This is a Phishing Scam (Day 3390 - 3/7/19)

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The vlog starts out with Stephen saying that they were leaving a bit late for Charlotte since they had a bit of work to finish. Stephen says that Dan surprised him because he finished editing the mail video that Stephen gave him yesterday at Lunch Bunch by the end of day yesterday. He then shows a yellow backpack and says that they managed to pack very light for their short trip to Charlotte. Stephen says that they will also be bringing a cardboard box to put games in since they are planning to go to some game stores. Mallory said that Sagan and Kepler are sad because they know that when they pack up, they are leaving to go somewhere. Stephen says that it will be alright because his dad will come over and take care of them.

Stephen said that the drive to Charlotte will take a couple hours and they might stop and get some food on the way. He says that depending on the time they will either check into the hotel first or go to the game stores first. Stephen says that he is looking forward to going out of town for a bit because tomorrow is the anniversary of when he and Mal first started dating. He mentions that they have been together for about 11 years now. There is then a sped up clip of them driving to Charlotte.

They go to Downtown Rock Hill in South Carolina and stop by Joe's Video Games. Stephen says that the inside of the store looks like a repair shop for arcade and pinball cabinets. He said that they only had a few games. Stephen mentions that one of his pet peeves about video games stores is when they don't alphabetize the games. He said that the store didn't alphabetize the games, so it took him a while to look through all the games. Stephen said they ended up getting a few games and a couple Game Cube game manuals. He says that Game Cube games are generally very cheap, so it's better to just buying the game again and get the game manual. Then, they sell the case and game back to Roland at Gamer's Choice. He said that this method was better than going online and trying to buy the game manual by itself. Stephen mentions that they also got Issue #9 of the Nintendo Power magazine. He says that they are now only missing the last 9 issues of Nintendo Power which were Issues 277-285. Stephen says that when they get those last 9 issues, they will complete 101% of the collection since Emile also gave them another copy of the 1st Issue of Nintendo Power which had a different cover.

Stephen then shows the store through the display window from the car. He said that it was a small store with a strangely large amount of Super Nintendo imports for Funcom games. Stephen says that they were going to stop by another game store on the way to the hotel. There is then a sped up clip of them driving to the next game store. The video then transitions to them looking at a map inside a shopping mall to figure out where the game store is located inside the mall. Stephen comments that it interesting to see the state of shopping malls in 2019. He jokingly says to Mal that they are probably not getting any pretzels from Pretzel Star (because there was no one currently working there). They then went into G2K Games. There are multiple cinematic shots of all the games on display in the store.

They return back to the car and Stephen says that G2K Games has multiple locations in this area. He said that they sell video games, Magic the Gathering cards, comics, and table-top games. Stephen says that they ended up getting a few Game Cube game manuals from there. He also mentions that they had some interesting Sega Saturn games like Sonic Jam which aren't seen very often. Stephen said that they also had some other rare games like Herc's Adventures. He said that those games weren't games that he was in the market for since he was just looking for Game Cube games and Game Cube game manuals.

The video then transitions to the hotel room. Stephen says that when you step into the room it feels like the left side should have a mirror, but instead it's a small area. He also mentions that there is a weird echo since there is a TV by the entrance and another TV in the bedroom that are synchronized. Stephen then proceeds to mute both TVs. Stephen said that they had dinner at Mr.Tokyo, which was recommended by Jesse and Megan, before they went to the hotel. He said that it is a all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant. Stephen said that it was good for him because he can eat a lot of sushi. He mentions that they had specialty rolls, some classic sushi, and sashimi. Stephen said that Mal also had some hibachi and soup. He then said that the food was delicious and it was reasonably priced. Stephen and Mal agreed that it was a great anniversary dinner. Stephen then talks about how they have been together for 11 years. He said that if they stood next to each other that would make an "11", except that one of the "1's" would be slightly taller. While Stephen is explaining the "11", Mal demonstrates what he means by holding up one finger on each hand and moving one finger up higher than the other.

Stephen then says that it is still only 9:00 P.M. so it is not that late. He said that they have to get up early tomorrow to go the airport since they both have to be interviewed in the morning. Stephen said that he had thought that they booked the hotel near the airport, but the hotel is no where near the airport. He said that he doesn't remember because they booked this hotel months ago. Stephen says that they probably booked this hotel because there was nothing available or because it was cheaper. He then talks about what happened when he was checking into the hotel. Stephen says that the person at the hotel reception asked for the name the reservation was under and asked Stephen to spell it. Stephen said that he thought everything was normal since he was often asked to spell his last name because "Georg" is an uncommon last name. The receptionist then asks him if the reservation would be under any other name and Stephen replies that it wouldn't be under any other name. Stephen said that he started getting worried because that it is not what he wants to hear when he is currently checking in. The receptionist then tells him that they didn't have a reservation.

Stephen then talks about what might have caused their reservation to be cancelled. He said they booked the reservation on Marriott Hotel's website months ago and at some point they renovated the hotel. The room they booked became a "Spa King Room" which was basically the room they were staying in currently, but also included a whirlpool tub. Stephen said that he didn't really care about having a whirlpool tub, he just wanted to get the cheapest room. Due to that renovation, their reservation got automatically cancelled. The receptionist told Stephen that he should've received an email and phone call. Stephen said that he didn't receive either one. The receptionist then tells Stephen that they had rooms available, so he would fix this situation right away.

Stephen said that he then looked through his email and found the email from the hotel. He quickly skimmed through the email and said that it looked like a phishing scam. Stephen said that he is a "Grandpa", but not the kind of grandpa that falls for phishing scams. He describes the email as having no subject line; a message that was in all caps; and lots of punctuation, spelling, and grammatical errors. Stephen also said that the email came from some random Gmail address and not a Marriott Hotel email. He said that the contents of the email didn't include the name of the hotel, any dates, and any personal information that indicated that the email came from Marriott Hotel. Stephen repeats one of the sentences in the email which said: "WE HAD NO PHONE OR EMAIL TO CONTACT YOU SO WE ARE SENDING YOU AN EMAIL" which he says makes absolutely no sense. He then says a message to anyone working for this company that they should try and get an email address for the hotel, include a subject line, and any information relevant to the stay.

Stephen says that he gets a ton of emails which includes a lot of junk mail. He said that he just quickly looks through the emails and determines which ones he needs to read. Mal then comments that it would've been even worse if they had other hotels booked. Stephen said that he wasn't worried anyway because they would've taken care of the issue regardless, for instance, booking them at another hotel. He said that this happened once before when they went to Wilmington in North Carolina and the hotel overbooked the rooms. The hotel called them ahead of time and told them they overbooked and told them that they put them in another hotel that had an ocean-front view. A clip from Day 1550 is then shown, where Stephen and Mal are looking at the ocean-front view. Stephen said that at that time he hoped that they would overbook all the time.

Stephen then says that they are going to get some sleep. He mentions that he doesn't have his laptop with him because it's currently exporting an Extra Life video at home. Stephen says that since he can't do any work, he is just going to relax and watch HGTV. Mal says they are going to watch some cable TV since they don't have cable at home. Stephen says that it has almost become like a tradition now where every time they stay in a hotel they watch house-hunting shows. He says that all the shows on HGTV now are basically house-hunting shows with different names, but basically the same content. Stephen finishes the vlog by saying that they are going to go to the airport in the morning and then maybe visit some more game stores.