This post is a warning to anyone trying to hire a licensed contractor in Arizona, a state with a myriad of corruption and loopholes which allow licensed con-men like John Scatterday to rake in hundreds of thousands in extortion money without leaving their office or picking up a hammer.
In my search for a GC for the a tiny-house project, I came across an ad on craigslist for GC services by JLS development. He texted me back saying that the way his service works is he would put his license on my project for $1000 and then I should “terminate” him the day after the permit is issued and do it myself, something he explained is completely legal.
He has me print and sign a cookie cutter contract saying that I would be putting $1,000 down on a supposedly $30,000 job and the rest would be due upon commencement of the work. This seemed fair in all circumstances so I signed it.
I engaged with this among other options as i’ve tried 28 contractors so far, but ultimately decided against it because I need a licensed guy who knows what he is doing to actually do the work, particularly the electrical so we don’t have a fatal fire risk to the future occupants.
The next day, I decided not to pull the permit and he demanded money anyway, first he wanted the $1,000. Then he said well what about $500? I sensed scam behavior and told him I wasn’t interested in going forward with it.
He cursed me out and demanded $3000 for his time texting me thus far “consulting” as he claims to have spent 3 hours texting me about the job and charges $1000/hour for consults although this was never mentioned in a contract or verbally. I replied that he should actually be the one reimbursing me for the business license application I paid for on his behalf.
He then threatened to lien my property so I told him I would report him to the contractors board (ROC) for selling his license illegally but he retorted that they “won’t take action” because the supervisor of investigations, Alex Figueroa, “is my buddy i’ve known for years”
I called Alex Figueroa and asked him if selling your contractor license is legal and he told me that “a contractor license is like a drivers license.. the driver has to be in the car but not be the one driving” (which is ironically just as false as the lie he was trying to sell me)
But John was right… the ROC was in his pocket because as of three weeks later, they have tossed my complaint.
In retaliation for me reporting him, he began the lien process on my property, mocked me in harassing messages, and called the city to tell lies about me saying that I was scamming them (I cannot imagine how) in the hopes that they would not allow me to build my house there with any other GC.
In a few months, my property which I spent $57,000 on improving will belong to this con-man who as far as I can tell never used anything but his cell phone sending crude messages to “earn” it from me.
In Arizona, anyone with a contractor license can abuse the lien system to take your property and without spending tens of thousands in legal fees, there is not much you can do.
He is generously offering to remove the frivolous lien if I pay him by zelle.
Unfortunately, at this point it seems that the Registrar of Contractors only condones or ignores this behavior but I am hopeful they will put a stop to it to protect first time homebuilders like me.
This past month, I was assaulted and sexually harassed by a guest I hosted on airbnb.
I never thought I was susceptible to manipulation. But when you’re juggling 5 mortgages on Airbnb hostel properties generating $450,000 a year, and your livelihood depends on keeping guests happy—even abusive ones—most people wouldn’t think twice about staying quiet.
What I learned from this experience is that with Airbnb, you better do what you’re told.
The Guest Arrives
On August 20th, a guest I’ll call M.K. arrived at my Airbnb hostel after booking a month-long stay. From the start, she made it clear that she had booked my property specifically to spend time with me. She said she’d found me on Instagram, thought I was attractive based on my Airbnb profile picture, and wanted to get to know me.
At first, I was flattered and didn’t think much of it. After two days of socializing, she started asking me to sleep with her.
As her stay progressed, her behavior became concerning. She began trying to take control of the property, ordering other guests around, and even meddling in their personal lives. For example, she insisted a younger woman living in a nearby unit miss work to spend time with her.
Despite recognizing her controlling behavior toward others, I didn’t believe I could be manipulated—until she turned her attention to me.
Harassment Escalates
M.K. started following me around the property, shouting at me while I worked. This constant disruption was exhausting, but I tolerated it to protect my reviews and reputation as a host.
A few days later, she suggested we stay in her room and engage in sexual activity. Alarmed by her behavior, I canceled any plans to hang out with her. This upset her greatly, and things deteriorated rapidly.
While I was away on a trip, she began sending me violent and racist threats via text and voice messages, including, “When you get back here, I’m gonna beat your white skinny cracka ass.” Some of these messages were later retracted using iMessage’s unsend feature.
Here’s an edited version of the original blog post for improved clarity, flow, and readability:
This past month, I was assaulted and sexually harassed by a guest I hosted on Airbnb.
I never thought I was susceptible to manipulation. But when you’re juggling 5 mortgages on Airbnb hostel properties generating $450,000 a year, and your livelihood depends on keeping guests happy—even abusive ones—most people wouldn’t think twice about staying quiet.
What I learned from this experience is that with Airbnb, you better do what you’re told.
The Guest Arrives
On August 20th, a guest I’ll call M.K. arrived at my Airbnb hostel after booking a month-long stay. From the start, she made it clear that she had booked my property specifically to spend time with me. She said she’d found me on Instagram, thought I was attractive based on my Airbnb profile picture, and wanted to get to know me.
At first, I was flattered and didn’t think much of it. After two days of socializing, she started asking me to sleep with her.
As her stay progressed, her behavior became concerning. She began trying to take control of the property, ordering other guests around, and even meddling in their personal lives. For example, she insisted a younger woman living in a nearby unit miss work to spend time with her.
Despite recognizing her controlling behavior toward others, I didn’t believe I could be manipulated—until she turned her attention to me.
Harassment Escalates
M.K. started following me around the property, shouting at me while I worked. This constant disruption was exhausting, but I tolerated it to protect my reviews and reputation as a host.
A few days later, she suggested we stay in her room and engage in sexual activity. Alarmed by her behavior, I canceled any plans to hang out with her. This upset her greatly, and things deteriorated rapidly.
While I was away on a trip, she began sending me violent and racist threats via text and voice messages, including, “When you get back here, I’m gonna beat your white skinny cracka ass.” Some of these messages were later retracted using iMessage’s unsend feature.
The Assault
When I returned on September 4th, I found M.K. openly drinking vodka and harassing other guests. One guest even reported her to Airbnb after she entered his bedroom uninvited and refused to leave. Airbnb did not assist him.
Later that day, I sat down with her in the kitchen of my personal house to explain why she needed to leave. During our conversation, she hinted at blackmail, saying that even though the sex we’d had earlier was consensual, my touching her afterward wasn’t and that she could accuse me of rape unless I did what she wanted.
Before I could process her words, she struck me in the face twice, trying to provoke me into hitting her back. When I didn’t react, she grabbed my arm and forced my hand onto her face. When I pushed her off, she bit me on the chest.
Video:
Escalation and Blackmail
She continued threatening to accuse me of rape, claiming it would ruin my Airbnb business and make it impossible for me to pay my mortgages. Although I wanted to go to the police, I hesitated, fearing her threats would come true.
She also blocked me from entering certain parts of the house, grabbed my hair, and attempted to lure me into a bedroom away from the cameras. She shoved me onto the bed repeatedly and demanded I engage in “rough sex,” which I refused. I managed to leave and return to the kitchen, where witnesses were present.
I told her that either she could accept a trip alteration to end the trip immediately, accept the refund and vacate the premises or I would have to bring this to the police and escalate with airbnb. (An empty threat since they already brushed off my complaint)
I gave her an ultimatum: accept a trip alteration and refund to leave immediately, or I’d escalate to law enforcement and Airbnb. What I didn’t tell her was that I had already reported her behavior to Airbnb, but they refused to act.
What I did not tell her was that I had already opened a case with airbnb over the threats of violence and harassment but they were not willing to help me.
Airbnb’s Lack of Support
Instead of helping me, Airbnb delisted all my properties and canceled existing bookings. Guests were left stranded, and I was denied the $20,000+ they had already paid. To make it right, I allowed them to stay for free and offered direct rental agreements to those who had nowhere else to go.
Airbnb also canceled my personal vacation without a refund and blocked me from logging into my account, presumably to prevent me from gathering evidence against them.
Their “Trust and Safety” team, represented by someone named Ryan S., ignored my complaints and provided no meaningful resolution, despite me submitting videos and written statements documenting the assault and harassment.
The Fallout
In the weeks following, M.K. continued to harass me, calling and threatening to have people attack me. She also reminded me that she knew where I lived.
Airbnb’s actions left me financially and emotionally devastated. They even banned accounts of friends and former colleagues associated with me, including a former manager who can no longer use the platform to list or book properties.
As an affordable housing host for over 13 years, with tens of thousands of trips and listings between $500–$1,000 per month, I never expected this level of neglect and hostility from Airbnb.
This has been the hardest thing for me to share. I regret engaging with M.K. in the first place, but I never expected her to use false accusations and violence to destroy my business and peace of mind.
Airbnb’s legal and corporate strategies have turned them into a self-serving monster, concerned only with their bottom line. I hope this story serves as a warning to other hosts.
Thanks, Airbnb. Mark Wagner subservehost AT gmail.com
If you have a pre-M1 mac and care about security, throw your computer in the trash right now. Here is why…
If you physically have someones locked macbook air/pro and five minutes alone, you can change the admin password and have access to all of their data (while they are now locked out)
launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.opendirectoryd.plist (or /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.DirectoryServices.plist in 10.6)
dscl . passwd /Users/username (without a trailing slash) and enter a new password. You can ignore the error about com.apple.DirectoryServices.plist.
reboot
You can then attach your iPhones ‘findmy’ app to the macbook you stole and lock them out or track their location FOREVER.
The best part? They can never remove your presence, even with the help of apple. So the only way to get out of this is to smash it with a hammer and buy a new mac.
Now I have hacked a few windows and linux machines in the past but never was it this easy or permanent. Apple gives you the tools to permanently ruin their ability to enjoy their device and not even apple support can see their entire email.
In my case, the guy who got me was an airbnb guest who had 45 minutes alone with my machine. His name is Matthew Tebbens and his email is c***@att.com according to apple. He also has warrants out for stealing a $7,000 camera and 200k in fraud but in a mental episode, he came clean and admitted to hacking my mac. I knew his system worked because I used the same (above) system to regain access but I cannot remove his findmy presence so I must throw away the machine.
Fortunately, the M1 Chips are not hackable in this way, however I am sure Apple will find another way to make them suck or become prematurely un-useable.
So hence, if you care about not letting someone change your admin password by pressing 4 buttons, you should only buy an M1 mac and disable findmy.
If you’ve run many ad campaigns on Google in the past, you will know about a thing called Adsense. Adsense places your content on various kosher properties on the internet who have opted in to receive a small payout every time someone views or clicks an ad. It has been around for decades and is one of Google’s oldest and biggest money makers. Google also has other products: Search Ads, Gmail Ads, Local Ads, Youtube Ads, and more.
Since I didn’t have a fortune 500 budget and wanted my targeting specific, my plan was to advertise my e-course on Airbnb (airbnb10k) arbitrage to the specific audience of a Youtube channel based on airbnb. I set it up and looked away for 2 weeks with $20/day of ad spend put towards a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) budget.
When I went back to check on the performance because I hadn’t made any sales, I was horrified to see ZERO views on the channel I chose but $357 spent on worthless ads. In fact, this number would have been much greater if my credit card had not been expired.
Little did I know, google automatically enrolls your Youtube or other ads in Adsense as well and starts to burn through your ad spend placing your ads on any sites that it possibly can, showing your carefully crafted video targeting entrepreneurs to teenagers in random countries playing free video games.
And do they tell you about this? Of course not! Carefully hidden in your placements menu, you can see the terrible and ineffective placements Google Ads has intentionally tricked you into purchasing, in my case at a CPM of as much as $32.00!
When I dug deeper and looked at the sited, I realized what a racket was happening. Here are just a few examples of sites blatantly created just to farm a more-than-complicit Adsense campaign.
Some of these sites have somehow been getting views and worthless clicks but are not even up due to a server error. This is just blatant fraud now.
So I went to Google support thinking “Their goal is to make me a better customer by making the entire marketing experience more seamless for all parties.. not to make money off of obvious scam sites. Support will help me out when I point out that I did not ask for Adsense or authorize spend on it! Right?”
NOPE! This is all part of their strategy to dupe you. Here is the response from support:
Thanks to the incredible amount of money taken with this scheme and the massive pool of victims, this would appear to be a red letter day for a class action firm, and I certainly hope one does soon.
Experience-based advice on navigating the island of riches
You have landed in San Juan, with a suitcase (okay, BlockWallet) full of money. You smell the opportunity in the humid air entering through the doors. Scenic houses, perfect beaches and exotic people from all over. A 6 month vacation, financially justified by the dramatic savings in federal income tax.
Mountains and warm beaches in the New York time zone? Unheard of.
But wait… do you know how where to find that property, or a realtor competent enough to sell it to you? Do you know where to get a car? Can you feed yourself? If this is your first time at SJU, chances are you won’t be getting out of the airport without some knowhow and a PCR test.
Guess what:
You cannot buy ANY food after 8pm (9 in San Juan), the rental car outlets have week stretches without a single available vehicle, realtors exist only for the seller, Zillow information is worthless, and spoiler alert, that bribery thing that got you by in Mexico won’t work here. Oh and keep your mask handy because they have a stronger than expected stigma about that.
None of these things stopped me from falling in love with the California-ish west coast including Rincon, the New Orleans-ish southern coastal city of Ponce (pronounced pon-si), the beautiful and untouched mountains near Utado, or the up-and-coming east coast from San Juan to Luquillo to Las Palmas. YES, there is more here than Dorado! It is basically a micro-mainland in terms of locale-culture.
NOLA? NO, PR
Lets cover a few quick things:
For real estate, follow Diane Cohn. Her article is 7 years old as of this writing but is still right on. Things do not change quickly in the tropics.
For taxation, make sure you know what you stand to gain by making the move. You will need to spend 5 months and 1 day on-island, and a maximum of 1 additional month internationally, plus buy a property within 2 years to take advantage of ACT-22.
In my case, any capital gains would now be taxed at a total-tax rate of 4% and income would be taxed at a new total-tax rate of 14%. Not bad! But again, unless you are a very stealthy sailor, you will be on that island for a minimum of 5 months kicking it with Jake Paul, Joel Comm and the other self-exiled millionaires.
Every day is a Luquillo Saturday for Joel and Travis, co-hosts of BadCrypto
Where are things going?
My guess is that tourist attractions and entertainment will develop in the mountains and cities like Ponce. Many people will want entertainment and supply will rise to meet the occasion.
Real estate will become more scarce as there isn’t any construction happening right now.
Then again, the potential for PR to become a state in a few years does put a pivot risk on the tax situation, so be ever agile and let your life plans never be so concrete as an island casa.
Dennis Yu, friend and founder of BlitzMetrics has spent the last 24 months focusing on local companies. Using powerful white label marketing and SEO tools like Vendasta, he has brought the best tools to Chiropractors, Dentists, Eye Doctors, Personal Injury Attorneys, Home Services, Senior Living Providers among other verticals.
“It starts with a solid lighthouse, a figurehead of an industry who has dominated in their space by using proven techniques. They lead others in their space to success by teaching our processes through a lens specific to their industry”, explained Dennis
What ties all the techniques together is the concept of personal branding and learn-do-teach. If you plan to coach people to start a digital agency or market Dentistry, you need to have done so yourself.
The Topic Wheel is a brainstorming tool for mapping out your network and the ways you add value through skills and connections.
The 3×3 is a template for making one-minute videos that will get the point across, show what you believe in and be digestible for many mobile audiences.
Ads are actually the last part. Marketing in 2021 is 90% creative 10% analytics, thanks to the sophisticated algorithms like edge rank.
The system works so well, that I launced my own agency for Senior Care called SeniorScorecard, which uses web software to reveal the gaps in a local companys marketing. Filling those gaps gives you a higher score which leads to more high-quality leads.
Marketing will always be a changing game, but local is where 90% of the dollars are spent, and that will not change for service providers.
Clubhouse is the new “chat” room, that much is established by its rapid popularization by a user-base that sometimes is even featured as the logo of the app.
It is also a powerful tool for networking, learning and business.
In order to leverage the benefits of clubhouse, there are a few key things you need to bring to your room:
Your Network — The biggest rooms are led by those with the biggest existing network.
A Topic — For out-of-network follows, pick an interesting topic and name.
Communication Skills — You must know how to speak quickly and clearly.
Good Moderation — The moderator keeps the room alive, and is essential in preventing chaos.
Communication:
Unlike in a real life scenario, the others in your conversation cannot see your body language, so you must put extra emphasis into clarity.
Also unlike a typical conversation, a successful clubhouse room has 90%+ audience and 10%- quality speakers. This means that you need to make absolutely sure that what you say is of relevance to the audience.
Remember your principles:
No “umms, and ahhs”, stick to the point, and if something is not relevant, leave it out!
Moderation:
The moderator needs to be highly aware of the conversation and keep the topic to the room subject. People joined the room to hear about THAT topic, so unless many hands are being raised, they probably want to stay there and hear more about it.
Sometimes a guest will go off on a long tangent when given the stage and this must be curtailed swiftly but politely. It can be challenging to grasp the microphone away from overly confident speakers who have boguarded the stage. Even if carefully letting down the speaker, you can end up in a conflict, such a what happened to Dennis Yu last month when he tried to remove a speaker. (Grizzly details in link)
So with this in mind, get on clubhouse to community build. Use it to both listen and teach.
Migrating Solidity files on Truffle is difficult without knowledge of Java but it is possible.
Ethereum code is all hexidecimal so to write contracts within the Eth framework, one must use a compiler language, one such called solidity, a language similar to Java.
After a trip that took us from NOLA to Austin to Denver to Santa Barbara to San Diego to Slab City on the Salton Sea to Phoenix to Carlsbad to San Antonio and back to NOLA (all while towing a boat), we are ready to enjoy some square footage. Photos to come.
During the election, the ASX and Nikkei dropped (particularly in exporting firm shares) as Trump’s victory came closer, but the post election trading is even more interesting. Gold prices following the 2016 presidential election dropped, meanwhile the DIA has been actively climbing, also firearm producers took a dive and private prisons (CMX) are up 6%. Meanwhile, Cleartrade housing commodity futures still have no volume and certain side-market marijuana stocks are stalling, such as VAPE.
Also, @JoshHealey tells me trade kings is doing a special on commissions for any new buyers so look for that.
