ability to handle it
at all, and it ended up being that I personally

(25:31):
from My experience was then put back on Anthem, Blue Cross,
Blue Shield.

Speaker 3 (25:36):
THEEKA.

Speaker 6 (25:36):
He sent me one letter in the mail telling me
about the switch, and on the head of the letter
it says December fifth, but it wasn't sent to me
until January third. So they sent everybody a letter post
January first and the fiasco happening, and then tried to
cover it by saying, hey, we sent letters telling this
to everybody, but we all got it after New Year's okay.

Speaker 2 (26:00):
On, but none of this. I'm being straight with you, bro,
I'm being straight with you on I'm not hearing major
fraud here. I'm not. I mean, I understand your frustration,
But what is the major fraud you're talking about?

Speaker 6 (26:14):
Well, the thing is, if it's discriminating against people who
are seeking disability that's appeared, how is it?

Speaker 3 (26:22):
Tell me, how walk me through it?

Speaker 2 (26:25):
How is it discriminating against people looking for disability?

Speaker 3 (26:29):
Help me understand it.

Speaker 6 (26:31):
So, when you're on disability, you have to go to
a number of different specialists, and you have to go
through processes specifically that are okay, time staking, right, okay,
data Essentially by doing this had thwarted those efforts. So
someone in my position, who was waiting three months for
those now just lost those appointments, has to start over.

(26:51):
You're assigned a new PCP. You call to get your
PCP and the company doesn't exist. The number that they
gave us true call care Source was like a honeypot.
It was like you know, when you call something, it's
like you just won a new thing, like they So
what happened was they gave me an insurance company that,
to my knowledge still says they never exist. I got

(27:13):
one card in the mail that said, hey, you're under
care Source. They gave me a random name of a PCP.
I called the name on the card.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
Nothing literally, Okay, so one one again.

Speaker 3 (27:24):
Let me clarify.

Speaker 2 (27:25):
You're saying that the state of Nevada is purposely perpetrating
a fraud with an empty shell company that does not exist.

Speaker 6 (27:37):
You know what, Like I guess I wouldn't one hundred
percent say that because their intention could have been that
the company was real and it just collapsed under the pressure.
But nobody receives care. And then what happens is they
say about halfway through January, January fifteenth, they I get
one phone call saying, like you're back on Blue Cross
blue Shield. Yeah, like okay, And I asked questions and

(28:01):
they wouldn't answer any questions.

Speaker 2 (28:03):
What do you want right now? You want right now?

Speaker 9 (28:07):
I just want to bring this up. I have the
same frustrations. But the difference is I pay thirty thousand
a year for those frustrations. You don't pay anything for
those frustrations I.

Speaker 3 (28:18):
Feel when I get kicked in the face.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
No, no, I listen. Health insurance is riddled with all
of these problems. I understand what you're saying want, but
what I need to know is what do you want now? Though?
If you got back on Blue Cross Blue Shield to
administer your Medicaid, what do you want now? What?

Speaker 3 (28:38):
What is?

Speaker 2 (28:38):
What? What do you want?

Speaker 6 (28:39):
Transparency? And I want to transparency and answers, and.

Speaker 11 (28:44):
You won't get them provided by the state.

Speaker 3 (28:47):
Yeah, you're not going to get them.

Speaker 6 (28:48):
Here's what I'm saying, is I suspect in my situation,
I was lucky enough to make it through that, right.
But we're talking also about everybody who's you know, not
maybe neurodivergent, being on these systems and not having access
to the healthcare they need happening on them.

Speaker 2 (29:05):
I'm sure that happens no, no, I'm sure that happens. One.
I am sure that getting through the Medicaid system is
a bear for people, and some people fall through the cracks.
I understand that it's overloaded. I don't and especially Obamacare
overloaded it because it opened it up for millions of

(29:26):
people that were not previously eligible for Medicaid and now
they are so one. Your concern is not lost on us.
It's just that there's really and I hate saying this,
but there's really nothing we can do about it. The
system is just top heavy and it's doing the best
it can.

Speaker 3 (29:46):
At this point.

Speaker 2 (29:47):
I'm shocked that it offers the care it does in Colorado.
By the way, I have to say, Medicaid has a
really good administration. It really does. In Colorado. Kid has
done pretty well. It really is. You're having frustrations in Nevada.
I understand that, but you know, I don't know what

(30:09):
to say to you. I really don't. I don't think
there is a number we can call that's going to
change anything. And people, what they try to do is
when they were trying to change you over to that
one company, they're trying to consolidate administration of Medicaid claims,
so they don't have to deal with a lot of

(30:30):
independent administrators they want, they would like to have one
big company administer the Medicaid claims. So so again I
appreciate the call. I promise you, yes.

Speaker 4 (30:43):
Maybe want could contact a Colorado division of insurance because they're.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
Not He's calling about Nevada right now. Okay, but maybe
the Nevada division. But here, but what we know, nothing's
going to happen. I mean, we know that bo nothing's
going to happen. I mean Medicaid, nothing's gonna happen. He's upset,
and it all boils down to this. He was taken
off a Blue Cross boushield. The other company wasn't ready

(31:09):
to take his business. They fumbled the claim, they were canceled.
He had to fight to get back on Blue Cross
Blue Shield. Now he's saying, what about all the other
poor people? I know what he's saying. I know it.
We hear this every day, not just about Medicaid, about everything.
I mean, our government does a piss poor job on

(31:30):
most things. It's just the way it is. And as
Mark said, at least you're getting it on the government
and you're not paying for it. Imagine the frustration people
get with paid health insurance when they're jerked around.

Speaker 3 (31:44):
We have more coming up.

Speaker 2 (31:45):
Three oh three seven one three talk three oh three
seven 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 content. Leave time for
an insurance check up free, no obligation. In comparison, call

(32:05):
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. Hey Tom Martino here,

(32:27):
welcome to the show. Three oh three seven one three
eight two five five. John's got a question about taxes,
by the way, whatever you want to talk about, just
call us at three oh three Martino three oh three
six two seven eight four six six John, what's going on?

Speaker 11 (32:45):
Hey, good morning, Tom. So it's a little bit more
than taxes. It alsays to do with like common law
marriage or something. So okay, I've been together with this
lady for six years and we're engaged for three and
then we've always filed our taxes.

Speaker 8 (33:00):
Ree.

Speaker 11 (33:00):
Well, two years ago I went to do my taxes,
and the tax he told me, if you do your
taxes together, you'll get more money. So my fiance was
retired and didn't need to file acash wasn't enough money.
And same with last year and even now. But we've

(33:21):
never held ourselves out as betting married or anything. Well,
she moved on a couple of weeks ago, so now
I need to know do I need to get an attorney?
Are we considered married or or well?

Speaker 2 (33:34):
You know, here, here's the thing about common law. Okay,
if you never held yourself out to be married, then
you were not married. Okay, But if you filed jointly, okay,
you have to undo that. You'd have to say I
did that in error, or you're gonna have to do

(33:54):
the other thing, which says I was married. So it's
gonna be one way or the other. You can't have
it both ways. So when did you file.

Speaker 11 (34:03):
Jointly last year for twenty five and then the year
before for twenty four?

Speaker 2 (34:10):
Okay, Well, that's you're setting a precedent here, so you
did file as a spouse and together, and you need
to amend twenty four and twenty five. Is she willing
to do that? You know?

Speaker 11 (34:27):
I don't know. She left and she won't return any
of my calls or texts.

Speaker 6 (34:33):
She said it.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
Okay, you can amend it on your own. But here's
the thing. It's not going to matter really unless someone
challenges it. Let me explain about common law marriage. It's
a marriage, okay, but you have to hold yourself out
to be married. But here's the point. It doesn't matter
if it doesn't matter. In other words, unless someone is

(34:57):
going to challenge your status, you can simply say you
are not married. However, if she wants something that has
accumulated value during your relationship, or she wants joint property,
she can assert that you were married, and part of

(35:17):
the evidence would be the two tax returns. Do you
think she wants to be perceived as married.

Speaker 9 (35:25):
We need to get Eric on because I'm pretty sure
that it's not as simple as him just filing jointly.
Now I think he has to prove they separated or
got a divorce.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
Well, go with a sure thing. Denver's Best Roofer Excelroofing
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. Pay 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

(35:57):
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.

Speaker 1 (36:04):
Two, forty five years strong. Solving your problems, answering questions,
taking complaints.

Speaker 3 (36:13):
This is the Troubleshooter Show.

Speaker 1 (36:15):
No Tom Martino, Hey Tom Martino here, we got major
Mark Major in his remote studio and we're solving problems,
answering questions, taking complaints, making your life abilities a little easier.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
We have plumb line services with us today. Bob Logan
will be coming up talking about plumbing, heating, cooling and
electric and drains and whatever's on your mind. Give us
a call. John John called and said, you know, hey, John,
how many years were you together with this woman? Not
that it matters, but how many years were you together?

Speaker 11 (36:47):
Well, we were dating for sick and she has lived
with me for I think four and we've been engaged
to like three.

Speaker 2 (36:55):
Yeah, well it doesn't The time doesn't matter.

Speaker 3 (36:58):
It's what matters is this.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
If two people get together and say we are married,
we are husband and wife, and they have evidence of that,
for example, they introduce themselves in public, or they sign
on each other's insurance as a spouse, or in your case,
they file taxes, then you have what's called an evidence trail.
So the more important thing you ask about taxes. And

(37:23):
obviously if you file taxes under the guys that you
were married and now you don't want to be married
and you're saying we were never married, then you do
have to go back and amend those taxes because you
filed them under false pretenses. If you said you were
married and you now are saying we were never married,

(37:45):
then you're going to have to face the irs. That's
one separate issue. But there's something even more important than that,
and that is the marriage institution itself. Let me give
you a couple scenarios that have happened to during my
lifetime on this show. We've had a couple people who
were together for a couple years and they said they

(38:08):
were married, right, and then they decided they weren't married,
and they went their separate ways. Nobody cared about anything
until the.

Speaker 3 (38:18):
One guy won.

Speaker 2 (38:20):
I don't know if it was a state lottery or something,
but he or he inherited some money. All of a sudden,
this wife comes or this girlfriend or whatever you want
to call her, comes up and says, by the way,
remember when we were married, we never got divorced. That's
marital property. And so this guy had nothing to protect himself.

(38:43):
Even though you both said, hey, we're not married and
you went your separate ways, it could come back to
haunt you. So I'm sure any good divorce attorney would say,
you know, if you guys are common law at any
time and split up, you should probably memorialize it in
some kind of paperwork to keep someone from coming after

(39:07):
you in the future. So you have two issues. You
have the marriage institution itself for all of your property,
and then you have the tax status. They're two separate items, okay,
and that's what you have to deal with. Here's what
I want to know. How long have you guys been separated?

Speaker 10 (39:23):
Now?

Speaker 7 (39:25):
Two weeks yesterday?

Speaker 3 (39:27):
Okay?

Speaker 2 (39:28):
Does she claim she is your ex wife?

Speaker 11 (39:32):
No, I'm sure she doesn't because we've never held ourselves
out as husband and wife. We've never said we're married.

Speaker 10 (39:38):
Nothing.

Speaker 2 (39:39):
Well you already you already did.

Speaker 9 (39:41):
You lived together and did tax returns, so you have
held yourself out there as far as the State of
Colorado and the Feds go.

Speaker 2 (39:49):
That's right, you did hold yourself out. You filed jointly,
so you did well. She is there any do you
guys own any property together, like you have.

Speaker 9 (40:00):
A four to oh one case you might want to
come after or something in the future.

Speaker 11 (40:05):
Uh, possibly, I mean I've I've had the same job
for thirty years. I was going to retire this year.
We're going to move and build a house, and everything
was going to be great, but everything changed.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
Okay, So do you think she's going to lay claim
on anything?

Speaker 3 (40:21):
Well, I don't know.

Speaker 11 (40:22):
I don't see how she could. It's my house, my loan, everything.

Speaker 2 (40:25):
Well, no, it's not. Not. If you were married, it's not.
You see, if you're married and you had it before
you got married, then the increase in value would be
marital property.

Speaker 3 (40:38):
Your retirement the same thing.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
Your retirement increase in value would be a marital property.
So it's not all yours. If you were married. The
question is were you married or not? And if you
held yourself out to be married, then she could claim
you were married and you.

Speaker 3 (41:01):
Did hold yourself out.

Speaker 2 (41:02):
The taxes are black and white evidence or blue and white.
However you did your taxes, it's evidence that you said
you were married. On that thing, she filled out your
spouse as your spouse, right, yes, yes, yes.

Speaker 11 (41:22):
So then if worse comes doors, she would only be
able to get increase in whatever for two years.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
Well not necessarily, it depends. She could claim you guys
were married way longer than that. This is where it
gets muddy, and she'd have to come up with evidence.
If she wants to go back further, she can if
she has evidence to support it.

Speaker 3 (41:46):
See, it gets very very messy.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
You're gonna say we only filed jointly for two years.
Those are the only years we held ourself out to
be married. She could say, no, we were married before that.
We just decided to file separately before this. So what
will she do? That's the question. Does she know? See

(42:09):
if she gets an idea that there's money to be had,
then you could have a problem. You could have a problem.
Do you think she is going to she is going
to want some kind of money or settlement.

Speaker 11 (42:26):
I don't know. She won't talk to me.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
Oh man, So, by the way, did you see this?

Speaker 3 (42:32):
I'm just curious. Did you see this coming?

Speaker 2 (42:35):
I'm just curious more than any because usually you see
things coming like this, right.

Speaker 11 (42:39):
Actually, no, I didn't. So the worldly weekend we went
out of town and we're going to list my house
to sell it, and that was going to pay for
our new house. And the day before today's beport, we're
going to list my house.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
She left, and does she have a house?

Speaker 11 (42:58):
No, she living with her daughter. Well, the only reason,
the only reason we did our taxes together. We didn't
go there to say we're married. The only reason we
did it is the tax lady said we could get
more money back if we followed together.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
It doesn't matter why you did it. It's Matt. You
did it as you did it as a married couple. Okay,
so you need really you guys might need to see
a mediator, or you might need to see a divorce attorney.

Speaker 3 (43:24):
But here's the problem.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
As soon as you open up that can of worms,
she might say, Wow, I didn't realize I could get
half his retirement. I didn't realize I could get half
of that house.

Speaker 9 (43:38):
You know, you definitely can I just file single on
your UH taxes for last year.

Speaker 3 (43:43):
You simply can't do it.

Speaker 2 (43:45):
You can't just go back like nothing ever.

Speaker 3 (43:48):
Hap to trigger all kinds of things.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
Yeah, and even if it doesn't, Even if it doesn't,
you're going to have a problem with your house and
all your other stuff. Do you have money in the bank, No,
how much equity do you have in your house?

Speaker 11 (44:05):
About four hundred and how long?

Speaker 2 (44:08):
How long were you guys together? And I don't care
about the engaged, I don't care, like how long were
you actually together? Like four years, five years, six years,
six years? Okay? And did you own the house prior
to that six years?

Speaker 3 (44:25):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (44:27):
Okay. So what she could theoretically do is go back
five or six years and say this is what the
house was worth, then, this is what it's worth now.
I deserve half of that. And you're going to have
a hell of a time refuting it. I mean, you know,

(44:47):
unless you have people who say, oh no, they were
never married, or she agrees to it, but it's going
to be all fact based, evidence based now for two years,
she will have no problem because you filed your taxes,
So she's gonna claim we were even if if nothing
else she if she claims only those two years, your

(45:11):
house hasn't gone up in value for those two years,
and if so, she's entitled to part of it. She
probably doesn't even know that she's entitled to things right now.
When the dust settles, she's gonna come around and she's
going to start looking for her share. And this is
a problem that's not just going to go away. You

(45:34):
got to address it. And unfortunately, as soon as you
address it, as soon as you hire someone, that's going
to tell her to hire someone, and that someone is
going to tell her, wait, lady, you got a lot
of money coming John.

Speaker 4 (45:51):
I'd like to know why she decided to leave after
two days of you listing a house.

Speaker 5 (45:58):
Yeah, Like, well, that was weird.

Speaker 11 (46:01):
I would like to know that too. But the only
thing that makes any kind of sense is we're going
to buy some land in a different state, uh, you know,
in Wyoming, an hour away from here, and about a
week or two before we're going to sell my house.
She said that she was kind of getting scared, and
I think.

Speaker 5 (46:19):
Get scared of you are scared of the land.

Speaker 2 (46:21):
Kids.

Speaker 10 (46:22):
I'm sorry you scared.

Speaker 5 (46:23):
Of you are scared of his land purchase.

Speaker 11 (46:26):
No, I think she was scared of being away from
her kids. So I've never once threatened her. I've never
laid a hand to her. I mean, I you know,
I'm not perfect, but I've never laid a hand to her.

Speaker 6 (46:36):
Never.

Speaker 11 (46:37):
Uh nothing. You know, I tried to do the best
I could. You know, buy, you know how women are
a jewelry. I bought her jewelry all the time, and
I paid for everything the whole time we were together.

Speaker 7 (46:49):
Everything.

Speaker 3 (46:50):
Yeah, sounds like good. And what do you think happened?
I want to go back to boast questions.

Speaker 9 (46:54):
I'm just curious if you had to, if you had
to guess, what do you think she would say?

Speaker 3 (46:58):
She was afraid of the change.

Speaker 11 (47:01):
Yeah, afraid of the change and be an hour away
from her kids, a granddaughter that's a year and a
half bold, and she didn't she babyfits her and really
got close to her. And I think she just didn't
want to be away from her.

Speaker 2 (47:14):
Yeah, well, why couldn't she have said, Hey, John, you
know I love you, but let's not move.

Speaker 5 (47:19):
That's a good point.

Speaker 11 (47:21):
I wish I had an answer for that myself.

Speaker 3 (47:25):
Let's get her on the line.

Speaker 2 (47:26):
Yeah, let's get did you ever did you ever talk
to her or try to talk to her about it? Ah?

Speaker 11 (47:33):
And she won't return my calls or my uh picks.

Speaker 3 (47:37):
Yeah, this is terrible.

Speaker 5 (47:39):
There's something going on extra going on with her.

Speaker 2 (47:43):
It could be it could or it could be she's
embarrassing doesn't know she's transitioning.

Speaker 4 (47:49):
John, you want me to make a call for you.

Speaker 2 (47:53):
You know, here's the thing, man, we might trigger something here.
What we're John, you do understan Dan. You can't just
let things go. She can come back and make a
claim against you.

Speaker 5 (48:04):
I'm worried to John, I'm worried about you. John.

Speaker 2 (48:08):
Yeah. Yeah, she can make a claim. And man, if
she knows she can make a claim, she's gonna she's
gonna be out. Look at you. Do you think she's
greedy at all? Or do you think she'll just for.

Speaker 8 (48:22):
No?

Speaker 11 (48:23):
I really don't think she's greedy. You know, this whole
thing is so confusing. She's a great lady man, great personality,
and uh, she has let little things bother her, and
little things kind of add up and and uh, you
know I sent her a text and said, hey, you
know what, we got something great going. You know, we're

(48:43):
so close to retiring. Neither one of us drink, we
don't smoke, we don't do drugs, and stability getting ready
to retire, and none of that matters.

Speaker 5 (48:51):
John, send her a text and tell her you're you're
not going to move. You guys stay, stay in the
same place so she can be close to her kids.
You would be okay with that.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
Right on the story, say we got a break, Okay,
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
check up, free no obligation comparison call Compass Insurance paying

(49:23):
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 oh three nine two zero
sixteen twenty two. Hi, I'm Tom Martino here. Welcome to

(49:45):
the show. Three O three seven one three talk seven
one three A two five five. So, Chris, what's going
on with you? And buying a car. Chris, welcome, what's happening?

Speaker 12 (49:58):
Hey?

Speaker 13 (49:59):
Hello?

Speaker 6 (50:00):
I bought a.

Speaker 13 (50:02):
Car from Bablic's Motors. They're located out of Michigan where
they keep the cars, and I talked to the guy
several times, but I don't think it was legit. He
sent me pictures. So it came time to make a payment.
Their company is registered in the LLC out of California.
I sent the money there, sold my corvette here, paid

(50:25):
off the loan, paid them wired a wired bank transfer
Chase to chase. Car was supposed to be delivered on Friday.
Called them Thursday night, gave me an excuse that the
had a flat tire, the Canos station company broke down.
Whatever he's gonna be Saturday, Saturday's coming gone, Sunday's coming gone.

(50:46):
And called them this morning and as soon as they
find out it's me, they hang up on me.

Speaker 2 (50:51):
I called them, So hold on, Chris, you paid in
full for this car?

Speaker 3 (50:54):
Is that right?

Speaker 7 (50:56):
This is correct?

Speaker 3 (50:57):
How much did you pay?

Speaker 13 (51:00):
Thirty five and fifty dollars?

Speaker 2 (51:03):
So let me let me get this a you you
call a company online or contact a company online. You've
never done business with somebody that you don't know if
they're legit or not. And you send them thirty five
two hundred and fifty on a car you've never seen,
only based on an online description, and now they're ghosting you, right.

Speaker 13 (51:26):
So I talked to them several times, several text messages,
They sent me pictures, They sent me the VIN number.
I check the BIN number of the car is registered.
It's a legit BIN number.

Speaker 2 (51:38):
Well, that's not hard to do. That's not hard to
get a legit VIN number. I mean, are they a
licensed dealer.

Speaker 13 (51:46):
So it's a it's a broker, but a broker cannot
sell directly to the public. So they're using a third
party to be able to sell to the general public
because the wholesaler can't sell directly to the public. So
I did my research. I looked them up in California.
They are registered at the brand new business they've only Uh.

(52:07):
Of course I did all this on Saturday when they're
not showing up.

Speaker 2 (52:09):
So I started going, Okay, the wholesale broker through what dealer?
Then through what dealer.

Speaker 13 (52:16):
It's called Fables Motors and they're located out of Michigan.

Speaker 3 (52:20):
You're saying bablics.

Speaker 9 (52:22):
God, I thought he said bad luck at first.

Speaker 2 (52:25):
How do you spell that fab l e x oh
fadlex fadles motors Okay, and it's out of and it's
out of Michigan.

Speaker 13 (52:39):
Correct, Okay?

Speaker 7 (52:41):
Sorry?

Speaker 2 (52:44):
And man, so right now, if you go, we'll call
them for you. But you have proof of payment. How
did you pay?

Speaker 13 (52:53):
So it was a wire to wire transfer. They told
me they used Chase Bank, which made it easier for
me because I also bank with Chase. So once I
sold my corvette, I took the money into my bank.
They see an invoice with a routing number or account number,
so we made the transfer.

Speaker 2 (53:14):
Yeah, Chris, I have no doubt you made the transfer properly.
The question is why would you do this? I mean
with with why would you do a deal like this
not even knowing these people? That's what I don't understand.
I just don't understand how anybody would do send thirty
five thousand dollars for a car site unseen to people

(53:36):
you've never met or known before. I just find it extraordinary.
But but go ahead.

Speaker 13 (53:46):
I get where you're coming from. But I felt reassured
after getting all the paperwork and checking the bin number,
with all the pictures and hand which is.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
Are you spelling? We can't find this dealer and and
we want a contact with you.

Speaker 14 (54:04):
It's f A l b e X f A l
We're not looking for the dealer. We need to find
the person that he sent the money to, and.

Speaker 2 (54:12):
It's broke dealer to fell fell x.

Speaker 14 (54:15):
Okay, what's the what's the broker's name?

Speaker 2 (54:19):
Chris.

Speaker 13 (54:20):
Website is w w W fablex motors auto dot com.

Speaker 2 (54:25):
I have blick. No, he's just he just keeps saying
a different word every time.

Speaker 3 (54:30):
It's hard to it's really hard to.

Speaker 2 (54:33):
Fable x f A l b e X. Now he's
doing it again. F A l d e X he said, FOULX.

Speaker 15 (54:45):
Okay, Yeah, there's no such place. Yeah, they don't have
a website. Has anybody been able to find it?

Speaker 8 (54:53):
No?

Speaker 2 (54:53):
I can't find it.

Speaker 5 (54:54):
Christ the car is the car? And transit where is
the car?

Speaker 2 (54:59):
There is no car. This is just a ripper, There
is no This is a total scam. I mean, give
us again off the air. Do me a favor. I'm
not going to do this over and over. People are
pulling their hair out, killing themselves. Right now, get the
name of the website and put it on the callscreener
the actual name of the website, because whatever he's using

(55:22):
Bluetooth or whatever, I can't. We can't. We hear something
different every single time he says it. Every time he
says it. So what we need to do is just
at least locate the dealer and then here's the thing.
Is your contract. Here's what I need to know, Chris,
is your contract with the broker or with the dealer?

Speaker 13 (55:45):
It came from the dealer, So you do have.

Speaker 2 (55:49):
A contract with so called licensed dealer, right, yes, Okay?
Can you send us along a copy of that contract?
Does it show paid in full?

Speaker 1 (56:07):
Oh?

Speaker 13 (56:07):
No, because they had original invoice. I have the bank
statement saying it's made in full, but I don't have
on the original contract. It's got the contracted price. It's
got my down payment of twenty thousand dollars. Bush left
me with fifteen thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (56:24):
Okay, what kind of car? What kind of car did
you buy? What is it? It's a seventy Chevelle, nineteen
seventy Chevelle. Okay, all right, we're gonna we're gonna try
to get the name.

Speaker 3 (56:37):
We're going to try to get this.

Speaker 2 (56:38):
Uh, these people on let's just look at it first,
look at the website. Let's do some courts investigation. I
mean we have you know, Deputy d as Well is
ready to go on his investigation.

Speaker 14 (56:52):
Here, Tom haym sick.

Speaker 15 (56:54):
We were still not sure where he actually wired the money.
Was it to the broker or to the dealer? Where
did the Chris, where did you wire the money to?
Whose account?

Speaker 13 (57:02):
Their business registration in California where the LLC is registered?

Speaker 3 (57:07):
Wait?

Speaker 15 (57:08):
Wait, but who whose account? Did you wire the money
to the dealer that has the car or the broker
that supposedly arranged the dealer the deal.

Speaker 13 (57:16):
Broker because it's the broker's account number. Oh, and they
said they told me to send because this is a
third party who saw in these cars. They said, send
the money to this LLC and they are out of California.

Speaker 14 (57:31):
Yeah, this is a scam.

Speaker 13 (57:32):
That's where the account number went in the tracking number, Yeah,
went to that and.

Speaker 14 (57:37):
The broker was in supposedly in Michigan.

Speaker 11 (57:40):
Correct.

Speaker 15 (57:42):
Hey, so listen, man, your only hope is to count
We have we're friends with a really great automotive attorney.

Speaker 2 (57:47):
Yeah, let's do that. Right after this break, we want
to talk to you about what you need to do
because Chris, you were scammed. Okay, acts, get the information
and put it on the call screener for us. We
have more coming up the Troubleshooter Show. Go with a
sure thing Denver's Best roofer Excel Roofing dot com. You

(58:08):
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 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

(58:29):
to list your home with Remax Alliance three oh three
nine two zero sixteen twenty two. Hi Tom Martino here,
what is happening? Major Mark Major? We are talking to Chris,
who sent thirty five grand in a fire.

Speaker 3 (58:51):
For people out there.

Speaker 9 (58:52):
We get one of our deputies, now Bo, He's going
to reach out to the dealership and see if they've
ever even heard this broker or if they even have
this car. I'm starting to think the thing is one bs,
meaning this broker just gave him a name of a dealership.

Speaker 3 (59:09):
And stole all his money.

Speaker 2 (59:11):
Yeah, see I think that Let's say the dealer could
be legit and this broker just used a car on
that site and said you're buying the car, then had
him hired me to a California account. But this account
in California, Chris, did you verify who this account belongs to?

Speaker 3 (59:34):
Did you verify that?

Speaker 5 (59:37):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (59:37):
I did, okay? And who does it belong to?

Speaker 13 (59:41):
It's Trivion tr e b Ion Dynamics LLC is the holder.

Speaker 2 (59:47):
And what's that? What's Trivian by but Dynamics.

Speaker 6 (59:52):
That's the wholesaler.

Speaker 2 (59:54):
Okay, So okay, got it? So you did this. This
calls called well let's call him a broker, hostal or whatever.
So this this is the guy you sent the money to.
You never sent money to that dealer. That dealer could
be just somebody he picked out. I mean, how did
you find this car.

Speaker 5 (01:00:16):
Online?

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
Okay? When you found it online? Was it on was
it on the website for foulbecks?

Speaker 10 (01:00:24):
Correct?

Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
Yes? And you called the foulbacks number and got this broker.

Speaker 13 (01:00:32):
Yes, his name was Paul Davis. That's why I worked
with the whole time.

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
So so, but you got Paul Davis when you called
the main number for Foulbecks.

Speaker 5 (01:00:44):
Correct.

Speaker 3 (01:00:45):
Oh really?

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
Okay, So you call this number for Foulbecs and you
talked to this guy, this guy, I'm wondering if he
perpetrated the fraud on his own. I mean, I I
don't know. I mean, hey, BO tried calling out there.

Speaker 5 (01:01:02):
I did.

Speaker 4 (01:01:03):
I called and left the message And Chris, do you
have the VIN number of the vehicle?

Speaker 11 (01:01:08):
So I do you want it?

Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
But what difference does that matter?

Speaker 4 (01:01:12):
Because I want to verify Foulbecks actually has the vehicle
at their dealership.

Speaker 3 (01:01:17):
Yeah, but okay, what I want.

Speaker 2 (01:01:19):
To verify is that Falbecks knows this guy the brokers.
The broker's name, what did you say? I want to
put down his name again? What's his name again?

Speaker 7 (01:01:29):
It's Paul Davis.

Speaker 5 (01:01:31):
Okay, I'm all and asked for if they know, and.

Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
Paul Davis answered the phone at Foulbecks. So you call
on a car on this seventy Chevy Chevelle, you call
on it and he answers the phone. Correct, and he says,
why are the money to this account of mine in California.

Speaker 13 (01:01:57):
To the registered LLC someone that he works for? So
I understood that he was working for Coublex Motors, which
is registered I believe, I believe was in California. So
it came time for the money transfer for the Senate
to the bank, it went to the California address.

Speaker 3 (01:02:17):
And that did not make you suspicious at all.

Speaker 13 (01:02:22):
Yes and no, because I checked to make sure that
they were legit. It was legit registered in California.

Speaker 3 (01:02:29):
What was legit? What do you mean legit? What does
legit mean?

Speaker 13 (01:02:32):
That he's registered with California?

Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
So lot I can register in California for twenty five
dollars today? I mean, what difference does that make that
it's a legit. Don't call it legit, call it a
registered LLC. I mean, big deal. So this guy registers
in LLC and has you deposit.

Speaker 3 (01:02:53):
Money in it, and you believed that it was going.

Speaker 2 (01:02:58):
To Foulbecks or whatever the dealer, and it was not
going to the dealer. It was going to this guy's account.
And now when you call, do you call Foulbecks or
do you call a number you have for Paul Davis.

Speaker 6 (01:03:15):
I called a.

Speaker 13 (01:03:15):
Number of the Foulbex number, but Paul Davis answers.

Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
Okay, So this Falbecks number You've never talked to anyone
else there.

Speaker 13 (01:03:26):
It's always been Paul.

Speaker 7 (01:03:27):
Correct.

Speaker 2 (01:03:30):
Is there any other number you have other than the
one on the website.

Speaker 13 (01:03:35):
Well, they have two numbers registered on that website.

Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
You cannot be completed.

Speaker 1 (01:03:39):
I called both of them, and.

Speaker 13 (01:03:40):
I've got several six messages back and forth from.

Speaker 3 (01:03:43):
Paul bo Did you call both of those numbers?

Speaker 4 (01:03:45):
I called in the beginning before I knew this Paul guy,
and I was able to leave a detailed message. Now
I just called uh three times and they're just hanging
up on me, because.

Speaker 6 (01:03:57):
That's what they do to me.

Speaker 13 (01:03:58):
I called from a different number this morning. He hung
up on me as soon as he found its who
I was.

Speaker 14 (01:04:02):
So I'm going to go in the other studio and call.

Speaker 4 (01:04:04):
But now that he's got my number, they when I
call it, you just pick up the phone and hang up.

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
Man, You've just been scammed out of thirty five grand.

Speaker 16 (01:04:11):
This is terrible. This is terrible. Golly, Hey Tom, Yeah, Hey,
So I did look up Fallbecks Motors. They do have
a license and they are registered with the State of
Wisconsin Auto Dealers Licensing Authority. So I think Chris's last
remaining chance is to call the licensing authority in Wisconsin

(01:04:34):
and submit a complaint.

Speaker 10 (01:04:35):
Yeah, and see if.

Speaker 2 (01:04:37):
Because he called their number to see and then unless
they completely disassociate themselves. But for now that's the only
contact he has is foul Becks. And now when you
call foal Becks bo, somebody picks up and hangs up.

Speaker 4 (01:04:53):
Yes, we got hung up on three times. But when
I when I made the initial call, I was able
to leave a message about Chris in his nineteen seventy
Chevelle and as for details to call us back, identified
myself who I was. And then when you guys gave
me Paul Davis's number, when I call back, they.

Speaker 5 (01:05:12):
Just hang up. So I'm gonna try. I'm gonna go
in the other.

Speaker 4 (01:05:15):
Studio and call Oh wow, Yeah, I don't think it's
gonna do any dealer number.

Speaker 15 (01:05:20):
What it's WHL eighty seven to ten. That's their dealer
registration number.

Speaker 2 (01:05:27):
You mean to complain?

Speaker 4 (01:05:30):
Yeah, that's good, he Chris, you do need to file
a complaint, Okay, Now WHL thirty.

Speaker 14 (01:05:38):
Yeah, WHL eighty seven to ten.

Speaker 16 (01:05:41):
That's Wisconsin and it's old by some guy named slow
Amir Falba.

Speaker 14 (01:05:46):
That's not a good sign.

Speaker 15 (01:05:48):
And all I can find on the slow mere fallba
is he died a couple of years ago, the same
slow mirror.

Speaker 14 (01:05:55):
It really is slow a mir fallba faba.

Speaker 2 (01:05:59):
Okay, uh, Chris, when you when you first sent the money,
did he cut you off immediately or did he talk
to you a few times?

Speaker 12 (01:06:10):
Oh?

Speaker 13 (01:06:10):
No, We continued the conversation. He made this sound like
Legit was that constant conversation, constant communication until the car
was paid in full. He assured me the car would
be here on Friday.

Speaker 7 (01:06:25):
Next thing I know.

Speaker 2 (01:06:26):
I call him.

Speaker 13 (01:06:27):
Thursday night, I'm like, hey, this is still Are we
still on for Friday?

Speaker 6 (01:06:31):
Well?

Speaker 13 (01:06:31):
I got the excuse that the transport company had a
flat tire.

Speaker 6 (01:06:34):
It's now we're going to be Saturday.

Speaker 13 (01:06:35):
They were showed on Saturday afternoon. I said, that's what
you said. Can you take it on Saturday? I said, yes,
I'll be.

Speaker 15 (01:06:41):
Home all day.

Speaker 13 (01:06:41):
Not a problem, No, Paul, no nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:06:47):
So here we get on Monday, and now we can't
get through because they just keep hanging up. They know
people are calling from Colorado right now. I don't know,
should be inundatum, should be inundating with calls? I mean,
well they I don't know if.

Speaker 14 (01:07:05):
They're scammers, that's not going to make any difference.

Speaker 10 (01:07:07):
Right.

Speaker 15 (01:07:07):
That sounds like they're going to give up thirty five
that they stole from Chris Falbecks.

Speaker 2 (01:07:14):
I'm just curious as to how deep Falbechs is and
this guy. Maybe they're one and the same because he's
the only one that's ever answered. Uh So, listen, we're
gonna keep trying, but this sounds pretty bad. And then
they have a location on an actual industrial drive in Wisconsin.

(01:07:36):
You thought they were in Michigan? Is that right?

Speaker 13 (01:07:39):
Call her you thought, Chris, I'm sorry, I'm at Wisconsin.
That was That's on me, my fault.

Speaker 3 (01:07:46):
Okay, we got more coming right up. Hold on.

Speaker 2 (01:07:55):
Go with a sure thing Denver's Best roofer Excel Roofing
dot com. You don't pass until you're content. Wait time
for an insurance checkup free no obligation comparison call Compass
Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of insurance
companies find out now three oh three, seven seven to
one help. You'll think you're his only customer when you

(01:08:17):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:08:26):
Forty five years strong, solving your problems, answering questions, taking complaints.

Speaker 3 (01:08:32):
This is the Troubleshooter Show.

Speaker 2 (01:08:35):
No Tom Martino, Hey Tom Martino here, Welcome to the show.
Three oh three seven one three talk seven one three
eight two five five. We got plumb Line Services with
us for plumbing, hating, cooling, electric and drains. Great people
at plumb Line Services. Bob Logan is with us. I've

(01:08:57):
known these guys for years and years in year I
like to say thirty years, it could be longer, and
basically from their origins. So if you have any questions, problems,
complaints on that, I have a few texts that I
socked away for them that we can get to. But
I want to first highlight something that comes up on
the show from time to time, and.

Speaker 3 (01:09:17):
It's just out and out ripoffs.

Speaker 2 (01:09:19):
Okay, and this out and out ripoff has to do
with a company called Falbe's Motors. Now we're not sure
if they use the name Thalbex Motors, if it's a
real dealership a fake dealership, and that the broker Paul Davis,
that sounds like a made up name. If he's for real.
But here's what happened. Chris was looking for a classic car.

(01:09:42):
He sells his Corvette and he gets the money and
wires thirty five, two hundred and fifty dollars to to
Falbechs Motors. He thinks he sees the nineteen seventy Chevy
Chevelle advertis on Fallbecks or Falbecks Motors in Wisconsin. That's

(01:10:05):
f as in Frank A L. B as in boy
ex Foulbecks Motors in Wisconsin. But Paul Davis, the guy
he's working with on the phone, who answered the phone
on that deal at that dealership, said to wire the

(01:10:26):
money to my account in California. Because I'm a broker,
I can't sell to you directly, but you can buy
it through the dealer. He gave him some song in
a dance. In any case, Chris wired thirty five grand
to California, and now Paul Davis and Fulbecks Motors are

(01:10:49):
ghosting him. When we called to find out what's going on,
we were allowed to leave a message one time. After that,
as soon as as we mentioned what we were calling about,
our subsequent calls were blocked. So the number was blocked

(01:11:09):
and it just got disconnected immediately. So we have reason
to believe that Fallbecks and Paul Davis are perpetrating a
scam and that they block numbers who call them to
find out about it, and they're basically going to get
away with it probably, But there is an active dealer
licensing board in Wisconsin. Deputy d says they've been successful

(01:11:34):
on recovering money in auto scams and that there have
been a lot of them recently out of Wisconsin. And
by the way, some people sent me Facebook postings about
Fallbecks Motors saying that they're a ripoff and that they
are a fake dealer and that a lot of people

(01:11:56):
have actually been burned dealing with Foulbacks or Fallbacks Motors Incorporated.
Now we have the number, and by the way, we
did get an actual text from them on my because

(01:12:17):
I called on my Google Voice number and they texted
me back and it's from Fallbeck's Motors, the number and everything,
and it says, dear client, thank you for reaching out
to Fallbeck's Motors. We've got you covered and nothing goes overlooked.
If you reached us outside of business hours, expect to

(01:12:39):
follow up first thing. Feel free to reply with questions
or details. Your manager will see everything. So I have
an open text here that I'm going to use to
ask about the problem to see what they do. It
says that I can reply to this text, and I'm
going to do that to see if they know Paul

(01:13:00):
Davis and if they know about this deal. So it's
just a shame when you when you lose that much money,
that much money. Anyway, let's talk to Nicholas now on
the troubleshooter line. Nicholas, what's going on with you? Nicholas? Welcome?

Speaker 6 (01:13:20):
How you doing?

Speaker 2 (01:13:21):
I'm doing, fan, what's happening?

Speaker 12 (01:13:24):
Okay, I've just moved here to Colorado, and I've been
working with this this rehab place for maybe eight months,
and I get hired on with him in April. As
soon as I get hired on with them, thank you

(01:13:44):
a chap chip creating in my name, and I know
I don't know nothing about it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:51):
Phi And no, wait, wait, wait, what kind of a
what kind of a check did you say?

Speaker 12 (01:13:57):
Guess a third party where you can borrow uh, maybe
two hundred dollars a day because they look at your
hours and and and I guess they look at your
hours and you I don't know. I'm finding out about this.

Speaker 3 (01:14:11):
Okay, Nicholas, where are you working?

Speaker 2 (01:14:14):
You said you were hired by a rehab place thirty one.

Speaker 12 (01:14:18):
Thirty one South Federal Boulevard. Uh, it's a the Height
post Acute.

Speaker 2 (01:14:24):
What's the name of the place.

Speaker 12 (01:14:28):
It's called the Height post Acute.

Speaker 2 (01:14:30):
The heights, Yeah, can you can you recognize?

Speaker 3 (01:14:35):
What else are you saying?

Speaker 2 (01:14:36):
The heights?

Speaker 3 (01:14:40):
Okay? And and what do you do there?

Speaker 12 (01:14:44):
I'm the dias watcher and I'm maybe okay, now, hey,
I'm maybe third of heavily uh drinks, maybe maybe food sometimes, but.

Speaker 2 (01:14:54):
Okay, uh huh. Where did you where? Nicholas? Where did
you move.

Speaker 12 (01:14:57):
From from Georgia?

Speaker 2 (01:15:00):
And you found out about this job? Were online? Now?

Speaker 12 (01:15:05):
As me? My mom she she stayed here and she
does DNA and in the hospital work stuff like that.
And we're trying to get out of Georgia and trying
to move here.

Speaker 2 (01:15:17):
I asked you, Okay, so is this place that you
work at? This is where people go after a hospital
stay to like rehabilitate to go home. Yes, okay, And
what is wrong now? What's going on? You're working there?
Is what went wrong?

Speaker 9 (01:15:35):
Okay?

Speaker 12 (01:15:36):
I started working on the twenty thirty. But now I
started working on a fifteen and an account called tap
Chip was created in my name. It was created in
my name where you can borrow money.

Speaker 6 (01:15:51):
And I know, and is your is.

Speaker 2 (01:15:53):
Your paycheck deposited into that account?

Speaker 12 (01:15:57):
No, it's the positive in my bank account.

Speaker 3 (01:16:00):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:16:01):
And this other account that was created in your name?
Who created it?

Speaker 12 (01:16:06):
Which I have, I've made a police report and I
don't know who made it. But but that's the problem.

Speaker 2 (01:16:14):
Okay, And tell me, is someone taking money in your name?

Speaker 10 (01:16:20):
Yes?

Speaker 12 (01:16:21):
Okay, they took maybe uh twelve so far. The account
it's brought right now. They stopped the transferred so they
can get no more money out of my account.

Speaker 2 (01:16:34):
Now does the money hold on? That's what I wanted
to ask. So this fraudulent account where you can borrow
money and pay it back, does the money you pay
back come automatically out of your bank account?

Speaker 12 (01:16:48):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (01:16:50):
But who who connected your bank account? Who connected your
bank account to that?

Speaker 12 (01:16:57):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:16:57):
No?

Speaker 6 (01:16:58):
No?

Speaker 12 (01:16:58):
Did they put they put their own card on on
their account? Okay, they created a brotherless email, they have
a phone number on it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:08):
And then no, I can't okay, but is this account
used to pay you. Is this how they pay you? No?

Speaker 12 (01:17:17):
This this account that do not pay me? They paid
me from there from from from I guess they're a
real and my bank account. But the thing is, I
don't know how a tap check get my check or
see my account or yeah, to protect my money period?

Speaker 2 (01:17:35):
Okay, so money is is money being taken out of
your bank account?

Speaker 12 (01:17:41):
No, it's taken from my check like before I get
it all?

Speaker 2 (01:17:47):
Don't you mean even before hold on, even before you
get your paycheck, there's money being taken out of it?

Speaker 12 (01:17:56):
Correct?

Speaker 2 (01:17:57):
And what does even know about it? What does the
HEIGHT say? Where do they say the money is going?

Speaker 12 (01:18:05):
But they told me to call a tap chick? This
this the HR and the kitchen Managers group? Like who
I talk to hire? The only person know my information
is HR.

Speaker 2 (01:18:16):
I don't understand how they're accessing your paycheck. How are
they getting money out of your paycheck?

Speaker 12 (01:18:25):
If they see? Uh, I don't know that what I'm
but that's what I was trying to find out.

Speaker 17 (01:18:30):
So I may, I called the tap tick and and
I may I got a report. Now I had to
make a police report, right, I gave them the police report.

Speaker 12 (01:18:41):
I had to let my HR the job know which
I went to them and asked them about a tap chick.
How can my name? How can someone created my name
attach in my name? You don't want to have my information?

Speaker 2 (01:18:56):
I just moved it, okay, So it helped me out here, bro,
I just.

Speaker 15 (01:19:00):
Based on what I heard. I don't think the Heights
post acute that's what they're called. They're out there in
South Federal.

Speaker 3 (01:19:05):
Post acute Care, right.

Speaker 15 (01:19:06):
I think if they sent our caller's money to some scammer,
they owe the caller of that money. I know that
he did not authorize the Heights to conduct any deductions
from his paycheck for the scam account.

Speaker 14 (01:19:19):
They somehow did it on their own. They owe him
the money.

Speaker 2 (01:19:22):
Yeah, someone is ciphering off of your paycheck, but who so?

Speaker 12 (01:19:28):
So now now I let every one knows the administrator
at one and I guess I'm gonna leave. Then I
don't think emails. If I am my prior and if
do I see a word, do I get paid?

Speaker 15 (01:19:40):
What?

Speaker 12 (01:19:41):
Like? Right now, I'm in I'm at home. I'm not working.
I had hours that work there, I had hours out
of day the whole new ship, and now I've been
sent home.

Speaker 2 (01:19:51):
So this account that was put in your name, this
account that was put in your name, and they take
money from your paycheck. Is it like a payday loan?

Speaker 12 (01:20:03):
Yes, I guess, I guess yes, pay day long I
don't that's what it is. So I put that in
it on my phone and try to create my own
account with tackings. They say, my if this end has
already been used, and I have been talking and been
trying to tell them I'm the real person who have

(01:20:23):
how much?

Speaker 2 (01:20:24):
What's the most they've taken out of your paycheck?

Speaker 12 (01:20:27):
It was eleven ninety three.

Speaker 2 (01:20:30):
Eleven hundred dollars.

Speaker 12 (01:20:33):
Yes, ninety three. I don't work. I don't work the money.

Speaker 2 (01:20:37):
Are you still working?

Speaker 3 (01:20:38):
Are you still working there?

Speaker 12 (01:20:41):
So far, they've never emailed me and let me know
I'm terminated, but they sent me home until pen of investigations.

Speaker 2 (01:20:49):
Yeah, we need to figure out that. I go along
with Deputy d. They owe you the money. They they
shouldn't send your money somewhere else. What did they do it?
I need to know the paperwork they have that authorized
them to send your paycheck somewhere else? What do they say.

Speaker 12 (01:21:09):
If they are not telling me that, they're telling me
to be.

Speaker 2 (01:21:11):
Quiet Okay, we need to help. They're telling you to
be quiet now. Is this is the Heights post acute?
Is this government run or is this private?

Speaker 12 (01:21:23):
I'm doing I'm trying to do the best research I
can do to find out and I don't. I'm doing
unemployment now because I don't I need work. That was
a bit, Joe. I have a brother that just able
and I love that work. I love that type of environment.

Speaker 2 (01:21:39):
And how much were you making? How much were you
making a week?

Speaker 12 (01:21:43):
I'm making twenty dollars. I don't make it twenty dollars
hours plus over time. I guess it was thirty dollars
out over time, and I was getting a lot out.
I was making like one hundred and something out like
one hundred and nine hours.

Speaker 2 (01:21:56):
Okay, Deputy D we need to call over there right now.
Would you like calling over there because you understand this.
Somehow these people are ciphering off his account.

Speaker 14 (01:22:05):
Not his account, his sife check.

Speaker 2 (01:22:07):
Yeah, siphoning off Yeah, that's what I meant off of.
They're siphoning money from his paycheck.

Speaker 3 (01:22:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 15 (01:22:15):
I can give him a call right now, if if
you can put me in touch with our caller.

Speaker 2 (01:22:18):
Yeah, hold on right gro let's put them on hold. God,
this guy, this guy's working his butt off and they're
taking money from him and he has no idea. I
got to take this break. This is this is bad news.
Three three seven one three eight two five five. Go

(01:22:40):
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 oh three seven seven and
one help. You'll think you're his only customer when you

(01:23:03):
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'm Tom Martino. You're troubleshooter
three all three seven to one three. Talk of busy morning,
of scams and people getting ripped off. It really breaks
my heart. Now I want to talk to Bob Logan.

(01:23:24):
He is with Plumbline Services dot com plumbing, heating, cooling,
electric and drains. And I do have questions I've set
aside for you. And somebody wants to know, is it
unusual to have lights flicker or dim a little when
electrical loads come on? They say, when the air conditioning

(01:23:45):
comes on, they notice it, and they noticed it sometimes
with their dryer and other heavy loads. So what does
that tell you? When electrical what does that tell you, Bob? Yeah,
that's not unusual, but it's not normal. So it's it
means that your circuits are being overloaded. And so the

(01:24:06):
best thing to do is get an electrician out there,
explain to them exactly what is happening. Have them take
a look at your panel, the loads that it's drawing from.

Speaker 10 (01:24:15):
If you can recreate the scenario, that's even better, and
then have a license electrician makes them.

Speaker 2 (01:24:22):
It's not unusual to outgrow a service, is it.

Speaker 10 (01:24:25):
No, it's not especially You know, a lot of homes
in Colorado did not have air conditioning systems. My house
growing up here did not have an air conditioning system.
So when you start adding all these additional appliances, all
the electronics we use nowadays that we didn't have even
ten or fifteen years ago, a lot of people are
overloading their circuits and so sometimes it's necessary to upgrade

(01:24:49):
a panel as well.

Speaker 2 (01:24:51):
How difficult because as was our next question, how difficult
is it to upgrade a panel?

Speaker 3 (01:24:56):
Can you just ask for more service?

Speaker 2 (01:24:59):
I mean, like for examp, you hear about what's the
lowest you have? Fifty amp? Or is it twenty five amp?
There's thirty five AM or what I don't know? I
think fifty.

Speaker 10 (01:25:07):
Yeah, I mean that's I mean fifty or even one hundred,
you know is low nowadays.

Speaker 2 (01:25:13):
It is low these and then there's two, there's one fifty,
there's two hundred.

Speaker 10 (01:25:17):
Correct, And so what the electrician will do is, depending
on what you're adding to your service, they'll look in
your panel and see if if you can even add
another circuit to your panel, it might be it might
already be full. And if it's full, there's not a
whole lot you can do. Then you have to upgrade.
You can add a subpanel sometimes when you add.

Speaker 2 (01:25:38):
A subpanel, though it doesn't add abridge, does it like
if you have one hundred, can you add fifty and
have one hundred and fifty total? Or do you have
to do the whole thing?

Speaker 10 (01:25:47):
You know, that would be a question best asked for
a license.

Speaker 2 (01:25:51):
When you guys do upgrades. Though you can upgrade the
entire house.

Speaker 10 (01:25:55):
Without a douv You do that a lot every day
because people are out growing anywhere. Yes, yes, and some.

Speaker 2 (01:26:02):
Of the biggest reasons of the new appliances that I
mean a lot of people add new things. Uh, they're
doing more. Like you said, some people never had air.
Everyone has air now. A lot of people didn't have dryers.
Everyone has a dryer now, everyone has a dishwasher everyone.
I mean, if you think about it, Uh, some of
these older homes just weren't built for all of these things.

Speaker 10 (01:26:23):
Everything we use is electronic these days, and and so
for many many homes, they're over overloading their circuits. And
so again it's it's not used.

Speaker 2 (01:26:33):
Is that a one day job?

Speaker 3 (01:26:34):
Or does that take all the way?

Speaker 2 (01:26:35):
Does that tough to do or one day?

Speaker 10 (01:26:37):
Or it's it's a it's a difficult job. And always
always always have a license electrician or plumber or h
VAC technician and you're using a handyman service.

Speaker 3 (01:26:47):
No, no, you just can't do trouble.

Speaker 2 (01:26:49):
Okay, So can you go out and assess what they
have and what they need?

Speaker 10 (01:26:55):
Yes, you can, without a doubt, without a doubt.

Speaker 3 (01:26:58):
Is that called an elect inspection?

Speaker 10 (01:27:00):
What's that called an electrical inspection or diagnosis, that is,
to charge for that. It's something we charge. We typically
charged forty nine dollars. We do have right now and
you've got it done. We've got especially right now twenty
one dollars for a whole home electrical inspection.

Speaker 3 (01:27:16):
Twenty one a refund.

Speaker 10 (01:27:18):
We we we charge you retail plus ten percent, but
for our wait wait, electrical inspection, we'll come in twenty
one dollar evaluation of your electrical inspection. Give you any
recommendations that we see, safety concerns that we see. You know,
if you're looking at adding circuits or upgrading a panel,

(01:27:38):
we can give you options for that, and there's no
obligation to do anything after that. You know, we'll we'll
educate you. We we'll give you some some ritt is.

Speaker 9 (01:27:47):
My daughter's circumstance or looking at the house. They got
an offer in on it, and I told him, you
need to do what I did when we bought this house.
Bob sent out an electrician a plumber and.

Speaker 2 (01:27:59):
Writing you do each system for me.

Speaker 10 (01:28:02):
That's right, which is that we charge you eight hundred
dollars mark because you didn't know in the house already.

Speaker 2 (01:28:08):
No, instead of having just a home inspector. I often
do that. I take the major systems when I get serious,
and I have the HVAC system inspected, the electrical inspected,
I have the sewer. I have them separately inspected when
I get serious.

Speaker 3 (01:28:26):
Because a home inspector, as.

Speaker 2 (01:28:28):
Good as they might be, they don't know every little
detail of every item. It's really important to have those
systems inspected. I think, I think you should have them
inspected by experts.

Speaker 10 (01:28:39):
There's no way they can be an expert on everything.
They got hundreds of things they got to check out,
and they're just going through a checklist. And they're knowledgeable.
They're certainly knowledgeable, and they're experts in certain areas, but
there's no way they can be as knowledgeable as a
licensed electrician, a licensed plumber.

Speaker 2 (01:28:54):
And that is my secret in real estate negotiation. Frank
and I have done this before. Frank, of course, is
a genius. Frank Ran the real estate man.

Speaker 3 (01:29:04):
So what we.

Speaker 2 (01:29:05):
Did was, when I like a place, I go back
and look at it a second time, but we don't
tell them I'm necessarily looking at it. He just shows
another showing and I go back and this time I
take license to people with me and I literally before
I put an offer in, I know everything about that house.

Speaker 3 (01:29:26):
I have a foundation guy.

Speaker 2 (01:29:27):
If there's any question, I have the HVAC, the plumbing
and electrical, and I have a good idea of what
that house needs down to the penny. I had Jay
Brett's check out, the roof, the attic and all of that.
So when I go in and make an offer on
a house, it's after I've seen it twice. The first time,

(01:29:50):
I bring somebody with me, the second time I bring
the experts, and once in a while I might go
back again. And as far as this guy's concerned, it's
my second time. Because we don't necessarily say, oh, the
guy wants to see it the second time, he wants
to see it a third time. We just gain access
and get another showing. So the point I'm making is this,

(01:30:11):
I go in loaded. I know when I make an
offer on a house the condition of the house.

Speaker 3 (01:30:16):
And I know what I'm going to have to invest.

Speaker 2 (01:30:19):
So I get X amount of dollars that I know
I'm going to invest, and that included STUCKO repair. I
went down to everything everything this house needed, and it
came to one hundred and fifty thousand. Some of that
was optional. I wanted to do epoxy floors on the
on the garages, and I priced it all out. This
would make this house perfect. So then I go in

(01:30:41):
and negotiate with no contingencies and no inspections. People when
they because I've already don't know, I've already inspected it,
so you don't go through any of that garbage. When
I go back, seemingly the guy might think I've only
seen it once, possibly twice, and I may a no contingency,

(01:31:02):
close hard earnest money, no inspection, they go, oh my god,
let's snatch this guy up, you know, because they I
know they knew here. I thought they knew.

Speaker 3 (01:31:14):
They thought they had a foundation problem.

Speaker 2 (01:31:15):
They thought they did because there were telltale signs, but
it wasn't. It was simply that the driveway needed to
be lifted and the garage was a little high in it.
But to make a long story short, there was nothing
wrong with the foundation. So when they get an offer
no contingencies and that means that non refundable earnest, I said, look,
I want to make it and close in three weeks.

Speaker 3 (01:31:40):
They can't believe.

Speaker 2 (01:31:41):
They can't believe it, and That is strength people. When
you go in with knowledge, you can do it the
conventional way, but I'm telling you, if you do it
my way and you get absolute figures of what you're
going to spend on a house, you can go in
and negotiate better than anyone else who has a lot
of un own variables. All right, we have more coming

(01:32:02):
up on the Troubleshooter Show three oh three seven one
three talk. And as I said, it was Frank Rand,
the real estate man who does all my bidding for me,
and he'll do an analysis of your home. If you're
looking to sell free of charge, no obligation three oh
three nine two zero sixteen twenty two, go with a

(01:32:23):
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.
Pay 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

(01:32:45):
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 Arsino here, Welcome to the show.
Three oh three seven one three talk seven three eight
two five.

Speaker 9 (01:33:02):
Yes, I wanted to pick back up on something plumbline.
I want to tell people really how amazing they are.
I've known Bob for years. Now you realize our house,
this one here they came out and inspected, but our
house that we were selling in Castle Rocks.

Speaker 3 (01:33:18):
So twenty fifteen, we had.

Speaker 9 (01:33:20):
This horrible knock every time we would turn on a
certain shower.

Speaker 3 (01:33:24):
It was like there was a child trapped in the walls.

Speaker 9 (01:33:27):
Yeah hammering, yeah, yeah it So they they sent out
this kid and I forget his name, but he said, oh,
you've got a hammering sound because of the water pressure,
and where the water pressure was was like in this
panel that no normal human could ever fit into. This
kid somehow got into our wall, replaced this valve, got

(01:33:52):
rid of the problem all within three or four hours.

Speaker 3 (01:33:56):
He was like, what do they call those people that
can bend it every week?

Speaker 9 (01:34:00):
Contortionist? A contortionist. I just couldn't believe how good this
plumber did. Then the problem gone forever. Then we had
them inspect our furnace because we were putting the house
up for sale. They said the furnace was in good shape,
so they charged just whatever, ninety nine bucks whatever they
charged back then, and gave us some kind of certificate

(01:34:21):
that we could give to the.

Speaker 2 (01:34:23):
People looking at buying it.

Speaker 9 (01:34:24):
I mean, then when we get here, listen to this time,
when we get to this house in frank Down, after
we're here about i don't know, seven eight years, all
of a sudden, our sink is backed up, and I'm like,
oh my god, we got a problem with something the
septic system. Who knows what it could be out here,
And we called these guys up just Suzanne called them

(01:34:45):
ninety three bucks. They sent out two technicians and I'm
pretty sure they still do it. These two drain cleaners
came out and put on their booties and spent about
two hours cleaning the drain. And I was so ready.
I I'm so sure I was going to be told
the route grew into something and I need a sewer

(01:35:06):
line or whatever that's called on.

Speaker 3 (01:35:08):
A septic some kind of line. Yeah, yeah, sure enough.

Speaker 9 (01:35:11):
They're like, Nope, that's just build up of stuff you
put down the garbage disposal. You always ninety three bucks
and they were out. You can't beat it. Now they're
doing these great things for our daughter at this house
you're looking at, Bob, I just want to seriously for
you know, over ten or twelve years, I truly do,
and I don't get a chance to tell people this

(01:35:31):
all the time. I really appreciate what plumb Line does.
You guys, you run a hell of a good company.
I trust everything you guys say. You're just good people. Well,
thank you, Mark. That means a lot.

Speaker 10 (01:35:43):
And all the credit goes to the employees, I mean,
starting with the people in the call center and the
technicians go to your home. We were just very blessed
have an amazing team that takes care of our clients
and truly cares about customer service. But yeah, we still
got that ninety three or a free special going on,
and it's ninety three dollars for any backed up drain.

(01:36:04):
If we cannot clear it, it's free, we don't charge you,
and we'll get one of our plumbing supervisors over there
with some cameras try to figure out what's going on
in that case and give you some options for repairs.
But and if we clear it, like in your case,
get it cleared.

Speaker 9 (01:36:18):
Maybe it's just sludge, and it's just the honesty part
of that. Like I said, I mean most people we
have no idea. You got to trust the guys scoping
it or cleaning it or whatever you have to. Absolutely,
we've had people Tom that have We have seen the
same video from one of Bob's competitives, the exact same

(01:36:39):
video twice with two different addresses. That's crazy. But Bob,
I want to say one more thing. You said it
all has to do with the employees, and I do agree,
but you're leaving out a big part. The reason the
culture at Plumbline is the culture at plumb Line with
the honesty and just going the extra mile is because

(01:37:01):
of you. It is because of the leadership. And there's
no one in the world that can argue with that.
I love the fact you give the employees all the credit,
but you created those employees.

Speaker 10 (01:37:13):
Well, I appreciate that. That's humbling.

Speaker 2 (01:37:17):
You know, it's started with It's called the culture, and
businesses have it.

Speaker 3 (01:37:21):
You can tell.

Speaker 2 (01:37:22):
You can tell when a business doesn't have a good
culture from the top down. You can tell they are
all in it for themselves and they're not good people.

Speaker 3 (01:37:30):
You can tell businesses like that.

Speaker 2 (01:37:31):
You can tell car dealerships, builders, contractors, HVAC companies, you
can tell.

Speaker 10 (01:37:38):
You can tell, can't you. I believe you can and
I know it comes from the top down. We're now
the largest residential service provider in Colorado. And that was
although it was a goal, that wasn't the primary goal.
At the end of the day, I want to go home,
put my head on my pillow at night and know
we're doing the right thing for our clients. And it's
because of that and because of what our employees deliver,

(01:38:00):
that's how we became the biggest. But you know, like
I said, the revenue, the size that that's just a
byproduct of the great work that all of our employees do.

Speaker 2 (01:38:10):
Yep, three oh three, and we we love representing great companies.
Three oh three, seven one three talks seven one three
eight two five five Deputy das a follow up, Oh,
we got to take this break. We'll come back with
a follow up on this Nicholas case, which is very,
very curious. He just moved to Colorado, was hired by
a company, and they're ciphering somebody siphoning his paycheck to

(01:38:33):
a buy here, not a buy here, but a payday
loan place.

Speaker 3 (01:38:37):
We'll talk about that coming right up.

Speaker 2 (01:38:43):
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 three seven to
seven to one. Help. You'll think you're his only customer

(01:39:05):
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. Hi. Tom Martino, Deputy
d was looking into Nicholas's case. So Nicholas says, he
just moved here, got a job at the Heights Post Acute.

(01:39:25):
That's a skilled nursing facility where people go after they
had a stint in the hospital to recuperate, to go
before they go home.

Speaker 3 (01:39:33):
It's like a halfway house there.

Speaker 2 (01:39:35):
And he said that someone had signed him up for
some payday loans and they were literally garnishing his paycheck
before he even got it. And he said he never
did the payday loans, never got any money from them.
But they were garnishing his wages.

Speaker 15 (01:39:54):
Tom, I'd like to offer a quick correction. The proper
term isn't garnishing. These were deductions. And the reason I
want to be super precise with regard to heights post
recovery is they told me they're going to consult their
so called legal team in quotation marks before they provide
us with a comment on this matter. So Nicholas and
I had a conversation off why didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:40:15):
You call it garnishing because it wasn't court ordered? You
mean you're exactly okay.

Speaker 15 (01:40:18):
Yeah, So since they're going to get their lawyers involved
in dealing with this, then we may as well be
as precise as possible. So I spoke with Nicholas and
he's only worked there for about a month and a
week and the last two paychecks is when these deductions
began to occur. The first one was seven hundred and
nine dollars, the second one was four hundred and eighty
four hours. I did look up to see what tap
check is. I've never heard of it. Are you familiar

(01:40:40):
with this sun so check tap check? I'm looking at
their website. They say, hey, they're not a bank or
a loan provider. Here's what it looks. What they do.
I've never heard of this, but your employer signs up
for it, and then the employer signs you, the employee,
up for it. And what it does is at the

(01:41:01):
end of each shift, the employer reports the hours and
your earnings to tap check, and tap check makes the
money available to you right away.

Speaker 14 (01:41:09):
So basically it is like a payday loan kind of.

Speaker 2 (01:41:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 15 (01:41:13):
Yeah, but they don't charge interest, well not according to
what I read.

Speaker 14 (01:41:16):
But somehow they make money.

Speaker 15 (01:41:18):
I'm not sure how they make money, right, but they
make your day's wages available to you immediately, so you
don't have to wait for a paycheck.

Speaker 14 (01:41:25):
And that's pretty important to a lot of people.

Speaker 2 (01:41:27):
So he didn't know he was being signed up, he said.

Speaker 15 (01:41:29):
He says he never signed up for it, he says,
So the allegation from Nicholas is somehow Heights post Recovery
signed him up for that service. Somebody's been getting his
money and then these deductions are based on a research.
So far are to to reimbars tap check for these advances.

(01:41:49):
So when we come back, I'll let you know what
Heights post Recovery, he told me during our phone call.

Speaker 3 (01:41:55):
That's very interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:41:57):
Those are payday loans that they do with employers, and
we'll figure out why it happened. And he said he
never signed up for it. I'm Tom Martino. We have
Plumbline Services in the house, Pumpline Services dot com. More
from them coming up. Go with a sure thing Denver's
Best roofer Excel Roofing dot com. You don't pay a

(01:42:20):
cent until you're content than time for an insurance checkup
free no obligation comparison call Compass Insurance paying too much
your coverage at dozens of insurance companies. Find out now
three oh three seven seven to one help. You'll think
you're his only customer when you choose Frank durand the
real estate Man dot com to list your home with

(01:42:41):
Remax Alliance three oh three nine two zero sixteen twenty.

Speaker 1 (01:42:44):
Two, forty five years strong, solving your problems, answering questions,
taking complaints. This is the Troubleshooter Show. No, Tom Martino,
what's going on? And you're how can we help you?

Speaker 2 (01:43:01):
I asked this every day for forty five years and
we are going strong. Major Mark Major at his home studio.
I'm here in my home studio, and we are fighting
for you, sometimes fighting with you if you rip people off.
And by the way, we've all heard of payday loans, right, well,

(01:43:23):
I never heard of a payday loan that works with
your employer, that actually has a program with your employer
where you guys coordinate. So the employer tells the payday
loan company how many hours you worked that day, and
they report daily or weekly or whatever, and it makes
the person's pay availab available to them immediately after they

(01:43:48):
work the day, so they don't have to wait till
pay and they get to use the money and then it's.

Speaker 3 (01:43:56):
Taken out of their pay to pay it back.

Speaker 2 (01:44:00):
Apparently, one caller called us and said, I never signed
up for this.

Speaker 3 (01:44:05):
People are taking money.

Speaker 2 (01:44:06):
Out of my account and I never did it. So
that's what we were trying to figure out why money
was being taken out of his account. And when we
called over to his employer, which is a skilled nursing
facility called the Heights post Acute, they indicated, d I
want to get as straight.

Speaker 3 (01:44:27):
They indicated Heights post recovery.

Speaker 15 (01:44:29):
I don't remember seeing the word acute in their Okay,
in their website.

Speaker 2 (01:44:33):
Okay, they indicated that they wanted to have their legal
team look at this. Apparently they might They might have
basically signed him up and he knew about it, and
now he forgot about it. I mean, he might be
a little confused about it. He might be confused.

Speaker 15 (01:44:54):
And by the way, I have to correct myself, Tom,
you were absolutely correct. It is called the Heights post Acute.
I was going by their email address. That's why I
was confused. It could be that he was confused. But
then don't you think Nicholas would remember that he pocketed
all this money, you know, before he even got his paycheck.

Speaker 2 (01:45:12):
Because they said they took eleven hundred bucks from him.

Speaker 15 (01:45:14):
Yeah, seven oh nine plus forty four over to paycheck periods.
So it seems like if he got that money every day,
he would have remembered. He wouldn't be calling us to
try to get it back. So, Tom, I did call
Heights post Acute. Heights the Heights post Acute, and I
spoke with the Administrator's name is Samuel, and I told

(01:45:34):
him why I'm calling. I said, look, this is what
Nicholas told us. These are the allegations. We just want
to get your side of the story. We want to
make sure you know you can correct, you know, offer
some corrections if there are any important emissions, such as well,
Nicholas got the money every day, so that's why.

Speaker 2 (01:45:50):
We deducted it.

Speaker 15 (01:45:52):
He cut me off. He absolutely refused to discuss this matter.
He said, Hey, I'm familiar with this matter, but before
I talk to you about it, I need to consult
our legal team. He asked me to submit these questions
and writing to him. He gave me his email address.
I emailed him I cu I cecdu so you can
see what the questions are. So it sounds like Nicholas

(01:46:13):
or his lawyer are going to get back to us
and tell us what heights post Acute post Acute has
to say about this.

Speaker 2 (01:46:20):
Good. So we're on that. And as I said at
the beginning of the show, way at the beginning of
the show, we're here to really solve problems for you,
to take complaints, to just really get an investigate for you.
And that's really important because so many times you run
up against brick walls and you don't know what to do.

(01:46:44):
By the way, on the twenty seventh, Vestera Turnkey is
having another seminar for you if you're interested in the
vesteric turnkey way, that.

Speaker 3 (01:46:55):
Is becoming a landlord under.

Speaker 2 (01:46:58):
Their watch full I okay. And what they do is
they help you acquire properties in hot markets. They help
you own it because they help you buy it, and
then they help you manage it, rent it out. They
even do day to day activities if there are any
for you. So basically they're your nanny. I call them

(01:47:20):
like you're They help you be a landlord, and then
when it comes time to sell, they sell it. So
they're having a seminar to explain the program Saturday, the
twenty seventh. Here's where you sign up my biggest return
dot com Festera Turnty Wealth Builders. It's my biggest return

(01:47:42):
dot com. Make sure you sign up for that. I'll
be there too. It's it's a good alternative. You know,
so many people are looking for different alternatives for investing,
building wealth, just getting buy in life. Speaking of that,
I got Bob Logan with us. You want to talk
about plumbing, heating, cooling, electric and drains. We have some

(01:48:04):
questions for him that I've put away, and we talked
about lights flickering. Someone else texted me and said, Bob
is absolutely right. It is not normal, although common, and
it does tell you that you're having a problem with
your electrical service and you need more service. Basically, you
just need more service and you can upgrade a panel.

(01:48:25):
And in some cases, upgrading a panel can just take
a day, right.

Speaker 10 (01:48:29):
Yes, most of our panel up grades just take a
single day to do.

Speaker 2 (01:48:34):
Somebody wants to know if the power doesn't go out
and they get a lightning strike, if an appliance is off,
can it be damaged?

Speaker 3 (01:48:41):
Do you know that they can.

Speaker 10 (01:48:42):
Because it'll travel through the circuit.

Speaker 3 (01:48:44):
Really, it's that powerful.

Speaker 2 (01:48:47):
So when you come out, have you gone out after
lightning strikes me personally?

Speaker 10 (01:48:51):
No, you're electricians.

Speaker 2 (01:48:53):
So what do you guys do after a lightning strike?
What do you have to do? Do you have to
replace a lot of stuff?

Speaker 10 (01:48:59):
Many times? Yes?

Speaker 2 (01:49:00):
Does it good? Does it ruin breakers and stuff?

Speaker 10 (01:49:02):
It all depends on how directive a hit is and
what what all is uh? I mean yes, I mean
it could. It could blow out several things throughout your house,
including the panel itself, So.

Speaker 2 (01:49:15):
It all depends on the circumstance. Are there surge protectors?
This first wants to know that can protect from lightning.
It seems to me that to be one hell of
a search protector.

Speaker 10 (01:49:26):
There is not. And we sell a whole whole home
search protectors that go in in your panel, and they
range in prices depending on what what you're going to cover.

Speaker 3 (01:49:35):
But nothing, nothing for some actually come with an.

Speaker 10 (01:49:38):
Insurance company from the manufacturer. But no, a lightning strike,
it's not gonna it's not going to prevent.

Speaker 2 (01:49:45):
Okay, electrical, are you guys doing EV chargers?

Speaker 3 (01:49:49):
Do you put them in home?

Speaker 2 (01:49:50):
We do, yes, So you have that whole division now
that can do that.

Speaker 10 (01:49:53):
Yeah, I just had one of our electricians put one
in my own my own home. My wife just got
an EV so get what she gets. She got the
GMC Hummer. It's a giant mind.

Speaker 3 (01:50:05):
God, those are cool though. They got the crab call crawl.

Speaker 10 (01:50:08):
Right they do. Tom drove it.

Speaker 2 (01:50:10):
Yes, it's crazy, a ton of power. It's it's a
really beautiful vehicle. But again it doesn't have the technology
that the UH Tesla has.

Speaker 10 (01:50:20):
That is wild. Nothing has the technology the Tesla has.
And that's it's again they said all the time, Testa
is not a car company, it's a technology company.

Speaker 2 (01:50:28):
And they should be they should do that. They in fact,
I don't necessarily think that the best cars.

Speaker 9 (01:50:35):
Bob, you can have your Tesla robot next year drive
your GMC.

Speaker 10 (01:50:40):
That's very true. I don't know you're wanting to hurry
up with that.

Speaker 2 (01:50:44):
Yeah, and I don't know exactly what they're going to do,
but we had a pretty good discussion on what they're
going to do. I think that for most people, they're
going to be cost prohibitive when you start thinking about it, I.

Speaker 9 (01:50:55):
I think not compared if you had to pay for
long term care for your parents or a kid or someone,
and they have company, They get help, showering, bathing, everything
else for thirty or forty thousand dollars and whatever that
looks like spread out over five years like a car Loan.

Speaker 3 (01:51:13):
I disagree. I think it's going to be way cheaper.

Speaker 2 (01:51:17):
You think it's going to be able to help, you know,
take care of somebody.

Speaker 3 (01:51:22):
That's ultimately I'm going to have one at your house.

Speaker 2 (01:51:26):
So he's being funny. Here write that down for my
lawsuit anyway. So yeah, he just he's harassing the hell
out of me lately. So, but these robots supposedly will
will be task operated. Now do we know is Tesla
the main one doing robots or are there other companies

(01:51:46):
that have announced they're doing robots? Hasn't didn't Honda do
some robots way back?

Speaker 3 (01:51:52):
And I thought they had They had some pretty far
and it.

Speaker 9 (01:51:54):
Went it kind of went the way of the old
fashioned model tier or whatever. But yeah, they share it
was a cute little sucker too.

Speaker 2 (01:52:02):
No, they had some really good dexterity as far as
running and jumping and flipping. But it's it's all in
the you know, it's not necessarily in the robotics themselves,
but in the technology.

Speaker 9 (01:52:16):
That's Tesla shot. Those fingers work perfect. The dexterity is
very important when it comes to human care.

Speaker 3 (01:52:26):
And the tech technology.

Speaker 2 (01:52:28):
Again, the thing that makes the cars for Tesla so
desirable is the technology. If you can get that technology
in a pulsar or something, if you literally can get
that technology in another electric car, it would be really good.
I mean they could, that would be an entire division.
I gotta believe they're going to be doing that. They

(01:52:49):
gotta be doing that. Where you can buy the Tesla package.

Speaker 3 (01:52:52):
Rock couldn't believe.

Speaker 9 (01:52:55):
Here's the guy that flies helicapters like literally all the time,
and he could couldn't believe the easy use.

Speaker 3 (01:53:01):
And the speed in my car yesterday. Couldn't believe it.

Speaker 2 (01:53:06):
Yeah, he says, it throws you back in the seat,
it goes so fast. Yeah. Electric cars are incredible, they
really are, and especially Tesla and the way they do it.

Speaker 3 (01:53:20):
What's the fastest you've had that up to March?

Speaker 6 (01:53:24):
Uh?

Speaker 14 (01:53:26):
I'll text you.

Speaker 2 (01:53:28):
Really can you? You know? Because what is what is one?

Speaker 3 (01:53:31):
One fifty one fifty one fifty?

Speaker 10 (01:53:36):
That's pretty so like in the first four seconds.

Speaker 2 (01:53:40):
I know that happened, like you can. What is it
doing a quarter mile? You know?

Speaker 3 (01:53:46):
I don't know in a quarter I'll look it up.

Speaker 2 (01:53:49):
But at zero sixty and how many seconds.

Speaker 9 (01:53:53):
Zero to sixty is like one to nine. It's instant.
You go one sixty.

Speaker 2 (01:53:58):
Gosh, you're going sixty miles an hour in less than
two seconds.

Speaker 10 (01:54:04):
Oh yeah, thinking about that, even in the GMC with
how heavy that thing is. If you punch it, I
swear those front tires are coming off the ground there.
It's crazy.

Speaker 9 (01:54:13):
See one hundred and fifty one at nine seconds at
your quarter mile one.

Speaker 2 (01:54:19):
Hundred and fifty what I'm surprised. I'm just surprised that
more and more people aren't buying them. Really frankly because
and especially gearheads who love speed. I mean, if you
love speed that you can't get better speed then in
an election.

Speaker 10 (01:54:38):
You know, the thing that kept me from doing it
for so long was the range of the vehicles, Like
I wouldn't be able to use it because I'm bounced
around from office to office and going up to Fort
Collins and and they But now now they've increased the
range to a point to where they're becoming more more
practical for a lot of people. Why did you do
the Hummer because it's big and bad? Look because it's beautiful. Yeah,
and it's what Jackie wanted.

Speaker 3 (01:54:59):
It is beautiful.

Speaker 2 (01:55:00):
But how many does this seat inside comfortably?

Speaker 10 (01:55:03):
Five?

Speaker 2 (01:55:04):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:55:04):
It does?

Speaker 10 (01:55:04):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (01:55:05):
Okay? And and it's big? Is it big or does
it just feel big?

Speaker 10 (01:55:11):
It's it's big.

Speaker 2 (01:55:12):
It's wide, like the footprint is it bigger than like
a normal suv?

Speaker 10 (01:55:17):
Well, like like my Lincoln is longer, But but the
GMC's wider.

Speaker 2 (01:55:24):
And it does it have auto drive of any kind?

Speaker 10 (01:55:27):
It does just like nothing highways in interstates yet, but nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:55:30):
Like the Tesla's where it will follow navigation, stop at
red lights and start again.

Speaker 10 (01:55:36):
Doesn't have that tech?

Speaker 2 (01:55:36):
God? What why are companies so damn lax in their technology.
I don't understand it unless they feel Tesla is so
far ahead they're just going to someday license that.

Speaker 3 (01:55:49):
Maybe the entire industry is waiting for that.

Speaker 10 (01:55:53):
Yeah, it could be. I don't know. It's I mean, I.

Speaker 2 (01:55:55):
Have to believe something like that because because everybody copies everybody,
So I'm wondering, why hasn't anyone copied the full driving mode?
I mean, it's it isn't matter.

Speaker 9 (01:56:06):
It just while you're thinking, everybody has these data points
of millions and millions and hundreds of millions of cars
that have been uploading it to the cloud forever that
they have all the data points? Who else has it?

Speaker 3 (01:56:21):
Yeah, because it's more than just hardware right now, you've
got to think of the AI.

Speaker 9 (01:56:27):
So on hardware four right now, a lot of the
AI is kind of like it's somewhat over the air,
although some of it is instant, but coming out with
hardware five, which could be a year or two, the
new chipsets, I mean, everything's in your car. It really
just doesn't care about anything else. It's its own little
ecosystem you're in.

Speaker 2 (01:56:48):
Yeah, Okay, water pros by the way it can do
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(01:57:15):
roofer Excel Roofing dot com. You don't pay a cent
until you're content. Time for an insurance checkup free, no
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only customer when you choose Frank durand the real estate

(01:57:37):
Man dot com to list your home with Remax Alliance
three oh three nine two zero sixteen twenty two. Hi
Tom Arsino here, welcome. Bob Logan's with us from Plumbline Services,
Major mark Majors in the home studio.

Speaker 3 (01:57:52):
I'm in my home studio.

Speaker 2 (01:57:53):
We are we are just solving problems, answering questions taking place.
Stepanie Dsman looking into problems. I think Deputy Bo's been
looking into problems. If you guys, have any follow ups,
just let us know. Please, It's really important that we
emphasize a few things that we've learned today. Again, buying

(01:58:16):
a vehicle long distance is a major risk, major risk.
It's almost impossible to check out people online because they
can put up such a false front. You don't know
that you're really checking out a real place. The only

(01:58:36):
time I would deal with the place is if it's
brick and mortar, it's been around for years, and it
has a reputation like it's a real dealer. Like I
bought my car from a real dealer that happened to
have an online presence. But it's not one of these
you know places that you know have these classic cars

(01:59:00):
like this one we ran up against today, or these
specialty cars, or they're not a new car dealership, they're
not licensed in any state, they don't have brick and mortar.
You don't know who you're dealing with, and there should
be all kinds of red flags. First of all, when
you have to pay in advance, you should never have
to pay one hundred percent up front. Now they're going
to say, well, we're not shipping a car until we're

(01:59:22):
paid for. You have to have some kind of escro
agreement or fly out and see it. I mean, if
you're buying a car and you're spending that much money,
a few hundred bucks for a plane ticket is well
worth it, truly well worth it. Let's go back to
some home services questions the year. Okay, somebody wants to
know at what point do you fix your furnace or

(01:59:45):
do you replace your furnace? And I'm just taking a
stab at fifteen years. I don't know, Bob, I'm just
making that up. I don't even know what.

Speaker 7 (01:59:52):
Do you use?

Speaker 10 (01:59:53):
The answer? As always? And I know this is this
is not great. It depends, don't say it depends. Well okay, okay,
if you buy a car and you never change the
oil and you don't rotate the tires, and it's going
to be time to repay probably in four years. Right,
so if you've maintained it well, you should get fist
of old technology. You got old technology. It's not as

(02:00:15):
efficient it. You know, if you're looking for a communication
communicating system and that's going to be quieter, safer, saves
you on your utilities, then it's probably time to upgrade.
But you know, we in most companies, I think we'll
give you a free estimate on this, So make sure
you're working with the legitimate company. Because first of all,
I say it all the time, this isn't like a
refrigerator where you bring a home plug it in. You

(02:00:36):
can buy the best equipment money we'll buy. If it's
not installed properly, it's not going to last. That's the
other depends part who installed it previously if it is,
and we.

Speaker 2 (02:00:47):
Should mention why when you if you don't. If you
don't install it properly, you can get back pressure. You
can get a lack of proper operation, which can.

Speaker 10 (02:00:58):
Cause the size under size that's right, you know, which.

Speaker 2 (02:01:01):
Can accelerate aging, cut down on efficiency. Again, people might
think a little larger is better.

Speaker 10 (02:01:08):
Not always right. And so the other thing about buying
a firstneric conditioning system, it's a lot like buying an automobile.
It's not one size fits all. There's different sizes and
then even within that size, you can buy a budget
piece of equipment, or you can buy a luxury equipment
and several options in between.

Speaker 2 (02:01:26):
So but it's technology really changing every year now or
not really.

Speaker 10 (02:01:30):
Come on every year. Every year it changes and and
requirements changed to Colorado just followed California with low Knox furnaces.
So and they're not necessarily and there's still a question
on whether they're going to be as good, but they
have a they have a they burn more efficiently and

(02:01:53):
uh and because of that, it's better for the emissions,
but it doesn't mean it's going to perform any better.
So we thankfully we bought a large inventory of last
year's models, which you can still have. We still have
a few of them. And so if somebody's looking at
saving some money and the technology isn't in my opinion.

Speaker 3 (02:02:14):
The technology is better the old one.

Speaker 10 (02:02:17):
I well, it's it's a prove, it's proven. Yeah, the
low Knock systems aren't proven in high altitude or long term.
They don't have the statistics to back anything up. So
so yes, that's what I got my house. I made
sure I put them in.

Speaker 2 (02:02:32):
So how many old systems do you have left? Gart
to run a special on them? You get rid of
them in no time.

Speaker 10 (02:02:39):
You know, I'd have to look. I know we're under
one hundred, but again we installed twenty five hundred systems.

Speaker 3 (02:02:45):
A year, so right, you're going to run through those.

Speaker 10 (02:02:48):
We're going to run through them pretty quick, especially now
the demand seasons here for air conditioning. Again, these are
furnaces that we're talking, and.

Speaker 2 (02:02:56):
That's another thing. You got to match the furnace in
the AC now days, especially if you have a multi
stage furnace and you can't have an old air conditioner
on it. You can, but it's not going to get
the most out of it.

Speaker 10 (02:03:10):
But it's not going to get the most out of it, right,
The best way is to match the furnace in their
conditioning system together.

Speaker 2 (02:03:16):
What's the more expensive unit when you go to buy it?
Is it air or is it I think air is
more expensive right than a furnace.

Speaker 10 (02:03:25):
Well, heat pumps certainly will be. Yeah, typically air is
if you're buying it by itself, Yeah, error is typically
more expensive. Yeah, that's the other thing. When you buy
them together, the labor's not that much more to install
both than it is just one. So if you're buying
them separately, you're paying for the labor twice. If you

(02:03:46):
buy them together, it allowed a little bit to the labor.
But again we're in and out in one day, and
so you're going to save a lot of money by
doing it together.

Speaker 2 (02:03:55):
Okay, So in any case, here's the deal when it
goes when it come to furnaces, if you want to
know what is the latest and the greatest. Like, for example,
if we're specking out a computer, we can tell you
an SSD drive, a solid state drive, is better than
any kind of a moving drive. Right, So when we're
talking about furnaces, we're going to tell you that basically

(02:04:17):
with furnaces, you always want modulating blowers now right, you
don't want you want a modulating furnace, right with all
kinds of variations, not just low, medium, and high. You
want it to modulate.

Speaker 10 (02:04:32):
That's the ultimate, right, the and the easiest way to
understand that. So a single stage, which they still sell
is either on or it's off. That's going one hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (02:04:40):
And it'll go on and it'll heat your house, then
go off.

Speaker 10 (02:04:43):
There's two stage which works typically at sixty percent, and
then if that's not satisfying, it'll jump up to one
hundred percent. And then modulating is like the like the
pedal your on your Oh, it'll give just a tiny bit.
You can give a little bit, you can give a lot,
you can give anything in.

Speaker 2 (02:04:57):
Between, everything in between. It's a totally modulating.

Speaker 10 (02:05:01):
Worth based on your exact needs.

Speaker 2 (02:05:03):
Correct, So that's what you want, is a modulating furnace.
If you had to pick one of the features, and
then what else would you look for in today's furnaces.

Speaker 10 (02:05:12):
A lot of people like communicating. So I can look
on my phone right now and tell you which systems
are on, which are off, what the settings are, and
if I go on vacation and forget to turn my
air down, I can change it on my phone. So
communicating systems.

Speaker 2 (02:05:29):
Communicating systems I think are a must. Aren't they all like?

Speaker 10 (02:05:33):
They're not all like that, but I would highly highly
recommend it to everybody. It also sends alerts. If it
detects anything wrong with the system, it'll send an alert,
and you can set it up to actually have the
alert go to the dealer that you purchased it from.
So in plumb Line's case, we would get the alert.

Speaker 2 (02:05:49):
So if there's a real problem, what kind of an
alert would you get?

Speaker 3 (02:05:52):
Like, what kind of problem would cause an alert?

Speaker 10 (02:05:56):
Restricted airflow? Which could just be something as simple as
not changing your filter.

Speaker 2 (02:06:00):
But you'll actually call the customers say we just got
an alert on your furnace.

Speaker 10 (02:06:04):
We just got an alert. Really, we'd like to come
out and take a look and see what's going on,
and hopefully it's an easy resolution. And again that's after
the customer. They can opt out of that, so the
alert just goes to them, or they can include us.

Speaker 15 (02:06:20):
Bob, I wanted to get your advice on filter since
you brought that up at reminding me this was actually
my number one question I've been saving for you.

Speaker 2 (02:06:28):
I have a home AEC system.

Speaker 15 (02:06:29):
It's a heat pump and I'll live in a multi
story building, but I have my own air filter, so
I replace that. I really don't have a set schedule,
but I look at it every few months, and I
way I to a replace every six or twelve months
because some months I don't even run the AC or
the heat. When I go to home depot to buy
an air filter, I can buy some for ninety eight

(02:06:50):
cents and that's like that blue one, you know, really
loosely woven blue.

Speaker 14 (02:06:54):
And there are some that I'm not kidding you twenty
five bucks.

Speaker 2 (02:06:57):
All You're gonna have to wait for the answer, because
I wanted him to that this is really important because
most people are spending money uselessly on a filter and
we'll tell you why coming up.

Speaker 3 (02:07:06):
Gravinas has the greatest.

Speaker 2 (02:07:08):
Windows because they have fifty brands of windows to choose from.
Beware of a company that can only sell you one brand.
That's all you're gonna get. With Gravinas, you got fifty
to choose from, plus multiple lines of siding indoors three
oh three Gravina. Go with a sure thing Denver's best

(02:07:29):
roofer Excel Roofing dot com. You don't pay a cent
until you're content. Time for an insurance check up free,
no obligation. In comparison, call Compass Insurance paying too much
your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find out now
three oh three, seven to seven to one help. You'll
think you're his only customer when you choose Frank durand

(02:07:50):
the real estate Man dot com to list your home
with Remax Alliance three oh three nine two zero sixteen
twenty two. Hi Tom Archina here. Bob Logan from Plumbline
Services Plumbline Services dot com. Plumbing, heating, cooling, electric and drains. Bob.

(02:08:15):
People want to know about dual fuel, the benefits and
some of the I think that we do have some
drawbacks with dual fuel don't we or not?

Speaker 3 (02:08:23):
Or do you think it's all positive? How do you feel?

Speaker 2 (02:08:26):
And by the way, for those listening, dual fuel in
Colorado means gas and electric.

Speaker 10 (02:08:32):
Right, So the push is to take everybody to a
heat pump rather than an air conditioning system. And basically
you mean rather than a furnace system, right, rather than
a furnace, I'm sorry, and so or an air conditioning system.
So the furnace acts as an air handler. With a
heat pump system, it's just moving air all it's doing.

(02:08:53):
It's not firing up like your normal furnace. The heat
pump is outside and it works just like an conditioner,
but in reverse. So an air conditioning system pulls heat
out of your house. It doesn't blow cold air into
your house. It pulls heat out of your house. And
when the heat pump is working in reverse, it's pulling
heat from the outside and bringing it into your house.

(02:09:15):
So that's a heat pump system. I've got what it's
called a dual fuel in my house, which is a
gas furnace, but I've also got the heat pump and
you can set it based on your utility usage and
everything else, so that at a certain temperature it switches
from gas heating to the heat pump heating, and I

(02:09:37):
think dual fuel is the best way to go.

Speaker 2 (02:09:39):
Can we get along with just electric or are they
working toward that goal?

Speaker 10 (02:09:44):
You can? You know, people will question that in Colorado,
and especially if you lived up say, you know, in
the mountains or something like that, you might have some
challenge keeping up on the really cold days. But the
heat pumps are getting so good they can actually pull
heat out of the air even at negative temperatures. So
let's say you're five degrees below zero, there's still heat

(02:10:06):
outside that the heat pump can pull back into the
house and heat your house now will keep up to
the levels you want it to. Okay, probably in the demromentory.

Speaker 2 (02:10:18):
Yes, somebody said, Bob was going to tell us about
furnace filters. Thank you, thank you for thank you for
keeping me on track. Furnes filters. So there's such a
wide variety of furnace filters. Most people are familiar with
the just the one inch filter they put in, but
again you've got the really cheap filters, got pleated, and
then you got pleated, and within those pleats you've got superpleated.

Speaker 10 (02:10:41):
Which are they advertise for allergens things like that. The
challenge with those is that the they're called nerv levels,
and when you get in the higher nerve levels to
take all the allergens out of the air, it restricts
the airflow. And especially with an air conditioning system, airflow
is extremely important. It is for fess as well. But
but but especially during the air conditioning season. So you

(02:11:04):
want to be careful on using those. I I personally
use a MERV five in my house and and I
change it out every month.

Speaker 2 (02:11:12):
Yeah, because it's it's whisky, right or it's not.

Speaker 10 (02:11:15):
It's still a pleated filter, but it's not. It's it's
not as tight as the.

Speaker 2 (02:11:20):
I use the ones.

Speaker 3 (02:11:21):
You can see your hand behind them.

Speaker 10 (02:11:22):
Yeah, and and and that's fine too, but again that's
only gonna take out the larger like like animal hair
and things like that. It's not going to take out
any allergens or or anything like that. And so there's
other other options. There's electronic air filters. There's there's two
inch and four inch pleated filters which allow more airflow

(02:11:44):
to go through, but they have a higher surface area.
We've got HEPA filters for people who are truly suffering
with allergies. That's what I recommend. They're expensive, but they
do a heck of a job. They don't restrict the
airflow at all in your house, but they take like,
I don't know, some like ninety nine point three percent
of the allergen zone.

Speaker 15 (02:12:04):
Bob, did you say HEPA filters don't restrict airflow. They
do not, But filtration implies that you have the tiniest
possible opening, like in order to trap the allergens.

Speaker 10 (02:12:15):
So what filter our help. HEPA filters go on the
side of the duck system and as the air is
passing through, it's pulling it through. It's basically circulating it
into the HEPA filter and then throwing it back in
the duct work. Okay, so air can pass straight through
the duct work, but it's constantly being recirculated into the
HEPA filter.

Speaker 15 (02:12:34):
So a HEPA filter isn't like that flat thing that
I slide into my shape differently will attach.

Speaker 10 (02:12:39):
It'll attached to the side of your turn area.

Speaker 2 (02:12:42):
I didn't know there was such, just like a separate,
almost like the electro setic separate.

Speaker 15 (02:12:46):
My final question about filters is, so what about those
super cheap blue loosely woven filters. What do you think
of those? Is there anything wrong with those?

Speaker 10 (02:12:57):
Well, well, again, it's that's only it's how often you
it's kind of common sense.

Speaker 2 (02:13:02):
They're only going to filter out so much.

Speaker 10 (02:13:04):
Yeah, if you have if you have pets, it'll probably
grab the dog hair, but it's not going to find
it's not going to help you with allergies. It's not
going to pull out the the dust and the dirt
that you find in your house. It's not gonna help you.

Speaker 2 (02:13:16):
If most houses, if it's clean enough, you don't need
that sometimes at night.

Speaker 15 (02:13:20):
Now my house is not a pig sty, but I
have a very bright flashlight and I turn it on
when it's pitch dark in my house, and I can see.

Speaker 2 (02:13:29):
It does this column of sparkling dust.

Speaker 10 (02:13:32):
I don't have that in my house.

Speaker 2 (02:13:33):
You don't tell us about your filters.

Speaker 10 (02:13:36):
I got to help a filter. I got what's called
a GPS unit, which basically attaches to the particles and
tells them to fall to the ground.

Speaker 15 (02:13:43):
Is that an electronically charged thing?

Speaker 2 (02:13:45):
That? Yes?

Speaker 15 (02:13:46):
So do you offer that as a retrofit to existing systems?

Speaker 2 (02:13:50):
You can put them on any system, oh, Bob.

Speaker 15 (02:13:52):
Roughly speaking, what should a guy budget for something.

Speaker 2 (02:13:55):
Like that, just help the filter.

Speaker 10 (02:13:57):
Thirty five hundred four thousand dollars a lot of money
for a GPS. I think they're just under one thousand
dollars right now.

Speaker 2 (02:14:05):
You have to have both or can you start with
a GPS.

Speaker 10 (02:14:07):
They're two completely separate systems designed for two completely stuff.

Speaker 15 (02:14:12):
And that column of sparkling dust that I see in
the flashlight beam is that common? Or is it because
my house is.

Speaker 2 (02:14:18):
I usually not on common.

Speaker 10 (02:14:19):
It's common for people who use cheap filters.

Speaker 2 (02:14:21):
Yes, oh great, thanks Bob. Yeah, yeah, and yeah, but
breathing that in.

Speaker 10 (02:14:28):
So either you have a good filter or you are
the filter.

Speaker 2 (02:14:31):
Okay, we gotta take this quick break here, So David,
what is your question? Real quick? We'll answer it after
the break. What's your question, sir?

Speaker 7 (02:14:42):
Do you have to have a low Knox furnace in Colorado?
And is there a difference between all two low knocks
and just low knocks?

Speaker 2 (02:14:52):
All right, hang on and we'll come right back to you.
I promise listen. If you want, you can hang up
or just hang on. We got more right after this