Smart Money Happy Hour with Rachel Cruze and George Kamel - Ageless Money Scams We Still See in 2023

Episode Date: November 16, 2023

From pyramid schemes to phishing emails, marketing ploys are more sophisticated than ever. Listen in as George and Rachel discuss some of the oldest scams known to man, what they look and sound like today, and how to avoid the “snake oil’ salesmen of 2023 (lookin’ at you, TikTok influencers). In this episode: ·      Crazy “exclusive” deals that need more investigation before you buy ·      Why “too good to be true” really is (probably) too good to be true ·      The mocktail that tastes like “Christmas in a cup”   Helpful Resources:   ·     Start making memories. Go NOW and get Telestrations at Walmart or wherever you buy board games. ·     Booking a flight with Going is the best and simplest way to pay less and travel more. Sign up for free today at going.com/smartmoney. ·     Get your finances organized, make a plan, build your confidence, and kick money stress out of your life for good with the EveryDollar budgeting app. Go to www.everydollar.com/smartmoney to get started today. Use code SMARTMONEY to get a free two-week trial and $15 off your premium membership to EveryDollar. ·  Pre-order George's new book, Breaking Free From Broke, today! ·     Do you have a Guilty as Charged question for Rachel and George? Send a DM to @rachelcruze or @georgekamel on Instagram! Be sure to type “GUILTY?” at the top of your message so we don’t miss it. ·     Learn more about your ad choices: https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices ·      Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy: https://www.ramseysolutions.com/company/policies/privacy-policy   This Week’s Happy Hour Special: Apple Butter Mocktail Find the original recipe here. Ingredients: ·     1 ounce apple juice ·     2 tablespoons of apple butter ·     Dash of non-alcoholic orange bitters ·     Juice of 1/2 lemon ·     Ginger beer ·     Coarse cinnamon sugar and simple syrup, for rimming ·     Thinly sliced apples and a cinnamon stick, to garnish   Instructions: Pour some simple syrup on a plate and some coarse cinnamon sugar on another. Then, dip the rim of your cocktail glass into the syrup and then into the sugar, twisting to coat, before adding ice cubes to the glass. Combine the apple juice, apple butter, lemon juice and bitters in a cocktail shaker and give it a dry shake (in other words, a shake without ice). Shake vigorously until properly combined then strain the mixture into your prepared cocktail glass. Top up with ginger beer and garnish with a cinnamon stick and apple slice on the rim to serve. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys, I'm Rachel Cruz. I'm George Camel. And this is Smart Money Happy Hour. Cheers. It's a beautiful drink. Wow. Wow. Fantastic.

A mocktail of the year. You'll have to wait and see. Fantastic. Well, this is the show. We're two friends who happen to be money experts. Talk about what you're talking about. Everything from pop culture, current events, and money. And today we're talking about scams that have stood the test of time.

Scammers. They're out there. Don't like them. Don't need them. They've been there a while, and we're going to break it all down for you. But there's nothing new under the sun, Rachel. All these scammers are just stealing like an artist from their ancient counterparts. It's all been done.

That's why we call them scam artists. That's why we-get it? No. I'll be here all week. Unfortunately. But hey, before we fire up the old time machine, Rachel. This is fantastic. What are we sipping on today?

It's like a holiday and a glass. It's an apple butter moktail. It's delicious. A little cinnamon, a little sugar, a little apple. I don't know who could not like this. Like, you must hate Santa Claus if you don't like this drink. So, yeah, honestly, for all of you that love the mocktails, and even if you love a cocktail, I'm going to say, do it. Do it for the kids.

Stillish. The kids can actually drink this, so that's a good point, Rachel. Thank you for that. We're going to give you our rating, reveal the cost per glass, and give you the secret recipe at the end of the episode. So stick around. That's right. Okay, so let's start with one of the first ever recorded. financial fraud situations.

Are you ready for this? And let's get props to the team. Yes. Okay, Haley, did some digging into the history books. Impressive. Opened up the encyclopedias, really did the research on this one. Went to the local libraries? This is, this story is going to knock your socks off.

It involves a Greek merchant. You ready for this one, Rachel? It's crazy. Go. Okay. Here we go. You got to track with me, people. So if you're like, you know.

Stay with, stay on the dishes or going on a bike ride or whatever, focus. Stay with me. A Greek merchant named Hedgestratos tried to pull this off in 300 AD, Year of Our Lord. Tracking? Didn't Jesus die like at 30, 80? I never said anything about his death. It's just the year of our Lord. It's a statement.

Oh, I thought it was like the year of Jesus. It's just a thing people say. 2023, year of our Lord. Oh, I just had our Lord. I've just heard people say it. I don't know what it means. I think of the 33, right? No.

Thank you for already throwing my story off. Okay, go, go. So this Greek merchant named Hedestratos, 300 AD, merchants are delivering goods by cargo ship at this time, right? You can picture it? Of course, yeah. Like, like Pocohanna. Nope.

Just give up. Just stop where you are. John Smith. Just backpedal right out of there. The ship probably had big sales. Sure. It could have sales. I'm trying to help people picture it.

Storytime with Rachel is going great. All right. So there's an insurance system that was developed called Bottomery, where a merchant would use their ship as collateral to get a loan. You tracking? Yes. So that means if they don't pay, the ship is gone. People will do this on their homes today.

Yeah. I'm going to take out a lien against my home. Yeah. So that loan would then finance the voyage to deliver a merchant's goods. Yep. Once the cargo was delivered, the merchant would take part of the profit and pay back the loan with interest. That's the goal. But if the ship sank on the way to make the delivery, the merchant didn't have the, didn't have to pay the loan back.

So the lender lost their investment. Okay. So this guy, Hed Estratos, this Greek genius, he had some corn that needed to be delivered, took out one of these loans to finance the voyage. But then he had an idea. Maybe he could sell the corn somewhere nearby for a profit, sink his empty ship, no corn on there, and pocket the loan money. Wow. It's pretty smart. So it was like the first instance of insurance fraud, but the crew caught him in the act of trying to

sink the ship and had Estrada's drowned trying to escape. Oh, no. Lost his life. Was this smart? Was this stupid? Well, if you didn't die, I could see how, like, it's not traceable, right? Like, if you're, like, an immoral person and you're going to be a scammer, that would be the day you'd be a scammer.

So that's Rachel's boundary for a crime. If you die, Dom, if you succeed, genius. You're a freaking genius. I'm just saying it's creative. It's not moral. Like, he couldn't Google, like, insurance fraud, scams. on his own in his own head and think like, okay, but man, you'd have to sink a ship.

How does one man sink a ship? It's not like there's an iceberg or something. Like they'll... I assume there's like a plug. You can just like... No. They weren't super fancy. How would you, okay?

Think about it, George. How would you sink a ship in 30, 380 go? I would find out where the openings of the ship are. Okay. And I'd make that opening bigger so that the water comes through and then the ship starts to sink. I assume that's how it works. I would run it into a cool. cliff.

You can't. Where's there a cliff? What if you're in the middle of the ocean? Like into the shore. So in your scenario, there's an ocean and then there's a mountain touching that ocean that you can just run into. With no shore. You just hit mountain immediately.

Well, you hit the shore. I mean, there's like cliff. I mean, there's, yeah, there is places that a cliff, it goes straight down. That makes so much sense to me. It's like a wall of rock. Are we sure this? is a mock tail. And you go straight in and crash it. So that's what you would have done differently. And you got to do it not near a town, right? Sure. Okay, how about this as a scam with a boat?

Boat scams? What if you went and like hid your boat somewhere and said it saying? Where do you hide a boat? Well, I don't know in my island that I'm talking about right now. What if you went, seriously, what if he could have hid the boat, came back and said, it sank, got the money, and then he had a boat and. money and then move to like a different town. You're right. That is smarter. That's better. If you're going to commit the crime. I should have been there for him.

You should have. 380. You were just... Just a... 1700 years too late, Rachel. I'm so sorry. Okay, so the modern day equivalent to that obviously is when it comes to insurance fraud. So are you ready for this?

Hit me. This was one a sinking your baguadi for insurance. Okay. Tell me more. Is it Bugatti or Bugatti? I say Bugatti. Bugatti. Okay, ready for this?

2009, the year of our lord. Andy House purchased an extremely rare, one million dollar Bugatti. Veyron? Bayron. And drove it into a swamp hoping to collect a whopping $2.2 million for the insurance payout. Are you ready for this? He claimed he swirped off the road after getting distracted by a low-flying pelican. We've all been there.

You're a low-flying pelican routine Okay, here's the worst party Are you ready for this? Okay A passenger in another car Was admiring the baguatti The lane over and was recording it He ended up catching the entire accident on camera

And there was no pelican Unbelievable Wow What happened next, Rachel? He pleaded guilty to insurance fraud And was sentenced to a year in prison A year Okay, that that

But, yeah, that's so wrong. Can't do that. For illegally trying to get $2 million, if you went and robbed a bank for $2 million, you're going away for much longer than that. This guy essentially did that. That's a good point. You know, without the whole stick up. Yeah, Pelicans, man.

Golly, what an idiot. They'll get you. But, hey, he had the money to buy a million-dollar Bugatti, so maybe I'm the idiot. Yeah, I don't know why he's probably took out of car loan. Let's be honest. Yeah. Well, let's talk about this, Rachel, because there's some lessons learned here. Obviously, no one out there is doing things at this scale.

No one's got their cargo ship with corn trying to pull off this fraud. No. But insurance fraud still happens today. Yes. Oh, yeah. So exaggerating an injury or damage in a car accident to get a bigger payout, lying about an online order never arriving and receiving a refund, complaining about service at a restaurant to get the meal copped. So just kind of the little white lies. There's some of those on top of the major ones.

Like if you lie on life insurance. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Insurance fraud's a big deal. That's big time. Yep. Do not do that. Don't do that.

Nope. And fraudulent claims cost the insurance company's money, and they recoup those losses through higher premiums and rates for everyone. So you're basically screwing us all over with your insurance fraud. Don't do that. And it all started with you. That corn and that ship. I mean, God bless the Greeks, but really.

What's another old scam, George? Here's another one. Selling the Brooklyn Bridge. So if you've ever heard this quote, if you believe that, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. Nope. You've never heard. I don't think so. Where have you been?

On a ship, trying to sink it. Well, you're sinking this episode right now. Here's where this phrase comes from, Rachel, that you just found out about. Okay. He was pulled off in the 1880s by a guy named George C. Parker. Hey, George. No relation. My last name's not Parker.

So he repeatedly tricked people, usually tourists and immigrants, into buying, quote, unquote, the Brooklyn Bridge. What does that even mean? Well, so he would use forged documents to convince people that he was the owner of the bridge and he was looking to sell it. So he'd like, hey, I own this bridge. You interested in buying it? And I'm sure they were like, eh. And then part of a sales pitch was claiming that a buyer could make a fortune if they just put a toll system on this bridge. Money-making scheme.

So the police actually had to run off a few of the victims when they tried to set up barricades and charge for bridge access to a bridge that they did not in fact own. But they thought they did. Did they think they owned like a percentage of it then? Well, here's the thing. he would sell this bridge twice a week from anywhere to $75,000 to $50,000 depending on the gullibility of the buyer. Oh my gosh. That's wild. And $50,000 in the 1880s, that would be like a million dollars today, I feel like.

How do people just have that walking around? I know. That's crazy. That's some tourist money right there. Would you fall for this? No, it feels... The fact that you hesitated, worried... You were like, hmm.

And I was trying to put myself by the Brooklyn Bridge and the man comes over and he's like, would you like to buy the Brooklyn Bridge? I feel like that sounds odd. I got too much stranger danger to be even. Yeah, that feels off. I don't do solicitations. It's like too good to be true feeling. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Yeah. So no, I'm going to do with the bridge. I don't know anything about bridges. I know. And then he like convinces something. They can like do a toll. Yeah, that's sad. No good.

So there's kind of the modern day equivalent to that, George. Okay. It's called selling the invisible airport. Are you ready for this? Emmanuel Wude, a Nigerian businessman with history and banking, sold a fake airport to a Brazilian bank. Are you ready for this? For $242 million. Whoa.

This guy, Emmanuel, posed as an influential Nigerian banker and convinced the director of Banco Noroeste. Noroeste. Noroeste. To invest $242 million in the new airport there in. in Nigeria. So the bank made a series of payments between 1995 and 1998 for the airport that didn't exist. Wow. Emmanuel was sentenced to 25 years in prison and he fleeced the bank so badly that it collapsed in 2001. Oh, that's sad. Okay, so he convinces a bank. There's a real airport. I don't know why this bank decided to invest in this airport in Nigeria

that they've never seen. Yeah. That feels like problem number one here. And this was not like the 1800s. I mean, this is the 90s. Yeah, for sure. So I think whenever there's any type of deal that you're making in life. How didn't this guy? Oh, I guess they didn't have emails back then. Anytime I see, you know, Nigerian prints, I go, this can't be right.

This can't be it. Something tells me this is off. Yeah, so if you find yourself wanting to buy an airport or just a bigger, you know, purchase, go slow. Do your due diligence. Talk to a lawyer. or talk to, like, get references. Go see the thing you're buying, for starters. Don't buy sight unseen.

I know, yes. But this happens with smaller things, luxury goods on the internet, someone's selling those sneakers, that purse for a too good to be true, low price. They're in a tight spot financially. There's usually like a sob story and there's always urgency.

Yes. That's always my red flag. Or it's like, if there's like, if I can smell the desperation, I'm like, uh-uh. Scam. No, thank you. It doesn't feel right.

Red flag. Man, old airport. All right. All right. You ready for this one? Yeah, I'm ready. Bernie Madoff, the OG Ponzi schemer. There he is.

The fraudacity, Rachel. The admitted mastermind behind the largest known Ponzi scheme in history worth $64.8 billion. So, I mean, the guy got a scheme named after him. I mean, he got to hand it to him. He made the Hall of Fame. $64.8 billion.

That's insane. That is so much money. We did an episode on billionaires. That's one way to do it. Yeah, it would have been on there. So, of course, it's named after the Italian swindler, Charles Ponziers. Ponzi.

He pays early investors with money taken from new investors rather than actually investing funds in the market. So that's how the Ponzi scheme works. It's just sort of feeding itself, but you need more suckers to get into it in order to keep it going. And how does it all unravel eventually that the money like ends up running out basically and you're just like, if you don't have enough suckers to keep them in, then you have to pay those people out and the money runs out.

I mean, billions of dollars. Like this isn't just like some like thing on the side. That's crazy. So one of the first known instances of this was carried out by a woman named Sarah Howe in the 1870s who operated Ladies Deposit Company of Boston. Bernie, almost exactly 100 years later, Madoff began following in her footsteps, and he was chairman of the NASDAQ in the early 90s, was arrested on December 11, 2008, for ripping off thousands of investors over the course of nearly 40 years. Oh, my gosh. How did he live with himself doing this for decades? That's so crazy.

So Madoff said that he began the Ponzi scheme in the early 1990s, but an end. X-trader admitted in court to faking records from Adolf since the early 70s. Oh, he had like inside people working for him. I guess you'd have to at that scale. Oh, man. Unbelievable. Well, this one reminds me, I mean, obviously MLMs, we've talked about it on the show. But the gullibility of people to get into it going like, well, hey, if you just pay this, you're going to make this.

Yeah, the promises and all that. There's some that are some that lean pyramid scheme. There's some that are just, they have products, and you recruit sellers to sell a product, and they're fine and legal. but there's some that lean gross kind of pyramid scheme. Not Ponzi level, but a lot of them have been taken down. You know, I've heard of people, even in the last few years that we even know, like even some mom and dad's friends, who they invested money with somebody. And it's the same thing.

It was a total scam, and they lost it all. Because the guy was like, oh, yeah, yeah, you know, I can take this and we're going to do this. But, like, it was a total, maybe, like, kind of under the table deal maybe or something. Like, I don't know, because I would assume you'd want to see, like, documentation, maybe he had it all. But I've heard that a couple of times. So even when you're investing your own money, making sure... You need oversight of it. Yes.

And making sure you're with like a financial planner and a legit firm. Like making sure everything is to a T. And it's not just some guy. Some weird under the table deal. Yes. Oh, that's sad. That's really sad. So, so sad.

So that can happen. So make sure to watch out. Make sure to watch out. Okay, before we jump into the next scam, we want to tell you about tellistrations. Which is the opposite of a scam. It's wonderful. It's wonderful and it's fun and it makes you happy and like scams. So this is one of my favorite games from Op Games and it's really simple and it's great when you have a group of friends hanging out.

And the way it works is you have a phrase. You try to draw the phrase. The next person writes down what they think that drawing is. The next person draws what you wrote down that was. And it continues in this wild game of telephone until we're all just gut-busting, revealing our drawings, seeing what the actual phrase originally was. and it's a great game. Yeah, the best is when the picture gets passed to you

and you see a picture, you're like, I have no clue what this is. It's like a dog chasing a star. You know, you write the most random phrase. The first person has to be a decent, you know, doodler in order for this to work. It's funny, it's funny, and it's great. So make sure to buy Telestrations,

make memories with your family. You can buy it at Walmart and start playing some games, y'all. It's so fun. All right, let's go to the next one. This is Help Me on Poor. Oh, gosh, unbelievably rich. Which one is it? Unbelievable rich.

We're going to find out. This is the Spanish prisoner. Ooh, I haven't heard of this one. Ah, get ready. Let's dig in. Okay, so this scam actually has a lot of names, the Nigerian prince. I've heard of that one. Yeah.

The quote, advance fee. But the structure of the scam has been the same since the 1800s. Hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. That's what I always say when it comes to scams. So it always starts with a desperate stranger reaching out to you by letter or by emails. is the modern day version. They claim they have legal right to a huge sum of money or property,

but a government or other authority is withholding it from them. They claim they need financial help, lawyer fees, bailout money, et cetera, in order to secure the fortune that rightly belongs to them. So they ask you, Rachel, to help them pay those upfront fees

with the promise that when they get access to these funds, they will reward you handsomely. People really fall for this stuff. All the time. Truly? Truly. Like that.

Less than they used to. Yeah, but I remember, like, when emails would be like, you get the four words. Like, when all that started coming out, I get that it was new and it was like, oh, my gosh, I'm like, maybe. But think about someone who's in dire straits and they really think, wow, I've been praying for a miracle. And they get this email and they just, they're elderly. But it's not from a Nigerian prince. It would be from like a more. They can change the locations and the stories all the time.

Sure, sure, sure. But if you contribute any money to their cause, here's what happens. They're like, I got the hooks in. They'll send follow-up letters requesting more money because there's complications. And they will do that until they. They bleed you dry or until you stop responding. And this became known as the Spanish prisoner scam in the U.S. during the Spanish-American War in 1898.

So during that time, here's what happened. A letter would be sent to prospective marks, aka suckers, in the U.S., from a soldier who was imprisoned in Spain. Oh, my gosh. The soldier would be like, hey, I need access to money or gold to pay out my way from the Spanish jail. And, of course, they promised to compensate them, hey, once the war is over, you'll get your money back.

Money would be sent. and some fake soldier on the other end got rich profiting off of people wanting to support their troops. That's messed up. That is so sad. Whenever there's like a natural disaster or war, anything like that. Oh, yeah. You were like praying on people on the worst time. Well, with the Ukraine stuff, there was a lot of scams.

Yes, that's right. They were like, hey, give to Ukraine. And you didn't really know. People, I mean, honestly, George, I know we're not like the best of the best people. Are you talking about me and you? Yeah. Oh, okay. I don't understand.

I don't know why you're throwing me under the bus. How do people do that? I'm not kidding. No, that's fair. How do you set up an account knowing that you're taking people's money and, like, claiming to bring this money to a country that is war-ridden to help people, and you're, like, keeping the money. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. I mean, you have no moral compass at that point.

I don't know what has your associate about. And I get that some, like, people get mad at, like, nonprofits because too much the percentage goes to, like, administrate. You know what I mean? Like, that's a whole— Sure. Like, where's the money really going, all that. That's a whole thing. But just a straight up scam.

That's wild. That's messed up. Yeah. Well, there's the modern day version, all these fishing emails. Yes. And I've fallen for a version of this. I'll be honest. And I bet there's one sitting in your spam folder right now, Rachel.

Yeah. I actually found one. You did? Yeah. I'll just give you the high level of what it said. It landed, so if you search your spam, that's like Gmail's gotten better at this. So this is where these things end up. But this one, it involved God.

I may not know you, but I believe if you were chosen by God to receive Stop it. Yeah, receive my donation of $2 million. You must be a God-fearing man slash woman, am Christian, and I believe that good things happen to those who wait and believe in faith and in truth. It continues on. I will not go. But he said, I want to use this medium to congratulate you once again for being one of the lucky individual to benefit in this project, 2 million USD grant. Be assured you stand no risk, as this is my money for source and verification.

You can read more about me by viewing this. Link to YouTube video, which I will not click. Do you don't click that? It goes on and on and on. And I did not respond, but I was tempted. Just to say I'm a God-fearing man. Yeah, just to see. Because what if this is the one time it was real?

Oh, man. And it came right through that Gmail. And what if I gave them access to my checking and all of a sudden two Millie shows up? You'd be out of here. I'd be out of here. You wouldn't be working. You'd be out, George.

Oh, my gosh. Retirement. Yeah. Okay, that's pretty funny. And now scammers are using AI, Rachel, your worst enemy. Yes. Ow!

To create these emails and they make them sound like so legit. They've gotten real sophisticated. So legit. Okay, you ready for another one? Hit me. Snake oil. Now we've all heard this. 1890s.

I don't know the etymology of snake oil. Okay, so we owe this concept to a guy named Clark Stanley who capitalized on an interesting conjunction of all things in American history. Conjunction junction. Conjunction. What's your function? Okay, so in the 1800s, thousands of Chinese workers arrived in the United States as indentured laborers to work on the transcontinental railroad. And one thing they brought with them, snake oil, the legit kind. So it was made from Chinese water snakes, which is rich with omega-3 acids to help reduce inflammation. You can get that at Costco now. We don't need snake oil for that. They have omega-3s.

The work got out. A lot of Americans allegedly wanted to get their own snake oil. And at the same time, Patton medicines were all the rage in the United States. So these were the cure-all tonics that claimed to offer instant relief from whatever ailed you. Oh. Yeah. There was, you know, a tonic for everything. There was always something. So enter Clark Stanley, a very talented liar.

So knowing that there was a market for snake oil, he developed Clark Stanley's snake oil. Okay. Liniment. Liniment. He made it from rattlesnakes, which sounds so sketchy, claiming he studied the art of medicinal rattlesnake usage with the Opie Indians. Okay. That sounds legit. I'd believe him.

At the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, he allegedly did a demonstration where he grabbed a live rattlesnake, gutted it, and plunged into blowing water, skimmed the fat as it rose to the top and bottled it. spot, gross. Took off in popularity. He claimed that it cured arthritis, inflammation, swelling from injuries, wounds, animal bites, scratches, and other pains. Wow. But here's the catch. Rattlesnake oil would be a scam in and of itself since it's far less effective than the

original Chinese water snake version. And then later on, he turned out that Clark Stanley's oil wasn't even made from rattlesnakes. So the government came in 1917. took it all. It was like a whole thing. But anyways, snake oil. That's it. Wow. But here's the thing. He was fined $20 for this whole ruse. And in today's, in today's dollars, it would be $429. That's nothing. I know. How is this guy not on the town square getting flogged? Covered in tar, Rachel. But snake oil, that's where it came from. But here's the thing. Originally snake oil is real.

Yeah. I did not know that. Me neither. Like when like he's selling snake oil, I'm like, well, if it's the good stuff. It's actually there. Yeah. So listen, you got to. You got to do the investigation. If it says Chinese water snake on the ingredients, you know you've got the good stuff. You got the real thing. So the modern day equivalent of this, Rachel, to me, is a lot of these supplements and a lot of them now form MLMs. They're multi-level marketing supplement companies, essential oils.

And it's like, hey, this oil will cure everything. You'll get rid of COVID. I'm like, no, it's not. It smells nice. I'll give you that. I do think some stuff has, like, natural. There are some natural benefits. Yeah.

But not to the extent they promise. Yeah. They promise a lot. That is true. I don't buy it. So that's snake oil. False advertising. If it sounds too good to be true, think critically, investigate.

Okay. We're not immune to any of this, Rachel. As much as we want to act like, we would never fall for this. We're all gullible. Scams or scams. Okay, let's play a game and drive this home. So there's actually a new game with David Spade called Snake Oil. We're contestants here outlandish pitches from two different products,

and then they have to decide if it's a scam or if it's real. So, Lindsay, I think you're going to give us a few. Yeah, we're going to play our own version of this. Okay. And we're going to have to say what is real. So don't come out of us, David Spade. We're just having fun, man. Just for fun.

All right. So I'll describe two products, and you guys have to decide which one is real and which one is just fake. Okay. Okay. Ready. I love games. We have. You're going to win.

Which one is real? The gluten eraser, a tasteless power. that neutralizes gluten from traditional flour products by breaking down this tough to digest protein in advance. Just mix in one teaspoon of gluten eraser for every cup of flour and get back to enjoying your favorite foods gluten-free. Oh, George, are you feeling so personal. Okay. To you.

Personal. Next one. The migraine stick. A roll on ointment that offers instant relief from migraines and tension headaches. Just apply directly onto your forehead, temples, or neck, and leave. let the cooling, essential oil-based formula soak in and soothe the pain away. Which one's real? Which one's fake?

I know which one it is, but you can go, Rachel. Just so you have an... Migraine's real. Migraine's real. Glutons fake. Agreed. You're correct. Yes.

Good job. I had a great time. Next up, the rainbow yoga mat. Do you love a hot stone massage? This special yoga and meditation mat is filled with seven types of natural gemstones. I'm not going to name them all. To give you a hot stone surface for a real estate. relaxation and meditation.

Just plug it in and let the far infrared rays bring the heat. Oh. Wow. Good marketing. All right. The clairvoyant collar. Is your pet hungry, stressed, excited? Stop the guessing game.

Now, you can now read your pet's mind in the new clairvoyant collar. Thanks to tiny fMRI nodes and chat GPT like artificial intelligence. This special caller translates the simple electrical impulses of pets' brains into words using a special app on your smartphone. That's fake. Fake. Yoga mat's real. Yoga mat's real?

Yeah. You're right. There's no way. I thought I was really going to stuff. I was like, now I will say the pet owners that are crazy, like the crazy cat lady, I can see her buying that. Being like, I heard Jasper's thoughts. He's thinking to me.

That's true. I got one more. Let's see if I can stump you, okay? Okay. The alarm dumbbell. Are you someone who is longing to be a more? morning workout person? Me.

Well, look no further. The alarm dumbbell is the product you need. To turn off this alarm, you'll need to do some workouts using the dumbbell, which will wake you up more and provide you with some extra exercise. I mean that. Sounds like an effective alarm to me. Wow. Okay.

All right. Next one. Instant underwear. Ever been in a bind and needing a fresh pair of undies, we've got you covered. This pair of new 100% cotton underwear have been compacted into a small 2.5 inch disc. Just add water. And bam. You've got a fresh pair.

Remember, it's better to have damp underpants than no underpants at all. Oh, my gosh. Wow. I bet the underwear's real. I'm going to go with the first one. You think the dumbbell's real? And you think the underpants is real. I stumped one of you because the alarm dumbbell is not real.

Dang it. Yes. Rachel wins. See, so he would have been gold. It's because I want that product. It's the only way to get me to do any lifting. Is that pretty baller? So I have to turn off an alarm.

I know. It's like an escape room, but for my bus. But for your body. That was a good time. There you go. That was fun. There's some crazy stuff coming out. Just don't get scams, you guys.

That's the moral of the story. All right. It's almost the end of the episode, and we close out every episode with guilty as charged. And this is where our producer, Lindsay, gives us a new guilty-as-church question every week. And if we are guilty, we have to take a sip. So, Lindsay. Are you guys ready for this? Okay, so I had to.

Okay. What's the most used thing you've returned to a store? Oh gosh. Sorry, I got shipped up on my question. Do you know what I'm saying? The most used thing you've returned to a store. Yes. Oh, man.

Like, where it was almost embarrassing that you're even returning this. Yeah, like you waited a second. Like, you used it for maybe too many days. I'll choose a bigger item just to not be that guy. Because I told the story about returning my vacuum to Costco. Yeah, I do remember that. And a lady messaged me. She said, I heard this on Smart Money Happy Hour and my vacuum hasn't been working great.

And I was nervous to return it to Costco. And I was like, you don't need the, she was like, do I need the box? She was like, no, you need to have all the parts, but you don't need the box. And it worked. And she was like, they didn't ask any questions. They just returned it, and I got my money back. George, you're doing the Lord's work. Kirkland King.

Well done. The bigger one is the mattress. I returned a mattress after 364 days. Almost a full year? Because they have a one-year tryout period. And you really came in hot at the end. George. You just didn't like it?

I think it was like it was not soft enough. for Whitney. She prefers a nice plush. It was a little firm. And I gave it a year. I could have returned it earlier, but didn't care for it. I was hoping to make the best of it. And eventually, I was like, well, the return period's about to end. So it's now we're never Bucco. Funny. And they came and picked up the mattress. Wow. Wow. Did you feel bad? No. It's true. No, these online mattress companies, Rachel, they make good money. They're doing okay. It's not a mom and pop shop. You're sticking it to someone.

They're Silicon Valley faceless companies. Oh, my gosh. They're fine. They're fine. It's their policy. If they don't want to do it. I don't know, Lins. I don't know.

Mine, maybe like a shirt or something that I wore and I was like, I just don't like it. So you can't think of anything. Like, have you ever worn an outfit twice before returning yet? Say again? Have you ever worn an outfit twice before returning? No. Not that I can think of. Have you ever returned to anything?

I'm not a good returner anyways. You should have returned to your shrunken airport outfit. I should. Actually, I should have. Wait, is it out of it? Wait, is it out of like just laziness? Like, eh, not worth the trouble. A little bit.

And that's what they're hoping for. Because a lot of my stuff, I don't, it's not expensive. So I'm like, what's the hassle for the? So for every 10 Rachel's, there's one George who's like, I'm going to return on a mattress. Got to do it. Thank you for support me. I don't think I do. It's all right.

George, I'm in trouble. I cannot believe you slept on a mattress for a year and returned it. That is wild. I don't know if I like that. But he's within the time. So. I didn't break any rules. It's their policy.

Oh, my gosh. You know? They offered to pick it up for free a year later. That is so fine. Okay. George, you may have finished the drink first. It was that good. It was delicious.

So we had an apple butter mocktail today. And what is your rating? I mean, I would make that at home. So I'm going to go. I mean, it will have a lot of ingredient. I just feel like it took effort. So I'm going to go nine out of ten. Because you don't like effort.

You've made that very clear. You don't like to be uncomfortable. No, it's fine. Fred Christ. I'm going 11 out of 10. Like in the mocktail world, and I'm going to shout out one of our producer, Skyler. Skyler killed it. Who just crushed this mocktail.

She did. It is amazing. You should have seen everything, though. And I booed. And I was a joint effort. I mean, all of the ingredients. Like, it was a... They were out there whittling away at this apple.

It was a feat. Whittling away. Here's what is in the apple butter mocktail, apple butter. Bottom jeans. Apple butter jeans, boots with the fur. That's not in here. The whole... Looking at her.

The whole... The whole town. Is it town? Yeah. Oh. Or the whole club. Oh. Club.

Hold on. Now this is bad. I said... It's club. It's club. We got a... Stick to Samantha Mumble lyrics. Let me repeat.

Here's what's in this drink. Apple butter. Apple juice. Non-alcoholic orange bitters. Lemon juice. Ginger beer, simple syrup, and cinnamon sugar for the rim. Wow.

But you would think, wow, that's a pricey drink. What is it? And that's where you'd be wrong. Give me the breakdown. $1.55. No way. No joke. No way.

Oh, y'all. Think about apple juice is cheap. Yeah. You know, a whole thing orange bitters will last you years. Some lemon juice. Now, ginger beer is probably, and by the way, ginger beer is not alcoholic beer. It's just a more zingy, spicy ginger ale. Yeah.

It's just more ginger flavor. It's a little bit sweeter. I can taste that a lot in here. I can taste the ginger. Yeah. So that's really the star of the show in here. And the cinnamon sugar rim really brings it to life. So good. So if you want the recipe, which I know you do, go check out the show notes, make it at home.

Let us know what you thought of it. Delicious. Wonderful. Well, George, great episode. You guys don't call for a scam. Don't do it. You're smarter than that. You're listening to Smart Money.

Not dumb money, sad hour. No. It's a different show that we should start. You're smart. Don't fall for those scams. But yeah. I'm glad to know some of the history. You know, ships and snake

oils and baguadis who knew this is the kind of stuff you're not going to get from other podcasts no only here only here and make sure to leave a review because we want to hear maybe if you fell for a scam let us know oh that's fun or leave it in the comments on youtube forever subscribe because every thursday we don't want you to miss a new episode of smart money happy hour