BHS - 7A – Zelle Scams Prompt Federal Probe | The Crybaby Olympics

Zelle scams prompt federal probe of bank efforts to protect customers. California’s two biggest school districts botched AI deals. Here are lessons from their mistakes. The Crybaby Olympics… what happened to good sportsmanship? California’s plastic bag ban accidentally created another trash problem.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listen Saints KFI AM six forty the Bill Handles
Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app. And this is
KFI Bill Handle here and the morning crew except for Neil,
who is back tomorrow. And it's a Thursday morning. August eighth,
Tropical Storm Debi made its second landfall in South Carolina.

(00:22):
Not fun. We're talking about two feet of rain and
in humongous news, international news that's literally going around the world.
Taylor Swift's tour has been canceled in Austria because of
the threat of a terrorist attack. Two hundred thousand people
were expected to attend. And that's in the stadium. I mean,

(00:43):
it's crazy three days. Also today, since it's Thursday. Every
Tuesday and Thursday, we drop the podcast that I do,
the Bill Handle Show podcasts. It's on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify,
the iHeartRadio app. And today it's about presidential pardons. I
talked about that and I'll give you a little bit

(01:05):
of history, some facts, a little bit of fun analysis.
And that's based on the fact that if Donald Trump
gets elected, it's going to be reigning pardons on the
day that he has sworn in. Okay, story, I want
to share with you that Amy reporter on this morning
is Zell. And it looks like the FEDS are getting

(01:27):
involved in investigating the banks involved in ZEL because it
all goes through banks, and we're talking about JP, Morgan, Chase,
Bank of America, Wells Fargo, And what the investigation is
about is scammers using Zell and people losing their money.

(01:47):
And Zell's kind of a neat way to send money.
I use Zell, and there are a couple problems with it.
It's instantaneous. For one thing, you obviously get records of everything.
And people on the other side love ZEL the money,
the money that you owe because it happens right there.
Money is transferred in a second. The problem is is

(02:10):
that there are scammers out there like there is anything else.
And here's the problem with ZEL. The money happens immediately.
It is taken out virtually immediately, So if you've been scammed,
there's no place to go. It's gone. If you write
a check and put a stop payment on it. If
you've been screwed by a scammer with your credit card,

(02:34):
you can certainly dispute it, which is why I always
suggest credit cards and not debit cards, because credit cards.
It's the bank's money. Your debit card is your money,
and you're chasing after your money. And with zel you
can multiply that one. And here is the investigation by

(02:57):
the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and it's all about whether
banks are moving quickly enough to shut down scammers accounts.
Are they doing enough to identify scammers from signing up
and taking your money? And what the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau is investigating is the banks aren't doing enough. You

(03:17):
know you're not doing enough. And here are some numbers,
and it goes both ways as far as the government's concerned.
Three percent of the money and JD powers that a
survey three percent of the people who view Zell said
they've lost money to scammers, by the way, which is
less than venmo, cash, app and PayPal. That's according to

(03:39):
zel Now. Zell told the Senate subcommittee that point one
percent involve a scam or a fraud. I mean point
one percent. Why would anybody investigate point one percent of fraud?
Why even take the time? Well, here are the numbers,
and that is one hundred and twenty million users, two

(04:01):
point nine billion transactions, eight hundred and six billion dollars
transferred last year. So take any tiny percentage of that
and you've got some big money in the tens of
billions of dollars. Now, Zell said, we've cut the rate
of scams by fifty percent year to year, while the

(04:24):
volume of transactions grew twenty eight percent. Now, the government
doesn't or the company doesn't disclose how much money we're
talking about. But if you look at the figures, point
one percent of eight hundred and six billion dollars still
translates to eight hundred and six million. And if jd

(04:45):
Powers is correct, and people say they've been scammed, now
we're talking if it's three percent, insane amounts of money.
So how do you stop it? Well, it's real easy, Okay,
know who you're sending money to. If you're being charged
by a company you don't know. Let's see you go

(05:06):
on the internet and you're clickbaiting and you're trying to
figure something out. Oh yeah, I want to do that,
and they want a zel payment. It's gone. You can't
dispute it. If you put it on a credit card,
you can dispute it. And so know exactly who you're
sending it to, and particularly people you have a history
of for example, I'm remodeling my house, as you know,

(05:30):
my new place. I'm doing a lot of remodeling, and
the contractor gets paid by Zel. But I know the
contractor or. He's a good guy. I see the work
he charges me after the fact, he's been around for
a long time. I simply take care and you can
do the same thing. Know exactly who it is, do
it upon an invoice, and if you don't, you're liable

(05:53):
to scam. Now, if you do that, what is the
percentage or what is the possibility of you getting scammed?
It drops down virtually to zero. This is not one
of those things where you're susceptible to scam and you've
done nothing wrong and you're wide open. I don't think
you are. I don't think you are Amy. You use

(06:16):
Zel right all the time. I can't hear you absolutely
okay and never a problem. I'm assuming I have not
had a problem. But I also you know you know
who you're sending the money. I never send it to anybody,
right who I don't like physically know this person? Right?
I would ask kno, but I know Cono has no
money to send anybody Zel. Have you ever used Zel

(06:40):
for the two three dollars transaction that you can afford. Well, yeah,
and I asked for money. You can request money from
your friend, that's true. And that's the other thing. You
can request money. But no, you just send out blanket
emails money. Just send some money. Yeah. So anyway, by
the way, well Chase is going to file a lawsuit
against the consumer protection folks because they're saying we're doing

(07:04):
everything and more and this investigation is bogus. And so
there's a huge fight going on. But the bottom line
is the scammers are out there, like in anything, and
if you're careful, you'll be okay. All right, AI. I
love doing AI stories and why because AI is upon
us in a big, big way. And so I want

(07:25):
to do a story about two school districts LA unified
in San Diego. Big pressure and this is all over
the country to adopt AI. And why is that? Well,
you know, for example, in English, right, and English teachers
have I think the worst teaching job on the planet.
Why is that because they give thirty two kids essay

(07:45):
assignments several times a year, and they get to read
thirty two essays several times a year. Right, they go
home and work hour upon hour upon hour. So what
AI I can do is actually grade those papers. AI
can figure out how good a paper is, proper grammar is,

(08:08):
their logical thinking, all of it. So boy that people
jump on that AI is here to stay. But here's
the problem. There are some issues with AI, for example,
being used in San Diego. The program was just dead
ass wrong in too many cases. And here's what the

(08:31):
school districts are doing. They're jumping on this so quickly.
No one understands it. There's no one on the school
district board that understands AI. They don't have techno people
in the schools, in the district offices, they don't have
AI experts, So they just jump into it. And you've
got AI companies that come in with a bid and
we're going to straighten this out. And they do, and

(08:51):
I tell you, they get into trouble San Diego. Here
is the school board didn't even know, oh that the
district had bought an AI program. Why because there is
probably the biggest publisher of textbooks out there, Houghton or
Houghton Mifflin. I don't know how to pronounce that. And

(09:13):
part of their bid was producing AI, and so they
just got to you know, we've been dealing with these
people for forty years or eighty years, and so let's
sign the contract. Well, part of it was AI and
nobody knew and they started using this program and nobody
knew how to use it. And so you've got school

(09:35):
districts that are jumping on this. And not just school districts,
I mean you have utilities, you have companies, you have
entities all over the place, both public and private, and
you've got the AI companies. Let's say they're not shy
about pitching their products. Hey, look what we can do
for you. In San Diego, they had a three million

(09:58):
dollar contract with the company that sells something called ED,
and ED is in a lot of trouble because they
had to lay out more than half of their staff.
It's a startup that signed with San Diego and it
just doesn't work very well. They were able to sell it,

(10:19):
no one was there able to vet it, No one
knew how to vet it. And so what is this?
I mean, yesterday we talked about this, or a Tuesday
we talked about this with rich Dumurrow, and that is
this is where the technology is way beyond the law,
way beyond regulations. Way beyond people's understanding. It is so

(10:46):
sophisticated that really the only people that sort of know
what they're doing and the people that create this stuff. Now,
that's not a bad idea, having a business where you
create something that nobody knows how it worked, No one
understands except they're desperate to buy it. That ain't bad.

(11:09):
It's not a bad way to go. So they're trying
to figure out cheating. We talked to rich They're going
to figure out. Students going to figure out how to
cheat the system. The system is going to figure out
how students are cheating. I mean it's early days and
there aren't that many school districts because the smart ones
are sitting back and saying, you know what, let's see

(11:32):
how this works. Not only Unified, not San Diego. By
the way, Ed is gone. Ed has left the building. Okay,
I want to share story with you. If you go
back to the Tokyo Olympics nineteen sixty four, a Japanese
judo champion was under enormous pressure because judo is everything

(11:52):
for the Japanese. The Japanese team was on the verge
of sweeping the medals, and the star Kaminaga needed just
one more victory. Okay, he lost to the Dutchman. The
arena was shocked, some people even cried, but he still
bowed to his opponent, smiled, shook his hand. The press

(12:15):
began to swarm the opponent waved them off. He's a
Greek guy, you know, Antonio's g sink. So he bowed
ToJ sink, smile, shook his hand and it was pretty impressive.
A lot of sportsmanship. So last week in Paris, Japanese
star judo star Ryuju Nagayami refused to shake his opponent's

(12:38):
hand after the loss. Uta Abi, the women's gold medalist defender,
shrieked on the sidelines for minutes after losing in the
second round and was so upset she took out a
knife and she was going to kill herself a Japanese style,
but she was so upset she stabbed one of the

(13:01):
other opponents on the other team. Not true, by the way.
How about this a Georgian, a Georgian judo guy, Guram Tuschevilli,
after losing, kicked Francis Teddy Reiner and the crash a
crotch and then slammed his head into the mat. I

(13:23):
can go on and on. There are so many instances
of this happening, and so what's going on? Right? Bad conduct,
bad sportsmanship is here to stay. Losers cry babies. I
don't want to take it. I don't think it's fair.
A twenty seventeen survey of referees in the US, twenty seventeen,

(13:46):
fifty seven percent said sportsmanship was getting worse. Let's go
to twenty twenty three, sixty nine percent said they even
feared for their safety. So why is this happening? And
so for this article which came out in the Atlantic,
the writers went to the experts, right, psychological experts, people

(14:11):
in sports, and say the real pressure is increasing. The
real problem is increasing pressure. Athletes start earlier, more time
in training, more moneys at stake. Sponsors reward success even
in obscure sports handball not the handball. We know, it's
a weird sport, artistic swimming, which I still don't understand.

(14:32):
And a lot of these athletes make an income as influencers.
A lot of countries pay their athletes big bonuses for meddling.
Losing the gold can mean losing the gold. The bigger
the audience, which is now worldwide by the billions who
see it in real time. Boy, their stress and people

(14:55):
are becoming more selfish. It's that simply studies across the world.
Countries get richer, their citizens become more individualistic, and so
poor countries that go to Olympics and send their athletes
even if their athletes lose, it's just the joy and

(15:16):
the honor of being in the Olympics. Not with rich countries.
They got to win. If they don't, the athletes, well
they're miserable about it. So where did this bad cry
baby this era begin. I'll tell you who A lot
of people blame. Who do you think? Who do you
think Donald Trump? Why? Refusal to accept the results of

(15:39):
the twenty twenty election unprecedented? And now we go to
the twenty twenty two midterms. You know how many Republicans
who lost said the whole election system was rigged. And interview,
Trump was asked, if you lose, will you accept it?

(16:00):
He basically said no, only if it's a free and
fair election. And who's going to make that decision? Well,
he wouldn't say not the election committee. He just if
I lose the elections, I basically I have the option

(16:20):
of saying it wasn't free, it wasn't fair. Hey, you
know what that that literally is hugely influential. You know,
whether you believe it or not, that's hugely influential. There's
no question about it. And I know I'm going into politics,
but I think this absolutely. I think this relates. There

(16:43):
are and this is the Republicans, by the way, this
is not the Democrats. There are too many Republicans out
there that say, and I've seen too many in your interviews.
If a Republican loses, it's rigged. Period. The only free
election in this country is is a Republican win. That's

(17:03):
when democracy is there. If a Democrat wins, it's rigged.
That's you know. And when it goes from the president
all the way down, you know, it changes life completely.
It does. There's no way around it. All right. Plastic
bag ban, So I have told you many times about

(17:27):
the concept of unintended consequences, and whatever laws are passed,
you always have to look at unintended consequences. It happens
all the time. So California ban single use plastic grocery
bags in twenty sixteen, first date. In the eight years,
those billions of those flimsy plastic bags removed from the
waste stream. Several other states adopted the same thing. So

(17:52):
the band eliminates one source of plastic waste, it opened
the door for an even more dangerous one, because you
know those thicker bags that you have to pay ten
cents for and you're asked, do you want a bag?
And if you don't bring in your own, and the
majority of people don't bring in their own, so you

(18:13):
get those ten cents and does anybody care? That was
supposed to make you think twice? All right, you're buying
eighty bucks worth of groceries. Do you care about ten
cents or twenty cents? Of course not. So here's what
I do. I go to the store. I got a
pile of groceries. I don't take anything out from my car.

(18:33):
I used to have those bags, but for some reason,
I forget them all the time in the car, the reusables.
And I'm asked, happened yesterday? Do you want a bag?
I do? So I needed two bags. I pay twenty
cents and so now I have a stack of those bags.
I add to the forty or fifty I already have.

(18:54):
And then every yeah, I know, a few weeks I
take that stack, I put it in the recycle bin.
Here's the problem. They can't be recycled. There is no
recycling of those bags. It's landfill city. And now you
take away the flimsy bags, they're not going into the landfill,

(19:19):
but you use the thicker bags four timesticker. I like
those bags because your stuff doesn't fall out. They're nice,
hefty bags. And now is there an answer to undo that? Yeah?
There is, And you know who has come up with
the answer. Trader Joe's among other stores. Go to Trader

(19:40):
Joe's and ask for a plastic bag. They're gonna look
at you and say, what plastic bag? We don't do
plastic bags, only paper bags. And I like paper bags
because I think they're easier to carry, you know, they
keep their shape more. And also what's fun about paper
bags is you know how the handles are glued on
to the side of the bags. It's always hugely entertaining

(20:04):
when you see someone going across the parking lot and
those handles give way and then the food spills out
all over the place. That doesn't happen with the heavy duty,
non recyclable bags. So guess what's happening they're rethinking it
big time. And at this point, what's going on, Well,

(20:26):
there's two identical bills going through when the Assembly won
the Senate here in California and starting in twenty twenty six,
only paper bags can be used and making up made
up of at least fifty percent recyclable materials. Okay, of
course there are exceptions, right, Yeah, naturally, because you have

(20:50):
the lobbyists and farmers markets, you don't need to do that.
Restaurants take out they can do plastic bags, and some
retail stores can do plastic bags. Although when you're doing takeout,
if the food leaks in a paper bag, that's kind
of bizarre. So that makes sense. Kf I am six

(21:12):
forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've been listening
to the Bill Handle Show. Catch my Show Monday through
Friday six am to nine am, and anytime on demand
on the iHeartRadio app