Bob Sullivan’s conversation-driven podcast focused on 21st Century headaches like hackers, hidden fees, and scams.
“So, the Hollywood Reporter received a tip from Jonathan himself in, I believe it was August 2019. And I believe the subject line was something like, “Reality Producer Conned Out of $100,000 by ‘Irish Heiress Con Artist.’” And that, I mean the email had me at Irish Heiress Con Artist [Keep reading]
When you’re playing a game with someone who doesn’t play by the rules…who doesn’t play by any rules….who doesn’t even really want to win the game….who simply wants to game to go on and on…well, you can’t win. That’s how disinformation works, says today’s guest on the Red Tape Chronicles [Keep reading]
Dirty digital politics is a fact of life all over the world now. Democracies are going to have to learn how to live with it. One thing that could help US voters understand this murky world is to learn about the kinds of tactics being used in other countries. Fortunately, [Keep reading]
It seems crazy, but housing prices have actually hit record highs in many places, and the housing market is sweltering. If you thought you might find a bargain during the pandemic, you are out of luck. How can this be? I wrote about this for CNBC’s Grow website recently. [Keep reading]
Once upon a time, Americans waited until dinnertime to find out what happened in the world that day. Then, Ted Turner had a crazy itch to scratch and everything changed. Not for the better, I’d argue. For starters, people now tune to TV news — and to the Internet — [Keep reading]
The United States and many venerated European democracies are well on their way to becoming “a fact-free version of Democracy Lite,” warns today’s podcast guest, Nina Jankowicz. She’s the ‘disinformation fellow’ at the Wilson Center in Washington D.C., and she has a new book out called How to Lose the [Keep reading]
We’re all used to earning interest at a bank when we save money. But could a financial institution soon charge you ‘interest’ to park your money there? Yes, says Ken Tumin, the man behind DepositAccounts.com. Interest rates are now so low that saving money could soon cost consumers. In today’s [Keep reading]
Fake News is stoking violence and helping destroy our democracy. Fake pills make people sick and can even kill them. Fake foods, like fake olive oil, or mislabeled fish, rip consumers off and steal profits from honest companies. The world is becoming overrun by fake everything, says Avivah Litan, renowned [Keep reading]
Too often, people who do the work don’t get paid for that work, or earn only a fraction of the money extracted by institutional layers — middlemen — shoe-horned between producer and consumer. The cook is the least-paid worker at a restaurant chain; the musician or painter gets pennies on [Keep reading]
Americans are shopping online at record levels — thanks to Covid-19…and with all that flurry of activity, criminals have flocked to e-commerce, too. Julie Ferguson, CEO of the Merchant Risk Council, talked to me recently about why online credit card fraud and other kinds of fraud seem to be spreading [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan