Fraud and Scams
61 episodes
#6046: Five Jobs, One Laptop: The Overemployed Playbook
A British civil servant allegedly held five full-time jobs at once — until his make-up started separating on a Teams call. What the overemployed pl...
#5590: What Alaskan Crab Deckhands Actually Do
18-hour shifts, 800-pound steel pots, and a pay structure that's basically a lottery ticket. The real job behind the TV show.
#5414: Inventing Anna: The Real Tradecraft Behind the Con
How Anna Delvey ran a four-year con on Word docs, AOL addresses, and a supermarket burner phone — and what Netflix got right.
#5401: When Companies Hide Humans Behind the AI Curtain
A system prompt and a cheap model can make human decisions read like bot output — and that's exactly the point.
#5400: Amy, Presto, and the Thousand Workers Behind "AI
From X.AI's Amy to Amazon's Just Walk Out, the humans quietly doing the "intelligent" part while the product says AI.
#5288: Slideware, Vaporware, and the Founders Who Never Built Anything
Builder.ai raised $450M with AI that was mostly humans. Here's how pitch decks became the product.
#5220: Malware vs. Virus: What's Actually Attacking Your Machine
Every virus is malware, but not every malware is a virus — and that distinction explains why your antivirus keeps missing things.
#5178: Who Checks on Empty Houses — And What It Costs
Absentee owners pay a stranger to flush the toilets and photograph the water heater. The whole industry runs on trust — and a written report.
#5064: What a Polar Station Stocks for a Year of Isolation
The hidden logistics of keeping isolated crews fed, healthy, and sane for months without resupply.
#5027: The 670nm Sleep Light Myth: What That Number Really Means
That "670nm" on your sleep light isn't about melatonin at all. It's about copper atoms in your mitochondria — and the dose is probably fictional.
#4992: The Repair Shop That Didn't Want Customers
A small-town repair shop with no customers, a clueless tech, and a name that doesn't match. Front or failure?
#4954: What Actually Starts House Fires — The Data
Cooking causes 49% of home fires. But heating and electrical are the real killers. Here's why.
#4889: Airport Taxi Scams: Why Official Ranks Are the Trap
Why the official taxi rank with attendants is actually the most dangerous place to get a cab.
#4804: How Industrial Safety Became an Industry
From the Triangle Shirtwaist fire to OSHA and the conglomerates that own your hard hat.
#4714: The 4 PM Cutoff: Why Your Card Issuer Isn't the Bank
Why does card support end at 4 PM? The answer reveals the hidden structure behind every swipe.
#4665: The Hidden Auction Where Your Data Gets Sold
How your phone's location, shopping habits, and health searches get auctioned off in milliseconds — and why paying for apps doesn't protect you.
#4419: 55M Addresses Leaked: What Suno Users Need to Know
Suno's breach exposed addresses and partial credit cards. What duty of care do companies owe when data becomes a physical threat?
#4417: How to Tell Real Security Tools From Fakes
A friend's question about SSN monitoring reveals how to spot fake security tools designed to steal what you're trying to protect.
#4351: The Wholesale Price of Trust: LIBOR's Rise and Fall
Why banks borrow from each other overnight, how LIBOR became a fiction, and what SOFR means for global finance.
#4315: The Research Trap: When Homework Makes You Buy
Research creates a psychological obligation to buy. Here's how to decouple investigation from transaction.
#4153: The Corporate Org Chart of Cybercrime
Stop picturing a lone hacker. Today's cybercrime looks like a consulting firm with a really unethical business plan.
#4152: How Your SSN Became the Master Key to Everything
When a data breach and a mail scam combine to hijack your Social Security benefits — and what to do about it.
#4055: The Software Powering Modern Scams
Moving scams and rental fraud run on custom software — quotation engines, password managers, and CRMs built for deception.
#4045: Playing Dumb on Purpose: Strategic Incompetence
Playing dumb to win against landlords and powerful people? It's a real psychological strategy with a name.