Financial Horror Stories: Retirement Nightmares That Came True

Welcome back to the Halloween episode of, uh, Fuchs around and call them out. I’m your host, Ben Fuchs. Or am I today? I am Alex Cal and I am Ben Fuchs today or Alex Cal, depending on what you do now, these are readers. I can’t actually keep them on. But of course, with the Halloween theme, you’re still gonna keep it on. It definitely is in the way. But I respect your dedication to the character, the spirit, you know? Yeah. Uh, hopefully you can go on rambling rants like me. So. With this scary story thing, uh, I believe that you have somebody that got possibly scammed by Elon Musk himself. Is that definitely not by Elon Musk? Definitely. You said it. You said Elon Musk called him directly. He thought it was definitely not Elon Musk. It was probably a few other people that were saying it was him. I thought that for some time, richest man in the world went on individual messing me up so fast. It’s great. It’s definitely a writing up a little bit. No, no. Good. Could you imagine what it’s like to actually hang on to it the whole time? All right, so tell me about this terrifying story for Halloween. Okay, so a little backstory about them. Um, they own a store. They ended up hearing about Elon or supposedly Elon giving them a call and saying, hey, I got the best opportunity for you here. Um, always a great line. First, the red flag. They’re right there. The next thing was, hey, have you ever heard of bitcoin or crypto? Which I would say second red flag there. But as they’re telling me this story, they’re just telling me, hey, we had to do all these different accounts, all these different transfers, just so that we can get them the money and have it somehow growing. I mean, what they said was and I mean, they’d thought it through because they were obviously walking them through it. They told them, hey, this is what you should get. This is what you should receive. Even said, hey, you should get a Cybertruck in the mail soon, which, I mean, they were just brand new in their post office. Like, is that what, like delivery? Delivery to their house? Yes. Okay. Um, but all these little things, um, and, you know, I feel for them because one of the things that these scammers ended up doing is, I guess, on one of these apps, you can actually link a different account. So they were showing them a real account. Oh my gosh. That they were managing. But so it’s like you can click into it. You could see the positions. You can. It looks real until you scroll down to the very bottom. It says view only. So it looks like it’s there. They see it growing. And of course, yeah, they’re gonna throw in more money because they think it’s real. And I don’t mean to actually make fun. I mean, to me, it’s it’s a it’s frustrating that people can get so sophisticated that they can create a whole fake app and a fake viewpoint to, to see and not would not be the first of our clients that has gotten scammed or almost been scammed and a number of different ways. So tell me what happened. So you met with them, you sat down with them, you looked at it, and then what happened? So a lot of it was more psychological. It was more disbelief that this is not it’s real. I can show you. And okay, it’s really kind of diving in. Well, why why do you think it’s real? Tell me a little bit about your conversations. Okay. And then it’s us slowly talking about it just so that they could realize. But of course, you don’t want to say, well, like, hey, like, here it is right here. It’s more slowly in the sense. Great. Well, tell me about how they talk to you. Okay, well, why do they need it immediately? Why is it through here? Why is it always in this structure that they talk to you? Why can’t we just go to Coinbase and can we do it there? I mean, what are the differences between buying some of these things? So I think it’s slowly having them realize and then kind of having the questions that guide them to that answer without you telling them. I would imagine that’d be very difficult. Uh, but, I mean, we’ve had clients before that I mean, people that I’ve worked with who I think are really sharp people. I mean, I don’t want to go into any professions because I don’t know anyone that knows them to get any idea of who they are. But these are people that I would consider to be skeptical, analytical, smart people. And they got a call from their daughter saying, I just hit somebody, and it was a mother with a pregnant lady, and I’m freaking out, and I need cash so that I can pay off the something, something, something and. so they got that call and they immediately went into panic mode like, oh man, it was my daughter’s voice. I know what she sounds like. Let’s get that money immediately. And then they did. And they, they went to like different banks. And they were going to wire the money to the attorney, and they had different conversations with them. And finally they were in their bank ready to wire the money, and they got moved to the bank manager who, doing their due diligence, the bank manager said, hey, when’s the last time you talked to your daughter? And have you talked to her since all of this stuff went into motion? I don’t know. Well, can you call your daughter again just to make sure that this is what she actually needs? And so they do. And lo and behold, daughter is completely and totally fine. No idea what they’re talking about. But again, you know, these are really smart people. I was an analytical. And I think anybody can be duped. And I think that’s part of the problem is that we’re in a scenario now where because of technology, because of everything else, scammers are getting more and more sophisticated. So the scary stories are not necessarily funny scary stories. They are like difficult, scary stories along the Tesla route though. I remember meeting with somebody who was not a client who, uh, Gina met with, and they had moved all of their money into Tesla. And this is like every single dollar that they owned was in one stock. And I know that you are a certified financial planner. And is that in the rule book? Is that like a recommendation for people to, like put. No. And if it’s like a scary story you’re telling me. No no no no no no no. I mean, this is horrifying for me, but they did this and, you know, timing is everything, right? Because if you do this in, you know, twenty thirteen or twenty fifteen, like you’ve made a fortune. But I have two stories, both of which happened in twenty twenty one. And the problem with twenty twenty one is twenty twenty two was an awful year for technology. A lot of people kind of glaze over it like, oh, it’s not a big deal. But the Nasdaq, the Q-q-q, fell by about thirty two, thirty three percent somewhere in that ballpark. So if you had a million dollars in like Tesla stock, it could have gone down by six seventy or more. I don’t remember exactly six hundred grand now. Yeah, we’re talking about yeah, we’re talking about a significant drop in terms of value. And so, you know, if you’re twenty three, you can leave that money alone and let it recover. No big deal. But if you are ready to retire, that’s when you kind of run off a cliff. That’s when you’re like, oh man, I can’t believe I just bet everything on something. And it went down. And the scariest thing is that we see that a lot. I’ve seen that with Raytheon. I’ve seen that with Electric Boat, where people have like eighty, ninety percent of their total value into one stock, and it’s great. Costco. Yeah, I’ve seen Costco. Yeah. And it’s great when it’s great and until it isn’t. And then, you know, any little blip in that stock and all of a sudden you’ve lost ten percent of your net worth. Yeah, especially. It’s even harder when you are drawing from it, right? Right. I mean, that’s the whole thing. Is that you? For us, one of the biggest things that we change is making sure that you know exactly where your money is coming from, and it’s not coming from something that we have to sell. I get very frustrated when I see a lot of plans and I’m like, oh, we’re going to just sell part of these mutual funds every three months or sell every six months. And, you know, when we talk to people, it’s, hey, I’m going to retire. Okay, great. What is your income plan? How are you going to get money out of this portfolio? Oh, well, my advisor just said not to worry about it. It works out right? Yeah, everything’s gonna work out. Everything’s fine. It’s all great. Market went down. Oh, it’ll come back. Don’t worry. We’re still selling. It’s okay. Yeah. No, no big deal, but. Okay. Well, we need money. It always drives me crazy, but, you know, I’ll make my gripes and I’ll keep them. You had somebody that had something to do with gold. Yeah. So a similar story with how they wanted the money, but they were trying to sell him an algorithm to day trade with. So quick backstory on this client. Extremely conservative, doesn’t want anything in the market. He came to me and said, hey, like I heard of this thing that I’ve been researching for a year now. It’s great. Well, tell me about it. Well, hey, it’s this company out in. Does it involve fake beards? No. Okay. Doesn’t. Okay, you. I think you’re gonna grow a beard now because you kind of. I can’t grow a beard, unfortunately, but it’ll be spotty. But. All right. I don’t mean to interrupt. Please cool. My bad. Look for him, they’re saying, oh, hey, pay us in Bitcoin and we’ll tell you when to trade, which seems okay. Well, the first red flag is you wanted in bitcoin right? And the second is you’re telling me when to buy and sell. So we’re running into timing issues. And let’s be clear like we don’t do a lot with cryptocurrency right. It’s not our world I don’t touch it. It’s not my thing. We have portfolios that have links to it and that they use them in certain scenarios. But we’re not here to trash cryptocurrency. Um, it’s not the ideal. Not especially with it being more. But typically when you’re paying for things, you’re paying for things in cash. And if they want to use that to then buy cryptocurrency, it’s not a big deal. It’s not like there’s some exchange rate that people are. The reason that it’s a red flag for us is because there’s less oversight over cryptocurrency trading. And so when people want to be paid in cryptocurrency, unless they’re Odell Beckham Jr. Um, typically it should be somewhat of a red flag. Doesn’t mean it’s wrong. It just means it’s a flag. Right? Right. Um, and so for him, he would just get these alerts and hey, you have to make the trade in ten minutes. And to me, I was like, okay, well, it’s following gold, which of course is up fifty percent. Not saying to go buy it now, but I told him, I said, well how much are you investing? He was worth, call it one point one million. He wanted to do it for like ten thousand. Okay, so not like a ton. But why go through all this effort? Yeah, you’re researching it for a year. You’re gonna pay them. You’re going to monitor it on a daily basis. You can buy a gold ETF. We have them in our portfolio. But I was like, and if you just want exposure and you want to have more growth, there’s ten thousand other options we could do that have less hassle and more transparency. Right. Did you tell him to go to Costco to buy gold? Straight up. I did not. I told him any place if he wanted gold. Yeah, you know, that’d be perfect. I know a few porn dealers nearby. They they. I think they want you to get down there. Nevermind. So that’s what it was kind of more guiding him as well. But I was like, listen, I was like, tell me their name. Like, let me look into him while you’re here on the phone. And like, because right now my main concern are the things that concern me are, hey, they wanted in crypto, they’re going to tell you when to buy. And when I looked them up, they weren’t even like the top search on Google and their website was broken. And I’m trying to go through all these tabs to learn about them. And it doesn’t tell me anything. And I’m like, oh, they’re from the EU. Okay. I’m like, oh, so there’s not even much oversight from the US side. So I’m like, listen, it sounds like you just want exposure. There’s thousands of ways to do it. I probably wouldn’t lean this way because of these things that I’m seeing. End of the day, you can do what you’d like. It’s not a ton of money. And your scheme, right. And your overall arch. But it’s scary to me because my last thing is, I just don’t want you, even though it’s ten grand to lose it because someone just tried to take advantage of you. Yeah. I mean, I think that’s that’s it’s almost like you get in, you see, you see things grow, they give you you give more money, and then it’s a bigger problem. But I mean, I don’t think anybody wants to give away ten thousand dollars to a scammer either. I mean, I would say go spend it on yourself. Yeah, I’m and I think that’s that’s real. But again, I mean sophistication of scams and not understanding how it works. And and so. I have a client who I love who I wouldn’t call. He didn’t get scammed. He just didn’t understand Medicare. And so we may have talked about this before. And stop me if I have. You’ve certainly heard it. But Brandon, I producer uh, I’ve heard this. Well, let me know. Yeah, he can he can shut me down. But. So a client who, uh, moved to another state. So we just meet by zoom twice a year. And I was, you know, ask him what’s going on. And, you know, we did the regular reviews. Everything’s great. Tom, what’s going on here? Oh, well, you know, I had to go to the doctor the other day, and they had to save a little bit of of a cancerous thing off. I’m like, oh, man, that’s awful. I’m so sorry. Like, tell me more. And they were talking about how if I came and it could have been the cause of this drug that he was taking for something else. And so we got down into the story, and he chose to take this drug that was costing him, like maybe a couple hundred bucks, uh, instead of this other drug that was gonna cost him one thousand five hundred dollars a month. Okay. Okay. So, like. All right. It’s pretty steep. Yeah, that’s that’s a significant cost. Um, but, like, what’s the deal? Well, the doctors say that the the one that’s seventeen hundred a month, that one won’t give me cancer every two to three years. But my plan is just to get the cancer every two to three years and then just have him shave it off again. And I said, your plan is to get cancer every two to three years and just let them take instead of paying for the more expensive drug. And I was like, first of all, you can afford the more expensive drug. Oh I can’t. Yes you can. I manage your money, number one. But number two, and I’m not the Medicare guy, and I don’t want to be the Medicare guy. But I can do some quick research and maybe a Google search here and there. Isn’t there a cap on how much you come out of pocket for your prescription drugs? And as it turns out, there is. And that cap is two thousand dollars. Used to not be, but now it is. Yeah, now it is. Yeah. And so his options were pay two thousand dollars or get cancer every couple of years. And I’m like, this is a God awful decision. Get the more expensive drug and just get the cap. He’s like, ah, I could do that. Yes, you can do that. And then I hadn’t talked to Josh, who was our Medicare guy who walks him through all the options. And now he’s all set. But that was like terrifying for me. Like, this is, first of all, it’s scary that that has to be an option that somebody has to choose from. Number one. Number two, it’s kind of crazy that the doctors wouldn’t know about a cap on prescription drugs. Like, you would think that they deal with it all day. Yeah, like this is their world. Like they don’t have to know the ins and outs of every Medicare, but they should have some idea of like, you know what this cost. Yeah. Or what Medicare would cover. So I’m like, it feels like there was something and like, here I am like the last item. But if we didn’t have that zoom, he would have kept on getting cancer. Like that’s, you know, well, that’s why I’m glad people reach out because it gives us the opportunity to correct that, or at least have the discussion. Well, and a lot of times that people who are, again, intelligent people just don’t necessarily make great decisions with money. And sometimes it’s okay, well, hey, I need to get money out. Another scenario where he was like, um, you know, my my sister has to go into a nursing home and I want to help pay for the coverage. And, you know, we’re going to sell her house, but, you know, I’m just going to use my money. And they the the lawyer said I would get it all back. But I’m like, anything that you take out of your account at this point is all pre-tax money. So you might, you know, if you need fourteen thousand dollars for the month, you have to take out eighteen thousand dollars. You’re not going to get eighteen thousand dollars back. You’re going to get the fourteen that they reimburse, and you’re going to spend four thousand of your money. So what was the workaround? Great question. Thank you for asking. I said, listen, you’re you’re guardian of your sisters to ask you that I have the beard. I’m sorry. So what was the workaround? Thank you for asking. Question. Oh, you can continue now. Oh, yeah. Appreciate it. Is there anything else you wanted? I didn’t know the story, I got it. I don’t recall, unfortunately. That’s okay. Now, if you want to tell it. I mean, I run Fugues Financial, so it’s a little hard to keep up. By the way, as long as you run fugues. Are there any changes that you feel like we should make? I was actually thinking. There’s an employee. Men, uh, get rid of the salary. No. All right. Moving right along. So instead of doing that because he’s guardian of his sister’s estate, he can get a home equity line on his sister’s house that they’re trying to sell. Home equity line? There’s no taxes on it. It’s going to pay off when they sell the house anyway. It’s already part of the original plan. It’s like, oh, it’s a pain. I’m like, it’s a pain. But is it a four thousand dollars pain? Like, would you rather pay four thousand dollars of your own money, or would you rather make a phone call? I’d rather make the phone call. So even if. Even if it was an hour phone call. Are you worth four thousand an hour? I don’t know, even even most attorneys, I don’t dare. Dare I say an hour? Four thousand? An hour. And if you are, leave me alone and don’t talk to me. I last scary story that I came up with, um, was, uh, a guy. Well, I have two more, but I’ll. We’ll skip it. The beard is is a scary story. He keeps getting in my mouth. I think now it’s actually aligned. I think you had the whatever the the sold out would be. You think you had it, like on the side, I think. Okay, I think I mean that’s my style though. It is misaligned. That’s how it grows. What are you trying to say? Yours looks okay. You know what? I’m gonna go talk to my barber. Because if it looks like that. But I gotta make some changes. I got a few recommendations. If you. You know, I would love to hear them. Thank you for asking. Uh, so he was just turned sixty two. He was a person that I met for the first time. He had just taken sixty two. This is like probably eight or nine, maybe even ten years ago. And he said, oh, all my friends said that I should take Social Security as soon as possible. And Social Security is going to run out eventually. So, you know, I’m sixty two, I signed up for it and I’ve taken it for the last couple of months. I’m like, you’re still working? He’s like, yeah, yeah, I’m still working. I’m like, have you gotten any money from Social Security? Like very little. Well, that’s because you can only make so much money and collect Social Security if you’re under your full retirement age, which for most people is sixty seven years old, that’s the age at which you can work and collect Social Security without any penalty, and they’ll call a penalty. They say you make it all up later, but whatever. I’ll let them say that and I’m going to hold my opinions to myself. Technically a penalty, right? But he was sixty two, collecting Social Security and receiving almost none of it. And like so he stagnated the growth. Right. He doesn’t get that that buildup where it goes up by a percentage every year and it’s like five, six, seven percent. And then after sixty seven it goes up by eight percent a year. So he wasn’t getting that. He had taken it and he was getting almost nothing. I would say this is a scenario where fear has directed your finances, and fear can’t be the thing. Directing your finances, not on everything that you do and not without understanding the rules. I think some of the biggest mistakes that we make from that we see people make is by not understanding how things work. If you understood how normal securities are bought and sold, you’re not going to buy things in cryptocurrency, right? You’re not going to take Social Security at sixty two while you’re still working. You’re not going to, uh. Hopefully know you might still play arbitrage a little bit. Yeah, yeah, a little a little something. But it’s never arbitrage. Yeah. Good lord. But I mean, there are, there are things and also this idea that somebody can predict the future. I remember I met with somebody. All the stories come out now that we’ve talked. I met with some I think it was seven years ago. And every time that I think it was Jim Cramer, uh, every time that Jim Cramer made a trade, he got a notification on his phone so that he could also make the trade. I thought I was to do the opposite. Well, we found out now that if you did the opposite of what he suggested, you would have made a lot more money. Gotcha. But, you know, he is kind of an easy punching bag and nothing against Jim Cramer a little bit. But, you know, I mean, I am not saying anything. Right. Thank you. And as Alex Cao Cao different glasses. Just so I don’t like Jim Cramer and his different glasses just so everyone knows. Anyway, no I listen if your job on TV is to tell people when to buy and sell stocks, you’re going to make a lot of mistakes. And that’s just not a job that I would ever take and be like, yeah, I can predict the future. Look at me like, I feel like that’s a terrible decision, leaving a lot of places, even with the the mailers that they’ll send out or like email lists, they just cut the list in half. They send one recommendation of one and the other to another because they’re never wrong. They’re going to be right half the time and they’re always going to have people around. I like it, it’s a brilliant move. All right, well, uh, is there anything else that you wanted to say in today’s episode? Yeah, I should really shave. Oh, really? Yeah. It’s not very comfortable, unfortunately. You’ve got a little dandruff on your, uh, on your shirt, but I guess that happens when you have a beard as magnificent as yours. Perfect. Uh, thank you all for tuning in to this episode of Dukes Around and call them out. Uh, I am your host, Ben or Alex, depending on who you want to sue. But if you want to sue, it’s Alex cow. And if you think that you’re really attractive, Ben Fuchs. You’re welcome. Oh, everybody tell Kristen. But that’s okay. My wife. Thank you. Uh, not your not your wife under any Halloween disguise. All right. No. Thank you all for tuning in. We’ll see you next time.