Pokémon Cards & McDonald's Monopoly Fraud

Tommy: It's a very low barrier to get into the Gronk Squad. That's crazy!

Josh: We've committed to do The Daily Talk Show for 10 years.

Tommy: Hi guys! Hi guys!

Josh: Put it in the calendar. I'd just like to cheque the temperature in the room. I told you my squeegee story.

Tommy: It is outrageous!

Josh: Come on, let's go.

Tommy: It's The Daily Talk Show episode 961 and we're back in lockdown, but Hopefully only for another 14 hours. How are we, Josh?

Josh: Yeah, I'm very well, thank you. Another French fact, even though last time it wasn't really a fact, I was just saying déjà vu. But did you know that in France they have now made it legal for you to eat your lunch at your desk when working.

Tommy: Was that illegal?

Josh: It was illegal.

Tommy: No go. Well, I mean, there's actually nothing— I don't mind that law because it's like work in general.

Josh: So you have to go— I was reading, reading an article, so now I'm an expert— but you have to go to a bistro with your colleagues to go and have, have lunch, and it could be a 2 to 3 course meal.

Tommy: What do you— hang on, what do you mean? What do you mean you have to?

Josh: I said, well, I guess you don't have to. No, it's not like— but that's what, that's what happens. Charlotte, our French listener, can, can, um, confirm via email, but that, that's how it works.

Tommy: Or cancel, um, your statements. And so I, I mean, the, the problem with— I guess it's up to the person. This shouldn't be enforced on anybody. What they do for their lunch break. But there is something about— as much as I agree with myself on that statement, I also probably think that taking the time to actually disconnect is a good thing. But it is up to the individual and how they work, because it might work for them.

Josh: I mean, you just don't want to be— as this legislation was sort of being spoken about, French media have been doing articles where they'll put photos of sad people in front of their desk, like eating a sandwich. Like, there's a lot of people who don't like the idea, but it's due to COVID. They're trying to, you know, make sense.

Tommy: Less movement.

Josh: Yes, exactly.

Tommy: Less getting out to get vitamin D, all of that stuff. No, I mean, it is a real thing. When I was in France, Paris, I I was blown away. Breadsticks on the ground, fucking residue of croissants everywhere. No joke. Like, it sounds stupid, but I'm with Amy and I walking past. I've got video. I'm like, baguette! There's a fucking baguette stick, and we were in France. This is the best. When we got to France, when we got to Paris, Amy was really sick. She was still pregnant. Oh, she was pregnant and still pregnant. Yeah, yeah, still Still pregnant? Yeah, yeah, she's still— she's now pregnant, 21 weeks. Um, but she was only like 6 or 7 weeks when we got to France, and, and, um, it was just like a struggle. But I asked Siri, where's the best croissants in Paris? And it told us this joint, and we walked there, and by God, they were the best croissants I'd had. Got, got a 4 or 6-pack, went to the, um, the real tourist thing to do, went to the Eiffel Tower. It was closed. Walked across the road and down to the, you know, the river and, um, and sat and ate croissants and drank juice while, um, planes flew and made their sort of jet trails above the Eiffel Tower. It was, it was fucking—

Josh: sounds beautiful.

Tommy: It was—

Josh: I mean, I've done the whole tourist thing. I actually bought crepes under the Eiffel Tower. €25.

Tommy: And yeah, yeah, yeah, 1 Bitcoin each. It was 20, 60K for a crepe.

Josh: Yeah, there's— I mean, there's— it's very well tuned to tourists. Like, you get people with clipboards trying to get cash out of you. It's pretty, um, pretty full-on when you go Underneath the Eiffel Tower.

Tommy: We, we got in a cab once, we got the croissants, and I— and we said, um, and we said Eiffel Tower, and the guy— and the, the French cab driver, what? Like, he was so confused.

Josh: Uh, really?

Tommy: And then there's another name for it. What's the other— what's the other name for the Eiffel Tower? Uh, I can't even say, but we, we ended up— Amy said the other name for it, and he was still confused. Like, but I was like, imagine not knowing. I mean, maybe he was just like, these, these idiots, I'm going to take them for a bit of a ride. But we ended up getting there. But we were really blown away because I don't think— I mean, this is Charlotte.

Josh: La Dame des Ferres.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, we— anyway, we got there, we got there. It's just like, how about the biggest fucking thing in the sky, take us there. And so we got there, but the worst bit was we got there and the soccer was on the night before, and so underneath the Eiffel Tower was closed. There's been— I mean, it's a bit annoying.

Josh: Maybe that's why he was saying it, because it was closed.

Tommy: Yeah, I mean, have you ever travelled somewhere? It would probably happen back in the day before you can look at online, see if something's open, but travelled somewhere and it's closed, like a venue closed.

Josh: I think that that's very popular at the moment with all the COVID stuff. You don't know what's open, what's closed. Yeah, there'll definitely be a heap of examples. I feel like the classics are museums only being— are you okay just setting your camera? You're not happy with your lighting?

Tommy: Um, I'm sick of this, sick of this setup.

Josh: Yeah, I am too. I mean, you've gone real pov. But, um, we'll allow it. I mean, this, this shows you the power of lighting. I'm— we're both using the same types of webcam. Uh, don't you think that my shot looks quite nice with just natural light, just a window, using a window?

Tommy: Yeah, I'm using a window as well as natural light. Sorry, I'm using a light as well as— as well as the window. It's just, um, I'm in a dark room. You're in a sort of a smaller little control. Maybe the laptop. There is— so I'm using an iMac and you're using your MacBook.

Josh: Is there any difference? I think it's your background too, being the blue. Like, I think it's a lot harder to— well, I think it's harder for it to pick up the white balance and skin tones and all that sort of thing.

Tommy: Anyway, we will be back in the studio tomorrow.

Josh: Yes, we will be. Malls, like, I guess they're sort of the classics opening up at certain times. But yeah, when I was in Thailand, I asked to go to a mall. He said it wasn't open. And then before you know it, you're at a gun range because that's how they scam you. They say, sorry, that's not open, but how about the elephant park and the gun range? Yeah. Yeah.

Tommy: Yeehaw! Exotic Josh.

Josh: What can I ride?

Tommy: Anything there I can ride? Let me in. I'm speaking of riding, uh, speaking to George this morning and he said to me, oh mate, I'd love to get a motorbike. And I was like, oh yeah, I'm just thinking that it doesn't— I mean, I love motorbikes. I mean, I couldn't— it'd be more surprising you saying it, to be honest, Josh, but George, it was surprising to me. And then I said to him, have you got your license? He's like, yeah. George has his full motorbike license. George could go out and buy a 1000cc motorbike Um, he— bizarre.

Josh: And so what's the difference between a full and like a non-full?

Tommy: The, the power of the bike. So if I went and got my license, I would have to wear a nice cute little fluoro vest while I ride my motorbike, whereas George could rock up with his top off and on a Harley-Davidson that's 200, you know, 1000cc, just looking like a bikie with his moustache. He wants to get one though. How would you, how would you feel about George rolling into the office with a motorbike?

Josh: I think that's great. I think like it's, um, uh, yeah, if it's gonna make his life easier, why not? But walking, definitely walking is good though. Walking is, is nice. But I could imagine him on like a, um, like a really fun like postie sort of bike, like, because he's only a few kilometres from the office. He could go for something a little bit novel. He could go for like a Vespa or scooter.

Tommy: Oh yeah, Vespa. Well, he's got the licence to drive any of them. The Postie Bike thing though is tough because they are now expensive, like they're collectors.

Josh: Hipster cool.

Tommy: It's kind of like Pokémon cards. Actually, Pokémon cards are worth more than that. Have you seen what's happening with Pokémon cards?

Josh: I've seen that like people like Gary Vee and, um, Radio Mike— I put them in the same category— are getting right into it. Um, but yeah, what, what's the deal?

Tommy: Well, there's probably the difference between people getting right into it and then people actually buying them, because I don't know anyone that would be spending the types of money that you have to to buy a box of Pokémon cards. They're about $300,000 for a box. And no, I think that they're probably specific boxes with like first edition, old, unopened, like 20-something years old, where someone has had the right headspace at the time. I mean, this is a problem. It could have gone nowhere, but it is— it's the same, it's the same as the Bitcoin thing. It's like, I should have bought them when they were cheap. You should buy everything.

Josh: I think the hope— yeah, but I think that there's a lot of people who have bought stuff when it was cheap that now just have a bunch of junk.

Tommy: Well, there's more— I think there would be a greater percentage of people who have thought something was going to be a winner and it wasn't. I mean, my dad bought a piece of property in, uh, in— where was it?

Josh: Colorado.

Tommy: My dad owned Colorado owns a piece of property. I mean, sounds like he's probably a rich Aussie guy who owns property in Colorado. It's worth nothing. There's nothing on the land. Yeah, it was promised to be a big housing estate, like it was going to be a part of something, and then it never happened.

Josh: Never happened. Um, I watched a, uh, there's a documentary series on Binge. I have the sort of the 2-week free trial, so I'm binging.

Tommy: Sorry, really? Cancel binge.

Josh: Oh, cancel binge. Isn't that good?

Tommy: Cancel binge.

Josh: Where that dialled in.

Tommy: Uh, who did that, you or Bray?

Josh: No, that's Bray's doing. Um, but, uh, but we spoke about it. I was like, oh, we should cancel this when, when the trial's up. But, um, no, because we're watching Tiger— the Tiger Woods doco. I watched both parts. That was awesome. Uh, and what we were watching last night is all about the big fraud that happened with McDonald's monopoly in the US. It was a complete FBI investigation. What? I would highly recommend it. If you just Google McDonald's monopoly documentary, you'll find it.

Tommy: I mean, we broke the big fraud in Australia with the monopoly. We, we had some hackers on the show and then peeled off the label and it said free, like you've won. Claim your prize, but then we, we entered in the details and it was like, um, you're now in the draw. It was just like it was misleading in what it said. So tell me about what's actually happened with the Big Fraud. I, I never heard of this.

Josh: Well, so yeah, um, uh, this was, uh, 2001 that it was discovered, and, uh, what they worked out was there were, uh, dozens or, you know, at least 5, 6, 7 people who had won the million dollars from Monopoly, and they were all connected in some way. And, uh, and so yeah, they, they do a big deep dive into it. One of the interesting things, without giving it away, is they show how much goes into the printing of this type of thing. So, it's like they're creating, you know, it's under high levels of security, the printing thing. The people who were printing the Monopoly stuff, they also print all of the lotto tickets. And so— Oh, wow.

Tommy: Is that because they're trying to get the same level of security as a lotto ticket does?

Josh: Yes, yes.

Tommy: For the Monopoly.

Josh: Yes. And so, what they would do is things like the when they were doing a big prize print, so like say million dollars or, you know, not just, you know, free fries or whatever, there would be heaps of people surrounding the printers when it was happening. Then it would like go off to another location. The— they would like tape up the handle of the truck door so they know that the truck door hasn't been opened. When it arrives in a location, they, uh, they basically, uh, what's the main interesting thing that they would do? Things like mark— they would have, uh, specific marks on the million dollars. So like, um, for instance, one of the letters would be slightly scratched off. They would also have things that would only pick up on, um, like using like a blue light.. And, um, and so what happens is when someone would win, uh, they would send it in registered post in an envelope, and they actually film the first time it gets opened. There's a camera that's filming it, and they go through and show, and they do the whole blue light thing and verify it. And so, oh wow, it's like, how could this possibly be scammed? And, and, and how could fraud take place? And it was the Jacksonville FBI squad that worked it out, and it's very, very interesting.

Tommy: You spend 10 years trying to get into the FBI, and the first case you're working on is McDonald's monopoly.

Josh: It's quite complicated. But I think that that's exciting. So the thing was that the guy from the FBI was saying like, you know, we're working on boring, you know, healthcare fraud stuff.

Tommy: Like, I see, I see.

Josh: Yeah, yeah. And so this is exciting. They're like, um, uh, it even involved undercover operations, um, a potential sting.

Tommy: A lot of Macca's eaten on shift.

Josh: Yeah. And so they're trying to find who, uh, they just have one name and it's Uncle Jerry. And so they're trying to work out who is Uncle Jerry and what's his involvement in, um, the, uh, McDonald's Monopoly fraud. So I would highly recommend it. It's It's like 8 episodes or something. We only watched 2 last night, and we— I feel like we still have a long way to go.

Tommy: It sounds more fun than the Monopoly game itself, like that investigation.

Josh: Well, I think the Monopoly game was more fun back in the day. I just think now that you have to download an iPhone app, it takes away some of the fun.

Tommy: Yeah, whack. Oh, that's right. They used to have it on the placemat that was in the food tray. And you can take that. So the— I mean, I've, um, I've, I've had enough— there's been enough fraud coming from myself to McDonald's over the years. Not fraud really, but stealing. When, um, when we were young, we used to know a girl that worked at Macca's and she would, um, take all of the— well, she would take— so people would hand in their winning sundae or Quarter Pounder and Back in the day, they used to just slide them under the till.

Josh: Yeah, I remember that.

Tommy: You could see, and people would just grab them. And so I remember she might just like flick a few our way. Next minute we've got, you know, 6 weeks of food free. And so you've got all your little bits. That was, they were the day. You would win more back then. You would actually win more. I wonder if I'm—

Josh: You're a time zone guy? I feel like you were a time zone kid.

Tommy: Well, my brother was. It was— I was still a bit young. Time Zone is like a game center, just, you know, all—

Josh: it's like Time Zone Fun, I think they're called now. But there's a couple of Time Zones.

Tommy: Daytona, you know, um, the, the— what's the— what's the, the gun game? It was like a, um, it was a real time— no, God, there was a game, it's like blue guns. Anyway, there was a Time Zone, wasn't it? Yeah, Time Zone had a unlimited hour or 2 hours on a Saturday morning, but it was— I was not old enough and my brother got to go. That was upsetting. I really wanted to go.

Josh: Not to, um, not to sort of harp on too much about Binge, but another documentary we watched last night—

Tommy: It Is Your Life. It Is Your Life this week. Lockdown.

Josh: Yeah, it's called— I think you would get around it— it's called Class Action Park, and, um, it is about—

Tommy: let me guess, let me guess.

Josh: Yes, yes, let me guess.

Tommy: It's a fun park where a class action suit is taking place based on the dangerous rides and the lack of, um, uh, safety that was in place at a fun park.

Josh: Yeah, well, I, I think if you watch the first 10 minutes, you get the joke. You don't need to watch the whole thing because they sort of just reiterate the whole thing. It's less about a specific case and more just, you know, they talk about a slide where they sent a few people for the first time, like the guy's grandkids or whatever got to have a go for the first time, like the guy who owned the amusement park. Yeah, water slide. And it would actually loop, right? So it'd go do a full loop. And the first time, like, they got pretty badly sort of like hurt.

Tommy: Injured.

Josh: They were okay. Yeah, they were fine. And then they made changes to it, which would help that situation. Someone went through and they were just getting really nasty cuts. Anyway, they open up the slide and the cuts were from the teeth of the previous kid that went through. Oh! He'd lost his teeth. But, um, I think you would— I think you would get around, around it. Yeah, it's Class Action, uh, Park. It came out last year. The documentary's subject is the American amusement park Action Park, which was located in Vernon Township in New Jersey and was known for the popularity it had among locals and infamous for the poor safety record of the attractions located on the grounds. Jeez.

Tommy: Yeah, and this episode is brought to you by Binge. You can purchase—

Josh: I wish it's not— I wish maybe they can give me more than my 2-week free trial. I've got a hack, but yeah, no, tell me what we're gonna say.

Tommy: Oh, I was gonna text you last night to say, because I saw it in your diary, and I was gonna say, mate, can I have your Binge login? But it's— yeah, because I don't want to— I don't want to— so it is 2 weeks free, but you've got to put your credit card Yes, the amount of times I've fucking bought Stan just doing the free—

Josh: that's, you know, they deserve something, I guess. But, um, here's, here's a, here's a thing that— a little hack that I learned, um, a little while ago, and it actually worked. Uh, so say if you, um, there's an iPhone app and you want to, uh, sign up for their premium version, you know, it will say, hey, sign up for premium now, just press this button. You press the button you double tap on the side of your phone, they take your Face ID, and the trial begins before you're paying the premium. Yeah, and you have to remember, turn it off at this time. Now, a little hack, uh, you can actually see every promotion that that app is running, or every purchase that's available. So I'll tell you where I use this. Speechify, which is an app that reads out things, so You've seen me go through a few of these apps before. I haven't landed on one, but the idea is when—

Tommy: And you still haven't read your emails.

Josh: I know, I know. But the idea is my long emails— You're waiting for the right one. Yeah, the long emails annoy me, so I want to be able to— The main idea is that when I'm walking into work, I can have all my emails read to me, and so I know exactly what's going on, and then I can like write back. So I tried out Speechify. They're very clever with the marketing. They've got a bunch of, uh, like young college kids to do like, oh, this is how I like improved my grades. And they're like TikToks and they're like, download Speechify, get the Chrome app, and then like, yeah, I'm smarter. I'm like, oh, that sounds— yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tommy: And so it's your reading with speech.

Josh: Exactly. And so, um, I The problem is because I'm trying to be better this year with subscriptions and once I've got the— I mean, the maple syrup is not a subscription and I haven't yet purchased, but— But if there was a maple syrup subscription, you would be able to get around it.

Tommy: It would be somewhere.

Josh: Anyway, go on. Well, you can, the Ridge Forest, like they do a subscription, but it's just local. But— No, so yeah, I— so Audible, I've been a subscriber of Audible since 2010 or something, like a long period of time. And I finally am like, you know what, I don't need an Audible credit every single month because I'm just buying books that I don't necessarily need. And so I said to Bram, like, I'm actually going to get rid of my Audible. I'm a hero. So I got rid of that. And she said, oh, you love Audible, are you sure? I'm like, yeah, it's fine. So I got rid of that. But then when Bri heard Speechify, she's like, just if you're doing this to like read books, just get Audible back because there's a clear difference. Even though they say an HD voice, it is still very robotic. Um, here's the hack, here's the hack. So I— so Speechify, they were like, it's $18 a month, which is very expensive, $18 a month. Um, and you have to pay for the year, like, and so it was $215 or something. It was a lot of money. And so I clicked through for the trial. Then if you go into your, uh, like, um, app account, so you click your little face, um, in your app account, you'll see purchases and you'll see subscriptions. If you click, uh, subscriptions, you will see all the different subscriptions you have that are through your, um, your app store. So for instance, you might have New York Times or whatever, YouTube Premium, whatever it is. If you, if you click on those specific apps, it will then have a tick alongside what subscription you have. But what it also does is it reveals every subscription option available. And so Speechify, whilst they were saying, hey, get us for $215 a year, I looked and they've got a subscription that's exactly the same for $49 a year.

Tommy: Wow. So, so I'm just, I'm just clicking into my Apple accounts into—

Josh: you probably won't have any—

Tommy: click on your face top right, look at subscriptions. I've got one, which is the Waking Up Guided meditation app, Sam Harris. So right now I'm seeing premium subscription for 1 year, $139.99. Down below— sorry, above that is a 1-year subscription called yearly subscription, $109.99.

Josh: Yeah, there you go.

Tommy: So that's the same. So why are they— why is that a thing? Why?

Josh: Well, because the thing is that they have different sort of tiers for different things. So it might be country-related. I don't know the specifics. My guess is it could be, uh, geographically related. But yeah, so like they'll be running promos at different times, and so this is a way they have to show—

Tommy: yeah, they have to show that in the—

Josh: yes.

Tommy: Wow, that is one of the best hacks that you've done.

Josh: Thank you.

Tommy: Can you please go to yours and just tell me how many you have? Because it looks like it's— it looks like I've entered— if you've only got one, it kind of just takes your whole feed. And you can't— it just looks like I'm in— it looks like I've clicked through to the Waking Up subscription area, but I've only got one. What do you got?

Josh: I don't have that many, I don't think.

Tommy: Um, OnlyFans, $4,000 a month.

Josh: I'm sure OnlyFans isn't on.

Tommy: No, no, no.

Josh: Okay, here we go. So subscriptions. So they might have ones that I don't have anymore. Let's have a look. So it's just loading. Stand by. Okay, so Speechify, which expires on the 18th of Feb because I'm not getting it. Yeah, YouTube, uh, which is the 7th of March. Actually, let's see if what I'm paying for YouTube.

Tommy: So you can click through and it'll give you your breakdown of YouTube.

Josh: Yeah, no, so I'm, I'm paying $19.99 a month for YouTube, and that's the, the cheapest option. There is a $15.99, but that's for YouTube Music only. So that's good. Uh, Binge, 2 weeks, renews on the 21st, so we'll stop that. Uh, Apple One, which is, um, Apple Music, Apple TV, Arcade, 2 terabytes of iCloud storage, News+, and their Fitness+ app. That's $39.95 a month. That's for the whole family though, Bree and I together. Yeah. Uh, Drafts Drafts is $2.99 a month, $2.99 a month, and that's just like for all my note-taking. Disney+ is $8.99 a month. Um, Blinkist is— I reckon this is one where I'm paying more than what I need to. Oh no, what is Blinkist? Um, Blinkist is an app that, um, sort of does book digest, so it's like 15-minute insights is how they describe it. Uh, $119 a month— sorry, a year. A year, $119. Masterclass a year, $279. Masterclass is epic though. There's a great, um, one at the moment, great masterclass with, uh, Dan— uh, he's Daniel Pink, who wrote the book Drive, and it's all about sort of, um influence and selling and how to, um, so for instance, one thing around selling that he spoke about, and the other one I've got is AllTrails, and AllTrails is $29.99 a year. Um, yeah, anyway, yeah, uh, this, uh, Dan Pink, he does a, um, uh, he spoke about people, uh, more, uh, have a higher emotional response to losing something than they do to gaining something new. And so if you can frame something as something getting lost, so for instance, if I said—

Tommy: Sell to me, do it.

Josh: Yeah, I'm trying to sell. Thank you, Breeza, for the coffee.

Tommy: Let's say you're a— let's say you're a—

Josh: yeah, give me a scenario.

Tommy: All right, you're a salesperson for Binge, and you need to get me to subscribe. Paid.

Josh: Okay, so yeah, what I'd probably say is, um, hey look, uh, all of your friends— like, hey, I'm contacting you because, um, I just looked at your account and a lot of your contacts are using Binge. I just wanted to let you know that if people who don't have Binge are more likely to lose their friends because they have nothing to talk about. So what I'd recommend is you should at least have something, because if you don't, you risk not having a conversation and there's no reason for them to hang out with you. All right, is that good?

Tommy: I'll sign up. Yeah, I've signed up. So I'm gonna— I've got— I can't relate to any of my mates and I'll lose my friends if I don't sign up for Binge.

Josh: Do you want one more? Um, no, that's all I've got. That's all I've got.

Tommy: No, no, I mean, look, I'll take your children away if you don't purchase my fucking video.

Josh: Yeah, exactly. These kids won't love you anymore. Yeah.

Tommy: Um, uh, anyway, hopefully tomorrow we're back in the studio after—

Josh: looking likely. Yeah, then, yeah, the news, the news is, is, uh, hinting, hinting to that unless there's some sort of crazy outbreak in the next few few hours, we should be able to be in the office all together tomorrow. So that'd be good.

Tommy: Yeah, love it.

Josh: Great.

Tommy: All right, all right.

Josh: It's a daily talk show. Uh, enjoy the rest of your day, and we'll see tomorrow, guys. Have a good one.

Tommy: See you guys.