Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - EBAY SCAMMER SHARES HIS SCHEME ($100K/WEEK)

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

Will explains how he made over 100K a week on eBayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thestraighteight/Follow me on all socials!Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matthewcoxtruecrimeDo you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://forms.gle/5H7FnhvMHKtUnq7k7Send me an email here: [e-mail] you want a custom "con man" painting to shown up at your doorstep every month? Subscribe to my Patreon: https: //www.patreon.com/insidetruecrimeDo you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopartListen 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/B0851KBYCFBent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TMIt's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5GDevil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3KBailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel!Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WXIf you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here:Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69Cashapp: $coxcon69

You're making hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. We became the second biggest sign sellers on eBay. We're just pressing a list. We take the picture one time, re-list. They get a $20 gift card for two bucks. They load up their wallet. There'd be like 40, 50 cards. The tumblers resell really good on eBay.

Five, six thousand a month where a mom's sitting at home looking for something to do. I'm like, is this legal or illegal? I'm thinking, like, we're kind of misrepresenting it. You start thinking, like, it's just coming in like you think, there's no end of this. In like three weeks, I get a knock at my door. two agents. I look out my window. What's up? Who are you? FBI. I was born in Chicago. So my dad was from the ghetto of Chicago, like the west side, the south side grew up very poor.

My mom was from an area called Park Ridge right outside the city. And she actually went to school and it was in Hillary Clinton's church group. And she knew her well. She didn't like her at all, though. She didn't like her. But she grew up also single mom because her dad passed. My grandma was a world war two nurse so she was toughest nails and she raised her three kids so they both moved out here to the suburbs now the suburb i grew up in uh they're the northwest suburbs of chicago and they're probably the richest suburbs to grow up in in the chicagoland area other than maybe the north shore so the north shore would be like these towns called Winnett, Highland Park. And then where I grew up in, the areas were like, it was called

Hoffman, the States, but Palatine, Barrington, Inverness, South Barrington. So it's really an affluent area with the best schools and like just, you know, really good area. It's not inner city Chicago. No, no. Half of my family went to inner city Chicago. So I got both tastes of like the ghetto and the suburbs like the two different people it's just light years apart and you know i spent you know i grew up in the suburbs though you know but i know what it is for everything so um it's funny though like um when people talk about crime it's always like coming from like the inner cities or you know just tougher rougher areas but they wouldn't believe like how much crime goes on just in the suburbs with like more affluent people their kids whether

they're selling drugs or scamming, it's just like, it's just on a higher, more intelligent level because I feel that, you know, they have more opportunities in terms of like education and just they just are, I don't want to say smarter, because I'm like, I don't think they're smarter, but they just have like more time to think about what they're doing. And they don't really need to do it for, to survive basically. Right. Plus, they're probably under less scrutiny. Right.

Yeah, nobody, you know, one time my friend, he, back in a day when you used to be able to drive off with a gas, a tank, the police showed up to it. It says, oh, you must have forgot the pay, sir. Your son must have forgot to pay. So let's get that taken care of it. And then anywhere else would be like, you know, you're arrested, you know. So when I was about, I'm going to say about 13, 14, that's when I started to do crime, basically. I don't that you know I don't know I probably just did it because for the thrill my parents weren't rich at all we were very lower middle class I had a bed of TV you

know and food but everything else you know if I wanted something else I would have to do it do whatever I had to do I didn't want to have a job I don't I don't like jobs so yeah basically I started just walking around the neighborhood seeing what cars were open taking whatever out of it that that didn't last very long because very quickly we mean a friend we went into the wrong car it was an undercover police car and the very next morning the police were at my house I said how the hell did they know so it was his older brother he was pillow talking with his girlfriend he's about five years older he told her everything so the police

came in me like you know we know everything step by step they had you know they just arrested us we got charged something was then huh at 14 at 14 yeah very quickly yeah and you know they came to my house that was actually 13 and they just took me away my mom didn't know any better about like you know you don't just give up you know just let them take you young but they were very very crafty you know hard-ass you know detectives so they took advantage and that was that I remember when I went to court somebody said something about a gun there was no gun but we took like a lot of everything else out of his car there's no gun and the judge

goes you know next time i hear your name and gun i'm throwing your ass away for for as long as i can i'm like there wasn't a gun sir so after that um you think you know i was in sports and everything but i didn't like chill out on that i kind of um graduated into okay i'm not going to go around um opening up doors i'm gonna i'm gonna rob drug dealer now now when I say that it sounds dangerous but and I'm not saying it wasn't but it's not like you're robbing a drug dealer in the hood where you could get killed or get shot at you're robbing rich white kids out here who sell who you know when we're 14-f50 they're selling 20 40 pounds of marijuana a week they're selling ecstasy they're selling opium they're selling

um you know just stuff like that basically and they're not doing anything about it so you You could go in their house. You could, you know, if their parents weren't home, you could bully them. They're not, you know, they're not telling their parents just selling drugs. They can't go to the police. You go there, you bully them. You take their stuff. You just resell it.

Or you break in their house when they're not home. You steal their, they would have a vault. You know, we bring the vault back to the, you know, where we bring it, hit the corners with the sledgehammer, pop it open, get the money or whatever's in there, you know. So it was just like, it was easy, easy stuff. And this was in like the year 2002 through like 2000 and, you know, five or six when marijuana was going $4,000 a pound. So you could like imagine, you know, the quick, you know, profit when you're when you're very young. So I did that for a while. And.

Did you run out of drug dealers? Yeah. Yeah. Just robbing drug dealers. I mean, it was that easy. So. No, I'm saying eventually you're going to run out of local drug dealers. Yeah.

Well, you know what? Actually, there was this one house that we probably hit seven times. They just never learned. They just kept doing what they were doing. They just never learned. But yeah, so after that, something happened where I was hanging out with a bunch of kids, just I think they were drinking. They run up inside a random person's house. I'm not, I'm just like following women, dumb, you know? So these are three white kids. I'm the only, there's like not a lot of black people in the area. I'm like one of very few black people. people so they still like some prescriptions and nothing else I don't know they're looking like a bunch of hype stealing this stuff I they were just messing around I don't know so anyway there was something little a camera they stole one person gives it to their girlfriend she sells it to a pawn shop and they actually they come to the girlfriend always this guy he snitches out himself and brings everyone else down so when that happened they you know I get arrested boom a felon I'm 18 at this time. I just I'm freshly 18 on my own when I really fucked my life up. I got a felony

So I had to take the felony because my lawyer was like okay These three white kids they're saying you were the ringleader and you know they've never been in trouble before They're basically signed confessions. You're looking at four to seven years I'm like oh shit like you know I've really fucked up this time and my lawyer was good though. We paid money for him Really good money and he comes out the first court that he says signed the fucking papers before they changed their mind. Two years probation, 250-hour swap,

which is the sheriff's work alternative program, and you're going to have to take the felony. I'm like, give me the damn paperbook. I'm not going to jail. You know, because when I was booked for that crime, I went to the jail for a few days to Cook County Jail, and it's not like an easy jail.

But, you know, I saw how they were living in there, just, I was like, I can't, I can't end up like this. It was enough. I mean you know it's heavily gang gang related in there if you weren't in a gang you just had to get your hard boiled egg you didn't get baking you didn't get all the good stuff you just you know we're at their mercy they didn't mess with you were you know if you're I was a bigger guy you know so they didn't really mess me I stayed to myself you got to basically be with the old people and it won't you know you're good but when I came out of there I'm

like okay shit I'm going to college I'm changing my life and you know I'm not going to be doing no crime like this no far because there there was those are two instances there were so many crimes that we would commit between the age of like 12 and in 18 just random crimes so I go to college I get my act together you know I go four years to college I graduate I get a little job working at a psych ward you know I want to be like a therapist or something I was going to go back but in the meantime the whole time even when I about 14 till then I had been reselling just on eBay so I would go to estate sales garage sales auctions anywhere I could and I would buy stuff and I'd resell it

and I've always done this and I'd be making money from this so at this point I'm like you know this is a good this is a good field to be in the return on investment is very high and you know I want to do something with this Let's see, what's an example of what you're buying? So I would usually, you know, the main thing that sells fast and quick are like electronics, but I would also buy a lot of antiques collectibles and sports memorabilia. So those things were, you would go to estate sales and you would just get in line and there's a whole, you know, there's like 500 estate sales in the summertime of year around here because this is a big area.

Yeah. So it was like making a killing. You're busting your butt though, you know, you're going out early. You're staying up late listing items, looking. them up constantly shipping stuff so I was at a level where I was making like 80,000 a year with the little job I had just off of reselling but I was like how can I take this to the next level because I saw I saw a TikTok the other day some guy was buying he was buying stuff at like marshals or something that were you

know shoot what like like Louis Vuitton you know all name brand stuff and he had It was on eBay and selling it on eBay. He's buying it for $12 and he's reselling it for $40 plus shipping. I mean, it was like, he was like, you'd be shocked what you can buy. Just going even into the store. And I know people that, well, I mean, I know my mom used to shop garage sales and estate sales all the time. She finds stuff for $3 that was worth $300, you know, jewelry, stuff like things that people didn't realize they were selling like a real gold pendant for, you know, for $2 or $3 that was really worth. three or four hundred dollars they just didn't realize it yeah for sure I would

walk around with a magnet and run it over the grasser running over all the jewelry and whatever it didn't stick I I hear there's a quarter for it you know right I made I've had so many hits for thousands of thousands of dollars tens of thousand of dollars just by reselling but I could never get past like making like I'm making a hundred thousand profit never never passed like a hundred thousand alone just doing what I was doing out doing all this I'm about 23 24 I can't really get a better job because of the felony you know so I'm I was at one of those jobs where it's like okay back

then 15 an hour they're like no you know you have this felony so I'm like okay I got to ramp this reselling up so I start meeting people when you start doing stuff in a certain business you start meeting other resellers you start meeting other people. So I met this guy. It was at an auction. We were bidding on a rare sports memorabilia item. It's like a Babe Ruth Lou Gehrig signed programmer menu

or something. And we bid each other up. He wanted it ended up actually being fake. And he actually had to return it to them. But from there, you know, you do what I do. We became friends. So he was selling. signs so when I say signs these are gas and oil

advertising signs like you would see an American pickers like shit like a shell sign or a Amico or yeah yeah that so yeah just yeah anything advertising related he was selling he he he collected them to he had like a huge house with his family and they collected slot machine signs he had a lot of real stuff right so the ones he was selling though you know I'm I'm looking like man what what the heck like they they're all like about 12 inches in their porcelain so porcelain is how signs used to be made back in the day for so like withstand like the weather that's that's how sounds are made so so real

porcelain signs with advertising it's a huge industry like the real deal ones could go 500 to millions of dollars like there's a sign that sold for like a couple million dollars that's a porcelain sign probably about you know it's huge but you know the industry's huge so one day he gets in trouble and he loses his um ebay account so he comes to me hey you want to get involved and i'm already thinking like okay this man never asked me to get involved before he obviously needs me you know for this account but i'm not going to say i'm not going to say no yeah come on i see you make it all that money what is it what's going on now you're going to tell me huh so he basically shows me that um

there's there's these websites uh with that you could buy um remade remake signs basically like um like not the ones you would get at like hobbi lobby that are 10 but these ones are porcelet and they're made in for a limited time at mcdonalds enjoy the tasty breakfast trio your choice of chicken or sausage macmuffin or mcgrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for five bucks plus tax available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. In India,

and they're made in China. And there's also people who are manufacturing them in the United States. So he's showing me that like, okay, this sign you could buy here for $20 to $50. And then we're going to set this and put it at auction, a 10-day auction, Thursday to Sunday,

and watch what it does. This sign goes $15,000-some-sum-dollar for $25. investment so I'm like man like what's going on like he's like we're not saying they're real we're not saying they're old we're using the word vintage in the title every title has to say vintage the brand of the sign porcelain sign and then it has a more like keywords attached to the the title for search optimization so people could find these things so I'm like whom is this legal or illegal I'm thinking like we're kind of misrepresenting it

but we're not saying that it's real but then and then we have to put it in different categories too we have to put it in like certain categories there's like a whole spiel into like listing these signs like there's like a five six page spiel and doing this how the pictures have to be took in you give a story behind it if you want so I never gave a story but he would give a story like oh this was founded at a 50 year old house or you know someone that someone that died there was there 50 years and this whole election was found it was always an elaborate story with this guy which i like that yeah it's like

i didn't like it because he got so elaborate where it's just like man like but people love that shit they love it was like it sounded fake like all right whatever there was a guy there was a guy that was selling like um you know old wine and he always it was always you know some elderly couple had died you know recently and they'd lived in the home for 50 years and their their children found it in the basement among other things you know it was always a whole thing you know how that he had worked at this place or

whatever they liked the story behind it plus it makes them feel like it's it makes sense like how did you get a hold of this where did this come from and then if it made the story makes sense too then people are more apt to buy in exactly exactly so

so we kept you know once I started rolling with this so this is like what is this is like 2000 and 2011 maybe or 12 and we did it for several years we were we were rolling and um how many of these are you doing it and is it always the same sign yeah so so basically we we would try to search for like other rarer porcelain signs so these porcelain signs have been getting made since like the 1980s i guess um there was a so there there are I'm trying to see how I'm putting this. So there's companies that legitimately are making these signs like they have the copyrights to them. So they're giving whatever companies, a percentage of every sale.

So there's probably three or four companies that you go online or there's one of Wisconsin we just drive there and we would get these signs and we would resell them how I just told you how we resell. But then there's other people in India and China that are making these signs and they don't have the copyrights to them. The copyright is so flimsy on this because a lot of these companies that are on the science, they're no longer around. Like, of course, like Shell and mobile are around, but a lot of these signs are like off-brand

companies and like, if you put them up, nobody's going to complain. So there were certain companies that we got Bureau reports on. A Bureau report is eBay is coming at you for intellectual property. And the signs that would get hit a lot are Harley signs, any Disney related sign big big brands like that so they would just take the signs down and they give you a slap on the hand you know don't don't list those anymore okay fine we're those the number one selling sign we had was it's funny because I'm a black man it was a confederate sign we used to sell these fake signs there were

$20 for like $450 piece we would rattle the we've probably sold 500 of these over the years and they were just we would just rattle them off um they love to sell flans signs that's something you could like hang out a corner a flange we would buy these for 50 they would go at auction for big money so we would set the auctions up uh we'd probably try to do about a hundred to 300 auctions every um every 10 days so they would end on sunday so every sunday we're we're doing this we're relisting a lot of them we're just pressing relist we take the picture one time relist if we um if we get new signs we obviously got to take

new pictures but it's just like a mill at this point just relist relish relish really this We became the second biggest sign sellers of these type of signs on eBay. The first, the number one guy, his name was Rusty Relic. Everyone hated this guy that was in the industry that liked real signs because the real people believe that all this junk is being peddled on eBay and elsewhere, that it's devaluing our signs because we have the real ones. And like now people think yours are real and, you know, we don't, we don't, we don't like you basically. So they start to try to attack us, our accounts on eBay, try to take us out, try to buy stuff, return it, leave negative reviews. Just anything to like take us out. And there was a block list going around in the community.

It had like probably a thousand names on there that people compiled that people gave them trouble on eBay. So it was like, if you even said anything, that was weird like is this real you were blocked you know and especially if you threatened you were you were blocked so this list got passed around the community now the community was real small and it still is but then when people get to a certain level of selling these any any any type of like thing that you make a lot of money it's gonna be hate so next thing you know other people below us that are doing as well as us and when I say that that aren't doing as well they're just not

busting their ass and putting out the signs like this you know right they're trying to take us out though they're becoming bitter um so this guy rusty relic this guy was rattling off two to three thousand um signs every auction so i think he had like three helpers but imagine you're rattling off uh two to three thousand signs every two weeks he's doing a list so twice a month he's in these signs very cheap because he's buying them from uh containers from india or china he's probably getting them for ten dollars a piece or less He's rattling them off at an average sale price. I'm going to say his signs were smaller at an average sale price of like 120.

So, you know, I mean, you can do, I mean, I pull the calculator. You could do the math right here. You know, so say you're making like $100 a sign. You're rattling $2,000 signs off. You're making $200,000 every two weeks. After the eBay fees, they took 10%, 2.9% from PayPal. You're making hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, you know. Right.

The sky's the limit. So he was the main guy, and it took, it took like 10 years for them to take him out in terms of like, the community just, he just got tired of like people just basically tried. They had a full, like, team of people trying to take him out in terms of like the real, the people who have the real signs. So then he's out the game. We're number one, and they're coming for us hard. There was a guy who was out of Tennessee, I believe. He was trying to take out, like, the whole industry. He would get the container seized at the ports of, like, North Carolina or wherever they come in.

And he was able to get them seized because these are counterfeit items. You know, you're not supposed to have counterfeit items coming in. But they're not, it's not looked upon like we're counterfeiting handbags or watches or something like that. Nobody gives a shit. Right. Yeah, but they're still counterfeit, so they still take them. So people would do like a $60,000 order a $100,000 order and they would get seized So, you know, they would take a loss and these are the people that people get these seeds that are people were buying them from too, you know

So eventually we're going around finding different people to buy it from and At our peak, you know, we were making profit wise, but we had to split this between us we were making about Just by running the two 50 three hundred arcs we were making about 15,000 20,000 cash profit every week. And, you know, we were real silent about it. We, you know, we didn't go and flash or nothing like that. We're not even flashy people. Like, you know, we were like, okay, let's put this in the bank. I wanted to get, you know, just properties or, you know, I had some phone with it. But, you know, I didn't, we weren't flashy. So no one's caring. So it gets to a point where me and my friend have a falling out because of tax. Now, he never did taxes when he was doing this alone, but I'm like, look, buddy, I'm doing taxes because I want to, you know, be able to get business credit. I want to be able to buy properties and real estate. So I'm going to pay the tax man real, you know, why not? Like, it's only smart.

So he just wouldn't give me any money for taxes. So it was on me. So I cut him out the deal. I was like, look, you're not giving you taxes. I'm going to do this on my own. You go back to doing what you're doing. I appreciate everything you did for me, but you're not going to mess. me up at this because this is like serious stuff the taxman for you so um i start venturing off

on my own and doing really well and he's really hurt by this and just mad so he um he he's trying to take me out then you know what i'm saying like right he cut me off from half of these suppliers he told you know he's telling it lies about me uh most people in this industry they're kind of like everyone's white but they also half of these people are like racist so there's these big sign shows they would do it's called like the dixie sign show or you know they're all in like the south most of them right like they don't they don't like nobody that's that's black you're like there's nobody black in this industry so he i got caught off real quick because nobody knew i was black oh he's okay he's done you know what saying that's how it is you know but um so i

start going off on my own and doing well and he just kind of fades away I don't talk to him anymore but yeah I mean I'm I'm paying my taxes religiously you know for for several years and then it gets to a point where it's like okay the the signs aren't doing you know that they were ever the average sign was probably doing like three hundred fifty dollars average you know some would go thousands some would go you know hundred but they were they're also good so they started going down they started going down because i think like we saturated the market too much everyone like had five 10 accounts and we're just

pumping these like no other but it was still good money so um they got to a point where it's like let's figure out how to to make these signs ourselves so this is so during the um so at this point i have a reselling account on instagram where I would show all my reselling. This is like what resellers do. We like show our reselling, our numbers, the process, all that stuff. And nobody can figure out like, I'm showing like huge numbers. Nobody can figure out like, what is this guy selling? I never told anyone. But I met a gentleman on there who was very curious. And he wanted to buy this method from me. So I sold him the method on how to do this. And we became very good friends. And he went crazy with this shit. So he's then got four or five thousand signs up at a time. He's making huge money. Oh, my God, I can't thank you enough. You've changed my life. You know, thank you.

Because this is a guy who was a criminal too. He went to the federal penitentiary for drugs. And, like, he was reselling. He was looking for something big like this, though, that he could, like, really make some money. So he was just really thankful, but then he's a smart dude. So he figured out how to make the signs himself. He got a big kiln and baked the signs up. He figured out the process somehow.

I don't know. He's like one of those guys that can just figure stuff out. YouTube. He started baking him himself and he just took off he he surpassed what I did and I was like I'm proud because I put him in there So we became friends, but then when he was pumping out when he would have 5,000 signs up nobody ever did that So the hate on him was just so crazy He was rolling for about a year and then people started other side people started to take him out now the way they were doing it was there was a there's another guy now who's kind of weasled his way to the top and he's selling

basic signs nothing new the old stuff that we've always sold and this guy is basically the way he's taking him out is ingenious and I got to give it whoever this guy is I got to give it to him like I would have never thought about this but he is um basically he he's he's he's filing bureau reports against everybody not even just my friend just everybody to take everyone out. So he will basically say, I own the intellectual property to these signs, the, the graphics that are on the sign. Right. And he would, eBay would take the shit down. Now, if you get enough of these bureau reports, go off eBay. A lot of people, they can't, if they're off eBay, they don't know what to do. So you're done. But me, I have endless accounts that I can

have. Now, on eBay, you got to have, you know, someone's social. You got to have. You got to have their banking information so I have for whatever reasons endless people that I know let me buy let me buy let me pay you off and you make an eBay account of your name or let me pay you every month for using your account I'll take care of the taxes for you at the end of the year and let me just use your use your stuff so that's another reason my old partner messed me because we would lose a few accounts because of the pressure and I would come up with like seven eight accounts so it got to a point where it's like yo bro you got to come over some counts here like you know I'm using people's

grandmas their moms and you know everyone knows about it everyone's getting paid but I'm running out of people because we're running out of we're getting taken out really quickly right so yeah so like um so basically yeah this guy's claiming that he owns the rights of things and he's taking everyone out so at this point I'm out the game so my friend is is the top guy I'm out the game I run an ad on Instagram like hey I'm sell you this method how to make big money $5,000 I lowered it to $25,000 I'm sorry 2,500 you know but I was like I only got 10 slots you know I created like an urgency I only sold

it to about 15 people right so when I sold them the the method quick little change in my pocket I'm chilling you know and um I would then push them to him but you know this is where you buy the signs from this guy here he'll make you whatever you want all original so every one of these got people that bought this method they're doing it's doing really good it's changing their lives and then here comes this dick and he's just taking them out i own the property that i own the property that so it's because you know everyone was rolling for about six months a year so i go man like i got to do something like this guy's crazy so i you know i go on a little database they have online i find out who this guy is i find out um you know his whole family i

find out his addresses his houses pictures every everything you can know about the guy I find out I text them nicely I say listen man you know something like this I go you got to stop doing what you're doing you know I understand like you know there's competition but like you know you're messing with people's livelihoods here like that people people need this money and when you mess with big money from some of you take it away from them they want to like they want to do so to you right I basically I don't directly say you know you know you're gonna you someone's going to kill your ass but basically like you know you need to watch your back something might

happen to you and i show him pictures of everything man this guy got scared within within like three weeks i get a knock at my door and it's two agents and it's and they're like i look out my window what's up who are you FBI i'm like oh really okay i'll be right down i said show me that badge i'm like yeah this is definitely the fbi i'm joking around you know Who are you guys, Mulder and Scully? Like, hi, hi, okay. So what do you guys want? Oh, is, uh, did you, did you do this text?

No, I didn't do the text. Oh, it's got your number. Okay, yeah, whatever. I did the text. What's the problem? You can't, you can't, uh, threaten people like that. I was like, people get threatened all the time. It's kind of weird how the FBI here, maybe because it's over, uh, you know, state lines or

something like that. And this guy, I don't, I don't know why they call the FBI. It's kind of crazy actually now that I think about it. So he's like, are you going to do anything? No, I'm not gonna do it. I was just joking. Okay, that's all we want to know. What's up with these signs? We talked to your friend, your friend, and they named my friend who we had to fall out with. Oh, you talked to him? Oh, well, he should have told you what's up in the signs there. Okay, cool, cool, cool. He was saying they were stealing. He was lying about intellectual property, this and that. I'm like, you know, it's a long story. You know, they didn't seem interested in all. They didn't want to like, they didn't seem interested. They were just worried about the threat that they made to the guy. And I just laughed like, man, like, These two people are like, I don't know, like, they just like passed up like an opportunity to know about an industry that's like, I feel like it's illegal in some ways. And they don't care. So I'm like, shit.

So they left and I never heard from them again. And everyone went back to trying to do business as usual. But this guy eventually ended up taking out everybody and tell this day he's rolling. like um the side so the sign industry it basically it's not doing the numbers it did but it's still doing he's averaging like a hundred twenty dollars a sign and you know his his he's getting them probably for ten dollars right right he's rambling off where i we go down and look at the dates on ebay he's a rambling off 40 50 signs a day so he's making like probably four thousand dollars a day and consistently every day all year

non-stop so I mean it's it's still going on and it's funny because in a Chicago land area um it's I mean I don't know about other areas but I just feel like the Chicago land area like has all sorts of crime factions like it has um like probably the biggest gang culture in the country I don't know if you know that but um it has like the biggest gang culture in the country with so many gangs like hundreds of gangs here where in like LA you got like the Bloods and the Crips and like some some Hispanic gangs you have like hundreds of gangs here but then we also got the we also got the outfit like the

mafia here and growing up like um you know the the presence is known and they um they they it was weird because somebody um so i grew up with kids their their families in it was in the mafia and then some people their family was in the gangs and we never talked about this stuff to anybody but like one person whose family was in a mouth for they say hey you know we're hearing things about these signs how can we get in on it and I'm like shit like well I who how are you hearing something like that like because it was super secretive like what we were selling and it just kind of creep me out like man these got these people are like watching all the time and I don't want to get involved because you get involved with

something some people like that and you know you're looking at you know all sorts of crazy shit that can happen to you but um yeah I mean you know that that was basically you know what's going on i mean it millions of dollars have been made the the top people the first guy i told you about rusty relic he he's made millions of dollars and nothing's ever happened to him legally like he probably get maybe some frivolous lawsuits people want to put on him but he's like a multimillionaire you know you can see him on facebook he's got like a million uh millions of dollars he's got like everything he ever wants like boats cars beautiful houses this is all he any all this is derived from this uh the scam every

dime every dime of it i mean people it's just straight cash like i i don't know it's just so the the funny thing about the gray line with this is like there's companies that legitimately make these and then the people will will sell them um online as vintage or whatever but then there's companies that don't but what we were really looking into this we're like you could even make if you make a sign that existed before you have to legally i guess have the intellectual property to uh make that or permission if you make a sign that never existed they call a fantasy sign you don't have you don't have to have it and you can't slap harley on it but if you if you do like a brand that no longer exists or a brand of

they don't give a shit like what does mobile care that you're putting their name on a sign and making money they're in there in the business to sell gas not sell signs so they the only people that ever hit hit hit uh everyone up is always Disney in Harley and um maybe um oh um Porsche portion Ferrari too they don't want their names on the signs but everyone else is pretty much but like I said it's a slap on the wrist that they don't care don't do it again and you you get like 20 chances with them. But yeah, I mean, it's a thriving industry. I made a ton of money, you know, and I got out of the industry just because, you know, I felt that I showed up.

The FBI showed me. When they showed up, I was already out of it, but then that spooked me more like shit. Like, I don't know, I just felt like, I felt like something has to be illegal here. someone's going down eventually there's a lot of pressure there's whole groups there's facebook groups dedicated to like you know because i'm in them and they don't know you know that i sold signs but they're dedicated to like you know we need to bring these people down we get to figure out how to put them in jail and the most they were able to do is they get some factory shut down in china and you know they they seize some stuff coming off the ports and it's funny they would get these factories shut down we would talk to the chinese guy on WhatsApp and they put it they build a new

factory right next to it. They're like, you know, there'll be another fellow. Let's move to this address right next to it. Let's keep it rolling. And you could go on Alibaba type in porcelain sign. You can see these people like they have videos of them making the signs, the process. And it's because it's legal there to make them. They don't care, you know? Yeah. We go do it there. Um, but, you know, it's just, it's just, I just felt the pressure and I got out. You know, I get out of things when I, you know, I don't want to test my luck. I was happy. I was with what I made extremely for years and I had a great time but it was time for me to leave because things were getting too hot because I when people you get to the top like that it just you know I don't want to I don't want to do anything that I'll regret in terms of getting mad at somebody for messing with me taking me out or just with eventually you know somebody coming in saying you know this is wrong here's a charge for you buddy right and how embarrassing to go to go to go to have to go to prison for porcelain signs right yeah exactly exactly I would meet these guys who have been arrested I'd be like well you know

who arrested you FBI they'd be like post office like post office like yeah that's what I was thinking too like they could get you on like mail farm they're sending a fake thing through the mail but I honestly believe like maybe they do know about this but they just don't give a shit like I don't know because equal so the you know the government goes in like their their focus like the FBI's focus goes in waves so for maybe five years they'll focus on insurance frauds and then they'll focus on credit card frauds for five years then they'll focus on bank frauds for four or five years then they'll focus on stock frauds for five years and then they'll loop back around like they're you know they're

kind of hitting a whole bunch of things you know or in one industry at what and it's it gives them the ability to specialize in those industries for a period of time and educate the you know the agents because every agent cannot be versed you know they're not they're not versatile enough to cover every single fraud like me when i you know when i was uh debriefed and and you know and met with FBI and secret service agents like they have no clue right you're like you're like you're like yeah look right you know right you know right here boom and i'd show them in you know 10 out of 3 and they'd say what's wrong with it so i told you the guy didn't have a job and they'd look at it and they go okay What says he's got he's been on the job five years here's the W choose and pay

subs and they go what's wrong with them? He doesn't have a job. Obviously they're they're fake and they're like oh okay like they don't understand there's no correlation because they don't understand how alone works how underwriting works because they have no experience in that like I'm talking to an agent that for the last 10 years was doing drug cases in Arizona she has no clue about you know bank fraud you think they walk in the door and you think oh man they they know what they're doing They don't know what they're doing.

This shit was working, was working, you know, cartel cases. Oh. You see what I'm saying? If you were, if you're 10 years, you've been focusing on, you know, on terrorism and then you're assigned, you can't assign that person to a counterfeiting case because they're like, I have no idea if this is counterfeit. How do I tell? Like, what does that mean?

What's the process? How do we track these people down? It's like, you're the agent. Like you're supposed to know, but they don't. Yeah, no, I guess you're right. Yeah, you know, and it's funny, too, because I always thought that, like, you know, in Chicago I feel they focus on

because the number one thing in Chicago the top two things I feel they're busting people for is is fraud like and when I say fraud I mean like you know you know the as of recently the like the PPP fraud or whatever

you know right because Chicago was like I'm it's been a few years now I'm like the way they had it up in Chicago because you know I know just everyone The way they had in the Chicago was in the hoods, like in the west side or the south side, they would have a person with an office, I mean, you know, and they would send people in. Like, this is, like, this is H&R block. And they would fill out these things for them, and they would get there.

It was always like $20,000 something dollars. And then they would be like, give me $5,000, you know, and they were rattling off for these people. And it was weird because when I thought, like, man, like everyone's going down. down like eventually. Everyone's going down. So a lot of people haven't been contacted yet, but the ones that were contacted, they're just like, pay the money back and you're good. They don't want, they don't want to, they don't want to arrest you or give you a court date. They're like, pay us this money back or, you know, we'll pursue you and get you in court. It's like, damn, like, I guess it's easier to do that maybe, you know, because it's going to cost them.

There's so much money. It's so much. It's $20,000. And, you know, it was such an easy, you know, There's some people that it's almost like, you know, you know, it's not even worth prosecuting them. And how are we going to put all these people in jail for this much? And how are we going to put all of them on probation? Probation officers are overweight in the way. Like, we can just pay. We're going to make all these people felons. Like, just pay the money back.

Like, I can see that. It's actually a term for that a lot of times that happens. It's called it's a pretrial intervention. Like if it's a small and it's something that's correctable, a lot of times they won't do anything. But I was going to say, you know, they, they, I want to say, I'm going to say it was like 10 or 20 sheriff's deputies got arrested. And I'm going to say it was Hillsborough County. It might have been, might have been one of the other counties. It might have been Pasco.

Anyway, it's one of the counties around here. It was like, like 15 or 20 sheriff deputies. They all of them, PPP loans. Ooh. All of them. During the whole, you know, the whole COVID thing, the pandemic, these guys went out and got got, got, you're there, you're police officers. or your whatever sheriff's deputies like they all went out and got a loan and we're talking about millions of dollars these guys are getting four or five hundred thousand here 200 thousand here the people that were doing these for people made millions of dollars but nobody you know i mean i don't think i think maybe i read it because i go on the fbi site and i like to read the chicago reports and stuff i wasn't reading many that like oh this person that did uh a thousand uh applications went down you know all they only they only got like three years though and away but like most people don't go down like Chicago like they had this thing called cracking

cards like 10 years ago and Chicago was known for cracking cards and I just I don't think there's any place where the fraud game is being done like bigger than Chicago because even when I was younger just innovative ways just to get money like bait you know I don't know if they still do this but like back in the day people would out here not not in like the hood like out here kids would have amazing credit right from their parents just building up their their credit reports the kids would have credit cards the kids would have like five to ten credit cards would like 50,000 dollar lines 25,000 dollar lines the kids will go out they'll go they will go get gift cards or they buy whatever

the hell they want they go get Apple products they would buy anything that could like they can like resell fast so gift cards was a popular thing and it's called friendly fraud they would say they call after they after they got whatever they wanted they oh yeah so i lost my card uh i didn't do it credit cards give you the money back like that they would take the gift cards or uh whatever and um they go by gold they go buy one ounce gold coins and they would um then take that gold coin sell it to the next gold deal you're not really missing out a lot of money like a hundred bucks maybe yeah i was you say it's like three percent of whatever depending how much it did yeah i mean back in the day

you used to be able to go into Nordstrom or Costco. Those were the only two places that gave cash back returns. They would take the credit card. They were going there. They'd buy it. And then they would have some girl or something return it to another Northstrom. $5,000 cash, $5,000, Jimmy Chupers, 5,000 cash. You got the cash.

I didn't do it. And it went out and out. People will take their credit cards. And so let's say you go to an ATM or maybe you never go to an ATM. All you got to do is drive an hour and a half, you know, or 45 minutes away from anywhere where you typically go, put a fucking ski mask on, go up to the ATM, stick the card in, take out the maximum, go to another ATM, you know, the next day, take out the maximum. Go to another one, you know, whatever, the next day. So let's say you end up with $12 or $1,400. And then the next day, walk into your bank or call your bank and say, hey, man, there's like $1,200 missing from my account. And they go, well, did you take out $4? $400 here, $400 here, $400. No, that wasn't me. I didn't do that. As a matter of fact, I have my debit card.

What's going on? They're like, sir, sorry, we're going to cancel your debit card. We'll send you out another one, get another pen. We'll have the money back in your account by tonight. That's it. It's over. Yeah. No, I mean, and they tried to, I don't know how long the, you know, the little chips in the cards.

They tried to basically put those in a way to combat it. But it really doesn't because if you say you didn't do it, then you didn't do it. Because I feel like it helps with like, because back in the day, you used to be able to just, you can still do this, but you write the cards yourself. You didn't have that, you don't have that maybe chip. I don't know if they could get the chips now, but it was easier to do it back then for people. But yeah, I mean, if you say you didn't do it, you didn't do it, and they just give you the money back. Yeah, it's the law, it's the Electronic Funds Transfer Act. And it came out like 1986 or something.

I don't know the exact year. It was in the 80s when people started doing things more electronic. and transferring funds and doing electronic deposits that had just come in. And that was the act. And the act said, look, if these people, somebody, and this is, this is a federal act. So if you own a bank and your, your guy says he didn't do it, you've got to give them the money back. Now, you guys can do an investigation at the bank level. And if you can prove it, then you can reverse those charges.

But you have to give them that money back immediately. So what are they going to do? I'm going to get, I'm going to launch a fucking investigation that's going to take us 90 days, cost us $5,000 or $10,000 in man hours so that I can recover, what, $1,200, $3,000? And the funny thing is, like, if they do it to themselves, there's no investigate, they do their, they say there's an investigation, but the only real investigation would ever take place is if you did a police report, they did a police report on themselves. Now, if you go out and victimize somebody and take their stuff, they're probably going to do a

police report, and maybe then there's an investigation, but if you do it to yourself, and you don't do a police report and they don't ask you to do a police report, then that's that. You're all, you know, it goes away. Right. Some of them,

by the way, because I mean, my buddy's acted this all has done this many, many times. He said some of the places, because he was taken out $8,000, $9,000. Oh,

and some of them would say, look, we want you to file a police report. And he's like, so I file a police report. He's like, the cops don't care. They're not investigating it.

Yeah, they don't care about that crime. You know, their whole thing is, look, the money was taken out in Florida. We're in, you know, we're in Texas. And so it's not, it's really federal. And you think the federal government's going to look into an $8,000 wire. Like, get out of here, you know?

And that's it. It's over. So, but I think they use that to try and scare you. Like, oh, if he won't go and fill out a police report if he's, if he's in, he'll be afraid the cops will arrest him. They'll track him down. But, you know, Zach had done it so many times. He was like, I don't care.

Nobody's calling. Nobody's doing anything. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's just crazy. But eight or $10,000 to the average person, that's a lot of money. You know what I'm saying? Like, that's. It adds up.

Like, everything adds up. You just, like, like, even with the signs, like, you know, you don't become a millionaire overnight with, like, one big hit. Like, you become a millionaire in one year probably by selling, you know, by selling the signs. at the capacity that you need to sell them as to become a millionaire oh it was hilarious actually when I was when I was getting the money in the bank from this I was at Chase Bank and I had a personal account at Chase Bank so the PayPal so the eBay and then it sends it was send it to PayPal and PayPal would send it to the bank now the bank was getting like I said between 10

and 20,000 every Monday morning it would go we would be sent it there from after shipping the packages so the bank um they threw me out and I could I had like a retirement I was with these I was with them since the they were Bank one which was a Chicago land bank so I was in 20 years they threw me out I had my retirement there like when I say retirement it was like a Roth IRA so so I had savings account check account credit cards they say you're done I said what so so I couldn't figure it out and then I got somebody on the line they're not supposed to tell you this but he said you got thrown out for a AML I

said what the hell's AML anti money laundering I'm like my money laundering so I I dug deeper and they were just like the reason we threw you out somebody at the bank told me is because you can't have that type of money getting sent to your personal checking account it has to be in a business account I'm like what the hell I'm like you wouldn't let me get a business account because at Chase they want you to have LLC and like a EIN I'm like I'm sole proprietor you know what I'm saying so I don't I don't want to get those I don't want to do all that so I just move banks to the local bank here, BMO, and they said I could be sole proprietor, but they said, we don't care what money, where, you know, they saw it was coming from PayPal. So, and they saw it was eBay transactions. So I just thought it was ridiculous that they would throw me out for that, you know. Well, you know, so there's larger banks. What's happened with a lot of these larger banks is that let's say you're running some kind of a fraud, like a major fraud, like a Ponzi scheme or something, a lot of times that the federal government will turn around or the victims will

turn around and go after the bank. So they'll go to the bank and they'll say, now this guy had, you know, $7 million deposited in personal checks into even a business account. And then he was transferring it to his personal account and he was spending it on his mortgage and he was spending it on all of these, you know, extract these things, you know, whatever, business trips, credit cards, vehicles like and you guys didn't notice that like over the course of five years this guy had 40 million dollars run from directly from his business account to his checking and he just blew it and you didn't notice and so they would you know they would go well it's not our position to know that's fine but we're going to take you to court and who do you think's going to feel

bad when when a 72 year old woman gets on the stand and says I deposited into a chase account I just thought it was okay and it was my life savings and look they're going to make you pay chase like the jury's going to say I don't care if it's your responsibility or not you they're going to make they're going to say you didn't notice this this didn't seem suspicious to you you see what I'm saying and then of course they're going to bring in the guy that committed the Ponzi scheme and he looks bad and they're going to say there were all these fraud charges and basically you guys helped really in a way this wouldn't have been possible without you and you should have been keeping an eye on this and you should have been keeping an eye on this and you should have followed the suspicious activity reports. And then, of course, they're going to say, yeah, but technically we didn't do anything wrong. They said, you should have noticed it was suspicious. And so what ends up happening is Chase ends up settling for $30 million. Do you see what I'm saying? So that's why they get spooked.

Like they have, they set up, they set up these security measures to kind of say, look, this is suspicious. We're scared. We keep getting dinged on these things. So anybody that seems suspicious, get rid of them. that they get really scared that's a good point because you know like the the some of the bank the banks got hit in burning made off's uh fraud they got hit in god what was the guy's name was um actually wrote a story and he was in the story but the bank that was involved in his got hit and it was somebody like it was like chase or um it may have been chase it was it was like chase or it wasn't bank of america but it's one of those like major banks that you're like oh wow And so that just that period, you know, those are the things that happen behind the scenes that like nobody really hears about. So you think, what's wrong with, you know, what's what, what's their problem? Well, their problem is every once in a while they get hit with a $100 million, you know, charge, you know, or lawsuit.

And they lose because nobody, nobody feels bad for a bank. Yeah, no, they get, yeah, they lose money. And then the people who do the frauds out here, most of the time, they got to go to jail. It's actually, actually, that brings me think about, and I can talk about this because it was when I was younger and I got in trouble for it. Back in the day, when I was like, when I first was able to drive when I was 16, we would go around and we would steal people's, we would break in the cars. This was around the same time I got in trouble a little bit after. We were breaking the cars and steal like wallets or purses, right? We would get people's checkbooks and we would write them out to that person.

We'd have their license because we'd have their stuff. Write the checkout to cash. We would go to, at the time, at Chase, you could get 1,000 out. At BMO, you get 50,00 out. And this is in 2000 and 2. They don't have the technology to look at you through the drive-through, you know?

So we go through the drive-to-it. Most of the time I'd be a woman's thing, because women would leave purses in their cars at the gym, at the movie theater, at work, wherever. And we would do a woman's voice. Hello, you know. We're just writing to check out to ourselves. We want to get some cash.

So we'd rattle off like four of these a day for a while. And I'd be doing with like two other people, so we'd have to split it. But we would rattle out. We would make like, you know, four to six grand a day. And one day, one of the people we did it with, we just forgot to take off the plate. So next thing you know, the police are at his door. And he had to, it was interesting. He had a good lawyer.

This probably won't happen if you don't have. good lawyer he had a good lawyer and they booked him for like a lot of these incidents because then they started going through the footage and all that and they were like look his lawyer said look we we don't want we don't want to arrest you and I don't know I don't know if it's because we're out here and there's a fluent area but I'm pretty sure it we just want you to pay back the money right you just want us to pay back the money like okay here you pay his parents wrote a check like no felony know nothing we want 14,000 or something like that back just pay the banks back their money to

these four banks and you're good and his parents paid it for him and nothing happened yeah it's not happening here yeah i feel like if you were together you'd be done like out here it's it's it's like crazy like the privilege i guess yeah well i didn't see any of that but it wasn't a crazy about but still enough to like yo that's a really bad felon me. I usually go to a lot of psychologists growing up and they gave me a diagnosis and everyone could probably have this diagnosis. They're like, you got conduct disorder. What's that? Oh, you don't like to abide by the rules of society. I'm like, well, you know, I feel like half of society doesn't. And, but it would be weird because I'm always like looking for an edge or

play on something where I'm, I'm not doing like highly illegal stuff like when I was younger and stuff like that but I'm always looking for like a white line and and it was funny when Donald Trump became the president I was looking at some of the stuff he did and like yeah obviously he's in trouble now for something illegal that he did but a lot of the shit he did people were looking at him crazy like I can't believe he did that but I'm like well that that stuff I guess it wasn't illegal and that's where I came up with the term I mean I don't know if I came up with it but I just thought to myself like this he does a lot of legal scams and that's what I feel kind of what the signs were like that's a legal scam and how I define that is like

it's something that's unethical and morally wrong but it's legal like I don't know not necessarily prosecutable right yeah there you go but yeah I mean yeah so these signs are still being ran and people are making big money from them still every year you know I'm not in it but shit I don't I don't think anyone's probably everyone knows what a porcelain sign is, a gasoline oil porcelain sign. Right. Yeah, I, I, you know, it's funny every time I go into someplace like Ford's Garage, but you don't have Ford's garages up there, do you? No. No, see, I always think it because it seems like a national change, but it's really not.

I think they're probably just in Florida, but there may be other places, but I'll go in there and there's tons of like kind of antique. type ford stuff and signs and pictures and you know um wheels and and i think every and i think listen there's there's 10 of them around here and every every one of them has stuff and it's all kind of the same kind of it's it's it's like someone went through these junkyards and found this stuff but they couldn't like you can't find many like because these wheels like even though they're old spoke to wheels it's like they're probably 500 bucks a piece plus the old tire like who's making those tires nobody that's probably a grand or two for that one you know um vintage wheel and or that engine or like you don't find these engines everywhere they got these old model t engines

that are that are up there and it's like somebody's either making that they make it seem like they found it and it was in a garage somewhere but there's no way i mean you've got them all over the place so and i always ask my wife i'm like that's like somebody's job to go out and find that stuff What a cool job. But the truth is they're probably all replicas and they're made to look that way by some. There's probably some factory in China who's got, hey, we're going to need a 400 of these, 600 of these. Then you're going to have to leave them outside, make them rust them up a little bit and bang them off. Distress them, yeah.

That's actually what we did too. We used to do that. We used to try to do that too. And then we got complaints. They were like, yo, we don't want any of these rusted up signs. We want them clean. And these are people that think this shit is real. And the funny thing about it is, I'm not trying to say that it's right or wrong,

but we had like thousands of feedback. And we love these signs because I feel like even if they knew they weren't real, they would still love them like because if you want this type of sign, like if you want the real one, you're not going to be able to, like you're not going to pay $3,500,000 for this 12 inch sign. But with us, you could pay $500 something for the sign. And I feel like it's unique, too, because this isn't that Hobby Lobby. Like, we are actually creating digital designs on the computer, sending them to some guy to make.

And it's like a personal line sign almost. But, you know, this one happens to have Mickey Mouse on and we're stealing Disney's intellectual property. And those were the hotest sellers back in the day. The Mickey Mouse ones used to go thousands. But they said, you know, you got to stop selling Disney. Any Disney character, we used to put every character in the book on them. did you did you ever hear about that

that there was a little boy that died and he loved Disney and so his parents got a gravestone where they they put Mickey Mouse on the gravestone and Disney found out about it and made him take it down yeah that's sick

what dick that's just a dick move they're like they didn't want their they didn't want their brand associated with death or to be in a grave it was just like what are you doing it's like a little four year old kid like come on man I'm gonna look that one up that's what I was saying yeah man I heard that a couple years ago it was like a led like a suit them to make them take it down so I would think the bad press alone would have been worth just let it go yeah I'll tell you about one more thing that maybe people haven't heard about this just it's it's it's not huge money but it'll add up if you bust your butt so there's um there's these websites and and they they go up and go down but there's these websites they're um

their gift card website so you they'll advertise you know it'll be a Starbucks gift card or Duncan gift card and it'll advertise pay two dollars and get a ten dollar gift card pay it goes it would go up to like a hundred bucks pay thirty five dollars you get a hundred dollar gift card okay so then once you buy the digital gift card and obviously there's someone somehow is is these are The numbers come from people's gift cards that actually have money on them. I'm not sure how they get them, but the gift card website, you buy it, and it's good for an hour. So then you download a gift card app, and then you upload the download gift card on the app,

and you could go to Starbucks or anywhere, really. It's like, you could go to Dick's sporting goods, and you just, they scan the gift card, and you're buying a heavily discounted item. Like, you buy $100, you buy like, say you buy like, $10,000 in gift cards, all $100 and you only had to pay like, you know, less than $200 and then you get an item and then you just resell it, you know. This is all just reselling, different reselling methods. I mean, it's like, is that illegal? I mean, yeah, but I mean, we're getting the, I mean, is it, though, because we're not stealing the we're not stealing the numbers. Right. No, I'm not saying that's prosecutorial. It's able to be prosecuted, but what I'm saying is that you're probably, you could always say, oh, no, no, it was a discount site. I just assumed they had a, you know, but that's, it's, that's one of those things where it's like if you believed it, if it was reasonable and you believed that you were just buying discount cards and that that was probably they had an agreement with Starbucks or an agreement.

Yeah, yeah, see, you're right. I got to take mine. You're right. Yeah, if you looked at the website and you realized, like, it's all messed up. like this is a jacked up website and this is too like oh you got one hour to do it's like legitimate something and then you've got 10 of them look i guess i bet to say like would they even bother prosecuting for something that petty like i mean you know here's the thing like they won't prosecute you for a $20 crime right but they'll prosecute you if you do that $20

crime you know 800 times or 8000 times now they're like yeah we got to stop this This is too much. These girls put me on that because they would go by tumblers from they would buy tumblers from Starbucks. They get a $20 gift card for two bucks. They'd load up their wallet. There'd be like 40, 50 cards. And they'd be that the tumblers resell really good on eBay. And some of them are like exclusive when they come out.

And they were making a killing. They're making thousands of dollars a month like, you know, five, six thousand a month. Where a mom's sitting at home looking for something to do is just crazy. Like the little, little scams and little schemes that are out here. all right yeah let's wrap it up yeah i listen i appreciate it yeah i would say send me a thumbnail photo but it's not what's going to happen here yeah yeah i tell people hey send me a picture of yourself and right yeah uh it was fun i mean it's just i can i can talk this type of stuff all day just you know and it's funny when I talk it like the two things I told you about when I say

this stuff it's like I've I've never been in trouble for that type of stuff I've been in trouble for like the crimes that I said but I've never been in trouble for like these type of things and I have like almost endless little things like that like the gift card thing but like you know I can't give it all up because you know shit I might want to go get my beak you know it's funny I remember um Zach and I one time and I only remember this because I ran up a I don't a mortgage company and a development company. I would get an invoice for like $85, you know, or maybe $92 or $75. And it would be for like, you know, toner cartridges or paper or something that was minor.

And I would try and figure, I'd go ask my secretary like, what is this for? She'd go, I don't know. And I'd look and I'd be like, I don't know what this is for. And but typically what I did was I just paid it. If you didn't pay it, then you 10 days later, you'd get another invoice and it'd say, hey, if you don't pay within the next five days or whatever, we're going to add a 10% fee. And you'd be like, fuck, like you might try and call. You'd go to a voicemail system of some kind.

Like, you know what, it's 80 bucks. I cut a check for $80 and send it. Well, and I remember telling Zach, we were walking the track when I was at Coleman. I said, man, that's not a bad scam. Like if you could open up four or five different account and hit small or medium-sized businesses where really the business owner or bookkeepers just cutting the checks and hit them up for $30, $20, $40, $40, for things that you have in the office. I was like, I'll bet you 80% of those just get paid.

And if people called you and said, what is this for, then you could go and look on your records. You say, hold on, let me check. What's the name of the company? What's this? What's that? And you'd look and you'd say, you know what? to be honest, I think we got your address wrong.

There's another business named, you know, consortium financial services and your consortium what, lending? Oh, consortium lending. And you're out of where? Oh, we're out of, you know, Tampa and we're like, is Brandon next to Tampa? And they go, yeah, you say, listen, I, I'm sorry. I think that we got the wrong place.

I, sorry, don't worry about it. Don't pay it. I'll go ahead and wipe it. Oh, okay, no problem. Boom, don't send anything to them again. You see what I'm saying? That's it. But most people will just pay.

They're going to pay $50. So I remember telling Zach that, and he was like, yeah, that's not bad. That's not bad. So I think about it. They call you and they complain. You just don't do it. And then otherwise, who's, nobody's looking into this $80 check. Like if they are, they're not going to pay it.

So, and I said it's just a matter of coming up with these businesses. And there's got to be a way to do that. And so we had that conversation. And then a couple years ago, I found out some guy had done it to the tune of two or three million dollars. He'd been doing it for about three, four years. He had been writing little tiny invoices and just mailing them out massively. He just hit one place like every month for like two years. And finally somebody said, I don't know what this is.

And we've been paying it. And I know for a fact we didn't get, we're not buying toner every single month. And I've been buying the toner and we go here. Right. But we're going to Office Depot. And this is for paper and toner. And I buy the paper. Or, you know, so it's like, oh, no, no.

So he looked into it and then, you know, checked it out and then talked to the bank and then talked to a police officer and whatever. And then I'm sure it just snowballed and they probably got a subpoena for that account. And next thing you know, bam, there's millions of dollars going through this. You didn't know what to stop. He could have just stopped and wanted more, I guess. It's, you know, what happens is some people, the guys I've met that have done really well scamming are guys that do it for a little bit, close everything up and move on. the guys that get and see I'm I'm one of those guys that in some ways I do that I was doing that I would run a scam close up and move completely but I also understand getting cocky yeah you start thinking it's just coming in like you think there's no end of this no there isn't it you haven't hit it yet but there's an end to it no yeah that's why I got out I was like I just feel pressure I don't feel right like you know yeah even even when I was selling Like, because during the pandemic, everyone was selling some type of method of something.

You know what I mean? So I took advantage of that. So I have like probably 300 pages of writing that I did during the pandemic of just different scams and shit. And I would advertise it, you know, and I would sell it. I made like, you know, over 50 grand just selling methods. Like my biggest method was the sign method that I sold for a lot. But every other method was like one, $500. And I was rattling them off like crazy.

And the only reason I was able to do that is because I had a little bit of following on Instagram because I was known for reselling and I did another interview with somebody that was really big for reselling because for years, everyone wanted to know what I was selling. I never told him and never could figure it out. Somehow this guy figured it out one day, but he didn't really know like how I just told you everything. He didn't know like how it worked, but he knew what I was doing. He took the interview now. I was like, damn, man, I wish you would have kept that shit up because I was gaining. I had thousands of followers, and I could have got thousands more. Like, there's more potential clients or whatever to buy shit from me.

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