New Year Skills for Pesky Scams …

Happy 2026!

I hope your holidays were bright, at the very least, peaceful.

It always seems like a shock to my system to write a new year number!
The transition seems hard. 😑

Over this last holiday season I got an unusual number of scams in my inbox and messages! Not to mention all the calls I never answer! It’s exhausting to figure out these unwelcome intruders!

They use intriguing wording, authentic looking/sounding communication and even correct logos! You need a degree in detective work to stay on top of it! It’s ridiculous the lengths scammers reach to get us to respond and give them usable information.

I can spot some of the communication right away as a scam: I press delete!

I don’t know about you, but when I need some expert scam spotting help, I consult my children. The first line of defense is my daughter, depending on the topic. She’s a good sport and an experienced spotter. If in doubt, she consults her husband, who works for Microsoft.

In early December, I got a new scam, to me, as an email. It was regarding my book, quite lengthy and had a lot of detail that made it sound true. They wanted to interview me about my book and told me the process of preparation and about the actual interview. I checked the source, and it was a real person who did what the letter described, but something seemed a little off.

Do they want me to pay for this service? That was my first question. The letter said nothing about pay or money.

I passed it to my daughter, and she began her research.

In the meantime, I was talking to my son, who knows the entertainment world better than I or my daughter. He had me send it to him and said he would get back to me!

Guess what?

It was a scam of sorts!

But I learned something …

There are tools to help me spot scammers myself!

My son encouraged me to use AI to help me diagnose whether something is a scam. He equipped me with some tools and an explanation.

There are three main Apps he mentioned: ChatGPT, Gemini (Google product) and CoPilot (Microsoft product).

These products do so much more than just the scammer ID service I am interested in, but they also will help you and me identify what type of communication we have received. According to my limited experience, it is very thorough! It explained the particular service the email was about. It also gave me an analysis of what other people have experienced with this company.

Basically, they said they would eventually ask for money to run ads. They might or might not do an actual interview. If they conduct an interview, they will probably air it in the middle of the night when almost no one is listening and then charge you for ads. Most people who moved forward with them never saw a return from the experience.

Simply said, they might deliver on what the email ascribed, but in a way that would likely never profit you and you would have to pay out to complete it! A little twist on traditional scamming.

Which is the problem with scams. They are constantly changing to try and trap people into giving them money or stealing money. It is very hard to keep up with!!

Therefore, a tool to help us is wonderful, essential.

I just copied the whole email into the question box in Gemini and asked it if this is a scam. In seconds, it gave me a profuse amount of information clearly explaining what I had received!

I’ve used it once more since then, instead of involving my children; keeping me a tidbit more independent. They seriously, don’t mind helping me, but it’s nice not to bother them with these crazy scams that find their way inside my inbox and messages.

I hope this helps you too!

Do you have any scammer tips to share?

Here are the Apps to look for in the App Store …