Camera Rental Scams and AI Tools (ft. Mi Media Productions)

This transcript was generated automatically from the recording and lightly edited for readability, so it may contain errors. The audio and video are the authoritative record. Spot a mistake? Email dario@creativesgrabcoffee.com. For chapter deep-links into the video, use the Timestamps section above.

Dario NouriCo-host, Creatives Grab Coffee00:00Hi everyone, welcome to episode one twenty-five of Creatives Grab Coffee. This is one of the few shows out there on the business of video production. And today we got a recurring guest on our show, friend of the show, Manny from Mi Media Productions. Manny, welcome back.

Manuel IzquierdoFounder, Mi Media Productions00:16Hey guys, how you doing?

Kyrill LazarovCo-host, Creatives Grab Coffee00:17Back, man.

Manny00:18I am so excited to have me back. I know there's some excited things in the works, some uncles and fathers now in the in the chat, so I think that's kind of a fun little thing there. And I'm happy to be back and talk to you guys about some things and give you some warnings too of some crazy scams going out there in our world.

Dario00:36So I guess let's start off with uh a little uh update on what you've been up to. 'Cause last time you were on here we kinda learned a lot about you and how you got to where you are. So yeah, what's been happening since I I forgot when we had you on l last time. Was it last

Kyrill00:50I think it was like a year ago.

Dario00:51year?

Kyrill00:51It was like a exactly

Manny00:52I think it was a year.

Kyrill00:53a year ago.

Manny00:53I was it a year ago, or was it like I felt like maybe a year and a half ago. I know there's been some crazy developments. I don't know sorry, I I ha I have to ponder like I when exactly that happened. So there's been some big like, you updates and stuff like that. I know recently bought a house. I know some folks here also bought a house too, so it's been uh good in that regard. But I think yeah, we've had some pretty big projects like come through ever since um we've gone through we've worked with projects with Gold Bond and some Red Bull um Adweek we did some cool fun projects there that were very exciting. Um we've been doing some more um kind of like more commercial based versus like trying to do corporate. Um we still love doing corporate. I think that's like a beautiful thing, especially now to in today's world with documentaries. But we've been kind of like leaning a little more into like the the commercial space.

Kyrill01:41Nice. So what are s what are some of those projects?

Dario01:42Okay. I mean uh okay, so like where where do you want to start off when? Yeah, yeah.

Manny01:46Yeah, so we um I think m maybe it was right after the pod or maybe it was like a few months after the pod. I don't remember exactly, but we did a fun like commercial campaign for Gold Bond where we basically try to like do like fun little reenactments of like different scenes like you would do every day, but doing like fun different colors. So we went out like a white cyc studio and then we just completely blaster it with like Nova uh Aputure lights to get all those like fun different colors and just try to make it where it was like You're at a bed, but it's just like the bed frame and like maybe something in the background and then just the fun colors that associated with it. Um and the whole point was like it things just like kinda like blue as they're doing with it. The stuff we did for Red Bull, that was a lot of fun because what we did was like a hidden camera shoot. have you guys heard of the show Impractical Jokers?

Dario02:30yeah, I love that show.

Manny02:31We basically did something like that, but with like some of the the the NASCAR drivers. Or not the NASCAR Formula One. Um I will get in so much

Kyrill02:38wow.

Manny02:38trouble for saying uh NASCAR because I kept saying it during the shoot and they like, No, it's Formula One. It's it's and

Kyrill02:42no, you don't say that there no

Dario02:44Yeah.

Manny02:44and like I'm not I'm not really big into it. So they would always like they would make jokes and all that fun stuff, but it was a it was a good time and and the races were all fun. Um so we we did that kind of like behind the scenes shoot, which was like super interesting. Um and like the logistics that we had to like kind of play because we only had the the racers there for like one hour. Um so we had it basically everything was like a dance that we had to like figure out and and get done, but it came out super successful and and they love the way that came out. and then we've just been doing like some smaller stuff here and there that's just like nothing like too noteworthy. That's not anything that you can like, you know, shoot on your own or what have you. Those are like kind of like two big projects that we worked on that were like really thought provoking in terms of like how we're gonna pull this off and all that fun stuff.

Dario03:28So what what did you kinda learn

Kyrill03:28Love to see that F1 one.

Dario03:30doing those big shoots? Like was there uh any challenges you ran into and and if so, how did you overcome them?

Manny03:38Yeah, I would say um for the Gold Bond shoot, the biggest like logistical thing that we had to do was like the timeline. Um big part of it was like um we had it like an expedite delivery window for things. so we have to really like figure out and we had a large like list of deliverables. I think we like over a hundred different deliverables and we had like a month to basically um go from um pre-production to delivery. So was really trying to figure out the balance of like how do we make every like hero deliverable unique in its own way, um, while still trying to make it where it's easy enough, or not easy enough, but effective enough to be able to go out for delivery. 'cause that was like a a a a a big challenge for us and almost like a but not of a headache, but it was like a bit of a mind game, like doing like a puzzle of like how we're gonna make all these different messages fit within the the a lot of time that we have for each thing. And how do we do it so that way when we're going into um post production, we're able to do it so effectively. Um, so the biggest takeaway was like really keep it simple, stupid. I feel like in the beginning I was like trying to um really make things convoluted. but I think it came down to just simplifying as many things as we could, even if it's just like a small vocal change, like a small performance, um and being able to to figure out and and and deliver. That was like a really big challenge. For me, at least creatively, right? Um, so I think it was like keep it simple, stupid. And then for Red Bull, the biggest logistical challenge was that like we only have one hour with them. So it was like trying to rehearse everything. Um, I think we had I I wouldn't say like it was a challenge. It was more so like I had a really I had like my I was fortunate enough to have everyone that I would w like my best crew there. S so I think it there wasn't like any real hurdles to overcome just because we re worked so well as a team. But I would say like if I didn't have that crew that was there, I think I would we would have failed to say the least. Um so I think like I think i in that case, like if we didn't have that crew, we maybe need like another day for like um just like rehearsing. but because we had such a great crew there, I think um that really allowed us there. But I think in hindsight twenty uh hindsight being twenty twenty, um, if it was like a very strange crew that you don't know any of, we probably need like more time just to rehearse everything.

Kyrill06:04Yeah, like i if

Manny06:04That makes sense.

Dario06:04What about

Kyrill06:05you're not work if you're not working with people that you normally do, you need to you need to really make sure you know how to trust them. But if you're working with people you know that know their stuff, then things like those types of projects where that are time sensitive always become easier. And uh yeah, when you only have one hour with the talent, you have to really make sure that everyone behind the scenes is on their game.

Manny06:24Yeah, and that's funny because like we had spent like we know we had a 10 hour day and we spent the whole beginning of the day just like practicing, setting up and rehearsal. And we we shot it at a a a famous hotel here in South Florida. Um so the guitar hotel, if you guys have ever heard of it. I forgot the name of the the exact hotel name, but it's like a giant guitar, right? It's like really famous. So like it we had that like the challenge too of like we have a lot of people coming in and we have to find a way to like stay hidden. While trying to shoot this, right? And like not because it's like a hidden camera show. Um, so I think like hindsight, something that I would've like liked to do is like maybe gotten bigger like things, like props to try to hide behind. Um, but besides that, we hide behind pillars and like desk posts, and we put GoPros everywhere. Yeah, exactly. Um we did some we did like

Dario07:09Inside suitcases.

Kyrill07:12That would be good, like big suitcases.

Manny07:14a bell cam. So it was like um one of the gags was like he was gonna be hitting a bell. So he put the camera inside the bell so like as he was hitting it, he could see it and a lot of fun stuff. Or like one of the cameras was like the webcam. So he was like, Here, let me take your photo. And he was like being very crazy with it and stuff like that. but yeah, I think like having, you know, maybe bigger props and stuff like that. But that was kinda like hindsight being twenty twenty and like I think overall like that one I felt more like grateful for the crew that I had versus like, I wish I had done this differently, if that makes sense.

Dario07:47Nice. Um, you know, lately also since you've last been on, everyone's been getting deep into AI and whatnot. So I'm just

Manny07:56Yeah.

Dario07:56wondering, what have you been doing with it?

Manny07:59Man, I have been doing like an interesting mix of AI. I tried getting into um like post production with AI, which I know you guys are kinda experimenting too. I had some like f like issues trying to get that up and running. Um, but I do find like ex like getting your entire um text format or the what is it, the subtitles text putting it into Claude and then having them pick out the best moments or like finding the best areas has been tremendously helpful and time consuming. I tried doing one of those like have Claude edit your videos for you. Um, it like crashed my computer like multiple times that I tried doing it. But I think the reason why it crashed, um, acc according to like one of my buddies, is that I was using like a third party company to be the gap, instead try to use like a proprietary software to be that gap that you can like utilize. Whether it's like you get it through Grip Me Up or have Claude create it. Um

Dario08:52What were you trying to what are you trying to edit?

Manny08:55I was just trying to edit like a like a corporate like talking head like um like a a two-camera interview with B-roll. and it was just having a hard time. Like I for some reason kept seeing each camera label as its own interview moment. So it would start to like double up there. And then so I was like, okay, let me just then do um let me just do just the one camera. Um and then that one camera started to like go off the fritz a little bit. Um so I I was having a I don't know, it just kept like grabbing the wrong moments that I would need. And then it just didn't it couldn't find any like usable B roll um for me. I think part of it

Dario09:37Yeah, I just

Manny09:38yeah.

Dario09:39I j I just got into the editing process with Claude just the other day, uh, for this podcast. I've been experimenting with creating reels with it and it's been pretty good, but I've been feeding it like the fully edited episode with the transcript.

Manny09:54interesting.

Dario09:55So then it's going in and picking out all the moments and whatnot. And it's been pretty good. Like it's been the reels it's been creating are kind of short for my taste, but like it was just telling me like, you know, like If they're interested, they'll go watch the full thing and I'm like, Yeah, fair enough. Cause the longer ones don't get as much uh engagement as the shorter ones. But the ones it has been picking out picking out or creating are fairly good. They're better than the ones that Riverside has been creating for us. Also 'cause like the editing process on on Riverside is very, very slow. With Claude, it was actually pretty

Kyrill10:28Mm-hmm.

Dario10:28smooth and quick. Like I would just tell it, it would just go do it. Uh and I've also been using it Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kyrill10:32Did it spit out an MP4, Dario? Did it just spit out an MP4 file and then you can download it and then start using it?

Dario10:37I MP4 with subtitles, it even created the uh on screen text. It created a thumbnail image for me as well. It picked out the best moments for the thumbnail, which was nice because I find that when I'm creating the thumbnail on the social platforms, I gotta pick out the moment. So I gotta like really scrub through it and find the best position for everyone's face. but Claude was able to just do it all itself and then I've also schedule posted like a bunch of stuff. So

Manny11:05Nice.

Dario11:06Right now it's gonna post a reel every day on YouTube, uh, Facebook, so both Instagram and regular Facebook, along with TikTok until like November twenty third. So I don't have to worry about that anymore. So today's date

Manny11:21nice.

Dario11:21is what, the twenty sixth, so almost a month in advance. I got reels. And for other platforms like YouTube I can actually keep going indefinitely. It's just the other two have like limits of I think twenty something days, so that's why I've had to stop there. but a friend of mine, he's been using it to uh to do much more uh detailed reels and he was showing me like his timeline so he's been uh playing around with it on uh Adobe premiere and he's even connected it to After Effects so he'll have it create the animations and then he said you can either do it where It'll create like an MP4 for the the text animation or whatnot, or you know, in like whatever animation you've created. Uh, but he said he wanted it to be like a file because then he can go and fine tune things. So he showed me the whole timeline and everything. And I didn't know you could connect Claude to Premiere because I thought they don't have an MCP.

Kyrill12:19Yeah, that's that's new.

Dario12:21So he's uh he's using something else, I'm guessing. I'll I'll ask him tomorrow. But it's crazy. Yeah.

Manny12:25Could you send that to me? I would love to know. Like w 'cause I that's I

Kyrill12:27Yeah.

Manny12:28wanna experiment more and like really find like what that balance is of like how to help it speed up the process for like

Dario12:34Yeah.

Manny12:35scrubbing through and all that fun stuff and then putting things together. that's funny that you mentioned the after effects.

Dario12:39But you could tell it yeah, like I I I was thinking about how I would use it for future stuff as well. And I I guess you can even create like a folder and just tell it, okay, this is the B roll, use it for like this section of the video. And it can kind of go in there. Cause from my understanding, Claude doesn't really understand the the video file itself. That's

Manny12:57Mm-hmm.

Dario12:58why it needs like the transcript to understand what it's processing. Whereas I think Gemini is able to understand what the video is. Like on a per

Manny13:07Interesting.

Dario13:08frame basis it understands what's in the image and whatnot. but I heard it can it hallucinates more often. Again, I haven't tried it. I'm just getting started with

Manny13:16Right.

Dario13:16it. but it led us to talking about how you know uh it it's starting to happen now with video editing and he told me his editors were so against it at the beginning. And then they they've adopted it recently and he's like their output has like 10x. So he's like they're so fast now.

Manny13:38You need that human input

Dario13:39Well I think the f

Kyrill13:39Well

Manny13:40would to help like get where you need to go, right? Like I think it's gonna help us

Dario13:43Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Manny13:44as filmmakers

Kyrill13:44Yeah.

Manny13:44be able to create more and like do stuff. It doesn't remove the editor, it just requires

Dario13:48Yeah.

Manny13:49the output.

Dario13:50Yeah, and honestly I

Kyrill13:50Is as long as it basically gets as long as it gets you to that point where like it has all the clean takes, all the clean sound bites, all the best bits and and

Manny13:58Right.

Kyrill13:58things like that kind of organized in a way that allows you to access it and then and then scrub through that that's what I mean. Like it just

Dario14:02Well it's it's past that point. It's past that point now.

Kyrill14:06that alone save can save you so many hours. And it's honestly something that could be really necessary for especially projects where you have

Dario14:13I I think uh

Kyrill14:15a lot.

Dario14:16I think Editors will be out of a job if they don't adopt AI into their workflow.

Manny14:27Right.

Dario14:27I really think that because it d you you can just start to see it now how fast you can be using it versus someone that doesn't use it. It's like, Okay, well, I mean, if we need this now, like someone else is gonna be faster than you, is gonna be able to outmo output a lot more than you. Like you yeah, you will be out of a job if you don't adopt it. So

Manny14:46question for you guys. And then it's gonna go back to AI, but I kinda wanna like see what your like temperature of the room is. How much are you guys editing most of the projects that you're working on, like yourselves, or do you do you have like a a small team that you work with like editor wise?

Dario14:59Mostly in house.

Kyrill15:00It's a mix. It's uh it's a mix. Like I'm doing most of the edits um right now. Like um I started doing most of them a couple of years ago just to make things a little bit easier for us and then uh like having the second it starts to get into little a little bit of overflow and there's a lot of work coming in, like we have a team of editors like for specific types of clients, specific types of projects that we know will handle really good stuff. It's more so like if it's if it's small based projects where You know, it might take longer to try to communicate to an editor what we need, uh, you know, for the output and things like that. It's it's a lot quicker for for me to just do it. But,

Manny15:37Right.

Kyrill15:38you know, once you have like five to ten of those that might be due in the next little while, you know, you need to you need you need a little bit of help. So it's it's a mix right now essentially.

Manny15:48Night. And and the reason why I ask, like, have you guys noticed like in the past like year or so, a giant influx of like editors that are like looking for work or like there's a lot more editors out there than there was like a couple of years back.

Dario16:02It could just be that you're ranking higher on Google. Cause I get a lot of

Manny16:05Right.

Kyrill16:05Yeah.

Dario16:06applications from a lot of people. And uh on

Manny16:09No, but I'm just saying like in general, like when you're searching for an editor, right, for a project, like I

Dario16:13Okay.

Manny16:13feel like there's been so much more people like in the market to be a p like an editor, right? And I f and their

Kyrill16:19Hm.

Manny16:19quality of work is not great. So like I think what you're saying, like AI is gonna take away those smaller editors that are not necessarily in it for the craft of it, if that makes sense.

Dario16:33I mean, I can see that being the case. Um,

Kyrill16:34Y yeah.

Dario16:35are you looking how where are you looking to find editors?

Manny16:39Man, I was doing so I I've I've I've found like my nice like group of people that I like working with. Um, but I was like initially I was trying to do like the Fiverr of the world and upwork. Um that I didn't really find anybody that I I too much enjoyed working with. I tr then tried doing like one of those um like um hiring source websites. Um and then 'cause like those people in Miami that I work with, but those are for like the more higher tier projects, right? I'm talking more for like the smaller like anyone could kind of do this type of projects. I ended up working with somebody that I was recommended to um that does like smaller editing projects. But I felt like in the search for it, there was just so many people that were just like it was the same thing over and over again. And the quality of the work was like the same. And I feel like those people in that space might like start losing the work that they were getting. Just 'cause like you could just throw Claude

Kyrill17:32They may not

Manny17:33and do it.

Kyrill17:34they may not actually be getting a lot of work if if that's

Manny17:36Yeah.

Kyrill17:37if that's what you're saying. Like if the quality is not up there and there's so many people applying for it. It's like it's like think about it like if you're if if you're someone who's starting out as even a photographer, you know, you just picked up the camera,

Manny17:46Right.

Kyrill17:47you started shooting, you're like you may not have the best portfolio and you're gonna apply to a lot of different jobs. I I don't think that's that's changed as much. Like maybe like I feel like that's been around forever. uh

Manny17:57Right.

Kyrill18:00like yeah, like in terms of If AI is gonna be affecting those people, I mean it's gonna affect everyone essentially. That's

Manny18:06Right.

Kyrill18:07that's the bottom line.

Manny18:09Um, do you guys use like AI for ideation or anything like that?

Dario18:15Not yet.

Kyrill18:16Not so much yet. Not not yet. Like a lot of the projects we've been getting with uh a lot of our corporate clients is are very straightforward types of

Manny18:23Right.

Kyrill18:24projects where they know what they need, what they're looking for, some a lot of internal B to B type content. So you don't need to go through an entire like creative pre production process for a lot of those. So

Manny18:36Right.

Kyrill18:36not as much lately. And uh but we'll see. We'll see how things go in the next few months. once we start toying like around with it more. I Dario's been toying around with the the AI a lot more than I have 'cause I've been editing a lot of the projects over the last little while. So I'm gonna be touching base on it a little bit more as as the work kind of like slows down a little bit. But yeah, we'll we'll kind of see where that goes.

Manny19:00Cool. Yeah. And I ask is like

Dario19:00As we speak and the other screen I have it going through our Google AdWords and fixing things up. Just

Manny19:06Hell yeah. So did you connect

Kyrill19:07Mm-hmm.

Manny19:08the agent to Google AdWords?

Dario19:10Yeah, so I I I logged into it on its browser. So it's just going through and just fixing some things up. Yeah, been d using

Manny19:18I

Dario19:18it a lot. Like

Manny19:20I have this like weird innate fear of like actually connecting my agent to anything. I I know I connected that one time to Adobe Right. because I have

Kyrill19:26Skynet takes over.

Dario19:25I did at first too.

Manny19:28a few friends that are like programmers and they're always like, You can't connect it to anything you have and like I have Claude Code and they're always like, What what are you doing? Like how do you know how you not know it's not connected to anything? It's like, I don't know. I'm not gonna like wha I mean, besides like having people's W nines, like which is a big thing, right? Like, don't get me wrong. But besides that, like I don't think I have like state secrets that are gonna like affect anything, right? So Right.

Dario19:50I mean your data's already been leaked on the on the dark web for like over a decade. Like every day I read about this government agency leaked this and they lost this. I'm like, all right, so I mean, what am I really protecting? If someone wanted

Manny20:03Right.

Dario20:03it, it's out there, right? I might as well take advantage of it and use it to my own you know, for my own benefit. Yeah, it's already out there. People are always freaking

Manny20:07Y your information's already out there. Dude.

Dario20:12out. It's like, you know, your government is like losing stuff left and right 'cause they hire like the cheapest vendor. Like

Manny20:18Dude, you inspired

Kyrill20:18Yep.

Manny20:19me to now

Dario20:18They hired their cousin.

Manny20:20connect my Claude agent to something. I'm gonna do it tonight. tonight I'm gonna figure out something, I'm gonna connect it, and I'm gonna be liberated and I'm gonna feel it.

Dario20:25I was scared at first too, but I mean, just make backups of everything, you know? Like if you have

Kyrill20:27Yeah.

Manny20:29That's true.

Dario20:30Apple, just do your run your time machine. If you did it like once a week, maybe run it twice a week, right? But I haven't had

Manny20:36I have a I have a PC, man.

Dario20:37it do anything crazy, like go into

Kyrill20:39PC.

Dario20:40my computer and like do god knows what. But

Manny20:43Yeah.

Dario20:43like I mean, y s a lot of the times when you hear, it deleted this or it did that, it's 'cause uh if you if you c if you find out why they did it why it did that is because of user error. Like someone typed in a bad prompt and in it was it clearly misunderstood it because it was not a well-written prompt. But I mean I'm just having it go in and like I don't know, just fix stuff up. I'll I still take a look at it. Like even with AdWords,

Manny21:08Have you been um

Dario21:09I still check and see and make sure it didn't raise the the daily uh limit to like a hundred dollars instead of ten dollars just to make sure I'm like, all right, there's only one zero there, right?

Manny21:16Have you been finding it to be have you been finding to be effective when you go into AdWords? Like do you do have you noticed an increase?

Dario21:22yeah, it's yeah, I mean it's been optimizing it, right? So it cut down on the garbage leads I was getting for sure.

Manny21:30Mm-hmm.

Dario21:33but I mean it's been doing stuff that I

Kyrill21:34Make it efficient essentially, yeah.

Dario21:35didn't know how to do, right? Like

Manny21:37How nice.

Dario21:38so or we would explain what it's doing. I'm like, Yeah, that kinda sounds about right, or it looks at all the data and it gives me like like a conclusion. It's like, this is what's been happening.

Manny21:46Nice. And is that like is that like a KPI that you're connecting it to? Like how does that connect to AdWords?

Dario21:51No, I'm just I just log in to the to the browser for it and I just say go do your I was I I I'd say go check everything out and then I say okay uh it's like in the movies, analyze. And

Manny22:02Right.

Dario22:05then I say fix it uh but make no mistakes and it just goes to

Manny22:09You know, it's

Dario22:09town.

Manny22:10I was watching a Ninja Turtle movie, like the the the Michael Bay Ninja Turtle movies, and there's like they use like their AI and he's like, AI, analyze this or do this. And I felt like that's how it is nowadays, where it's just like it's just like you it's your own personal assistant that able is able to connect and just do all all all this craziness. Dude, I'm I'm gonna check that out 'cause

Dario22:25Yeah, man, like

Manny22:26I've been I've been having like AI trying to like do some ad word stuff, but like with me included with it, right? So I'd be like, Hey, this is what I'm doing, sending it screenshots and just see how that works. Are you guys like

Dario22:36Yeah.

Manny22:37promoting like

Dario22:38I was doing the screenshots

Manny22:38corporate video for it.

Dario22:39too. The you're you're me like a couple of weeks ago. I was taking screenshots,

Manny22:43Hell yeah, man. I'm I'm gonna try it.

Dario22:44I'm

Kyrill22:44There we go.

Dario22:45like here, and then you can't send more than twenty images, so I would zip the file and give it to just do yourself a favor, Manny. Yeah, you don't know about the zipping the files, right? Yeah, that's how you can send it like my god. Yeah, yeah. You're me a you're me

Manny22:50Dude, dude. I didn't know about I was making a new chat and like starting to like do other things. Dude. dude, zipping a file is genius.

Dario23:01like two months ago. I'll d just do yourself a favor. Just start now. Just sign in fully.

Manny23:05I'm dude, I'm I'm literally writing it down

Kyrill23:06Dabble.

Manny23:07as we speak. Like I'm like, oh dude, this is great. So um if you don't mind me asking, like what's like your campaign about? Are you s like targeting like corporate product like corporate production

Dario23:15Y i

Manny23:16or is it just like

Dario23:17Yeah, basically, like I mean I won't divulge too much, but I mean

Manny23:20Right, right, right.

Dario23:21if anyone's listening, they probably already are doing the same stuff. Um, but yeah, like uh yeah, just that. I'm just doing targeting the types of clients we want to target. Um and it's just going in there and doing its own thing and then you know, it's able to understand the AdWords interface a lot better than

Manny23:38Nice.

Dario23:39I can, because Google, despite being like a trillion dollar company or wherever they're at now, like God damn, that AdWords interface is is a hot pile of doo-doo, man. Like sometimes I get lost in a like nah I know it pretty well now, but it like when I go try to find stuff, like, holy, who designed this thing? Uh but

Manny23:56And I get like

Kyrill23:56I would never

Dario23:57it's able to understand things and just explain it to you and just again, it just saves me time. Cause like if I did what it did today, for example, it would take me the whole week.

Manny24:06Dude, I wanna like run off a cliff every time I talk to my AdWord specialist because it's I feel like I go nowhere. No, I I

Dario24:12just fire him. Just do it yourself, man. You'll save money.

Kyrill24:14Yeah.

Manny24:15I don't have like a I don't pay for anybody. It's like the one that Google gives you. You know what I'm talking about?

Dario24:20Oh, why would you use those?

Kyrill24:19All those guys.

Dario24:21said

Manny24:21Because they they they they harass me and like I get like suckered into a phone call with them and then like I'm

Kyrill24:26And you fall for it.

Dario24:27my god.

Manny24:28spending an hour like doing nothing and then they're they'll always get like sass. Like they're like and I like, Come on man, like I don't wanna be doing

Kyrill24:34What

Manny24:35this and you're giving me attitude.

Dario24:36Manny, you are a you are a cold callers like dream. 'Cause you actually pick up the phone and you get hooked into it.

Manny24:40Oh, I well 'cause they they they

Kyrill24:40Dream.

Manny24:44like they 'cause they know like 'cause it's the same person, right? That that helps you.

Kyrill24:48I know we're gonna get to the scam part later 'cause

Manny24:50Yeah.

Kyrill24:50that is that what happened? You answered the cold call.

Manny24:52Well no, n but I feel like this is a great like leeway into it. Um and now that we're talking about AI, 'cause there's like some AI stuff involved, so like I think this is a a great way to to lead in it if if you guys don't mind.

Dario25:03Well you know, before you get into that though,

Kyrill25:04Yeah, yeah, go for it.

Dario25:05you used you you redid your whole website with with Claude, right?

Manny25:08I did, yeah.

Dario25:10I gotta get your prompts man. Like you did such a nice job on it. Like I'm looking at it, I'm like, this is like what I would

Kyrill25:13Mm-hmm.

Manny25:13I have a question. Is it is it's

Dario25:15love to do.

Manny25:16is it super noticeable that I did it with Claude?

Dario25:19No it's not, but it looks great. Like you did a great job, man.

Manny25:22Yeah, so um it took like it's funny because like it was kind of a spur of the moment thing. I was like, um so long long story short, I had just came off of this uh like AI job that where they were like interviewing people about AI. Um and they had this like one this one interviewee was talking about how she's starting her own business. Um and it's like a sports company, but she had AI make the website and she had AI do all the stuff and like set up the client, and I was like, And I came home that night, like as I was jumping the media and I was like, hey, like, how would you redesign my website? And so I started to like kinda like go into that like a little bit of doing that and I spent like a weekend doing it. And it was super easy. Um I m a lot easier than you know, typically you're traditionally would do it. And the only thing is that like they're HTML files. So you just have to copy and paste the HTML file onto whatever you're hosting it. And if you have to make a change, you have to copy and paste the whole HTML file over. So really

Dario26:19Yeah, yeah.

Manny26:20work on cleaning it up first and then exporting it over.

Dario26:25Yeah, I th yeah, I was just thinking as I after I told you it's it looks great, is that I've been saying that to a lot of guests recently. Uh it's not me just blowing smoke of uh someone's butt. No, no,

Manny26:32Ha ha ha.

Dario26:35like the people I've been bringing on, it's because I like I like their websites. Uh but yeah, the uh you do have to clean it up before you start making changes. Like

Manny26:42Right.

Dario26:42and again, always make backups of everything.

Manny26:45Yes.

Dario26:46Um but no, I love it, man. I love uh I I would love to see a little behind the scenes.

Manny26:52Yeah, yeah. Well a a after this I'll I'll I'll I'll show you the

Dario26:52When you have time just to see your code and everything.

Manny26:55uh the processing of it and then we can like go go go go on Google Docs and I'll show you some more. Uh and then I'll I'll tr I'll trade you for the the AdWord stuff 'cause I wanna know more about that.

Dario27:00Yeah, I would love to see it. Oh, deal.

Kyrill27:00Nice.

Dario27:04Yeah, yeah, deal. Actually, I'll give you another tip too. Uh I just figured I this is what I I started doing as of the weekend. Um, I just found out about again, I knew they were there. I just didn't

Manny27:13Right.

Dario27:14put a lot of thought into it, but the skills within Claude, right? So one thing I told it was everyone kept talking about skills on a thread, and I'm like, yeah, the skills. I'm gonna look into this. So you can tell it uh at the end of a chat, let's say for your AdWords chat, right? you could say, do you wanna create a skill based on what we've been talking about for AdWords? Or and then after you know, even

Kyrill27:38What does that mean,

Dario27:39later on, let's say in a week or so or whatever, you've been doing a lot of stuff, you could say do you wanna update that skill? That's what I've been doing lately. So if I do a lot of stuff in a chat, I'll just tell it, yeah, I can see I'm writing it down.

Manny27:51Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm running it there. I'll do the skill.

Dario27:55and then another thing you could do is you could tell it, can you

Kyrill27:55What does it mean by the skill though, Dario?

Dario27:57review all the skills within

Manny27:59Right.

Dario27:59my my account and then tell me if I need to get rid of some or keep whatever. Cause sometimes like there's certain um when I first started Claude I added a bunch of skills that I thought I would need and most of them I didn't. So I I just recently I told him to get rid of it 'cause it can actually uh degrade the quality of the answers you get from it if they're not relevant to, you know, your chat 'cause it might pull on something that's not needed or or just taking up space or again, I don't know. I'm not a programmer. I don't know how this stuff

Manny28:26Right.

Dario28:27works.

Manny28:27I think too, 'cause it it like uses less process I cause I've been trying to look into like building like my own little AI box or whatever and like how much processing power you need. And I think like when

Dario28:33Okay. Yeah.

Manny28:36you have skills, um, I forgot what it's called, but let's say like it uses like X amount of um processing power, skills helps condense it into like not using all those different systems at once. So it's a less strain on the system or what have you. And then it gives you

Dario28:50I see.

Manny28:50less um delusions or whatever it's called.

Dario28:55interesting. I I also used to I I still download a lot of files like when I finish like chat or as I'm going through the chats, like I'm I'm like constantly like I don't want to lose this. Like I'm like, okay, create an Excel, let me save it. revisions, like mark it so I know which file is from which day and whatever. Uh updating the context is always a big one. I always tell it, okay, update your context. The brain, right? I love it.

Manny29:16I I love that. Dude, I I I'm I'm excited. I I I know people are like a little afraid of AI and and I feel like I'm a little like hesitant too, but I think it's so exciting to like whatever the future may hold for things and it's gonna make our lives easier but also kinda cooler at the same time.

Dario29:31Hey, for business owners,

Kyrill29:31Yeah.

Dario29:32it's like a godsend. It's your personal

Manny29:34Right.

Dario29:34EA. Like everyone I've spoken to that's a business owner

Kyrill29:37It's like an assistant, yeah.

Dario29:38is is in love with it. Uh if you're not a business owner, then yeah, you would probably be scared. But I mean, I don't know. Like it is what it is, What are you gonna do?

Manny29:46Yeah. Like I can't stand AI slop. Like it drives me crazy. Um, but I think that's people using it in bad taste. And I think like a good explanation is like you're not gonna have like the guy who owns uh a baker like he like making those AI posters, he probably was gonna make it in Word anyway. So it's better to have a

Kyrill30:03Yeah.

Manny30:03an AI poster versus like

Dario30:05Yeah.

Manny30:05big text on Word, right? I don't know.

Dario30:08My friend has the best example for that. He always talks about how

Kyrill30:09The old word art.

Manny30:10Right.

Dario30:11he had a friend no no, he uh he needed to change like the color of his shirt for his LinkedIn picture. And he's he used AI to do it. And he's like, Look, the thing is I was never gonna hire a photographer to do that anyways.

Manny30:23Right.

Dario30:24I just would have never changed the picture until, you know, he had a

Kyrill30:27Yeah.

Dario30:27free headshot from his company. So he's like, It's it's people that were never gonna be your customers anyways, mostly using it.

Kyrill30:34Yeah.

Manny30:35Yeah. I a hundred percent agree. I think like they were never and then I think that also leaves a little bit of like that leaves a little bit of pressure on us for in a lot of ways. Like and the reason why I say that is like I felt like in the beginning of like um the big push for social media, there was a lot of like leads coming in that were not like there were poor leads of like a couple hundred bucks for all this like elaborate stuff. And it was so much of like filtering through that. And I feel like now like the leads are coming in a little m more clearly, like well defined. Maybe that's obviously through growth and figure out how to stretch. But I think you're seeing less of that. Right. Right. Right. And I feel like that's been

Dario31:11Might be might be less, but it's like more for you type of thing, right? Yeah.

Kyrill31:15More quality leads, essentially. Like the the one

Manny31:18helpful. I don't know. Uh I don't know if that's like a thing that you guys are experiencing too or what have you.

Dario31:23It's like with AdWords,

Kyrill31:23Yeah the

Dario31:23like we were getting a lot of like leads that were garbage until like we fixed up the campaign. It's like I I got scared at first too, 'cause I'm like, my god, less leads coming in. But the ones that

Manny31:32Right.

Dario31:32were coming in were like people that were, Yeah, we're looking to do this, like we're serious type of thing. Yeah. Quality.

Kyrill31:36Quality. So

Manny31:37Yeah.

Kyrill31:38essentially you want to get rid of the the music video leads, you know, those types of

Manny31:42Right.

Kyrill31:43ones where there's there's no money involved in it and they want the world or they're not serious, right? And that's what Dario's talking about. Like it's not about the quantity, it's about getting ones that you know, okay, if this is an an actual lead coming in, this is actually someone I need to start pitching or prepping for rather than like, all right, we have ten, fifteen leads that came in yesterday. Let me see which ones might be worth it or something like that. At least you know when they do come in now, they're actually like ones that actually will give get you work.

Manny32:13Right. A hundred percent. And like it's funny that you said music videos. I was talking to uh th this guy the other day about like doing music videos and how like I stay away from them and he's like, Why? And I like, 'Cause there's a lot of music videos in Miami, but it's just like they're crazy,

Kyrill32:24Mm-hmm.

Manny32:25man. They don't pay well. There's always drama. Right? Just better to stay away from them. Um, but yeah,

Dario32:33Um

Manny32:33I and and um and speaking of AI, you wanna get into that uh that that scam?

Kyrill32:38Yeah. Yeah, let's do it. Like 'cause uh you mentioned that there was like this a big scam that happened recently and you wanted to kind of give a little PSA to the audience.

Manny32:45Yeah. I I I do this is a big PSA. I feel like for us like filmmakers out there in our space that we're in, um, they are targeting, I feel like production companies of our size and like rental houses of our size. They're going for FX6 packages, um, um, mainly FX6 and C80 packages, small little things you could put in a 1510 and then just send it off. And the reason why I say that is because I obviously got hit by the scam. I have insurance, I'll be fine. Um, but as I've been like kind of digging deeper into this, because you know how we are, we like to dig and do a little bit research. I've been seeing some guys that don't have insurance or aren't gonna get covered by insurance. So I wanna like kind of make people be a little out there and and watch out for it. Um so what's happening is they're coming through your website, whether that's gonna be SEO or what have you, they're usually not through ShareGrid. They'll come in asking for a rental package, right? They typically start off they have a pretty clear uh code of it. They'll ask for the rental package, just the camera by itself. Then they start adding on accessories. One big thing they like to do is they like to get the package to be around twenty thousand dollars worth of items. Um, so not to say that's initially a red flag. That happens a lot with when you rent out a package. Like if you're renting an FX6, you need to add lenses, you need to add this. but they typically tend to add things up. So let's, for example, um, we saw one that was for like a Sony Burano. They just wanted the Burano. That's it. so they tend to just try to like cap it around twenty. In my case, they asked for like lenses and they they started adding things up to get to that random. The theft to that to that mark. And I think my theory behind that is it's considered now grand theft. And um grand theft's a little harder to pursue on a faster timeline. Um so they typically come in asking for the rental to be done, pick up for um for Wednesday, uh shoot Thursday, Friday drop off. and the reason why they do that is because on Friday, um, once you come to the realization that the gear, like after the 25, 24 hour mark that the gear is not coming back. It's now the weekend and it's now harder to file police report of grand theft, um, giving them

Kyrill34:48Uh

Manny34:49more leeway. Um, so those are some things to look out for, not necessarily red flags, because that does happen for for people. I'll get into the like the actual big red flags later because they're a little more harder to spot. Um, but in my case, we had an individual come in, stole the production company's identity. I'll say their first name. They came in as Blake. Another identity that they tend to use is, I believe, I'm having I have it here. There's a Blake, a Steven, and a Michael. I'm not gonna say their last names, but they'll use the identity of these uh different production companies. In my case, they were from Texas. Um, and what they do is they'll have their website, but be instead of dot com dot net. Um and the email chain will be from dot from dot

Kyrill35:37Mm.

Manny35:38net, which is something that I didn't even realize. So when I clicked on the website, um nothing seemed to be unpredictable because it was it belonged to that person. Um when it came down to insurance, they had stolen the information from their insurance company as well. uh and they even faked the insurance company's uh address too as well. Um so like if you're trying to communicate with the insurance company, you're communicating with them. Um

Kyrill36:00Oh.

Manny36:01yeah, so that that becomes a whole nine yards. So like when I came down to like you know, request the gear back. Both the the insurance company's phone number and their phone number went completely silence and so do the emails. They all bounce back as nothing. Um so what they do is they basically like go and they actually use AI for this. they'll go through and have AI just like replicate all these people's like stolen identities information to make everything seem legitimate. Um the day of the pickup, they'll have usually a PA um, like hire a runner and this person is not going to get paid. I don't think so. they'll hire like a PA to come pick up the gear and this they usually hire them off Craigslist and they'll go ahead and drop it off at like a predetermined location. So all the ones in LA get dropped off to LAX. Um in Miami they go to the Sun View Hol or the Sun Hotel in downtown. In West Palm, I don't know where they go. Um and they this also happened in Ohio and Chicago. I don't where they go, but they're usually being paid to go pick up the gear and drop it off. When it comes down to the actual production, they like get fired or they don't get To work the day of production. Um, the biggest red flags that I've been seeing is coming from the PA themselves. So the PA is being hired on a contract per assignment of things. So let's say he's gonna get paid 300 bucks. He's gonna get paid $100, um, like his first installment is $100 for going to pick up the gear, another $100 for dropping it off, and then another $100 for doing something else. Um, so if you could talk to the person picking up the gear. See how their payment structure is. They'll even provide a call sheet and the call sheet is total like I've never seen a call sheet this elaborate before. Um so if I would have known from advance, I would be like, shit, that's a red flag. But their call sheet would look like it's totally well up done. You could tell it was made by Claude. but I cuss I never I didn't get the call sheet until after this happened and I started like kind of investigating a little bit. And yeah, basically when it comes down to the the day of, they'll communicate with you like drop off and all that stuff. And then the moment that twelve PM hits, at least in my case, all the emails went dark. Um, everything went off, like and it it goes completely blank and you can't really charge it. You can send out um one big thing if this happens to you is um the moment that you realize this has happened, please send out a demand letter uh to the address that you have on file. Um so for in my case, they signed a a uh a rental agreement. And they had used an address. Before doing the rental, I had checked with the address um that was on file and it seemed to have belonged to that individual. But it turns out that information is stolen. Um it it did actually belong to that individual. It's just they had gotten their identity and stolen out from there. So in my case, it was really tough to um identify like that it was a scam. Um and in the other cases that I'm seeing, every it they seem to have the clear code of like stealing somebody's identity and then coming in that way. Um so yeah, the biggest thing is try to talk to your PA or the PA that's picking you up, and that's gonna help you find everything. Another big thing too is that.net.com, just be very mindful of that too as well. Um what is something else? Oh, there are a if if you feel like you've been targeted, do contact um the FBI, make a report, um, and feel free to reach out to me that you have any information because there is a detective that's doing this uh nationally that I can hand you over their information. And depending on your state, you might like a detective working on it statewide. There is a statewide detective for Florida too, as well. Um, and that's basically like my spiel of this whole thing without getting into like too much like specifics of like names, websites, and all that fun stuff. Any any questions?

Kyrill39:42Wow.

Dario39:42Were you saying about the website, they're spoofing the dot com website to dot net? So instead of like lapseproductions

Kyrill39:46With a dot net.

Dario39:48dot com, it would be a Lapse Productions dot net. Is that what they were doing?

Manny39:50Yes.

Kyrill39:50Yeah.

Manny39:50So the email comes in as like let's say like m let's set a Manny Mi Media Productions um dot net versus dot com. And then every like the email signature would be linked to the all the correct information there. Does if that makes sense?

Dario40:05But but when you went to

Kyrill40:05My

Dario40:05their website

Kyrill40:05god.

Dario40:06they still they still mirrored like the dot com version of that company's website to dot net. Is that so they redirected it to I see, okay.

Manny40:10No, it went straight to the dot com instead of dot net. So right.

Kyrill40:17so when you look at the URL it says dot com but oh that's um wow.

Dario40:21And then and then the stolen I okay the here's the other question I had, uh th it's clearly stolen IDs, right?

Manny40:27Right.

Dario40:27Uh but it is it but it's not like um when you went to that company's website, it's not the same people, right? It's different people.

Manny40:36No, it's the same people. Um, so like let's say like in my case, right? I'll just use the first name. Um, Blake at this website, he'll have um he'll have his ID, like he'll have his like his his headshot, and the headshot matches the one for the ID. Um, the ID seems to be like stolen as well, but there's one thing that I've noticed, and I've only seen this in two different IDs. I haven't seen more than two, so I can't confirm this, but there is one like common denominator. And they do change the age um of the person to be born in the seven 1970s. I don't know why that is. It could be just like a weird AI thing, but something

Kyrill41:14That could be an AI thing, yeah.

Manny41:15right, but just something to keep in mind. Like if you get someone like rent like that says like the seventies, like who knows? there's something like a common thing I I've seen. but yeah, they they will like the soul and identity. Even when you call the the phone number, they I actually ended up Finding the actual um Blake's information. spoke to the guy. He's obviously a victim of this too as well. Um, and it's like doing terrible things for his business, um, as you can imagine. Um, but when you call uh when you call the the the scammer site, he will spoof his voicemail. So it's so it's his voicemail that's picking up the phone or what have you.

Kyrill41:55Well.

Dario41:55Is is the faux oh what so they're targeting they they have stolen IDs of production company people and they're leveraging

Manny42:02Right.

Dario42:02it for this that's so elaborate. my god.

Manny42:05It it

Kyrill42:05It's it's

Manny42:05it it's it's tremendously elaborate.

Kyrill42:06it's very very clever. It's wow. It bad

Manny42:10Um I wouldn't like the speaking to the detectives and it's like um they're like I it's so hard to like catch them because of how like in detail they're going to. I I will say though, like there's a low chance that you're gonna be able to cover the equipment because whenever it goes to the drop off location, it seems to get picked up by somebody else and they ship it overseas. Um so

Kyrill42:31Yeah, it's gone.

Manny42:32yeah, like you could do the things with the in the uh the um the um serial numbers. but I think at that point it's kind of like a lost cause because they're not it's not

Kyrill42:43Yeah.

Manny42:44being sold in the States.

Kyrill42:46It's like an elaborate way of transporting equ camera equipment than cars. Th these are the these are the same people

Manny42:52Right.

Kyrill42:52that have basically uh figured out it's like why go through the trouble of getting large vehicles shipped out when you can get thirty, forty thousand dollars worth of gear and very small

Manny43:01Right.

Kyrill43:01pelican cases also shipped out. It's uh they're they're basically graduating to to different types of high value uh things like so do you do rental equipment typically or is it like once in a while?

Manny43:14Two rental equipment, like it happen, it comes in like pretty like regularly, I would say. Like that week we had like at least like two other rentals that happen. We mainly do rentals

Kyrill43:23Mm-hmm.

Manny43:23for like uh grip and lighting. Um, but every now and then we'll have like a camera rental that goes out. Um it just so happened in this case it was um fraudulent. And I even did like a back like I like I did a background check on the address. There was actually two addresses on file. Um one from the um and one that was like From the insurance and one that was just from his um rental agreement. I checked both of them. The one from the rental agreement belonged to his father and he was a past resident of that location. And then the other one he currently owns. Um so like to me that didn't seem like a red flag just because like I know when I was first starting, I had my parents' address as one of them, right? just because that's where I was living. Um so I didn't think anything too of it um that way. But like that could have been a red flag, uh hindsight being 2020.

Dario44:10I feel bad for the guy.

Kyrill44:10Yeah, it's

Dario44:11Jesus. Like now th these

Manny44:12Yeah.

Dario44:13guys are going around pretending to be him.

Manny44:15And it seems like they have at least like three identities that they're using. There could be more, right? Like we don't we don't know. Um

Kyrill44:21Probably, yeah.

Manny44:22yeah, 'cause when mine happened, I had uh spoke like as that like mine had ha 'cause it they it seemed like they happened over the weekend, right? Um but when mine had happened, when I was speaking to the detective, it seemed like he had just received another information about another case that happened in Ohio. And then the following week, the same people had targeted somebody in West Palm Beach, which like in my neck of the woods. So I was trying to like help them out. Um but Again, too, like if you are affected, like please send out a demand letter as soon as you can because your insurance is gonna ask you like what have you done to get back the gear. The only thing that you can do is send out a demand letter. So having that is gonna be tremendously helpful. And if you don't know what a demand letter is, it's just saying like whatever address you have on file, hey, please send or send this back. If not, we have to take these XY repercussions, however you want to handle that. Um, but just make sure you have like a date. Usually it's ten days to request

Kyrill45:09Yeah.

Manny45:09the gear back. but yeah, that's basically what happened.

Kyrill45:14Man,

Manny45:14It's crazy.

Kyrill45:15I mean like luckily we don't deal with rent renting

Manny45:18Right.

Kyrill45:18out our equipment, so like um but uh but yeah.

Dario45:20You could be a victim now, right? That's that's the downside.

Manny45:22You could be.

Dario45:24I guess uh for those that can, uh if it's available in your province or state or wherever you're at, freeze your credit profile if you don't need to use it. So I don't know how it is in Florida, Manny, but here for

Manny45:35Wha w why?

Dario45:37example in Ontario you could freeze your credit profile. So people can't open up stuff in your name or whatever. So it kinda like decreases the the risk of you getting, you know, whatever.

Manny45:48Wait, could so I I so you your credit profile allows you to open up different things?

Dario45:53So for example, if you freeze your credit profile and someone tries to, you know, impersonate you, they can't open up stuff,

Manny45:59Yeah.

Dario46:00right? So I I guess just since we're on the topic of fraud and whatever, just something to keep in mind. I guess for people that

Manny46:06Right. My yeah, a and another thing too is

Dario46:09are I I guess if you're listening and you're a victim, open up uh

Manny46:11Right.

Dario46:12or freeze your credit so at least people can't open up stuff in your name.

Manny46:16That's true. Yeah. I should probably go freeze

Kyrill46:17Yeah, or anything.

Manny46:18my credit 'cause I don't need to do anything credit wise. So I should probably freeze my dog's like dead asleep

Dario46:21Just freeze it, yeah.

Manny46:22back there. Um but yeah, another thing too is they also sent payment and the payment still has it's almost been like a month since um my thing. Uh it's been three weeks actually. Um and I still the payment that they paid for the gear is still in my account. Like it still hasn't bounced back, which is like another odd thing.

Kyrill46:40So they actually sent you a payment.

Dario46:40Yeah, that's weird,

Manny46:41They actually sent me a payment, that's correct.

Dario46:43But maybe after like

Kyrill46:44Yeah, it's

Dario46:45uh a month like a little bit longer at the it

Manny46:47Right.

Dario46:47might bounce. Yeah, yeah. God, that's weird, Yeah.

Manny46:49I'm I'm waiting for I check it like every other day and I'm expecting it to bounce shortly. Like I'm I like as of right now it hasn't bounced. It's been three weeks. I'm expecting it to bounce. Like I'm not at hope like you know what mean? But ah as of w it was funny 'cause I was speaking to one of the detectives and that was like one of the big outliers, I guess, in my case was that he they actually I still have the payment. Usually payments have been bounced back. For some reason I still have the payment. So they were trying to like figure out like how they could track that or what have you. It seems like they just got one of those like prepay cards.

Dario47:18Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kyrill47:19Yeah.

Manny47:19But for some reason that's like how it went. Another red flag too that came in is that the insurance came in overnight. Um usually insurance come like comes in um like um comes in like during working hours. Um the insurance came at night. So that might be another flag. But sometimes too, like I like it come in late at night. Um it came in around like I think like eight o'clock, which I know is like if it was in California, like They're five o'clock. So something to keep in mind that it might come at like a a strange hour. But the the the email that they will send is from a flawed account. And there are cases that the insurance that they actually use is fake, like that the insurance number is stolen. However, ah they will probably add two different insurance numbers, one for workman's comp, and the workman's comp one is typically fake. So even if you do check the insurance and there's another policy number there. double check the second one that's related to workman's comp because that's probably a a stolen one as well. Or a a fake one.

Kyrill48:20Wow.

Dario48:20This is such a targeted scam. Like so targeted. Unbelievable.

Manny48:23It is. It is. And that's why I wanted to come on here and talk about it. I've been going on like um

Kyrill48:27Wow.

Manny48:29I've been making like I've been helping cause we have like a local community here in Miami, um, doing like ambiguous posts and stuff like that just to help them, like anyone that's getting targeted, 'cause it seems like Miami is like a spot being targeted, uh of of people. And so is like other places too. So it's just it's super niched. Speaking with a guy, I had I he sounded like you would like it it didn't like nothing O nothing came out of the ordinary. Like the questions he asked were like production focused, things you would typically ask if you're renting out these items. So nothing stood out to me that was like out of the r out of the blue like when I initially was going through it.

Kyrill49:05I have another question. Um,

Manny49:06Yeah.

Kyrill49:07wouldn't deposits typically be something that can circumvent that or is that the the thing that you were talking about that you still have? You still have the deposit? Well that that's what I mean, like like

Dario49:12Not unless you di y you asked for like a ninety percent deposit, Kyrill. 'Cause usually it's like what, ten per

Manny49:16Yeah. I you know, like I I was thinking about that. Like obviously like I haven't done rentals since and if I've done rentals they're to people that I know, right? Like they're like I'm not worried

Kyrill49:25Yeah.

Manny49:26um about it. I was thinking like if I'm gonna do this like moving forward, like I should probably do a deposit. It's not like super typical for production like for rental houses to do deposits, but like maybe doing like a few grand or like a percent, like a small percent of deposit that's like refundable could be a way to um help prevent that.

Kyrill49:44I thought they already did that. I remember when back in the day early days, uh, when we were renting from like one of our local camera stores here, like they had deposits from what I remember. Um

Dario49:54Speaking of which, Kyrill,

Manny49:55Yeah.

Dario49:55we should probably call Mehron after this call and warn him. 'cause uh the channel sponsor, Mehron

Manny49:59Yeah, you should.

Kyrill49:59Yeah. I mean I'm sure he knows

Dario50:02from Canada Film Equipment, by the way.

Manny50:04Yeah, and and the reason why I think is like y let let know Yeah.

Kyrill50:04Yeah, I think I think he probably would know. I I feel like most rental companies would. Yeah.

Dario50:10Yeah, I'm gonna call them and let know after this. Hopefully it doesn't spread to Canada, but yeah, that's very

Kyrill50:13That's crazy though.

Manny50:13I have a I I I

Dario50:16it's so targeted. Like and then it's like, but how much money could you make selling it in a I d where's it going? Did the FBI guy tell you where it's going?

Manny50:25No. So, um so I I'm gonna send you over like after this email, I'll send you like more details of like the people's name and emails that like are associated with it as of right now.

Dario50:36Yeah.

Manny50:37Um I don't know where it's going. I I like obviously fell down a rabbit hole for this. I saw a documentary of like

Kyrill50:42Yeah.

Manny50:43people stealing phones and doing something similar with it. Um and i funny enough, like part of the chain, it goes to Doral, which is here in uh South Florida, but it would get like shipped to Doral because there's a facility that doesn't do a lot of checks. Then it gets shipped to Africa. And then from Africa it goes to India and then India then goes to China. where it gets like fully scrubbed. But that's me speculating, right? Um all all that

Kyrill51:06Yeah.

Manny51:06I have is like with that like the the identity that they they they used on me, that identity has stolen worth like two hundred grand worth of gear so far. Um and I'm sure

Dario51:16Wow.

Manny51:16it's it's rising 'cause like the one from West Palm Beach used a different identity, but Um it's you know, I'm sure like it's the same it it's it seems to be the same group. And the one that's like doing it nationwide, um, it seems like it they all have the same MO. Like they do the same exact thing, just just at different identities.

Dario51:37It's just weird because uh, you know, like with cars you get it. You know, like everyone always needs

Manny51:40Right.

Dario51:41to buy a car and there's everyone's got at least one car, right? So it makes sense, they steal those blah blah. With cameras it's so specific that even if you do send it to like a third world or wherever, like the buyer for that is so niche. Like th it d they're

Kyrill51:56I mean

Dario51:56probably holding on to it for way longer than like how

Manny51:59When I

Dario51:59do you move that quickly, right? How do you move twenty thousand dollars worth of gear quickly?

Kyrill52:02Well, they sell it less, Dario. They don't sell it for that full am they don't sell it for that full amount. It's like with the vehicles, right?

Manny52:05Right.

Dario52:06No, I know, but even then, like how much are you gonna discount? Like 'cause even if you're a buyer of that specific equipment, you see like a I don't know, like a like a C80 for like two thousand dollars, you're like,

Manny52:17Right.

Dario52:18what's wrong with this? Like this is kinda sketchy, right? You're already on high alert.

Kyrill52:21That's if it's here. They're not selling it here, Dario. They're selling it

Manny52:23Yeah.

Kyrill52:24overseas. Like it's

Dario52:25I wonder if it just goes to like someone's eBay store overseas and then ends up back here. That's probably what it is, yeah. Crazy though.

Kyrill52:30That's hundred percent what it is. Like if you

Manny52:32I I could see them like selling it like to like a local ch like some place in uh like some other country that's not the US where like it's like oh that's not a red flag 'cause I and they probably whoever's buying it probably knows it's not it's stolen. They just don't really uh care too much. You know what I mean?

Dario52:45Care, yeah.

Kyrill52:47Or maybe they don't even or maybe they don't even know, like if it's like hey, maybe a local business wants to wants

Manny52:52Right.

Kyrill52:52like a C s uh an R5 C but it's or I don't even know like what it could be to be honest. Like you never know. Yeah.

Manny52:57So

Dario52:57That's why like it's confusing because it it's so it's such a niche thing. It's not like a car where you're like, Okay, like everyone needs a car but like like a R

Kyrill53:04You get in and drive.

Dario53:06five C is like very specific, you know?

Manny53:06Right. It is. Well, it's funny too, because like in the beginning, it seems like the when I was speaking to them, like they were doing higher end camera packages. Like they were doing like the Burano and some like lenses, like smaller lens like smaller cinema lenses. But it doesn't s like it seems like that was in the very beginning, and it seems like now they've moved on to just doing C80s and FX6s because of how

Kyrill53:29I'm gonna check eBay.

Manny53:30I think yeah, I I think it's because of how like easier they are to sell. Like they're more popular cameras than like the Burano, right?

Dario53:37Right, yeah, yeah.

Manny53:38and I feel like, I don't know, it's something kind of crazy. Here, Dario, I'm I'm literally just sending you now like my report that I've been sending out for like two uh production companies here that has a little more information, but I don't I

Dario53:50Forward it to the Canada Film equipment so they have it on their end at least.

Kyrill53:53Yeah.

Manny53:53Yeah. Yeah, but it's it

Kyrill53:55This is weird, yeah.

Manny53:56it it's it's crazy. And like I fell down this rabbit hole and like I'm just like so like trying to be in a like I don't I I I'm not trying to find who did this. I'm just trying to figure out like like where they're going next just to help the investigation stuff like that. Cause I was telling my

Dario54:08Yeah.

Manny54:09buddy, like I obviously need my police report for my insurance, but now if I'm like talking to anybody else, it's just cause out of the pure fun and excitement, 'cause it feels like I'm in a movie and I'm helping bust down like an international scan. Right.

Dario54:18You gotta you gotta do like a you gotta do like a YouTube video on this. Just really get into it. Do

Kyrill54:23Yeah.

Dario54:23like uh like Coffeezilla style uh investigation. That'd be great. Oh yeah. Reach out to him, that'd be great. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Manny54:26Oh yes.

Kyrill54:26Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like Coffeezilla maybe sh g send it to him and like be like a guest on his show. That would actually be perfect. He would

Manny54:32Oh dude, dude. dude, I'm I'm gonna write that down.

Kyrill54:35he would he's so good at investigating these kind of things, he'd probably like find more information.

Dario54:40I think he's just dealing with like billion dollar stuff now, but back in

Manny54:42Right.

Dario54:43the day when he was dealing with small st small time stuff.

Manny54:45I'm sure there's like a smaller channel

Kyrill54:46No, he pro

Manny54:47that's doing stuff like this that we can like uh I can partner with and I'm like

Kyrill54:49There's a lot of guys like that though, I think. I think there's a lot of uh like YouTube uh investigators and journalists and and stuff who

Manny54:56Right.

Kyrill54:57are trying to figure out like how to expose these like scammers and and things like that. Like but like thank God there are people out there who do that. But this that's just so crazy. 'Cause yeah, I'm thinking about more the investigating. But I mean the scamming is like the scamming just keeps getting more sophisticated. That's that's essentially it and that's what yeah.

Dario55:06That do what, the scamming or the investigation? This is very sophisticated, I gotta say,

Manny55:14Right. It it is very

Dario55:16like.

Manny55:17specific. And supposedly, um, I don't know how true this is, but the guys that are running the scam are based out of Texas. Um and

Dario55:24okay.

Manny55:25I

Kyrill55:25How do you know that?

Manny55:26I I when one of the one of the um investigators had mentioned like they believe that they're in Texas, like or there's a group in Texas doing this, they didn't like confirm like that's them and they they haven't been able to like prosecute them, but they have like a strong inclination that they're from Texas. Which would make sense 'cause like Texas does have a bit of a film capital. They know how production works, right? Um, and so like it feels like they would have like i like I do feel like in my heart that it is someone running the scam is based here in the States just because of how well versed they are in production to be able to pull off the scam. You know what I mean?

Kyrill56:02He was gonna say, did they I I was

Dario56:02It's one of us 'cause like they're definitely in the industry to know all this stuff.

Manny56:06Right.

Kyrill56:08I was gonna say like um for them to go down this path, like did they not do well in the video industry that they figured out, you know, like I know all this information, what else can I do with it?

Dario56:18You know what some

Manny56:18Who who knows?

Dario56:18director didn't treat them right and they took that to heart as a PA and then they just

Manny56:24I mean, times are tough out there, you know what I mean? Like who who knows like right. Who

Kyrill56:27Targeting PAs now.

Manny56:29who knows like what they uh like what their background was to allow who I could be completely wrong. They could be some guy from from from India or China for all I know, right? Not to say those are are places people get that are scammers, but I'm just saying like they it could be some place completely random, right? So like right. So so the worst part about

Kyrill56:44Plot twist, it was that PA. It was that PA that showed up. He hides he hides in plain sight. I'm just the PA.

Dario56:46It was the PA all along, right? Listen, according to Agatha Christie, it's always the person you least suspect. PA. It's gotta be him.

Manny56:54Yeah, so the worst part about it, like the

Kyrill56:56When in doubt it's the PA.

Manny56:59the worst part about it is that like I when it this was first happening, I like before I spoke to like anybody else like outside, I was like, this motherfucker was pretending to be him. He came into my house because he actually asked to use my bathroom and he like blew up my bathroom and took a shit in it, and it smelled like cra it smelled terrible. So like not only did he take my shit, but he still he took a shit in my bathroom. So like I was like so and I was like, I was like so.

Dario57:19Yeah.

Kyrill57:19That is the cherry on top. my

Manny57:24Mad about that, right? And I was like, um right. But he was just like he

Kyrill57:25So the next red flag is if they come and take a dump in your place. That is that is the

Manny57:30was like, I guess, a victim of it too, right? Who knows? Maybe he wasn't. But it's funny because like he got there like a little like

Kyrill57:33my god, no.

Manny57:37um early and he was like texting on the ring camera, and I then got a text message saying I was here. So I thought maybe that was him. Um, but it turns out like it doesn't it there there is no evidence to see him that he was actually part of the scam besides like getting hired off Craigslist.

Dario57:49No, with with how sophisticated these guys are,

Manny57:52Right.

Dario57:52I would say like they're using mules. I mean, why w why wouldn't why would you cheap out on that part? You know, you've

Manny57:55Right. Right.

Kyrill57:56They're all mules.

Dario57:58you've done everything else so well. Why would you cheap out on the actual showing your face to the victim?

Kyrill58:02One camera package funds the rest of the scam.

Manny58:05Right. And the fact that it's happening in so

Dario58:06You for real, man.

Manny58:07many different so many different places, like imm you know what I mean? Like it's like it's it's hard to not like think that. And it's

Dario58:13This is someone's cousin to like the same people that like rob the cars? Cause it's like they're like, hey, you know what, while

Manny58:17Right. It has to be.

Dario58:19you're sending this over to Russia, just put this in the trunk. This Pelican case in the trunk. Right?

Kyrill58:23my god, yeah, probably.

Manny58:25Yeah. Oh dude, dude, that's a that's probably a genius

Kyrill58:26And then

Manny58:27idea. Like just like throw that right in there, like no one's gonna no one's gonna check.

Dario58:30Yeah, like these guys are all related for sure. Cause think about it, how else is it getting there? Is gett 'cause I was thinking I was trying to think about the financials of it. I'm like, wait, so would they then travel back to their home country with a pelican case with this no, that doesn't make any sense 'cause it's like you factor

Manny58:43No.

Dario58:44in

Kyrill58:43No.

Dario58:44the flight and everything, you're like, wait, that that makes no sense. It's like are they shipping it? It's like they're probably trying to cut down on costs. If they're doing this, this is probably like a you know we always talk about niching down? It's probably some

Manny58:55Right.

Dario58:55of these criminals are niching down.

Kyrill58:56This is the niching down of scams, Jesus Christ.

Manny58:59Dude, that's a that's a great way of like

Dario58:59This is our criminal's niche down.

Kyrill59:00This

Manny59:01looking at it. Yeah, it it it it's out of this world. It's funny too, because I kind of feel bad because like when I see posts on Facebook that's like it's clear that this is that like that's they they've

Dario59:10Yeah.

Manny59:10been targeted. They blast the P I I did it too, but I did it in the in a private WhatsApp. So I guess I'm not as bad, but I am as bad. Like I am, but you blast the the first your instinct is to blast the PA that picked it up, right? Because like that's the only person that you know of and you're not aware of how elaborate the scam is.

Dario59:27Yeah.

Manny59:27So these people that are trying to start as a PA are getting blasted and like kind of like um

Kyrill59:33Uh

Manny59:33um what what's it what's it called when it's like you're bandlisted, like you're um basically getting bandlisted.

Dario59:38Blacklisted.

Manny59:38Yeah, blacklisted. they're basically getting

Kyrill59:40Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Manny59:40b backlisted in these like local communities for it. so I feel kind of bad in that regard. Um I don't care about mine 'cause he took a shit in my bathroom. Yeah.

Dario59:46But PSA also to PAs, don't go do rand like, you know, sketchy stuff like But even they didn't know, right? Like no, but I mean, you know, dropping

Kyrill59:52It's like a Yeah, yeah.

Manny59:54Right.

Dario59:55it off by the airport and it's like

Manny59:57Right.

Dario59:58I don't know. I guess the safest thing

Kyrill59:58Not at a studio.

Dario59:59for everyone involved is if you're renting out the equipment, maybe drive it to the location just to see. If it's

Manny1:00:07Yeah, doing deliveries.

Dario1:00:08a set, you're like, okay, it's a set. And if you're the PA

Kyrill1:00:10No pickups.

Dario1:00:13don't drop it off in a random location by the airport or at a hotel. Also, you almost

Manny1:00:16Yeah, and it's funny.

Dario1:00:17never ask a PA to do this anyways. Why would you trust a PA f like that doesn't make any sense, right? Like why would you trust

Manny1:00:22Well,

Dario1:00:23a PA to do this?

Manny1:00:24to be fair, I I've done I've dealt with my experience of runners before, right? Like, um,

Dario1:00:28Okay.

Manny1:00:29because I've done a lot of like renters before, a lot of times you have like they'll hire a PA to be a r to be a runner, right? So like they'll go or like a an AC to go pick up all the different camera packages and then they build it together that day. So it's like a prep day for them. Um Yeah, that's just true.

Dario1:00:43Okay, yeah, yeah.

Kyrill1:00:43But an AC is different. An AC is different than a PA, right? Um, like yeah, it's like it's like don't shoot the courier. Yeah.

Manny1:00:49That's true. I now right.

Dario1:00:49PA's like almost like a volunteer position. I wouldn't trust I wouldn't trust a PA with that stuff.

Kyrill1:00:54If they're just the courier,

Manny1:00:54Now that you say that

Kyrill1:00:57then if it's just like a the cou it's basically like shooting the courier, uh essentially, right? That's kind of w what everyone's blasting, but

Dario1:01:02If you're a brand new PA, don't go do this stuff because it's clear like

Manny1:01:05Right.

Dario1:01:06a a

Kyrill1:01:06Yeah.

Dario1:01:06seasoned producer wouldn't wouldn't have you going to do that. It would have someone else doing that.

Kyrill1:01:11No.

Manny1:01:11Right. Now that you say that,

Kyrill1:01:11No no no.

Manny1:01:12that makes sense. Like every PA that's picked up equipment has always been like really large like grip equipment. And it's they're usually like in a van. And if it's like a smaller thing, it's usually

Dario1:01:21Yeah.

Manny1:01:22like or like camera, it's usually the AC picking it up. Um hindsight being twenty tw like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.

Kyrill1:01:25Yeah. If you're not an AC picking it up, then no. Yeah. That's a good that's a good rule of thumb. It has to be an AC that actually knows their shit rather than a PA

Manny1:01:33Stick to your role.

Kyrill1:01:34yeah, wow. My God.

Manny1:01:36Um, that is that is a very good point to make. I'm gonna um I'm gonna try to update that in one of the the articles that's I I get out. That's how it's that's really good. Um yeah, man, it's it's it's it's very elaborate. And I don't know like i f for some people like how how else are you gonna be able to determine it? Um, besides like not getting hit. But I feel bad for the folks that like don't have insurance and that are getting hit because it's like now you're just out of a camera that you worked really hard for. And I feel like us in the industry, we buy things with work, yeah.

Dario1:02:03Hey man, you gotta you gotta always have insurance

Kyrill1:02:05No, i if you're renting out equipment you shouldn't

Dario1:02:05if you're if you're in business, you gotta have

Manny1:02:06Yeah.

Dario1:02:08insurance. Like that's just that's like imagine driving without insurance, right? Like you d you

Manny1:02:12Right.

Dario1:02:12just don't it's one of those things you just don't do. Like you're renting

Manny1:02:15Okay.

Dario1:02:15out some

Kyrill1:02:15Yeah.

Dario1:02:15like thousands of doll tens of thousands of dollars of equipment, you don't have insurance. Like, I don't know.

Kyrill1:02:21Like unless it's a close friend that like once

Manny1:02:23Right.

Kyrill1:02:24a year and needs to borrow it for like a day, it's like all right here. But it's like if you're if you're renting out your equipment frequently, you need to have insurance. You shouldn't be even thinking

Manny1:02:32A hundred percent.

Dario1:02:32Yeah.

Kyrill1:02:33about renting it out if you don't have some form of insurance. So like those that will be a hard lesson for those people to learn, but you

Manny1:02:40Yeah.

Kyrill1:02:40know, they'll learn it as a result. You know, it's like that's that's why insurance exists.

Dario1:02:43It it sucks for f yeah, and it sucks b and and also it sucks for people like Manny that do rent out their stuff because your insurance is gonna go up. Now that that you filed

Manny1:02:52a hundred percent.

Dario1:02:53a claim, it's probably gonna go up and then again, the more this happens, the more everyone's gonna raise the rates and everything. So it's like a shitty situation all around. Yeah.

Manny1:02:58Right. It it's just like a a bad egg for everybody, right? Like one person

Kyrill1:02:59I'm also

Manny1:03:02ruining the pot, but they're doing it so much. And it's funny 'cause like the insurance that obviously there's like an insurance investigation on their own and the person that's handling my case is handling the the identity of stolen of that guy. Like so everyone that's has my insurance, he's dealing it with that person's name that they they stole. So which is crazy that they have one person dedicated to it.

Kyrill1:03:21I was gonna say like I was gonna say the the identities of these companies

Dario1:03:23You know, they could get these guys so quickly, but they could get these guys so easily. I don't know why they don't just do it. I mean

Manny1:03:30They're trying to set up a sting, but like it'd be hard to set up a sting you know what I mean? Like you would have to a know like, oh, I got an email from Blake and like I you know, like you would have to like that's what I'm that's why I put the name out there too. It's like those like the first names and like being aware of it because like if you could if they could set up a sting, that's gonna be the easiest way to try to catch them. Um, but yeah that's

Dario1:03:50Can't they just I mean you guys got the NSA there, can't they just email them, say, hey, email their their colleague and say, hey, can you just

Manny1:03:56Right.

Dario1:03:57find out who it actually is? Like, 'cause they know all this stuff already. They're like spying on everyone, right? Yeah, you guys got flock cameras down there too, right?

Manny1:04:01That's true. I've been I've been being like, go to the flock cameras and track down who's getting what, you know? Yeah, we do. I and I have

Kyrill1:04:01That's like

Manny1:04:08a bunch by my neighborhood. It's funny because like when I first found a police report, I was like, go to the flock cameras and check that out. And they're like, what? And I was like, I know you know about them because they're everywhere.

Dario1:04:17Yeah.

Kyrill1:04:19But this is that's like also saying like you can easily find all the people that are stealing cars these days and then shipping it overseas. It's like it then why aren't they is the question.

Dario1:04:25You can though, Kyrill. You can. The problem at least think because because the government's involved. Like I I don't know how it is in Florida, Manny. I'm willing to bet it's probably the same as in Canada. But here they go through two ports, the Port of Vancouver and Port of Montreal. And

Manny1:04:40Yeah.

Dario1:04:41the government's on the take too, because how else could you have that kind of operation

Manny1:04:44Right.

Dario1:04:45happen? So they're not going after it because there's people in government that are behind it, you know, that's the real reason. That's the truth.

Manny1:04:53Dude, we're getting like super conspira

Kyrill1:04:54We're getting into the conspiracy

Manny1:04:54super conspiratorial.

Kyrill1:04:55zone of this episode. I know. I know, I know.

Dario1:04:55No, it's true though. How else could you how else could you have that happen unless, you know, people's involved, you know?

Manny1:05:01Yeah, I I mean I'm

Kyrill1:05:01Yeah.

Manny1:05:02sure like they're also getting port fees and they're paying for their fees like just

Dario1:05:05Yeah.

Manny1:05:05like it would be normally. So like you never you never know, like what what type of craziness is happening. And that's good is that like a big thing happening in Canada, like stealing cars and selling them overseas?

Dario1:05:14Oh yeah, yeah. It's it's become

Kyrill1:05:14Yeah. Yeah.

Dario1:05:15like a huge problem. Like I mean everyone's insurance has been going up because of it. Government doesn't want to do any anything.

Manny1:05:20Really? I I haven't heard of that too much.

Dario1:05:22Police is like they're so stupid. They're like uh yeah guys, if they try to break into your house to like steal the car keys, just leave them leave by the door. They got clowned worldwide for that one.

Manny1:05:31Ha ha ha.

Kyrill1:05:31Leave them by the door, make it easier.

Dario1:05:34They got totally clowned.

Manny1:05:35That's a terrible thing. That's like Jimmy Carter being like, Yeah, if it's cold, wear a sweater instead of like trying to like raise up your heating bill.

Dario1:05:42Ha ha.

Manny1:05:45Yeah, I don't know, man. It's like it's it's it's it's it's a wild world. And I feel like too with all this stuff happening, like I feel like people are resorting to doing, you know, more you know, crimes a scam and stuff like that for like financial gain, but like you're you're just hurting like the little guys or like you're hurting like small businesses like ourselves. Yeah, they don't care.

Dario1:06:01They don't care. They don't care.

Kyrill1:06:02They don't care. That that's the least of their concern.

Dario1:06:04Like the people involved in this, they're not they're not poor people that are trying to make it month to month. These guys

Manny1:06:08Right.

Dario1:06:09are already bridge as fuck. They're like, hey, I just thought of a new scam. Let's try this out. Hey, you you know cousin Jimmy's in the in the video the video field, right? He probably knows how this stuff works. They call him up,

Manny1:06:18Right.

Dario1:06:19it's like, hey, we're trying to get this done. I know I got you, I got my cousin an insurance. How would this work? yeah, you just do

Kyrill1:06:24Teach me about video.

Dario1:06:25my my my son just started with AI. Let's figure this out, let's make some extra cash.

Manny1:06:29Dude, it's like those, um it's like those uh Vice documentaries where it's like this like scammer guy and he's driving around Ferrari doing donuts and he's just like scamming people left and right. It's just like it feels like it's like that. That's crazy. And also, I I appreciate like talking with you guys. It gave me some fresh perspectives too on like how this could be done and stuff like that. Just 'cause like maybe I'd make a video about it one day or right.

Dario1:06:48watched a lot of Sopranos over the years, so I've I've thought about how Tony would do this.

Kyrill1:06:51Yeah, Soprano. How Tony Soprano

Manny1:06:54Dude, you're like hardened by it.

Kyrill1:06:55would think, yeah.

Manny1:06:58Dude, I love it. Man, th that was basically my

Dario1:07:00man. Okay. I think

Manny1:07:02two cents of the of the scam. Like, I don't know if you have

Dario1:07:04Yeah.

Manny1:07:04any other questions for me or what have you, but I feel like got a lot out of my system and I feel better talking to you. You guys are like therapy.

Dario1:07:11That's good. I'm I'm glad it helped. It sucks to hear. you know, it

Kyrill1:07:11Well, glad that we could be here for you. Yeah.

Manny1:07:12Yeah. It does.

Dario1:07:15would have been n it would have been better not to talk about like if it would have been b better if this wasn't a topic, you know,

Manny1:07:19Right.

Dario1:07:19this didn't happen. But unfortunately it did. Um, we'll try to get this

Manny1:07:23But I muscle.

Dario1:07:23out quickly so other people can uh hopefully not run into the same issue. Um

Manny1:07:28And and I'm also grateful and I'm in a position too where like it can happen to me and it sucks. It's at the end of the world and I feel like I can be I I could try to help as many people as I can by providing

Dario1:07:36Yeah.

Manny1:07:37information just to to to to do it there. So like I am grateful in that regard too. Um but I also want to help people and get the word out and like try to stop it or set up a sting or some crazy shit. I don't

Dario1:07:47Absolutely. I mean, I would say like try to do like a blog post on it. Uh

Manny1:07:51Right.

Dario1:07:52you have more info, so I'll I'll let you lead that one. Um we'll share it on our end. Uh try to do a YouTube video. I feel like this could be the start of your uh YouTube career or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Manny1:08:00My YouTube career, yeah. W one day you're gonna be scrolling through YouTube reels. I do, I I I I do, yeah. I

Kyrill1:08:03You have the setup and everything too. yeah.

Dario1:08:04He's got the personality for it too.

Manny1:08:07I gotta do it one day. Um I want more information though. I wanna like or maybe I could do like what's that guy that did the Lego thing where like stole a bunch of Legos and he had this whole like documentary journey about it.

Kyrill1:08:18Oh, no, I haven't heard of the

Dario1:08:18Wasn't that on Coffeezilla too? I remember seeing that on his channel where he had the guys come

Manny1:08:21It it was

Dario1:08:22on.

Manny1:08:22oh man, I forgot what he was called, but there was a guy who basically like basically was trying to help somebody who like they stole Legos from. But he did this like multi part series of like trying to get the Legos back. The police got involved and police were helping the Lego people and it was like a crazy thing.

Dario1:08:35Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The the they he he got mentioned on on Coffeezilla's thing. They tried to sue him though, right? He had to he had to like stop 'cause they they tried to sue him.

Manny1:08:42Yes. Dude, I watch his

Kyrill1:08:43wow.

Manny1:08:45I've I think it's called like Crazy Ben. It's something Ben, right? Um

Dario1:08:48Crazy Ben, I think it's Crazy Ben or something.

Kyrill1:08:48Easy bet.

Manny1:08:50Lo look it up because it

Kyrill1:08:51Crazy Ben.

Manny1:08:52it might not be called a Crazy Ben, but it's something Ben, right? Um watch it and watch it from the beginning. They're long videos, but man, it is like this crazy thing of how like it

Dario1:09:00So interesting though, Yeah.

Manny1:09:02just gets worse and worse and worse and like they're

Kyrill1:09:06Whoa.

Manny1:09:06Legos, right? Like I got tons of Legos behind me, right? Like I I you would never expect this to Go down the way it did.

Dario1:09:12I I like the start of like these YouTube investigators that are coming out. Like there's Coffeezilla,

Manny1:09:16Yeah.

Kyrill1:09:16Yeah.

Dario1:09:17there's Crazy Ben, if that's the guy's name. Nick Shirley was the other one with the Somali daycare fraud, which is fascinating to like see. You know what

Kyrill1:09:22Yeah. That one was wild.

Manny1:09:23I heard lightly about that.

Dario1:09:25you know when I saw that, I'm like, man, why do I work so hard? Why do I have two businesses? A podcast, I'm helping my girlfriend with her c e commerce. These guys are just making millions just with fraud, doing nothing. my god, why

Kyrill1:09:34Just sending a fake address. It's crazy.

Dario1:09:36do I try?

Manny1:09:38Hey ho his name is Reckless Ben Investigations. That's his name.

Kyrill1:09:40Bri Yeah.

Dario1:09:41Reckless Ben, okay.

Kyrill1:09:42Benjamin Schneider is the guy's original name here I'm seeing and like the scam was like in what twenty twenty three it started. It's crazy.

Manny1:09:49Yeah, dude, it it's it's a crazy ordeal. Go down that rabbit hole. N I feel like not as elaborate as my thing, but still of n nevertheless, um a crazy, crazy cam. Highly rec it's a great doc like speaking of like the Elizabeth Holmes documentary and all that fun stuff, that's a crazy documentary on its own. It's like also like a master class of like story.

Kyrill1:10:06I heard about it, yeah.

Manny1:10:07I just watched it this weekend, highly recommend. It honestly, like,

Dario1:10:07Um I wanna go watch it soon. Yeah, I heard it's good.

Manny1:10:11just out of perspective of like it's a great story and it gets you thinking, thought provoking, tremendous uh like filmmaking techniques that they utilize throughout the entire thing that's like got me inspired um for my

Kyrill1:10:24Yeah.

Manny1:10:24other projects. So like highly recommend watching if you're a filmmaker and just or inspiring storyteller. Great, great movie.

Kyrill1:10:31I heard the way it was shot was pretty crazy 'cause it was done all with all natural and just timing moments and things like that

Manny1:10:39Right.

Kyrill1:10:39and timing frames and where to set up cameras. Like they they didn't use any additional lighting or anything

Manny1:10:45No.

Kyrill1:10:45like that for that documentary and it was just more so just being there in the moment. I was like, that'd be I like I really want to see this now. Like a and and

Manny1:10:52So what they did was I I I saw like a interview is that they did is they they got just uh three cameras. They got Angénieux zooms, which is actually a fun fact. That Gold Bond project we talked about, we shot with the same lenses. so that's a fun little uh

Dario1:11:03Nice. Great lenses.

Kyrill1:11:04cool.

Manny1:11:05yeah, they're beautiful lenses. But what they did was they they would just set up these Angénieux zooms around the house as a wide and they would either just like let it roll or like pretend to be filming just 'cause they didn't want to like always know. And the moment something happens, they would just hit the roll and just go and like just punch in. And so like they're constantly just like ready to grab anything. And if they needed to move outside, they would just go out and outside and just pop the sticks down and just snipe away. Um, so it's it's crazy. Like highly, highly recommend that movie.

Dario1:11:35Okay, let's uh let's end it there because it's been an hour and ten and uh

Manny1:11:39yes.

Dario1:11:40I have another meeting coming up soon. Um okay, so well I mean you've heard the PSA, I'm not gonna repeat it. So if you have any questions about that, reach out to Manny at mimediapro.com.

Kyrill1:11:51Stay vigilant, people.

Manny1:11:53Yes.

Dario1:11:53And yeah, don't get don't don't get hoodwinked. Make sure you check all your stuff. So again, uh everyone listening, if you want to find Manny, go to mimediapro dot com. And again, if you need help uh in Miami, he's the go to guy for you. Uh your socials, I'm not seeing it here on the website. I think you gotta tell Claude to update your footage here, but what is it?

Manny1:12:14I do, yeah. It's

Kyrill1:12:15It's mimedia dot net.

Manny1:12:15uh it's just Mi Media Pro. yeah, yeah, yeah.net. You gotta find me at dot net. It's literally just M I

Dario1:12:18D no, don't say that, Kyrill. my god.

Manny1:12:21Media Pro. is my Instagram and my LinkedIn and all that fun stuff. my LinkedIn is just my name, but yeah, if you find me on Instagram, it's Mi Media, it's M I Media P R O. And that's how you'll find me on Instagram.

Dario1:12:33And uh again, I've been saying this uh

Kyrill1:12:33Yeah, make sure when you're going to these websites it's the right ones.

Dario1:12:37I've been saying this many times, but please if you're listening to this podcast, please subscribe and rate us on either Spotify or Podc Apple Podcasts, because that does help other people to be able to find us. And uh if you would like to donate to Dario's Coffee Fund, please send us a little donation uh on our website. We now Yeah, I g Dario needs his espresso.

Kyrill1:12:57To Dario's coffee fund Only his coffee fun?

Dario1:13:04Uh I d you I don't know what you you drink uh baby formula now. So um

Kyrill1:13:04what do you think the rest of us drink? This guy.

Manny1:13:08Red bulls, yeah.

Kyrill1:13:10Yeah.

Dario1:13:12no no I added a coffee link on the website. Uh so yeah, just go to buy us a coffee and yeah, it'll go to both of us. We'll be able to fund our coffee addiction. Um and you know, it helps out. You put a lot of work into the show. If you're getting something out of it, please go donate a little bit, it'll help us out. but yeah, no, it's been great having you on again, Manny. I wanted to bring you on s and it's funny, I was thinking about who to who to reach out to recently and what do you know? You you emailed me, I'm like perfect, all right, let's lock you in for an episode.

Kyrill1:13:41Lo and behold.

Manny1:13:42Hell yeah, man. Well, I appreciate you guys having me on. I appreciate what you guys do for the community too. Like, um, we're such a niche space too. And there's not a lot of us out there. So I'm I'm very appreciative of what you guys do for the community as well. and I'm glad that we had a fun conversation. We also talked about too, so we can warn everybody about it. Um and if you need anything from me, I'm always happy to help. And hopefully one day you're in either I'm in Toronto or I'm you guys are in Miami and we'll do we'll do a meetup.

Dario1:14:06For sure, sure.

Kyrill1:14:06definitely. Most most definitely. Can't wait.

Dario1:14:10All right, thanks,

Manny1:14:10Hi guys.

Dario1:14:11Ben.

Manny1:14:12Bye.

Kyrill1:14:12Thanks for joining again. See ya.