Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 05-06-25_TUESDAY_6AM

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

05-06-25_TUESDAY_6AM

The Bill Meyer Show podcast is sponsored by Clouser Drilling. They've been leading the way in southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at Clouser Drilling.com. Here's Bill Meyer. Delighted that you are here for Pebble in Your Shoe Tuesday. Join the conversation at 770-5633-770K. The rules for Pebble in Your Shoe, by the way, is just to call and share your concerns. I just kind of like that. I forget, I think it was Michael Savage where I first heard that term a number of years ago and he said,

what is the pebble in your shoe? It's the one just bugging you and just kind of getting at you. Last week I was telling you, I was being bugged about what was going on on Highway 62 just realizing that yet once again another gang green deal just slipped under the doormat and they and they pull a lane of Highway 62 away from us out by the mall. Now it doesn't have to be something of that much importance or not it could be you know anything just happens to be on your mind 770-5633. I've been kind of occupied a little bit at home lately. Mom has been in the hospital for a couple of days, second day now, and possibly coming home today. She was resting comfortably yesterday. In fact, I had trouble waking her up.

I think it's because when you're in the hospital, especially the first night, that nursing staff is just designed to sit there and poke and prod and test as many things and orifices as possible until they finally have enough blood and various other body parts to be able to test and go through. You know, that's how that goes. I'm not complaining, it's just kind of the reality. Nobody gets to sleep in the hospital, especially for the first day. But I think she's on the mend, getting pumped out and I will hopefully get her back home today. I'll let you know maybe on tomorrow's show or else I'll let you know on Facebook. I had an email from Brent last night, Josephine

County, and this had to do with an issue I was talking about yesterday morning when I had the co-authors of Poisoning the Well and it had to do with trying to raise awareness of these forever chemicals, these PFAS, P-F-A-S, which have been going through the environment or now being detected in the environment. I first found out about PFAS a number of years ago when I was looking at some agricultural land that had been declared Hey, you can't grow stuff on this because it had been using a sewage sludge and there's nothing wrong with sewage sludge in general because

You know, you know sewage sludge under normal circumstances without PFAS in them It's just something that you could spread and use for fertilizer. And back in the 1980s and 90s especially, even here in the Rogue Valley like I had mentioned, that sewage sludge was being experimented with and put it on various farm fields around here in southern Oregon. And I remember in Ashland, Sam's Valley, and now I'm also hearing from folks in Josephine County where this practice also was conducted. And the problem is that we're finding out that PFAs are concentrated, these forever chemicals, these endocrine disruptors, more things like, you know, teflons and various things,

they concentrate in the sewage sludge because they're, well, this is what happens when everybody flushes their toy tee and then it's left over just gets all concentrated then you put it on the farm fields and what was supposed to be just a pretty good decent way of fertilizing crops maybe Kind of a time bomb that we're looking at right now. Even the state of Oregon is looking at this right now and Brent writes me and says, Bill, I want to thank you for bringing attention to this topic.

I've wondered for years about this. My family used to grow gladiolas in Josephine County for decades until 1998. Due to how susceptible gladiolas are to certain viruses that they carry and to keep the different colors separated, we leased ground at various locations throughout Josephine County. The majority of the locations that we leased for the last 20 years of our operation were out at the mint farm.

We even at one point rotated through Herman's place. Herman Baerjager, we'll be talking to him a little bit later, and Brent says, can't say enough positive things about him and have been very sorry to see him leave politics, but I think he's earned some peace and has done more than his share. I can remember when he first bought that property and how hard he worked to make it work there. It's been good to see him succeed over the years. He's always been a good man first and a politician second. But out at the mint farm, the irrigation gun they used to pump that sludge ran non-stop for years and was still pumping when we chose to shut it down in 1998. One year we had leased some ground at the mint farm and had chosen a piece of

ground below the shop that had sludge pumped into it on prior years. Now later in the summer, towards the end of the growing season, I started noticing that the employees were eating watermelon every day at lunch. Our employees were mostly Hispanic, so this was not the norm for their meal here. And I asked them one day, well, what was up with all the watermelon? They point at the pipe rows where our irrigation pipe ran through the field. And they were just full of watermelons across all 40 acres. I'd never seen that before and had no recollection of them being grown there. I asked my father about it, wondering if someone had a watermelon patch out there

at some point. My dad then explained to me that the watermelon seeds had all passed through people and had been pumped out in the sludge into the field. Needless to say, once I passed that information on the watermelon eating festivities came to an abrupt end. Abrupt end indeed. Of course, I don't know at that point. Well, it was a watermelon version. Anybody remember that coffee that they were talking about a number of years ago that you know the coffee had to be eaten by the monkey and had to come out of the monkey's butt first and that it was like 140 bucks a pound or something. It's just crazy. You know, Brett, you were missing a marketing opportunity with those watermelon,

right? You could use the same thing like the monkey butt deal. I digress. Just have a little fun. 7705633. I'll be curious to see what the state DEQ comes up with, you know, and I've had a lot of criticism about DEQ because so much of what DEQ has been about has been looking to shut down stuff which is not hurting anybody at all, really, because they look at carbon dioxide as the major threat. Carbon dioxide is plant food. Anybody that went through, you know, sixth grade biology knows this. But be that as it may, there are just certain lies we're all supposed to believe and I guess that carbon is killing us is another one of those. 17 minutes after 6, 7705633. Pebble in your shoe Tuesday. It's an 899. Could be Vicki in the Ample Gate. Could be somebody else. I don't know. How you doing this morning? Who's this? Oh, it's Vicki in the Ample Gate. Okay, it was you. I haven't memorized your, you know, for the regulars, I, for the most part, I can say, oh, I know who this is, you know, coming in, but I'll get you in there. What's going on, Vicki?

Well, first of all, ew. I had a watermelon the same. Oh, so you don't want a monkey butt or human butt style watermelon out there. Okay. No, I'm good. All right. Fine. I did have a question about what about the composting toilets people have? That's a really interesting question.

Hmm. I know that it's not like industrial and they only use it for their own personal use, but you would think if people had a problem with using that kind of organic material that they might not let people do it themselves. Yeah, that's a really interesting question. I couldn't answer that, but it's an interesting theory you think about it. Now granted in a city or municipal sewage system Coming out there. You're taking a lot of industrial effluent in there too, and it gets mixed with the personal I don't know if if most of the forever chemicals are coming from industrial production or if it just comes from

people in their regular lives because one of the PFAs which is noted is a material which is used to make a lot of clothing fire-retarded. A lot of children's pajamas, things like that. So there's a pretty good guess that if you would be washing children's clothing that had some of that water or that fire-proofing or fire retarded on it, that would probably be in the output of your washing machine and could find its way even to your brown water into your own septic system maybe. Right.

And like across the street from me, we have a creek. And the people that live on the side of the creek, you know, I can see where they might be concerned from the people that live across the road because it's all sloped. Yes. So, and you know, out in the rural areas, we do have a lot of septic tanks. So I'm just wondering, you know, I just wonder if it's a composting toilet. Is it contained? Is it... You know, I don't know how much directly coming from

human waste might have that unless we're ingesting a lot of PFAS and then they come out on the other end, so to speak. And I know it sounds weird to say, but you know. So a composting toilet without further study my gut would tell me that it's probably okay. You might have more of a problem unless you have somebody taking a lot of drugs. A lot of pharmaceutical drugs end up making their way into the waste stream also. I know a lot of people, I don't know people, but it's known that people flush a lot of stuff down the toilet, which I don't think is a good thing at all.

Sure, everybody knows that you sell drugs to the homeless. Just kidding. So if I pee in my yard, don't arrest me, please. I assure you we will not. We will not, okay? Okay. Avert your gaze to Vicki in the Applegate. All right. Thank you. 7705633. That's kind of what we talk about here on Pebble in

Your Shoe Tuesday. We get over all sorts of various topics. One of the topics we'll be addressing here at about 15 minutes or so, Paul Oster, a credit repair guy, big guy, is going to be talking about what's going to happen now that they're restarting student loans all around the country. No more deferments. You got to start paying up. What happens next? We'll also be delving into some local politics with Herman, especially when it comes to the, well, Shemeah Fagan getting a $1,500 fine. Is that enough? We'll be kicking that around. And I also have an interesting story coming up from a group called the Freedom Foundation. And they sent me an email yesterday and I called them up, got it on. And they're

trying to get it to the point where lawyers are not having to join the bar. And it has to do with forced association, how the government is trying to force so many people into forced associations such as what you could say the same thing about the American Medical Association right you want to be a doctor boy you better you better get with the AMA it's like hey listen these are private groups come on come on so they're actually approaching the Supreme Court with an interesting case and so we'll dive into a legal eagle deal a bit later too. At Siskiyou Pump Service and Rotary Drilling Company, we provide well water services to

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pumping septic tanks, grease traps, even holding tanks, Sweetwater Sanitation brings 20 years and two generations of experience. And as a DEQ certified maintenance provider, Sweetwater Sanitation can inspect, service, and repair your septic tank, which should be pumped every three to five years. Call 541-821-1426 and visit swsmodoc.com. Sweetwater Sanitation sanitation where service is the difference. Did you know that the average public university student borrows $32,880 for their bachelor's degree? Many borrowers list student debt as the main barrier to buying a home, starting a business, or even retiring from their jobs. Are student loans keeping you from other goals? Between

different payment plans, types of cancellation, and tax implications, we know that student debt can be confusing. Don't let that confusion keep you from addressing your debt. Our website offers resources, including frequently asked questions, links to other sites, and tips for avoiding scams. The site is updated by the Student Loan Ombuds, who also receives and attempts to resolve complaints about servicers or other issues with student loans. Take control of your financial future by addressing your student debt today. Visit the Division of Financial Regulation Student Loan Help Site at dfr.oregon.gov or call the Student Loan Ombuds at 888-877-4894. This message brought to you by the Oregon Division

of Financial Regulation, the Oregon Association of Broadcasters and this station. Hi, I'm Michael with Gage of Construction and I'm on KMEB. By the way, another interesting side note on that student loan situation like you just heard in that commercial just rolled by is the Trump administration is going after various colleges and universities and telling them to encourage their people to pay back their loans, to pay their loans almost looking to get the universities themselves to muscle down on them a little bit because otherwise we won't be handing out any loans to schools with a lot of deadbeats apparently. So there will almost be a credit rating on people going to a

particular school. In other words, the university itself will kind of get a credit rating, which is interesting, which will likely sharpen the mind, I would think, right? It would sharpen the mind. Okay, should I go in here to become, let's see, a diversity and equity worker or should I do something actually productive? You know, those kind of questions which may be running through people's minds. A virtue gaze for the DEI program. Okay, let me go to Crazy Jean. Crazy Jean, I always enjoy hearing from you,

but here it is, Pebble in Your Shoe Tuesday. What possible pebble could be in your shoe this morning? It's spooky, it's been rather painful. Okay, I bet it is I bet it is So I don't know if there's a big enough orthotic to take care of that pebble in your life, but what's going on? Huh? Well, I thought I'd call and tell people what there's a lot of people on this planet that do not have salt You just noticed this yes Edward Casey the sleeping prophet he knew this and he talked about it often that there are...

he can't figure it out, but there is the fact that you did hear once and twice in your life probably that they are selling their soul. You know, it's been a long time since I've read Edgar Cayce. I read Edgar Cayce a bunch back when I was a kid. It was sort of in his heyday in the 1970s. You're almost making me want to go back and reread some of what he had written back in the day. He was an interesting man. He seemed to know quite a few things before they actually happened. I don't question if there are people who act like that. They're empty. They're

foolish. They just don't have... They're robotic is what they are. Yeah and I don't know if there's anything we do to help them, that's for sure. Gene, thank you. Stay crazy as always. Let me go to Tom. Tom's in Tallinn. Hello Tom in the in the soul sucking world. That's interesting. Interesting comments. You know robotic. I take people like Mike Pence and a few others there, just like the mannequin gets up there and the mouse starts moving and you don't see much else going on. Hey, so what's the pebble in your shoe this morning, Tom?

Okay, well, it's a voter's pamphlet and you know, it's, you read some of the people running for offices and so forth and just full of platitudes and happy talk and so forth. It's really difficult to find out where somebody's at. I don't see why the party affiliation is not listed. It seems like that's a major part of someone's orientation. So if someone's listing, oh well, I'm running for a library because I want to help climate change and transgender, I doubt, you know, surgeries and so forth. You kind of get an idea that I wouldn't want to vote for them, but rest of it, you know, it's just

it's nebulous. But a party affiliation would be really very helpful to a certain degree. I would agree with you wholeheartedly on this, which is why I've never been a fan of nonpartisan elections in general because it is... Judges. Oh, especially with judges. Especially with judges. Oh my goodness, Tom. We would probably be shocked at the political orientation or party affiliations of most of the judges. Not all of them. Not all of them. But it's pretty rough. Let me put it from our perspective. So where did that come from? Who decided that? How was that decided? Non-party affiliation? I believe when it was the judge, when it came to the judges, that is most likely, I'm not

sure. I would have to talk to some people that know more about this than me, but than I do rather, could be once again these organizations such as the American Bar Association, which my A10 guest is going to be talking about because they're actually looking to ask the Supreme Court to not force people to join the bar, to be an attorney in many cases. Well, I wonder if this is happening because some law was passed way back when or somewhere, if there was a petition or whatever that happened or, you know, something that the people voted on

or so forth. But this is a real good mechanism for making sure that we have the one-party rule here in Oregon. Yeah, hide what their party affiliation is. Yeah. Thanks for the call. Very good point on that one, Tom, on Pebble in Your Shoe Tuesday. We'll take some more Pebble in Your Shoe Tuesday calls after my next guest, who is Paul Oster. Paul Oster, even though it looks like Oster, say ah, Paul Oster. And the college loans are restarting now. And I gotta tell you, people are upset. We'll kick it around coming up.

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in opposition to Senate Bill 1098, which aims to restrict book bans in schools. His crime was reading a scene from the 2016 book, The Haters, which was challenged in the Three Rivers School District, but ultimately remains on school shelves. In essence, he read from a book which is considered appropriate for middle schoolers, but is too lascivious to be heard by adults in the legislature.

A bill headed to Governor Tina Kotec aims to make it easier for Oregon nonprofits and local governments to preserve open space. Supporters say it will protect land from development. Oregon is joining a lawsuit against the Trump administration over cuts to the US Department of Health and Human Services. The suit argues Trump's actions violated federal statutes and regulations. Bill Lundin, KMED.

With SRN News, I'm Rich Thomason in Washington. The Trump administration offering illegal immigrants a thousand dollars if they self-deport, voluntarily returning to their home countries. Look for more delays, more flight cancellations today at Newark Liberty International Airport amid equipment failure and staffing issues. The Trump administration is putting Harvard on notice. The university, which has a roughly $53 billion endowment,

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Better Qualified. BetterQualified.com. He's a credit repair and credit management firm there. Paul, welcome back. It's always good to hear from you. How you doing, sir? parent credit management firm there. Paul, welcome back. It's always good to hear from me. How you doing, sir? Oh, thanks for having me back on, Bill. All right. So for a living, you help people get their credit up. My credit's about 815. That's not too bad. I'm going to do my best to defend that to my death. And I couldn't help but think about what's going on right now. Trump administration has restarted the student loan payments and my daughter called me up kind of in a panic because she was saying, oh man, this is

going to cost you like $900 a month. She operated most of her career here, Paul, figuring that she would vote for the Bernie bros and those type of people that were just going to forgive it. Ended up not working out. I said that was going to be a bad strategy, Sarah. people that were just going to forgive it ended up not working out. I said that was going to be a bad strategy, Sarah. So, now... Yeah, for sure. Yeah. How many people affected by this, do you know? And what sort of issues are we looking at here, both for the economy and for credit? Yeah, we got the latest numbers last week from the Department of Education, and we all knew that the numbers were staggering but you have over 40 million student loan borrowers that owe 1.6 trillion dollars but the real problem is

you have about 5 million borrowers that are already in default that's not there at least a year behind some of them are two three four five years behind and right behind them you have about four million borrowers that are in what we call late stage delinquency which means you have to be at least 90 days late so very very quickly here within the next couple of months you could have ten million student loan borrowers who are in default. That's a quarter of the entire portfolio of student loans. That's not good for anybody. Bill, you mentioned the economy. What's going

to happen is those borrowers who default on these loans, if they get sent to collections, you immediately take them out of applying for a mortgage, getting a credit card, a department store card, buying a car. They simply won't be eligible for any type of financing. Whoa! So restarting this, and by the way, I think it's good in many ways that they are. I don't think regular taxpayers should have to subsidize other people's college educations when they said they were going to borrow it and get it back, you know, and pay it back. But yeah, this could actually have a greater economic impact than one might think. You're thinking, right, so what? They got to start paying their loan. Big deal, right? It is a big deal. It is, but here's the problem. Look, I was never in favor of total debt

forgiveness. It just, it wasn't fair, right but what it's fair is that they have programs that are income driven payment programs which means some people some of the borrowers have been applying their monthly payment is five seventy five a month I mean five dollars and seventy five then. $1020 it's basically it's built around your income. The problem is borrowers have just buried their heads in the sand. Now look I emphasize sympathize whatever it is because this has been a political football it's been a roller coaster they're

going to forgive it they're not going to forgive it. But the reality is the payments actually started kicked in in October of last year. And you just have millions of borrowers that are refusing to pay. They're refusing to even go apply to see what they're eligible for. And that's the real problem. Oh, okay. See, I didn't realize those payments started back then. Yes. All right. Now, was this after the Supreme Court? You know, I'm having difficulty even keeping track in my mind the back and forth that happened with

this several times. I know the Biden administration was doing a lot of forgiving and then the Supreme Court, I believe, said that he did not have at that time the authority, the jurisdiction, to be able to do this, right? Is that when the payments ended up starting? Exactly, exactly. So now what has started is the collection process. Because in the past, if you defaulted on your student loan, you were sent the collections immediately. They suspended that process along with the payments for years. But again, this debt. Service this burden should not be falling the backs of Americans. Who didn't have student. You know for whatever reason or the or they paid back. Their student

loans. So the problem is is you know long before. The borrower ever take that the loan the problem is. The student loan. Creditors these banks and finance companies are loaning too much money to these young people who really don't understand a six-month deferment is less than a blink of an eye. So when you're done with your education you have six months to get your stuff together and start making enough money to start paying back your student loans. And I look at my daughter who graduated from Portland State University quite a few years ago and she's been working, right?

She's been working and I have a feeling, I don't know for sure, but I have a feeling that she just didn't pay under the assumption that this was eventually gonna go away. I remember her saying something like, well, I'll just end up going to work for the government at some point.

Now Portland State University, if you've ever been there, Paul, it's a very liberal arts university, okay? And I'm sure that they were just inculcating her with all sorts of, hey, that's all right, the government will provide for you, Sweepy. I guess it's over, huh? Yes. And here's the other thing that I have to mention this because the bad actors have been pouring in because they're going to prey Upon these borrowers who are now in a panic They're very vulnerable and they're they're they're you know, they're just susceptible to these scams Millions of dollars have already been paid to these scam companies and bad actors

So there's only two places to go to figure out how you're going to resolve this. It's studentaid.gov and the US Department of Education's website. studentaid.gov or the US Department of Education's website. Don't click on any links on social media. Don't talk to somebody if they call you. You know, don't answer emails or text messages. Just like the IRS will not reach out to you, studentaid.gov is not reaching out to you directly. You have to be proactive.

You have to go there. This is so important that you bring this up, that you try to get people scam-proofed to a certain extent. Federal government never reaches out to you in text messages or they reach out to you in a tick-tock post please click here you know and we'll take care of your you can all you talk you can talk to your to your servicer if you're sure that i'm actually sending you the bills um or you go to studentaid.gov very very important all right you have to do this you have to studentaid.gov, very, very important. You have to do this.

You have to be proactive. You have to restart a payment plan that will be based on your income. And especially the people that are already in default or the late stage delinquency, you're first on the list. And when, if and when they file a collection against you, it can become a judgment.

And that's when they can freeze and seize your bank accounts they can garnish your wages they can take your tax return. So this isn't going to this isn't going away you have to stand up be it be accountable and start paying these loans back. Whatever you can afford, it'll be based on your income. The good news is they've streamlined the process. They realized that there were millions of borrowers that were trying to apply,

and it just wasn't easy, it was cumbersome. They streamlined the process. You don't have to recertify every year. Just get yourself into one of these IDRs and start making the payments. And that should keep you off of the collection list. Paul Oster once again, and America's credit repairman. His website is betterqualified.com. I also heard something which I thought was quite intriguing about the Trump administration

is that the Trump administration is actually encouraging the universities and colleges themselves to encourage their borrowers to get in gear here because it almost sounds as if the federal government is going to apply a credit rating on universities whether or not they'll loan in the future. Did you hear about that, Paul? I have and it makes total sense. on universities whether or not they'll loan in the future. Did you hear about that, Paul? I have and it makes total sense. Again, I liken it to the healthcare industry.

Hospitals can charge $97 for a Band-Aid because the insurance company is gonna pay for it. So if you can get a loan or insurance to pay for it, but in the end, we're all paying through the nose for these types of things. So the tuition should just simply not be that high. The universities need to be held accountable here and they're going to be for sure. Look, the other thing that I haven't mentioned yet is the impact on the borrower's credit. You're talking about young people that don't have a long credit

history to begin with. When they start to lose 50, 100 points off their credit scores, now that process is going to cost them much more than just the student loan. Paul, I read in some other sources that America's credit could be in a bit of trouble. I'm not talking about the government's credit, but that overall we're starting to show some cracks in the system, especially when it comes to a lot of car loans underwater. Are you seeing that as part of your BetterQualified.com business? Do you see that? Is that true? I can confirm this 100% anecdotally. Our clients are experiencing delinquencies across the board the early indicators are always auto loans credit card late then

you're going to get. With the mortgage rates in the pre foreclosures so all of those- signs are in place already and there's always like a latency period it's going to take some time for this to really boil up and come out but it's happening so we

were treading water for a really long time now we're starting to drown- there the average credit score dropped not by a bunch but it doesn't have to if you move the needle at all when you're talking about. You know two hundred

million- credit profiles if that needle drops a little bit. Again people need to. Lean that needle drops a little bit again people need to. Lean forward sit up a little bit pay attention because I'm not the doomsayer but if you ask me. You know on the whole we're in for a bumpy ride here you know you have inflation you have all of this stuff that's going on, interest rates are high, the average consumer is starting to drown, they're starting to put more money on their credit cards, which is never a good thing. Credit card debt is a killer for sure.

So you're absolutely right. Yeah, when I read about people putting groceries on buy now, pay later, like was it Klarna or Karma, whatever that is, I'm thinking to myself man the alarm bells are ringing in my head as just a regular guy trying to observe what's going on if you are you know buy now pay later on groceries oh boy that's right that's right and you know fortunately they are going to now be included you know moving forward sooner than later they'll be included because right now they're under the radar they're not even included in the

overall credit industry and outlook they're just they're kind of like in their own category but they're going to be lumped in with traditional credit cards and rightfully so this is just another way that you know the American consumer

is starting to drown in credit card debt or credit debt. Yeah, well long-term inflation and you know, long-term inflation I think you're looking at the result of that and there's I think there's been more inflation in the economy than the official federal statistics will talk about doesn't matter if it's the Trump administration or the Biden administration I'm talking about the way it is on the ground for a lot of folks. Now, that being said, you of course are involved in credit repair and management.

You get yourself in trouble. How long does it take these days to dig yourself out when they call up you and say, Paul Oster, I need some help here. How many years might it take to wash out the badness that you may have experienced in the past? Well, yeah, the good news is it does not take seven years. I mean, you could file chapter seven bankruptcy and be back in the 700s in less than two years.

Really? So it's really going to depend upon getting out of debt because most of the time that was the problem that started. That's why they started you know defaulting and having delinquent- March and their credit report. So we need a budget that's the problem right the average person in household. Who flies the plane around they're not

sure how much gas is in. It left in the tank every single month are we going to crash or we're going to make it. And it it just comes down to a simple household budget. I'm not saying it's easy, but it's not complicated. There are softwares out there.

If you're any type of internet person, there are free softwares and websites out there that you can plug all your stuff into and figure out how am I going to start paying my student loans? How am I going to get out of credit card debt? Because unless you start cutting expenses, where's that money going to come from? And there's all sorts of, I call them silly commercials now about finding out what subscriptions you have.

But then if you take a step back, we've become a nation of subscriptions. Netflix, Spotify, Hulu, Prime, all of these subscriptions the average household is over two hundred dollars a month in subscriptions some of them are over five hundred so maybe we just start I'm not saying you have to do it forever but cut some subscriptions take that money apply it towards your credit card debt or your student loan debt and that would help you start to move

forward very very quickly. Paul, you are so correct on this one. It is amazing when you look at it. I think a lot of this has to do with the auto pay, the subscription kind of model which so many people have gotten sucked into these days. It's so easy to have a $10 leak here, a $15 leak here, a $29.95 a month leak on this particular, it's like you have death by a thousand little small cuts in your monthly budget. I would imagine you know you're a 25 year old and you're thinking hey this

is my entertainment you think you deserve it or whatever it is or even if it is the six or seven dollar a day coffee habit too right? That would have to do something with that. Listen there's a great book out there called you're broke because you want to be and whether it's convenience stores convenience stores are a killer right they're they're 30 to 40 percent higher in prices i know it's convenient but people stop there every day sometimes twice a day all of these door dash and delivery services, there are fees for that stuff and they're higher than what the normal, you know, remember the delivery fees used to be built in and you just tipped the guy. Well now you're

paying a premium to have your food delivered. So it's just a vicious cycle here that we've wound up in. Paul Oster once again, Paul Oster, America's credit repairman and great advice here right now and if someone's getting in touch with a relative of yours or if you have student loans that you're having to pay here, don't respond to anybody calling you. What are those two sites you were talking about again, the federal government site to get these student loans figured out? Sure, really really important. Only go to studentaid.gov, studentaid.gov, or the U.S. Department of Education's website. Very good.

Paul, a pleasure. Thank you for getting in touch from betterqualified.com. Okay? Thanks so much. Thanks for having me back on. Bye now. You bet. Betterqualified.com.

651. This is the Bill Meyer Show. Ready to upgrade your roof to a durable, sleek metal option? Look no further than Stephen... 653, Jerry writes me, Bill, credit score at 64? Almost a 64. You still need to rely on a credit score.

It's nothing but a reflection of your checkered financial past. Yeah, that's why I'm happy to defend my 815 credit score to the death. Jerry, that's why I'm happy to defend my 815 credit score to the death. Jerry, that's exactly it. I think I may have said 715, it's actually 815 is where I am.

I checked that the other day. No, I have very, very good credit. I am always being peppered with credit offers, insane credit offers, and I get rid of most of them. I pay everything down each month, maybe a month or two, just to develop a little bit of payment history, but it's always paid down every month. And I do my best to never dig myself a pit. I learned my lessons from 25 years ago.

Of course, there's nothing like a really bad, nasty legal fight, battle for custody divorce here Jerry to set lots of money on fire in your driveway that's exactly what it was like you know back at that time 2000 1999 2000 you know in my life boy that was a rough time really was but I had been clean clean clean ever since ever since that time. That's also why when my daughter Sarah said I'd like you to co-sign on my student loan. Nope. Because something tells me that I would have been paying the $900 a month that she's now complaining about having to restart paying. And she has a good job at OHSU too.

She's not broke. 770-5633, let me talk with Vee. Hello Vee and out on trail, what's going on with you today? Welcome. Well kind of related to your previous interview here, I've been getting voice mails that are marked as spam, all of them. So I've been ignoring them and they've mostly been coming, I guess someone saying, I, you know, of course I've checked the phone

number and it comes back suspicious and stuff like that kind of, you know, nothing solid on it. And it says, hello, Samantha, from the relief department. You can't find a tax relief department. Regarding your unresolved tax matter based on our records, you may qualify for the new IRS liability reduction program, can't find it, created by the new administration, they don't name it, to help families and business owners reduce or eliminate their tax debt. Press one, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And so they don't say my name. They don't say even the Trump administration, just the new administration, just, just signs here and there. And it was Mark's spam over and every time she calls, it's Mark's spam by my, you know, I guess my phone. Oh yeah, sure, sure. You know. So I've been ignoring it, but yesterday I got one that it's escalated, I guess, and

every time it's a different number that they call from. This time it was a 1-800 number and other times the area code is just a different area code every time. And this one says I can't understand the first couple words and then it says seen as contact regarding a sealed document that is scheduled to be delivered by an in-person agent to either your home or place of employment. If no contact is established it will be escalated into a further classified as a failure to comply.

So it sounds like now I'm being threatened by someone. Oh yeah, yeah. That's another threat. Well, and they prey on fear. They prey on fear. It's all a scam. It just all is a scam. And it's so, and I tell you,

they really like going after seasoned citizens on this on this kind of stuff too and then Because seasoned citizen is thinking well. I don't have any problem. I'm not aware of anything you call it Then they get you they need your bank account information or whatever it is agent agent so-and-so will be stopping by yada yada yada Anything official, anything which is really something to be concerned about, whether it is a tax audit issue or anything else, will always be in writing and will always come from the Internal Revenue Service. They never, I mean never, go out there and call

you or say, hey, when are you going to come here? And, oh, by the way, could you go buy some Amazon gift cards and we'll pay off your tax debt? You know, kind of thing. It's just, you know, there is, this is the the part which I find irritating today, Vee, because we're told that the reason we have to go to a cashless society and everything has to be an online transaction or else it's a Bitcoin or some cyber sort of thing is that it would stop crime because cash is filled with crime and cash is so dirty, you know, all those sort of things and criminals use it here.

And it's like, have you seen a reduction of scams with more people going to online payment programs and things? I don't. Have you? No, not at all. In fact, this phone number was the new threatening one. When I just Googled it or ducked it, it came up with only five or six hits on it and that's it. all these, with only like five or six hits on it, and that's it. And like four of them were Asian writing, like Chinese or something. Of course it is. Oh, I better call Phil. He has a guest right now about this.

Yeah, yeah. No, it's all it's all bullshite. It's all bullshite. And in my benevolent dictatorship, all online scammers, all phone scammers, everybody spoofing their phone number, which would include government agents as far as I'm concerned, arrested, hanged, drawn and quartered in the public square. And by the way, then they were put in an unmarked grave with salt thrown on top of it. You know, just whatever. Salt the ground.

But you know, they have not gotten around to doing that yet. You know, the drawing and the quartering and or maybe hang them out the public square for a while and let the buzzards peck their eyeballs out. And I know that sounds really, really nasty, but there is just such a nastiness. In fact, in some ways, the online and more electronicized world that we live in now is even easier to steal from people now. Now that it's doing it with a few numbers and a click of the button, and they get people to bite on this stuff because it sounds so real. Like I can't tell you how many people, how many women will write me and tell me that, hey, there's someone that's emailing me tonight that says that they're watching me watch porn

and that they've got a picture of me doing it and they're going to send it to all my friends unless I give them Bitcoin. Oh my gosh. Yeah, yeah, people do this kind of stuff all the time. You know, you hear about this. It's just... And like I said, the more we take it to the online world, the easier, not the harder, I think, that it's gotten to commit fraud. And you would think that a government that supposedly is able to surveil us and know everything about us would be able to figure out who the scam meisters are and stop them, wouldn't you? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. And traffickers and everything, you know. Yeah. So in other words, I'm just going to say keep marking that stuff as spam and ignore it. Set your phone to just send it to the spam world and just realize that if anything was really going on and they had to get in touch with you, the Internal Revenue Service would most likely be mail, registered mail, these kind of things if there was a problem. Okay?

Okay, so if the men in black come knocking at the door, don't answer and take the registered mail envelope from them then? Well, that I don't know. If the men in black show up, they're going to put a little thing in front of your eye anyway and make you forget they ever came. You know that, right? Oh, so I guess I won't be calling back. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, we'll get in touch. Don't call us, we'll call you. Thanks, V.