While looking for public information

1 Reply

I almost got hooked by a scam when looking for real property tax info for an address in Honolulu.

The city makes this public information readily available on line at no cost. Yes, free.

But I made a mistake. Instead of going directly to the city site, I was lazy and just searched for “honolulu real property tax” and then clicked on an official-looking link that appeared to be affiliated with the city. It looked different than I recalled, but I didn’t see any other immediate red flags.

It quickly got strange, though, when I entered an address. Suddenly the search, which typically takes just seconds, stretched on for at least five minutes. I wondered whether the city was suddenly using a new and very inferior vendor to provide this service.

But the biggest surprise was yet to come.

A notice of a fee for the public information. And a fee with an explanation I still find confusing and ambiguous.

PAYMENT:
$1 PER PROPERTY REPORT
REPORT BUNDLE 720 PROPERTY REPORTS

PER REPORT RATE AVAILABLE VIA REPORT BUNDLE PRICING OF $30 EVERY 30 DAYS OVER TWO YEARS NOT INDIVIDUAL SALES
WE ONLY ACCEPT VISA AND MASTERCARD FOR PAYMENT, NO ALTERNATIVE CARD TYPES ARE SUPPORTED AT THIS TIME.
GET ACCESS TO OUR PROPERTY RECORD PLATFORM WITH RECORDS FROM HAWAII FOR AN ACCESS FEE OF $1, AND 720 REPORTS FOR INSTALLMENTS OF $30 EVERY 30 DAYS FOR TWO YEARS STARTING TODAY, 24 PAYMENTS TOTAL.

ACCESS FEE TODAY: $1.00
ACCESS FEE CONNECTS YOUR ACCOUNT TO OUR PUBLIC RECORDS DATABASE
REPORT BUNDLE: PROPERTY REPORTS ARE AGGREGATED FROM PUBLIC SOURCES AND DO NOT CONSTITUTE CONSUMER REPORTS, OFFICIAL OR GOVERNMENT-AFFILIATED DOCUMENTS.
YOU CAN CLOSE YOUR ACCOUNT TO END PAYMENTS AT PUBLICRECORDSDATA.US, 1-855-601-5805, EMAIL SUPPORT@PUBLICRECORDSDATA.US, OR USE THE LIVE CHAT FEATURE. CHARGES WILL APPEAR ON YOUR STATEMENT AS PUBLICRECORDSDATA.US.
SELECT PAYMENT METHOD:
VISA
MASTERCARD

Luckily, the possibility that I might be charged $30 a month stopped me in my tracks.

So I started again at the beginning, and this time immediately found my way to the familiar site of the city’s free system.

The lesson? If you find yourself online in a place that feels weird and is asking for money, run far and run fast!!

Those little greetings

7 Replies

It seems so simple.

“Hey, how are you doing?”

It’s a very common greeting when running into someone on the street, as happened several times early this morning.

But for me such a greeting poses an immediate challenge, requiring me to quickly decide how to respond.

Do I treat it as a rhetorical question? Respond with a shrug, “not bad,” and then direct it back. “And you?”

Or how about an honest reply? “Well, I’ve been diagnosed with biliary tract cancer, potentially curative surgery failed, and I expect to begin a battle for my life within a couple of weeks when chemo and immunotherapy begin.” Probably a conversation stopper.

I usually choose something in between. “Well,” I say, “I’ve been better.” It gives me a second or two to consider the degree of self disclosure warranted by the circumstances and my relationship to the person I’m responding to.

If it’s someone I know, I try to provide the basics. “Meda and I have been in California for much of the past two months as I’ve gone through diagnosis and initial treatment of a small cancer in my gut.” It’s all there in one sentence and, without lots of details, it doesn’t hit too heavily. “Now that we’re back home, I expect to start chemotherapy and immunotherapy soon.” Normalizing the whole thing.

It’s not that I’m avoiding disclosure, as you already know if you’re reading this.

But it can quickly turn into a long, complicated and muli-layered tale, more than I want to inflict on all but the most eager listeners.

Making it more complicated is the fact that I don’t really know how I’m doing.

I have not asked for or received a prognosis, but am trying to just keep moving forward a step at a time with a positive attitude.

This does complicate practical matters, as some of the questions we face, such as what to do when our car lease runs out in September, would be easier to deal with if I knew more how much future I can reasonably expect to enjoy.

But, for now, I’ll accept that tradeoff and keep moving.

Cleaning up a damaged old photo

6 Replies

I’ve scanned thousands of old images over the years that are now archived online either at Amazon or Google. I entertain myself from time to time by browsing through them and downloading a few of interest that I had forgotten about.

This morning I spotted this oldie of my mother holding me on her lap. According to a notation, it was taken sometime in 1949. As you can see, the photo was seriously damaged in storage for some seven decades. From its condition, I’m guessing it was made from a B&W negative that had been mistreated over the years.

Another guess is that it was taken at my grandparents’ home in Waipahu during a family visit to that side of the island. My 2nd birthday, perhaps?

After trying to clean up the damage using traditional photo software, I decided to give AI a try. For this, I turned to Google’s Gemini. My instruction was simple. Create a clean image from this old photograph.

It only took a few seconds to produce this pretty amazing result.

Of course, it raises questions. Which photo is more “authentic”? Although, in this case, I don’t know whether that matters. The result speaks for itself.

How to offload some practical personal finances

18 Replies

Here’s another practical problem we’re facing.

Background: For decades, Meda and I had a division of labor. She had the secure full-time job with benefits that we could rely on. I had a number of short term or part-time jobs, and did freelance writing along the way. But I was the primary cook, travel planner, and cat litter box monitor. Keeping our personal finances in order (bill payments, investment decisions, tax preparation, etc) was also part of my job.

As we recently prepared to fly to California for treatment at UCSF, I was scrambling to finish our federal and state tax returns. I made it, but the experience made me realize how quickly I could find myself unable to attend to those financial matters if my medical condition took a rapid and unexpected turn for the worse.

We established a living trust in 2018 that holds almost all of our assets–bank accounts, savings, investments, title to our home, etc., although it didn’t change management of our day to day finances.

So what should we do now?

It seems to me the question is how to go about selecting a third party to take over bill paying and tax preparation, or be ready to do so on short notice if I am suddenly unable to do the job. And how to do it with maximum legal protections for ourselves.

I know this must be a common transition for those with assets to manage, but before we reached that certain age, it never seemed like something we needed to be worried about. Now it is!

Before calling our bank to see what they can do, I thought that I would again solicit advice from readers, especially from those who have already managed such a transition. Please email me at ian@ilind.net, or text at 808-955-1819.

And I thank you in advance for sharing your experience.