Whoa, we blinked and it’s mid-November! The days are shorter, your to-do list is longer, and scammers are ready to catch you off guard. Luckily, you’ve got me on your side with the top holiday scams.
Criminals and AI voice bots are calling, emailing and texting, claiming to be Amazon employees. Oh, no, your account is on hold! Or there’s been suspicious activity you need to deal with now. They’ll ask you for your payment info — that’s a glaring red flag.
Stay safe: Only put payment details for Amazon directly into the website or the official app. If you get one of those calls, hang up and Google the phone number. I bet you’ll see reports from others who got the same call.
There’s an email in your inbox from Macy’s, and whoa! Everything is 50% to 70% off! Click the link, head to the site and all looks normal. Once you check out, though, you’re in big trouble.
Scammers use real brand assets (like logos, fonts and photos) to make you think Macy’s or another big retailer is having a major holiday sale. Then, they direct you to a site that looks like the real thing … but it’s not.
Stay safe: Always, always triple-check the URL. If you’re not sure of a retailer’s website, search in your browser, but don’t click any sponsored results. Type in the address yourself if you know it.
You receive a text or email saying your order is stuck at a shipping center. With all the online shopping we do, you probably don’t remember every purchase. Click on the link they sent you and you’re well on your way to a phishing scam.
Stay safe: FedEx, UPS and the U.S. Postal Service will never text you from an unknown number. If you’re worried about a delivery, call the shipping company directly. In emails, watch out for any subtle misspellings in the email address or the sender’s name. Block and report anything fishy.
Amazon’s next big delivery: Jeff Bezos, 60, and Lauren Sanchez, 54, are tying the knot in a very expensive (I can’t even imagine), festive Aspen wedding this Christmas. Hey, Lauren, share your Amazon wedding registry list with me. I’m not sure if you already have these “Let’s get ship-faced” glasses on your $500,000,000 yacht, but I’m guessing knot.
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I hope you’re ready for Zuck’s “Get Low” cover. Heads-up: The lyrics are pretty explicit. In case you love it, they also dropped it on Spotify under the artist name “Z-Pain.” Does anyone have a Tylenol? I need a Z-Painkiller after listening to that.
How deep you’d need to dig to create an “iceberg house.” This trend is all about building down instead of up, with super-fancy basements that include everything from swimming pools to champagne rooms. Travis Kelce’s $6 million Kansas mansion is going to have a golf simulator. No bad blood here.
LG’s display tech just hit a big milestone: 50% stretchability. Imagine pulling out your phone and being able to twist and turn it all around.
🤖 No truckin’ around: Late musician Jerry Garcia’s voice has been cloned by AI company Eleven Labs. Grateful Dead fans using the ElevenReader app (on iOS and Android) can now listen to the legendary guitarist read audiobooks, articles, poetry, PDFs and more in 32 languages. His daughter says it’s all about continuing his legacy as a tech enthusiast. Uh-huh … I’m seeing dollar signs all over this.
Social Security recipients get a 2.5% raise in January: Scammers are on it. The increase will show up automatically in your bank account or as a check in the mail, no action needed. If anyone contacts you asking for “extra steps” to get your raise, it’s a scam. Report any suspected fraud.
For a 21-year-old airman who leaked classified info. Jack Teixeira shared top-secret documents on a Discord server to show his online comrades what war was really like. Now he’ll know what war and prison are like.
A Utah couple tied the knot after a skiing accident. Amazing story: Mitchell forgot Jenna broke up with him the day before the accident. He had a concussion and started texting her when he woke up like nothing happened. They officially got back together a month later, and now, it’s happily ever after.
🥊 Night-night, th-leep tight: YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul and heavyweight legend Mike Tyson’s boxing match is happening this week after months of delays. The odds are favoring Tyson, at plus-190. Paul’s a lot younger, but he’s never fought in the heavyweight division. Who knows? His big brother is kicking butt (literally) in the WWE.
Getting laid off at 23andMe. The DNA company narrowly avoided being delisted from the stock exchange after 7 million people’s data was stolen. If you used 23andMe, delete your info, like, now.
🔥 Fire and burn risk recall alert: Over 500,000 Govee Life and Govee Smart electric space heaters are being recalled, with the model numbers H7130, H7130101, H7131, H7132, H7133, H7134 and H7135. If you’ve got one, stop using it ASAP and get a refund.
Bad idea: Mozilla has collected more than 30,000 hours of voice recordings from volunteers worldwide. Its Common Voice project is a free public dataset anyone can use to train AI software in 180 languages. Here’s the catch: Mozilla won’t say how or who will use your voice. Don’t add yours.
The Beatles’ newest hit: “Now and Then” is the first AI-assisted song to earn a Grammy nomination. Released in November 2023, “Now and Then” was restored using a type of AI called “stem separation,” which cleaned up the 60-year-old, low-fidelity demo originally recorded by John Lennon. The result? A finished master recording. Ah, there’s hope for me to win a Grammy yet.
🎬 Sorry, we’re out of business: Thousands of Redbox DVD vending machines are sitting abandoned, and people are grabbing whatever they can. Recent Reddit posts include a person who scooped up 99 movies, another who set up an entire kiosk in their house and a guy who bought eight machines to sell for scrap.
Ever wonder what happens to the massive amounts of U.S. military data stolen by Communist China’s spies? Its newest jet fighter aircraft (bottom pic) is a nearly identical design to America’s new F-35 stealth fighter (top pic).
It took the U.S. over 20 years and $2 trillion to produce theirs; China duplicated it in less than five years, using hundreds of terabytes of stolen U.S. military secrets.
Current bid for the ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in “The Wizard of Oz” (1939). The shoes were stolen in 2005 by a thief who thought they were decorated with real jewels. It took the FBI 13 years to track them down. Imagine Dorothy talking to her grandchildren: “When I was your age, I murdered a woman and stole her shoes.”
🙊 Not that kind of Barbie girl: Mattel says it’s deeply sorry for printing the wrong URL on boxes of its “Wicked” movie-themed Barbie dolls. The mix-up swapped the movie’s site for trailers and tickets for another wicked site that offers a very different kind of girl-on-girl action — porn.
That was a bust: Apple is axing its $3,500 AR headset, the Vision Pro. They’ve already cut production in half and the end is near. In a podcast interview, Tim Cook called the headset an “early adopted product.” You know, like early adopters with a ton of money to spend on a device that developers are staying far away from.
Distance Amazon Echo Glasses will “see” ahead to help delivery drivers work faster. The upcoming glasses will be like a heads-up display to show drivers where drop-off points, gates and dogs are located. Such a smart idea.
