Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Ellen Roseman: Toronto Mike'd #507

Episode Date: September 9, 2019

Mike chats with Ellen Roseman about her consumer affairs columns in the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star.

Welcome to episode 507 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Propertyinthe6.com, Palma Pasta, StickerU.com, Capadia LLP CPAs, and Pumpkins After Dark. I'm Mike from TorontoMike.com and my guest this week is former Consumer Affairs columnist for the Toronto Star, Ellen Roseman.

And Ellen, I'll be honest, I wasn't sure how to bill you because you do so many different things. I went with one of your higher profile, more recent things, but nice to meet you. Great to meet you, Mike, and thank you for inviting me here. And thanks for telling me my episode number because there was a moment just before we pressed record when I thought we were episode 506, but you corrected me. That's amazing.

You're all on top of things. I know you're paying attention to the details. Thank you for that. Are you a tennis fan oh yeah I watched the game I don't really even know how to score but it was really exciting to see uh the trick is that you yeah it's my mom struggles with tennis scoring like and I always tell her like okay when you're serving you're supposed to win your game when you're serving what's exciting is when you win and you didn't serve. So it's like, oh, yeah, Serena played really well that game. And I go, well, Serena was serving.

Like, let's, yeah, but how did you feel when you saw Bianca beat Serena on Saturday? I was delighted, especially since Serena really got her momentum back and it looked like she was going to win the game and she came so close. And then Bianca got the last two points and I thought, oh, maybe there's a third game. I just couldn't figure it out. Right. And then once I realized it, it was just so exciting. It was just amazing. She's so confident. She's so young. She's so strong. You know, just the strength of those rallies, the fact that they could do it back and forth so many times with those balls that were so hard to hit. I know, I know. Cause,

um, when I play tennis, the balls don't move as quickly. Like it's, uh, it's, and she, she's 19, like you mentioned, but I think that whole like swagger, she has a swagger we don't often see from Canadian sports participants. Yeah. A great sports writer who used to be at the Toronto Star, Cahal Kelly, he's now at the Globe and Mail. Yeah, very good. He said she's like the American Canadian player, though she did assert her Canadian-ness by

apologizing to the crowd for not winning, for Serena not winning. But she does have that confidence. She has the mental game all set. She does visualization and meditation. And she's really very, very confident. And that's so important because in a stadium like that where the whole crowd were cheering for the opponent

and it was loud and she was losing. It's like a rock concert, right? When you watch Wimbledon, for example, there's all this decorum and everyone's wearing white. It's this whole thing. But at the US Open, it's kind of like a rock concert. Like everybody's just like pumping their fists.

And it's just a cool vibe. Celebrities in the crowd. Spike Lee was there and Meghan Markle was there. And, you know, there were Canadians, but there were no way that they could predominate in a big crowd like that. Meghan's supposed to root for the Commonwealth, right? Like, isn't this her, like, job now?

I feel like her boss needs to have a word with her. Like, what are you doing rooting for the American? But yeah, I saw that Spike had the purple suit. You're wearing purple? Is that what that was for Serena? So get that out of here. She looked great. They both look great.

And did you hear the Toronto Star mistakenly sent out an email to a lot of people saying that Serena won? That's like Dewey defeats Truman. Exactly. Yeah, I did. So I had people like to tell me when the media screws up. So I had an email from somebody like with all the screen captures and like this went out at like 6.03. Then this went out at like 603 then this went out at 607 but it sounds like they had a they must have had an email prepared for either scenario but something embedded the

scores that's what i'm trying to figure out like okay so this email that erroneously said that serena beat bianca to win the u.s open it had the scores in it so it's not just a canned email that was sent accidentally like some did a human put in the scores or is there an algorithm? I think the story was the same, but somebody had to put in the right headline. So it was the headline that was wrong. Oh, okay. I got you. So the wrong headline, and then it's probably some unpaid intern who screwed up, right? Probably, you know, heads will roll, I think. And it's, it's so hard to regain your reputation. I mean, everybody was calling it fake news, and I hate that expression. I do too.

But here's a newspaper that did it in the race to be first and to be wrong. This is the era we're in now, right, where they're so eager to be first, they've lost a little bit of the appreciation for being right. Like, it used to be being right was so much more important than being first. And it just seems like that's slipping a bit. This is obviously a human error. And sadly, it's probably some very lowly paid intern or something,

but who hopefully doesn't lose their, I don't know, maybe you're supposed to get these things right. I don't know if they should lose their job or not, but getting it first should come second to getting it right. Yeah. I remember a few years ago when Barack Obama was bringing in Obamacare

and it went to the Supreme Court. And there was this race to get the judgment on the air. And some reporter read it way too quickly and got it completely wrong, completely the opposite. And that's the kind of thing where you can't rush. If you rush, you're probably not going to do justice to it. And so we have to kind of establish what things are better to get right, even if you're a bit late than to get it to be first. Right. And I mean, that was an email that the star sent out by accident. But in this world of Twitter now, it seems like everyone's racing.

Like, let's say there's a free agent signing in sports. I follow a bunch of like hockey writers and it's like, you watch them come in like making popcorn. You can kind of just, as they come in, they're all gotta be first on that tweet. But anyway, it's the era we live in, I guess,

but we'll talk all about that. But I wanted to say hi to you from somebody who just left this studio, Mark Hebbshire, who said, you did, so Mark Hebbshire does Hebsey on Sports Now, which is here, but he used to do a show with Liz West called No Fun Intended. And you guessed it on that show. He was telling me what a great guest you are. So Mark says hi. It was fun. And I thought that podcast had a fabulous title because it was loads of fun. No fun intended. Yeah. And people think somehow I poached Hebsey from Liz West.

But the true story is Hebsey wanted to do a sports podcast and Liz had zero interest in doing a sports podcast. So here we are. So Bianca won the U.S. Open. So here we are. So Bianca won the US Open. That is the first time a Canadian singles tennis player has won a Grand Slam event. That's the first time. And I can tell by the fact you're calling sets games.

You're not a big fan. I was going to say, I'm like, do I call her out on that or is that pedantic of me or whatever? Well, now you did, but thank you. I'm not a tennis aficionado. No, but are you a sports fan? Well, I you did, but thank you. I'm not a tennis aficionado. No, but are you a sports fan? Well, I had to watch the Raptors and I got to know all the players. Again, I had a little trouble sometimes with the rules because I did play basketball when I was a teenager. I was

mostly on the bench, though I'm quite tall. It just wasn't that good. But there's all these new rules. But, you know, it's impossible not to get caught up in the excitement around the Raptors. When it becomes an event, now you're on board. Yeah. Like most Canadians. I was thinking about that, like where this ranks in terms of individual Canadian sporting achievements. So I'm not even talking about teams like the Raptors.

I mean, like Mike Weir, you might know, won the Masters. The Masters is like the biggest, it's a major in golf, and that was a big deal. And that's the same big deal that sort of Bianca winning this US Open. But I think the biggest individual sporting accomplishment by a Canadian, I think, is Donovan Bailey winning the 100-meter gold in Atlanta.

Yes. I don't know if you, do you agree with me? I'm putting it now at sports talk. I'm just going to do sports talk, would you agree with me or, uh, I'm putting it, putting now it's sports talk. I'm just going to do sports talk with you. Is that okay? It was very exciting. I still remember it. My son put up a poster in his room of Donovan Bailey. I think it's still there. And, uh, you know, he was kind of bringing back the honor to Canada after the Ben Johnson stuff. Right. Yeah. But now we learned that they were all doping. Yes, they were all doping in 88 in Seoul. And only one got caught.

But yeah, that all upsets me. Because like, yeah, Ben took the fall, but Carl Lewis. And, you know, literally had braces on, which is like when you take human growth hormones, it's very common for adults to need to wear braces. And I'm not saying that's the smoking gun here. There's a lot of other smoking guns. But yeah, everybody on that starting line

for the 100-meter dash in 88 was doping up and cheating. So one guy took the fall, but oh, it makes me angry. Okay, so the last episode of Toronto Mic'd, the reason I got confused on the numbering is because the last episode was 506, which was actually recorded live from the Opera House. So if listeners haven't checked that out, basically I set up shop in the Opera House

while we had a party for Marty and people who were in attendance, people like Alan Cross, David Marsden, May Potts, Ivor Hamiltonilton you know craig venn bingo bob you know uh dj shawarma all these kind of people that were in attendance would come on the microphone and chat with me and i think as a fan of cfny and the station i think it's uh i think it came off really well like i i personally all three hours. So if you're a fan of the station at all, any era,

like we run the gamut from the eighties, you know, nineties and beyond, uh, check out episode five Oh six live from the opera house. And five Oh five was the reunion of the original breakfast television crew, uh, 30 years ago that day,

which was Thursday. So Ann Romer was here and we talked to like David Onley, John Whaley. We talked to Steve Anthony, who was buying frog legs. Have you ever had frog legs? No. No. Me neither. But Steve was buying a bunch of frog legs.

That's the kind of life he's living now in Prince Edward County. a bunch of frog leagues. That's the kind of life he's living now in Prince Edward County. So I really hope you guys listen to 505, the Breakfast Television reunion. So those were like different episodes, but this will be more of a typical Toronto Mike deep dive with Ellen Roseman.

How was your summer? Great. Got out of the city for a few weeks. How far out of the city? North of Collingwood, Thornbury on Georgian Bay. I know Thornbury. Yeah. There was just a story in the paper today about it,

about how they're trying to shut off a beach that has some fossils, but the neighbors are thinking it's because the wealthy people who live there don't want people trespassing. Interesting. It's a public beach. That ticks me off as a regular person.

This is sort of, you know what else ticks me off? And I was just thinking about this yesterday. So there are rich neighborhoods around here as there is throughout the city, rich neighborhoods. Like there's a street called Lake Promenade, which has got waterfront property. Like these are multimillion dollar homes. There's not a lot of waterfront property in Toronto.

So I'm looking at these, I'm biking this cause it's, you know, it's beautiful along the waterfront trail. Although the waterfront belongs to these rich people, not the public, which is a whole separate story. But, uh, I always noticed these rich neighborhoods never have sidewalks. Have you noticed this? Like the really wealthy neighborhoods, no sidewalks. And I was thinking like, like what a lovely street to walk, but you have to walk on the street. And if you have kids and stuff, it's dangerous. So families probably don't do that. And I was thinking that's got to be because the rich people are somehow, they don't want people like just wandering their neighborhood. What do you think? This is a rich person conspiracy, right?

Interesting. Or maybe it gives them more of a front lawn and more access to their driveway. It gives them more of a front lawn and more access to their driveway. You never see in a poorer neighborhood, you never see a lack of sidewalks. Like there's always sidewalks. It's only these multi-billion dollar homes where the sidewalks disappear. I think it's because they don't want that, just that family out for a Sunday stroll. They don't walk in my neighborhood. That's what I think it is.

Tell me if I'm being a cynical son of a gun here. I never thought of the reason, but where I live, we're around Avenue Road in St. Clair. There is one block. That's a rich neighborhood. Near us. Yeah, got in there a long time ago.

But one block doesn't have sidewalks. And when I was a young reporter, I went to interview somebody on that street. It's called Poplar Plains Road. No, Crescent. Okay. It goes east-west. And David Peterson lived on that street. It's called Poplar Plains Road. No, Crescent. Okay. It goes east-west. And David Peterson lived on that street when he was premier.

And did you, I guess, yeah, I guess I need, if someone's listening can tell me, why is it only really wealthy streets have no sidewalks? That's what I want to know. I think it's the rich people keeping it out. Okay. So that was a quick, where did that aside come from oh yeah because i yes okay these tangents are going to happen but you had a good summer you went to thornbury where jeff woods who is a friend of

the show uh now lives he paints uh homes in thornbury let me know if you ever know anyone up there and need some painting done but you're originally from montreal right yes so when do you tell? Yes. So tell me a little bit about, did you grow up in Montreal? Yes. Town of Mount Royal, which is a suburb, but very close to the city because there's a train that goes right through the middle of Mount Royal. So you could get from there to downtown in 10 minutes. So that was exciting. I went to McGill, lived at home. I got my start in journalism at the McGill Daily in the late 60s. It was a very exciting time. We were student activists. At one point, we were thrown out by the student council over a story, and then we got back in

again. Were you hippies? What was going on here? Well, there certainly was a lot of that going on. I've been spending too much time revisiting like Woodstock and like documentaries and stuff like older, the original one that came out in 1970 and then newer ones coming out from PBS and stuff. So I've been very into this movement here. So that's kind of cool. So you're you're I guess late 69. Is that a fair? Is that probably like probably 50 years ago? Yeah.

So in Woodstock times. Very cool. Now, why did you leave Montreal? How do you end up here? Well, as I said, I lived with my parents. And by the time I was 21, because you didn't have grade 12 and 13 in those days, I'd graduated McGill.

I had to get away. So I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I decided to get a master's in philosophy, which is what I was studying at U of T, moved to Toronto and never looked back, never went back to Montreal. When I left in the late 60s, everybody said, it's the most boring place in the world. It's so beige. It's so dull. You're going to hate it. You're going to be back. And after five or six years, they all said, how do you like Toronto? We're thinking of moving there. Well, yeah.

Well, it was always Toronto the good, right? And stores were always, it was always very Protestant. Was it Protestant? No Sunday shopping. The bars had separate women's entrances. Everything closed at about midnight. Yeah, it was kind of dull. There were hardly any French restaurants,

you know, coming from Montreal, you're used to French food. I think there was one on Church Street, that was about it. And today, you know, Toronto is just so full of everything. It's very exciting, but it took a long time to get to the point

where it was a real metropolis. Yeah, I often hear stories about the older Toronto and it's like, oh, that's a little different than the Toronto we have today. It's come a long way, baby. But back then, Montreal was like, that was the cool city in this country, right? Yeah, Crescent Street, all the bars, everything closed at 3 a.m. And I had a really exciting moment because my birthday was on July 24th and I went out with my boyfriend in 1967 and there was a whole lot of

traffic crossing Sherbrooke Street. We didn't know what was going on. And later on, we found out it was Charles de Gaulle who was visiting, got up on the balcony and yelled, Vive le Québec libre. Right. That's a great moment in Canadian history. Absolutely. That's right. And where, okay, so this Expo 67, right? Yes. And then, yeah, I mean, they had a baseball team and everything. Like Toronto didn't have a baseball team. My husband is a diehard fan of the Expos. He wears their merchandise all the time, goes to Blue Jays game. There's always somebody who calls out and says, oh, I love the game. And then now there's talk of bringing it back at least part time. Well, yeah, we were talking about that today because there's in the Tampa Bay team has no attendance. Like we're like there's five thousand.

It's a terrible stadium anyways. So we're we just said today on Hepsi on sports like move to Montreal already. Like even though they don't I mean, they'd have to be in that awful stadium for a bit as they build something better. They'd have to be in the big O as they call it. But yeah, at least get some fan support behind the team. Bring it back. I can tell you there's a gentleman we're going to hear from right now

whose name is Brian Gerstein. And he's a real estate sales representative with PSR Brokerage. He's got a message for you because he has fond memories of you, as you'll hear. But he's also a diehard Expos fan. Like, he's from Montreal. He moved here in 89, I want to say. But also a die-hard Expos fan like he's from Montreal he moved here

in 89 I want to say but he he's a die-hard Expos fan and he still dons the uh the Expos jersey and goes to like charity events where you know this Bill the Spaceman Lee and all these former Expos gather and he has a lot of fun with that. So let's hear from Brian. Hi, Ellen. Brian Gerstein here, sales representative with PSR Bruggeridge and proud sponsor of Toronto Might. Galleria Condos are finally here. I'm attending the launch event

this Tuesday, September the 10th, and we'll have the complete package and floor plans. Saturday, September 14th is the first we'll have the complete package and floor plans. Saturday, September 14th is the first day of sales. If you want one, call or text me at 416-873-0292. They will be ideal to live in yourself or rent out. I already have investor clients of mine who are looking to buy, so you would be second in line if I can get you one. Ellen, it was early in my real estate career when I reached out to you and we met for the first time. You wrote about my challenges of getting business, mainly relying on

FSBOs, which is short for For Sale by Owners, where I would help them out privately and if unsuccessful, once trust was gained, have the opportunity to list and sell their property. Do you recall our meeting back then? I also appreciated the publicity that only an Ellen Roseman can give you. So this is a thank you for that many years later, and I wish you all the best in the years ahead. Now here's, I've learned this now that I have a podcast. Everyone remembers meeting you, for example, but you probably met hundreds and hundreds of people. Like it's, it's a whole, you know, it's like, you know, like do you remember meeting Brian?

So he won't be offended because you've met so many people throughout your illustrious career. Do you have any memory of the Brian Gerstein interview or conversation? I do because I wrote about it. Oh, okay. And I remember that technique, which was empowering the homeowner to sell their own house, making them feel that they were really able to do it.

They didn't need a real estate agent. And then just waiting on the sidelines until they said, this is hard work, I give up. And then swooping in for the rescue. Oh, yes. He was quite honest about it. Yeah, that's the move, right? I see.

But nowadays, it is much easier to sell your house because you can put it on the MLS system. In the old days, it was, you know, the real estate agents conspired to make no private sellers allowed on MLS. And if you're not on MLS, you're almost invisible unless someone's like driving by your street or something like that. But coincidentally, I don't, we hadn't pressed record yet on the podcast, but coincidentally, you did drive by the Galleria Mall today. Like you saw it today and it's still there. We haven't got the wrecking ball in there yet. Yeah, it's a nice piece of Toronto,

but I guess it's just not making any money for the developers. You know, it's an interesting place we were talking, but it's stuck in, I want to say it's stuck in 1974 maybe it's uh it's probably either you need to you need to do something there and it sounds like they've decided what they're going to do and it sounds like brian's your guy if you want to pick one up pick up a condo at galleria mall so so brian uh got in the paper thanks to you which is uh kind of kind of cool i think brian's probably got that cut out somewhere. So very sweet.

Now, that's Brian Gerstein. I have some gifts I'm going to give you now before we kind of dig in here deep. So I'm trying to think of who goes first today. I'm going to give sticker you first. So here is a Toronto Mike sticker for you. Thank you. For your skateboard. You skateboard, right?

Yeah. That's your sticker. There's also a temporary tattoo as well, but that's courtesy of stickeru.com if you're getting one or many stickers made. Oh, I see, it's backward. Yeah, you gotta wet that and stick it on your arm there. But courtesy of stickeru, they're a local,

well, you go to stickeru.com. You don't have to be in Toronto to do it because it's a website. So you can get custom stickers or decals like these ones behind us or temporary tattoos or buttons, anything that sticks essentially. You can get it done at StickerU.

One or as many as you want. Again, custom made stickers. Just upload the image. It's slick. It's really slick. And they made a whole bunch of toronto mike stickers and uh yeah put that on your uh your skateboard or snowboard i look i do like your logo did you have a professional logo firm do that my wife did it oh nice yeah so my wife yeah uh my wife's funny because i asked when i started this whole thing back in 2012 or something I wanted the logo before the first episode the two things I wanted a logo and a

theme song before the first episode I don't know why but I'm glad I did it in hindsight and I still use both today so my wife made that because she's like uh she does a lot of graphic art stuff and she tells me that she doesn't really like it like she she gave me what i wanted and i liked it but she didn't like it but what i like is now that i see it like i'm looking at the decal back here but now that i see it kind of like on stickers and stuff i i really really like it like it used to be digital only but now that it's actually like in the tangible real world i dig it so i'm gonna tell her if ellen roseman likes'm going to tell her. She's got a fan of her work there. So you do like it, right?

Yes. And I like that microphone. It's big. It's clunky. But you have big clunky microphones too. When they're too small and little, they might not be as good quality. These are good quality because that Opera House episode,

I was really, and I'll just share this with the listeners, how concerned I was during the episode because they're blasting Martin Streak's favorite like live to air music right behind us in the main room of the Opera House.

Like set it like, you know, like Spinal Tap. It was set to 11. Like it was just, everything was shaken really loud. And I'm having conversations that you couldn't hear me talk unless you put the headphones on.

So if you didn't have the headphones on, you wouldn't even, you just see my lips moving. You couldn't hear me. It was so loud. And then these microphones are unidirectional, which is why I needed you to get right on them because you can't be out like this or whatever. And what's amazing about that is it was perfect for the opera house because the background music stayed back there and the people speaking right on the mic were at the forefront and i was so pleased with how it turned out because while i was recording i was like am i wasting not that i'd be wasting my time because i was having good convos with david marston and everybody but like can this even be an episode can i share this great content and then i got home

really late so i didn't even listen and then the the next morning, I woke up and I said, okay, let me listen to what I did. And I was happy. So thank you, Rode Procaster microphones for that. So stickers are yours. Great Lakes Brewery is a local family-run, independent, fiercely independent craft brewery here in Etobicoke.

And they would like you to take home a six pack of their fresh craft beer. All yours. Thank you. Enjoy. Enjoy. And I want to urge you and all listeners to come to the TMLX4, which is the Toronto Mic Listener Experience on September 19th from 6 to 9 p.m. on the patio of Great Lakes Brewery.

Because just like I did at the Opera House, I'm going to have mics set up and I'll be recording live from there. And listeners or former guests or both can just drop by and we'll, you know, we'll have, I'll have four mics, I think, set up. I only had three at the Opera House. And just sit down and we'll like, who are you? Like, how do you, how do you know the show? And maybe I'll remember something, an email exchange we had once. And I'll bug you about that. Whatever. It's just going to be like great fun to have like listeners on the show.

So come to Great Lakes Brewery on September 19th. That is an empty box. But in my freezer right now is a frozen lasagna for you. Oh, yummy. From Palma Pasta. They're in Mississauga and Oakville. Authentic Italian food. That's another family-run independent business.

And that just really focuses on quality food. And they're amazing. You can find out exactly where they are by going to palmapasta.com. They're on skip the dishes as well if you want to check them out that way but uh they also catering i had them cater my wedding they are great at catering your events as well so thank you palmapasta so you got your lasagna you got your beer you got your stickers i'm not quite done yet i feel like uh monty hall or something this is exciting i have two tickets for you,

which you can use or you can share them with someone else. But they're to an event called Pumpkins After Dark. Pumpkins After Dark is 5,000 hand-carved pumpkins that illuminate the skies in Milton. There's a park in Milton called Country Heritage Park. And Pumpkins After Dark will be there from September 26th to November 3rd. And also there's sculptures and sounds as well, accompanying these 5,000 pumpkins. So you have

two tickets. I will email to you PDF tickets to this event. And if listeners want to go to Pumpkins After Dark, I'm totally going to go take my family. You can save 10% if you order the tickets with the promo code Pumpkin Mike. Pumpkin Mike is your promo code to save 10% on Pumpkins After Dark. Tickets go to PumpkinsAfterDark.com. And we're going to talk about your career.

And we're going to talk about, you know, consumer affairs and all the great stuff that you specialize in. So that might be a great way for me to introduce Capadia LLP CPAs. They are an accountancy firm that sees beyond the numbers. Rupesh Capadia can help you with any business questions or you need some advice. Like I said, he's the rock star accountant who sees beyond the numbers. And here is Milan talking about how Capadia helped his company. Hello, Toronto Mike listeners. This is Milan from Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair. We've been using Capadia LLP for many years, providing guidance for all of our corporate and personal accounting needs. Over the years, Rupesh Kapadia has put together an effective tax plan for his clients.

And the bottom line is, he and his expert team of accountants save you money. Thanks, Toronto Mike. And thank you, Kapadia LLP. Thanks, Milan. If anybody wants me to help get your free consultation with Rupesh Kapadia, just send me an email. We'll set that up. All right, Ellen, you're at U of T.

I went to U of T as well. You're at U of T, never to return to Montreal. You're going to live in the big smoke in the hog town, hopefully for the rest of your life. Now, when does your journalism career begin? So we've got you in Toronto.

When does it begin for you in, uh, journalism? I got a MA in one year. I didn't have a thesis and then I had to figure out what to do. Uh, the philosophy job market, uh, was never robust. Right. And I, I thought, well, I like reading books. Maybe I'll get into book publishing. So at that time there were about 15 major Canadian firms.

I wrote to them all on my typewriter and stayed home and waited for the phone calls, and I think I got maybe two or three phone calls. Didn't get a single interview. No, maybe I got one interview, but they said, you have an Emmy in philosophy? This job will be incredibly boring. You're mostly just going to do indexes for books. And I thought, okay,

maybe this isn't my career. And you know, it's English majors who go for those jobs. So I started thinking what I was going to do next. And I, I had my three years of university journalism. There was no journalism program at McGill. So we always called it our unofficial school of journalism. And I was trying to figure out where I could get a job. And I didn't think I could get a job at any of the daily papers because I had no experience. Right. But through a family connection, I heard about McLean Hunter at university in Dundas. They had a bunch of trade publications. They also had the Financial Post, McLean, Chatelaine. They were quite a well-known family operation in those days.

And I applied and they sent me for a bunch of psychology tests, which is unusual. And then at the end of it all, they said, okay, we want to hire you, but we have about 50 trade publications and most of these are not really suitable for women. I said, come on, you know, what about menswear? Oh no, no. Women couldn't do menswear. What about heavy engineering news? How about truck and bus? No, no, no, no. We think you will fit at style, which was womenswear. The last place I wanted to be, I was trying to break all the rules. And that was the only place that they were willing to put me. But it actually worked out okay, because it came out every two weeks. It was more like a newspaper than a magazine. Most of theirs

were magazines. And I was the managing editor at eventually, we were putting it out at their printing plant at Young and the 401. And I would go there and the hot type was there. And it was really an exciting place. I covered fabrics and textiles and I covered innerwear, as they called it, which is like underwear, had all these beats. And then I was doing the layout. And from there, I could move that onto the financial post, which was then a weekly, and I covered retailing. And so that, I could move that onto the financial post, which was then a weekly,

and I covered retailing. And so that was really exciting too. But while I was doing retailing, the consumer movement was really getting strong. And Ralph Nader was one of my heroes at McGill, and I just really had followed him. And in Canada, all of a sudden, the government started setting up a government department of consumer affairs and both provincially and federally and there was a Consumers Association of Canada, which was very active, went to their meetings and thought, this is fun and started covering it for the Financial Post. Oh, there was also a food price inflation and Beryl Plumtree, who came from the consumers movement, was studying food price inflation and Beryl Plumtree who came from the consumers movement was studying food price inflation. So all that was really, really fun.

And then somehow or other, I got onto the Toronto Star, which was then looking for a consumer reporter. They had someone who had done it there who had moved to the Globe and Mail. So I followed him and then eventually, not very long, it was only a year and a half later, he left the Globe and Mail. He was smart because he invested in a bunch of houses and was a landlord and did that full time and then eventually retired early, went to Spain.

But I took his job at the Globe and Mail, stayed there for 20 years covering consumer issues and then later moved to the report on business. So 10 years consumer issues, 10 years at the report on business where I thought I better learn how things work. And I was covering mutual funds, which I didn't understand, but took a securities course, learned about how the stock market worked. And then all of a sudden, I realized mutual funds are going through a big consumer movement. So I was covering

it in the business section, and then went to the Star. I was business editor at the Star for a couple of years, and then started covering consumer issues again at business editor at the star for a couple of years and then started covering consumer issues again at the star so it's been a great career in print well okay so great progression too okay and again style gets your foot in the door right so this is everything as you know and you're in there now and then you can like you did an effective job of like parlaying you know style magazine work into, you know, business writing essentially. Right. So, uh, I have a note here you won and I don't know what these mean. So make them sound bigger than they are. Like, just tell me you won like Oscars here

or something, but you won, uh, two Kenneth R. Wilson awards. What the heck is a Kenneth R. Wilson award? They were for trade magazines. Uh, What do they call them now? Maybe industry publications. A lot of them are, this is a euphemism, controlled circulation, meaning that they were given out free to people who qualified because they were in a business. Right. So the advertisers were willing to pay because they knew that their publication went to motivated buyers. And it was a big deal. I was only in my early twenties. I'd only been in that industry for a while, the controlled circulation industry, and it was pretty exciting to get them.

That model is basically, we give it to you because the right eyeballs are now on the pages, and then the advertisers will make our money from advertisers who want to reach that industry, which makes sense. I mean, I'm sure these are... They're still out there. Yeah, I haven't worked in an office in a long time, but...

There's one called Investment Executive, or IE for short, and it goes to people who are selling investment. And every once in a while, I try to sign up, and they won't let me because I'm not an investment executive. For a while, not even Ellen Roseman can get signed up. That's how tight they have it protected there. Now, McLean Hunter, I know them, of course. That's the outfit that got gobbled up by Rogers at some point.

And now, actually, I believe Rogers has sold all that stuff to St. Joseph's Media. Most of it, yeah. And it's been, you know, they've been getting rid of it for quite a while. Because anything in print these days, it's kind of on the endangered list. And the other move they do, they do that move. And the other move is like, oh, yeah, this weekly thing. Now it's kind of on the endangered list. And the other move they do, they do that move. And the other move is like, oh yeah,

this weekly thing. Now it's a monthly thing. And they're like, oh yeah, this monthly thing. It's every two months now. It's just sort of, and then it's a yearly thing or whatever. But,

but they had one publication that was really immune to all that. But I think even suffering a bit. Hello, Canada, because it was always, you know, Princess Diana and then Kate and now Meghan and royalty keeps it going. In those, yeah, those royal fanatics, the expats

or whatever, it's like Coronation Street, okay? Coronation Street still gets that time slot on CBC because there's a small but loyal uh reliable fan base that won't miss their what are what are the quarries what do they call it the fans of coronation street uh quarries or something i don't know what they're called but same kind of idea there okay so uh okay because you you burn through a lot of stuff there in a very short time so i'm just going to break it out but the mclean hunter you in, I guess, late 60s or whatever. And at some point, I didn't even know about the cup of coffee at the Star before you went to the Globe.

So I don't even think the world knows that. That's an exclusive there. It was a lot of fun. I was not in the business section. I was not in the life section. I was in the city desk. And I remember at one point, they did a story, they got me to do a story about cosmetics and were they worth the price. And we were doing lab tests,

there was a lot of kind of like, you know, do it yourself testing. And, and then I also did one, because food price inflation was so rampant, that they wanted to measure over six months, what would go up more, the price of food or the price of stocks on the Toronto Stock Exchange? And they had a photo of me with two tables, one with a bunch of groceries and one with some stock certificates. Right. And I'm trying to remember which one was.

I think it was close. It was pretty close. It was a nail-biter photo finish, I think. But then, so the cup of coffee at the Star, and then you're at the globe, and this is, or you know, you're a columnist at the Globe and Mail, you're specializing in consumer issues, this is 75 to 96, like you said, that's 20 years, at least 20 years. What do I have here? You're appointed associate managing editor of the globe's business section, report on business, and then

you still had your own column. So before we leave the globe to get you to the star, any highlights you can share now that all the Ellen fanatics are tuned in here?

Anything from that 20 years at the Globe and Mail, anything, stories you can share with us? Well, you put something on Twitter

and somebody said what was one of the hardest assignments that I ever had. Oh, I got to get that guy's name though. Hold on. Mike Stutter?

Oh yeah, Stutter. He's in Ottawa. Yes, he is. And he listens to Toronto Mike. And he's the one, he let me know, apparently there are still two Zellers left because the Bay kept them as Zellers for the Bay discount stuff. And there's one like near here.

But there's another one i didn't know about in ottawa so he let me know that i was think i was saying we have the last it's closing now that's why it's in the story of today is that they're both closing yeah but i thought like okay this is the last sellers in canada because you know i'm so i'm so you know i think we're the capital of the world here but there is one in ot Ottawa and Michael did point that out. So Michael says, what was the most difficult consumer issue you ever successfully resolved? Well, let me tell you about this test first. It was an issue, I guess. New York Magazine, which was then new and exciting, they had done a test of bartenders. When you go to bars, do you get the amount of liquor that you should be in your mixed drinks? So we decided to duplicate

that in Toronto. And we decided that we'd use a Bloody Mary because the tomato juice is so overpowering and vodka doesn't have much of a taste. And we go to, I think we picked about 15 or 16 bars. And my husband came as my research assistant. And what we would do is what we'd go to, I think we picked about 15 or 16 bars. And my husband came as my research assistant. And what we would do was we'd order two Bloody Marys, no ice, because you couldn't have any dilution. And then we'd drink one of the Bloody Marys and we'd throw half into the other cup. And then once it was in the other cup, we'd put it into a mason jar and put it in a bag underneath the table. We had to be quite secretive because in Toronto, you can't carry liquor out of a bar.

You can't really carry liquor around. Right. And then we took them all to a lab to get them tested. And among the bars we chose were really fancy ones. The CN Tower, for example, we figured you were so high up, you'd probably get drunk anyway, so we didn't need to put too much liquor in. And it turned out the CN Tower was fine. Most of them were quite generous. We only found one of those establishments that was really giving you much less. I think you needed to have at least, what, one and a quarter ounces.

And it was on Sherbourne Street, and it was called the Selby House. And people who know that area will know that it was gone for a long time, but now they've fixed it up. It's now called Maison Selby. And one of Toronto's best restaurant chains has put it together. I think it was the Jump and those people, Oliver Group. And so the story came out, everybody read it, and then the liquor licensing board called me up and they said, we're following this up and we think we'll have a hearing and get this bar, you know, to come and talk about how they're not giving you enough liquor, watering down the drinks. And they said, can you testify? What did I know? I said, well, I'll check. And then the managing

editor of the Globe, Clark Davey, great guy, he said, no way. He said, we did this story as journalism. Their job is to regulate. We don't need to help them do their own work. They should be testing themselves and they should be getting their own witnesses. So I learned something from that. What was the kernel, like this idea, which is like, I was riveted in the story. It was like, this is the kind of stuff people are interested in. This affects your day to day. Like that's exactly the kind of consumer affair stuff. That's exactly what appeals to the, you know, the average Joe or whatever. And where did the idea to do that particular? Well, we were kind of copying New York magazine, which had done their own test. But the principle is something that I've always

found compelling because consumer stories usually involve not a huge amount of money. So say in those days you were paying, I don't know, six or seven dollars for the drink and maybe you were out by a dollar at most, but it's the fact that if it happens again and again and again, it adds up to a lot of money. And I find my readers can get outraged over a penny. It doesn't matter. It's the principle of the thing. And it's something you've got to chase down because people can't aggregate their experiences. They don't know what's going on. They don't know if it's a systemic thing or not.

But they just feel that if it is happening, they want to make sure that the company isn't doing it. And we've seen this with some recent populist movements, like the current provincial government, et cetera. But we, and his brother who is mayor of Toronto, you might recall. But people have, like, if you tell somebody that this decision will cost you a billion dollars, right? Like, I mean, average Joes I'm talking about, like me, right? Like, okay, a billion dollars.

Well, what is a billion dollars? Like, that number is so big, the brain has trouble processing it. But you tell like an average Joe, you know, we can save you in this, whatever, let's say it's a driver's license registration thing. And we're gonna save you $32 every year. And it's like, wait a minute, like I can save $32 every year?

It's like now it's like, I can see, I know what $32 is. Okay, the billion dollar thing, like boom, gone. Like we talked about it one day and it was gone. But that $32 thing, like that's a buck a beer, okay?

Yeah, yeah. Buck a beer. That was gold for Doug Ford. It was $1.25 before it was a buck. Do you know that? Like of course you do. But people are like, oh, it's a buck a,

he brought back a buck a beer. It was like, what was it before when Cavalier went with, oh, it was $1.25 a buck. Do you know that? Like, of course you do. But do people like, oh, it's a buck a five. He brought back a buck a beer. It was like, what was it before when Cavaline went with, oh, it was $1.25 a beer. Like, that's a quarter beer if I drink six beers, you know. It's a buck 50. Like, that's what resonates with people.

It's so strange. The other thing that gets people crazy, and it's really hard to chase down as a journalist because things are changing all the time, is when you go in the supermarket and you look at the packages and you need to know what the package used to be, but they're keeping the package size the same. Sometimes they're even enlarging the package, but they're putting less into it. Right. More air. Yeah. Or just less

contents, but they're making sure that the package doesn't change. So they are secretly rejigging things to make you think that it's the same. Okay. Because I mentioned I worked at the grocery store for five years as a grocery clerk. Okay. So I knew like I'm going to make this stuff up now, but let's say Hostess had potato chips and I knew it was 160 grams or whatever. And then all of a sudden the new shipment they were 140 grams okay

the price did not change this is a key part of the story so it's still 99 cents a bag like you're used to but it's now 20 it's it's a downsizing with the price that that move happened and i used to point it out to my friend i remember rosie would often be impressed she'd be like i didn't even realize i was a victim of downsizing like Like there's all these like, oh, that cheese, it's still $3.99, but now it's, you're getting less cheese. Like it's everywhere. And consumers don't, for the most part, don't notice. They don't notice. And it's hard. You know, the manufacturers and the retailers have all the power on their side to, you know, like the retailers are supposed to put up unit prices, which allow you to compare, but the unit prices are very small. They're at the bottom of the shelf. You need to take out your glasses to read them. You've got to bend down really low.

And sometimes the stuff on the shelf doesn't match the unit price. And then I just did something recently in July about the scanning code of practice, which means that if the price is $10 on the shelf and they charge you $14, you have the ability to get your $10 back. So it's not just the difference between $10 and $14, which is $4, you're supposed to get the whole price up to $10. And then I heard from a lot of people who said, we know that it exists, but it's so much work because you go to the cash and they don't understand it.

They don't tell you what the consequences are. And the guy that I talked to was going at a self-checkout and he got the wrong price. And then he went around the store telling people, I deserve my full amount for this. Nobody in the store even had heard of it. And this was Walmart. You're right. You're right. What are your thoughts on the self checkouts? Aren't we doing, like, shouldn't we get a discount for that? Don't you think there should be like a self checkout discount because you just did our work for us? Like, what do you think as from a consumer standpoint? Whenever I put anything on social media, they're pretty much down the middle. The more vocal people say, you know,

they're just forcing us to do their work and, you know, why are we doing this and not getting anything in return? Right. But I know that shoppers, Drug Mart, for example, there's often big lineups, hardly any cashiers, and if I can check out more quickly using one of their machines, I'll do it.

But I don't mind because I'm only buying two or three things at a time. But when you have a giant grocery order, it's a lot of work. And there's a lot of people who are maybe due to some, maybe it's due to like anxiety or mental, but there's a lot of people who don't want to interact with another human being if they don't have to. Like I'm not saying they're just rude or whatever, but some people just have difficulty with that anxiety or whatnot.

And this, so they're loving this, right? Because you can go buy your milk and eggs or whatever and you never need to have the small talk and interaction with a human being but i i so i will use it like yourself if i'm in if i see it's open and i'm in a hurry and i got a few items i'll do it fine uh my mom uh i told my mom there's a scale there because there's a scale and it's like yes and she was adamant with me it was not a scale okay and i said it's i said no it's a scale like it and then she she actually asked one of the employees to prove how wrong her son was like like i can't believe my son thing and the guy the guy said it was a scale anyways i have my mom's listening uh i had that happened in bc we just did a trip to british columbia anyways it was i couldn't

believe she thought i was making up that this was a scale but okay neither here nor there except to say that from a consumer standpoint uh it's kind of it kind of sucks that there is no additional no incentive for using the uh self-checkout considering somebody there's not many of these jobs around these there seems to be one less i know usually they're minimum wage jobs but one less of those because we're all going to go this way and it's all we're going to do it for you and uh there should be some incentive to do that remember when self-serve gas stations came in that you you got a good discount for using those right now they're pretty well all gone though i did find once getting outside toronto you can still find some full the full

i was gonna say i can't think of one in the city that's true they're all gone here because in the 80s i still they were still around i remember you get the full service and the self-service but uh the 80s are a long time ago as i as i'm reminded all right so you're at the globe and mail anytime you have a story, by the way, like that story about the alcohol and everything, just interrupt me and tell it because I love that stuff. Yeah, we did one also about gold jewelry because markups on gold are really high.

And I think the price of gold had gone up quite a bit. So I took some gold jewelry around to various appraisers to see how much it might be worth if I was reselling it. And as anybody knows, you know, the retail price is always way higher than the resale price

if you already own it. But it was fun and I went to some of the pawn shops and CBC Marketplace does a lot of that now. Hidden Camera and all that kind of thing. Now, there's a lot of characters

who's by ad time that we know. I'm thinking of like Oliver, right? Russell Oliver. Like these guys. And I have read pieces where they do the test, like the same piece to multiple.

And I do remember taking note, a mental note, that Russell Oliver was pretty honest and straight up. Like I remember thinking, oh, he wasn't trying to like take advantage of the person like some of the other ones were.

But yeah um yeah that's always those stories are always always resonate with uh the readers that's for sure so you're at the globe and mail for 20 years report on business but then why do you leave tell me why you leave the globe and mail i really liked working at the Globe and Mail. I was becoming an editor. For a long time, I did a Q&A column called Portfolio, where people would write in with questions about taxes and investing, really obscure questions. Luckily, I wasn't the only one. I shared it with a couple of people. But it was a great way to learn because half of the stuff I didn't know about either, estate planning and what do you do with the bank after somebody dies. And I really enjoyed it, but I thought I was kind of in

management already. So why not take a management job and be the business editor at the start? They had actually put an ad in the paper and somebody said, well, there's the ad in the paper. And because I'd done a lot of personal finance writing, I thought, well, maybe I'll check it out. And I was lucky because they were looking for sort of a personality for their business section. Star Business Section has always been much smaller than the Globe or the Financial Post. So they thought, okay, let's try personal finance business section. So I did that for a couple of years. I liked management, but on the other hand, it was a different environment. It was much more unionized. There was a lot of office politics.

After two years, I thought, oh, let me out of here. I want to write my column again. So then I went back to writing a column. And the Star has a huge audience, very loyal, and it was really fun doing it. Well, I mean, the whole industry is suffering right now, but the circulation for the Star was always far and ahead, the biggest newspaper in the country. I don't know what it's dwindled to now. I know everyone's, it's like everyone's suffering,

so unfortunately, but we'll get to that. The Saturday Star used to have close to a million readers on a Saturday, and it was big. Remember, it had like 25 sections and loads of ad copy. Now it's kind of like almost like a normal- sized newspaper. And I think it's down to, I don't know, three or 400,000. I was, my home was a star home. So that was,

that Saturday star. Yeah, it was big. You could get all the flyers and stuff, but yeah, the star week was in there, right? Yes.

James Bodden and all this, you got to read all the, Eric Knudsen. Hope I said that last. Yeah, he did TV. Yeah. Like I loved,

you know, we didn't have, no internet, right? So it's like, where were you going to get the fun facts from? Like who was in this with that? And this guy's related to that guy. Also at the Star, because I was always writing about how I thought companies should operate, people would write to me pretty often, sometimes two or three times a week saying,

do you know how your own company operates? And they'd get really indignant. And they'd say, I tried to call them, but I was talking to somebody in India. They didn't always know they were in India, but they knew it wasn't probably an employee because a lot of that got downsized and outsourced. And then they'd say, I can't reach anybody. Can you help? So I always had the right people, you know, on my email list and I'd resolve it really quickly. And then I kept thinking, I can't really write about this, but I'd like to. Right. That's right. Like it's a conflict of interest, I suppose. It's like, you don't want to, you know, you don't want to bite the hand that feeds, I suppose. Yeah. You want to hear one of the biggest issues. People still get mad about it. Suppose you have a daily subscription and you go away for a holiday.

In the past, you would pause your subscription and they would give you a credit on your bill. The star decided that they would have a policy that there was no money back if you took a vacation stop that was under four weeks. No, under three weeks. Okay. Under three weeks. The globe hadn't done that yet. So people were hugely indignant.

And the Star said, well, we're not taking anything away from you because while you're away, you can go on the internet and read our digital lifelike version of the paper. But people would say, I don't have internet in the wilds of, you know, the country that I'm in and it's not the same and I don't want to read it on my holiday. And then sometimes people would do the vacation stop, not get any money back and then find the papers kept coming because it didn't work properly. So it went on and on and on. And that's a security risk too. Like you don't want people to see the papers pile up outside your house because it just tells everybody there's

nobody home. And the star would say, well, we need every penny we can get and we have to keep our editorial strong, so we're doing this. And then they brought out the tablet edition and they wanted that to be free. So they said, okay, we're going to get rid of the vacation stop policy. So that was great. That lasted a few years, but then the tablet edition didn't work. And what did they call it again?

Star? Star Touch. Star Touch, right. Yes. Okay. So me and my Android phone and my tablet that runs Windows and my laptop that I have, well, it doesn't matter what the laptop is. Essentially, that tablet locked me out.

Like it only, it wanted an iPad. Yes. That's all it worked on. Right. Or an iPhone or it had to be an iPad. No, it had to be an iPad. No, it had to be an iPad. It had to be an iPad, right. So it infuriated me.

It was basically like I didn't have an iPad and I was basically, anyways, and also the price tag. I mean, I was a digital guy, kind of helping, nothing on that scale or anything, don't get me wrong. But the price tag for that StarTouch

was mind-blowing how many millions of dollars that were sunk into that project. It came out of La Presse in Quebec, and La Presse had a kind of a digital bubble because they were French language, not much competition, and they said that it was aimed at young people who would stay on the device for about 40 minutes, and the whole idea was that you couldn't follow the links away,

so they trapped you there, and it was beautifully laid out. Yes. And it worked well for La Presse, but their goal, and which they've done now, is to get rid of all their paper editions. The Star never wanted to do that. And then the Star has so much more competition. And it just wasn't working out. But while the tablet was around, the Globe decided they would adopt

the vacation stop policy of no refund and they did it for four weeks so then the star came back and they've now lengthened it to four weeks yeah sooner it'll be gone altogether i guess that's the next that's the next move yeah okay so uh yeah and star touch uh when it was it was eventually canceled um i just it did look i mean i never had an ipad but from what i understand is it if if you had an iPad and you had a subscription to StarTouch, it did do a good job of like duplicating the experience of the newspaper, I suppose. Yes, it was laid out for the iPad. That's why they didn't want to do it on a phone because the screen was too small and you wouldn't get that experience. So people liked it a lot, but it kind of rewarded you

from going page to page to page to page. And you know, in the internet age now, we're just skipping around and we're moving around and you had to kind of follow it pretty carefully. Right. Also, nowadays, I can tell you, everything's aggregated by something like a Twitter or a Facebook.

So it's sort of like you're coming, you know. Most of the, I know it's terrible, but a lot of the news I read these days are because somebody I trust suggested I read this on Twitter. And I come through Twitter for like a great deal. I do too, and Facebook. And then the star gave us all iPads and I already had one. So I gave it to my son who was in his 20 his twenties. And I said, now you can read star touch. And he said, why would I want to go

to a newspaper website? He said, I get all my news from my friends and he's a journalist, right? Right. But it's all social now. And you read stories that everyone else is reading and talking about. Totally. And also another, now this, I was big on this when it first arrived as a syndication mechanism. It's called RSS. And I still, in fact, Google had an RSS reader called Google Reader. And that was basically a huge gateway for me. I followed all my different things I was interested in via RSS.

Anyway, I now use a new one that's actually pretty good called Feedly, if anybody's looking for a good RSS anyway I now use a new one that's actually pretty good called feedly if anybody's looking for a good RSS reader but sometimes I talk to people like I mean I have teenagers and I talked and I talked to younger people and I talk about RSS and it's like they're like we don't use RSS but I still think it's if you can get a feed for your what you're trying to follow still nothing beats it I have no idea why it never seemed to reach the appeal, but this is neither here nor there except to say, I still check my RSS feeds every single morning. So there you go.

There's a tip for somebody out there. So you're at the Toronto Star. Yes. And do you want to share some stories from this? Because you had a previous experience at the Star, but again, it was very short. Yeah. And then you did 20 years at the Globe.

And you basically left the Globe, it sounds like, because you applied for a job you wanted at the Star. But it sounds like you were business editor. I don't mean to put words. You tell me. And then you decided you would be happier being a columnist. Yes. I was writing three times a week and doing a lot of the consumer issues. Like at one point I was writing about the fact that if you go to Collingwood, for example,

other parts of Ontario and other parts of the world, and somebody lures you into a presentation or they give you a free weekend and then they give you free food and everything else, and all you have to go to is a short sales presentation of a half an hour, but of course it lasts for like five hours because they won't let you out of the room until you sign this document, and you end up with a timeshare agreement. And it just seemed wrong because it is real estate.

It's not exactly clear if you're getting a deed or not, but it's some kind of real estate thing. You should have the ability to consult a lawyer and then have a few days to change your mind without a penalty. So we eventually got it. So that was exciting. And then just before I left, I started writing about timeshares again, because they're still as predatory as ever. And nobody ever tells anybody about this uh cooling off period i think it's seven days because i thought everything had a 10 day isn't there a blanket 10 days for every product and service unless this doesn't fall under product and service maybe but i thought uh there was everything because i uh no matter what you buy you have 10 days to change your mind

no only if it started originally for door-to-door sales, the vacuum cleaner guy, because they have you captive at home. You couldn't even search your internet because there was no such thing in those days. So you would sign a thing and then you'd have buyer's remorse. So it was originally two days and they eventually extended it to 10 days. So it was only for door-to-door sales, but then they started realizing that other things were also important. So fitness clubs, remember how so many people got signed up for a year where they thought they were only getting, you know, month to month. So that had a cooling off period and the timeshares did as well. But if you don't know about it, and if the company isn't telling you that you have this ability to change your mind.

Right. I had one involving one of the big fitness chains where somebody bought a personal training. And I think she must have come into a windfall. And she bought like a year's worth of personal training two or three days a week. It was like $12,000. Wow. And she signed the deal. She wasn't quite sure what the cooling off period was.

And she had all intentions of using it. But then when she got into it, she didn't like the trainer. She started thinking twice about it. And she asked them, how long do I have to change my mind? And they said, you can't do anything in the first 10 days, but then after you can do it. So total lie. So she waited. And then of course they said, no, no, no, you can't change your mind. You're stuck for all these personal training sessions. And they believe the people in the club, I think two people told her, the trainer and the club manager, wait until your 10 days are over and then do it. And she never got that refund. So, you know, way back when I've written seven books, the first one was called Consumer Beware. And I

did it when I was still at the Financial Post because I was so into the consumer movement. But I didn't want to call it Consumer Beware. I wanted to call it Consumer Prepare. And I'm still thinking that's a good title because people I find are very, very trusting. If they tell you this is the case, they must be telling the truth. They're nice people. It's a big company. You know, they know what they're doing. I don't really understand it. They don't read. They, they're worried that if they read it, they don't understand it, but they can ask more questions. They could ask people they know to read the contract. And that's how so many people get fooled because they just believe what they're told. It's, you know, predatory, but there's, that's, yeah, those are the things I

think, I'm thinking timeshares and like fitness clubs. Like I'm thinking of all the like the infamous things people get the buyer's remorse on. Like I've never had like when it comes to the timeshare situation. I mean, I know about it from like I think I know about it from like TV shows and, just from like absorbing it through the zeitgeist or something. Like I've never actually personally, but I hear about this, like here's a free, this free weekend here.

You just have to attend these training sessions and they all come home with like the timeshare. And I actually will be honest with you. I don't really understand what a timeshare is. Like I hear about it and people have buyer's remorse on it all the time. And can you explain what is timeshare? It's the idea that you have a prepaid vacation for your whole life. So originally it would be that you would own two weeks of this room in a resort and you could go there on the same two weeks every year. And if you decided you were bored with that, you could exchange it for other resorts owned by the same company. Okay. So this is exciting. But when you buy it, say in your 30s,

and then you start having kids and maybe your kids don't want to go and maybe it gets harder to go. And then especially as you get older, you're not that well, you don't want to go anymore, you can't travel. There's no way out. You're stuck with it. And they write these contracts in such an ironclad way. I met with some people who own a place up near Barrie where even dying doesn't get you out of it. It's in your estate and your kids have to take it over. Oh my God.

So there was absolutely no way out. And then after the timeshares became popular, a whole bunch of companies started saying, we are timeshare resellers. We can resell it for you. You give us, you know, the ability to do it, pay us upfront. Yeah. Many of them couldn't do it because they can't get out of these ironclad contracts. So the poor timeshare people were victimized twice and it's just a mess. And now they're talking about trying to at least regulate the resellers because they're really difficult.

So tell your loved ones, just say no. And with good advice, because you're right, it's easy to say I'm just going to take advantage of them and take this free weekend or whatever, but I won't sign anything. I promise. But you're right, there's something about the cult almost, like the charismatic leader calming you maybe. And then you do things you

would never normally do right like i asked people to write to me and i did find a few who really felt that they bought the right time shares in the right place and there was a lot of demand and they could sell them and some of them had sold them okay but in general no just say no yeah just say no and don't go to the scene of temptation. Never let yourself be bribed into going to this resort for the weekend. Because you can be seduced, you know. You know, it's true. And I think we talked earlier about how Bianca had some swagger,

but she still apologized for winning when the crowd wanted Serena to win. Because there is a lot of Canadians feel they need to be nice to someone to a point where sometimes if this, you know, well-dressed nice man who's giving us this free weekend wants us to sign here, well, maybe we should do that. Like, you know what I mean? Yeah. Sometimes we're too nice and that you get taken advantage of.

Salespeople lie. They don't only exaggerate. They lie or they omit things. And we kind of believe that we're dealing with people who are of goodwill like we are and they wouldn't lie to us, but they'll lie to us all the time. So, you know, if somebody's livelihood depends on selling you something, you shouldn't assume that they're going to tell you the time. So, you know, if somebody's livelihood depends on selling you something, you shouldn't assume that they're going to tell you the truth. Right, right. Salesman Cheats and Liars is a great song by the lowest of the low.

And lately, it's all about online commerce. The one thing that I wrote many times about, and it seems to target people from 30 up to about 80, is something that will improve your skin or your health, vitamins, cosmetics, creams, lotions, teeth whitening. And often it is a pop-up on a Facebook page or, I don't know how they do this, but they seem to populate themselves. When you were at Costco, Costco Pharmacy online, you'd see this little pop-up that says, can you help us do a quick little survey? It'll only take five minutes. And if you do that, we'll give you an exclusive reward. People told me, I saw it on Rogers a few times when I was there and even on the big bank sites. But these are like malign, uh, companies that are, um, you do the survey and then they say,

here's your reward. It's this fancy skin cream that Oprah endorsed or Dr. Phil or Dr. Oz. And, um, you're going to get to try it out. And so they send it to you and you don't realize it's a 14 day trial. These companies are all outside Canada. So by the time it gets to you in the mail, it's probably 10 days in and you have to try it and get it back to them before the 14 day trial is up. And then if you don't do that, which most people don't, they put you on this automatic monthly subscription, often two monthly subscriptions for two different kinds of creams, $200 per month. Oh my God. And every time you get it and you send it back, you get more and it's just a nightmare. So people cancel their cards.

And then the credit card companies started saying, well, you should have looked for the terms and conditions. They weren't even there. You'd have to, you know, really be attentive. And then they started saying, do you know Marilyn Dennis is leaving her popular show? I've heard of this. Yes.

She is so excited because she's making more money with her exclusive skin creams. And so everybody thought, I'm getting Marilyn Dennis's skin creams. And then Marilyn Dennis put out some, you know, warnings on Twitter and on her website and everything else. But it all preys on your emotions and your impulses. And they lie, because of course,

Marilyn has nothing to do with that product. Yes, and then it was Wendy Mesley, and then they got a whole bunch of other... And they couldn't figure of course, Maryland has nothing to do with that product. And then it was Wendy Mesley. And then they got a whole bunch of other. And they couldn't figure out who was doing it. That's how scammy it was. They couldn't even figure out who was behind this. And there were more companies than we knew. There were many, many of them.

And they all made it so difficult for you. You eventually got out, but it took you three or four months. And that would be at least $400 in their pocket. And sometimes they'd give you a little bit of a refund, but they'd never refund the whole thing. And I really got upset with the credit card companies because they should have been protecting these people against what was obviously a fraud. And now they seem to have cracked down more because it's not as prevalent as it was. So they are giving refunds. And is it safe to say it's usually the more naive people who might be falling

for these online scams are the older population? Because I feel like you didn't grow up with the internet, you know? Yes. You're not as savvy when it comes to these things.

Yeah. There were definitely some older people, some as old as like 85 who still wanted lovely skin. I hate that. This reminds me of the phone calls you get. Yes. And they're like, oh, we're going to arrest you.

We're the CRA. We're going to arrest you unless you send us 10 iTunes gift cards. Right? But some of the people I met were pretty darn savvy, but they just kind of gave in to temptation. And I heard from a man who said his wife went to uh one of the malls and there was a skin cream company in there where they're always hanging out in the hallway and trying to lure you in right and this woman got lured in and she ended up with like three thousand dollars worth of cosmetics wow and he tried to say you know maybe she's i think maybe she's getting a little

bit of dementia they They didn't care. They said she signed. She signed and her credit card company agreed. And she didn't change her mind. I hate hearing these stories, but I'm glad that you're here to like educate us. Is there any other top of mind things like that? We'll call them like maybe scammy-ish things that you can share. Like those are a bunch.

I mean, you know, there's the timeshare and there's the fitness. And then there's, of course, these facial creams or vitamins. Like, these are popular areas where a fool and their money will soon be parted, if you will. Anything else top of mind?

Well, there was probably one topic that I wrote about more times than I care to imagine. And that is the telecom firms, the big three, and particularly the cell phone and the bundled plans and all that stuff that they sell. They are good at packaging and repackaging. And for the longest time,

if you didn't call them every six months and try to negotiate, you would be paying too much. So a lot of the adult kids of the older parents were saying, you know, my parents only have a landline and they're paying $99 a month. Because they never figured out, you know, that you have to try and ask for a lower price. They think a sticker price is what it is. And I need this. And this is what it is. Yes.

So that was really annoying. So people got on to the habit of doing that, but then they found that the companies were making much harder for you to get those negotiated prices unless you left or threatened to leave and you had to do that really carefully. You couldn't just call up and say-

And even threatening to leave doesn't always work, but yeah. Yeah, exactly. And then with the contracts, remember you had to have a three-year contract for your cell phone. And you couldn't leave. But meanwhile, they could raise the rate. So they're bound by nothing because they're raising the rate.

And they said, well, we consider that the price is only an incidental part of the agreement. It's not a material part of the agreement. So the CRTC said, okay, this is wrong. part of the agreement. So the CRTC said, okay, this is wrong. Now we're going to say that if they raise the price during your contract, which they lowered to two years, and we only have two year contracts now for cell phones, that if they raise the price, you have the right to break the contract yourself and go elsewhere. So that's great. But it only exists for cell phones, not for internet, not for cable TV, all those other things. And so now they're offering much more fluid contracts. But when you come off your fixed price contract, you think,

okay, I've got the fixed price contract, but now they're offering what they call a guaranteed savings. So the regular price can go up as much as it wants to, but you're just getting a guaranteed saving of say $40 off the regular price. So some people signed up for these bundled plans with internet and then the internet rose like 10% within two months. And they said, yeah, because this is the guaranteed savings. So you're still going to get your guaranteed $40 off. These cable companies really boil my potatoes here.

Okay. And I hate, and I've lived this, I can speak firsthand. I hate how the only way, the only true way to make sure you're not getting screwed over by the telecoms is to switch every two years or whatever, right? Because I was with Rogers for internet and TV. And now I'm with Bell 5 because Rogers wouldn't match Bell 5. You get the two-year sweetheart deal and then you got to go in and bug them again. And I'm anticipating fully

that when this two years is up, I'm going to have to go back to Rogers to get the fair deal. And it's awful. And here's real quick on the telecom is I went, I was with Rogers for a while and Bell 5 offered me a much better deal.

And I went to Rogers and said, look, I'm switching to Bell 5, but you have an opportunity right now in this phone call to, to match it and then save us all a lot of aggravation. Anyway, it went, get escalated to the,

whatever that department is that can, has the more power to keep you retention, I guess, you know, or loyalty, right? Loyalty. That's right.

Anyway, long story short is they couldn't match it. So I canceled, went to Bell 5. I got a phone call maybe a month later from, I guess they send the list, they outsource the list of people who left them to some other. Yeah, I get the call, okay. We'd love to have you back. We see you've left us, but I can offer you.

And they gave me an offer. I would have accepted on that call I made to Rogers before I canceled. And I, and then it turned out I could actually save money by going back to the Rogers. And I actually said to the Rogers person, you know, I don't probably doesn't even work for Roger, but whoever was given that list to try to get them back. I said something to the effect of like, I'll take a hit on this on principle. Like I phoned you, I phoned up Rogers and said, can you match it so I don't have to go to Bell? Rogers said, we can't match it.

And then one month, I was pissed off that I had this better deal a month later because I left them. Anyway, it's horrible because of how dependent. Now, TV, fine. Although my teenage son has to watch the live sports. I mean, I like a lot of live sports too. So I'm not interested in cutting the cord like a lot of people are, but the internet is essential. Like I work, I need good internet all the time for a variety of reasons, not just getting this podcast out to the people in the Periscope, but I need internet all the time. And, and,

and to get the good deals, you're right. They're all bundled in. For example, I'm paying right now for a home phone line with no phone attached to it because I have no need for a home phone. And if I say I don't want the home phone, the price goes up. Okay. The package, it includes the home phone. And if I say no home phone, my invoice, my bill is larger. So thank you for the opportunity to vent and rant about what I think is a pretty terrible telecom situation in this otherwise wonderful country. Yeah. And often when you switch, things go wrong. You know, like I took

my phone from one carrier to the other and I kind of assumed that they knew that I wanted to keep my cell phone number. We all do. And they gave me a new phone number. Right. And so then I had to kind of, you know, work with them all to get my old phone number back. Yeah. And they have now modems and things. And the problem is with modems that they send you a box to return it. You send it in the mail. They give you the postage and everything else. But you don't know if it arrives or not.

And I've heard from a lot of people that only when they're renegotiating a mortgage or a loan, that there's something on the credit bureau from Bell or Rogers that they didn't return it. But they don't tell them. It just ends up on your credit bureau from Bella Rogers that they didn't return it, but they don't tell them. It just ends up on your credit report. it's awful. I won't even do it when I have to return the modem to my former, whatever. I go to the,

one of the bricks and mortars shops. I'm going into the Rogers store and say, here you go. Are we good? Peace out. Anyway, you're, uh,

the big question I have for you, Ellen is why are you no longer writing in the Toronto Star? This is the big news I saw earlier this summer. I need to know. What happened that was so long? So from 1999, when did you, you were, okay, tell me how it ended for you at the Toronto Star. I need to know. Well, the Toronto Star has been offering buyouts, retirement packages to employees for a while because big newsroom, hard to cover the costs.

And so probably for 10 or 12 years now, there's been a wave of retirement buyouts. I was getting to the age where I could take one of these, but I waited, waited. And then finally one was too good to be true. The Star had just sold Harlequin and they had extra money and they were offering us a signing bonus, which was pretty attractive. So took the retirement package and left full-time employment in December, 2015. And then the star said, would you like to keep writing for us once a week? So I said, sure. So then I was a freelancer. So I got three and a half years of freelancing. And then the star said, would you like to keep writing for us once a week? So I said, sure. So then I was a freelancer. So I got three and a half years of freelancing.

And then in July, somebody, one of my editors called and said, we're cutting costs again. And, you know, we're getting rid of some freelancers and you're one of them. So I couldn't really complain. 20 years in the star, I got a buyout. I'm already on a star pension and I was getting star freelance. So, you know, and I can still buyout. I'm already on a star pension and I was getting star freelance. So, you know, and I can still keep writing. The funny thing is that the readers now they're writing to me with my star address, which was in the paper forever and ever. And they're saying, you're not there

anymore. And I say, I'm not writing for the star anymore. But you still get those emails? Yes. I'm surprised the star didn't. Okay. No, there's no, there's no bounce or anything, but through my website, they can reach me or they reach me on Facebook or social media, Twitter, Instagram. Okay, but if they do write your old Toronto Star email, you don't get that. I don't get it, no.

But those who find me, and I tell them I'm not writing for the star anymore, they say, but we really need you to help us. And they kind of don't assume. Well, they need you now more than ever. They don't assume that I'm doing it because I'm writing for the star, that I'm just doing it out of my goodwill.

Sometimes it's easy, but sometimes not so easy. But a lot of it is just forwarding emails. And when you forward emails from the star or from me, because all these companies know me now, they'll take them seriously. And the reason they do it isn't because of the publicity, because I didn't write about a lot of the stuff that I helped resolve. But the fact that I'm telling them a customer is so disgruntled that they're about to leave and tell all their friends.

And if they get back to that customer and say, oh, we'd like to help, then that customer stays. So they've actually salvaged a customer with our help. stays. So they've actually salvaged a customer with our help. Right. What's working now as a consumer, I can tell you what works better than everything is Twitter. Okay. You tag them with your complaint and you get almost right away. Can you DM us and tell us how we can help you or whatever? And I've had multiple like situations, even the airline I took to Vancouver recently. I, it's, yeah,

they don't like the public displays of complaints. It's like, you need to like make a little noise on the social media. Airlines were first actually, because of Dave Carroll, United Breaks Guitars and his YouTube song. So they're still pretty good. But for the longest time,

Bell Canada wasn't on Twitter and didn't respond to Twitter complaints. Rogers was're still pretty good. But for the longest time, Bell Canada wasn't on Twitter and didn't respond to Twitter complaints. Rogers was way ahead. And Air Canada is still not, you know, even if they DM you, they take forever to review a complaint and they have no escalation process. There's usually once they make a decision, they're saying that's the end of the decision. I don't think that your readers were aware that you were freelancing like i think they don't see what they don't see the difference right it's like uh you know if you're a toronto star reader and there's a thing in there by from damien cox well there's been a thing there from damien cox since like the late 80s or whatever like you don't have any oh well damien's doing some freelance writing for his old paper that he no longer works for

whatever so late 2015 you're no longer a, whatever that's called, permanent full-time employee at Toronto's tour star there. But you got, it sounds like you did well for yourself and got yourself a nice fair package and you're happy with that. And then you did the freelance, which that,

that ended. So when did that end? That ended in like June? End of July. End of July. So that's too bad because it means you're not in the star anymore, but you're still doing stuff, right? Like, tell me about the Money Save podcast. Yeah. Money Saver. It's a Canadian magazine. And we're like you, we got the little maple leaf in

our logo. So Canadian Money Saver is one of the rare magazines that actually makes money and hardly has any ads. It makes money from subscribers. Cool. And it is, you know, a personal finance magazine with a lot of expert articles. And the editor of that magazine is a woman who lives in Kitchener-Waterloo. And I knew her a little bit. And we went to a conference when we heard someone talking about podcasting. And she was in the personal finance field and we, we said hello after, and then we both kind of looked at each other and said, wouldn't it be nice to have our own podcast? And we just kind of came together with it.

Not like you, uh, once a week, I think we're doing it like once a month or every, uh, twice a month. So we're up to maybe about episode 25. But it's really fun and we're interviewing a lot of people in the personal finance field and trying to simplify money for the average person. So we've got pretty good reviews. When someone's listening to this episode right now

and they hear, Ellen sounds great on the microphone and she has interesting things to say. So tell them if they want to hear the Money Saver podcast, they just search for Money Saver podcast or do you want to go somewhere specific? We have, yeah, it's just called the Money Saver podcast. You can put in my name and Lana is the other one. She's got a longer name. So just my name's probably good enough. We also have our own Twitter handle. It's just Money Saver P

at Money Saver P. And we have a page with all our episodes and we intend to keep it going as long as possible. We've been writing a lot about how to invest without spending too much money or how to save for university and there's a lot of different things. Stop going to Starbucks.

Is that in there somewhere? That drives me nuts. Like I got a French press upstairs. I can't tell you how many coffees I get out of a, they go on sale sometimes for $7.99 at Shoppers. I can go so, and I have a coffee, a big coffee, a big tumbler thing I make every morning. I love it. But I can go so far.

Great tasting coffee too. Tastes great, hot, fresh, it's great. And the French press, $7.99 gets me so far. That's like a day now for a lot of people like at starbucks that's like one day seven dollars and 99 cents i that's to me come on come on that's a lot of money that people are spending on starbucks there's a guy called the latte factor and it was like you know and and i get tired of all those coffee things but we all have our own personal latte factor which is something that we love to spend money on. For me, I love buying new books. It's like, yeah, right. I download now. So

I save a whole lot of money on the hardcover, but still, uh, you know, there's something that we like to do. And, and for many of us to it, stay away from places where, you know, you're going to be tempted. So if I go to the Kindle app, I see all these books. And on Facebook, I have a lot of British crime recommendations because I love mysteries. Okay. Well, anyway, everyone's got something, but I think something like you drink, at least that makes more sense to me than the,

I'm going to spend four or five or six dollars on the beverage that I will consume, you know know two or three times a day like maybe i'm being ridiculous here but okay now uh you mentioned uh kindle and and the e-readers because all these things right so uh it's funny because he's in the news right now for not such a great reason but uh i found like a kobo in conversation with Kevin O'Leary that you did. So when did you do that? Because I was checking that out the other day. So how did that come to be?

Kobo is owned by this Japanese company called Rakuten. Have you seen all the ads now? Cause we all, I certainly called it Rakuten and now it's called, they're telling you how to pronounce it. So it's Rakuten. It's like rocket man, Rakuten. Okay. So they have a really nice office in Liberty Village.

And they were looking for, to bring Kevin O'Leary to talk to their staff because he had a new book coming out about money and the family. And because I was a Toronto Star writer, wrote a lot about personal finance, they asked me to go and interview him. Right, makes sense. And he was still at Dragon's Den, which was a CBC show.

Okay, so we're going back a bit. He was also at Shark Tank. So he was doing both. He's since given up the Canadian one. And I got to meet him in the green room before we went on stage. And in the green room, you could see that he is in person quite different. This is a persona before we went on stage. And in the green room, you could see that

he is in person quite different. This is a persona that he plays on TV. Mr. Wonderful would be the persona. Mr. Ego, Mr. I'm great. And in person, he's much softer spoken, but he's also incredibly ambitious. He was telling me about how he wanted to do Dragon's Den books and they weren't allowing him, but he was going to be the first guy to market all the books everywhere. And then on stage, we had some people who were asking questions. These were all Kobo employees, and they filmed it,

but only a bit of it's on. I think maybe six minutes is on. Yeah, yeah, it was only about six or seven minutes. Somebody asked him about their mother. They said that their mother had contracted dementia and she was now in a home. And the daughter said she was drawing down her retirement savings

in order to help her mother stay in this home. And Kevin immediately turned into his dragon persona and he said, do not do this. This is your retirement. You have to stay true to yourself and pay for your retirement. Stop supporting your mother. She's old, you're young, put that money in, you know, your retirement fund and, and don't be so kind. And we all looked at this. Wow. Like there's no compassion there, but okay. Yeah. And way back at the beginning of Dragon's Den, I love the show and i went on cbc i wanted to publicize it before it was even a thing and um so i wrote a couple of pieces and

there was a woman who had this idea of setting up nap rooms inside company offices so that people could have a nap and get you know that little bit of sleepiness out of their system and then work harder right and she came on the show with a teddy bear and she talked about napping and kevin thought this was just an abomination and he kind of threw something at the teddy bear and then stomped on it and she started crying i think on air and she was still so upset she wrote to me all about how mean he was to her oh wow yeah well that's the thing when you have a persona like this is why i'm trying to mic them myself i can't handle these wearing these masks or whatever but when you have the persona and you go into character it's like it's like wrestling right professional wrestling like it's uh sometimes it can make

people cry because you'll stomp on teddy bears even when that's not really you it's like oh no this is my character who stomps on the teddy bears but uh yeah, Kevin O'Leary, I caught that. And then I was looking... You do your research. I do a little bit here. And what I was fascinated by was the number of like non-profit organizations you work with. Like, do you want to tout some of the non-profit work you do? Sure.

As a journalist, you're always working on your own pretty well. You know, like you do your own thing and you have a boss, but on the non-profits, if you're on the board, you get to really be feeling part of a team and learning how an organization works. So it started with credit counseling, which is now called Credit Canada, and I was on there for 12 years

and I was the chair of the board for a while and then I did family service. And the interesting thing at the start was that in our building, we had the Star News Credit Union. And they put a sign up once that they were looking for a board member. And so I applied.

And then all of a sudden, here I am on the board of a bank, right? A trust company bank. Right. You know, it's provincially regulated. But there were some really interesting learning there bank, you know, it's provincially regulated, but there were some really interesting learning there about, you know, how banks work and how you have to match the mortgages and the loans with the deposits. And while I was there, it changed its name because

it took over several other credit unions. And then we had a whole naming thing. And the first time we did it, the name was okay, but we weren't sure. And then after paying a whole lot of money to this firm, we decided it just didn't work. We started all over again. And now they're called Luminous. And it's Luminous Financial. And it's like light and bright. And instead of OUS, it's just US. And it's actually a pretty progressive credit union. I'm not involved anymore, but I love seeing their promotion and they're they're they're making a name for themselves in the credit union world and these days I've done some work with the Toronto Public Library I love them I give even though you only buy new books for Ellen but that's okay Toronto Library is amazing

because it's got 100 branches a lot of it is not books anymore. It's computers and help searching. Tools. This is the thing. If you really dig into what you can get with your library card, it's like, you know, I joked about books. It's so much more than books. It's amazing. And you don't even need to go into the branch anymore because you can get your e-books and your magazines and videos and all that kind of stuff online. But they're an amazing place for people to hang out to. And there's great services there. But the one I'm involved with now is called FAIR, which stands for Foundation for Advancement of Investor Rights. Investor rights is all of us because we all have pension plans. And we all own stocks indirectly through

our pension plans or through our mutual funds, which are in our RRSP. And in general, the industry is really good at kind of swamping the regulators with their views and nobody's sticking up for the individual investor or the average person. So that's what we do. And it's been tough because there's hardly any money to sustain a group like this. So we're always looking for money and not easy.

Always. Yeah. Yeah. Now you mentioned all the books you wrote. You're still actively writing books or are you taking a break? I think I've done my last book. No more books. Come on.

Maybe a memoir at some point because it would be fun searching through all that old stuff. But yeah, I did seven consumer books starting with Consumer Beware. memoir at some point because uh it would be fun searching through all that old stuff but um yeah i did seven consumer books starting with consumer beware and then i kind of followed as i went along i did one with phil edmonston the lemonade guy about consumers uh what was it called um it was like a fight back kind of book and at the end i think on the back cover, it said, raise hell. So we were really militant. And this was in 77. And then I did one about baby goods and services, because I was writing a lot in the paper about it.

When I was at the Globe, somebody wrote in a letter to the editor, which they published saying this sports writer was her favorite, aside from Ellen Roseman's My Life with Charles, who was my first son. And after an editor came to me and she said, I think we've heard enough about Charles. Maybe we can take a long vacation. But I, you know, I was writing about that. And then I did one about a guide to money and the family, you know, looking at bringing up the kids and the older parents and all that kind of stuff. And then when I got to the star, I started Money 101, which was a series of columns. So that became a book. And then I went on to money 201. That book

did nothing compared to money 101 because people thought, oh, it's more advanced. I'm stuck at the money 101. I don't want anything more advanced. And it wasn't really, it was just more topics. Oh, that's funny. Yeah. And then I did money 301. Each of them lasted two years and they were always in the Sunday paper, short articles and then Money 401. And then my husband said, how about Money 911? So that was the last one. So that took me 10 years and it was really fun. No, cool. And so how long ago was the last book? Like how long ago? That one is called Fight Back, 81 Ways to Help You Save Money and Protect Yourself from Corporate Trickery.

It's a long title. Yes. Usually it was just Fight Back. That came out in 2013. Gotcha. Okay, not too long ago. Gotcha. You know who I miss?

I enjoyed watching Silverman Helps on City TV. Yeah, he's great. Peter Silverman on City. Silverman Helps on City TV. Peter Silverman on City. He got cut in one of those

Rogers chopping things and I think he sued and got some money. Good for him because yeah, a lot of good people got chopped from some of the Rogers.

That's a regular occurrence but I think he's living, I want to say Coburg. Yes, somewhere outside the city. And hello to Beats who's listening right now from Coburg.

So I know of at least one listener in Coburg. But yeah, so Silverman, he's, yeah, I think I would do a phone episode

with Silverman just to get his stories. He's still around. Yeah, he had one where he was going, figuring out how the eyeglass business works

and some optician hated him so much he threw him out of the store, bought him. Oh yeah, that's where he goes, oh, watch of the store. That's where he goes. Oh,

watch it, buddy. That's a infamous story. In fact, here's a teaser for listeners. somebody, the guy who throws him out, that guy is somebody related to that guy is coming on the show.

Okay. I don't know if that, does that translate? Yeah. So the watch it, buddy guy is related to somebody who's a future guest on Toronto. Mike, that's all I'm going to say.

Just going to leave that out there right there. Ellen, can you believe that was over an hour and a half? It felt like a 15 minute chat. I still had another story. Oh, you know what? I'd rather hear it.

Bring it down. I never do that, but I would rather get the story. Let's hear it. In fact, if you have any stories that you want to share before I play us out, I have a little more time. Don't worry. Let's hear it. If you have any stories that you want to share before I play us out, I have a little more time. Don't worry. Let's hear them. Okay. Well, this was actually about the fact that consumer reporting is still around because we have CBC Go Public with Erica Johnson,

where they put a lot of emphasis on the fact that if you go into a bank and you're doing your business at the bank, somebody will take you aside and start putting pressure on you to do something else. And they got hidden camera information. They got employee information. Employees said quite strongly that they felt they couldn't get promoted or even keep their jobs if they weren't doing this sales pressure, upselling, they call it. The day that they came out with the first story, which was about TD Bank, the stock price dropped 10% as a result of the journalism, which was great. And they've kept up the pressure there. And then a guy I like is Sean O'Shea at Global. He calls himself SOS.

Yeah, I know. And he does a lot of that running around after the bad guys. And there's a place in Forest Hill called Track Fitness, which is where all the trendy Forest Hill people went. And then all of a sudden one day it's closed down, big signs on the door, we're out of business. Sean finds out that he's opened a place on Eglinton, but everyone who'd paid, you know, at the one in Forest Hill was out of their money. And he finds him, the owner, the one in Forest Hill was out of their money.

And he finds him, uh, the owner going to that place and, the owner won't talk to him, but Sean continues to ask questions again and again and again. So the global gives him a lot of time to be rebuffed. And, uh, that's the kind of story we want to see.

Cause it's just unfair. Yeah. Somebody has got to stand up for the little guy because, so these companies are, yeah, they're just, oh, like I was going to gonna ask you in fact

since we've brought us back here back back from the dead here uh like who are the good companies to deal with like from a customer service standpoint like i will say that i whenever i have an issue and i use a lot of uh i would guess a premium or paid google services like for what i do at toronto mic digital services and stuff. And every time I need to jump on the phone and ask questions and get help from a Google person, they're like unbelievably amazing. Like it's so there's just,

there's so, there's so clear and concise and helpful and they, and they answer right away. And it's like, it's the most amazing company to deal with in terms of a customer service. I'm always like fascinated how, how pleasurable they make customer service. So who are the companies? Well, Apple.

You can go to their store at any point and get your problem usually solved at the store. But usually they can make an appointment. Like I went in with my problem and they said, okay, I'll see you in 13 days. If you go to the center, you can wander around a little. No, the appointments. All right. Yeah. And I remember I was calling them once and the the sound quality was really bad, and I hung

up, and then I called again. Meanwhile, the person I'd hung up on kept calling me back. They were so anxious to talk to me, so I was juggling both Apple people in my ear. So Apple and Google figured it out. Maybe that's why they're successful. Amazon really will give the customer the benefit of the doubt if something is wrong, if you have to return something. And when I went to them once, there was a guy who had a Kindle,

he was going into palliative care and his Kindle wasn't working and he couldn't load up the books and he figured he'd have a lot of time to read. So they gave him a brand new Kindle and loaded up with about a hundred books. And then the interesting thing was after a few months in palliative care, he didn't die. And so I told them about it and he eventually did. But, you know. I don't think you're allowed to go in palliative care he didn't die oh and so i told them about it and uh he eventually did but um you know i don't think you're allowed to go in palliative care unless you plan to die like that should be a rule yeah and costco get very few complaints about them uh that's i will give them a shout out because uh i bought a uh like a bike trailer from costco online okay i had it for a couple years for the two little ones and then i was on a like a bike

ride queenston heights you know where the isaac yeah brocco the the wheel which was crappy plastic wheel it exploded so this wheel explodes okay uh was really shoddy like anyways i so i i walk into the costco of the thing again i've had this thing for years bought it at costco online no question asked they didn't give me a hard time but the fact that i I've had this thing for years, bought it at Costco online. No question asked, they didn't give me a hard time by the fact that I've been using this thing for two plus years or something. Full refund and no hassles at all like that.

To me, I would spend, even if it's, I would buy things there just because of how easy it is to return things. And Bluetooth, my teenagers break these Bluetooth headphones. They fall asleep and they sleep on these things and the fact that you can walk in with a busted bluetooth

headphone and walk out with a full refund is kind of amazing so yeah and best buy is good for that too um but uh i asked my readers once about you know who do they really love and seems a bunch of companies that make kitchen faucets and bathroom faucets. Moen is one, I don't even know all the names, but they are so good at giving you back your money. You don't need to send a receipt. You don't need to send anything. You just say, I have it and they'll send you a new one. Good, good to hear. But are you allowed to tell us some of the bad companies to deal with? I don't know what the rules are, but like you do that? Are there any companies we should avoid? Well, the interesting thing is that a lot of the companies

are excellent at dealing with me and my readers, but if people aren't coming to me, they're not getting such great service. So Bell is fabulous. I had a guy who was calling me and getting back to me at all hours of the day and night who was like my personal media contact, but people do have

trouble dealing with bell they just do um yeah you're not a regular person ellen because you're writing about this experience in the toronto star so you might get a preferential treatment it's like when a food reviewer goes into a restaurant like it's not quite gonna get the same thing as as i would get home depot, find a shop in their stores, but if you get them to install things in your house, like a new kitchen or blinds or windows, a lot of these work okay,

but they're dealing with other people who are not Home Depot. And I had some people whose problems would go on and on and on and they just couldn't get them resolved. I mean, home renovations in general are difficult. But so there's that. There's Enercare, on and they just couldn't get them resolved. I mean, home renovations in general are difficult. Yeah.

But so there's that. There's Enercare, which used to be Direct Energy, which was originally spun off from Consumers Gas and Bridge. There's another scam, right? I think they fixed, they closed this loop. But this is the people who would come to your door and tell you, get a new water heater. And you think, you do think you're dealing with whatever they're called at the time, Enercare. What were they called before that again?

Direct Energy. Direct Energy. But before that too, weren't they, okay, well, you think you're dealing with the company that gives you your natural gas or something.

Enbridge. Enbridge. People think that Enbridge and Direct Energy were the same company, but they weren't. They were separate companies, but Enbridge did all the billing for Direct Energy. So if you don't pay the bill to anybody but Enbridge, you think that that's the company. And that meant that direct energy could force you to pay because you'd worry

about your gas getting cut off. But you know, water heater, something else. Especially in the middle of winter or whatever. And then this whole, the whole water heater thing is that's a whole third party. And a lot of people were tricked uh into that lasted way too long about 10 years finally under the uh wind government they had a private members bill to stop door-to-door selling and they eventually adopted as policy so about a year now we've had no door-to-door selling allowed lot of water heaters, furnaces, which are even worse, water filters, a lot of different things.

But you can still sell door-to-door things like alarm systems or thermostats or certain things that, you know, like the door-to-door. And, you know,

Bell and Rogers go door-to-door now too. I know they do. I know they do. They do. And other than those kind of companies that you already have

to deal with or whatever, I would say that it's a good idea to never buy anything at the door. Like just no matter what the offer is, take note of it and say, okay, let me know how I can contact you if I'm interested. Just don't buy anything at the door. Unless it's encyclopedias. I feel like they need to make a comeback. I don't know about you, but encyclopedias, bring them back.

All right, Ellen, this is the second time I played't know about you, but encyclopedias, bring them back. All right, Ellen, this is the second time I played it. Do you have any more stories? Do I have to play? I probably need a sequel at some point to get Ellen Roseman back here. But thanks so much for taking the time. And that was delightful. Thank you. And podcasts are free except for the ads. So listen to podcasts because that's where you get your best information. except for the ads. So listen to podcasts because that's where you get your best information. Amen. I agree 100% with that sentiment.

And that brings us to the end of our 507th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Ellen is at Ellen Roseman. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Propertyinthesix.com is at Raptors Devotee. Palma Pasta is at Palma Potee palmapasta is at palmapasta

stickeru is at stickeru capadiallp is at capadiallp and pumpkinsafterdark is at pumpkinsafterdark.com see you all next week I wanna take a streetcar downtown read Andrew Miller and wander around And drink some Guinness from a tin Cause my UI check has just come in

Ah, where you been? Because everything is kind of rosy and gray. Yeah, the wind is cold, but the snow won't stay today. And your smile is fine, and it's just like mine, and it won't go away.