Financial safety: Protect yourself from these emerging tax scams
It happens every year. We need to file our taxes, and scammers come out to steal from us. Here’s what you need to know right now.
Every year, the IRS releases a list of scams to watch out for. These are the biggest ones for this year:
🐑 Baa-a-d to the bone: A Montana rancher turned a $4,200 clone of a dead sheep into a woolly empire. Arthur “Jack” Schubarth created super sheep hybrids, selling them for up to $550,000 a pop. What could go wrong? Well, everything. After crossing state lines with forged vet certs for these endangered-species mixes, he’s facing up to five years in prison and up to $500,000 in fines.
A safe phone is a locked phone
If your phone locks after 10 seconds (too fast) or 2 minutes (too long), change that. I recommend 30 seconds — it’s ju-u-u-st right.
- On iPhone: Go to Settings > Display & Brightness > Auto-Lock and choose a length of time.
- On Android: Go to Settings > Display and look for a Timeout, Screen Timeout or Sleep option.
Office 2024: It’s coming this year, no subscription needed. Microsoft promises five years of support, so one purchase and you’re done. The catch? It’s missing a few bells and whistles, like Publisher and Teams. FYI: The new version will be available for macOS and Windows 10 and 11.
Say what?! UCLA engineers created something remarkable for folks with voice disorders — a wearable device that turns throat movements into speech. It’s a tiny, stretchy patch that uses machine learning to speak for you with over 95% accuracy! No surgery — just stick it on and start chatting. Amazing stuff.
Research from the University of Ottawa shows Gen Xers and baby boomers can’t quite nail the usage of some emojis. The “wide eyes” 😳 emoji? Might as well be hieroglyphics. And “happiness” 😃😀 emojis? I have to say, it’s hard to know which smiley to use and when. Pro tip: Most people see this one as totally fake: 🙂
Smart selfie: Megan Troutwine snapped a selfie on a trip to NYC and noticed something strange: Her eye was drooping. That led her to the neurologist, where she was diagnosed with meningioma, a brain tumor. Surgeons found another, too, during her operation. Glad to say Megan’s doing well.
And then there are the Elon Musk scams: Cybercriminals are using the SpaceX Starship test launches to push bogus crypto giveaways. They’re looping videos, faking Musk’s voice and tricking folks into sending crypto. One phony account even roped in 2.3 million subscribers.
📈 Pump and dump: Scammers are impersonating billionaires on Facebook, duping folks out of their savings with promises of unrealistic stock returns. Victims get an ad touting “exclusive” tips via WhatsApp, complete with deepfake videos and “guaranteed” profits. Come on, you have to be smarter than that to fall for these shysters.
It’s covered in gross
Did you take off your smartwatch the last time you were sweaty or when you took a potty break? Yeah, didn’t think so. Wearable gadgets host 30 times more bacteria than your toilet. Do this, like, now:
- Turn it off and remove any straps attached to it.
- Take a small amount of rubbing alcohol to a cloth or cotton swab. Use it to wipe the screen and exterior of the watch. Avoid the straps!
- Let the watch air dry completely before reattaching the straps and turning it back on.
✂️ Better way: Use a UV sanitizing box to kill bacteria on your smartwatch. While you’re at it, toss in your phone and keys, too.
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