The Everyday Financial Scams Pretending To Help You

[@AyH25]

My dad set me up with his financial advisor who was selling me on whole life and I don’t plan on having a family and I already get term life through my company. I walked away and now I feel so validated knowing that my gut was right. I have to give myself more credit for the knowledge i have Instead of relying on “older people” for advice who don’t necessarily know better

[@vulpixelful]

Now to see if you're dad is getting tricked. It'll matter when he's older and you need to help with his retirement...

[@erima4270]

@Ay_Hess Here here!

[@cinthiaham1517]

Ooooh yeah! The thing about “older people” is that they might have great advice but many times they no longer apply to current times 😅 I take most of their advice with a grain of salt! So glad you were validated 🎉

[@kaw8473]

Turbo Tax is the biggest financial scam I've ever experienced. My husband and I went through the entire "free" tax service and we hit a paywall that stated if we received a certain pandemic assistance, we would have to pay for the "free" service. We spent 2 hrs working on it! So they preyed on people with the sunk cost fallacy.

[@AyH25]

Agree I paid so much money but now I use freetaxusa or something like that and it was the exact same thing but free LOL

[@kaw8473]

​@@AyH25 I'm sorry you had to deal with that too, I'm shocked these things can't be counted as false advertising.

[@erima4270]

That's so dirty! Sorry you had to go through that

[@CaraMarie13]

Really? I know they can be shade af about advertising their free website buts this definitely sounds like a scam. Other tax service asked me about my pandemic check and i was never asked to pay because of it. Like unless that money you got put you over the threshold to qualify for the free version but even then, I don't think they are allowed to use that assistance and count it as income.

[@electricpenguin32]

That’s so weird! I’ve never had a problem with Turbo Tax, always been free for me. I’ve had pandemic payments, my husband has student loans, I own my home, have interest income on accounts, etc. People always tell me these are the reasons they had to pay for the “free” service but I never had. I don’t doubt they would be shady though, just wondering why they are so random.

[@mottski1]

My job does that "cost of living" raise. They USED to give merit raises and stopped. My raise this year? 55 cents USD, which means an additional $80/month ish. Meanwhile my rent alone went up $90/month, let alone the cost of food. It's absolutely infuriating.

[@Just999Me]

yeah I no longer stay loyal to companies. job hopping seems like the only way to get a decent pay raise nowadays.

[@erima4270]

A tax preparation-focused episode would be great!

[@imberrysandy]

esp for small business owners!

[@skybyte27]

Agreed

[@twingzable]

Yeees

[@dlm4708]

Y'all need to put in manual captions from now on. During the interview, when talking about unpaid internships, the auto captions say that they should be "absolutely legal, on paid internships shouldn't exist." But if I pause and go back to the second where she says this, it changed to 'unpaid internships.' If I hadn't thought to rewind, I would have gotten a very different message. This is quite common on KZbin actually, with some videos being totally incomprehensible.

[@jennysawyer3686]

It is worth noting that if you listening outside of the US (like the UK were I am the term "Financial Advisor " is a regulated term by the FCA

[@msg5352]

Many if not most people are desperately ignorant of the real life skills you need to survive, let alone thrive, in a capitalist society...they haven't been taught by their parents, often because they didn't know either, and real practical skills like these are almost never taught in high school, where it would count. I don't think this is entirely by accident, ignorant marks are more passive and easier to work. The business community would be up in arms if the economic realities of our lives were laid out for the young.

[@andreagordon9339]

I fell for the debt management scam almost 3 years ago. I hate what I’ve done to my credit score, but I’ve rebounded quite a bit and have saved enough to pay the program fees off to cut ties with the program and pay my outstanding debts to the creditors themselves.

[@Erica-en2qz]

Had a couple of near misses with some "financial advisors." I thought they would help me get my finances straight and tell me what I could afford to do, but they mostly wanted to sell me insurance or get me to pay off my debt by incurring more debt. 🤦🏾‍♀️

[@SarahWinstead]

Ugh the so called financial advisors my job brought in to talk with us about benefits pushed whole life insurance on me and I'm not happy. I feel like so often people who work in education get terrible advice for financial stuff, especially for an underpaid profession. They literally made us sit through these presentations. It's so gross.

[@DaringDanielletravels]

I’ve found my job to have the worse, poorly informed “advisors”

[@2headed]

I identified with Daniella Flores in this episode my 20s were full financial anxiety which living in Canada was not as bad on the education front, but I also remember holding down 3 jobs to pay rent in a major city, I can't imagine going to school on top of that too. My heart goes out to them. Hope they are in a better place now. They also opened my eyes on how the Internet is able to market to me so well.

[@AyH25]

LOL yeah I got like 2-4% raise this year when inflation was 8% . So dumb. But idk if any companies are giving annual raises much bigger than that.

[@Desbienvenido]

Great as always! Could you guys work on your audio a little bit? It seems like Julia’s voice is harder to listen than Ryan’s. In fact, Ryan’s voice can sometimes be a bit too high pitched and painful if my volume is up when trying to listen to Julia. I swear I love you guys! Please take the feedback!

[@kaiwryn]

Ryan is definitely louder.

[@erika1935]

I noticed that the volume of the inserted clips were a lot softer than the podcast itself.

[@fortheloveofLDS]

I respectfully second this request, the audio is pretty unbalanced.

[@kiterafrey]

I work in class action, and in my experience both in my personal life and in my professional life, insurance companies will go above and beyond to NOT pay out anything. They will dig for loopholes for day, and often will just outright violate their own contracts leading to class actions later down the road, which to them a couple million is just a slap on the wrist compared to how much they actually scammed people out of in their violations.

[@barnabusdoyle4930]

I’ve worked for legal firms where I would go to insurance company offices with court ordered requests for records or other documents. The most common response I got was being told that their corporate headquarters was not where these requests had to be sent to but they would give me the address of a law firm in some shopping mall to given those requests to. The job of half of the people at the insurance company was to make sure they never paid out anything.

[@kiterafrey]

@@barnabusdoyle4930 I'm not surprised, often times on our more complex cases (my depot) for auto, Hippa, and Data Breach cases companies will appeal the level of documentation needed for payout rather than the prayer for relief amount so that fewer people are able to get paid out because they'll make it increasingly difficult for people to get their documentation needed from their accounts on time to submit to our claims team. It is why I HIGHLY suggest you always keep a digital copy (on a personal cloud or print) of every receipt, invoice, paperwork etc. I'm sure you know that based on your job, but I'm just dropping it here in case someone outside of law reads this and it helps them in future class actions.

[@barnabusdoyle4930]

The best thing about debt settlement companies is how they let people believe or convince people that what the service is. Most people think they are getting a consolidation loan.

[@thejammiestjam]

Totally enjoying this podcast! Agreed with other comments: would love a tax prep episode!

[@sarahwatts7152]

I'd like one on tax prep and one on casinos - those both sound pretty interesting

[@andallthatyazz]

I’m actually filing a complaint against FDR with the NY Attorney General. They’re very misleading about a LOT of things, and ended up orchestrating a scenario where they could clean out my Dedicated Account under the pretext of collecting fees (this was around $4,500). The settlement they negotiated was absolutely not ready, given the structured settlement payments already in place. The amount of money in my Dedicated Account and my deposit schedule for future deposits just wasn’t enough to support the huge fee they had just collected, keep up with the scheduled structured settlements already in place, AND allow them to continue negotiating settlements. That that acted intentionally and with malice is my “opinion,” but I’ve got a lot of evidence to support this. Pretty scummy.

[@TheRealE.B.]

Everyone's New Year's Resolution should be to actually try to file their own taxes before paying someone else $200 to do it.

[@to1620]

I pay way more than 200$. But I pay that, because not only are my taxes complicated, but that fee insures me that any additional fixes or filings will be completed without an additional fee; and if I get audited, I have professional, licensed representation. Some people need help with their taxes. There’s no shame in that.

[@TheRealE.B.]

@@to1620 I did say "before". If you understand your tax situation and have decided that it's too much for you to handle, that's great. But so many people with 1 job, 1 bank account, and no investments just blindly pay HR Block or whoever to file for them.

[@erika1935]

To me, it is 100% worth paying someone to do them -- however I do now have someone who charges a reasonable fee after one year after moving to a new state and going to H&R Block and it being $500, ouch!

[@pAWNproductionsDE]

I would say it might be worth the cost for people who generate their own revenue somehow (youtube, art, self-employment, etc.) and therefore have more complicated tax situations, but for anyone else with a regular 9-5 job like me, filing your own taxes is way easier than most people probably think it is. Been using simpletax (now weathsimple I think) for years and I haven't paid a dime aside from donations to the platform

[@morganwentworth2041]

I did that this year for 2021. My taxes felt like they were complicated but freetaxusa got me through it

[@rashadthewealthcoach]

I’m looking forward to this. Soooooo many scammers out there.

[@middleagebrotips3454]

Whole life is used by very high net worth people as a tax shelter, after you maxed out your 401k and ira contribution

[@Feyenoord101]

I would advise all to be financially literate. I work in finance and I see how many products are a waste of money. You can avoid it by having basic knowledge of budgeting, retirement savings, investing especially passive investment in ETFs. Tax advise is definitely useful especially if you have any kind of special situation.

[@nerdmommy7114]

Oh god, thank you for posting this. I was considering getting a financial advisor the other day just because I feel that we deserve it and well here we are.

[@leahbarger7721]

I thankfully found this episode shortly after opening a new line of credit and purchased insurance on it. I was able to cancel within the 90 day period to get my already paid fees refunded!

[@dougpatterson7494]

I don't know about America where most of your audience is based but as a Canadian I've always thought credit card insurance is bit of a scam because it is an extra 1% which is what I at least the "cashback" I got on my first credit card and, in the event of jobless it didn't even cover the balance! Only the "minimum payment".

[@mrslvw]

Ugh those consolidation settlement companies- pls research and try negotiating for yourself. They have little incentive to push for bigger discounts on settlements nor ask about removing the tradeline nor 1099c tax implications.

[@tyresseferguson2462]

I love these episodes, they provide great knowledge and things to think about.

[@moncho_mx]

So now I realize I was conned into one of those “investment” whole life insurance last year and the second year payment is this month… I guess I’ll bite through that mistake and actually pick a sound investment like bonds, starting a business or supporting this show 😅😅😅 thanks for the info!

[@ruthbutah7484]

I love you guys!! I was hooked when you broke down the 'Housewives' financials...🙌🙌👏👏😘😘

[@RockeeMusikReads]

I thought I knew enough about financial stuff and being responsible (I’ve watched a lot of videos), but I guess not! So informative!!! Please keep ‘em coming! Thank you!

[@morganwentworth2041]

My jobs have offered pet insurance and legal insurance. Those are situations where I just use my emergency funds, and I feel like calling this a "benefit" is disingenuous. I'd rather have the money they gave to those companies to use their services added to my check

[@ingridparris488]

yrs ago whole life insurance was all that was being offered (in my native place). There was no option for term life insurance. Sometimes you have to use the tools available to you. Old enough to know it’s a scam but I’ve put too much money into it to stop paying now. 😩

[@jessicaDd9692]

Sunk cost fallacy?

[@ingridparris488]

@@jessicaDd9692 maybe a little of that. But, I have been paying this for 25 yrs and I’ve still paid in less that the payout so I’m “ok” with it. I just don’t benefit from it…

[@maderaverdes]

omg I totally forgot I had that stupid life insurance on a credit card I got when I was like 18 (I'm 36 now...geez I wish I had just saved that money!!). I immediately stopped playing this and called to cancel lol. They were like "Oh wow we haven't offered that for so long." Anyway, I'll be putting that in my savings from now on I guess haha (it's something at least).

[@maderaverdes]

I also don't have life insurance, so if you don't that might not be the move for everyone. But, I also have no kids or spouse and no one else is on the account so no one else is responsible for the debt...ah the things in life you learn too late XD

[@brenmmw]

I hate saying negative things but the sound quality of the podcast audio in particular with all over the place. Did anyone else notice that or is it just my vehicle?

[@bilistooka_go_boom]

I'm so glad my mom works for hr block and can do my taxes done for free.

[@ashleythomas1876]

With SoFi as your sponsor are you promoting refinancing federal student loans to private where people would lose any federal benefits - like if the loan forgiveness moves forward?? And income driven repayments?

[@LittleWaffle]

Another great episode. Thank you ❤️

[@DaringDanielletravels]

OMG, I have been getting approached by so many infinite banking financial advisors trying to convince me that whole life insurance is the best way to achieve financial freedom because you can take a loan out against your investment unlike when you invest in the stock market.

[@skybluskyblueify]

I guess they can't give a link to the website for neurodivergent/queer ppl because that would be endorsing it or something? It is simple to search for but a link would be nice for people that sometimes have trouble getting the resources they need.the words are "I like to Dabble" the text says "dapple" ;(

[@frankbatista.official]

Hey girl! Really enjoyed the video. Just like you, I've been helping a lot of people control their finances and have a better idea of the stock market. A big part of Financial Freedom is having your heart and mind free from worry about the what-ifs of life! Have an amazing week everyone!!!

[@dr.albertroland]

I will forever be indebted to you you've changed my whole life continue to preach about your name for the world to hear you've saved me from a huge financial debt with just little investment, thanks so much Mrs. Karen Cosmann

[@Alexwilliamskenneth]

I'm surprised you know her too. I've been making a lot of profits investing with her for a few months now.

[@masonrobinson5221]

You invest with Mrs Cosmann too? Wow that woman has been a blessing to me and my family.

[@dr.albertroland]

@James Butler You can communicate with her on telegam with the user name below

[@dr.albertroland]

investwithcosmann💯

[@tracywisbon3618]

Times are weird. The US dollar is losing purchasing power due to inflation while strengthening against other currencies and assets. The stock market, real estate, crypto AND precious metals are down because people are fleeing to the "safety" of the dollar. where else can we put our investment money? I can't afford to see my savings of around $320,000 turn to dust in front of my eyes.

[@PleasantRevolt]

Nooooooo TFD working with SOFI!!! The CEO gave himself a 92% raise he is paid more than 100 MILLION annually and they bought a freaking super bowl commercial ad for crying out loud. NO NO NO NO bad TFD. Very bad YT channel.

[@erima4270]

You'd be hard pressed to find a company with an ad spend budget that's 100% flawless and not perpetuating insane CEO wage inflation. TFD can't "only" take sponsorships from companies that are perfect on every front, they'd go out of business.

[@PleasantRevolt]

I was giving the benefit of the doubt, but the tone of voice for the comment is suggestive TFD made this choice fully informed, furthermore the condescending “perfect” you think is expected is more a hope that this company would choose partnerships that align with topics previously discussed; ie more equitable pay among others, like what was done with the United Healthcare sponsorship. Perhaps I misjudged the integrity of those involved.

[@erima4270]

@@PleasantRevolt I love that you deemed my comment condescending when yours ended with "NO NO NO NO BAD TFD," as if talking down to a dog or small child. I get your point that you want them to pick companies that are more equitable and treat workers better though.

[@Pomagranite167]

Or just be a concerned and educated consumer and understand we live in a capitalist society where things cost money and tfd needs to get paid by SOMEBODY. I never pay attention to the ads. I let them play bc i like this channel and want them to get money, but i'm also aware that they dont actually really believe in most of the products they mention here, advertisers pay and ask to be mentioned (sometimes beg lol). That company doesn't need all that money anyway. I will gladly let them part with their money to tfd so they can think they got some "public outreach" or "new client potential" from them even tho i couldnt care less abt that company lol. Hopefully that sponsor is coming str8 from the ceo's pocket too lol Voice your opinion, let other audience members know the company fucking sucks but "yes tfd drain them for everything they have". There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. They are subject to the game as much as the rest of us are. Tfd cannot exist without making money somehow. And i'm totes okay with small more ethical business draining a corporations wallet the same way i support strippers taking a dumb rich man for everything he's worth.

[@ang5035]

I feel you and it is safe to assume all corporations under our current system are doing evil shit but having said that, you need to draw the line somewhere if you want to operate within the system. I mean we are here on KZbin. Is it okay based on your moral compass?

[@freshfreshfreshfresh]

Daniella is not very listenable. Gotta turn this one off.

[@nightfall3605]

I have been part of every one if these topics. I WAS a telemarketer selling Accidental Death and Dismemberment insurance on credit cards. The company would just remove you from the rolls if you didn’t show up for two weeks, retention was so bad. Student loans. Paying $50 per deferment. Late fees. Balance paid greater than principal. Consolidation that just meant it was resold on the private market. Collection effort that led to them writing off a portion after two years of good payments. What did they write off? The last of the principal balance, which meant the govt got a notice that what I deducted off my taxes was vacated and I should pay income taxes on it now 🤬 A credit card consolidation program (for husband) that negotiated lower interest rates and an end of payments after a set number of months. That one seems worth it. We saw the payments appear on his statements and legit finished the program. He saw a hit on his report because the accounts were closed and an amount written off, but he recovered over time. His mother (an investment banker and portfolio manager) advised us that whole life was a scam and to go with term life. It has been the 20 years, and we’ve seen three market crashes wipe out our investments. Now his niece wants to set up an appointment to see if she can help us with financial advice. I’m going to make him watch that section to remind him what not to do.

[@andallthatyazz]

I’m actually filing a complaint against FDR with the NY Attorney General. They’re very misleading about a LOT of things, and ended up orchestrating a scenario where they could clean out my Dedicated Account under the pretext of collecting fees (this was around $4,500). The settlement they negotiated was absolutely not ready, given the structured settlement payments already in place. The amount of money in my Dedicated Account and my deposit schedule for future deposits just wasn’t enough to support the huge fee they had just collected, keep up with the scheduled structured settlements already in place, AND allow them to continue negotiating settlements. That that acted intentionally and with malice is my “opinion,” but I’ve got a lot of evidence to support this. Pretty scummy.