Hey, it's Dan. Welcome back. You're watching I allegedly, and I've got a good one for you today because this time of the year, you need to protect yourself. And we're going to cover things that you can do to make sure that you don't fall a victim to financial crimes. Lot of business news to cover. Please don't forget to like the video. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel today. 

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The FBI just arrested in Los Angeles a fraud ring that was doing something called skimming. And what that was was they go to the ATMs and they put an apparatus on an ATM, whether it be in a grocery store, liquor store, gas station, and it just fits over the top of where you slide your credit card in. They've even done it at Walmart's before. What you have to look for is anything that looks weird. 

And you put your card in, you punch your PIN number in, you're done. They have your information. They stole $8 million. $8 million. They've transferred the money back to Romania and they arrested over 100 people from this right now. And what they would do is they would steal this money and eventually they got caught because people get greedy. They make fake debit cards and go to the liquor store, go to 711 and places like that and take advantage of this and slide that in there. 

And guys, right now you have to do everything you can to protect yourself because it is rampant right now. And we're seeing so much of this happening today. I got a text from UPS. Hey, we're trying to deliver your package, dear recipient. Okay, so delete. Delete. Before. I should have saved that before I deleted it. To show you guys, do not click on these things because it shows that your data has been compromised once they do that, okay. 

And they will get access to your phone, your contacts, passwords, things like that by doing this. Think about this. People that have debit cards with banks, if the bank calls you, just get a number and call the bank back. Find out where they're at, what office are you located in? When I call you, I want to know exactly where you're at. When I reach out and they'll tell you if it's legitimate, they will hang up on you if it's not. 

But the worst thing about this is that it's happening more and more and more right now. And we're seeing this in such a bad way that you have to protect yourself because the scams are out there. Julia and her husband run a business out of their house. And she says, dan, like you say, we have a side hustle. We sell stuff online. And lately we've had real problems with Facebook, marketplace, with people that are trying to know fraud and different crimes with us. 

I'm over at the park today. Got the horses and the donkeys and stuff over here. Kind of nice. And the train. It's nice when it's overcast because the lights are already on and you can see everything. But think about this. So Julia gets somebody that reaches out to her and wants to buy something and says, hey, listen, your payment methods that you have, I don't have. Can you do Zelle? And she's like, well, no, we don't do Zelle. 

So she contacts her bank, or the bank said, sure, you can do Zelle. We can show you how to set it up. They set it up, the transaction comes through, and all of a sudden, the transaction gets held. And she's like, oh, that's kind of weird. Well, you don't have a business, Julia, so, you know, you need to contact us. And because of that red flag, she contacts the bank. 

And the bank says, wait a second. This is a scam, okay? Don't do this. Don't send them anything. And sure enough, she goes through the spam filter. And there was emails back from the person that was trying to buy the stuff, that was trying to get stuff for free and scam her out of money that had already gone to the spam filter. So be very leery of this stuff, guys, because it's happening all the time right now. 

Watch the cash you use. Watch your PIN number. I had a friend of mine that was in a grocery store, and her husband used the ATM in the grocery store. And a man was standing there because they had the bank branch inside the store, and he was acting like he was filling out a deposit slip. Her husband said, wow, this guy's a little close to me. Gets done with the transaction, just left with his money. 

The guy walks up to the ATM and stole $600 out of their account. So store had cameras, things like that. And they looking for the guy that they never found. But again, you don't want to have to deal with this right now. You don't want these problems, and they are just getting worse and worse and worse. As things get worse in the economy, you're going to see more people that will try to commit more fraud like this, and it is just rampant right now. 

So if you're selling things online, make sure you get the money before you ship things out. Make sure that you don't fall for things like, hey, I overpaid for this. Just send me the difference back. And then you put the money in your account, and then ten days later, the check is stopped payment on and you don't have the money, and you've already sent this person money and you're out. 

Everything. This is happening all the time right now. Protect yourself. Tap the card if you can. Tap the card. People say, don't use self checkout. Well, look at self checkout when I go and use self checkout. I was in a Walmart yesterday. In a Walmart yesterday. Come help me right now, sir. It's real simple. Just do. No, no. How many items do I have? Five. Okay, thank you. 

You go. Bye. Okay. You don't want any problems. You don't want to sit there and say, oh, yeah, damn. About a TV set, too that day. And there's a great woman that's a lawyer online talking about how so many people have gotten caught with the reverse thing where somebody walks up and will slide merchandise inside somebody's basket. Just be vigilant. It's like going to the airport. Anybody ask you to hold your bag? No, they didn't. 

Okay. Just be vigilant around everybody. This is what is making the shopping experience horrible. We talked about the CVS yesterday, how they're making you pay for everything in every department of the store so you don't have theft. Okay. It's terrible, guys. Absolutely terrible. One thing I covered a couple of days ago that I want to cover again. Remember 23 andMe. One thing I'm getting a kick out of is a lot of you that have signed up for that. 

You're getting new terms and conditions sent to you that you have to agree to, which I wouldn't agree to this, because it says you can't sue them. Not your data was stolen. Isn't that interesting? That's brand new. So think about that. Well, why can't I sue you guys? You guys had a data hack that you lied about and now we can't sue you. It's ridiculous. So protect yourself. 

If you think it could happen, it will. So horses are just hanging out with Dan. So share your thoughts on this stuff so far. Protect yourself. This is just the time of the year. And again, people get busy. They don't want to go out and shop. They don't want to deal with people. You want to park, you want to get in the store and get out of the store. 

And with that, people fall victim to this all the time. If you see anything raised on an ATM or a debit card, it doesn't look right. Let the store know and call the police too. If you are the victim of fraud during this time from one of these skimming things with your bank, not only do you call the bank, you call the local police too. Don't forget to do that. 

Okay. Share your thoughts on this stuff so far. Let me know what you think. Let's talk about our sponsor, Patriot Gold Group. Have you noticed that as our national debt goes up, so does the price of gold? Well, you're about to see the national debt skyrocket out of control. And if you look at so many different banks, bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley have all said that gold could hit $3,000 an ounce. 

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But look at protecting your retirement. You have insurance and everything in your life. You protect your family. You put a lock on your door. You need to lock your retirement in by getting some precious metals. Take a look at this today. Call Patriot Gold before it's too late. 8833 00:14 31 Let them know that Dan from I allegedly sent you. And get that free investor guide. Another day, another cyber attack. 

This one now is Nissan. Nissan is investigating a attack from yesterday, and they're saying that it could affect manufacturing, it could affect the car, it could affect data, different computers, and it'll be interesting to see what they tell us. But again, another day, another cyberattack. This is getting to be too much, guys. It's happening literally all the time right now. Now here's the one that is wild. And I have two stories about this. 

And that the federal government was the victim of hacking. And what they did was the hackers who are really smart and they found an old Adobe system that had a program that wasn't used anymore and they went in the back door of that because it wasn't shut off and wasn't removed from government computers. So with that, they have this massive hackings and they don't know all the data they got. 

And this happened as early as June up until last week. So again, when are we going to hear the end of this stuff? Seriously, when is it going to be that these hackings are going to stop? I think that they made the big mistake of paying these people. And once you pay the ransom and you pay the shake down, you're done. Well, let's go. We got a few million bucks from Caesar's palace. 

Where are we getting the next batch from? That's what I think. And I think that you haven't seen the end of this yet. So 23 andme, that mess, everything that we're experiencing right now is just absolutely crazy. That's beautiful over here. So it's really nice, but just too much. Now, Starbucks. Starbucks lost $12 billion recently in value by not supporting Israel. That's what they say. So the value of Starbucks has just fallen off a cliff. 

And it's interesting to see how this is going to play out over the course of the next year or so with businesses like this. So again, I hate spending $5 on a cup of coffee, guys. I just think it's insane to do that. And it tastes burnt to me. Okay? But that's just me. So share your thoughts on that. State of California. State of California. We're the greatest state. 

Governor Newsom, just ask him. He's like Jamie Dimon. You don't have to ask him. He'll tell you how great he is. Anyways, we have a $68 billion deficit. Hello. Okay, this state is upside down, guys. This state is going to be on the brink of bankruptcy right now. With what's happening right now. This is nuts. Absolutely nuts. So what's going to happen next is that I had sent to me, do you have a California business? And someone sent this to me where? Listen, because of the unemployment insurance, you're going to have an extra tax to pay for the fee with COVID So all of the unemployment that happened during COVID they still have not reconciled yet. 

And with that, they have to go out and they have to charge the businesses today for that from three years ago. So that is sound, man. That is great. So imagine penalizing people. You're going to pay this upcharge right now. It's horrific and it's very sad that these people have to do this. So if you have employees, you're going to be paying more money in the state of California. 

Isn't that terrible? Absolutely terrible. Now, in Orange county, where I'm at right now, the average house went up another 4%. Okay. This time of the year, the wild parrots come back to the park. Years ago, there's a great folk story that this guy was raising wild parrots and brought them in from South America and through Mexico was not supposed to have them. Rumor was that he was going to get arrested and somebody said, get rid of the parrots because they're coming for you. 

And he set them all free and the arrest never happened. So this area in Irvine has got a ton of parrots. And during certain times of the year, like the winter, like right now, the parrots come out to the park and they're loud and they're crazy and they're green parrots. Like you'd see somebody having as a pet and they just live and party and make a bunch of noise. 

So that being said, isn't that wild? Okay, but you don't want them in your neighborhood, I'll tell you that, because you couldn't sleep, you couldn't do anything. Hear that? Okay, so the next thing is real estate in California has gotten out of control, okay? With the average house going over $700,000 still. Now, even with the slowest numbers that we've seen in 13 years and transactions hitting all time lows since 2008, that's what we're at right now. 

With that happening, you're still seeing the price of real estate go through the roof. Right now in Orange county right now, the average price is a million, $85,000 for a house, $1,085,000. Isn't that crazy? So good luck. Go buy a house. And that's nothing. That's nothing. Nice. It's just the average house. Now, remember when you'd use that figure? Oh, my gosh. Ted spent a million dollars on his house. 

You should see what he got. He got a lake, he got this, he got that guest house. It was insane. No, guys, that's an average house. 13, 400 sqft. Got a small lot, 6000, 8000 square foot lot. No big deal. Your neighbors behind you. Yeah, you can smell Beth's cooking. It's horrible. That's what people are experiencing right now. So share your thoughts on this stuff so far, but haven't seen anything yet, guys. 

But the deficits and the problems, this is not going to get fixed. California's got a real tax problem. People are leaving business closures because they're taking in a record low that we're not selling anything. Businesses are closing. You don't have employees. Businesses are not paying to the state right now. So with that $68 billion deficit, man, that is crazy. That is absolutely nuts that we have this deficit right now. 

So share your thoughts on this. Let me know what you think about it. Now, this is truly a sign of the times. Do you have a dollar general near you? Do you guys like that store? There's one about 40 miles from me where I'm at, and I've never been into a dollar general store, but they have 19,000 stores, 19,000 locations, and their sales were up 2. 4%. Oh, fantastic. 

The big problem is that profits were down 47 and a half percent. That is huge, guys. Absolutely huge. The only reason why sales the dollar was up was because they charged more money at Dollar General. So you're seeing real problems with this right now. The next thing is that their expansion, they're going to close more stores this year and they're going to remodel existing stores. They're not going to add new stores. 

They're going to take 800 stores and remodel those stores. Okay. And you're going to see more things like that. So hopefully, if you like the dollar general source, hopefully they're going to revamp the stores near you. But this is going to be interesting because you're not going to see the expansion. Instead of having three stores in one town, you'll just have the one, but it'll be nicer, hopefully. 

Now, here's something that's funny to me, and that is moody. The ratings agency downgraded the United States as a creditor. And, you know, we went from stable to negative. Well, how about this one? It's almost organized crime stuff. This is funny. The Moody's rating agency told the people in Taiwan to work from home. And WFH. And I'm like, WFH? What's that mean, you got a WFH? You got to work from home. 

Because they were going to issue the new ratings for China to say that they are negative now and they were worried about backlash to these people at Moody's, that they would fall victim to China. Okay, well, that sounds like business people, doesn't it? They have to worry about stuff like that. So stories below, again, what I find entertaining is wild, but again, China, the powerhouse, is not doing well right now, and they're having difficulties paying their bills. 

And again, negative for Chinese debt. Okay, so share your thoughts on this stuff so far. The train is coming as it got dark. I have to film the rest of the video this way, but there's a few things to cover. And story out of the UK is talking about how the United States is going to have a drug shortage that's only going to get worse. And there's a story below on this. 

And it's a lot of life threatening drugs for people with diabetes and epilepsy and things like that. If you or a family member has prescription drugs that if you didn't take, you could be deathly ill or very sick, contact your doctor and do what you can do to make sure you have at least a one month supply. With everything that's happening, you need to stock up on this. 

With all the layoffs right now. There was a HR manager that used to work at Microsoft that's giving people advice on what to do if they get fired, which is a great article you should share with anybody you know that recently lost a job and what they should do next. And US private vault was a private vault in Beverly Hills, California that got raided. And the FBI seized 1400 vaults and took $86 million, which means that the average person in their vault had over $61,000 in cash. 

Now, some of these people didn't have that. The sitnix, for example, are a couple that just had private documents in there. And everybody's suing to try to get their documents back. But the problem is the people that ran the vault pled guilty to money laundering. So are these people guilty by association because they had the products in an establishment that was running the crime. And it's already gone to an appellate court, and we're waiting for the appeals court to make that decision. 

Last two stories. Mark Lamb is a sheriff in Pinot county in Arizona. And he's furious because he's finding out that the migrants that are coming across the border are being given $5,000 Visa gift cards. Now I'd like a $5,000 Visa gift card. So that's insane, guys. That is unbelievable. And then this goes to the last story, which is Target made a Christmas meal for $25 and almost sold out of them. 

Basically turkey, stuffing, everything. Well, they're doing that for Christmas this year. And they're going to. For $25, you can get a ham, you can get potatoes, you can get green beans, you can get French bread, all this stuff that goes with it, and dessert for $25 to feed your family. So this is how wacky things are right now. And again, people are hurting right now. People are not spending money like they used to and they're having a difficult time. 

And again, if you can help anybody, Rosie, just give me 1 minute. I'm almost done. If you help people out right now, be kind to people and understand that not everybody's doing well right now. So please don't forget to hit the like button. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel, and don't forget to join our Christmas card list@iscretsander. com. If you want to send me anything, send it to hello. 

Iallegedly. com. Onward and upward, guys. I will see you guys very soon. Thank you so much for being here's. .