Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Ellen Roseman: Toronto Mike'd #781

Episode Date: January 4, 2021

Mike chats with consumer affairs advocate Ellen Roseman about new consumer trends she's detected in this world of COVID-19.

Welcome to episode 781 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. CDN Technologies, your outsourced IT department. Palma Pasta, enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. StickerU.com, create custom stickers, labels, tattoos, and decals for your home and your business. Sammy Cohn Real Estate. For a complimentary evaluation of your home, contact Sammy Cohn. He's Sammy at SammyCohn.com. And Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. I'm Mike from TorontoMike.com and joining me this week is Consumers Affair Advocate, Ellen Roseman.

Welcome back, Ellen. Thanks, Mike. It's good to be here, even if we are doing it remotely. Oh, and Happy New Year. You're my first guest of 2021. So Happy New Year to you. New Year. You're my first guest of 2021. So happy New Year to you. Thanks. Same to you. We're all hoping that 2021 will be better than 2020, but that's a low bar to exceed. I was going to say it would be difficult to be worse, but then I don't want to tempt fate. Like there's always a lower, lower rung of the ladder if you if you look hard enough. So let's stay optimistic. The vaccine, people are getting it. Like I saw my pal Dana Levinson was posting that her husband's getting

it today. He's an emergency room physician. So he's like a frontline worker and he's getting it. So I mean, it kind of feels good that people we know, or at least know of, are actually getting the shot in their arms, right? Yeah, exactly. There's hope. By the time we get it, if we're further down on the list, maybe we'll have several vaccines to choose from. Right. Yeah. And maybe, yeah, I think more vaccines that don't require the minus 70 cold chain, I think, the better for everybody. So, for sure. Hey, Ellen, I just want to let the listeners know

it's not your first appearance on Toronto Mic'd. You were, this is a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, but you were actually in my basement. That's how long ago. And I just want to let people know if they want to hear the first Ellen Roseman episode, which is like the A to Z of your lengthy career as a consumer affair advocate, they should go to the September

2019 episode. I'll read the description I wrote. In this 507th episode, Mike chats with Ellen Roseman about her consumer affairs columns in the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star. And we chatted for an hour and 44 minutes. So this chat won't be quite as long, but I'm really glad to have you here. And I really do recommend people go listen to 507 and hear about basically like 35 plus years where you've been advocating for consumers' rights. Pretty awesome career looking out for all of us. Yeah. And I suggested doing this one because COVID-19 changed our lives in so many ways and the associated lockdown that went with it. But especially on the consumer side. And for somebody who's been writing about this for many years, it was kind of refreshing to see all these new problems develop.

Now, I'm not making light of the problems because some of them were pretty terrible, and we'll talk about the airlines in particular. But it was different and new things were being brought to our attention. And it reminded me too of the fact that the marketplace moves very quickly and governments maybe have to work a little harder to keep up with the new changes because sometimes people are not getting what they think they're getting when they buy certain products, such as masks. Okay, so here, so that's going to be the core. We're going to basically talk about this whole new world COVID-19 has brought us and you've been, you know, monitoring

everything for, I don't know what, it's been nine months at least, and you've seen these new consumer trends that have kind of emerged and we're going to do that full update. But is it okay if I ask you a couple of questions of things I've seen in your social media feed lately that I found kind of interesting that might not be COVID related? Sure. I've been enjoying social media and have more time for it, too. Like many of us, we're online a lot more. Well, I am. I will say you have upped your Twitter game, so to speak.

And I enjoy following you on Twitter. And everybody should. It's at Ellen Roseman. And because, you know, we're only in 2021 now, but we're not that far removed from when we, you know, we'd read it, we'd read you in the Toronto star. Like you were in the Toronto star for 20 years until 2019. So it's nice to kind of be able to, to kind of have that direct connect to you and your, your writings here.

But here, let me ask you the, the question before we get to the COVID stuff. Uh, I'm fascinated by this whole, like financial advisor, O-R in the word advisor versus financial advisor, E-R. So I've been, I mean, you, you've been covering this pretty, uh, comprehensively, but can you just tell us like, because I got a lot of questions about this personally, like going through the bank versus getting an investment firm for like, so what is the difference between a financial advisor OR and a financial advisor ER? Well, there was some controversy about it, even among some of the industry people who were

on the Twitter feed, that it doesn't really make much sense. In general, it all started because, you know, these days that we're heading into RSP season, and maybe some of us are spending a little less money on our consumption, because we're at home all the time, we're looking for a good way to make money on our money. And so we're looking at investing it online or with a broker or with a salesperson. And then you're trying to figure out, well, can I do it myself? Yes, but often, you know, it can be difficult to do it yourself because you've got no kind of second opinion and you don't know what you're doing, at least when you start. So you want a financial advisor who will, at the very least, take you seriously, listen

to you, try and do what's best for you and put your interests ahead of their own interests. So that's the key. That's where this whole debate started. Some financial advisors in Canada are not legally required to put their interests behind your interests. They can, for example, the legal standard to sell you an investment is suitability. So they ask you about, you know, what's your background experience? What are your financial goals? What do you want from your investments? How much knowledge and experience do you have? How much risk can you tolerate? And then they can suggest investments that fit into that profile, which is often called the

know your client profile. But suppose they have a range of investments that all seem to fit, but some are more expensive than others in terms of annual costs that you might be paying. And those more expensive ones might be reimbursing the advisor for all the years that you're in that investment, some service fees for giving you ongoing service. But as a client, you may not understand that. You may not know about it. If somebody else other than you is paying your advisor, to me, that's a conflict of interest. But in Canada, we've allowed that to happen. So that was the big debate about can you really trust your advisor? Are they out there to create a great retirement for themselves, maybe ahead of your retirement?

You know, are they selling you products because they think they're the best possible product for you or because they pay them well? That's the debate. Now, okay, so as a consumer and somebody who is, you know, looking to make RRSP contributions, etc., like, if I, let's say I do it through my bank and I do it online, like, let's say I log on to my bank site and then I just do literally, I take from this account and invest in this particular RRSP that maybe I already invested in the past. Like who's compensated where in that scenario? Like I'm really ignorant to this. Like is, is, am I paying a fee to invest in that bank RRSP? RRSP? It's confusing. Let's say, start with a bank branch. You know, it's RRSP season, you have some money, you want to put it into something, you go into the bank branch,

and you say, I'd like to invest my RRSP in the stock market. If you say, I want to invest it in a GIC, anybody can help you with it. But once you start getting into the stock market, you need someone who has a license. And they will usually be licensed to sell mutual funds. Bank branches only sell mutual funds. Okay. So this might be the first area where you're going to run into difficulties because the bank, Canada's big banks are huge in mutual funds and they all have a stable of, you know, 100, 200, 300 mutual funds with their name on it. So they can sell you other banks funds too, but chances are they'd like to sell you their own funds. And some of them have different names.

So it doesn't even have the bank's name in it, but it's owned by the bank. So it can be confusing that way. And usually what they'll do is that they'll ask you some questions to figure out who you are. And then they'll recommend, say, three, four, five different funds. So the bank staffer will not be getting compensated as a result of selling that to you. But unlike the independent fund sellers where they will get commissions and so on, and sometimes they will get promotions because they're selling a lot of a certain product. But banks have ways to motivate employees anyway, like giving them compliments, giving them prizes. Next time they come up for a performance review, telling them that they're really doing well if they're selling a lot of stuff, especially the stuff the bank wants to sell and not other things.

We're telling them we're not really happy with your performance. Maybe, you know, we won't be able to move you into the next promotion. You'll just be staying where you are unless you become more proactive, I guess they would say, in selling investments. This drew the attention of CBC Marketplace a few years ago, and they pointed out how when you go into bank, and it happens a lot where you go in with some money to buy a GIC, and they immediately say, oh, no, no, no, no, you'd rather speak to this person and sit down with this person, and then they're going to try and tell you that GSEs are a waste of money, because banks make very little on that, and they're much more

happy to sell mutual funds. And that's called upselling. And banks are doing a lot of upselling. And the government is kind of watching that carefully. And they've made some recommendations. And we have to see if that's going to work out. But it seems really unfair, especially with the less sophisticated person who believes everything they're told at the bank. And they may not realize that the person who has the mutual fund license, you can get that in about six weeks. It's a pretty standard, very low level course. Now, if you get that license, is that what enables you to be an advisor OR versus an advisor ER?

I'm not going to even get into that debate because I worked first at the Globe and Mail for 20 years and then the Toronto Star for 20 years. In both cases, we had a style guide and our style guide was to use ER instead of OR. So when I'm on Twitter now, I go back to OR because most people do. But I don't think that any legal distinction based on an E versus an O before an R is worth its salt because everybody will ignore it. They don't notice it just and that's what makes it seem shady like i know it's that's what makes it seem kind of i want to say i don't i don't want to not accusing anyone of anything but uh it just seems a little shady when there if there is a difference between er or because like you said the average joe and josephine aren't going to acknowledge a difference between advisor or and advisor er so if there is some internal difference based on qualifications or whatever,

that does not smell right to me. Right. And financial advisor isn't even really a term that is legally regulated. What is legally regulated is if they are licensed to sell mutual funds, they are a salesperson and a registrant because they are registered to sell mutual funds. They are a salesperson and a registrant because they are registered to sell mutual funds. If they're registered to sell stocks and bonds and mutual funds and ETFs or exchange traded funds, which are the newer and more exciting thing because they're much cheaper than mutual funds, then they are registered as usually a broker dealer or investment advisor. And then there are some who are registered to manage all your money in a portfolio that they decide on based on talking to you.

And they will be able to trade without consulting you for every trade because they are licensed as a portfolio manager. They usually have a CFA, a certified financial analyst, or as a charter financial analyst. Very difficult exam, three parts. Most people fail. A number of journalists tried it, never got past one or two. You got to do three of those. So that's the highest kind of certification that you can have. And those people do have what is known as a fiduciary duty to their clients, which is putting their clients first. Okay. That's like the banker's Hippocratic Oath, basically. Is that what that is? And bankers do have some of those portfolio managers, but they certainly wouldn't be in a bank branch. You'd probably have to go to their

brokerage firms that they own or investment dealers and then be in a bank branch. You'd probably have to go to their brokerage firms that they own or investment dealers and then ask for a portfolio manager. And you usually need at least $500,000 to invest as a family and maybe a million or more. See, that's why I don't know anything about it. All right, now, if that seemed muddy to anybody, I was naturally curious about these, you know,

advisor, muddy world of financial advising. But if that seemed muddy, let's talk about the past nine months. I've lost track. Like, has it been nine months of like when? It was mid-March when all the lockdowns started happening, at least in Ontario, but I think across Canada. Yeah. And then it opened up for a while and then now it's closed again. Yes, absolutely. Okay. So I'm going to so we're going to hear more Ellen, less Mike here. But one of the big things I think I've noticed in this household and probably across the country is an increase. I've noticed an increase in online shopping. Like, this is no big surprise.

During the pandemic, you do more shopping in front of the laptop than you did when you might go browse in a mall or whatever, whatever. So what trends have we learned with that regard and any problems have kind of come out of that? It's been definitely people are doing more online shopping. It's been very effective. A lot of these companies are very good at getting things to you quickly. There's obviously the trend toward porch piracy, you know, where your package, especially from Amazon, because it's recognizable from that arrow, might be stolen off your porch if you're not there. But there's also a concern that it's harder for many retailers, maybe purposely, to deal with them.

For example, a woman wrote to me about in the summer, there was some kind of a very inexpensive air conditioning unit that she wanted to buy out of the States. And she didn't know much about the company. It was like $99 plus tax, so maybe $135 Canadian. She paid in advance and then nothing happened. It didn't arrive. And so she wrote to the company. She couldn't even find an email address for them. Obviously, she didn't check it out ahead of time, which is so important if you don't.

They had a brand name, but she really didn't know much about the company. So she finally got, it looked like somewhere in China, and told them that she wanted a tracking number, so at least she could follow to see if this thing was being delivered. So it took a while, they gave her the tracking number, but then the tracking link didn't work. So she's going again and again, looking, looking, looking, and it never arrived. And she was really upset and got in touch with me. And in general, I don't want to have to track down companies in China. So I said, and this is like the magic question that a lot of people don't always understand, and she didn't. Did you pay with your credit card? Yes, she did. So forget

the company in China, go to your credit card company and tell them that this company did not deliver. I paid them $135. They delivered nothing. And it was a really easy one. So she went to her, I guess it was BMO. Often they make you fill out a form. But in her case, it was so simple. You know, she had proof of purchase. It didn't happen. They gave her the money back right away. And interestingly enough, when you buy something in US funds, and they give you a refund a few months later, you get the equivalent, which is, you know, the US Canadian exchange and you can lose money because of the Canadian dollars at a different rate. But in her case, they gave her exactly what she paid. So that was great. So that's something you can do.

Well, let's make sure we just hammer that home. This is essentially, oh, sorry. I got him a beer a month, like a promise. And I think they maybe got one beer delivery and then it stopped. And then again, you can't reach them. They're impossible to reach. So I always tell people to Google the name, Google complaints plus the name, or go to the Better Business Bureau, which often does track these things. And the local companies that are not doing a job properly, you can get lots of information there from the Better Business Bureau about them. They're

certainly not BBB members, but they put on the online complaints, they post the reviews. So if a company is getting consistently one star reviews, maybe they don't have a half a star. And then the BBB will put on a whole explanation of consumer alert or consumer warning. So that's really the best place to go. And never give your credit card number before you do that kind of work. Because once they have your credit card number, you're in trouble. And you have to deal with their credit card company. And that can take a while, too.

It sounds like, I mean, that's an excellent point you make on the credit card. Like, assuming you have the constraint, like the discipline, I suppose, to not carry a credit card balance, one of the huge advantages to using a credit card is that you have that layer of protection because when there's fraud, for example, the merchant is the one who eats it, not the consumer. is the one who eats it, not the consumer. Yeah. And it also came up during, you know, there was a whole debate about you bought tickets in advance to a sports event or a concert or whatever.

And somebody wrote to me about, I think it was the Maple Leafs where he bought tickets in advance and no, no, it was the Indy, Molson Indy. He was a loyal customer and they said before COVID started, it was the Indy, Molson Indy. He was a loyal customer. And they said before COVID started, if you pay an event, you get a deal. So he paid and then he wanted his money back because the Molson Indy wasn't happening. And they kept putting him off, putting him off, as many of them were doing, because they wanted to see if maybe they could reschedule and so on.

But then they started giving out refunds to credit card holders and he wasn't getting it. And he said, why? Well, you paid cash. So you're at the end of the line. So even paying cash is probably a second rate, you know, and many of us got used to not even carrying cash. I know in stores, there were so many that said that they didn't want cash, that all I did was carry a few credit cards around. I didn't even carry a purse anymore. It was so much easier to pay.

That's definitely true for me. Like cash is almost feels almost useless to me right now. It's it's yeah, it's like a dirty thing. You got a hand to hand. It just doesn't seem very safe during a pandemic either. So I want to go back, though, to the fact like this, this, this premise, which I think is true across the board, that online shopping has dramatically increased during the pandemic. I'm just curious. I know you don't have a crystal ball, but do you think these changes to our buying behavior,

these changes are going to stick around post-vaccination, like post-pandemic? I think they will. Not to the same extent that they have been, but it's been really convenient. Amazon Prime is what, $70 or $80 a year as a membership. I hate to sound like I'm recommending this very large tech company that has some abusive practices, but it's inexpensive. You get free delivery and you get access to all these great programs on the Prime video. So for many people, and because I had it, oh yes, I ordered some weights because I was doing some weights at home and the postage cost

a fortune. So I didn't want to pay for delivery. And then I found that if I'd order something in the afternoon, it would often be on my porch the next morning. The delivery is really fast and very convenient. And as long as you know, as long as you track it and you know when it's coming, you don't have to worry about it getting stolen most of the time. My son used to live downtown about a block away from a shopper's drug mart. And he said in his building at the front desk, there were piles and piles of packages from Amazon that would be like toilet paper, paper towels, toothpaste, you know, all the things that you could buy at a drugstore. And people were still ordering online, maybe because it was cheaper, but maybe it was just so darn convenient. It's like you said, this is this huge conglomerate, Amazon.

I just don't know how you'd compete as a mom-and-pop shop anymore with people now, they've got more than their toes wet and they're realizing how convenient it is. And again, you mentioned the Prime. A lot of people out there now have Prime and the delivery that comes with that membership. I don't know how a mom-and-pop shop can compete with Amazon. It's hard, and especially these days when they're shut. I've read a few stories and you have too about bookstores because we're all doing more reading. And if you go to Amazon, you can get

some reviews and things like that. But if you really want someone to talk to, and maybe somebody that you can ask about gifts and describe the person you're giving a gift to, you get that at local bookstores. They call that hand selling because they're really throwing their knowledge and information and passion for books into it all. So local bookstores have been doing pretty well in that area. But if they're carrying stuff that everyone else carries, it's hard for them really to differentiate themselves. Right, right. Now, so we talked about how, you know, you can go to your credit card company if you've been, I guess that would be fraud, right? Like if you order something online, be it coming from China or from Mississauga, like if you don't get what you ordered,

if it never arrives or it's not as expected, you've essentially been frauded, right? So like your credit card will protect you and then reverse the charge on your credit card. Are there any instances that you know of where the credit card refuses to do that? Like a buyer beware? Does a buyer beware? I'm not talking about things that never arrive, but maybe something that arrives and it's not at all what you thought you were paying for. It can be difficult. Remember back when Sears Canada went bankrupt, they sold a lot of extended warranties on products like fridges and stoves and the whole thing. And apparently their salespeople were selling them right up to the very day before they closed their doors, because they were told to do that. So there you are stuck with something that you can't use,

and you've paid for it. So I started looking at whether the credit card companies could help you with it. And I found a number of them that said, well, we will give you the prorated value. Say if you bought an extended warranty for four years and it's two years later, we'll give you the refund for the two years that you can't use. Some of the companies were a little bit more hesitant to do it, but I heard from most people who tried it that they were able to get at least that. So sometimes you have to push them. And then the other issue that I mentioned before are the Canadian airlines, the domestic airlines. They obviously had, you know, tremendous decrease in traffic once

all this happened. And they said that something like 90 or 95% of their business was gone. They had canceled all kinds of flights for people because of COVID-19. And they said that this was outside their control and they couldn't give anybody a cash refund. With Air Canada, the only one they would give a cash refund was if they had bought a fully refundable ticket, which usually costs twice as much as all those other tickets. So they said, we'll give you a voucher for future travel. And Air Canada said originally a year, and people felt that wasn't enough, especially as this went

on and on and on. So Air Canada is now giving two years, WestJet's only giving a year. But here are these people, and I've heard from so many of them who had bought tickets for a special trip. You know, often it was like a family reunion. They were all going together and they paid a lot of money. And sometimes they paid for their kids to go with them. So they were out $5,000, sometimes $10,000. And the airlines were saying, well, we'll give you that money when you take another trip. But they're not guaranteeing that the flight will be the same price. And they're not guaranteeing that after after that two year time period that you will get your money back at that point. There was a huge uproar among Canadian passengers. There's a website, a Facebook group called Air Passenger Rights Canada. They went on and on and on about it. The federal government under

Transportation Minister Mark Garneau didn't do anything. They said, well, giving you a voucher for future travel is just as good as a refund. And that's not fair because other airlines in other countries were giving refunds with any other things that you weren't getting. You were usually getting a refund and the airlines just dug in their heels and said, no refunds. WestJet now, I think it was about September, said they are now going to start giving refunds in November and they're going to do it slowly. They're going to ration their cash flow. But it wasn't clear that Air Canada really couldn't afford it. They had quite a lot of cash and they were paying their chief executive a load of money and their shareholders. And the Toronto Star, among other papers, were saying, why are we letting airlines use their customers as a prepaid loan

with no interest? It just isn't fair. And then Mark Garneau said, well, we're not going to bail out the airlines as they're hoping we're going to do unless they give refunds. And that seemed to have stopped all the negotiations on a bailout. So nothing much is happening. And then the latest from Mark Garneau is that they're going to rewrite the passenger rights legislation that came in last year so that it will guarantee the right to a refund when an airline cancels a flight and you're not getting the service you paid for. But that's only for future flights, not for now. And I hear there's still problems now because airlines are cancelling flights right and left if they're not full. And maybe it's not convenient for you to get another flight. But again, you're not getting your cash. And again, this is obviously is legal,

right? So it just that doesn't sound right at all. Like, I don't know how that, how that's allowed to, to happen. It's partly because airline, airlines are regulated by something called the Canadian Transportation Agency. It's a government agency out of Ottawa. And there's a tradition that these regulatory agencies have airline executives from the past who are on there. They tend to be somewhat sympathetic to the airlines. They tend to be, as they're called, captured by the airlines. And in the case of the CTA, the Canadian Transportation Agency, they put up a statement about vouchers saying that in their view, vouchers were just as good as giving money back. It wasn't legal. It didn't have. It wasn't,

it didn't have any effect, but it was there on the website. So when somebody called to complain, they'd say, look, here's our statement. And this group, airline, air passenger rights said, this isn't right. We're going to go to court and demand that they take this off their website. And they've got all the way to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court didn't want to hear it. So that statement is still there. And what's going on? Why are airlines way above other sectors when it comes to getting government support?

Well, partly because Air Canada is based in Montreal. Quebec's always had undue influence. It's just about buying. It's buying Transat, which is another company that has not been giving refunds, especially for the prepaid vacations. And the government can't quite figure out what to do. They would like to bail out the airlines, but they know that paying back the refunds like there's billions of dollars of refunds that are owing. So this will some this will be something I hope that will continue into 2021. So, this will be something I hope that will continue into 2021.

It is hard to get the general public excited about it. Those who are owed the refunds are pretty vocal. But the rest of us are not really even flying, so we're not taking it all that seriously. But we should. Here, I'll do a quick aside and then we'll come back to COVID-19 and some other scams you've detected. But quick aside is that I watched this HBO documentary on D.B. Cooper. Do you know the story of D.B. Cooper? Yeah, he disappeared.

Yeah. So I guess it was 1971. He hijacks a plane. Anyways, he ends up with $200,000 in cash and a parachute. And he ends up, I don't know, over Nevada or something. He jumps out of the plane and we never hear from him again and there's all these like theories on like like who was db cooper and it's kind of it's very interesting documentary actually but what struck me was like we kind of

get a glimpse into what it was like to fly in 1971 and uh forget the fact that that security was like an afterthought like there was no security but just the way they treated you was like you were in a nice restaurant like it was really really fancy and they really took care of you and and i last time i took a flight like i think they threw me like a bag thing of peanuts and said uh you know or a couple of cookies or in some water or something like it does seem like the flight flying has changed dramatically since the 70s in that regard so yeah very cheap a commodity it becomes more difficult to that the airlines had the fully refundable and then they had the partially

refundable where you could get a credit and use it later and then just in the last year so they introduced a basic fare, which you paid for. And then if you couldn't take it, you couldn't switch, you couldn't do anything with it, you were out the money. So they just took all your money away, because you weren't going to take the flight. And we all know life happens and you need a little bit of an out, but they just decided that was another cheap airline fare they could sell. Boo to that. guitar solo Lying in bedroom season It's not like it's five years ago

The leaf leer over my body Is that just the place that I want you to be Look at the pictures you've gotten Like signals from oncoming cars We're covered in a cake from the last time I know it sounds weird, we collected in jars Is that just the place that I wanna be? Oh, can't you see it's a life I don't need?

Please don't make this thing up for me The way that I wanna be Oh, can't you see it's a life I don't need? Please don't make this thing up for me. The way that I wanna be. Oh, can't you see it's enough? I don't need me. Don't make this thing up for me. We'll get back to Ellen Roseman in just a moment. I want to thank some

Toronto Mike sponsors here for January 2021. I appreciate the support. Thank you, Great Lakes Brewery. Delicious, fresh craft beer brewed right here in Southern Etobicoke. I urge everybody to go to greatlakesbeer.com. The retail store is open there.

You can get it delivered. You can find it in LCBOs. Thank you, GLB. Thank you, Palma Pasta. Go to palmapasta.com. They're in Mississauga and Oakville. Delicious, authentic Italian food. Thank you, stickeru.com. I'm wearing my stickeru t-shirt today. They've been amazing sponsors, and they're back for 2021. That's great news. Barb Paluskiewicz. She's there if you have any computer or network problems or questions. And it's kind of a related topic to what I'm speaking with Ellen about today,

because Ellen's talking about how to protect yourself as a consumer in this time of COVID and Barb's there to protect your organization as more and more of your employees work from home, et cetera. So Barb Paluskwitch and the people at CDN Technologies are your outsourced IT department. Sammy Cohn, you can hear him in the background. He's drumming away for the watchman. Well, he's drumming up results as a real estate agent. Go to drummingupresults.com. Reach out to Sammy Cohn. He's willing to give you a free drum lesson

in exchange for any real estate inquiry. Again, drummingupresults.com. It's good to have Sammy on board for January 2021. And Ridley Funeral Home. Pay tribute without paying a fortune. Go to RidleyFuneralHome.com to learn more. When guests visit my backyard studio, they're now given a hand sanitizer courtesy of Ridley Funeral Home. They've been pillars of the community since 1921, and it's a pleasure working with them.

Let's get back to Ellen Roseman on Toronto Mic. COVID-19, okay, so, I guess before we leave the whole flight thing, cause you're right. If the people who have, uh, you know, money owed to them by these airlines, cause of canceled trips due to the pandemic, they're being loud and vocal. And the rest of us, I guess, are just like, oh, it sucks because you know, it sucks, but we're all like, it sucks for everybody. So it's sort of like, it's almost like I'm going to make a t-shirt. Like when it sucks for everybody so it's sort of like it's almost like i'm gonna make a t-shirt like when it sucks for everybody like it doesn't suck for anybody it's almost like well it sucks for everybody therefore the suckage is like the new normal like it changes what suckage

is if you will right i'm working on it still ellen i'm working on that one okay so what are some other COVID-19 scams you can maybe share with us? And then some tips, if possible, on how to protect yourself and how to deal with this when it happens to you inevitably. There's a lot of online scams going on and phone scams. And when you're at home and if you have a home phone line, and now even on your cell phone, you're getting a lot of these calls. Service Canada, they're trying to help you. Service Canada is, you know, from the government. Sometimes they're telling you that they want to help you apply for government benefits or, you know, improve your application, so you'll be sure to get it. The Canadian Anti-Fraud

Center, which is based in North Bay, they are supported by the OPP and the federal government. And they said that they've never seen so many scams and a lot of them are COVID related. I got a direct mail scam. So it was a letter that came in the mail and it said, important COVID information inside. And then you open it up and it's some kind of penny mining stock that they're saying is going to do really well because of COVID. It was based in BC. And I'm thinking, wow, this is crazy.

They're just trying to get in the door. And then I started looking it up and the securities commissions in Canada put out a warning about it. But they said the interesting thing that it wasn't even the mining company that did this promotion. It was some other company that was just using their name and trying to get, you know, you to invest in it or to whatever it was. I didn't read the letter too clearly. And because we're kind of in a state of nervousness, and I'd say on some days panic about COVID, you know, like when we heard about this, what are they calling it? The Brovid, the British variant. We're really scared. So that makes us perfect victims because fraudsters play on your emotions, your fear, your greed, you're scared,

you're right. And they get you to do things without thinking about them too clearly. And while I'm talking about the government benefits, it's not really a scam, but I'd say it's a problem with the government's communication to people. Like I was really happy to see that the CERB, the emergency response benefit came out really quickly and it was easy to apply and people got the money and that was great. But when the government was putting out all this information, it didn't say what it should have said in bold letters. This benefit is taxable. You will be, you know, looking, you may have to pay tax in 2021 because your income was higher. And you should be setting aside part of your money for the inevitable tax that you might be paying.

It's an important message. And if they were really thinking clearly, they might have, but it wasn't there. So I tweeted it a few times, but now we're hearing some of that. And then the other one that's really newsworthy lately is people who applied, who are running their own business, self-employed entrepreneurs. And the government said you needed at least 5,000 in income in order to qualify. But they didn't say whether that was gross or net income. They said income after taxes. So that would be like net. But they didn't say income after expenses. And I'm sure you're self-employed, right? I'm self-employed. Yes. Yeah. So when you do your tax return, you have a whole lot of expenses that bring down your income. Right. The government didn't specify this. They didn't. They just didn't at all. And so people who were self-employed were

left to assume that that meant gross income. My brother, who's an accountant, he said, well, you know, when we use income, we're always talking about income after expenses. And then only in the last little while did the CRA start specifying that it was net income after expenses and changing some of the stuff that was up there. But they didn't do it ahead of time. And the only reason people found out about it, it was at the end of the year, the CRA started writing to people and saying, you may have taxes to pay. So be very careful. And they were even asking some people to pay right away. So that caused a big stir as well. I know personally, I know people who applied for CERB, even though they technically knew they weren't eligible, just because it's one of those like, oh, they're giving away money. Yeah, it's a windfall.

It's like, do you apply for CPP, Canada Pension Plan benefits at 60? Because you can do that now even when you're working. Or do you wait until you're 65 or 70 and you get a lot more and it continues for the rest of your life? Everybody applies at 60 because it's a bird in the hand. It's windfall money. And maybe I'll be dead by the time I'm 62. So I might as well get it when I'm 60. But I did hear I did hear anecdotally about some situations where they did come knocking and say, hey, you got to return that money.

You were ineligible. So, I mean, you pointed out that one issue where it's like, at what point is that $5,000 kick in before expenses or after expenses? But I'm sure there are a lot of people right now who are getting those, you know, notices that, hey, you owe us money because you were ineligible. That's got to be awful at this time. Oh, yeah. Right. And taxes may be owing. And also many people have had rent subsidies. But in 2021, they might find that they have to start paying rent again. And that'll be difficult. So it's not going to be an easy year because a lot of the financial impact of COVID-19,

I think, was deferred until this year. You know, they also could defer your mortgage payments for up to six months. You could defer your credit card payments. And I know with the deferred mortgage, the banks originally said that they would only, and this wasn't a government benefit either. It was something that they agreed to because the government asked them to. But they said originally that they would interview every applicant and make sure that they really needed the mortgage deferral. And then they were swamped. And then they just decided, OK, we'll give it to everybody. And let's see. You know, if you get a mortgage deferral like that, you still you're still paying

the interest. You're just deferring it. Right. It's not like a. Right. So it wasn't a real benefit. It was just, you know, and it would probably cost take longer and you'd pay a little bit more interest by the time you were done. So the banks weren't giving any big concession. They were just giving a timing concession. You're basically just kind of buying some time. We talk about small business getting just killed by this pandemic. And small business, part of the problem is if you pay rent, if you don't own your building and you're paying rent, but all of a sudden you're bringing in, let's say, I'll't own your building and you're paying rent, but all of a

sudden you're bringing in, let's say, I'll make up a number, you're bringing in 10% which you would typically bring in, but your rent is 100% what it typically is. That math doesn't work, like, especially considering how difficult it is in normal times for some of these small businesses. So I know my buddy was telling me, oh, they were going to get a referral on paying their rent, but they weren't getting nothing gifted. It was just all that amount was still going to have to go to the landlord, but they were getting some time before they had to pay it. citizen. I'm of the opinion that we should be doing more for small businesses in terms of actual rent forgiveness.

I don't know what your thoughts are on that one. Well, who's going to forgive it? Is it government? Yeah, I know. That's what the land people... I guess landlord sounds like a term we've replaced. What's the new... Is there a new term for that? The building owner? Well, yeah. Just when I say landlord, I'm like, that feels very old,

antiquated. It does. For a couple of reasons. And the original rent subsidy for small business, you had to get your landlord's approval. And that turned out to really backfire because very few landlords wanted to get involved in this. Right. And, you know, they need, yeah. And that turned out to really backfire because very few landlords wanted to get involved in this. Right. And, you know, they need, yeah. And like you said, who, like, are we, are we now paying the, I don't know, the land, the, the, the landowner, are we paying them to forgive the loan to the, or forgive the rent to the tenant? Like, you're right. There's so much, there's so much here. And like you said, I think the true consequences are delayed to this year. Everyone was so excited to say goodbye to 2020, but

2021 is going to be a very difficult year for many, many people, I'm afraid here. Did you hear the latest government idea that they would help pay for the quarantine, hear the latest government idea that they would help pay for the quarantine, the two weeks that people have to stay at home. And that didn't seem very popular with those who weren't, you know, traveling and didn't need quarantine. Oh, again, that's the thing. I mean, this has been in the news lately, of course, because the provincial finance minister went to St. Barts. So this has been a hot topic of late. My biggest concern, just my personal biggest concern is that that's sort of, to me, that speaks to how seriously this government is taking the pandemic. Like when your finance minister, you're allowed to go to St. Barts,

you know, you and I, Ellen, could go to St. Barts, right? But when you do so at this time in that role, it just screams that you're not taking this as seriously as you should. But that's, that's my own personal thoughts on the whole thing. But it feels like if you, if you decide you're going to travel out of the country right now for your personal pleasure, that we should not be paying for your quarantine.

Like that should be out of your pocket. Like it's part of the, you know, the cost to you for making that decision at this time you know yes and uh you know we're still dealing with all the financial effects on various people during this this pandemic and it's been hard for many people and i think businesses too are going to be looking carefully at all the people they employ and do they need them all. And there's also going to be a difference in, you know, the five day week at the office. I think so many people have gotten used to working at home and like working at home and

maybe their employers like it too. Maybe they'll find that they can have a much smaller office and they could just have people come in two or three days a week. Oh, yeah. I mean, I started working from home, I think 2011, I think is when I started. And it was one of those things where once you start, you get in the rhythm of it and you set yourself up and you realize, oh, I'm actually more efficient and doing it here and I'm not commuting anywhere. And you're just you're happier. And there's so many reasons, so many benefits. You wonder why, like, why, why don't more businesses look at this model? Like,

why is everybody so concerned with having you in this cubicle jungle, you know, for 40 hours a week or whatever, nine to five money. It just seems that sound, that seems very antiquated. And I think COVID kind of accelerated that thought for a lot of, a lot of businesses. Yeah. It used to be that, well, they thought they could, they had to monitor your activities because you were in the office. They could see you clearly.

But with technology now, they can see how much you're on your computer and what you're sending out. They could read your emails. They can do a pretty good job of monitoring people. And people already had to work around that because nobody was doing their Amazon shopping on the company laptop anyways they were doing it on their personal smartphone device which was not on the network and therefore your employer couldn't see any of that activity so you know and that's where they were facebooking and everything too like as people had already cracked that code long ago that's what i'm uh yeah i'm saying all right ellen so go ahead though is it's been a year full

of technology and full of Zoom calls. And Zoom calls can really get annoying after a while, especially if you do two or three in a day. I like them, but you know, like my book club's on Zoom and my investing club's on Zoom. And if you have more than about 10 or 12 people, it gets really hard to talk. And sometimes you're like completely quiet the whole time because you're never sure, should I unmute now or should I not unmute? And can I interrupt someone? It's harder. Well, it's very timely that we're having this conversation because today is the very first day that my two youngest children did their learning online is today because they've been in school.

And then of course they added this as all Ontario residents know this one week we're in right now, this is Monday. And this week is a week where even the in-class students like my two youngest have to be online for this week. And then they go back next Monday, unless of course they change their mind, which they're apt to do, but that's how it stands right now. And I I've been monitoring it throughout the day, like, you know, doing technical support and the, the, the, the six-year-old is actually doing fine. Like he's kind of adapted quickly. He's all set up on the laptop and I, you know, he seems to be doing well. The four-year-old, it's just a gong show. Like, and you mentioned all these, like you got these 15 kids, they use Google classrooms and, uh, you know, it's just, they're being muted. And then,

you know, my daughter just in the middle of her class, she just went and got a yogurt and then she spilled the yogurt on her. Like, it's just, uh, I don't, you know, it's just, this is all happening, you know, right now. So it's like, this is day one and I'm just hoping it's only a five days i know a lot of kids have been doing remote learning anyways because you had that option but i i just hope that we can send these kids back to school monday that's what i'm hoping so yeah i mean at four years old it's pretty hard for them to under school understand school let alone you know a computer and trying to figure out why everybody's on TV.

Yeah, it's just, it's just tough, tough to keep them focused on a screen like that. But so let's close with this, Ellen. How are you doing? How are you holding up? Like personally, like, so, like, like, I'm very curious how you're holding up like professionally. And then, again, I mentioned your, you upped your Twitter game, which is good for all of us, but like, how are you holding up emotionally? Like, are you, do you get out for, uh, for walks and stuff? Tell us how you're doing during this pandemic. Yeah. Lots of walks. I've always been a walker and my husband, uh, not so much. Um, and so we've been walking a lot around the neighborhood and it's been

great because he's discovering all these little areas like cul-de-sacs and unusual things in the neighborhood. And, you know, there's always four directions you could go in unless you're on the waterfront. So we're always going in one of those four directions and moving around. And the walks have been great. And now we have one of those, you know, we both have a Fitbit now. So we're clocking our steps. And all that is fun. Our only outing really these days is buying groceries.

I did try ordering groceries online, but it's harder. There aren't the bargains. I feel like I'm spending more. There are substitutions. One day, somebody else's bags got delivered with mine. I spent a lot of time trying to return them. Then I realized that they're not going to pick them up. I spent a lot of time trying to return them. And then I realized that, you know, they're not going to pick them up. I'm just going to

live with those groceries too. Who paid for those groceries? But no, I like it. I like actually having a bit more leisurely schedule. I used to get up at seven or eight and then, you know, get my day started. Now I'm sort of hanging around and reading upstairs till about nine 30 or 10. Yeah. You know what I'm, I, you know, get my day started. Now I'm sort of hanging around and reading upstairs till about 9.30 or 10. Yeah, you know what? I, you know, other than the fact that, you know, you can't see friends and family the way you used to, which does have its own,

that can be tough in a lot of different ways. But like just my people I live with is a pretty big group. Like, so, and, you know, you know, we've been seeing my mom who lives alone so we've added one i guess to that that group and then i guess you mentioned the walks i feel walks are having a real moment like a lot of people are kind of rediscovering the the joy of a of a walk in your in your neighborhood which which is a good thing and and i will say this on the ordering groceries um we've a few times we've used instacart oh yeah and not bad at all like because the trouble in fact you have a shopper basically

yeah and when you've because inevitably you'll order something in the flyer that's sold out at the store okay so but they'll in real time they'll say hey this would you like this instead like you get a real-time uh decision making on all the things that are out of stock which But in real time, they'll say, hey, would you like this instead? Like you get a real-time decision-making on all the things that are out of stock. Yes, I have used them before. Instacart was actually the one that gave me the extra groceries. Oh, yeah. So I got goldfish, crackers, Ritz crackers. I got a few extra things.

Oh, I think you got our groceries. But yeah, they are responsive, and I like that. The goldfish, I think that's my four-year-old who was trying to get those goldfish. So emotionally, you're holding up okay. And tell us, like, where do we, in addition to your Twitter, Ellen Roseman, like, where should people go to read more

about your consumer advocacy excellence? I do a column for a website called lowestrates.ca. And that's a place where you can shop for credit cards, mortgages, and insurance, different rates. And that's about once a month. I have a podcast called Money Saver Podcast, and that comes out about once a month too. And I have a Facebook

page. I have my Instagram. I really like living online and especially that debate about financial advisors. Last week, I started, I think, Tuesday morning and then more and more people started joining it. And it went on Wednesday and Thursday and it finally ended Thursday night. That was New Year's Eve. I'd never had such a long debate. So it was like a full-time activity because I wanted to answer people and refer other people. And there was quite a big group. And although Twitter can be extremely nasty, people all just seemed interested in trying to figure out why financial advice wasn't really living up to what they thought it was and how to fix it. Yeah, that's my thing. So you mentioned earlier, we were having this discussion, the reason I wanted to open with it, and I had so many questions is because they're very sincere

questions that I've been wondering. And I'm really ignorant in this world. And I invest in some mutual funds via my bank. I literally literally X dollars every month comes out of my account and it goes into this mutual fund or whatever. But of course, I'm well aware of the investment firms or whatever, you know, we'll call these places where they'll be your they'll, you know, and I always figure

oh, they need, they must be compensated because you pay them a fee to do that. Right? Like, I guess I'm always wondering how people get paid. You're compensated to manage your money, but the person in the bank who's selling you the fund isn't compensated for their sales efforts. Monetarily, like I was saying before, they might be compensated through their HR department. Right. But banks, as you mentioned, banks own, they usually

typically every bank owns like a firm. But those, the man or woman you work with to invest on your behalf from those types of firms, do they get commission on the sale or do they get a fee from you? If you're buying it outside the bank, usually the person selling it to you will get a commission. And you don't always realize it because they tell you that there's no money taken off the top for their commission, but it's at the back. You have to hold it for a certain number of years with many of these funds. It's called a deferred sales charge. So when you sell it, that's when the commission will come off the proceeds of what you sell. And that's finally getting out of style because it was so unpopular, but it lasted about 20 years. So now they're just making sure that they're compensated through the

annual expenses that go to the fund manager. The fund manager rebates some of that to the salesperson and their firm. Okay. Okay. Okay. And I promise you, that's my last financial advisor question for you because I just find it all, that world is so incredibly confusing. But on the COVID front, like you said, essentially, I feel like the scams were always there and all those dangers of online shopping were there before COVID. What's happened is everything's amplified because the volume of people participating in that activity is so much higher that of course you know people like to go where you know the fraudsters go where

the people and the activity is because there's more you know money in it for them so i just feel like everything's on steroids now because of covid19 another thing too is customer service right when you call a big company you're either on the phone, you're on hold, you're trying to get through by email. There are certain companies now that are just deluged with orders. And one of them, which is funny enough, is the online brokerage, whereas you can do your own trading. The stock market has been on fire in the last little while. If you bought Tesla, you probably tripled your money, right? So a lot of people are getting into it. And there's this firm called Wealthsimple, which has Wealthsimple Trade, which is free trading, no commissions. They charge you on

US Canadian dollar spreads, but that's about it. So they're finding that business is so busy that you can't call them unless you wait for an hour, an hour and a half on the phone. You can't get a callback number so that they can leave your callback number. And then I was trying to get in touch with my online broker to get something related to an end of the year thing. And I couldn't get through on the phone. So then I went online and they said, sorry, we're so busy that we're directing all resources to the phone and we're not doing emails right now. So there's just so much activity online that it can be really hard. And especially when you're dealing with these online retailers who are not headquartered in Canada, it can be impossible to reach them. And a lot of people give up before they should.

So I hope that everyone at least tries to get in touch with either their credit card company or PayPal, if that's how they pay, because that can usually help you get your money back. Great advice, Ellen, as usual. And thanks for doing this because, yeah, we had our deep dive in September 2019. But with COVID-19 and all the things that's affected, I wanted to touch base with you because you are my go-to consumer affair advocate. And thanks for doing this today. Okay, just want to mention I have a website,

ellenroseman.com and I have a one day seminar on investing in April. So if you want to learn everything about investing for beginners, that's at the end of April. Okay, so that's cool. So everybody who's interested in that should go to ellenroseman.com and you can also

send me an email through there without having my email address. Yes, and if I haven't been clear, Ellen's very accessible because you can also send me an email through there without having my email address. Yes. And if I haven't been clear, Ellen's very accessible because you can tweet at her, which is very convenient. So that brings us to the end of our 781st show. Wow. Yeah. Well, what was your last one? Hold on.

I had the record of this. Yeah, you said it. I wrote it down, 507. So look at that. And that wasn't that long ago. So September 2019, you know, you're only a little over a year later, and now you're 781. So, well, okay.

You are a most prolific podcaster. I need a vacation, Ellen, is what you're, I need a break here. Again, you can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike, and Ellen, you're at Ellen Roseman. So, Ellen, is what you're, I need a break here. Again, you can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike and Ellen, you're at Ellen Roseman. So follow Ellen, everybody, to stay in the know of what you should be aware of. And your seminar is in April and you register for that at EllenRoseman.com. Online at University of Toronto, but it is remotely delivered. Oh yeah, because you're on the staff there of the continuing education, right?

Yes. That's cool. That's cool. Okay, so that's something people should look into. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery. See, Ellen, if you were here, that's the difference, right? When you're here, I'll give you beer. Yeah.

So I can't give you the beer through the Zoom here. But thank you to Great Lakes Brewery for your awesome support. They're at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta. They're at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. I wore my Sticker U t-shirt today. Thank you, Sticker U.

CDN Technologies. We talked a lot today about like consumer awareness in the time of COVID, but of course, if you're, uh, responsible for a computer network, you've got to be, uh,

diligent and, uh, vigilant, diligent and vigilant. And the people at CDN technologies have your back. You can outsource your it support to them. Thank you. CDN technologies,

Sammy Cone. Cone is K O H N. And they're at Sammy Cohn on Twitter. And Ridley Funeral Home is at Ridley F-H. See you all tomorrow when my special guest is Carla Collins. This podcast has been produced by TMDS and accelerated by Rome Phone. Rome Phone brings you the most reliable virtual phone service to run your business and protect your home number from unwanted calls. Visit RomePhone.ca to get started.