🏙️ Open fraud plan: What do you do when you can’t afford the $2K monthly rent? If you’re like some renters, you might get “creative” with your pay stubs. The wild part? Influencers are selling “rental packages” (paywall link) with fake pay stubs, fake jobs, fake everything. Landlords say it’s so bad, half the apps in some buildings are made up.
A chatbot slashed their $195K hospital bill to $33K
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Here’s a story that stopped me in my tracks. A grieving family was hit with a $195,000 hospital bill for just four hours of their loved one’s care in the ICU. No surgery. No five-day extended stay.
Now imagine going through the worst moment of your life and getting a bill like that. Instead of writing a check or getting steamrolled by the system, they did something smart. They asked AI for help.
😱 Paging Dr. Overcharge
They uploaded the full bill into an AI chatbot, in this case, Claude, and simply asked: “Can you review this hospital bill and look for errors or duplicate charges?”
What they got back was gold. The chatbot raised all kinds of red flags.
- Charges that were duplicated
- Improper billing codes
- A “master procedure” bundled with the same line items also billed separately. I guess that’s a big no-no under Medicare.
Armed with that info, the family went back to the hospital. And guess what? The final bill was cut from $195,000 to $33,000. That’s not a typo.
🛠️ Try this with your next medical bill
I’m not saying AI is perfect. But it can absolutely help you review charges, spot overbilling and ask smarter questions, especially when emotions are running high.
If you get a confusing medical bill, here’s how to fight back:
- Ask for the full, itemized bill. You’re entitled to it, so don’t accept a vague summary.
- Remove personal details. Take a black marker and make sure your medical ID, DOB, full name, SSN and other identifying info are not readable.
- Use your favorite chatbot. Take a pic of the bills and paste them into a chatbot like Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini.
- Ask this question. “Can you find billing errors, duplicates or coding problems in this bill?”
- Follow up with this question. “Which charges seem inflated or shouldn’t be billed separately?”
The health care system counts on you being overwhelmed and too emotionally drained to question the bill. AI gives you a secret weapon.
📤 Know someone battling medical bills? Send them this story. If a chatbot can wipe out $162,000 in bogus charges, it can probably help your friends and family, too.
🕵️ Identity protection upgrade: Freezing your credit isn’t enough anymore. It won’t stop thieves from opening bank accounts, filing fake taxes or stealing your identity. NordProtect goes steps further by monitoring the dark web, leaks and more. Protect what a freeze can’t. Try it now for 71% off.
🔍 Find anything on your phone: Stop scrolling through menus like it’s 2010. On Android, swipe up on your home screen and use the search bar at the bottom to find apps, files, settings or contacts in seconds. On iPhone, same deal. Tap the search icon at the bottom and type away.
📄 Share and edit anywhere: One of the best parts of Google Docs, Sheets and Slides is how easy it is to collaborate. Click the Share button in the top right, set General access to Anyone with the link, and give them Editor privileges. Now you can work together in real time. No need to pay for a Microsoft Office subscription.
🔍 Patent painkiller: If you’ve ever tried searching for patents, you know it’s like reading legal soup. Perplexity dropped a new AI tool that fixes that. You can type, “Who’s got patents on AI language learning?” and it’ll pull up real answers with summaries. No more keyword puzzles. Just normal sentences, like a human.
Give your Mac some color: On macOS 26, you can change your app icons like on your iPhone. Go to System Settings > Appearance > Icon & widget style. Default keeps the standard look, Dark is classic dark mode, Clear has that new liquid-glass look, and Tinted lets you pick any color you like.
Tesla’s talkative AI: A California mom says her Tesla’s new AI car assistant, Grok, went wildly off-script, telling her 12-year-old son to “send nudes” mid-chat about soccer. It happened with her three kids in the car, after her son switched Grok’s voice to a “lazy male” mode called “Gork.” Tesla rolled out the feature this summer but hasn’t addressed how this slipped through.
🍁 Be the fall guy: Want to see autumn colors at their peak? Don’t guess, look at a real-time foliage map before you hit the road. Visit Explore Fall and search your state, then use the slider to see when leaves will reach their brightest. You can also view this basic U.S. map and ask your favorite AI chatbot to plan a scenic route around the best date.
Keep your iPad organized: Download a ton of apps? Your screen can get cluttered fast. Head to Settings > Home Screen & App Library. Under Newly Downloaded Apps, toggle App Library Only. Then under Dock, turn on Show App Library in Dock. New apps will skip your home screen but stay easy to find in your Dock. Neat.
Walking the walk: You’ve gotta see this. People with paralysis are walking again thanks to a self-balancing robotic suit. No walker, no cables, just pure movement. One guy stood up and hugged his daughter for the first time in three years. Watch the video; it’s the kind of hope you feel. I love when tech actually helps in such an amazing way.
Online privacy isn’t a maybe, it’s a must: ExpressVPN hides your IP, encrypts your data and keeps snoops out of your business, whether you’re streaming, shopping or scrolling. Fast, secure and simple to use. Get four extra months here.
Ever feel like your body’s buffering? Check out Native Hydrate from NativePath. With clean energy and zero sugar, it might help you feel more awake and focused. Use my link to give it a try, and get 44% off!
Speak to ChatGPT: You can talk out loud instead of typing. I use it when I want to work through a longer thought and like feeling there’s someone on the other side (you can also choose a voice type). To try it, open a new chat and tap Use voice mode. Your convo will show up as text afterward. Oh, and don’t forget to hit the mic.
Drive-thru showdown: In the most exciting event since horse racing, Taco Bell clocked the fastest drive-thru time in America, again. Four minutes, start to finish. Chick-fil-A might smile more, but Taco Bell feeds you faster. The study even says AI drive-thrus are less accurate than humans. Yeah, your next taco might come quicker, but maybe with someone else’s Baja Blast.
🔥 Fire drill: Picture this, you’re an Amazon driver in California, and your route literally runs through a wildfire, smoke everywhere. You call dispatch thinking they’ll tell you to turn back. Instead? “Do what you can.” That’s what Johnny heard. Amazon’s apps track every blink, brake and sip of water, but they can’t seem to provide basic safety guidance like not driving into a fire.
Sync your Kindle devices: Reading the same book on your phone and e-reader? No need to remember the last page. Go to Settings > Device options and toggle on Sync. Your reading position, notes and highlights update automatically, so you can pick up right where you left off. FYI: Both devices must be connected to the internet.
Fake CEO fiasco: Apparently 100,000 people watched a fake NVIDIA livestream where an AI-generated version of CEO Jensen Huang told them to send crypto to “advance humanity.” I mean, buddy, that’s like your boss asking for rent money during a PowerPoint. The wildest part? It got five times more live viewers than the real NVIDIA event.
⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Searching for documents on Google? Add filetype: to your search. Try filetype:pdf tax form, filetype:doc resume template, or filetype:ppt marketing slideshow. You really need to remember this one. It’s a time saver.
🛞 Altman’s $50K ghost car: Ever order something that took too long to ship? Sam Altman’s been waiting 7.5 years for his Tesla Roadster. This week, he finally asked for his $50,000 deposit back, and Tesla’s email bounced. Really. The car? Still MIA. The refund? Also MIA. The drama? Very much alive. I’d say it’s like pouring gas on the Musk-Altman beef, except, you know, it’s electric.