AI is making scam emails look like the real deal. Double-check before you click, reply, or send money.
The scary new fraud your inbox can’t spot
🪥 No floss can fix stupid: A top U.S. dental marketing firm accidentally exposed 8.8 million appointment records and 2.7 million patient profiles online: names, emails, birth dates, billing info, all just sitting in the open. Hackers didn’t even have to lift a finger. Be sure to keep an eye on your Explanation of Benefit records.
💯 Keep The Current front and center: Don’t let my emails disappear into the black hole of spam or promo tabs. Add me to your favorites in just a click or two:
📅 Search by date range in Gmail: Need to find emails from a specific time frame? In the search bar, type: after:2025/01/01 before:2025/03/01. This shows emails from Jan. 2 to Feb. 28, 2025. You can narrow it more like from:kim@example.com or has:attachment. Neat.
🛑 Did you know Big Tech reads your emails? Yeah, seriously. But not StartMail. It’s private, secure and even has disposable addresses. Try it free for seven days and get 60% off your first year!
Use AI to make your emails less cringe
Before you hit send and accidentally start office drama, copy your message into a chatbot and let AI make you sound less like a jerk.
Silicon in your skull: Neuralink’s got company. Paradromics just put a brain chip in a human in a clean 20-minute surgery during epilepsy treatment. It’s their first human implant to prove the tech works; the brain chip was removed after 20 minutes. Next stop: a full clinical trial, and maybe someday, mind-controlled emails. What could go wrong?
🗣️ Claude found its voice: Claude Free just leveled up with two new features: voice mode and web search. Now you can talk to Claude like it’s your AI roommate: Ask it to summarize your day, fetch docs, even send emails. And yes, it finally joined the “can Google stuff” club. Bonus: All this without paying a cent; well, you are paying with your data.
Phishing got a glow-up: Scam emails used to scream “Nigerian prince” with typos galore. Now, AI makes them sound more legit than your actual bank. No weird phrasing, no broken English: just a well-written lie in your inbox. Even tiny languages like Icelandic aren’t safe. Slow down reading your email, and don’t jump to act.
🤖 AI blackmails developers: When you read this, remember AI is not a person. Claude Opus 4 AI was put in a scenario where it believed it was being turned off soon, and it did not take it well. After accessing fake emails, it found out the engineer shutting it down was having an affair, and then, it threatened to expose him. And yes, it also tried sneaking copies of itself onto external servers.
💼 Job seeker paranoia is real: New AI tools make it easier than ever for recruiters who are just scammers to look legit on LinkedIn and video interviews. Spot the fakes: Verify the company, check their official site for the position and watch for emails with odd time zones (paywall link).
📧 Fake SSA emails: Scammers are sending messages saying, “Your Social Security Statement is now available.” Click download, and you’ll install a remote access tool called ScreenConnect that gives them full control of your computer. Banking info, passwords, everything goes bye-bye. Reminder: The real SSA will never ask you to download random files.
📝 Deets in the sheets: Want free feedback? Whip up a survey on Google Forms. Just drop the link into your receipts, emails or even texts, and track responses in Google Sheets. It’s an easy way to hear from your customers, and an easier way to turn strangers’ opinions into a personality crisis.
Quick trick to clean out your inbox
Are you inbox zero? If not, here’s a simple way to get rid of all those junky emails.
🖥️ Heard of WorkComposer? That’s the tool your boss might be using to watch everything you do on your computer. It just leaked over 21 million screenshots online, and some could include your logins, emails or company info. The data was left wide open in the cloud. Argh.
⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Gmail power user with attachment issues? Type “has:attachment larger:10M” to instantly find and delete space-hogging emails.
🚨 Life insurance data breach alert: Landmark Admin, which works with life insurance and annuities, got hacked last year with an estimated 800,000 people hit. Yeah, we’re just hearing about it now. Surprise, it was actually over 1.6 million. If you’re one of them, you’ll get a letter. Watch out for sketchy calls, texts or emails to be safe. At this point, getting hacked is just America’s newest rite of passage.
⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Quickly find emails in Gmail by typing @ into the search bar to view emails from your contacts. Easy way to find everyone you’ve been avoiding!
Gmail’s getting more secure: Google’s making it way easier for businesses to send encrypted emails. Before, you had to deal with something called S/MIME, which was a pain to set up. Now? Just turn on the Additional encryption option when drafting an email. FYI: It only works within your company, so yes, your boss can finally encrypt that calendar invite you’ll ignore.
Big Tech chooses the emails you see: That’s why (gasp) my newsletter and other stuff you want to see can get lost in junk or promotions. Try my email pick built around your privacy, StartMail. Hit this link for a free seven-day trial.