Rodney Baldus thought he was going to leave his daughter an inheritance so she could save the family farm. Instead, the 74-year-old man is sitting in a crowded jail cell in Mozambique with little hope of ever getting out. His daughter, Nicole, is terrified her diabetic father will die alone [Keep reading]
Chester Frilich is a lovely retired man who spends his free time helping pet owners train their puppies at the local dog park. He was the victim of a terrible scam recently that left him penniless, struggling to get by on Social Security alone. Then, he was told he owed [Keep reading]
Imagine loading up your shopping cart on Thanksgiving week, strolling to the checkout counter with a buggy packed with stuffing, turkey, cranberry sauce, apple pies….only to be told by the store clerk that your card won’t work. Crying baby in one arm, smartphone in one hand, you are ushered to [Keep reading]
Airline tickets* for sale! (*Seats cost extra). Major U.S. airlines brought in an extra $12 billion during 2018-2023 by charging seat fees, a Gotcha Capitalism practice that deserves its own wing in the Hidden Fee Hall of Fame. I’m sorry for those of you traveling this busy week, but it’s [Keep reading]
Facebook publicly acknowledged on Thursday that it’s engaged in a massive struggle with online crime gangs who abuse the service and steal from consumers worldwide. In a blog post, the firm said it had removed two million accounts just this year that had been linked to crime gangs, and was [Keep reading]
If it acts like a bank, works like a bank, makes money like a bank — and when things go wrong, it can wreck lives like a bank — it should have to follow the same rules as a bank. That’s the logic behind a new rule established Thursday by [Keep reading]
It’s my birthday today, and while that might sound like a desperate plea for attention…it is. This week, we interviewed an adult daughter and son whose father took his own life after becoming embroiled in a crypto/romance scam. “When he had to accept that this is a world where this [Keep reading]
It’s an irony too obvious to avoid writing: a group of big tech firms has sued to put the new “Click-to-Cancel Rule” on hold. Enough. We should hang up on them. Maybe I’m just unlucky, but I often pull my smartphone out of my pocket and I’m aghast to see [Keep reading]
Everyone should be concerned about deepfakes and voice cloning; what’s difficult is deciding how concerned to be. When it comes to the use of AI in crime, I think we have a 5-alarm fire on our hands. I just came back from a week of talks at the University of [Keep reading]
Imagine owning a piece of land — your childhood backyard, in fact — and finding out that a construction company had built a brand new home on it without permission? Then, imagine moving your family across the country into a new rental home, moving in, living there for a while, [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan