hey everybody welcome back to another episode
of vision pros live i'm your host and coach fletcher
ellingson and i'm so glad you're here i'm so
glad that you are in this conversation today
on the show we're going to be talking with author
fred simpson fred welcome to the show thank you
thank you fletcher glad to be here good good
good and i'm glad you're here hey as i mentioned
earlier we always like to start off with um well
a win something that's going well professionally
or personally, because there's a lot of uncertainty
in the world. There's a lot of suffering going
on in the world. I like to remind folks like,
hey, we can take a moment and think of something
that's going well. So, Fred, lay it on us. What's
going well in your life? Well, actually, Fletcher,
today, this morning, I had the final interview
to go back and work and be a site manager on
a power plant in In West Virginia. No kidding.
That will kick off by the end of September. Well,
congratulations. Which I've done 22 power plants
in my career, and this will be number 23. So
I build stuff very well. All right. Technical
term. Well, if you're working on a power plant,
they need people who can build well. So thank
you for your service. Exactly. And, you know,
I've done every kind of power plant you can think
of, whatever fuels that have been used from wood
chips to natural gas, to rice hulls, to garbage,
to tires. I mean, you name it, I've used it and
incorporated it as a fuel and a coal plant just
a few years ago, the last big coal plant in southwest
Virginia. But the other plus here is I'm also
going to, with my book, Cyber Time, I'm going
to have a book signing. the 13th of September
and start some book signing in different areas.
They've got a whole course of small bookstores
and stuff around the U .S. that you can go to
and just get meet and greet, get to know the
people and sign books. And that'll be something
new. Good for you. Because all of it is, and
I found out, and what a surprise. I mean, I'm
sitting here and I decide, well, I need to write
a book and let everybody know what is out there
as far as scams and hackers and everything. So
I want to get this podcast to help sell it, market
it, and also with the book signings and everything
to get out there. I'm not looking to make a fortune.
I want to get everybody to have tools and be
forewarned on what is out there in social media
and those platforms. So, you know, there is so
much scamming going on. And so also with, you
know, with the AI that's come around this last
year. It is scary. It is really scary out there
how many scams there are. If you can think it,
they'll try to scam it. Yeah, that's part of
the nature of the human being, right? It goes
romance scams. Everybody wants to get something
for a dozen, but romance scams, you've got, unfortunately
now you've got crypto, you've got Bitcoin, you've
got gold short trading. I mean, all those scams
and those last three that I mentioned are the
high dollar. Plus, I'm trying to get people invest
in stocks and stuff. But those are the high dollar
scams that they wrote people into. And well,
you know, and I think you would agree with this,
Fred, as long as human beings have been around,
so has the scam. And, you know, a rule of thumb.
And I think this is. For any age person, do not
invest what you cannot afford to lose. Would
you agree with that? I agree wholeheartedly.
And there's another, take it another step further,
Fletcher, is that if you have to think about
it and wonder about it, then don't do it. I mean,
if you're being pressured by greed. because it's
something that you can get rich quick and it's
then it's uh 99 times out of 100 it's going to
be scam yeah hey uh fred how old are you i'm
70 i'll be uh next week i'll be 71 in 71 years
have you ever seen an actual get rich fast scheme
i mean have you ever seen anything that's like
yeah that will get actually get you rich quickly
no why no Now, I even I even after I decided
what the book and I lost some money, I lost some
money up front. It was romance scam. It was none
of this bitcoins or crypto or gold short. But
I stayed on to get more information to figure
it out and turned in, turn them into the FTC
and turn them into FBI is the IC3. dot gov is
a FBI or internet cyber division and turned them
in. But they was gold short trading. That was
the most involved one I ever saw. Yeah, it was
so complicated that we had a whole platform to
scan. So let me let me shift gears here a minute.
You I'm going to kind of inform our audience.
You were the victim of a scam. You did lose some
money. So tell me what your vision is because
you wrote a book called Cyber Time. So what's
your vision? What do you want the audience to
know? What is your vision, Fred? I want... Everyone
to be forewarned is, and I've got in the book,
I've got different actions and certain things
that you can look at. There's 10 points to look
at to tell whether somebody's real or not. If
you're going to be on social media and the internet,
you need to know how to identify them. And the
biggest one, the biggest one with everybody is
a video call. is to, you know, yeah, sure, you
can say, well, they've got AI now, but AI cannot
interact like we are right now, you know, and
be able to talk back and forth and have subject
matter that hasn't been rehearsed. And that is,
I'd say, 95 % of it right there. But there's
all sorts, there's nine other steps that you
can take to identify. Now, what I've done is
also in the book, is statistics on which platforms
have how much is real and how much is scam. I've
done my own statistics on it. And, you know,
from Facebook to Instagram to Google Chat to
Signal to Telegram to WhatsApp. I mean... and
TikTok and the rest of them is just identify
the percentage. Yeah. And let's get, I'm going
to cut to the chase here because I want people
to get your book, especially people who either
have been scammed or are concerned about being
scammed, but just some rules of thumb, right?
Like number one, if somebody is asking you for
money online, that's a red flag. Yes. Right.
Yes. If somebody is if somebody is telling you
a sob story or a hardship story, that's a red
flag. All right. OK. So there are there are some
real obvious ones that we need that are just
like red flags. And in that conversation, you
terminate and you block. Right. Yes. Yeah. The
terms are called block and report. Block and
report. Block and report. The report gets back
to ones that monitor. There's certain social
media that monitors. I mean, there's Facebook,
Instagram, and some of the others somewhat. They
monitor it. TikTok is actually one of the strictest
platforms out there as far as any language. or
turning in and reporting, they'll shut the other
person off and get them off the social media
platform. And that's what you want to do. Now,
the biggest one you need to stay away from everybody,
and I tell everybody this, is Zangi, Z -A -N
-G -I. It's an amazing platform. I mean, you
could actually... You could actually video call
with about 1 ,000 people if you wanted at one
time. And you can video call international, across
the world, without a charge. It's all Wi -Fi.
And it uses low band as far as that. But they
do not have any of the servers to hold the information.
So if you say, well, I want to block them, they
can't. It's all on one device. One of your devices,
if you try to put it on another one, like the
rest of the platforms, like Facebook or anything,
you could have it on a phone or your laptop.
The rest of you, Zangie, you can't. Yeah. And
it's commonly called the cheater's app, where
a husband or wife and stuff like that or that.
My stats say, that it's 73 % scammers on the
site. Okay. There's 27 % that are real. And the
best you can do is Facebook and Instagram is
about 50 -50. Flipping a coin. Yeah, it is. Half
of what you're going to talk to is going to try
to scam you. Yeah. So, again, the rule of thumb
is. Number one, don't get involved with money
conversations. Don't give out vital information.
You know, getting conversations with people,
you know, if you suspect anything, block. But
what I really want people to get here, Fred,
is if they want to learn more, because you've
obviously taken quite a bit of time and documented
this. It looks like you got a big old thick book
there. that you put a lot of time and effort
into. How can people get this book? They can
get it on Amazon .com. And Fletcher used to realize
I did it with a pseudonym. I did it as Jameson
Lyon. I used a nom de plume or whatever you want
to call it. Because of the nature of the scamming
and stuff as far as tracking. You know, is to
is to go after it. But that's it's under both,
you know, Jameson Lion as Cyber Time. And it's
on Amazon dot com. It's on Barnes and Noble.
It's on wherever you want to go. It's a Wal -Mart.
And it's I mean, I'm talking all Amazon. There's
15 Amazon sites and that's international and
global. Yeah. I've got it on 84 different platforms.
That's wonderful. Yeah. Hey, how long did it
take you to write your book? I started in the
end of May, June time frame and got to a point
where it was published. You know, I was doing
it with a Ghostwriters and a lump sum to get
it written. And then with a publicist. And then
there were two ghostwriters. That was kind of
iffy. I ended up writing it half myself. But
none of the book was written with AI. It is not
with any generative AI. And, you know, it is
really defined in the publisher world as far
as whether it was done with AI or not. And then
to get it published was done, actually, New Year's
Day of this year was published. Oh, fun. Roughly
about seven months, let's say. Yeah. What a great
way to start the new year. Publish a book. I
got the notice from Amazon or KDP, who does it
for Amazon, on New Year's Day at 6 .23 p .m.
Nice. That my book was on. But I got, it's on,
it's paperback, hardcover, and e -book. I have
not done an audible yet. audible okay good good
well we're coming up towards the uh the last
couple uh minutes here anything else you want
us to know here before we we sign off i would
just like to pass on to people that there are
other uh areas out there that you get information
and and i've i've touched bases with a lot of
them your state uh attorney general office You
can talk to them, your state insurance investigation
division. And Iowa has, I went to a couple of
presentations by the people, and they had very
good pointers, you know, because you've got all
these other scams. I mean, you're talking about
telephone. You're talking about, you know, in
the mail. You've got people coming personally
to try to scam you. And there's different ways.
I'll just say one of them that really. enlightened
me is that you know when they uh they try to
sell you to keep from someone stealing your house
and your mortgage these four people that give
the presentation they had never seen it done
in their career it's a scam by the companies
that are putting this on to get your money And
they can only do anything if something's been
done. And they didn't know of anybody that has.
There's too many things involved. There's a clerk
and recorder. There's insurance. I mean, all
this stuff that has to go in place, nobody's
going to get that information, do a quick claim
on your property. And the other one quickly is
to stop your, you know, you've got your three
credit rate. companies. The credit bureaus have
all your information. You can stop them. OK.
But it's that you can freeze that credit. And
and keep anybody from accessing your information.
And if you need. Right. Yeah. You can freeze
those. Put a freeze on your credit. Unfreeze
it when you need to access it. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
So good stuff. Hey. Yeah. So. If you're interested
in learning how to protect yourself, learning
how to identify scams and how to take action
in the face of those, pick up a copy of Fred's
book. It's called Cyber Time. Get it at Walmart
.com. Get it at Amazon .com. And if you want
to connect with Fred, look him up on LinkedIn
and connect with him. Or Facebook. I'm on Facebook
or Instagram, too. Right on. Fred, thanks so
much for your time. Thanks for all the work you've
been doing on those power plants, keeping the
lights on for our country. And I wish you all
the best as you go on, continue to do that. And
as you travel around and promote your book as
well. Thanks for being on the show. Thank you,
Fletcher. You're welcome. And now you know what
it's time to do. It's time to get out there.
Be a source of kindness. Be a source of contribution.
You do have something to offer this world, and
I believe in you. Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision
Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your
reactions as these episodes continue to move
forward. This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a vision pro yourself.