Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Confessions of a Master Scammer | How He Beat the System

Episode Date: January 17, 2026

Cyx shares his life story and how he got into fraud and met Zack.⁣ ⁣ Socials⁣ https://www.instagram.com/cyxgear/⁣ https://www.youtube.com/@cyxcrimechronicles ⁣ ⁣ Do you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://forms.gle/5H7FnhvMHKtUnq7k7⁣ ⁣ Get 50% sitewide for a limited time. Just visit https://GhostBed.com/cox and use code COX at checkout.⁣ ⁣ Send me an email here: [e-mail]⁣ ⁣ Do you extra clips and behind the scenes content?⁣ Subscribe to my Patreon: https://patreon.com/InsideTrueCrime ⁣ ⁣ 📧Sign up to my newsletter to learn about Real Estate, Credit, and Growing a Youtube Channel: https://mattcoxcourses.com/news⁣ ⁣ 🏦Raising & Building Credit Course: https://mattcoxcourses.com/credit ⁣ 📸Growing a YouTube Channel Course: https://mattcoxcourses.com/yt⁣ 🏠Make money with Real Estate Course: https://mattcoxcourses.com/re⁣ ⁣ Follow me on all socials!⁣ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/⁣ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matthewcoxtruecrime⁣ ⁣ ⁣ Do you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopart⁣ ⁣ Listen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox ⁣ ⁣ Check out my true crime books! ⁣ Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCF⁣ Bent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TM⁣ It's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8⁣ Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5G⁣ Devil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438⁣ The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3K⁣ Bailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402⁣ Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1⁣ ⁣ Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel!⁣ Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WX⁣ ⁣ If you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here:⁣ Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69⁣ Cashapp: $coxcon69 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You didn't start a business just to keep the lights on. You're here to sell more today than yesterday. You're here to win. Lucky for you, Shopify built the best converting checkout on the planet. Like the just one tapping, ridiculously fast acting, sky high sales stacking, championed at checkouts. That's the good stuff right there. So if your business is in it to win it, win with Shopify. Start your free trial today at Shopify.com slash win.

How do the most successful women do it? We ask them on how she does it with Karen Feinerman. You'll get insights from leaders like today's Jenna Bush Hager. There's a lot I say no to. And I think it's a really important word for women to use. Rachel Weber of Paris Hilton's 1111 media. I'm going to be a much better leader. I'm going to bring more creativity if I have other things filling my life.

And more. That's how she does it with me, Karen Feinerman. wherever you get your podcast. Looking to grow your investing skills and make smarter decisions with your money in 26, join Hermione's Investing Fix, the twice-monthly Women's Only Investment Club, where expert stock pickers pitch ideas and you help build the portfolio. Since launching four years ago, our member-driven picks have outperformed the S&P thanks to smart, collaborative choices.

We've got a strong track record and a community. that's learning and winning together. So go to investingfix.com. That's Fix with two X's and join us. Other people are skittish about becoming another name. Nope. I love it. Going and opening up an account.

Richard Gonzalez, nice to meet you. Toss it into the back of the trunk, close it. Hey, you guys be safe out here. I can't wait until Zach calls back. I did it. Now I'm nervous. She's gone. He's gone.

I'm like, what the heck? But I've got this duffel bag. In the beginning of my crime and my bad stuff, we found out that in Queens, New York, that they were buying cars. And I didn't know how to hotwire car or anything. So I just take a car. Take a car.

What do you mean? Take a car. Tell you to get out the car. Car jacking. This was way before Google. Yeah. So we figure out how to get into Queens, which was neighbor in Connecticut, and we'd sell the car, and they'd give us, you know, 1,500, 2 grand,

which was millions to us back then. How did you get caught on that? My M.O. We would, you know, get out the car, warning shot, and then hop in the car and leave. So we had done that a few times. Firing the gun, that's an issue. I had no clue. Right. I was 17 at that time.

Yeah. So we did it. We got caught. We actually brought the car and exchanged the car. Came back to Connecticut and we were, you know, messing around and doing it and got arrested. And that fit the ammo. I was just this good kid. I got youthful offender. So they, and I had the bad car jacket because like when you pointed and move them from where they are stationary to pull over, it's kidnapping.

Yeah, yeah. You're forcing them or whatever. And you fire the gun. Like they don't find. They don't, that's, that's, that's not cool either. Like they'll, they don't, that's a big upgrade from. I learned that. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So how long on the carjacking did you end up, uh, get? About 17 months I did. And, uh, everything was put under the umbrella of youthful offender. So you're 19, you get out. What do you do then? So I'm in Tampa.

Um, you went to college. You got a degree or CPA. And you've been a CPA ever since. And that's it. Well, well, I, I hadn't went to. school yet because when I came got off the bus calling calling no sister

she had just got arrested had no clue the perfect sister just got arrested oh okay I was going to say so she nice I told you she had got arrested she was like the boosting

queen so I had no clue and boosting cars she's boosting clothes oh clothes she is a double boosting cars is it same thing Yeah, I guess it, but I think it came from the boosters, which were the department store people. And she has a name. Like, you know, they go in cruise. They're going, like, say, they're going hitting the mall of clothes.

They're going fours. A puller, someone who pulls the person, someone who holds the bag, someone who's gathering, and then a lookout. It's an organized kind of thing. My sister was known for her balls. She had sprayed a state trooper running out. I remember when they used to have state troopers in Dillards, Burgines, kind of, so they were getting up out of there with their bags. And she got, and they got away.

From then on, like they wanted to. She sprayed the trooper? I better believe it. She's going to get out of there with those clothes. And they were boosting as such a number where she had different houses that had. held her clothes. So these girls would get a commission off of these. And they would return, like they would leave at 6 a.m. and drive till the malls open. And then they would just work those malls until they got back home around 12. And they would divvy it up. And, you know,

they, in fours. And then my sister would bring them to her spots and they would sell them. Okay. She's selling them at the different houses? Yeah. So they, everyone knew, you know, Tiffany sells clothes. Okay. What you got, Tiffany? Oh, yeah, yeah. Like, poor neighborhoods, you'll have, like, a local house that will sell, like, there's like the candy, the woman, she's always got, yeah, she's always got yeah, she's always got candy and soda. She's actually kind of like running like a, like a budega type store out of her own house, you know? Every hood has one. Yeah. A regular job? No, did you go get a regular job when you got out? So she's, she'd been arrested. You're stranded. She's gone. Well, I went to her house, um, and found out she had a roommate. Uh, the roommate kind of

told me what was going on and everything. So I'm like, well, you know, here I am. I got a job. I forget what, some telemarketing stuff. I bought like this raggedy car and, you know, mind you, I'm 20, 19, 20, young. So I'm doing my telemarketing thing and everything. I'm just thirsting for money. And, you know, I had this big old gun because I'm from up north and I'm thinking that this is, you know,

I'm a real. So I got to have this gun. Fast forward. I'm like, yeah, it's kind of Florida. You know, people walk around

and shower, slides and everything. So I'm okay. It's not that serious. Not that serious. And so I never really was the, the drug dealing guy then, and I had these still standards.

And then I got wind of check fraud. Oh, okay. What year was this? I would say this was 2000. Okay. My first time someone showed me or gave me a wind of scamming and fraud. Right.

And that was via checks. Yeah, what was the? So the thing was back then, this was First Union. I'm not sure if you remember that bank formerly, Wachovia. Back then, you could call and get an account. As long as the social and stuff matched, you can call and get an account. They'll open it, send you the checkbook. Okay.

So what we were doing was getting these checkbooks. and going and writing checks to the smaller department stores, Ross, K-Mart, whatever was, for $250 or under. Was there $250 in the account? Oh, no. These were brand-new accounts, so it was maybe $0.5. Right. But the checks were clear because it's a new account in the system and because it was

lower than a specific threshold. Right. So if it had been over $400, then they'd say you've got to hold it or call in and get verification. They were called, verify, and those specific thresholds. funds, but because it was under that amount, you know, they would just automatically clear it because that checking account hadn't given us a bad check. Right. And you only needed walk out of the store. All I need to do is walk out of the store

with the bag and the receipt that says this was a check tender because the check tendered is cash. Okay. After the business days of a clearing. Okay. So I was getting checkbook after checkbook, different account, different account. And, you know, I've got, say, 10 checkbooks. And per checkbook, at that time, I could only write maybe two checks off of it and it's no good. Mind you, I had no ID. So I would have to go in and con the cashier into taking this check with no ID. Or I would have to flash my ID and say, hey, I did your favor and wrote my driver's license information on the top and just flash here's my driver's license.

Right. So I was doing that for a while. it got kind of tedious ordering these accounts. Until I learned, all you need to do is just take a razor blade and just lightly scratch out one of the digits. And that becomes a whole other account number to the computer because a space is a number. Okay.

So then I start sequentially. Removing, periodically removing out of every checkbook, a different number in a different area. Absolutely. And since I'm just writing in my driver's license number, I would just write in the top driver's license information. And how many a day are you doing for that? Well, I developed a system.

And because now this became a full-time job, every day I would work three days out the week. And in those three days, I would have to write 10 checks. So that day, I'd write out the 10 checks. I'd put all that merchandise in a corner of the closet or in a big bag and put a little post-in on it. and whatever the seven business days was, I put that post, I put that number on it.

And then the next day I'd do a bag and put that number on it. And then I'd wait and I have my four days off and then I go back and I might do another bag. Once that bag is ready to be returned, then I just get someone and I give them 10% of the bag. Okay. Oh, I thought you were going to say you were selling them.

You're returning. Oh, no, I'm returning. I need every dollar. Right. Change included. Um, God, that reminds me. I literally, do you remember what was the name of it? It was a Scotty's.

It was like a Home Depot. I remember. Yeah, and like Home Depot just destroyed them. But I remember my buddy one time, we went in there to buy something. And neither one of us had any money. We needed, like, spray paint or something. And I remember he said, I got it, I got it. And I remember, so we walked in.

And when you walked in, that was a return desk. He walked right up to the rack, pulled a gallon of paint. off, turned around. I mean, didn't even look to see if they're looking anything, turned around, looked for a minute, and then walked up, put it down, and waited a minute. I go, I'm like, what are you doing? He said, no, it's okay. Be quiet, quiet. Woman comes up and he said, hey, I need, um, he said, I need to return this. She's like, do you have the receipt? He's like, no, I don't have the receipt. I bought it like a week ago. And she's like, I can give you a store credit. And he goes, oh, okay, that's fine. And then she went. And we go get the

Pramipate now. Or he would come back and if it was, I think it's Scotty's at that time, even if you didn't have a receipt, they would give you cash, you know? But I think he only was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I just need touch and touch shit. Who would go? And I was just thought, I remember just the balls. And, you know, of course, I'm like 16, 17 years old. And I was like, fuck, that's insane that you did that. My sister would go into the same set Scotty's big lots.

I remember she got this big mirror for the living room. And my sister's five, three. four. So she went in with, they had back then those, um, thank you. They're like red in color and the cashier will put it on something. Thank you for purchasing it. So she had that role. So she went right up to one, put the thank you sticker and then had a sales associate help her to her escalate and put the thing in there. Oh my God. Yeah, oh, she was balsy. That's directly where I get that from right i'll say so when uh she coming on next yeah i was just oh she'd love to come on i'm sure i'm sure so so what happened so you're doing this scam how long does that scam last it and that's

i mean if you're getting if you're doing it for about 200 bucks and you're 200 and you're buying you're saying you're writing 10 that's a couple thousand dollars and you're getting most of that or all of it back because you're all of it so you're getting a couple thousand a day and you're doing that three days a week. How long is that, how long is that scam go? The duration. I did that. I still doing it. I got a couple bags in my car right now. I did that a long time. So once. Do you get it, do you get an apartment? You're 19, 20 years old. Do you get go and get an apartment? Or you still stay? I've got money. Right. That's okay. So, uh, I was staying with my sister. Then, then I got my own place, uh, and got my own apartment. But the check started catching up to me because in the beginning,

I was using my own account. And back then, we had Judge Heinrich, and Judge Heinrich's stigma, his stickler was check writers. And his, oh, no, he said that he vows to give you a year per worthless check charge. And I've gone in front of him with 30, with 16. I've just been in and out of jail. And this, I've been out of jail for who knows how long, in and out of jail, not a consecutive year without going back in the jail.

And all in those beginning times, it was all worthless check, worthless check, fraud, fraud. And he's giving you how much per check? I understand he's saying a year, but how much is he given you? So I would always have a lawyer. Right. Like coming from up north, and I had kind of an older guy that gave me pointers in being a criminal. And by pointers, it was...

A good lawyer. You have to. Like, if you're worth your... If you're worth your assault as a criminal, you've got to have a lawyer. Right. Like if you're planning on becoming a criminal, like you can't, you know, get caught with your pants down.

So you've got to have some, even, you know, you got something put away for canteen money. And what are you out here doing calling yourself a full-time criminal and you're not investing into yourself? So I learned that lesson early. So I've always had a lawyer. And Heinrich would always kind of, you know, I'm going to give you another chance because even though it was checks

and that was his thing, they're still M3s. Even though I've got 30 of them, they're still, you know, so there's a misdemeanor three. Oh, okay. So it was kind of the worst of the misdemeanors. But not a felony.

And not a felony. And all of those things didn't fall under habitual or career criminal. So I'm just piling up the charges, piling up the charges. But they were these charges. So always probation violate county time, violate county time, then prison. Right. I mean, so you're living on your own at this point. Like every time you go to jail, do you start over? Do you have enough money set aside to pay? Every time it's a start over. My apartment goes, my clothes go to whoever salvaged them. That first time I had my place, I got out a sister's friend's mother now lived in the apartment because she just needed a place to go or whatever. And I'm not going to kick a grandma. out the house. Another time, friends.

You know, I don't know where your polos are and everything. Right. But I'm going out tonight. Yeah. Yeah. I know. So part of the name, man. There's not a street code.

They didn't put it all, they didn't box all your stuff up. That's not part of the street code. That's a different, that's a different code, man. They didn't put it in a storage for you. They did a store. They did put it in a storage. Their closet. Yep.

They pressed and stuff right in the box. They're writing your letters from, No, no writing. No, no writing. That's a different code, man. That's keeping it real. Yeah, that's no. Too busy.

So, I mean, how, so at some point, what do you, at some point do you, does, what is it, First Union say, this is a bad strategy of us mailing these checks? It was. So it was. And then they moved on and became Wachovia. Wachovia became, actually, it's still technically Wachovia. Yeah, they're still. But they bought.

what is that? Wells Fargo. And then they decided to change the name to Wells Fargo, but it's really the entity that was Wachovia. But anyway, we discovered that we don't need to order these checks. We could print them.

Right. Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. Yep. So I bought that program. The ink was a problem. But printing them up.

What do you mean? Like what? Micr Ink. or something like that special ink to print them you do um what do you mean like the program like how do you so there's a there's a program that's available right in back then it was office books so i used check soft and checkmate okay um but i did my little google research that's that's about the extent of my intelligence google um but i did my research and those were the best formatted checks and it's a pain to figure out the format and all of that stuff

if you didn't have legitimate accounts to attach to it and all of this stuff. So I had to bypass all of that stuff. But I was getting good looking checks. So the checks, you can buy the check card stock where it comes like three checks, perforated checks per page. And so you can just stick it into your printer. Laser jet print. And they're blank.

They look good. Like they're a multicolored. Sometimes they'll have. Order mark documents in the back, original document. Yeah. So because businesses use them to cut checks. Right. And personal checks, too.

People, personal people, but mostly back then it was businesses. And so, yeah, you could go on the program and just put in all your information for the checks and your return address and everything. And you end up check number, you check number, you know, 1,025 or whatever. And you type it in, you push it and it prints them out and fill out the check. And now you've got a check that's just like what the bank would send you in a checkbook practically. But it'd be in that Z form, you know, because it's one solid page. So then I would fold it a specific way and put it in the checkbook so that once I wrote it, I could open my checkbook flap and preferrate it, tear it out like it was a check. But really, it's just this printed Z.

And then I will print pages. And each page was sequentially different because I'm just printing them out. So what? So the people at the bank think you're writing the check and pulling it out? They were sequentially different. So it would be a new account number to the computer. Oh, okay. They're never going to the bank because that's not an actual account number.

These systems aren't actually linked to a bank. It's telecheck and check, gosh, what was the check systems? Yeah. And these various systems, Equifax, and they're just logging in your activity with us. Like with the check systems, this account number hasn't written us a bad check. Right. Because technically they can't have access to your account. Now, they can deny the check, tell you to call, and when you call, that representative places you on hold and then makes a call to the bank and gives that information and verifies funds that way.

But it's not going to be an electronic verification of your funds. But you're doing this to buy more merchandise? Okay. Are you still just buying clothes, or are you now able to buy, like, electronics? So I never went the electronics route because that's kind of what the scammers do. Yeah. I like going in and looking like... They scrutinize those transactions more.

More. So I like going in as like a gym teacher or some type of, you know, I always had like a odd story and I'd get a bunch of kids clothes, odd stuff that like a scammer, if I'm coming in here scamming, I'm not getting girly stuff. A big thing that I started doing later in my, at the end of this check hustle was flooring decor. So I would go and get, with business checks that I've made, I would go get these jobs. And for the job, it'd be 5,000 in tile or flooring stuff. I'd load that on the back of a truck, bring that to their five flooring decors in Georgia.

So I would visit all five and get all of this stuff, bring it to, storage, all of this stuff. And then I had three other guys that would return that stuff, but they returned pieces, overages for the job. Right. So they would, and, you know, they'd mark out of the seats. Four boxes left over, two boxes left over. Like, that's reasonable. Yep. And they would, you know, 300 at a time, 500. It would really depend on the time of date. And if they had that much cash in their till, because I didn't want the guys having to wait around for them to go upstairs and get the money, all of that. So five, 300. But that whole receipt it's going to be cashed out.

And I'd go to five of them. I'd make the whole circuit. So all day, I would be loading up a storage. And then it will come time to start getting that money for those and not to send other people to back and forth and return that stuff. Why doesn't these stores recognize that these checks are no good? They do in time. Like, once that check has been deposited, the bank tells them that it's fraudulent.

So when these guys come back to return it, They haven't. That timeline hasn't gone by. They haven't figured it out yet. No, because during that time period, it's all kind of electronic. So the check has been returned, but it doesn't give an explanation for that check. It's just the check is returned. And then the system says, oh, it was returned. We'll just send it back. Sometimes that money isn't available. So there's this window of back and forth, back and forth. Once they say, oh, that's a bad check and we're not going to pay you and that check was closed and everything. They've got all these different stores and then there's that one check and that check is Tony Gonzalez. So they don't have a

face to that. Even though they may have, you know, my driver's license information, they didn't photocopy it and, you know, it's just a guy and a customer. But it becomes a cycle, you know, after six months, there's five checks at this location. Now, when I go to looking at it and investigating, they're the same looking checks, even though they're different names. It's kind of the same M.O. So that becomes a thing. But at that point, six, eight months into the thing, now I'm working Florida's floor and decor

or Tennessee's floor and decor. But the guys who are returning the product, they're really not at risk. And we're saying, like, well, they're more at risk. than you are. Like if something's going to go wrong, they're getting grabbed. Yeah. But they're crash test dummies.

Like you, they kind of know it going in. Like it might work. It might knock. They're drug addicts or, I mean, I'm assuming they've got issues. They know these guys are in out of jail.

They know this is quick money and maybe I get arrested. Maybe I get it. My thing was, and you're right by the, some people use the drug addicts and the easy. My thing was like college students. Like the poor but clean cut looking.

young white kid that this guy's unassuming. He looks like he's a worker. No need to dress in the polo or anything. Dress how you normally dress because I trust you. I don't even know you. So, you know, those, those, I never really had an issue like that because, and even after like a receipt, if I saw it was like five times in and we've got even, you know, six, seven hundred bucks left on it.

Don't worry about that. we'll get another fresh one because my thing is you're only as strong as your weakest link the chain and these guys here they're going to tell immediately so i didn't want them to be hot to heat me up yeah zach would he would definitely use the drug addicts and then they you're going to tell you that i know he's told you this story about the the guy that walked in the walked in the bank cash that had the cash walked out looked saw him and just took off running Wow. You know, he's like, I think I've heard that.

Yeah, it's like he's like, we were supposed to, they were supposed to cash, let's say, like, five checks that day for like $6,000 apiece, $30,000. You're going to make, you're going to make $15,000. And the very first check, $5,000, you know, all you do, wait another hour or two, cash the rest of them. You know it works. You just saw it works. First check, $5,000 takes off. If you'd wait another two hours, you'd have, you know, you'd have. you'd have 15 or 20,000.

Nope. Takes off running. Well, they're not the best thinkers. So. So, I mean, at what point does any of this go wrong? Does anybody ever get grabbed during these things? Not during, but my thing was always like after. Like, I would make mistake.

And during that run, gosh, why would I, someone's told on me. Uh, that was a prison bid. Um, I was doing some stuff for rental cars after that. Once I met Zach and Hustle got tweaked and, and I learned and, how'd you meet Zach? How'd that happen? Oh, Zach. I was in jail. I had just got booked, Falkenberg. Um, and while I was in there, aggravated, razor sharp focus because I'm trying to get out and I'm pissed. Um, a corporal came up to me. six man what name you up under it was a it was a corporal i'm going to say it's now i get corporal anderson um and like he's one of those he's got like bloodshot eyes because he's a drinker yeah he's really laid back on cool i used to fraud for him so i bought him uh a washer and dryer

real nice um because i threw a friend of mine that's a friend of his where he gets his hair cut so he was looking for so i bought him uh washing and dry and i got him grass for his front yard, St. Augustine Grass. Hey, Six, what's going on? So he makes this big deal. Matter fact, I was arguing with an inmate. I was on the phone. He wanted

to use the phone. I'm like, listen, bro, this phone is broken. Man, I lose up the mirror. I'm not even worried about you right now. I would love for you to touch me right now because I've got so much frustration. So anyway, when the corporal saw that and he went to break in

and I recognized me. So he's like, Hey, Isaac, blah, la. And he's one of those big voiced people. And he's da-da-da-da. So Isaac's girlfriend, Madison, I guess, overheard that exchange. So after that, phone call and all of that, it was count time. We're all against the wall. She kind of makes a way to me. Hey, I'm Madison. Such and such. That's my boyfriend, Zach. He's just a big teddy bear. We're here for fraud. Brrr. Because this is obviously before you're actually in the pods. You're still being booking. Okay. We're in booking. And like, I'm looking at this girl like, who the fuck comes up in Sarsing? Yeah. Who are you? Right. Um, but she, you know, I learned that that's her. And, um, Zach maybe said two or three words. I don't really, really remember, you know, just his huge smile. And he was very friendly. I don't care about these people. I'm trying to bond out. Just how luck has it. Um, back then we went into the regular dorms. I didn't see him. He went to whatever A, I went to B. But then from Orient Road, they were transferring everyone to Falkenberg and we migrate together. And then, you know, on the bus, where are you going?

I didn't know where I was going. He knew. I was like, well, you know, see you later, guy. I don't care about this dude. We wound up going to the same pod together. And it was like he was my soul. Right. Like we would wake up whenever we were allowed up.

And we'd be in this little recreation area. walking around that was seen and just for hours hours just I had never met someone as articulate as I was that knew the scamming and fraud and on the level that I did where I can have a conversation with this guy and not have to water it down right you have to break down every single little aspect and it was so mutual like we would just be kind of looking at each other like you know because I get to speak to someone who understands and speaks this crazy language So we were just every day, every day, every day, you know, bro Manson. Yeah.

Every day. That's how we were. We made thousands in that dorm. We made thousands. He had, Zach had access to what's called convenience checks. Yeah. Those are when they send you the check and you may be able to explain it better, but they. Yeah, yeah.

It's when you got a credit card and a lot of times they'll do it right around the holidays. They'll just mail you like three checks. checks that you can write a check that's connected to your, and they put the money, take the money from your credit card. There's a convenience check. So, because sometimes, you know, if it's not a department store or something where you can use your credit card, you can write a check for anything, for your electric, for, you know, whatever you need to use that you need to check for. And so, yeah. And then more importantly, it's not even an amount that comes out of your credit card. It's, you've got great credit. We're going to give you this paper convenience check.

that is valued at, you know, 10 grand, you can write this and it has a separate APR and all of that. Oh, mine to me was always connected to the, like you're writing it on your, it goes on your, on my credit card. Like I had a $20,000 credit card and I wrote it for $1,500. There would be a $1,500. It's a convenience check and there'd be a debit on my car. This is all separate. Oh, okay.

Yeah, these, that's almost like the car loans or the, that's almost like the personal loan checks. You'll get a person, you ever get that, a blank check for like a personal loan? You can borrow up to $15,000. You have to write yourself a check. Yep. You're already approved for $15,000. You're already approved. Here's the blank check.

All right. Up to X-M-M-S. So he would get a whole of these checks. I learned how he was doing that, the mailbox hitting. Um, but his thing and which is it has always been, uh, his people skills. And I think he gravitates to the bottom of the barrel. And then those guys kind of look at him like, oh, I can take advantage of this guy. Right.

So and and but with me, I'm much more of a people person and I was, so I went around and recruited all the guys with the baby moms with the bank account and you want to make $1,500 bucks. I just need your bank account. And I had a guy on the outside that I trusted so he will go around and get these debit cards because I don't trust Jesus. And I'll probably have to edit that out for you too. That's fine.

But so he'd get the debit card. They put in these convenience checks. They, we would cash out a couple hundred bucks, $2,500, whatever, was a safe amount. My runner would get a portion. The baby mom would get a portion. We got a portion. We did so many of those. I was able to get a lawyer, a canteen for days.

And Zach, Zach was like, listen, give me $200 and get me out. So I was like, like I had never met someone, that's something that I would do. Right. And Zach was like, listen, it's either, it's one of two things. You're going to take this and see what I'm capable of. Right. And work with it because you have more of an opportunity to get out faster. Or, you know, I never see you again and good luck.

Right. Because I'm going to be good. So I wound up getting a drug program. I've never done drugs like that. but, you know, my lawyer always gets me these drug angles. Right. The reason why I was doing stuff. And I did the drug program.

I got out and I kept my word. So he wanted this big name lawyer because he knew that name power would get him out. He got out. Fast forward a little bit. He got out. And then we merged and met and was like, listen, bro, you know, what do you do? What do I do? Let's put this stuff together.

And we did for a little while. So that was... Well, I'm sorry. I was going to say, Zach, we would walk around, and because we were both scammers, right, we would walk around the track and we'd talk about different scams. And then as we, you know, like you said, because you both understand things, you know, I ask questions that obviously most people don't ask, like, he's like, so I would do this and this and this. And then, you know, so I get the credit card, you go, well, wait, wait, where did you make, get the credit card mailed to?

Oh, I just had it mailed to my sister's house or something. And I go, why? And he was like, well, I mean, I needed to mail it somewhere. I don't live there. I'm like, yeah, but when the cops show up with a photograph of you and say, do you know this guy? You know, your sister's a normal person. Like, she has a good citizen. Good citizen's first reaction is to, I need to help law enforcement.

Like, oh, that's my brother. Not even thinking I'm getting him in trouble. And I'm like, what do you do? And he's like, yeah, yeah, that's, you know, that is actually what happened. Or he'd say, you know, something along the lines of. I'd say, well, how did you get caught? And you run this scam and it was great and you're making all this money. Like, how did you get caught?

How did it break down? He'd go, oh, yeah, it was just a humbug. Like, I'm like, what do you mean? He'd go, yeah, so we rented, you know, we rented a hotel room for a week. And, you know, we used a stolen credit card. I'm like, you have $500,000. You used a stolen credit card for where you were staying and all the fraudulent stuff was? And he'd go, yeah, but I mean, I'm like, why would you do that?

And he'd go, well, I mean, why would I pay for it? Because it's a stolen credit card. And his Achilles. And his Achilles is that he's so smart. Yeah, exactly. He's this, I always said he's the, he's the dumbest smart person I know. He would have a brilliant, brilliant scam that you would go, how did you even conceptualize this? And then he'd do something that the average criminal would be like,

I'm not going to do that. It's like that chain is only as strong as the weakest link. So they get that thread, and that thread, especially in our game, in that game, any thread is that footprint. And they just follow the footprints. And with what we do with fraud, and there's absolutely those electronic. Oh, okay, he did this. And then that follows that.

And if you don't do your due diligence, it'll lead right back to something that's tangible to you. Yeah, we would walk around that and argue. Where would you send it? I'd go find an abandoned house. What am I going to do? Drive around and look for an abandoned house? Yeah, you're going to drive around and looking for an abandoned house. And, you know, because like with my credit cards that I would get, make these synthetic identities

that I, if I didn't own a house or mail it, or let's say it was a stolen identity and you're ordering credit cards or something, you find an abandoned house. And then I realized, like, and then I would mail stuff to the house. Because if a house is abandoned, after a few months, the mailman stops sending mail there. So you have to first, you mail, I'd mail stuff there and realize it's being turned back. So then you'd go and write a letter to the mailman and put it on like the next door neighbor's mail. Boom.

Hi, I just moved in here. I've paid to have abandoned houses yards mode where you have a guy I'm paying him 75 bucks to come mow the yard every single week just so it looks like somebody lives there just so I can get a few credit cards. And, you know, Zach, that seems like a lot of trouble. I'm like, I'm getting $30,000 in credit cards. I can spend $300 to get $30,000. I just mails to my brother's house.

Oh my God, what are you doing? It definitely, and I learned that in my years, like it takes money to make money. And you have to spend money. Like the other scammers, it's about like that shortcut, that fast cut. I don't have money. Let me do something with a credit card so I can get money. Right. Now once with me, once you get that money,

now you have to invest that in your business. Yeah. Yeah, you've got, it's always, what is it, a scam maintenance. It's like, you know, some, you have to keep, you know, why, why'd you keep paying after that? You know, you're still paying the mortgage? Why? Because I need to get further away from the scam. I've got the money.

Now I'm going to pay the mortgage, the credit card, something. That way it's six months away. I'm paying the minimum payment. That means in six months, maybe in, maybe in nine months they figure out a scam's happened. Now it's nine months old. months old. You know, if you don't pay within a week, they know what's happening. And they can go back and check the video camera and do this. People remember seeing you. And yeah, it's, it's like, you know, maintenance. Like, you have to maintain the scam sometimes beforehand, sometimes after.

You know, but yeah, some guys just as soon as they get the money, they're like, oh, it's done and they go running off with their $100,000. Not even the $100,000. Whatever the first thing that they could pull. And they're pulling out max amount. And you're doing. there's always a plan, especially with me. Like if there's a bunch of money in somewhere and I got to go get it or whatever, I have a plan. Like I've got a bill of sale for a vehicle, my presentation. Like, you know, it's got to be specific.

Like, I don't want to just go in there. And even though this is my money, you got to go in there like, you know. Oh, yeah, even if it's your money. Like I've been called into the bank before where have you ever gone on to an account, you know, gone online, you pull it up. And it's like negative 9-99-99-99-99 across the board, right? So and then if you call the bank, say, hey, what's going on? They go, you need to come in.

Now, if it's a scam, the scammers don't come in. I always went in because when it would happen, it's like, this is a homeless person that I built his credit. He lives under a bridge in Las Vegas or in South Carolina. And I'm living in, you know, Florida or Georgia. They're like, he didn't. I promise he didn't call. So something's wrong. They want me to come in.

They have some discrepancies they want to talk about. I know it's not him. And I know they're calling me to come in because that will guarantee we know it's a scam, why he wouldn't come in. So I go in. I got a real ID. And I'd walk and I go, what's going on? They go, okay, well, you remove $10,000 the other day in a cashier's check.

And, you know, there was an issue. And so, and then there was another debit for $10,000. I'd be, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I removed $10,000. They go, we have two debits. And I'm like, oh, I don't, this actually happened. And so the woman was like, so we just wanted to make sure we wanted to look into it. We wanted to make sure you were, you know, no offense, you were a real person that seemed very suspicious, you know, like I got like $200,000.

And the girl I was with was like, don't go in. I'm like, I got $200,000 in that bank. And I promise you, nobody has filed a fraud report because I am the person. Anyway, like the next, like later that day, I think, they called me back and it turns out that when they recorded the $10,000 in the log, one person recorded it when it happened, and then at the end of the day, they recorded it. Somebody else wrote it again. And so they thought it seemed suspicious. We now have two debits from this account. What's going on? And so, fraud alert, freeze it. And I walked in. But with, I was going to say with Zach, this is very much a similar

area between you and I. I remember we were walking around one time and he was telling me about the wasn't me scam, right, where he's sending people off to other areas to open up bank accounts with fake IDs and then deposits the money. And then he pulls the money out. Then they go in and say, where's my money? Right. They give them the money back. Okay. And he was all he, he was always saying like, yeah, he was just constantly using a drug addicts. And I remember saying, why don't you just get like a normal, and he'd say they were only good for maybe one or two. He was after that, they, they were. got 20 or 30 grand in their pocket. He goes, and they go full blown on drugs and they wouldn't show up or they get the

cops called on them. He sort of, or they disappear or get arrested. He said, something would f*** up because now they got 20. I remember all of this stuff. He was like, it's just a complete shit show with these guys. And I would remember saying, like, why don't you just get a professional guy? And he'd go, because a professional guy is not going to do this. And I was always like, yeah, they would.

I was like, yeah, they would. If they trusted you. And then he would always say, well, I'm a. black guy. They're not going to trust me. I'm like, no, they would. You're a well-spoken black guy. Like, you're not a normal, you know, no offense. He used to say this all the time too. Well, what's normal? Right. A southern black guy that speaks badly. Right. Right. Right. And, you know, doesn't, like, that guy's not going to go up to some clean cut guy and convince him to go do a scam. I'm like, but you could, like, I'm telling you

right now, I had mortgage brokers that would come work for me. And within three months, they're full-blown fraud. Like, they're ready to fraud. Everything. Yeah, yeah. They see that everybody's doing it. They see that it's working. They see that everybody's driving $100,000, you know, sports cars back then, which is like a $200,000 sports car now. You know, they see that and they see that these guys have been, and you guys have been doing this for years.

And they're like, I'm all in. Yep, fast money. Right. Fast money is fast money. That's why they invest in stocks and junk bonds and all of that stuff. It's a different form of fast money. To me, if he had done that, he could have had a crew of three professional. professional guys and they could have gone from place to place to place.

And they would have done it as long as the scam worked because they'd be like, I'm making 30, 40 grand every trip. So that was his vision for me. So when we met and we were planning to come out and everything, my thing was so I know what I'm doing. And you keep telling me about all of these people. Like, I'm not them. I'm articulate.

All you have to do is just. tell me what's going on and just send me on my way. So that was the plan. So once I got out and I was doing my thing, he got out. We were planning on getting together and getting this thing going. It didn't happen like that. So once I got out, he got out. He went back with the girl Madison. Who really ran their operation? Like, you know, one wore the pants. of the relationship. The other one was Zach. Yeah, sure.

Zach was the, even Zach would tell you, he was the brains of the operation. And she was the balls. She was the balls. She was the mouthpiece. She dealt with the people and dealt with them horribly. Like she,

oh, she was very angry at the world. She was very controlling because she had this power. Yeah. And everybody, I'm sorry. We had a, And we had lunch with her one time, wanted to get her on the podcast. She never did come.

Well, you probably got her best version of herself. Yeah, because that's now. Yep. And now that she's clean and sober and because she, I mean, it was just very, and that's why Zach and I split because she is very, her personality is very overpowering. And we had met, we were doing our little small things. And I forget what they were, bill pays, paying people's bills, half and all of that. And, you know, the money was cute.

Yeah. But, like, we have the potential to do so much. And I had told him about instant credit. I'm like, man, you know, we need to do instant credit. So we met at Steak and Shake. And I remember, like it was yesterday, the quote that I said was, we need to stop nickel and diamond and start big timing. And that comment sent her over. over the edge. And so we started kind of at ends. And I didn't really like her from the beginning.

Why did she, why did that set her off? Excuse me. Your guess is better than mine. You think it's because she felt like what you guys were doing was. It was good enough? She ran the show. Okay. And to her, I was just an employee. And there was nothing different from me and the crackhead that they were paying to do what they wanted them to do. Mind you, me and Zach had sat and Zach knew of the level of fraud knowledge that I have. Right.

I'm not the same guy as this guy. I want to take you and partner. Right. I don't work for people. She wants an employee. If anything. You know what I mean? So, and I had this vision.

Like, Zach would be the eye in the sky and he would be the guy that sat and meticulously did the paperwork. work, which he enjoyed. Yeah, I was going to say that's very much. Administrative work is very much something he does. He really likes. And he excels at it.

He will sit down. And so when we split and it was just a, it was a bad split because it was an argument between me and her. And my stance is, ma'am, you know, watch your mouth, watch your tone. I'm being respectful because of your husband. Right. Because of your man. we split they wound up going to Atlanta I stayed here I started doing the rental cars

oh okay we were we had started did you ever do the instant credit were you still ever doing that or so and this I think were me and him vary because I brought the instant credit game to him right he was into the banks and doing that which I thought was awesome my thing was the checks the identities and the instant credit. I didn't have IDs for it. I would go to Dillard's, Macy's. Back then, it was Burdines, and they flag you down.

Flag you down. Hey, you want to apply? You get 10% off and this free teddy bear. Yeah, they got their little, their little table. You choose a gift. Table. They got their little table set up with this.

I don't know. And on my hand, I have all the information that I'm about to run. Right. I don't know. Yeah, come on. come on, come on. Come on. So I would let them talk me into these instant credit things. And once we go to

clicking, I don't have my ID. Right. Wait, what do I have on me? That's okay. So you're already halfway into the computer. So normally they were, and what they would get credit for is just running it. And you just rattled, you just rattled off the information. They believe it's you. I rattled it off. They believe it's you. It seems very solid. Nice. Right. They're going to make 20 bucks or 10 bucks for running a 15 whatever they're going to make they want and I doubt that I'll get approved anyway that approved did you see his ID yep saw his ID why it's 15 bucks and it's approved no or it's it's approved and I just made 15 bucks yeah I'll be like yeah I'll go back and get my ID you know at some other time so just I'm going right upstairs to the um uh where they sell pots and pans and comforter

sets and all of that and I'll just buy something really big and I just bring that I just need merchandise credit because with those with the credit, you know, you need to get the stuff. Then I'd give you the cash. And I lived in Macy's, Burdines. I was wearing nautica and Pol, whatever they had. Did you ever have anybody that recognized you? I mean, at some point, these things have to. Yes, they would recognize me because I was doing so many instant credits. And there was only certain stores that you could go to. But they wouldn't remember a name per se. Right. And then I had to keep track of the shifts because I'd go early morning. And then if I wanted to go back, go late night and I never did anything local like Tampa Tampa. Tampa's like a hot spot for fraud and all of that stuff. I'm staying fraudsters. Oh man. Um, so, so during that time, I started

doing the run of cars and stuff like that. I wanted to go into prison because from the rental cars that I learned from Zach. Well, how tell me to us, because not everybody that's watched this knows about the rental car. So what, what's the? Zach was doing his own thing with runner cars, but he taught me about scamming rental cards, where you would go right online, let's say, national, and you'd set up a rental card program. You'd set up a membership. And online, I'd use these credit cards. And I'd use an actual credit card. And I think, let's say that the membership costs 75 bucks. So I'd have a prepaid card that had 75 bucks on it. Right.

But you're approved. Here's your Emerald card number, membership number. Congratulations. Now, I've a membership. Now I will put on these credit cards that I had that were hot. I'd load the Amex on there or Visa and it didn't matter the name. They just wanted the number. Yeah. And then I would go to whatever airport or whatever and book these cars with a credit card with it because I had an ID, but with a card that had no money on it. So when I swiped it for the 600 bucks, pop, decline. Oh man. Do me if I ever pull up my account. count and use the American Express that ends in 4107. Right.

But approved. So then I'd get that. And so now I had like he would do multiple cars. So and they had went to Atlanta. They were doing their kind of thing. And I was independent trying to do my thing. I'm renting out cars to people. Then I got with a guy.

So how are you renting out the car? You're giving them the car. I'm just giving it to them. Here's the keys. For how, I'm saying for how much? $500, $400 bucks. 400 bucks a week. Okay. And really, to be eye, I wasn't even renewing the memberships because I knew there was certain amount of days, especially with a credit card. So you've got it for a week.

Your past due on it, but we'll just keep on billing this card. And the cards that I would get was credit cards from hotels. So my thing, back before I knew about going online and getting all his blanket. I would just go to a place, a hotel that was nice, see one of the concieres that, and they'd probably smoke weed. And I'd write my phone number on a $100 bill and be like, do me if I ever call me. It's about some money. Nothing crazy. I'm no stock or anything. Just give me a call. And in all my time of trying to guess somebody's kind of aura and giving them that 100, that I've never had someone not called. Now, if they're with the shits, it's different.

But I've never had them not call back. And then once I get that person, you know, how much you want to make? How much you're looking to make with me? I'd like to make a couple grand. Fantastic. I pay $50 per credit card authorization form. And the credit card authorization is Tanya from Etna insurance. is flying in to get a hotel and stuff.

So they do that credit card authorization form and they get credit all the information, billing information. There's another sheet with the driver's license and all of that stuff. I want that. And I'll give you $50 per. You want to make $2,000 fantastic. I've got $3,000 for you. $50 per, you bring me all the, and you don't have to bring me the paper. You can just take pictures of it.

But however much money you want to make is how much money I want to pay. So I would get those and I get these credit cards that that stuff and the corporate cards. So rental car activity is on those cards. So it wasn't red flag in it. So I would get more use out of those credit cards than that. So this guy is going to give you 40 of them. You can open up 40 accounts. You can put 40 different corporate credit cards.

You can, then you can go and rent a car for two weeks and sell that car to somebody for five, for the use of the car for 500 bucks. I mean, so, you know, that's a chunk. Which sounds very organized when you say it. Right. I was taking those cards and up three, just put them on there and up, just switch it. I had no rhyme or reason. That was the beauty of Zach.

Zach was way more organized than I, but we had separated at this time. So I'm getting these cars and I'm getting, you know, my little money and everything. Everything's going good. I'm doing a combination of the cars and checks. I never had really left that venue. Then I met, well, I already knew my barber at that time, but she had a cousin that just got out the feds. He was kind of a, makes bigger moves.

You know, he's into the 50 grand, 100,000 type of thing. And he, it gets, I get win that, um, you get me some cars with the title. I'll buy them. Well, how much you're buying them for? 20 grand really with the title with the title well that's that's a tall order that is a tall order until i figured out that the uh it was very easy to get those titles to the same rental cars so i would get so let's say hurts rental car their mother company they're publicly traded as

ian holdings which would be on the title so i would print out a um power of returning for Ian Holdings and go to the tax collector with this power of attorney and with the registration, all that. Listen, I need the title as Ian Holdings, but I'm here to pay for the title. So they would, I'd pay $147, let's say it was, I forget their number, and they would give me the title in Ian Holdings name. Then I would just take that title and re-sign it over and get another title, but in the new name, which that didn't actually make the vehicle mine because there's paper trail and everything. But for all intensive purposes to sell the vehicle, I've got the title. So he had an auctioner's license.

He would take these cars, go auctioning them, flip them quick, get the cash, give him my cut. So that's where I started eating. We did about five cars. He got arrested, pointed the finger immediately. and set up a whole thing where I had this last car, this Camaro. What did I have? I forget. It was a nice car.

Like, yeah, do it. Gosh, how did that happen? I got arrested for something before this last car. And I had that car put up. Got arrested for something. I can't remember. I come out the county. I think we were talking about it over the phone or something.

They followed me from the county jail, the detectives. I went home, woke up late, had to go pay my bondsman. I've got a bondsman. I used the same bondsman all my criminal career. So she bonded me out without the money. When I woke up, I'm like, oh, I got to go five missed calls from her. She's like, I figured you went to sleep because you got out late, went and paid her. Now I've got to get this money back.

So I'm calling my guy. Yep, I'm ready to go. I go get the guy that's going to drive it. I want you to go in the tax collector's office and get the title and everything. I give him all the information. We even go to University Mall and get him a new outfit, clean up the little beard and everything. Now you're going to go get it.

So he goes in a tax collector's office. There's some back and forth rhetoric in there. He's got a Bluetooth and I'm in his ear. You know, yeah, man. No, don't worry about it. You know, just such that's normal. They're going to the back. So I'm walking this guy through.

The problem was they were on to it. And so when he came out and he's in the car and everything, I'm saying to him, and he's got the title, but it took a hair too long. And one too many people came to something like, I don't like this. Let's get on out of here. While we're backing up and pulling out, the airport detectives came. And I mean, they, you know, they've got AK-40s, these assault rifles. It was just too much. You know, it was just overkill.

It's just two black guys. I understand now. So they had us loose. So we were laid out. So I get arrested. I go do all of that time. This was, I got sentenced to maybe two years, three years.

Oh my God. Yeah. It was the amount. And this is, this is in state. This is in Tampa. No, no. I'm saying this is a state. This is,

you weren't charged in the feds. No, I wasn't charged with the feds. Okay. Luckily. Went to state. Towards the end of my bid, I get a letter. from a weird name, Stephen Shredder.

Immediately, I thought, Zach. It was like this overnight postal service envelope all big. It says, Stephen Treter, I'm in confinement sitting there. You know, I've got maybe 50 bucks on my account waiting on this money to hit. I get an in this big old white overnight envelope is another envelope that's unmarked. I'm like, this has got to be Zach, just over the top, melodramatic. Hey, hey, six, we're looking to make a movie. We were looking for your advice into such and such such.

I'm reading between the lines. He's not really a good slang and sending the message guy. But I got it. Like he wants me to work with him when I get out. The next day I get a receipt, you got a thousand dollar money on the end. You know, I'm going to say you put money on your books. Of course he did. So now, I think I got like 14 days left of confinement, burn in my pocket.

I've already spent half of it. I'm about to go take over the compound. I've got all this money. I get another money order in the mail, another grand with another envelope letter called this number. And this was back before they had like cell phones and all of that in the prisons. He's probably not understanding why you haven't called him because he doesn't know you're in confinement. He didn't know. He's probably thinking, what the hell the problem?

Let me sit him some more money. Yeah. Let's fix this problem with money. I wind up calling. Zach has got everything going. He's got this secretary girl that I was calling her. She would forward my calls to him. Any need that I needed.

She'd put money on my books. She'd put money on the phone. She'd three-way call to this. I'd call her she would deal with because Zach had a lot going on. I get out. I go to Clearwater. I'm laying up. And our plan was for me to take a week off and then he grabbed me, I run a car and I drive up and get to work.

Oh, I wish I'd known Zach back then. Man, day to the money that I came out went about a grant, gone. I mean, I'm like I never left. I'm spending it. I can't sleep. If you sleep hot at night, you know how disruptive that can be. Whether you're having trouble falling asleep, you're waking up sweating in the middle of the night or all of the above. That's where Ghostbed can help.

As the makers of the coolest beds in the world, Ghost Bed is your go-to for cooling mattresses, cooling pillows, and cooling bedding. From their signature ghost ice fabric to patented technology that adjusts to your body's temperature, every ghost bed mattress is designed with cooling in mind. So whether you want a plusher mattress that cushions your shoulders and hips, or a firm option with exceptional support, your Ghostbed will keep you cool and comfortable all night long. When you purchase a Ghostbed mattress,

your comfort is guaranteed. You can try out your mattress for 101 nights, risk-free, to make sure it's the right fit for you. Plus, they offer free shipping, and most items are shipped within 24 hours. If you're not sure which ghost bed is right for you, check out their mattress quiz. You'll answer a few questions and get a personalized recommendation. Even better, our listeners can get 50% off site-wide for a limited time. Just visit ghostbed.com slash Cox, and use the code, Cox at checkout.

Again, that's ghostbed.com slash Cox with the code Cox at the checkout to save a whopping 50% off site wide. Like I'm on a stimulant, but like I can't. I've just slept for two, some years. Yeah. I don't need a week. Oh, man, I don't need a week. I'm ready.

Zach, I'm ready. I don't take your time. Zach, listen to me. I'm ready. He sends for me, of course, go grab a car. I pick a Mustang convertible, GT, of course. They used to call me Flash. him and his girl.

I go up there, we get it started. And at that point, he had this system going. Like, I was just a cog in this money-making thing he had going on. And that's surprising he didn't touch on a lot of that. But, like, he had something going on that I had never seen because he's a sharp guy. It's always been me figuring stuff out. So once I get, he had the instant credit going, which I was bitter. But he had taken it to another level.

So where I was guesswork and stuff, he had a connection with the Lexus Nexus report. Yeah, he told us all, with the earphone, they'd say, ask questions. Like, what was your, what was the color of the car you drove in college? He'd be like, the car I drove in college. What color was that? What color was that? And all of them blue. Blue.

I think it was blue. It was blue. His girl was great at that stuff. She was great on the telephone. She was great in coordinating stuff like that. Her personality sucked. Yeah. And she was just, I'm doing this for you.

And everybody's going to know that I just helped you pay your lights and everything. So we conflicted like that. So I went on. And once I went to telling things just went to rolling. Like I'm like, I need no downtime. Send me here. I'm open a bank account here, here. I'm living in these hotels that I'm not paying room service.

Like, I would take it as a slight. And I think we fell out about that in the far into the future where I was doing something for it. And they put me in like a holiday in. I'm like, what the fuck? Like a commoner? They don't even have room service. How am I going to get food? And I think we fell out about that.

I forget why we. Seriously? Yeah, I'm serious. And it was the girl. It wasn't Zach because Zach knows how I am and just as a matter of recourse, he's going to put me in something nice that has room service and a sauna. You know what I was going to say real quick, just because this I remember one of the things I had forgotten. I remember Zach and I came to the conclusion that his scams and our scams, that's why I'm always like, God, if I'd known this dude on the street, we had two completely different problems. Zach used to need for money to be in an account.

And his, what he was good at was getting the money out of the account. To me, getting money, like getting a million dollars placed in an account, that's the easy part. Like I just have to fill out some paperwork and I'll get them to, and provide some paperwork, obviously, too, some documentation. And then I'll get the money wired into the account. My problem was how do I get the money out of the account? You know how I was getting money out of the account? I'm going in and asking for like $4,000. And so then I'd get like six different accounts.

So I divvy up the money around six different accounts. And I'm going in every other day going, hi, I'd like $4,000 and two days later. And then I go to the other accounts and go $7,000, $3,000, $5,000, in cash. Like I have no idea how to get this money out. But Zach was very good at figuring out how can I move this money and get it converted to something or placed into another account where it's not able to be tracked. And I didn't have that expertise. My expertise was getting the bank to lend me a bunch of money.

But now I had my problem was, how do I get the money out? He had the exact opposite problem. He needed an account with money in it to get it out. And he couldn't figure out how to get the money in the account. Sure. So I'm sorry. That's what when I, 20 minutes ago, when I was like, what was I going to say? So you were saying, so you're in the holiday and you're pissed.

He's got you, you know, you're doing this. You're doing that. So what ends up? What, then you're doing, are you, did you do the instant credit with him? Did you ever? We did. We and like Circuit City, we were living there. Really anywhere.

Like it was at that time, he had so many resources, Lexus, Nexus, ID, cash was on hand. He had, he had Neo. figured out how to how to make the fake ID. Different states and everything. So really it was, God, I have to spend cash on because we have credit cards. And back then, like he was putting, oh, we're doing taxes with the people's names. So we would use a common name, Chris Williams, Mike Jones, and filing for small amounts, 1700 or whatever and with just repeatedly one card.

But it'd be five, six different Chris's so that the money was just dumping on there, dumping on there. And you have these different cards. And so cash, you would have to like figure out where am I going to put. So I would only do cash with like where I lived and my cell phone and all these important bills that come straight to me.

Everything else was instant credit. Flying was this card. that card. Like, I would hate to use cash for, like, instant credit for everything. I don't want that. I can get a different brand and get that out of Macy's and get it for credit. Is there any, like, like, the time that we talked to, I talked to Zach about these things. You know, in his mind, he kept thinking at some point he was going to, he was trying to move

this money into legal venues so that ultimately he could have multiple, what was it, pizza huts? Subways? Subways. I always want to say Domino's, too. So he wanted to have multiple, you know, subway station and have like multiple businesses so that he could somehow or another maybe withdraw from doing this at some point. He's like, obviously, he started that process. He just never fulfilled it. You never got to that point. I think with Zach and with me, with, you know, we would have these visions and dreams of, taking this money and making it clean and getting these businesses and all of that, it's the effort. It's the effort.

Like we really didn't want to because we like me enjoyed it, man. I think I enjoyed it more than him. That's the funny thing. People ask me this all the time, by the way. Because I get, like I do keynote speeches at like banking conferences. And everybody always asks this. Like, you know, one, what was your goal? What were you thinking?

Why did you do this? And it's always like, I used to tell initially, yeah, I used to tell you, well, I need the money. That was the first to do the scams. I need the money. Then you do it. And you get that little bit of money. And then it's like if I, if I could just get like a hundred grand and then you get a hundred grand. And then it's like, you know what?

Like that was pretty like, if I got it, if I had half a million dollars, like I'd stop. I'd never do it again. And then you get half a million. And then it's a million. million and then it's two. And at some point with me, it just stopped being a number. You know what I'm saying? It was like I kept what I do. Right. And yeah, it's and I kept thinking I'm going to turn this into something legitimate and then I'll stop. But the number wasn't really there anymore. And, um, and it, it just dissipated and it, it, it did it. It was like with, you know, exactly. That's exactly. I mean,

this is what I do. Like, what did I do? I, you know, did I, when I went off of the run, I could have gone and just, you know, you got fake IDs or real IDs. You can go, I got. I got. I got. IDs and homeless people's names from the DMV. I got passports. Like, I could just go get a regular job. Why not? You got half a million dollars. Why not get a little, a regular job? Like, because this is what I do. And it's an addiction. Right. Like, it's hard for, and again, I've done two different drug programs in my criminal career. And it's never been a drug thing for me. So the second drug program, which is what I did recently, um, the guy challenged, me, he was like, man, I know you're not here for, I challenge you to everything that's on these

papers and when we talk about drug addiction, instead of the drug, put fraud. Yeah, replace it. Fill in the blank with fraud. Fill in the blank with money. And I challenge you. And I'll give me a week of honest the goodness filling out the paper, doing your homework, give me a week. And after if you don't see a connection, I will allow you, this was the assistant director of that.

I will allow you to just skate through the program. If they have any problems, any questions about your lack of paperwork or anything, they come through me. Right. But I want you to give it a week. And it was profound for me. Like, I realized that I am addicted to the fast living, the fast, because, you know, I'm not a dumb guy. So whatever it is that, like, I try for, you know, I could be, I could do. and I absolutely love the fast money.

I was going to say, and this is like a catchphrase kind of thing when people ask me or they interview me, and I always say this and you'll, you'll, I was like, there's, like, it's not about the money. It's, there's no other feeling in the world, like walking into a bank, giving them false documentation, false this, false ID. having them and then having them cut you a check for $250,000 and then thank you for ripping them off. I mean, you do, you feel invincible. You feel like 007, like you have everything under control. And it's not about the 250. The 250 is it could have been 50,000, it could have been 5,000, it could have been a million.

It's just that feeling that I just walked into a bank that most people struggle to borrow any amount of money. And I walked in with all fake stuff, filled out some paperwork. And this guy thanked me. He's like, man, you've been the best. customer and gives me a check. Like that is, that is something that, you know, I don't know, maybe that's the feeling of heroin or something. For sure, for sure.

Like those dopamines are going off in there. And for me, it was more of playing the role. Like, I am, I fit those roles. And I can confidently go into the bank, how you doing? I'm John Levensworth and give a whole thing. Like I would sit in the office, do a quick scan, see that you're a sports fan, see that you're a family man. Your office tells a thousand tales about you. And it's going to tell a tale.

You're in here every day. You're going to put stuff in here that is valuable to you. And I read that and I go off of that. I have you talking about you more than me. You know, the conversations are usually cut to get the information from me. You know, oh, did you say again such or such? I got the social written on my hand. all I need to do is memorize the first four because after that you're looking down typing in.

I can peek at the rest of it. All the information I've practiced. I mean, this was a thing for me. It was a job. I'm not going in there winging it. When I go in, I am John Leavenworth. Right. And so that was important to me.

Confident and comfortable. Oh, yeah. Like it's, you know, yeah, I would get in there. And even if they started questioning it, like that most people panic and run. I'm not panicking. I'm not running. I'm staying right here. I'm ready to argue with you.

And I invite you to do your due diligence. And I'm always disarming. So when, oh, yeah, check that. Absolutely. That the account did what? Let me peek at my app. All right. And see, yeah, because that's not normal.

Well, most people are like, they're gone. Yep. Oh, I got to get something out of my car real quick. Yeah, okay. I'm great. You and the last guy. Yeah. At some point, did you have like a number or what you're out?

out game was or did it suddenly you just it no never never I'd love maybe you it did and it dissipated oh man I enjoyed it man I loved it and especially like when I went in with the Zach angle of it flying to St. Louis staying in the W going and opening up an account I did that for free right my payment would have been the hotel and the and then I'm going to get in a rental car like other people are skitt about becoming another name and doing that. Nope. I love it. I look. Richard Gonzalez, nice to meet you. Right. I absolutely loved it. And so the once I got out and he was doing what he was doing and I just seamlessly kind of fit into it, the money. We started making

very good money. And he was situated. So, like, everything that I knew, I just had to ask, hey, you got idea. Yep, let me hit up Neil. I need another social. Depends on what age you want. Right. And not only do I have all the information, I've got the Lexis nexus on them. So there's not a piece of information that we have on these people.

All right. So even you have the exact information that the bank had. You have the exact access to this exact same information that the bank has. Absolutely. That was one of the most confident things to me was like, I know what you're doing in the back of the bank right now to check this. So if people, if you're there and ask questions, I'm like, oh, okay, they're running check systems right now.

Okay, they're going to see that there's two inquiries. This guy's going to come back and he's going to ask me if I've tried to open up accounts at other banks. Which I have. Right. Which I, of course. But knowing that they know that they're going to ask is way better than randomly hitting you.

and you've been like, oh, and people will lie. You know, oh, no. What do you mean? No, there's a inquiry from an hour and a half ago. You're at Wachovia. What are you talking about? But if you know it's coming, you're like, oh, yeah, yeah, I was just at Wachovia. You know, then you can give them the explanation.

And that's the difference between someone who is a scammer and someone actually isn't a fraud. Right. Like, you go in there and confidently, like the stuff I saw when you and Zach, you were looking at some stuff and Chiquita was in there and she was, No, I didn't, I didn't, you know, she's trying to get her five grand back or 50 grand or whatever. She had just withdrawn it and everything. You have to give, the confidence is different. She wasn't a scammer. She was somebody that was just hitting a lick.

Yeah. So she wasn't as caught. I'm going in there saying, you can't go in there and double withdraw like that. Yeah. I would have known that. And even I saw like Zach arguing it, you know, but it wasn't. And you're like, bro, it's literally illegal. Right.

Like, you literally can't go in there and ask for some money that you already... What's wrong? Withdrawn. That really, that's kind of a larceny type thing. You're trying to steal from them. Yeah, and she was like, and then her story constantly changed. She kept changing her story. Like, to me, you've, you, look, it's, you have to have had that argument 30 times in

your head and know what all the answers are to all those questions. Because the moment you start saying, you start switching it from, no, no, no, I, I haven't open any accounts to, oh, yeah, yeah, no, no, I did open an account to, that's it. Put her in handcuffs. We're done. Like, this is all, she's scamming. It's different than someone who's. The body language.

It's a difference between like, like you're saying, a professional person. Most fraudsters, I think, are typically, they're doing, they're doing enough to get the five or ten thousand, and then they don't do anything else. And that's the difference between an amateur and a professional. A professional guy is going to. this is what I do and I continue to do it and I do it every day. You know, I have a schedule. I keep track of everything.

I'm continuously doing it and the money's piling up. But you get these guys, they get $5,000. They blow it. Then they're scurring to try and figure out how to make another $5,000. The truth is if you're professional, yeah, I'm getting $5,000, $10,000, another $5,000, another $8,000, another $7,000. It's just adding out like, well, you already got the money. Why are you keep doing it? No, because this is what I do.

And to your point, a professional replaces money. You're not hitting licks up. I got the 5,000. All of that now has to, because I got to make up. And so I feel like when you're at that point where you're at zero and you make, you hit your lick and now you've got to pay, then you start doing desperate things. You're going to say you become desperate. You become desperate.

And like you said, sometimes you have to spend 300 bucks or 75 bucks or 50 bucks. That's why those guys are like, well, how can I do it for nothing? How can I get a Google number? How can I, why don't you just get an AT&T phone and get the number and just keep the phone and do this? Well, it's going to cost me a couple hundred bucks. I can get a free Google. Yeah, but they know it's a Google number. And they know that and it looks suspicious.

And yeah, but I don't have the money to do. That's the last bit of money I have. Right, because you pissed through the $5,000 because you didn't work for a week and a half. Now the money's gone. Now you don't have enough money to even get the next $5,000. If you'd made this a job and you were a professional at it, then you'd have $50,000 right now and even fraud Fraud's not a full-time job. A full-time job for fraud is working 20 hours a week.

You know what I'm saying? Like, it's not 50, 60, you know, it's, I answer a phone call here. I send an email here. Half the fraud I did while I'm watching a movie or I'm driving or, you know, I'm sitting in my house playing, you know, playing Halo while I'm making a W-2 on the thing and then I'm playing my next, you know, game or whatever. I mean, it's like, you can't consider that. Oh, I work for two hours.

No, I worked for all of like 15 minutes over the course of two hours. Collectively. Right. So you're rocking and rolling with Zach. Everything's going well, with the exception of the holiday end. This is insult like a commoner. And other than that, so what happens? We are rocking.

Right. And things are flowing smooth except for his girlfriend. And she is queen now. Right. At this point, like, they've got several accounts. Right. They got a bunch of them. Don't they have like a nice house? They've got like houses. Houses. So at this point, he had a house in Duluth. He had a house in Chattanooga and a house in Utah. I believe they were looking to buy something locally in Tampa or in Sarasota. Yeah, because her parents live down here. Didn't they? I know his, his do. And of course, it would be much more cost effective to buy a home down here than rent. hotels because money and just everything was fluid. Like whatever we needed, whatever I would just dream up would be plausible.

Right. Because they had the connects, the IDs, the furniture was just ridiculously simple. So we fast forward and now I have a home out in Atlanta. And I had a house. I just got a house in Temple Terrace. And my poop did not smell. Right. I'm doing it, feeling myself.

And stuff was kind of rocky with me and her. Zach and I were professionally, like, twinning. So there was that. And then out the blue, Zach gets pop. And I'm like, whoa. So me. But how does that happen? Like, did you get a phone call?

I got a phone call for. from her. And she's like, they got Zach, they were flying somewhere under one of these assumed names that just had too much. Yep. Tampen International Airport. Yep. And it had just too much weight on it, too much things. I think someone had told on him at that time. The secretary got popped. The secretary. Yeah. The secretary got popped. They had kicked in our door. Yeah, I don't know. She said, I don't, when she got popped, so they had bought some social I mean, some people's identification, some crackhead or something had stolen some identification, some, you know, some Foles like that, you know, data borough social security number, full name, called up and said, does you guys want to buy this? She contacted Zach, said, do we?

He said, yes. She came back. She said, yes, we'll buy it. And they went out and got the, that was, that person was working with the feds. They've been busted for something erroneous. I'm pretty sure, almost positive. This is what happened. They go get a warrant.

Boom, they kick in the secretary's door. Secretary says, look, I don't even know this guy's name. I just, he pays me. I don't know who he is. And they were like, well, you know, you got a real problem because you were agreed to buy this information or you did buy it, whatever the case may be. And she said, look, I don't know his name or how to get in touch with him other than him calling and me having a phone number. But I do know he's on a plane right now. and they're under this name, and the plane is in the air, and it's about to land at Tampa International Airport.

They call the local Tampa PD, or Tampa, sorry, FBI. They contact a couple FBI agents. They go straight there. And when Zach gets off the plane, they go, hey, are you Mr. So-and-so? He's, yeah. You know, are you Mr. Johnson? Yeah. No, they go, they said, are you Isaac Allen?

And he's like, no, my name is so-and-so Johnson. And he said the FBI agent took it and went, huh. put in his pocket and he's like and handcuffed him thanks for that other charge yeah and then but Madison was allowed to walk

yep and she walked right to me yeah she called you so she called me immediately they just got him such a such a surge was she crying oh she was crying oh you made it sound like she was like she was like ah no big deal yeah no she was a wreck right because now the brains is gone

yeah and she's just a wreck the problem with that stuff was we were kind of feuding and she didn't trust me. She trusted these girls that were more her employees. Those girls turned out to be treacherous. Right. So they were just pulling money. She was pulling money doing her thing independent of Zach. So when Zach was contacted me, he was like, well, you know, uh-oh, let me.

they were doing their thing, me and her, so we're trying to limit the damage. We're trying to collect money and all of that, but she's not putting me in their business. One morning, we were supposed to get some furniture or something. I had this new place out there. So I'm on my way to her house, which was very close to me. I forgot the ideas and stuff.

I just circle around, go back, went back, grabbed that on the way back. Zach calls me collect. I think they just got my girl. What do you mean? I just got off the phone with her. I believe I hadn't gone there yet. Yeah, I think that she had said,

somebody's knocking like the police. And, you know, she answered the door and then here's, you know, commotion and all that. When I pull up FBI agents everywhere, they've got the khakis, the vest, that's the mesh black vest with the yellow FBI agent on there. I'm like, well,

Um, keep on driving. And, well, no. No, because he tells me that there's, he's like, man, there's a duffel bag in there that if they get this bag, it was one of those big gym duffel bags. And if they get this bag, it's got a bunch of identities and over a hundred with folders, Zach style. So these things were complete folders. One folder will have the Lexus Nexus report. a green dot card, everything but the ID. These were, what did he call them?

Costumes. And they were complete. And he'd had, you know, just all of these. And the ones that he didn't have completed, just had stacks of Lexus Nexus reports waiting to be in this duffel bag. So I'm like, man. So I pull up. The feds are there.

The feds are there. But they're all hanging out outside. So I said, let me try something. I back in this brand new Accura. Where's Gloria? Right. That wasn't Gloria. Really?

Was she like a serial killer or something? No, she just has some issues. You won't be seeing Gloria for a while. This was Zach's girl. I'm just throwing a name. Yeah, you're just asked the FBI agents. Yeah, she's gone. So she's arrested.

She's gone. You mind if I go get my things out of there? I bet where'd you meet her? her tender. I can pull that up something such or such. Yeah, well, she won't be going out. That's a bad date. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm going to just go grab my things. Right. It went right up to her room with this duffel bag. He's, no feds were inside. They were concentrating on her car that was outside. And I don't think they had a search warrant. They had a person's warrant. Right. So they weren't going in that house. I go in there and stuff the duffel bag clothes. It's full.

And I'm not sorting it. I just want to get this zipper closed. The duffel bag was so heavy with folders and stuff that it was like burning my shoulder. I was trying to make it look like, nah, this is just nothing in here, no concerns to you. I popped the trunk electronically, boom. Thanks, guys, such as such, kind of tossed the duffel bag in, boom. I'm walking out, kind of talking to the guy laughing with him as I'm walking with the duffel bag, toss it into the back of the trunk, close it.

Hey, you guys be safe out here. Drove away. I'm shaking. I can't wait until Zach calls back. I did it. He calls him, man. I got it. No way.

I got the duffel bag. So while he was gone. I mean, he's on a recorded phone. Yep. Not concerned about that at all. Not at all. They're going to listen to this phone call? It doesn't matter.

What are they listening to? I'm talking on a track phone. Oh, okay. So they don't really know who you are at all. Okay. Or this duffel bag or whatever. But mind you, I'm assuming that they know. I'm assuming that they're coming. So I left that place.

So those girls, we didn't know that those girls were the rats. Okay. So I bring the duffel bag back and now I'm nervous and she's gone. He's gone. I'm like, what the heck? But I've got this duffel bag. So now I've got some work. she goes and there's this tug of war

she's dealing with the girls and then trying to pull money what she doesn't know is these girls are pocketing all this she's trying to I feel go behind Zach's back and get as much money as she can because their charges are serious in nature those girls wind up double-crossing me I go they tell me that like there's the sheriff that came to your house

and I'm like oh crap I hit it to Tampa. I come back. I was gone maybe two days. My house is cleared. All furniture, curtains, anything of value, gone. Is this the feds or is this? The girls.

The girls. And this is how we solidified that they're the rats. Okay. I mean, you haul backed up, got everything. Everything. Mind you, there's no crime that is more personal than a home invasion. Right. So I moved away from there, went back to Tampa.

I had a house out there, Temple Terrace, but I had that duffel bag as a starting point. And that's when I kind of went full gear with instant credit. I was kind of helping Zach out as much as I can with, you know, shifting money, paying for this lawyer and that lawyer. But I was kind of doing my own thing at that time with the instant credit. trying to make my ends meet. Right. So a lot of instant credit during those days. And that was, that was paying the bills, a lot more of the checks. And this was, sorry, this was instant credit when

you're walking, not the where you're filling out a credit card, but where you're walking into the store and you're, you're walking in the store and you're applying for instant credit right there, like $10,000 to get a flat screen TV and a bunch of stuff. So what they'll do when, when you go in and you want to apply for instant credit, they'll, you give them that all your information. And it's instant, whereas you've got great credit and will approve you for 20 grand. Instantly, you're approved for the two grand. And you can make those purchases now. And if you spend now, we'll give you 10% off, 15% off.

But those places like the circuit cities and the best buys, they want that phone. call because it's not just instant credit to the system, you're going to call customer service. Customer service is going to do that identity questions, those six questions that they ask you, and I've got all those answers. Right. So. Okay. Did you have the Bluetooth?

Oh, I did. Okay. So you've got somebody in the car with the actual report. So they're at another location. Okay. Yeah. But they're definitely, they've got the open files, the five pieces of paper in front of them, sitting Indian style.

And because it's so loud in here, I'm repeating every question that you're giving me. Right. And they're giving the answer, right. So instant credit was just, I'm going in here and getting approved. It was never like not getting approved because I have all the information. Right. Okay. So you're doing that for how long do you do that?

Until the prison, until I'm knocked off, which was he went in. I probably went to jail eight months after him. What was that for? What was the last one for? My last bid was for... It's bad when you've had so many prison stints that you're like, what I get called that time for? It's always been fraud. I think the last was for...

I remember now. Going into Sears, I had an instant credit done. Get it, everything. Get all of the... stuff. It was lawn equipment and everything. The guy wanted a different order. So I went in, but in being cocky, we're just going to change up the order. I haven't got, I didn't get the drive lawnmower and stuff yet. So we should be able to just switch up the purchase. Just do a merchandise return. And I'm walking the associate through switching out the stuff.

And he's like, oh, I can't figure this out, such a such. So he's calling and they're doing it. They weren't. They had figured out that this isn't his account, such a such as such, so they're stalling. Right. At that point, I'm like, man, something seems fishy. This is my, that internal clock is ticking and I've been here too long. As I'm walking out, and you know how the mall is, so Sears is at the corner. And the register I'm at, they've got an exit there.

But if you go into the mall from that cash register, there's also an exit. further up and to the left. Right. So is this university mall? This is university mall. Okay, I know exactly where this here. Yep. So I've got my car out front of the tool section.

And this internal clock is ticking. So now I'm just kind of browsing and shopping while you figure it out. And I watch the sheriff come in. Yeah, you're not shopping. You're here for me. So I just kept on walking. Mind you, I know they don't have a really discreet. I know it's time for me to get out.

So I walk out. walk out the store, start running through the parking lot, saw mall security come. I slow down, start talking to a lady. They kind of drive by. I keep on running. I tell the lady, I'm looking for my dog to run, run across the street. I happen to get away and went on the run from there. Went to Atlanta, kind of laid low and did my check thing for a little while with the returns.

But I was just so scarred with instant crows. I didn't go in there anymore, didn't have really the ID connect because once Zach kind of left, Neo, it was real skittish. He was skittish before. He's skittish in general. Yep. So after that, he was just like, yeah, good luck, guys. I'm not doing it.

And I didn't blame him. Plus, I'm not his guy. So I started doing my thing, ran back to Atlanta, laid low. and started doing kind of like a selling weed thing and chilling out a little bit. I did the flowing decor because that was just money writing the checks and getting the returns. So I did that for a little while. And on an instant credit thing, I was doing a car repair. And they had approved the work and everything.

This was on like a Friday. They didn't have a part. So it was a credit card. I had paid for some stuff. Didn't have the part. Got to do it Monday. Over the weekend, card goes bad, flips around. Here I come, feeling myself.

I'm like, yeah, man, you know, where's, oh, the part's coming. The part and the sheriff. Right. So he comes and, you know, I get arrested. I was wanted from the Sears incident. And I had a gun on my hip. Oh, in Georgia, you can open carry. Oh, okay.

So they automatically assume that if you've got it holstered, you're good. I mean, I was feeling myself. I ds everything and, you know, I'm good. There's no way I'm not John, whoever. Yeah, so I got knocked off from there, went to jail, did my little time, got out. Where was that? Florida. Went to Gwinnett County for that. Right. Net was like, you're not from here, no, such and such. My lawyer was Zoom calling and in the interest of justice and doing all that. They threw all that out. Go deal with your Florida stuff. Nice. Just to mention, man, that transportation from Georgia to Tampa, which took three days, was the worst time of my life. Right. This is brutal. Oh, my God. Getting transferred in that

ice cream truck, the same court vehicle brought us from Atlanta, Georgia. We went to all but three county jails between there and Tampa. We made every stop. Torture. I was going to say the back of that truck, like I just remember the one we were in. We didn't have, there was no cushions on the,

it was a, it was a, whatever, it was like sheet metal that went up. It had kind of like a thing, you know, pocket, but there was no,

there was like no padding or something. There was like this anti-slide, rough sandpaper thing that you'd sit on. on and like that's torture going to court. Right. Imagine being it for days. And I'm rocking it.

I'm kicking it. At one point like they hadn't given us like a lunch. You know, they don't care. They're just transporting. Yeah. And it was just brutal, man. I made some real life choices in that van.

I did. I'm like, man, I'm not built for this. Yeah. Maybe I am getting too old for this, man. Because my body, man, And my tush, and I don't have a small butt. Right.

Like my tush with that bone was killing me back there. Man, it was brutal. It was brutal. So you went back, you go, and so how long did you get in Florida? Two years. I did two years. And that time was kind of reflective because just I had nothing. Like, and my sister would just send me money because, but I'm like, no, I'm fine.

So she would send me money because she's awesome. no friends, no none of that stuff, man. And that was reflective to me because I'm bougie. And I like having a lot. Right. And like these friends, man, we're scamming and all. Like, you guys are there. You didn't look up my name and maybe send me something.

Like, and it was crazy. And I was so bitter. And that towards the end of it, like I had this revelation like, you pick these people. Yeah. It's not a surprise that they're not sending money. and they didn't do that for the friends that they had out there. So it changed me this last time. I'm like, man, this is when I legit said, you know what,

maybe I should be doing something legitimate. Because it's hard to beat the system. As smart as I think I am, and much as I got it together, there's always something. And I'm the type, like, every time I've gotten locked down, the discovery is homework to me. So I look through it and I, oh, this is, oh, this is what the people said, the victim said, and this is where there's stuff. So I critique every time I'm falling, but it just seems like it's the same kind of incidences, same repetitive mistakes.

It's always those, it's not great detective work that gets you. It's your mistakes, your carelessness. I'll just slip over that, the Zach stuff. Yeah, you can. and those small threads is what's always kind of. It's funny, you know, when I was in prison, all the people that I scammed with and did fraud with and none of them reached out,

none of them came to see me, none of them sent money. But the friends that I had that were normal people, they send you money, they show up and they're like, what's going on? They're like, you got two years. That's horrible. Yeah, and it's like, you're somebody who owes me nothing.

You know what I'm saying? and you're sending me 50 bucks here, 200 bucks here. Which is a lot to a nine to five. $200 in a month? If somebody's sending you a couple hundred bucks a month, like that's a three, four days work. Yeah, that's a chunk of money. For you, you can live really decently on that.

So, yeah, but it was so funny because, like, these people, like, they don't owe me nothing. Like, I've never made you any money. Like, we're childhood friends. I call you three times a year. I haven't seen you in. 10 years. And you're sending me, you know, letters, telling me to call you, put money on my books, coming to see me, you know, not once. Because it's because you're, I'm thinking about my one buddy, Danny. It's not like he came once because I was an oddity, like just to tell people I visited this

guy in jail. That I bit everybody knows I know him. And so they're always like, hey, what's up with your buddy in jail? Like, oh, yeah, I went to see him, just have, you know, something to talk about. Like, this guy can't have seen me multiple times. He was just saying me four or five times and putting money on my books. I didn't see this guy in 10 years, you know? But that was those people, those normal square people that were, do you need anything? Can I send you some books? I called the prison.

They said, I can't send you clothes. You know, like you called the prison? What is it? Like, what are you doing? Yep, yep. But it's the same case with me. Same thing with me, man. Like the criminals that you know what we're going.

though. You know what this child is like and I can't get a money order, a piece of mail. Like mail call, you've experienced that. Oh, yeah. You know that like that's something that you look forward to. Of course. And I can't. Nobody would understand that. You understand it. I know that I love, listen, I didn't care if it was a return mail. You know what I was it to hear your name. I want to see my name on that list for mail call or hear my name for mail call. And it was only the legitimate people, but scratch my sister. She had been in the prison. Right. But it was only the legitimate people that was littering my mailbox, my drawers with, with canteen and all that.

All my fraudulent, all my criminal people, though, they're busy. Yeah, yes. But then it's the same thing. It's like, you know, like you hang out with scumbags and then they'd be. like scumbags and then you're shocked. That they're a skum bag. Like, why, you're behaving like so, but you knew I was a scumbag. Like, so, you know, you don't realize it until, you know, at the time you have this,

this, you know, this, uh, in common with them. So you think we're friends. But the truth is that that's part of it is like, no, we're not friends. We're work friends. We're work friends. Um, it's funny. Like when Zach went this last time and he would, you know, call me and, and, you know, I was always, bro.

Do you need anything? Do you, well, here's the problem. Can you go by and I can have money sent to you? And I'm like, you don't have to have money sent to me. I mean, you know, people were sending me money. Periodically, they would send me money. He'd say, can you buy this for me? Or can you, because, you know, he could get the audio books.

No, the bat. He could get like, they could order like gift bags. And where he was, like they could order, you could buy him a gift bag. Okay, okay. And it would come and have like Doritos or. some kind of different food. I care packages. Yeah, some kind of food at the jail, which was funny because I didn't have that.

I've never experienced that. But he would call and say, listen, if I have somebody sends you a hundred bucks, can you bring it by, you know, and I'd be like, you know, well, I'm doing something right now, but I can bring it by tomorrow. No, whenever. I mean, that's fine. You know, and I was, you know, I was always like, bro, I'll put, I was always put an extra money on there, like an extra 100 bucks or an extra, you know, who sent you that?

I'm like, nobody sent me that. I'll say, well, no, don't use your money because so-and-so said they would send me. I was like, okay, well, but I was the guy who was running there, even sent Jess a couple of times. Like, I'm busy, but he needs this money right now. And, of course, Jess having been in prison, you know, she's like, absolutely, I'll go right now. Like, it's funny. For us, it was like a priority, but we've been in prison and now we're legitimate people. You know what I'm saying?

So it was like, no, no, no, you know, somebody's sending me money. I remember something Oh Oh yeah Wouldn't let me Buy the I think I bought one or two bags for him And then it wouldn't let me do it anymore Because when you punch in your code for your credit card

I put in the wrong address I put in like my old My new address and I thought I changed And then it got declined like twice And then they said you can't buy from here anymore So now I have to send it to somebody else I have to send money to somebody else to order the stuff Right because they fraud

that the same fraudsters are in there. And I was in dorms like that where, you know, they call it swinging. And like the swinger jit in there, he's got seven, eight, nine, ten packages coming to various homeless guys or whatever. So in his cubicle of four people, all those belong to him. And they're packed. And he's got a store and all that. So he's buying hot packages and then selling the packages. and then you send him cash apps.

So he's legitimizing that money going out. He's laundering it. That's laundering. Oh, absolutely. And then he's two for one in it because, you know, so you get a package worth $60 and you're two for one in it. And then you're sending out to, yeah, they're making a killing. Hustles are everywhere.

Yeah, I knew store guys that had $1,000 that were leaving prison with $10,000, that they, you know. Because there's money in there. And there's people that love them. And then they'll send it. They're naive, so they'll send you $100 to this cash out, $20 to this cash out. It's whatever story they're telling them. And mind you, these are a lot of addicts in there.

So they're begging and they'll lie and everything just to get extra canteen, you know. So last time, so you got out. So what are you doing what's going on now? So after that last drug program and I had this epiphany and everything, I'm like, look, listen, I got a very, I got to go legit. So once I got, came out and grab a toll hole, well, first when I got out the, the drug program, I was there, I was home for about a day. Then I start walking a day labor. And I'm walking back and forth to day labor.

I'm getting a $72 paper check every day. I cashed the first one, save 10. Cash the second, that one, save 10. I'm buying cigarettes and I'll go to. to work with three or four cigarettes. Smoke half, put that one out. Smoke half, I got a sacrifice. I got to save.

I'm bougie. At the halfway house? No, this was at going to the drug program. So I stayed with my sister. So I was lucky enough to have a place with no rent. Right. And the type of person I am, like, I'm not a sit-around guy. And until I figured out what I'm going to be doing, I got to do something.

Right. Like, I'm not just going to sit around and eat. eat up and smoke up and soak up the AC. So I was gaining, gaining. About a month and a half of saving up checks, I was able to buy me a little car. So now I'm getting a paid difference from going to pay setters, the day labor.

Then I heard about skilled day labor, carpenters, electricians, and all of that. And I know nothing. Like I know, I'm positive. Your daughter knows more about mechanics than I do. But I'm smart. And if friggin' Billy can do it, Carl can do it, I can figure it the fuck out. And that was like my thing.

Like I'd go to, I was an electrician with Amtrak. I did electrician work with building an Amazon out in Ocala. They paid me 27, 25 an hour to do electrician work. Bro, I have no clue what that red, green, or blue wire does. but I learned how to make the receipts. I learned how to wire those and put up. So that was my job. And if it's an Amazon, it's massive.

It's not like it's not like two days work. It was work hiding from work. Right. Because the place was so big. There's 20 different individual companies doing individual tasks. I would go there and they would assign me something and I'm with this guy. As soon as a suit goes this way, I'm gone. I got the broom and I'm pushing nothing.

And I'm just walking around this place trying to figure it out, man. And I did that for nine months of stacking, collecting. You know, then I started plugging, selling a little week. During that time, the corona hit. Right. So now I'm like, God, I got to figure it out. The day labor is over. What am I going to do?

Yeah, you could do unemployment. they were cutting those unemployment checks. I was scared. So I never touched the PPP and unemployment because in my head, I'm like, I got to go legit. I don't want to scam the system. But no, but you're unemployed. You filed for unemployment. I'm thinking of scamming.

It's not scamming. I'm unemployed. Well, that makes sense. Now when we're sitting talking about it, but I didn't have Zach to bounce this awful. It was just me. And I'm like, man, I don't want to go back to jail. Right. So I justify I'm not going to scam unemployment.

I'll just sell some weed. Right? Between friends, I'll just sell some wheat. That turned out to be very lucrative during corona. Nobody's driving around. Nobody's not. Okay. So I'll charge a delivery fee.

Make it a flat rate. And it doesn't matter how much you got or how much you're, I'm coming. You pay the 25 bucks. I'll bring you a Nick. Right. It doesn't matter. And like I kind of blew up from. having something from my prior jobs and everything.

Then I'm doing this here thing. And that just got kind of big. Yeah. So fast forward, I got out of that. And I'm like, man, I got to legitimize. Started loving motorcycles off of a whim. Like I met this cool white guy. And I'm like, man, you're got.

You got some sauce, man. I ride motorcycles. Really? What does a cool cat like you ride? And he had this Dukadi. And it was all white, matte white, red rims. And I'm like, bro, you're awesome. You're awesome.

And so I went to Dukati days later because I just couldn't stop thinking about it. I'm living on YouTube looking at these. They never rode a motorcycle. I had ridden a three-wheel can-am. and I had that. So I just thought I was a biker. Right. Like, you know, I'm riding, got the hand down, doing it real cool.

Went to Dukadi. Credit was good. You went from that to a Dukati. Yep. No clue of the transition. Mind you, Dukadi, as you know, is not a starter bike. Right. This is a thousand Cs.

No idea. I'm like, I got good credit. The bike's only about 25K. That's a nice car. I'm thinking that's a common. comparable. I'll take it. And those guys at Ducautte, they'll sell their mom oxygen. Like, they don't care. Get the bike. I was like, so it's mine now. You mind if I just take some circles in the parking lot? And I'm like, you've ridden a motorcycle before. I'm like, yeah, if you count never,

they're like, you've never, but I know how to drive stick shift. So I'm like, I can understand the concepts. How hard could it be? So I wiggle and poop and my guy that drove my car. He's following me making sure I don't die. I get home that night. I'm watching YouTube, watching how-to YouTube's that night on Fowler, this kind of a big street that heads to the highway, 75. It's kind of, you know, it's barren and big. I go two, three in the morning. I'm learning. And I'm doing circles. This long strip, and then I circle long. I'm doing that all night. And I'm going faster. And now, so then now I got the hang of it. I'm going to parking lots. I'm doing the, all YouTube University.

Figure eights and no wheelies. I'm just, I'm just learning, learning. Now I'm maybe a month into it. You can't tell me nothing. Like I'm just doing it now. I'm a biker guy now. So then I start going to the club, not the clubs, but the meets. Start meeting people and the actual guys, not just YouTubers. and they're teaching me the ins and outs. And now I'm just the biker God. Which was only a year ago, mind you.

So, but you, but you want to, you, did you started, did you start the, the channel? Funny you mentioned that. So I did start a channel and I was doing, it was a chase kind of driven channel. where I would record myself on the highway taunting Stadies and they throw the lights on, downshift twice. You've been driving a year. It doesn't take much skill to go straight and fast. And I at least had that gumption.

I don't do weird and courageous stuff in the city. There's too many invariables. On the highway, everyone's going in one direction, and I'm going faster than everyone else. I was, I'm a lot bolder on the highway. Running on the highway, it doesn't take much skill to me. It just takes the balls. You got to go faster than the radio. No, to me, I'm, you're, I'm hauling ass and somebody just goes to change lanes.

That's, you know, I'd be too scared. I'm too old. Laying in a hospital for four months straight. Oh, our bones don't heal the same. I'm not, man. There's no young guy. Bang into the wall. I got a bruise for two weeks.

For two weeks. Yeah. No. I'm out. Stub my toe. I'm out for a day. No, I can't do that. I actually went to,

I actually borrowed a motorcycle. So I had a, when I was like, how old was I, 19? I had a friend, Arthur. I want to say,

God, I, was it Levinson or something? I don't know. What was his last name? It was a, um, something Jewish.

Arthur. Anyway, he, um, he had bought a Ninja 600, I'm going to say. And I had a Mustang LX 5.0. And he wanted to bought, he had just gotten his bike, maybe two, three weeks earlier. Brand new.

Brand new. And he needed to go to Orlando to see some girl and he needed a car for the weekend. He's like, I can't take this. He was, could, would you mind if we swapped? And I was like, yeah, yeah, let's swap. So he swapped and I'm driving his motorcycle around, right? I drove it for like an hour. I pull up to a stop sign.

Stop. Not doing anything crazy. I go to pull out and turns just turn on the road and there's a little sand right there. And as I drive through the sand, the bike just slips out straight from underneath me, hits the ground and slides five feet. And I'm like, and I'm still, I'm pretty sure I stumbled, but I don't think I fell on the ground. I'm literally still standing up practically. I'm watching this. Oh my God. No. You know, you know, the, like the break and the and the clutch or whatever, you know, how it is black and it goes and it goes into like a little ball, right? It had fallen, hit that. And I remember seeing the ball go, bing, bing, bing, bing, and I was just like, oh. And then of course, it also, they have the, you know, the blinker lights had fallen. And the blinker light had just cracked in like four.

There's like four pieces. There's like four pieces. So I pick it up. And I go around and I pick up all the little tiny pieces. I drive it back to my house. It's got scratches on the, on the sides. Yeah. So I go get sandpaper.

I sand them all kind of just the wedges, you know, just down. I spray paint over all of them with black spray paint. I glue that ball with super glue back onto the clutch or the break, whatever, whichever one that was. I re-glued together. Like I had to put it together first without the glue to figure out if, because, you know, sometimes you'll put it together and you still can't get this piece in. Right. Like it was, it was complicated. So I had to glue two pieces together and then put it in and glue that.

And then I could pop that one in and glue it. And I mean, it was, it was, it was horrible. Took like all weekend. Spray painted it two or three times, by the way, multiple times so you couldn't really see the scratches because I kind of buffed those out. Listen, it was then when the handlebars or the whatever that the clutch or whatever I had broken, I did something where I kind of like, oh, I taped it off, spray painted it two or three times so that it filled in. Even when you glue it back in, you could still, there was a crack because it had bent into it. But it was good, but I just spray paint it, spray paint it, spray painted it, so you couldn't see it. And did both of them, by the way.

So they both matched, you know. And then I had the bike there. Never drove the bike again. Right. Sat there and I never forget when he pulled in and stopped with my car. Give me, there's no cell phones. So it was like, I'm getting, you know, we have beepers. Like I got a beeper.

Hey, I'm on my way. I'll be there in like two hours. I'm okay. So he got, how's my bike? Oh, it's good, bro. It's good. you know the whole thing you know like i you know he's calling on like the home phone colby wouldn't know anything about this but the home they used have these phones they would click on the wall and our phone

we had the in my parents house had the cord long but like the the 10 foot cord oh long because if you want privacy you walk down the hallway and around and then they nobody could hear you so i mean i've got like he's calling me and i'm so i'm just oh my god oh my god and i remember he comes back he pulls in with my Mustang and he gets out of the car. He walked right over to his bike and he walks around the bike. He says, how's my bike? Walks around and I mean, he's really noticed, like really looking at it. And I mean, my heart was pounding. And so then I go, whoa, wait. He's like, all right, cool, bro. Thanks. Here's your kid. Wait a minute now. So then I walk around my car to make sure my car is okay. Like, you know, ha ha, like it's all a big joke. I go, okay, we're good. He starts

his bike up. Like, I don't even know if he touches this thing, if something's going to pop off, drives down the road. I'd say a week, four or five days later, maybe three days later, whatever, within a few days, maybe a week at most. I get a phone, I get a phone call. Hey, man, what's going on? And I said, hey, hey, how's it going? He said, man, you're not going to believe this. And I go, what? He said, I laid my bike down. He goes, I slid right. He said, just laid it down. He said, yeah, and I immediately said, which side? He was like, uh, the left side. I thought, yes. Yes. Yes. No matter what happens now. You did that. And he's like, yeah, bro. He's like, the thing, you know, my thing broke off and it shattered. I said, bro, I, you know what, let me come

over and look at it. Maybe I can, maybe I can fix it. I can, you know, um, he always did. Listen, same thing. Hit the thing. The little thing. Bing fell off. That he's broken. He did much, much more damage than I did. And I was, I've never been so thankful. You don't know how to fix it. Well, I've repaired a bike or two myself, pieced one together or two. I walk in with a kit of super glue sandpaper. Same kit.

Perfect cut. Okay, we got. I got this, bro. I'm going to do you a favor. I'm going to do you on solid. You're welcome. Oh, my God. I was never so, you know, I was.

So anyway, back to, so you're, you got your Dukati. You're putting up videos right now of just. chases and stuff like that. And before the, before we started, we were talking about, like, what you want to do with the channel. So since you've been talking for the past two hours and 17 minutes,

have you, well, are you still thinking about what you're going to do with that? Man, I definitely want, like, this venue. Like, I like sitting, talking, discussing. Like, how many scammers do you know? I know a few. You could, you could talk.

And then they know people that you don't know. You could talk for hours about it. And maybe that's not your thing. Like maybe you're like, yeah, I don't really, not even interested in talking to these guys. But,

you know, maybe it's something else. Maybe it's just other biker guys, you know? Yeah, bikers. I mean, we've had a biker video

doing it really well. I sent you that one. Did you, did watch that guy? I did watch that. I did watch that. I'm like, I'm not really watching him.

I briefly watched it where it was really just kind of him talking or him. I think he had interviewed another guy. I watched like a couple of minutes of it. I don't know what most of his videos are about, but did you see the numbers on his channel? Yeah. Like he does numbers. You know, I don't know if it's a, it's obviously, it's a different kind of

setup because he was at one point, he was a member of a club. But he's got, you know, and his thumbnails look good. Like, he's got his channel together. Yeah. It's not my cup of tea, as my mom would have, as my, you know, 90-some-odd-year-old mother would have said, you know, it's not my cup of tea, but, but yeah, so like you could. He definitely has a niche. Yeah, yeah, he's got a niche. I don't think that would be my niche so pro motorcycle because I'm so new. Like, I don't know when I go to the bike clubs and everything, they're like talking bikes. It's like Chinese. Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's the new X-XR-3000 and then such and such, I'm like, hell yeah, no clue what you're talking about, but I love it. Right. But like, I love people. And there's so many

different people in this biker set and so many interesting people out there. I know. know so many scammers and yeah you got to figure it out you got to figure out kind of a genre and you can do an off genre like my my stuff sometimes very seldomly like I'd say would you say every couple of months I'll do something that's maybe every two or three months I'll do something like that's just it's like how how how do that come from like what you know but sometimes you talk to somebody who's like uh the UFO guy yeah you know like uh especially Some guy. Alien podcast.

Did that hit home the UFO guy? They actually, actually, it did it. It did pretty well. Yeah, they've done, yeah. But here's a thing. If I did that all the time. It would attract a different. It track a different audience.

And I couldn't talk to these guys all of that because it's, it was, it's very difficult to be talking to some guy about UFOs. And not the conspiracy. Yeah, that's, and that's what Danny Jones, the guy that kind of, you know, got me started on this whole thing, right? That's what his whole channel has turned. current, it's morphed into conspiracies. I'll give you the link to his stuff.

I mean, super, like, really amazing conspiracies. And he interviews amazing guys and he does great stuff. But, and he does what? He does UFO guys and stuff like that. That's like all his channel is about now at this point. But when I met him, he's talking to criminals. He's talking to real estate people. He's talking to like a whole different, you know, all kinds of different people.

And then, what was I going to say? Oh, then I did one the other day with a guy named Rudyard. Rudyard does a, he has an alternate history channel where he talks about like, like, what if the Nazis had won the World War II? You know, that sort of thing. And then he'll do a whole hour and a half video or no, more like a 45 minute video or something on that subject. And then he'll do. So he has all these different, you know, what if we had never. quit the space race? Like what if the Soviets and the U.S. continue the space race?

Where would we be right now? And then he has a whole thing. And the thing is he's he's got, he's probably have him, not that I know this or not, but he definitely feels to me that he's got Asperger syndrome of some type because he's, he's extremely bright and analytical. And so he'll read four books on a subject and then he'll talk about the subject for 45 minutes. And I mean, it's amazing. Like, what a great venue for him. This is a guy who would almost be non-functional without YouTube. He's now blowing up.

I had him on the podcast. That did very well, very well. But 99% of the time it is criminals. And maybe out of that 99% maybe 2% or 3% it's some kind of law enforcement related to crime. So we get to talk more about crime. So, I mean, you know, you got to kind of figure out what that, that, that, niches and then and then uh work it yeah and then then you just got to work it then you just make it a you know about doing the right things doing the the process has already been laid out there

for this type of format it's just about doing it right right you know yeah exactly you just got to grind it out you know and maybe maybe it blows up and in six months you've got 200,000 views or 100 000 views and you're you know whatever making you know five thousand dollars a month or something or you know and you just grows and grows and grows and grows It comes together super quick and you're like, wow, like this is all I have to do. This is great. Which I automatically assume it's not going to be that. I'm the other.

I'm always the other coin. And that's how I've always been. I'm like, we're just going to grind it out. I'm not expecting. You know, you're so much happier if you stay humble and you're appreciative of just, you know, in general. And that's why to me, it's like, bro, you're just blowing up. You're like, I'm happy with the progress.

I'm glad it is. I'm glad it's moving forward. I'd like to keep the momentum, but I don't expect to have millions of subscribers. Like it's going good. We're grinding it out. We're moving forward. It's going in an upward trajectory. I'm doing better today than I did yesterday.

I'm happy. I'm happy. And if you have that frame of mind and you stick to a schedule, it's easy. And you, you know, you didn't have figure that out and then you just start scheduling. And then what happens is you get to a point where once it does start happening, you're not looking for guests. people are sending you emails all the time. Bro, I got a story. Bro, why you got to talk to my buddy?

I got a story. It's amazing. Oh my God. You got to look into this. Oh, my God. Call me. I got to tell you about this story. I can come on the podcast.

And you're like, what's happening? So you kind of have to figure that out and really follow the format. And it's like, you know, I talked to a guy. I mentioned this the other day. I talked to a guy who has been doing this for years. Channel's got whatever, 20, 30,000 views. or 20, 30,000 subscribers. And it's funny when we were talking.

He's like, yeah, bro, it's just not working for me. Like, I don't know what the problem is. He's like, it's just not happening. I've been doing this for years. I've only got like, whatever, 25,000 or 30,000 subs. It's been, I forget how many years. It's been seven years, eight years, whatever it was. He's like, it's just my videos, I do the videos and then I put them out and they get two,

three thousand views. And that's it. Like, I mean, I don't, I don't know what I'm not doing right. And I went, well, I mean, you. Your thumbnails need work. Yeah, I know. I know my thumbnails are no good. The thumbnails are horrible.

I know that. I know that. I'm like, right. And I'm like, you're not like posting regularly. You're posting, but it's not regular. And the duration of the videos aren't. Sometimes it's 15 minutes. Sometimes it's an hour and 20 minutes.

Like, that's not regular. And you're not sticking to one topic. Like, you're not really putting the effort in. No, I know. I know that. I need to stick with one topic. I do. And definitely, you're right.

I do. I know that. I know that already. And I went, okay. So you do know why it's not working. Right. You do know why it's not working. Oh, yeah, I know my thumb.

Right. So don't complain to me. My shit's not blowing up. It's not gaining traction like I want. When you know the formula, because we had this conversation two years ago. So I already knew that we'd had this conversation, like we had all had this conversation. So you know what the formula is. You're not following it.

So if you've been following it. And you're not getting the results that's right. Right. So you can't complain. You can't complain. Don't sit here and say, I don't know. You do know. It's just that that's a little bit more effort. Put that little bit. And if you done that a year ago, you wouldn't have 25,000 views.

You'd probably be looking at 75,000 views and saying, bro, I'm starting to get money. I'm making some money. It's not great money, but it's good. It's good. I can see it's working. But you didn't do those things. And when you say dress up the thumbnails, what do you mean by that? Some of these guys, they'll literally do the, like YouTube will

pick a thumbnail for you. So if you just put, you click it and it'll pick a random, right? It picks a, some of these guys will put a, YouTube takes a random photo. So it might be you and somebody else on a, on a remote and you're like, you're talking, your, your face is all funky. And it just takes a screenshot. And the other guys, you know, rubbing his face. And, and then they'll put like a title or something across it. And they post that. Or they'll, they'll just pick a, they'll just do a really shitty job of putting, they'll take a screenshot. You know, same thing, screenshot that they like and put it up. And it's like, it's a horrible screenshot.

Like, this tells the viewer nothing about what the video is. And that it's basically the movie poster that someone looks at and decide whether or not they're going to click on this video. Click on that video. Right. So it needs to be clear. It needs to be enticing. So, for example, you said you posted like some cop videos. Like, for example, if it's just you and her bike, people aren't probably reading the title.

They're probably scrolling. Oh, it's just some guy on his bike. but if it's you hunched down with police lights behind you, that could be the difference between millions of views and almost no views. Absolutely. With the thumbnail, I bet you they won't catch. Yeah. Yeah.

Then you put on the run, 99 miles per hour. Plus. Yeah, yeah. It just needs to be something. Someone needs to look at the thumbnail and be able to quickly decide, you know, have an educated guess of what the video is going to be and kind of entice them. Right. And a lot of people, it's just like jumble.

It's not clear. It doesn't make any sense. Like, for example, I'm not going to title this podcast. episode 55 with six. It's going to be... If we were Joe Rogan, we could do that. If we could... We're not Joe Rogan.

And at this point now, we could still do that, and we would still get some views because we have so many people that are already building momentum. Loyal. But if we were starting off and we did that, and we did episode six,

it would get like zero views. Right. You know, but if we tie a title, you know, let's say, I don't know what's going to be yet, but some type of fraudster, the secrets on how to make, you know, X amount of dollars.

Just anything that's just going to tie somebody, give them more information of what the video is about. Like, yeah, we've seen a lot of people that have podcasts and they try to copy the Joe Rogan formula, so-and-so episode five. And then they just have a still screenshot of you guys are sitting there. Like, it just won't. It just. Give you an example.

We interviewed a guy about fire sticks, right? He was selling fire sticks. We talked about this. He had already been interviewed by Ian Bick, which is a guy that has a channel, very similar to mine. Um, uh, Ian Bick interviewed him. Same story. And he put up a picture of him and he gave it a decent title, put it up and it got like 30, I'm going to say 35,000 views.

Colby listened to it. The same guy came, did the same story. But Colby realized like he was arrested and prosecuted by Sheriff Grady Judd. Now, if you're in Florida, you know Sheriff Grady Judd is a big deal. And in a lot of other areas, people recognize him. They may not know who he is necessarily, but they recognize him. Ian didn't realize the draw that Sheriff Grady Judd has. So Colby thought, I'll put Grady Judd on the front.

I think that'll get a lot of views. So Ian Bick, 35,000. Colby throws, he throws Grady Judd on the front cover holding this guy's photograph. And then it says like being, you know, whatever, arrested by Grady Judd or fire sticks or, you know, something Grady Judd or corruption, Grady Judd corruption or something. And it's got over 800,000 views. Same story. Same story, 800,000 versus 35,000. Different dressing.

Yeah, packaging. Yeah, it's like, you know, if, if. 10% of people click on our video and only 4% of people click on his video. YouTube's going to push that 10% video every time. So, you know, that's half the battle, honestly. And then, you know, and then the other thing, which is a horrible, horrible thing to do, clickbait. The clickbait title that everybody screams about that says, you know, you know, something outlandish. Something outlandish that maybe in our clickbait, he always, Colby always.

touches on something that they did talk about, you know, an Amazon scam or eBay scam or something. It might have been five minutes of the video. He did talk about it, you know. And so Colbya used that because it's a big name and, you know, scamming Amazon out of millions or, you know, scamming.

Here's a good example. We had somebody seven days ago. He worked for Nintendo and he would steal, like, game systems and stuff and make some money sell on eBay. But his majority of his crime was running around doing robberies. That's really what he got busted for in dealing with addiction. But everyone, every other person is going to have an addiction, crime story.

But not everybody has worked from Nintendo. Not everybody's scamming, yeah, or scamming Nintendo. Like that's strong. Even though that was only the first 20 minutes of the podcast, you know, it was titled embezzling from Nintendo, which is true. But it's got to wider appeal. It's more unique, you know, things like that. So you make sense. You throw those clickbait titles.

You do a good thumbnail. Of course, you have to do a decent interview. Right. But a decent interview doesn't mean polished. Because nobody watching this channel is watching this channel because they think I'm polished, you know, or they think we're running a professional outfit here. You know what I'm saying? Like we're getting up and going to the bathroom and it's and.

Mispellings. We got misspelled words, you know. Colby spelled thief the other day, you know, T-H-E-I-F, you know, instead of I-E-F. Brutal. Brutal. all. Yeah. But you know what?

I said, hey, it helps drive the engagement. Yeah. It's funny. Yeah. It's funny. There's a bunch of comments. You know what Colby did, which I do this all the time. I'll do something that's up.

I'll fuck up something. And then Jess will, um, Jess or anybody will be like, yeah, bro, you did, you, what the man? You did this? And I'll go, I'll be like, hey, you think I'm not upset about that? Nobody's more upset about that than me. That was absolutely uncalled for what I did. And you know what that it does?

It immediately makes the other person be like, well, yeah, I know. I mean, you just made a mistake. It backs them off, right? Right. Colby, I go, bro, what the fuck? I said, I said, you just misspelled thief. And he came back and he said, yeah, man, I've got to start spell checking this shit. He said, this has happened entirely too many times.

That is the truth, though. I went to just like, what Colby said. I said, that's me. That's my line. Yeah, it does work. Yeah. One time I hit a golf ball. One time I hit a golf ball.

a little too far onto people and walked up to the green and these guys with piss yell and I just went up to hey man I'm so sorry what can you do

that's ridiculous I don't know what I was thinking I'm such an idiot no you didn't mean to bro you just not there people will come to your aid if you abuse yourself you know that self-effacing

beat them to get mad about okay yeah but in the beginning I mean now I try to I try to do a little bit more editing a little bit more like strategic but in the beginning it was none of that stuff really mattered. That's probably like the last like 10, 15%, 80% of it is the packaging

and having a good conversation, good audio. And then like now we're trying to move the need on those last few things to make it to that, you know, to move from the top 5% to the top 3%, 2% of podcasts. You know what I mean? But in the beginning, like, you know, you can tweak it. You know, now it's time to get the point where it's everything's getting tweaked. Just a little bit, tweak this, tweak the to it. To it's getting really, you know, sharp. Like, people watch the podcast. Like they, they're like, this is. This is. you know, super like polished, very good. And, you know, we're like, is it?

I'm still in my living room. This is polished? Yeah. What are you talking about? Yeah. But it's the presentation, though. Yeah. It is.

So, yeah, you just got it. You got to figure that out and, you know, put it together and bumble your way through it for a few months and make all those mistakes and then tweak this. The nice thing is I always say to people is that, look, if it's a complete shit show, and, you know, and nobody's, nobody's watching it, right? Like, you're like, I totally fuck that up. Well, it doesn't matter. Nobody's watching it.

Like, nobody's watching your videos, right? You got 400 views in the last, in two months. Don't worry about it being, you fucking it up or making mistakes or misspellings or chopping up or the audio didn't link up or so don't worry about it. Nobody's watching your shit. And then if you do that and it gets 40,000 views, you can say, oh, it's all messed up. Yeah, but you've got 40,000 views.

So you're doing something right. Right. Like that 40,000 views, a lot of views. Right. So it's like one, you know, it's like either everybody's watching and you did it right, it was okay, or nobody's watching. And it doesn't matter because nobody watched. Right. Out of 400 people out of the entire planet.

And then that's content for five years in the future. Man, look how I used to. Oh, yeah. Remember the old studio? This is how that looked to you. Well, I told, I've said this. dozen time. Danny Jones when I first went on his program, his podcast, after that first podcast, I was like, like I drove my, I was just out of the halfway house. My Jeep, like there's no AC,

you know, you hit a bump and the radio goes off. You have to bang on the dashboard for to come back. Oh, it's horrific. And it wasn't even a cool Jeep. It was like a Jeep. It was like a Jeep. Liberty. So it was like a chicken Jeep. It's like, yeah, it was horrible. So, you know, I got there and And when we wrapped it up, I said, yeah, I said, I drove all the way over here across the bridge, which, thank God I made it. And I said, like, I don't have, like, I don't have like AAA. Like, I'd have been just done. I don't have the money to come out here.

I said, I go, you got to, you got to buy me dinner, something. And he goes, take you right now. He said, what do you want? And I was like, let's go to Waffle House. He's like, nice, you're a cheap date, you know? So we go to Waffle House, like 1130 at night. and he said, listen, he said, you want to do a podcast. I was like, right.

He said, you need to start a podcast. And I was, yeah, I know, I want to do this. I have all these great ideas. And he goes, no, you need to start now and put something up. Because I don't, I can't promise you that this video is going to do well. But I feel like it's going to do pretty well. I feel like it's, it's going to, the number is going to be good. He says, and those people are going to be interested in you and they're going to look for you.

He said, so you need to have a, you need to be on a. platform where they can go and find you. I was like, yeah, but I want the, I got to have the right mics and I got to have the right camera. And he goes, you got an iPhone. He's, I got great cameras on your iPhone. Take, go buy a tripod, stick it on there. He goes, put it on a bunch of books.

He said, and just talk to the camera and tell your story or talk about different scams or whatever it is you want to talk about and put it up there so people can see it. I was like, no, man, that's going to be all, it's going to be crap. It's going to be shit. I don't want to do that. It's all half-assed. And he goes, look at it like this. He has one.

He said, nobody's probably going to watch it. He said, and if they do, then it works. And he goes, and the big thing is this. Keep doing that. And in six months from now, you'll get better equipment. He is in a year from now, you'll have what you want. And he said, and people will be able to look back on those and say, man, I remember when Matt was doing videos with his iPhone. and they were horrible.

He goes, and leave them up because then people will be able to scroll back through your channel and they will follow your journey. And that was the best piece of advice that I did not listen to. I mean, if I had listened, and I've said this over and over you,

if I'd listen to that advice, I'm telling you right now, we probably have close to, if not a million subscriber right now. I didn't do it. I waited a year. I waited a year. Almost a year. About almost a year. I waited almost a year. Do you know that from Danny's? So I did that on Danny's. Then he brought me back for another video. So that video, by the way, that first video got over two million views. Do you know how much two million views is worth? Right. In exposure. That's like spending $75,000 in marketing. So that one thing. Then I went and Patrick Bet David saw me and flew me out when he was living when he was doing his.

thing out of a Texas. And I did his. His got over two million. Then I did soft white underbelly. That one got over two million. Then I did, you know, listen, bro, it was 10 million views later before I ever shot a video. Ten million views. I already had over a thousand subscribers on my channel before I ever posted anything. Just because people saw there's a guy named Matt Cox, I'm subscribing. Didn't even know if it was my channel. So, it was a major thing. So even right now, if you start, you kind of figure out what you want to do and start posting those videos and putting them up while you get the equipment and while you put

it together, now's the time. Do it now. Do it now. Start putting them up and then start doing podcasts. And you'll get it. And in three months from now, you'll have a whole setup and you'll figure out what you want to do and you'll be interviewing people or you'll be going to these, to the biker things, or the biker conferences.

is or what are they called? Bike meets. Bike meets. You'll be going to bike meets with a, you know, a GoPro or a Sony and a, what's the thing where they carry a selfie stick or whatever? Is he that old? Yeah. Yeah.

He's that old. Back to the Nintendo, the Nintendo podcast we did. The guy is talking about returns. He's like, yeah, we had the Nintendo Wii and everybody's TVs were breaking. No, their TV screens are cracking. And I was like, wow. Why would they crack? Yeah, I didn't understand.

He had to explain they were throwing the thing. Because the last I went, because do you understand the last video game I played? I was on the run and I had gotten, I had an Xbox and I had got, I think it was an Xbox. And I had gotten Halo 2. It had just come out. And that's what, it was a first person. You know, it was so many years ago. Yeah, yeah.

And I was, it was great. I was addicted to it for about two, three weeks. And there was like, yeah, I'm done with this. Yeah, I'm done. Yeah. That might have been the first time on this podcast. that I knew what something was that Matt didn't. Usually it's other way around.

Yeah, usually I'm like, do you know when this happened? Do you know what that is? There's YouTube's where, like, the new generation, they show them the rotary phone. Oh, yeah. That's hilarious. And they're like, figuring they're like pressing the buttons. Then they pick it up and hang it up again. Yeah, you know, I know.

I've watched that video and been like, oh, my God. God, I feel so old. I can remember when call waiting just. came out. Oh, yeah. And like, I was one of the rich kids because I had it. And oh, wait, hold on one second. And I'm, so it's not really, I don't really have a line available because I'm calling everybody. And people will call me because I had called waiting and I could call someone else. I don't know why they just didn't call them, but listen, I remember those days. Star 69. I remember those days. I remember. How old are you? I'm 55. I identify as a 37 year old.

Zach is 56. Zach's a year older than me. So I remember the first microwaves that came out. The thing I'm telling you, it was this deep, it was this big. And the microwave opening part, the part where you put the, was about that big. We had it maybe a week, and my sister set it on fire. There was no such thing as microwave popcorn. But one of her friends at school, she said, oh, we got a microwave.

She said, we have a microwave too. Have you made popcorn in it? She was, no. She just take a brown paper bag. and just put the popcorn in the brown paper bag and it'll pop and it'll actually open up the bag and she was oh my gosh so my sister did that but she didn't was afraid it might pop out so she took a metal a twisty tie that used to come on the on the bread and it's got metal in it and she put it around the top of it she twisted it stuck it in there turn it on walked away set the bag on fire

and burn the whole microwave and half the kitchen down like thank you good God, I'm not that old that I was, I've already had microwaves by the time I was. Oh, hell. Listen, I remember the first, the first VHS, we had one. Listen, this big, this is VHS, most people don't even know, this big. And it had a button on it in the front that you push the button. And it popped up. Like, it was a big cartridge with the thing and you, you pulled it out and you, you know.

Thank God, I'm not that old. And then you could buy, you could buy an extra device because people were afraid. that rewinding it, it took a long time to rewind it. Oh, the fast remote. And what did Blockbuster tell you? Be kind. A Bekind, rewind. Yeah, where they charge you.

You brought it back. Yeah, you owe it like a dollar or $2 or something. Yeah, I remember Blockbuster. Like, I don't remember Blockbuster. Are you serious? Yes, you do. Yeah, I'm not that old. I don't know Blockbuster or Hollywood video.

or red was it red rabbit was i was just thinking what the red was yeah it was something red you know the the the funny thing about uh blockbuster listen to this i you have to have heard this this is how just it's like oh my so the guy that started netflix and i'm probably going to botch the story so i'm sure everybody in the comment can say bro you botch that shit i'm pretty close though the guy that started Netflix, went to Blockbuster. I think I've heard this. And said, hey, we're, first what they started with was they were mailing. They had DVDs.

I remember that. And you could buy, you could go online and order DVD and they'd mail it to you. You could watch it, keep it for a month or something. And then you would return it. You'd mail it back. Yep. So they were doing that. And that was cutting into Netflix's rentals.

And so they. So several people at the company said, listen, these guys don't have our reach. We need to move to DVDs and we need to do this mail order DVD system like they've got. And they said, no, we don't want to do that because we make so much money on the rewinding. And they don't have to rewind the DVDs. so we don't want to start moving into the DVD area. So they waited several years while Netflix made this huge dent in their overall market. So by the time Netflix said, hey, I'm sorry, by the time Blockbuster said, hey, we're ready to upgrade.

We need to upgrade. It was too late. Then at one point, when they moved to streaming, right, they got to a point where they started able to. to stream. Same thing. They were behind them. They were behind. Well, the red box or the red, that was just killing them for a while.

Yeah, they were trying. Yeah, it was a whole, like Netflix had had the leg up on, I'm sorry, blockbusters had the leg up multiple times on, on like, on Netflix. And botched it every time. And then by the time they tried, it was like, now you're the little guy. It's too late. And then, of course, once people are now they're ordering, they're ordering DVDs, they're streaming their movies, Blockbusters is desperately trying to catch up. It's too late. Yeah.

Now, and guess what? Not only are you behind, but you've got to try and keep the rent up on all these stores that nobody's going into. And then they get crushed. Like, you had the opportunity. And because you were making a decent profit on rewinds, on the rewinds, on the rewinds, You already had the name. Oh, yeah, you were huge. It was synonymous.

Like, it was the biggest. It was blockbuster. Then all the other guys were trying to keep up with blockbuster. That's huge. So, yeah, there's all, I love those stories. Those are great stories. Hey, you guys, I appreciate you watching. Do me a favor and subscribe to the channel.

Hit the bell so you get notified of videos just like this. Also, please consider joining our Patreon. It's $10 a month. We have Patreon exclusive content on. on Patreon. It really does help. Colby and I. Leave a comment. Share the video because sharing the video is huge. It really helps. We're going to leave the link to Six's channel, his YouTube channel, and any other social media links that he provides me. It's going to be in the description box. Go down there. Click on it. Go subscribe to his channel. Help support him. I really

do appreciate you guys watching. Thank you very much. See you.