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Cybercrime / Privacy

Gas station hero stops crypto kiosk scams, again and again

March 13, 2026 Bob Sullivan 0

Once in a while, a human being does the right thing and you wonder why it took so long I’ve long held the opinion that the only real use case for cryptocurrency is fraud; we can debate that.  Crypto kiosks, on the other hand, leave little room for discussion.  These [Keep reading]

Bob Sullivan's podcast projects

AI=layoffs. But will AI=Grammy Awards? Part 2 of our Debugger podcast series, Sugar High

February 27, 2026 Bob Sullivan 0

The parent company of Cash App, After Pay and Square laid off nearly half its staff this week. Wall Street cheered, sending the stock up nearly 20%.  Get used to headlines like this. Owner Jack Dorsey — the founder of Twitter — claims AI enabled the workforce slashing. My hunch [Keep reading]

Bob Sullivan's podcast projects

Sugar High, Part 1: Is AI the Future of ‘Music?’ – a Debugger podcast with Tift Merritt

February 13, 2026 Bob Sullivan 0

The next time you fire up your favorite streaming service, the music you hear might be made by a robot. Maybe you don’t care; you’re just looking for something to help you kill those 30 minutes on the treadmill.  But you should care. The sound you might not hear is [Keep reading]

Cybercrime / Privacy

Want to cut your rent in half? The buy now, pay later ticking time bomb gets louder…

January 30, 2026 Bob Sullivan 0

Want to cut your rent in half? There’s a new, easy way to do that! Just pay the second half in two weeks. Sound crazy? Many landlords are offering this option now, just the latest incursion of buy now, pay later into consumers’ lives. If you haven’t yet encountered the [Keep reading]

Cybercrime / Privacy

That huge fake NFL ticket scam? It fueled an online sports betting addiction. And it’s going to get worse

December 8, 2025 Bob Sullivan 0

There’s been several celebrated scandals recently involving sports betting in the U.S. — pro basketball and baseball players are accused of manipulating prop bets in small but important ways.  But I want to talk with you today about a much less famous, but perhaps more important, online betting scandal: addiction. [Keep reading]

Bob Sullivan's podcast projects

Why banana bread is the solution to the world’s fraud problem

December 1, 2025 Bob Sullivan 1

By any measure you can find, fraud is soaring in the U.S. and around the world.  I spent an hour on WHYY radio recently discussing the causes for this, but I can boil it down to one concept: big, uncaring companies have dehumanized customers and employees alike, creating a perfect [Keep reading]

Cybercrime / Privacy

Facebook plays role in one-third of all scams — and earns 10% of its revenue that way

November 6, 2025 Bob Sullivan 0

Only an egghead inside a Big Tech company would devise a plan to fight crime that involves charging criminals more to access victims.  Behavioral economics, right! When you make 10 percent of your revenue from crime, how else would you try to stop it? Reuters recently reported these stunning facts, [Keep reading]

Cybercrime / Privacy

The Perfect Scam interview — Molly White on the state of crypto consumer protection

November 6, 2025 Bob Sullivan 0

There’s plenty of reasons to be skeptical of cryptocurrency, and there’s no better skeptic than Molly White, a programmer-turned-publisher who runs the popular newsletter “Citation Needed.”  So I was delighted to have her as a guest on The Perfect Scam this week. There’s no bias like confirmation bias, and there’s [Keep reading]

Bob Sullivan's podcast projects

Thanksgiving was stolen from this mom; a taxpayer hacking scandal was revealed

October 31, 2025 Bob Sullivan 0

UPDATE 10/31/2025 — With SNAP benefits about to be suspended due to the government shutdown, I checked the “theft scoreboard” to see if there’d been any improvement in this situation.  In fact, it’s grown worse.  More than $100 million was stolen in the most recent quarter, and the total is [Keep reading]

Bob Sullivan's podcast projects

From homeless to helping North Korea’s weapons program; the vexing problem of laptop farms

October 13, 2025 Bob Sullivan 0

It’s a dark, cluttered room full of bookshelves, each shelf jam-packed with laptop computers. There are dozens of them humming away, lights flickering. And each one has a Post-It note attached with a single name on it. And there’s a pink purse just hanging off the side of one of [Keep reading]

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About me

BOB SULLIVAN is a veteran journalist and the author of four books, including the 2008 New York Times Best-Seller, Gotcha Capitalism, and the 2010 New York Times Best Seller, Stop Getting Ripped Off! His latest, The Plateau Effect, was published in 2013, and as a paperback, called Getting Unstuck in 2014. He has won the Society of Professional Journalists prestigious Public Service award, a Peabody award, and The Consumer Federation of America Betty Furness award, and been given Consumer Action’s Consumer Excellence Award.

Bob Sullivan

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