Feeling overwhelmed by debt or unsure how to navigate the fast-paced world of financial advice online? We’ve got you covered! This episode features Debt Relief Advocate Natalia Brown from National Debt Relief, who shares practical tips to climb out of financial trouble and steer clear of predatory practices.
But that’s not all—we dive into the Wild West of TikTok crypto advice, where nearly 70% of content is misleading enough to derail your financial plans. Joe and OG break it all down with their trademark insight, helping you sort fact from fiction in the world of digital finance.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
- Tackling Debt: Natalia Brown’s strategies for overcoming financial stress and avoiding common traps.
- Crypto Caution: Why TikTok might not be the best place for your financial advice (and what to watch out for).
- Credit vs. Stability: The difference between obsessing over credit scores and focusing on long-term financial health.
- Digital Disclaimers: How transparency (or lack thereof) online can impact your wallet.
And of course, no episode is complete without Doug’s trivia to keep things lively and unpredictable. Whether you’re tackling debt, dabbling in crypto, or just trying to stay informed, this episode will leave you with actionable advice and a fresh perspective on navigating today’s financial challenges.
Tune in and take the first step toward a more confident financial future!
FULL SHOW NOTES: https://stackingbenjamins.com/how-to-eliminate-debt-once-and-for-all-natalia-brown-1633
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Monday Mentor: Natalia Brown

Big thanks to Natalia Brown for joining us today. To learn more about Natalia, visit Debt Relief & Debt Settlement Company – National Debt Relief.
For more information on a variety of debt topics, feel free to visit National Debt Relief’s Resource page for more information on individual debt situations: https://www.nationaldebtrelief.com/resources/.
Our Headline
- Nearly 70% of Crypto Advice on TikTok is Misleading (Credit Ninjas)
Doug’s Trivia
- Who purchased around $15 million in medical debt for around $60,000 back in 2016, only to subsequently waive it?
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Other Mentions
Join Us Wednesday
Tune in tomorrow when we’ll dive into the stock market and how you should react.
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Miss our last show? Listen here: A Magic 8 Ball Predicts Our Financial Future (SB1632)
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] Joe: It’s Monday morning, which means I got the coffee mug out. Oh gee, got your coffee mug out. [00:00:05] OG: It’s MLK Jr. Monday morning. It’s inauguration morning. It’s everything. Morning. [00:00:10] Joe: It is a [00:00:11] Joe: big day in America. Across the board. [00:00:13] OG: It’s a joyous day. [00:00:15] Joe: But you know what beats all those? I must said, you know what trumps all those [00:00:21] Joe: See what you did there. [00:00:22] Joe: Maybe not on today. Isn’t it weird that there’s like little phrases that you just go. I can’t say that anymore because it, it, it still means what it means, but it might portend, I mean, something different. Like, you can’t say I’m gonna play the Trump card. Right. You know what I mean? [00:00:41] Joe: Like, it just, it has a different weight to it now than you know, when you would. Play er and be like, I got the Trump card. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like that’s, [00:00:49] Joe: it’s got a whole different meaning [00:00:50] Joe: and now it’s like I’ve got the card that tells you guys what we’re gonna play. You have to have a whole different definition. [00:00:57] Joe: do we wanna do this? [00:01:01] Joe: Or this one doesn’t work anymore either. I’ve already had, uh, three and it’s not lunch yet. Like that one’s ruined. . No, [00:01:09] OG: I use that one all the time. , [00:01:12] Joe: you’re talking about donuts, right? Of course. Duh. You know what? Inauguration day, I’m okay. Junior. Holiday, but it’s also Monday and stacking Benjamin. So raise your mugs everybody. [00:01:24] Joe: ’cause what we do on Mondays here, no matter what the day is, we salute our troops behalf of the men and women making podcasts in mom’s basement and the men and women at Navy Federal Credit Union. Here’s the people keeping us safe no matter what the day. Let’s go. Stacks and Benjamins now. Sper Phi [00:01:41] Doug: Devil Dogs. [00:01:41] Doug: Yeah, thanks everybody. [00:01:43] bit: Where’s the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth chattering. Kaboom. [00:01:54] Doug: Live from Joe’s mom’s basement. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:02:08] Doug: I am Joe’s mom’s neighbor Dug. And where do you turn when your debt is ? Stacked to the ceiling and there’s no room to breathe. Well, you’ll definitely wanna listen to today’s show because Debt Relief Advocate Natalia Brown from National Debt Relief, joins us today. We’ll talk about the dark side of the industry and the bright side of finally climbing out of debt Plus in our headline. [00:02:30] Doug: Crypto is back in the news. Did it ever leave? We’ll share a disturbing social media trend involving the invisible coins and how to stay away from those SC toilet scammers. And I know you’ll feel like you’re in debt to me forever because halfway through this show I’ll swoop in with my debt relief inspired trivia. [00:02:52] Doug: And now here are two guys who think compound interest is the sc Riz of the financial world. It’s Joe o and o. [00:03:06] Joe: You guys have no idea [00:03:07] Doug: what I even [00:03:08] Joe: just said, dude. Hey everybody. Welcome to the Need Translator podcast. I am Joe Saul Sea. Hi, and happy Monday to you. Skip Riz to you, Doug. It’s gonna be a great, great day. I’m not even sure what I just said. You know what that means? I could have swore at people. Do I have to mark this episode? [00:03:24] Joe: Explicit. NSFW? No idea. Across the card table from me. Another guy who’s got the idea to podcast on a Monday. It’s Mr. OG here. How are you my friend? No [00:03:35] OG: days off, no days off. [00:03:37] Joe: It is a good day in America and a good day here in mom’s basement because. There are people out there listening to us OG, who got themself in a bunch of debt trouble, uh, for one reason or another, bad things happened, and just a little, now they’re just, you know, when you’re swimming upstream and you’re making the payments, maybe even, but you’re just getting nowhere. [00:03:59] Joe: And so people start reaching out to people in the debt help arena. And you and I know OG, that’s ugly. [00:04:08] OG: Mm. It is full of troubles. [00:04:10] Joe: Yeah. How come there’s so many people out there that wanna take people that are already in huge trouble and bury ’em even further? Like, I know what’ll get me to the inner ring of hell. [00:04:20] Joe: If I can take people. If I could take people, well, they’re not [00:04:23] OG: all that bad. There’s just a lot of secondary effects that most people don’t pay attention to. Yes, it sounds good on the surface. It’s like the commercials you see about like, are you in tax trouble? Well, we can get all your tax money back. [00:04:35] OG: It’s like, well, okay, maybe some of that will work, but it also is not great for you. So. Gotta figure out if the juice is worth the squeeze. [00:04:44] Joe: And that’s my point is the predators know that. Right. The predators know ahead of time what they’re doing. [00:04:49] OG: Yeah. [00:04:50] Joe: They know. And so Natalia Brown joining us today to talk about if you’re one of those people, how do you, how do you navigate those waters? [00:04:58] Joe: Get the help that you absolutely need, man, if I would’ve had help, I probably would’ve climbed outta my. Financial hole much, much quicker than, uh, than I did when I finally found good help. Frankly, that was the start to a lot of good stuff. So speaking of good stuff, we’re also talking crypto today, which I know og you’re sweet. [00:05:15] Joe: Big, big crypto dude. [00:05:16] OG: I pulled up my Coinbase account and I noticed that my first crypto purchase was when Bitcoin was at 6,000. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Impressive. That wasn’t, that also coincided with around the first sale. So let, let’s, let’s not, let’s not assume that I’ve been piling it up since 6,000 . [00:05:36] Doug: And did you buy an entire coin and sell an entire coin at 6,000? [00:05:40] Doug: No. [00:05:41] OG: No, no, no. Are they coins? I don’t, I don’t like using that word, but um, that’s exactly what, um, [00:05:48] Doug: but are they coins mean They’re not coins, but they’re not coins. Well, a complete one is called a complete, yeah, it’s called a coin. Well, we gotta fire whoever came up [00:05:56] Joe: with that, who came up with that terminology. [00:05:58] Doug: Yeah, I disagree. Alright. But in any case, you’re buying fractional shares of a coin, [00:06:04] OG: allegedly. That’s the main benefit of. The bit. Yes. Okay. I refuse to use the word coin. [00:06:11] Joe: We’re gonna talk about, uh, the stock market being a roller coaster, as you said, Doug, since the beginning of the year. Uh, crypto being a roller coaster as it is on our any day ending and why, and even more. [00:06:23] Joe: But first, Natalia Browns with national debt Relief. She’s a huge advocate for the debt relief industry and, uh, making sure . That that industry moves in the right direction. And if you’re looking for help with your debt, you need to be very careful because so many people are looking to help you get further into debt. [00:06:39] Joe: Her company has helped a ton of people settle their debt and gain good habits so that finally, I. Finally, you might be able to save some money instead of paying it out to everybody else. Natalia Brown coming up here in just a minute. We have a couple sponsors that make this show free so that you don’t have to pay for it, and we get all this goodness to you. [00:06:59] Joe: So let’s hear from them. And then Natalia Brown, today’s mentor, helping you get outta debt. [00:07:16] Joe: And I am super happy she’s coming down the stairs to the basement. Natalia Brown’s here. How are you? I’m great. How are you? Um, great. Happy New Year. Did you have a good holiday season? [00:07:26] Natalia: Oh, I had a dramedy. It was great, but it was, uh, really funny. , uh oh yeah, we lost two cell phones, set an oven on fire and broke a dining room table. [00:07:35] Joe: Okay, wait a minute. How do you set a cell phone on fire? [00:07:38] Natalia: I. No, no, no. The oven was set on fire. We lost two self. [00:07:41] Joe: Oh, you set the oven on? Oh yeah. We’ve done that before. Yeah. [00:07:43] Natalia: Yeah. Just uh, making brisket, you know, . [00:07:47] Joe: I’m surprised you got hair left, Natalia. I thought you’d end up like me after all that. [00:07:51] Natalia: We caught it quick. [00:07:52] Natalia: That’s . [00:07:53] Joe: That’s fabulous. Well, you know what? A lot of people. Our thinking right now. They had problems during the holidays because like a lot of us do, we get in over our head and we think, you know, I gotta spend more money, more money. December, the most expensive month of the year. So it’s really important that we’re talking to you right now. [00:08:12] Joe: Before we get into like the right way to handle debt, a lot of people are just skeptical about the people out there that help with debt. Me being one of those people, you know, between financial media and financial advising for over 30 years, and I’ve seen some people do things that are horrible and make their debt even worse because of so-called quote. [00:08:33] Joe: Experts, experts in the business. I know that you’ve always been an advocate and you work on making sure that people in the industry are doing the right thing. What’s a sign that I got the wrong approach going , that I maybe reached out to the wrong people. Natalia, let’s start there. [00:08:50] Natalia: When they want something from you first, when there’s upfront costs. [00:08:54] Natalia: Where they sell you something. That sounds too good to be true. It probably is right. There is a long road to get out of debt. If anyone says they can do it in five minutes or you just have to fill out this form, it’s probably not real. It’s probably something that’s a little scandalous if there’s no education around it. [00:09:13] Natalia: I would be really, really skeptical. I’m a skeptic myself, so I like to look at every review possible for any company or any shoe I even wanna buy. I’m looking at other people to see what those reviews are and if they’re positive, if they’re reasonable. So those are some of the signs. If there’s no reviews, the same way, you don’t wanna go to a restaurant that’s like a C minus. [00:09:31] Natalia: Don’t go work with a company that’s not even rated with the BB. B. [00:09:35] Joe: It always blows me away when I hear these stories, these horrible stories, because every single time when I say, did you look at the reviews? They’re like, no. Yeah, I didn’t look at the reviews at all, but you know, you said something else that was really important. [00:09:47] Joe: You know, our goal is not to work with debt relief people forever. The education piece, Natalia, is so important because you want this to happen once. [00:09:56] Natalia: And never again. We actually don’t want replete clients. That’s something that we actually talk about internally a lot. If someone comes back, we didn’t do our job right? [00:10:03] Natalia: So if there is someone out there that you’re trying to work with and it’s going to be a forever thing and they keep trying to sell you more products, but you’re still in debt, it’s not the right place to be in. Uh, you don’t wanna be in debt and you wanna have the right tools to never be in that situation again. [00:10:16] Natalia: For sure. [00:10:16] Joe: One thing I have seen over the years that people end up doing is declaring bankruptcy, and while bankruptcy has a place, I’d love for you to talk to me about when it might be time to think about bankruptcy and, and all the intermediate steps we might do before that. [00:10:33] Natalia: Well, and bankruptcy is really interesting. [00:10:35] Natalia: I think a lots people know about it, but they don’t know the details of it. It’s just a word that kind of floats around. It’s a buzzword, but the reality is a lot of people who try to go to bankruptcy actually don’t even qualify. And there are other options to your point where before you get there, there are some statistics out there that say even people who do file for bankruptcy and do qualify, they do fail out. [00:10:54] Natalia: So there’s two types, right, where there’s a full dismissal, which is really evasive. Where any asset you might have is no longer yours. It’s at the mercy of someone else to decide whether or not they’re going to sell it and put it towards your debt. And then there’s a payment plan where you’re still gonna pay your debt in full, but there’s some arrangements made between the bankruptcy court and your creditors. [00:11:14] Natalia: People who end up in the payment plan, they tend to fail out because they don’t make those payments and they start back at square one bankruptcy even. When you qualify, it’s not always the answer. Alternatives can be if your credit is still in a good place, you can do a consolidation loan. You can do something like What we do is not a consolidation loan, it’s debt settlement. [00:11:33] Natalia: It’s anywhere between 12 and 48 months where we will settle one debt, sometimes two at a time, and at that point the person no longer has unsecured debt and they can restart building their credit. They can . Go back to their financial life. They have good education during that time and they also have good money habits in our program. [00:11:52] Natalia: Once you start making deposits, you gotta get used to doing that. Once your debt is gone, you can then start putting that towards savings. So now you’re rebuilding. So I really like for people to look at all of their options. It’s not a one size fits all, I don’t think debt settlements for everyone. [00:12:05] Natalia: Bankruptcy is not for everyone. Consolidation is not for everyone. Make sure you do your research before you do anything, even though I’m an advocate for . For NDR and I, I work there and I rah, rah, rah. I love my company. It’s not for everybody. You gotta do your research. [00:12:19] Joe: You’re also my understanding from when you and I talked at FinCon a few months ago. [00:12:23] Joe: You’re on a council of people with people from other companies who are making sure that the industry is doing the right stuff. Talk to me about that for a second. [00:12:31] Natalia: So it’s A A DR for sure, but it’s used to be American Fair Credit Council. I forget the acronyms, they’re so hard to keep track of them. , I know , but it’s been rebranded to, uh, the Debt Resolution Organization where all of the member companies, we look at regulatory, [00:12:46] Natalia: Requirements and we make sure that we govern ourself. We self govern, we set best practices, we work with regulators. We also make sure we work with advocacy groups. We wanna make sure that we’re doing the right thing. Because in our industry, especially in the past, there have been bad players and it’s our job to make sure. [00:13:02] Natalia: That we are a service that is understood and recognized and and available to people. ’cause that’s the goals to help people. And we don’t want to, you know, be behind the shadow of the stigma of our industry. So it’s really fulfilling work, especially when you run into people who are, again, are skeptics or have. [00:13:20] Natalia: Old data, old facts, they don’t understand what the new laws are that keep us all safe, um, from predatory actors. So it’s really interesting to work with partners that are like-minded as well, so that we have a safe industry to work in. [00:13:33] Joe: Yeah. And that’s really cool. And getting back to bankruptcy, what I heard you say. [00:13:38] Joe: Not explicitly, but what I think I heard was if you go to somebody and they say, let’s pursue bankruptcy, and that’s the first thing, that’s probably also not your right approach. [00:13:47] Natalia: It’s probably not the right approach. I mean, even for a do it yourself kind of thing, did you evaluate what your situation is before you just jump to bankruptcy? [00:13:56] Natalia: I think the first thing anyone ever has to do is do a full evaluation of . What do I have coming in as far as income goes? What’s going out? What can I reasonably afford to pay back? And then decide what options are out there, depending on what the answers are from that evaluation. [00:14:13] Joe: Let’s go right there then, Natalia. [00:14:14] Joe: ’cause I think you bring up a great point. Where do I start? Do I start with writing it all down? Right down? These are all my debts. This is how much my cash flow. [00:14:22] Natalia: That is the scariest part. ’cause lots of people like to hide. I’ve definitely spoken to clients who quite literally put things under their mattress and pretend they’re not there. [00:14:30] Natalia: I [00:14:30] Joe: used to be there myself, [00:14:32] Natalia: the worst way to do it. Natalia. [00:14:34] Joe: When I was bad with money, I had this, it wasn’t really a belief, but you see this all the time. If I don’t look at it, it’ll just go away. [00:14:41] Natalia: It doesn’t go away. It just builds more anxiety. ’cause you know it’s . There, like it didn’t disappear. So the hardest part is really just looking at it, and once you do that, you can start building a plan. [00:14:51] Natalia: And I, I know that people immediately feel better once there’s a plan. Once you start looking at something and say, okay, maybe I shouldn’t have 10 coffees a day. Maybe I can have one and I just save myself 50 bucks. That’s like a really good feeling. So try to look at the end goal and have that be the motivation versus the. [00:15:10] Natalia: Fear of kind of, I don’t wanna see that I’m $25,000 in debt, but you can kind of flip that mindset and say, I wanna see myself out of $25,000 in debt and here’s my plan. And if you kind of reframe, it actually becomes a little bit easier to do that evaluation. [00:15:24] Joe: It’s amazing stackers what Natalia is saying because I have to tell you that when I. [00:15:28] Joe: Finally wrote it down even before, you know, you said you feel better when you have a plan. I didn’t have a plan yet, but my subconscious brain started working on the stuff that you were talking about that, you know, maybe not the coffee, maybe not going out to the, maybe just all my brain starts all of a sudden coming up with solutions because it’s in writing in front of me. [00:15:45] Joe: It was so, so, so, so, so positive. If I’ve got a credit card in January that I know that I’m not gonna be able to make that minimum payment. What would happen if I’d call up the company? What is a company like Capital One gonna do or chase if I call them and go, Hey, I’m not gonna make the minimum payment. [00:16:01] Natalia: There are some companies, not all, we’ll work with you for a short period of time. So whether it’s moving your due date or some companies, uh, credit card companies have some, uh, deferral programs, they will still charge you interest. They will still expect their money, and it is a short-term solution. So if there’s a one-off situation, that’s a great way to kind of make sure you don’t hurt your credit, you don’t hurt your credit worthiness. [00:16:26] Natalia: So don’t be afraid to call ’em. Don’t be afraid to call them. Not at all. And don’t be afraid to call and say, Hey, I don’t like my interest rate. Is there anything you can do? They might say no. They may say. Maybe you wanna look at a different credit issue or we shop around a lot for things that we like. [00:16:40] Natalia: Like we know what coffee we like, we know what bedsheets we like, we know what shoes we like. We look at all the reviews. Do the same thing with your finances. Find an institution that actually supports your lifestyle, right? Like whether it’s points or that flexibility when you’re having a hard time and they have programs to support you. [00:16:56] Natalia: So if that company can’t work with you, find another company that can. [00:17:00] Joe: And now I’m beyond one credit card, and I know massively nothing’s getting paid. I remember this point in my life in the 1990s when I went through this. Just nobody was gonna get paid. And I know it was for two months. I assume this is when we call you. [00:17:15] Natalia: Yes. Hopefully before that, once you, you really know that you’re kind of just in this revolving cycle and you’re only able to payment on payments. [00:17:23] Joe: I’m on the treadmill. You [00:17:24] Natalia: are on the treadmill that the interest is still building. You just wanna reach out to us. This is exactly what our . Client is, is the person that can make some minimum payments, but they’re never going to get out of debt just doing that, and they don’t have enough income to pay more than than that minimum, or they’re missing their minimums. [00:17:41] Natalia: That’s where we come in and we would work with those creditors and we would try to get settlements instead. What that means is get, let’s say you have a balance of $10,000. We would work with that creditor and say, Hey, would you take $5,000 over maybe 12 months? That client would have a separate savings account that we would use to fund that settlement for them. [00:18:00] Joe: Okay. Which is cool because often when people have these problems, I like the idea of the separate savings account because then I’m able to build that muscle that I’ve never built before. [00:18:10] Natalia: Correct. You have to consciously think about taking things out of a savings account. So I have a savings account that actually requires like a transfer time. [00:18:18] Natalia: So if I really want that money, I have to say, do I really need it in two days or not? So it’s a very similar exchange in that mindset. Savings is not something that you’re supposed to immediately access every time something happens. It’s supposed to be for emergencies or designated specifically for something. [00:18:33] Natalia: So that’s why it’s really helpful to have that account on the side that is specific for getting out of debt and you feel good when that builds up. And then you settle something, uh, and you can see those transactions separate from your everyday spending. [00:18:45] Joe: Oh, yeah. Because then you get confidence, and I think confidence is everything here. [00:18:49] Joe: Absolutely. Did we talk about this at FinCon because. When I was a financial planner, that very strategy just outlined, really worked. When it came to clients that maybe didn’t have credit card debt or debt in general, they just would always spend the emergency fund. So I would have them put the emergency fund at a bank That was I. [00:19:07] Joe: Like literally across town and we would cut up all the ways to get to it except drive across town. What was neat about that was exactly what you said. ’cause then your brain has to go, oh, I can’t do the lazy thing, which is grab this money. I gotta come up with a different solution. And then our brains are amazing. [00:19:22] Joe: My brain’s like, oh, I could do this and this instead. I don’t have to spend any money. [00:19:26] Natalia: Exactly. And you really get to really define what an emergency actually is. Right. . It is an emergency that you didn’t have. Uber ride to work? No, take the bus, it’s fine. Or an emergency that your tire blew out and you can’t get to work. [00:19:39] Natalia: Those are two completely different things. So, uh, it really does help reframe and you really understand what your necessities are versus what your wants are, and I think that’s hugely important when it comes to spending, knowing the differences between. Needs and wants. [00:19:53] Joe: That’s fabulous. And to be clear, an organization like yours, when you talked about settlement, let’s talk about taking less. [00:20:00] Joe: Two questions are, I would imagine, because you guys have the power of A, you do it every day, and B, you work with so many people, you could probably get a better settlement than just me calling and asking for a settlement. [00:20:11] Natalia: Yes, so we collect lots of data. We have over 500,000 clients over the last 15 years or so. [00:20:19] Natalia: So we have access to lots of data. We’ve built lots of relationships, so we do know what the best settlement is, and we can also partner that with, we know what our client situation is when you do this as an individual. . You may not know that the person on the other line is telling you, yeah, 80% is the best deal we can possibly give you. [00:20:37] Natalia: You have no context to that, versus the person that calls five minutes later and gets 40%, you don’t know where that is. So you might actually short yourself if you don’t have that data. Right? So we do have. Bargaining power, we do build those relationships. That’s part of what we do internally, is to make sure that we always get the best for our clients and what’s best for their individual situations. [00:20:58] Natalia: There’s also certain programs that clients may not know about and a lot of collection agencies, those agents are working our commission. It is their job to get the most out of you. It is our job to fight them to get the least , give them the least amount. So I think that’s kind of the part that makes us unique as far as [00:21:15] Natalia: How we use our data to make sure that we’re doing the right thing for our clients. And as an individual, that might be a little bit more difficult ’cause you don’t have access to that. [00:21:21] Joe: Sure. Yeah. Well, and just the experience. I mean, my favorite football team’s, the Detroit Lions, they go for it on fourth down every single time. [00:21:28] Joe: Is [00:21:28] Natalia: that Hawaiian blue ? . [00:21:30] Joe: Exactly. . And for people that aren’t Detroit Lions fans or football fans, you don’t know how. But basically what the team does is something nobody else does, but because they do it all the time, you end up with, there’s no one analyst called it Pucker Factor, which might be a little gross, but , you know, you just get a little nervous. [00:21:47] Joe: But if, I’m sure if you call Capital One on your own, you’re gonna be nervous. If you work with somebody that does it all day long, it’s gonna be a whole different thing. What does it do to my credit though when I do this settlement? [00:21:59] Natalia: See, this is where I talked about it before. It’s never gonna be a too good to be true situation. [00:22:03] Natalia: Your credit is going to take an impact because in order to get some of these settlements, you actually have to be in a delinquency phase. So there is gonna be a negative impact to credit, and our goal is to help you get out of debt, not necessarily to focus on credit, because credit can rebuild itself after that debt has been resolved. [00:22:19] Natalia: So our only goal is to get people out of debt and then they can restart. Building their credit, rebuilding their savings, and starting over. And the plus side here is, this is faster than most options. If you’re in debt two to four years, and then you get out by year five. It’s like it never happened almost. [00:22:38] Natalia: So that’s kind of the goal here. So there is a negative impact during that time, and I like to tell our clients, well, your credit’s already in a bad spot. Your credit worthiness, your income to, uh, debt ratios already high. What are you gonna do with that credit, right? Let’s take care of the debt and then let’s worry about the credit later. [00:22:54] Joe: Well, and what I like about this too, Natalia, is that what I had to learn, I had to learn a cash first lifestyle. I had to learn that that money, that OPM, the other people’s money was not my money. And I had to learn that the hard way. And when I went all cash and realized just how dangerous credit truly can be and stop worried about credit, now my credit’s phenomenal. [00:23:13] Joe: But it’s because I don’t focus on it. Because I’m focused on better habits, which to your point, let’s make that monthly payment, make it matter [00:23:21] Natalia: you. You flipped it. Now it’s a tool for you versus a crutch. [00:23:24] Joe: Exactly. [00:23:25] Natalia: That’s exactly what the goal is. Right? Stop it. Don’t want anyone to be using credit as a crutch or that’s the emergency resource. [00:23:32] Natalia: It should be. The tool that you use because you’ve planned and you understand what your goals are and that’s why you’re using your credit versus I needed to buy groceries and if that’s what you have to do, there’s no judgment there. It’s just a matter of being able to change your finances. So that’s not a situation that you’re in. [00:23:48] Joe: Is there ever an amount of money that’s too big for you guys? [00:23:51] Natalia: No, actually there isn’t. We go anywhere from about $7,500 is our minimum, and it goes as high as however much debt someone has. As long as it’s unsecured debt. We’ll work with anyone. [00:24:02] Joe: Yeah. That’s fabulous. Yeah. And, and if people want more information, I wish there was a place you could send people. [00:24:08] Joe: Too bad. There’s not a place where you could send people. [00:24:10] Natalia: Oh. But of course there is . Oh wow. Who knew? Who knew? Uh, it’s, uh, national debt relief.com. Super easy. And you could follow us on Instagram as well. Same handle? Yes. [00:24:19] Joe: What I like about your Instagram account, as you guys have all kinds of tips for people. [00:24:24] Joe: And ways to, again, ways to avoid being your client, which is kind of weird. [00:24:28] Natalia: Our clients are on there as well, telling their own stories, which is wonderful. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen one of our commercials. Those are our actual clients who have been really successful and jumped at the opportunity to talk about their success and help other people, and I think that’s kind of. [00:24:42] Natalia: Why I work at NDR because you really get to impact people’s life in a, in a positive way and just see them thrive. And it just makes me very, very happy. [00:24:49] Joe: Well, from a guy who’s been in the hole and didn’t know how to get out to figuring it out and having a lot of help along the way, just, yeah, go get help today, people go get help today. [00:24:59] Joe: Natalia, thank you for mentoring our stackers today. I super appreciate it. [00:25:02] Natalia: Of course. I’d love to come back. We have so much more to talk about, especially. Oh, we certainly do. I Giants friend . [00:25:08] Joe: Oh no, you’re gone. See you later. [00:25:11] Natalia: We had a horrible season, . Well, you [00:25:13] Joe: did have a horrible season, man. And is it gonna get better? [00:25:16] Natalia: I hope so. . It can’t get any worse, can it? ? [00:25:19] Joe: I hope so. Well, there’s always next year, right? Happy New Year. [00:25:22] Natalia: Always next year. Happy New Year. [00:25:29] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. And remember that time a guy on late night TV bought like a whole bunch of overdue debt from collectors and, and then he waived all of it. Hey, remember that? Remember that thing like that? You know that one time? Oh boy. I’ll get there. I mean, and here’s today’s question. [00:25:48] Doug: Who was that guy? Like, I mean, seriously. Who? ’cause I really wanna remember who’s awesome. I’ll be right back after I go do that. The one thing with those people, oh, we’re gonna have like a bunch of, we’re gonna do some cool Yeah. Stuff. [00:26:18] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m guy who can’t remember today’s date, and yet the guy who can tell you how many touchdown passes Doug Flutie threw in the USFL. Joe’s Mom’s neighbor Doug. I swear Joe’s mom’s rubbing off on me. I can’t seem to remember this guy’s name. He was a late night TV host guy and actually I think he might still be, and sometime in the past. [00:26:42] Doug: Hold on. It is coming to me. There’s flickers, uh, 2016, I think it was 2016. This guy was talking about how shady these companies are that buy and sell debt. So he bought like 15 million in past due medical debt from Texas, probably and only had to pay like 60,000 bucks to get 15 million in debt. Chump change right? [00:27:07] Doug: Then he waived all the debt as part of his story. But today’s question was, what was the name? I mean, not that I need help remembering it or anything, but today’s question was, what was the name of the guy who waived the debt to create huge headlines? The answer. Um, I mean, the answer is, uh, well, I mean, it was, it was John, John Oliver that, yeah, it was John Oliver. [00:27:32] Doug: That’s who it was. Well, I got it right. Hope you did too. And now to two guys who are ready to get right to the second half of the show, Joe and og, [00:27:43] Joe: I think. Oh man. I. Welcome to. Thanks for that Bill. Appreciate it, . It was fa fantastic trivia. Sometimes it’s funny, I can’t believe that it was 2016, ’cause it doesn’t feel like that long ago. [00:27:56] Joe: Oh gee. That John Oliver. Mm-hmm . Hold that stunt. But when you could buy that much debt for that little money. Doug, you said there’s a Planet Money episode out there from maybe a decade ago where they Yeah. Dove into this. Well, yeah. And to be clear, they didn’t dive into Natalia Brown. What they do you actually call National debt relief and they help you get outta debt. [00:28:17] Joe: Like she explained. They are not the people that John, they’re not the bad guys. John Oliver. Yeah. Yeah. The people John Oliver was talking about. Right. Holy go. [00:28:24] Doug: That Planet of Money episode is pretty good. It’s a ways back if any of our stackers want to go look for it, but it goes like inside this one debt collection company from Buffalo, New York. [00:28:36] Doug: Probably 10 years ago. And, uh, it’s in Incre. They’re just working off of a spreadsheet that they bought from somebody, much the same way John Oliver did. And they’re usually inaccurate. And it’s not that difficult. If you go through the right steps, send the right letters, it is not that difficult to just push back and, and make the debt go away sometimes. [00:28:53] Doug: ’cause they don’t know what they’re talking about. They just bought a literally an old Excel file from somebody. [00:28:57] Joe: Yeah, that kind of confirms my experience. I mean, back in the day when, and I’ve talked about this before, if you’re new here, . About how I, during the nineties, really, really bad of money, had bad credit. [00:29:06] Joe: I actually paid off a collection agency and I got a certified letter stating that I’d done that. And thank God I kept it because about 18 months later. Doug, another company came after me, Unreal. Another company came after the same debt. And then I told him, I said, I said no, I paid that off and I had to go, look, man, I had to search for that and luckily I still, you had to prove [00:29:26] OG: it instead of the other way around. [00:29:28] Joe: It wasn’t that horrible. I had to prove it to them, and so then I sent it certified mail. So then they didn’t come after the debt. But then guess what happened? Six months later. A third company came after the debt that I’d already paid to the first company. Just absolutely horrible. [00:29:41] Doug: I mean, it still sounds like a luxurious process to com compared to what normally happens to me where there’s a guy with a black leather coat and a crowbar standing next to my car in the Walmart parking lot, [00:29:53] Doug: They don’t take certified letters. My [00:29:55] Joe: favorite story like that was, uh, in Jeff Foxworthy these’s autobiography, where he talks about by the Jeff Foxworthy autobiography. Sounds like an oxymoron, but really going for the highbrow literature there. Huh, Joe? I, I, I got done with Warren Peace and then I turned to Jeff Foxworthy. [00:30:13] Joe: But it is, it, it’s a funny, funny, funny read as you can imagine from that guy. But he talks about . Him being horrible with money and the repo guy coming for his Pontiac Firebird or maybe a Trans Am, he said, I need about $650 right now because you’re three payments behind. Or I have to take the car. And Jeff Howorth, he goes, six 50 bucks. [00:30:33] Joe: I don’t have that kind of money. And the repo guy goes, what? Don’t you have any checks? Jeff goes, oh, I’m sorry. I thought you wanted money. Why don’t I just go ahead and pay the entire car off? I’m gonna write you a check for the entire thing. [00:30:46] OG: Yeah. Think about 80% of our, uh, audience has no idea how. That’s funny. [00:30:51] OG: Yeah. [00:30:51] Doug: Because they don’t understand. He could just write a pa write on a piece of paper. Yes. An actual check for whatever for number he wants. I’m good. Yeah. [00:30:59] Joe: He’s pretty much committing fraud. In that example, the main point that I love OG, that Natalia made is this is not about your credit. And I totally agree with her. [00:31:09] Joe: People that don’t have money and that are in debt are overly obsessed with their credit and not obsessed enough with having money in the bank. For me, I, I was there and I thought, oh, I gotta make sure my credit’s okay. F forget about your credit. Yeah, forget about your credit. [00:31:25] OG: Yeah. It’s already destroyed. [00:31:26] OG: If, if you have one 30 day late payment, it’s. In trouble in a hurry. If you have more than one or it’s 90 days, you know that clock starts over. It’s a two year clock. It’s a two year clock, so it didn’t take you 90 days to get into trouble. It’s not gonna be 90 days to get outta trouble. Right. It’s, it’s a two year run rate. [00:31:45] OG: And, and I know she talks about like bankruptcy as kind of a last resort. And trying to avoid that. But even that, it’s, it’s a two year clock. And, and for some people, even less, you know, depending on what, what you’re doing. But it is kind of interesting. I was having this conversation with somebody the other day about borrowing money for a car and person I was talking to is like, oh, well, you know, such and such a person in the family helped out. [00:32:06] OG: And I was like, what the heck? Like the two worst people with money are like collaborating on how to get a loan for a car. . Like this is, this is, this is a terrible idea and this is kind of a, to me. To me, this is a known thing. The word utilization from a credit score standpoint has a very distinct meaning, and it’s very obvious, right? [00:32:28] OG: If you have a, a credit card that has a $10,000 limit and you have $2,000 on the balance, you’ve used 20%, you’ve utilized 20%, and, and obviously the lower the percentage of utilization of your credit the better. And I was literally talking to this person who, with all of their soul, believed that. [00:32:47] OG: Utilization was, I need to utilize it as much as possible. ’cause that’s what utilization means. I don’t say that in a sense of like going, oh my gosh, what an idiot. But more to say like, there’s a lot of confusion around this. Mm-hmm . There’s a lot of words that we use and in our space we’re like, oh yeah, we know what that means. [00:33:05] OG: You know, that’s what we talk about every day, but some people don’t. But if you’re already in trouble. The first step is to stop digging the hole that you’re in. And I know that’s what Natalia is saying when she’s like, don’t sweat the credit card stuff. Don’t sweat the credit score. Sweat, get in cash, like get cash. [00:33:22] OG: And then the credit score stuff takes care of itself. [00:33:25] Doug: I mean, a, we’re all trained to, or at least reinforce, to think about utilization incorrectly because we talked about this, uh, six or eight months ago on the show. But when we paid off our house, our credit score went down. We were debt free. Yeah. And the credit score went down and I’ve seen other people comment about that in the basement a lot. [00:33:42] Doug: Lot like it goes down by a lot. [00:33:43] OG: 50 points you, you pay off your car and like my credit, my credit score craters, [00:33:47] Doug: screamed out a giant WTF when that happened and then called you guys. There are those confusing things that make us think that way, but the other thing to realize is. We see probably as many or more commercials on TV about credit score and apps and services we can use to help improve our credit score like instantly than we do about, you know, this kind of education about stop the bleeding. [00:34:12] Doug: And we have to remember, or people don’t remember often enough, you credit score is a trailing indicator. It’s not the thing that starts the process that controlling your spending starts the process and the credit score is just the thing that happens at the very end. [00:34:26] OG: That’s a good observation. [00:34:28] Joe: Yeah. [00:34:28] Joe: Focus just on the bottom line, and I think the critic score takes care of itself. Credit score will, will take care of itself. If you focus on getting money in the bank, paying your bills on time, credit score takes care of itself and [00:34:39] Doug: don’t pay off your house apparently. . [00:34:42] Joe: But if you pay off your house, you know, do you really carry your credit score went down? [00:34:45] Joe: No, I didn’t give a rip. I laughed about it. [00:34:47] OG: It’s always a short blip. It’s not, 50 points is not, it was a year insignificant. [00:34:52] Doug: It just happened. I literally just got back to the credit score I was at before I paid it off in the last week or two party at Doug’s house. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it is, in the grand scheme of things, it’s a blip. [00:35:03] OG: And how jacked up would it be if you actually went to go get a mortgage? Right now, your credit score will go down also , because now you have debt [00:35:11] Joe: Super. No matter what you do, , what’s the point? Yeah, [00:35:15] OG: maybe [00:35:16] Joe: this should [00:35:16] OG: have been to tell’s point, it doesn’t matter what you do, but to your point, it’s a lagging indicator, so it would make sense if you went and got debt that it goes down and if you are not using all of those things, right? [00:35:27] OG: If you don’t have an installment loan, if you don’t have a mortgage loan, if you don’t have a credit card, if you’re missing one of those legs of the stool, it makes sense that the algorithms would be like, well, maybe he’s not responsible. Like it’s just a snapshot. Right? It’s not . It’s not that, it doesn’t necessarily take into all of your history. [00:35:43] OG: Mm-hmm . You know, unless it’s like payment history. Yeah. But it’s like literally everything else is just a snapshot. How much do you use on your credit cards? How many loans outstanding do you have? How is your payment history as of right now? [00:35:55] Joe: If you wanna dive deeper into this topic or any topics that we talk about, head to accu benjamins.com/ 2 0 1. [00:36:03] Joe: That’s our 2 0 1 newsletter. It’s always free and uh, people that get the 2 0 1 last week got an extra bonus. Oh geez. Essential numbers you need to know for 2025. Oh yeah. Which was awesome. We try to, we try to treat our 2 0 1 people right. Give them as much great stuff as we like [00:36:21] OG: them more than just you. [00:36:23] Joe: Right. mom likes them better, so, so do we. Right? They [00:36:26] OG: get the [00:36:27] Joe: special [00:36:27] OG: brownies. [00:36:27] Joe: Let’s go to our headline. [00:36:29] headlines: Hello doling. And now it’s time for your favorite part of the show, our Stacking Benjamin’s headlines. [00:36:35] Joe: Our headline today, I found incredibly interesting as we record this right now, TikTok has its case in front of the Supreme Court to see if the Supreme Court will issue a stay or will. [00:36:48] Joe: Allow TikTok to stay open. What’s gonna happen? So when this comes out, maybe it’s gone. This particular study that, uh, I was just reading about guys was specifically about TikTok, but it also spills over to other social media. This was a study done by Crypto Ninjas. I’ll link to it in our show notes, crypto Ninjas and Storable. [00:37:12] Joe: They found shockingly, they looked at a thousand different stories about crypto on TikTok, and they found nearly 70% of crypto advice was misleading. I know you find that shocking. [00:37:28] OG: Wow. Hold on. As grandpa used to say, stop the presses. [00:37:32] Joe: I know, but you know, whenever you hear people talk about crypto, crypto and TikTok have been very linked since the time TikTok really became a thing in the United States. [00:37:41] Joe: And they write here that as social media continues to grow, tiktoks emerges as the leading platform for crypto advice with an abundance of content. Millions of viewers, no surprise to apps host a vibrant community of crypto influencers. I actually see them in my feed. All the time. Here’s really the key findings from this. [00:37:57] Joe: Nearly 70% of crypto advice is misleading. 96% of TikTok videos promoting meme coins are misleading 96%. Basically og You see anything about a meme coin? Well, hold on a second. Uh, TikTok, who, [00:38:11] OG: where are the four? Percent that are not misleading. . For those, the ones that are like, this is dog meme coins. [00:38:18] Joe: 82% of the meme coins that were ever promoted on TikTok ever, 82% of them are now dead. [00:38:28] Joe: Almost none of the crypto TikTok influencers hold relevant qualifications. While 70% of them this is gonna be be shocking too. 70% of them are using the platform to promote their own paid services. [00:38:44] OG: I’m waiting for the shocking part, [00:38:46] Doug: right? Well, well, how [00:38:46] Joe: do we respond to that? Okay. [00:38:48] OG: Yes. Yes, agreed. Look [00:38:50] Joe: at the number of people every year that get ripped off on TikTok and other social platforms by these crypto people. [00:38:56] Joe: Right? Every year, how many times have we done this story? People [00:38:59] OG: have been ripped off by anything and everywhere. Since the beginning of time, this is just okay, a new way to do it. [00:39:06] Joe: We just had Natalia Brown on, and I would predict, I would think that in the debt relief industry where you call up a debt company and there’s, as Natalia and I talked about, and then we talked about, there’s plenty of nefarious players in that market, I would guess. [00:39:23] Joe: I would get and, and I have no stats, just a lot of time doing this. Maybe 60%, 50 or 60% of the people in that industry are people I don’t wanna deal with. Right. 50, 60%, 96%. That’s that just. Just, just a monster, like at least with the debt relief industry, oh gee, you’ve got a one in two chance of finding somebody to actually help [00:39:50] Joe: You wanna learn about crypto and you turn on any social media, you need to just assume it’s wrong. Like how many times have we been in that type of a, of an industry where you just gotta assume it’s wrong? So, [00:40:02] Doug: so does this beg the question that it’s time to legitimize it as a currency and regulate it? Or is it time to say it’s all gone. [00:40:09] Doug: It’s all outta here. It’s the wild west. It can’t be cleaned up and uh, we gotta kill it. I think that [00:40:16] Joe: question’s about my pay grade. I, I don’t know. OG you got an answer to that one? OG has [00:40:20] Doug: a look on his face, like, not even with a 10 foot pole. [00:40:24] OG: I mean, how is this surprising to anyone? It’s not, [00:40:26] Doug: it’s a, that’s why I’m asking the question. [00:40:27] Doug: It’s the [00:40:28] OG: fucking worst place to spend any time, anywhere ever is social media, like every single solitary thing that has been like, it’s, it’s comical to me that we get all, all up in arms around like, can you believe this whole thing is a scam? Yes, I believe it. It’s very obvious that the whole purpose of all of this nonsense is to distract you from what’s really going on and what really you should be focusing your time on. [00:40:52] OG: Whether it’s TikTok or Instagram or Facebook or Twitter or whatever else there is. Reddit. Like it’s not, I, I, I don’t have the number ’cause I don’t really care, but it’s vastly just. Troll bs, like every single solitary thing is when you flip on Instagram, how many stories have you heard of the people who are like, I rented a jet and it’s really just some dude that like wandered onto the airport and took a picture in front of a jet to like post on social media. [00:41:22] OG: Like, look at how cool I am, or everybody who thinks that because I’m on social media, I can say whatever the hell I wanna say. And then people get all butt hurt when their gets thrown in the wind because. People disagree with them because you would never say the things that you write on Facebook, you would never say to that person in their face. [00:41:39] OG: Never in a thousand years, I don’t care who you, you know, people are like, oh, I would totally tell that guy. No, you wouldn’t. No you wouldn’t. Because you’re hiding behind a keyboard and you’re soft. That’s why you do it is because you’re soft. People get all pissed off when they’re like, oh, let me get this straight. [00:41:57] OG: TikTok is a fraud. Oh my God. Who? Oh, the whos? Well, no. A [00:42:02] Joe: fraud. Everything is. Hold on. I don’t think OGs ever been a Philadelphia Eagles football fan. [00:42:09] OG: Why is that? [00:42:10] Joe: Would anybody confront somebody and say that stuff to them? Yeah, they will. , would a Philadelphia Eagles football fan, we definitely tell you exactly what they think. [00:42:18] Joe: Use [00:42:19] OG: that as an example. So there was that story, right where that guy like, and I don’t know if it was an Eagles fan or wasn’t, but it was some drunk kid that thought it would be cool to pick on a football player because he had like, you know, oh, I’m gonna do. And like whatever, whoever the football player was, took his shit and broke it in front of him and then beat him up and then the cops came and they’re like, oh yeah, you shouldn’t have picked on a football player. [00:42:41] OG: You stupid dumb . Like there was no repercussions. It was awesome on social media. Yeah. TikTok is the devil. I’ve been telling you people this every single chance I can get. [00:42:52] Joe: On social media, they analyzed 1019 TikTok videos from well known crypto related hashtags like crypto and crypto. Each video is evaluated based on four factors. [00:43:02] Joe: Think about these four factors, the presence, how a [00:43:05] OG: waste of time. This was, by the way, by whoever decided to do this study, but it’s [00:43:08] Joe: not ’cause people fall in this trap all the time. We do good. We do good. We do stuff good. We do headlines about this all the time. Good. [00:43:18] OG: Good. [00:43:19] Joe: Each video was value. Don’t deserve to have money based on idiot. [00:43:22] Joe: Four factors [00:43:23] OG: follow TikTok advice. Wow. [00:43:25] Doug: Steve has carpal tunnel now from hitting the beat button as many times as he just had to. Forgot about that. I’m sorry. . [00:43:31] Joe: Listen to these four factors. Number one, the presence of disclaimers. The number of times, by the way, not just on TikTok. On any social media at all that I have seen, zero disclaimer from somebody that I know is being paid to do an ad for a company. [00:43:47] Joe: And there’s no dis In fact, there was a company that just got in trouble for this, uh, honey. Uh, now in the news. Oh yeah. Honey in the news because they were putting it in their contract saying you can’t have a disclaimer in there that we’re paying you literally in the contract, is what the lawsuit is about. [00:44:04] Joe: By the way, we don’t, that lawsuit’s not done, but that’s what they’re claiming is that honey has had that in the paperwork. Even we’ve been approached by companies saying, eh, we really don’t want you to have a, no ma’am. We’re gonna do the disclaimer. The Federal Trade Commission has started going after people because of that, by the way. [00:44:23] Joe: It’s a cesspool, so it’s gonna take them forever to get through all the people that don’t have disclaimers. [00:44:28] OG: So, Jamie Fox on the commercial where he is like, you should bet your life savings on MGM. And he goes, and at the little bottom, the infinitesimal print at the bottom, that’s like, you know, four point aerial font that says. [00:44:40] OG: Gambling is, uh, bad and you probably lose your ass and, you know, have to file bankruptcy. Like that is the solution. There [00:44:46] Joe: is a huge, there is a huge influencer. The number one, I just want people to have the ability to see something or to be able to go, oh, are you being paid for this? Like, I do wanna know. [00:44:58] Joe: I don’t care if it’s in the little tiny font or whatever. I, I really wanna freaking know, and you know, how, how much it grinds me when I see a top podcast in our category. With somebody that always puts under their name, financial expert, zero qualifications. Constantly doing paid ads, name and shame for different companies. [00:45:21] Joe: Without disclaimers. It’s garbage. It’s just garbage. That’s number one. They looked at that presence of disclaimers. Number two, promotion of specific crypto assets, right? They’re not talking about crypto in general. They’re going, Doug, you really need to buy the basement coin. You gotta buy the basement coin. [00:45:37] Joe: ’cause everybody’s buying the basement coin. Oh, that’s [00:45:39] OG: actually an idea. All right. If we can’t beat him, let’s join him. . [00:45:43] Doug: I will be the spokesperson in a heartbeat. Yeah. Is there a [00:45:47] OG: is I’m getting paid insane amounts of money to steal money from you on basement coin.com. [00:45:54] Joe: All of a sudden the clouds go away and OGs like. [00:45:57] Joe: Oh, there is a heaven. Uh, third claims of expected returns on investment. This was our problem back in the day with Fundrise. Mm-hmm . I’m not egotistical enough to think that we stopped Fundrise from doing this, but Fundrise at one point had charts going up into the right going, ours is engineered for superior returns. [00:46:16] Joe: Really, everybody else doing real estate wants horrible returns, and you somehow in this thing that’s. You know, millions of years old. Real estate, as old as the Earth, not regulated, has been real estate. You’re the people that finally picked the lock on engineering for superior returns. It was garbage. I don’t know much about Fundrise, but I know that that was garbage. [00:46:34] Joe: Absolutely. Number four, I. Advice to invest a certain amount of savings or income to literally take money, X amount of money and put it into this thing. Additionally, we reviewed the profiles of 482 TikTok, influencers to check for disclaimers, relevant qualifications, sell promotion, and we already talked about what they found. [00:46:54] Joe: 61%, no disclaimer, 58% promote a particular crypto asset, 35% promise a particular ROI. When investing in crypto one third of the time, they’re giving you a set rate of return that you can expect. 50% suggest a particular amount that you should invest in crypto. Who are the, [00:47:15] OG: I mean, what’s the demographics of the average TikTok listener watching viewer? [00:47:19] OG: I don’t know, but I can tell [00:47:19] Joe: you the viewer ’cause it’s right at the bottom of that. I think Crypto Ninjas did a great job on this. On average, a mislead, misleading. What do Crypto [00:47:25] OG: Ninjas sell? That they’re not disclosing. I did because I guarantee it’s something like they got an angle. It’s not benevolence. [00:47:34] OG: Crypto Ninja’s [00:47:35] Joe: goal. Is to teach people, maybe they have a course, [00:47:37] Doug: well, they have to create some sense of legitimacy so that people will, will think, I’m gonna go to that exchange to do my transactions. [00:47:45] OG: That’s, yeah. And maybe they are kinda like what you were saying about Natalia’s company, right? It’s like there’s a bunch of shady people out there, but there’s a couple of good ones and it’s probably true with. [00:47:54] OG: With the crypto world. Yeahm, I not saying Crypto [00:47:56] Joe: Ninjas is a great company. We don’t know. I’m just saying I think that this study is, uh, is incredibly, uh, I heard that [00:48:03] OG: 87% of stats on studies are made up. [00:48:06] Joe: Oh my [00:48:06] OG: God, I wanna choke you [00:48:08] Joe: out right now. [00:48:11] Joe: my, [00:48:12] OG: my English teacher friends will say, what’s the, uh, what, what is your primary and secondary sources for all of these statistics that you’re using [00:48:19] Joe: on average, A misleading video. A misleading video, and this is why I wanted this as a headline. 840,000 views. [00:48:27] OG: Wow. Again, if you can’t beat ’em, join them. [00:48:29] OG: Let’s, let’s people follow [00:48:30] Joe: him for this all the time. Oj. Pivot. Pivot. So you can tirade all you want, but it’s still happening. It’s still, bet you there’s a girl [00:48:37] Doug: in a bikini on that misleading video. [00:48:39] OG: Yeah. Doug sent me one. He was trying to buy a door and got snookered into something for his house. . [00:48:45] Doug: He’s [00:48:45] OG: like, [00:48:46] Doug: I totally buying that door. [00:48:47] Doug: Yeah, [00:48:48] OG: you were like, I’m in. I don’t even, [00:48:50] Joe: so in, I’m totally into the door. Lack of disclaimers a red flag for viewers. Uh, when somebody tells you, Hey, my . Favorite high yield savings account to just, you know, name something hypothetically, offhand. My favorite one Really? What does favorite mean? Does favorite mean? [00:49:08] Joe: There’s no disclaimer and they’re paying you. I think it might Promoting specific cryptos. Unethical practice. Unrealistic. ROI. Promises promoting specific investment amounts. [00:49:19] Doug: Not good. Pause, Joe. A jaded basement dweller. Could hear everything you just said and say, but you guys do all of this with the ads that you read on the show and it’s your favorite, you know, whatever it is. [00:49:35] Doug: Monarch Money or Met Pro, or whatever those reads are, and we just had on a debt relief agency. Sounds like we’re endorsing that. So I don’t know if you wanna have any qualifications to show why we are not part of the same thing or just leave it alone. I just wanted to point that out in case it is clearly marked [00:49:54] Joe: as a commercial. [00:49:55] Joe: It is clearly marked as a commercial on our show. And when we talk about using Monarch money, we always talk about the fact that they, that they pay us. Okay? Now, Monarch didn’t pay me before I started using them. I think when we’ve done that in the past, I mean, maybe somebody listening can give us, uh, some time that we didn’t do that. [00:50:13] Joe: We have no affiliation with Natalia Brown. We have no affiliation. With national debt relief. I am very concerned about the number of people getting taken, which is why I did this headline. It’s why I asked Natalia Brown to come in, and it’s why I did this headline is I, I get so frustrated by the huge number of people getting taken. [00:50:32] Joe: People are constantly, but we do these headlines constantly and people are still getting taken and it just . It eats your soul. It truly eats your soul when you see person after person, after person getting, getting just absolutely taken. So, you know, people could point the finger at us and go, well, you guys have commercial. [00:50:48] Joe: Yes we do. To pay the fricking bills. And the cool thing is we get to pick who we allow on our commercial and who we don’t. It was actually very funny when we learned, ’cause there is something called remnant advertising, which we participate in, which is if we do, if we have a slot, it’s not full. You’ll hear a third party [00:51:06] Joe: Read an ad, not us reading the ad and we’ve approved the category. And in that one, hilariously, somehow a couple of years ago, Robinhood got through Robinhood. Right. Which was funny as hell. So there has been a time when we’ve ripped all over a company and then we let them advertise unbeknownst to us that that was happening. [00:51:27] Joe: But I’m also very glad that that’s the exception, not the rule. Yeah, [00:51:29] bit: right. [00:51:30] Joe: I’m not trying to put you on the spot. I just wanted to, I think it’s great to bring up, because you’re right, we’re gonna get an email. About, oh, holier than thou people, we’re definitely not trying to be holier than thou. I just, oh gee, you’re rant. [00:51:44] Joe: You can ran all you want. People are gonna stay on TikTok. As long as it’s open. It might not be open anymore. . We might have solved the problem by the time this comes out. Pray. God, the Supreme Court might’ve, might’ve ruled. We’ll link to this study on our show notesPage@stackybenjamins.com. I bet. Uh. We, we just did, we just did an accidental endorsement, I think, of Crypto Ninjas, even though we didn’t wanna , we totally didn’t want to. [00:52:08] Joe: That was not our goal there. But, uh, but I saw this study, I’m like, oh, we gotta go here. By the way, we’re gonna, we’re gonna come back to crypto on Wednesday, crypto and the stock market to see if we can see OGs head really explode. And [00:52:20] OG: ultimately, you just have to be, you have to be so careful with things that are not in your wheelhouse, and you have to be so careful with things that. [00:52:31] OG: You know, the, the whole thing of , if it sounds too good to be true, it absolutely is. And if you think about the, the hierarchy of how companies invest their money, you look at big, giant companies and, and how they grow. And then you see something that says. It can make 20% and yet the stock market does 10. [00:52:54] OG: It has to immediately jump off the page to you as it might do 20. There’s another end of that volatility. It also might do minus 50. It also might do minus all, and it’s totally fine. You can go to the casino and spend your money if you want. That’s cool. You might hit it big, but the casino’s probably gonna win. [00:53:14] OG: And if you’re doing a little gambling and you’re doing it for fun, Yolo Man. But if you’re investing because a TikTok ad or a Facebook ad or an Instagram ad or a podcast picked a specific thing that said, oh, absolutely a hundred percent you need to have this ETF or this, you know, whatever [00:53:36] OG: I had, be careful, I don’t know, it doesn’t sound like a personalized plan-based recommendation to me. [00:53:43] Joe: I like what our good friend, Roger, Roger Whitney, said on the show, if anybody leads with product and not process, run away. Oh, that’s a key thing. Yes. Onto the back porch. We go, [00:53:56] Doug: where are you going, Joe? [00:53:57] Doug: Where are you traveling? Who’s gonna be able to go see you in the flesh? We still all your fleshiness. [00:54:03] Joe: Have you guys figured out where you’re going skiing? Yeah, [00:54:05] OG: yeah, yeah. So we’re not telling you, [00:54:07] Joe: do you know where the meetup’s gonna be? It better be really close to where we’re staying. , you said there’s gonna be a stacking Benjamins meetup when you go skiing. [00:54:15] Joe: We set it with microphones on. Can we reveal the region? Og? Where are you going to have it? [00:54:20] OG: We will be skiing somewhere in America. [00:54:24] Doug: Me and Doug, Western part of America guys are far western. A place where it’s very close to a state line. [00:54:32] OG: It’s not hell. [00:54:34] Doug: Oh, I see what you did there, . I see what you did there. [00:54:40] OG: We should have done this like uh, w JW back in the day. You know, where they, where’s Waldo competition? Where’s the meetup gonna be? Uh, Doug and I are skiing. Uh, heavenly get it. It’s not hell, eh? Yes. , we did there, um, the 19th, 20th, and 21st of, uh, of February. So [00:55:01] Doug: if you’re anywhere in the Lake Tahoe region. [00:55:05] Doug: We’ll find something to do. Let us know. We’ll figure it out. There is a possibility I, you probably [00:55:09] OG: should email me. I don’t think you should email Joe on this one. You can email me OG at no, [00:55:14] Doug: and just to sweeten the pot a little bit more. Uh, the fin turn could possibly be there as well. Oh, how about that? [00:55:21] Doug: OG doesn’t know this yet. . Yeah. Okay. [00:55:24] Joe: Well, how about that? Slightly more specific. On, uh, February 6th, we’re going to have a stack of Benjamins meetup in the Seattle area. We are trying to have that in Bellevue, by the way, so we will let you know, because on the eighth, I will be at Retire Meet, uh, which is hosted by our friends at the Talking Real Money Podcast. [00:55:42] Joe: Head to retire me.com for tickets there. Use code stacking Benjamins for a discount off the already. Inexpensive price, they might be sold out. Uh, Tom and Don told me that, uh, they were getting close. If they are, you can still buy an online ticket. In fact, if you’re not gonna be in the Seattle area and you want to take part in Retire, meet remotely, you can still do that. [00:56:04] Joe: It’s, uh, retire meet.com. Finally. And this is so funny because what are we promoting, ? Well, you can learn how to do your financial plan with Joe through my book Stacked. I take you through Stack chapter by chapter with a very small group of people. This ship is going to sail in just a couple weeks. Listen to this. [00:56:28] Joe: This is from Chris who did this, uh, last year. Chris said, my brother actually suggested taking the Stacky Benjamins book club. I still can’t thank him enough. It made me more confident in investing and taught me how to lower my risk to get a better outcome with my investments. Joe had specific returns and told me what coin to buy. [00:56:45] Joe: No did Joe [00:56:48] Doug: guaranteed [00:56:48] Joe: me [00:56:48] Doug: that I would [00:56:48] Joe: earn. Did not say that 17%. I also learned the importance of setting goals for myself and how to set up a plan to meet them. The group environment was also helpful. We gained knowledge from other people’s perspectives and past experience, and I can’t say enough [00:57:01] Joe: About Joe. This is my favorite part. His knowledge. Oh my God. Humor and willingness to stay after class are just a few of the reasons I found this class invaluable. We’re doing the stack book club stacky benjamins.com/book club to get there. Before I took [00:57:15] Doug: the class, I was wheelchair bound, and then Joe laid hands on me. [00:57:19] Doug: It was incredible. [00:57:21] Joe: It was amazing. This is why Chris is my favorite stacker of all time right there. Uh, thanks for that. But if you wanna take part in the book club, stacky benjamins.com/book club, and it’s gonna be a small group. I mean, we’re, we are gonna have a very, very small group of people diving into stacked. [00:57:36] Joe: So come join us. All right. That’s all I got, Doug. You got it from here, man. Uh, . I think what we should have learned today was how the sensor button works. The beep button OG really feels about TikTok, how Yes, , besides how OG feels about TikTok, what else should we have learned, Doug? [00:57:54] Doug: Well, Joe, here’s what’s stacked up on our to-do list today. [00:57:57] Doug: First, take some advice from Natalia Brown. Don’t wait for debt relief help. Go take charge, and if someone tells you they’re gonna help you declare bankruptcy, maybe wait on that. Try to build some habits and skills first. Second, I know you won’t believe this, but that guy on TikTok telling you his new crypto coin is amazing. [00:58:19] Doug: Yeah, that’s Ohio and deaf negative Aura translation. He’s probably lying, or his OG would say it’s bull, but the big lesson. Wow, my brain isn’t working today. If you’re drowning in debt, don’t count on that guy. Uh, Jimmy. Olive Oil. Yeah. Whoever he is, call Natalia Brown. Or maybe just try convincing Joe’s mom to waive your debts like she does. [00:58:47] Doug: Joe’s overdue basement rent. Thanks to Natalia Brown from National Debt Relief for joining us today. You’ll find out more about how they help people get out of debt@nationaldebtrelief.com. We’ll also include links in our show notes@stackingbenjamins.com. This show is the Property of SP podcasts, LLC, copyright 2025 and is created by Joe Saul Sea. [00:59:13] Doug: Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You’ll find out about our awesome team@stackingbenjamins.com along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello. Oh yeah, and before I go, . Not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know. [00:59:35] Doug: This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I’m Joe’s Mom’s Neighbor, Duggan. We’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.
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