Dad Joke
Why did the stadium get hot after the game?
All the fans left.
Now Let’s Make Your Money Smile
You drive to the dealership to pick up the car. There is no car. There was never a car.
Picture the morning. You’ve been hunting this exact vehicle for months — the right year, the right miles, the color your spouse wanted. You found it at a dealership a few states over. The website was immaculate: the inventory, the financing page, the photos from every angle, the customer reviews. You did what careful people do. You looked it over twice. You wired the money.
And now you’re standing at a counter and a man you’ve never spoken to is telling you, politely, that there’s no order in the system. No payment. No car. There was never a car.
The FTC’s Military Consumer team put out this warning days ago and it has barely made a ripple outside government channels, which is exactly why I’m handing it to you now rather than waiting for it to reach the evening news.
Here is the part that should genuinely unsettle you. Scammers are now using AI to clone real dealership websites — not a clumsy fake, an actual copy. The logos, the inventory, the financing language, the testimonials from real customers who really did buy cars, from the real dealer they stole the site from. They advertise the hard-to-find vehicle, because that is the one you will drive across state lines and wire money for.
So the check nearly all of us rely on — does this website look legitimate? — is now worthless. It looks legitimate because it IS legitimate. It’s somebody else’s real website. Twenty years of “watch for a sloppy site, bad grammar, a weird logo” just stopped protecting anyone, and almost nobody has been told.
What still works is unglamorous and physical. In the FTC’s own words: “ask to see the car, and the dealership, in person. If they won’t let you, pump the brakes.” Too far to visit? Send a mobile inspection service — “if they won’t let you, consider taking your business somewhere else.” Search the dealer’s name next to scam, review, and complaint. And if they want wire transfer only, you already have your answer. A real dealership takes several forms of payment. Wire is the one that does not come back. Ever. That is usually a family’s entire car budget, gone in an afternoon, and there is no chargeback, no fraud department, no undo.
You know exactly who in your life is car shopping right now — the kid buying their first one, the parent replacing a car that finally died, the friend who found a deal three states away and keeps sending you photos of it. Forward this to them before they wire anything. The old advice they’re relying on stopped working and nobody sent them a memo.
And while we’re on things you believe that are no longer true: HIPAA does not cover your health app
This one is quieter, and I think it will bother you more once it sinks in.
Think about what’s actually on your phone. A period tracker that knows about a pregnancy you haven’t announced. A mood journal with a bad month in it. A sobriety counter. A blood sugar log. Things you have told an app and not told your mother.
Most people assume HIPAA covers all of that, because it’s health information and HIPAA is the health privacy law. It doesn’t. HIPAA covers doctors, hospitals, insurers and their business associates. It does not cover the app. Your therapist’s notes are protected. The app you used to find the therapist, and the journal where you wrote how the session went, generally are not.
What does cover them is a rule almost nobody has heard of — the FTC’s Health Breach Notification Rule, expanded in 2024 to reach health apps and fitness trackers specifically. It requires them to tell you, and to tell the FTC, when your data is breached.
I’m raising it today because on Tuesday the FTC withdrew a 2021 policy statement about those apps, and I watched a trade headline turn that into the FTC scrapped health app breach protection. It is backwards, and I nearly repeated it to you before I read the actual filing. The FTC’s stated reason for withdrawing the 2021 statement is that the 2024 rule update already covers this ground — the old guidance was redundant. The Rule is in force. The coverage got clearer, not thinner.
Why I’m telling you: you have a right here you didn’t know you had, on the data you’d least want loose, and it does not come from the law you assumed. If a health app you use is breached and you never hear a word, that silence may be the violation — and it goes to reportfraud.ftc.gov, not to HHS. People lose months writing to the wrong agency about exactly this.
The small surrender that costs you the most
A pattern this week, and it’s about a feeling more than a case.
You get hit with a $9 fee you didn’t agree to. You feel the flash of irritation. Then you remember you clicked “I agree” to something once, and you let it go — because arguing feels futile and nine dollars isn’t worth your Saturday. That resignation is the most profitable thing about the fee. It is priced in.
It is also, increasingly, wrong:
Williams-Sonoma just lost its bid to force a drip-pricing case into private arbitration — drip pricing being when the price you first see isn’t the price at checkout.
Altice couldn’t get Connecticut’s attorney general out of a $39 million junk-fee lawsuit.
New proposed class actions accuse AMC of junk fees on online movie tickets and the retailer Edikted of junk shipping fees (Top Class Actions). Allegations; no court has found liability.
The click-through is not the wall they need you to think it is. You can dispute a fee with your card issuer, complain to your state AG, and file with the CFPB no matter what a terms page said. The nine dollars is not the point. The habit of assuming you have no standing is what actually costs you, and it compounds quietly for years.
Things worth two minutes this week
If a storm hit you, be careful who knocks. Indiana’s attorney general filed four lawsuits against out-of-state tree services and opened two investigations into alleged price gouging and unlicensed work after severe storms. Storm chasers are a national pattern. Never pay in full up front, and check the license before the truck is in your driveway.
It’s National Preparedness Month, and the useful chore takes ten minutes. Walk your home with your phone and photograph what you own, room by room. That’s your inventory if you ever file a claim, and people without one settle for less. While you’re at it, find out whether your policy pays for temporary shelter.
The SEC charged a New Jersey man and two companies he controls in an alleged $16 million Ponzi scheme said to have taken money from more than 200 people. Allegations, not findings. The tell never changes: returns that never dip aren’t a strategy, they’re a story.
What I published yesterday
They Say My Unemployment Overpayment Was Fraud. Here’s What to Do Right Now.
The DOJ Just Published Its 2025 Bankruptcy Audit Numbers — Here’s How Rare an Audit Actually Is
Concora Credit Robocall Settlement: Claim $250–$650 Even If You Were Never a Customer
For the deeper dives — company reviews, full case breakdowns, the things that need more than a paragraph — that’s the Weekday Briefing. This is the quick version, every weekday. If today’s issue was useful, pass it along.
Nothing here is legal advice, and I’m not your lawyer or your financial advisor. These are filings and allegations unless I say a court decided something, and your situation has details I don’t know about. Talk to somebody who can see all of it before you act on any of it.
Here’s what thirty-some years of this has actually taught me. The money that disappears almost never disappears because someone was careless. It goes because a careful person checked the thing they were taught to check, and the rules had changed underneath them without anyone sending word. Look at the website. Trust HIPAA. Assume the fine print won. Every one of those was good advice once. None of them is a character flaw now — they’re just beliefs that expired quietly.
That’s the whole reason I write this. Not because you’re doing it wrong, but because somebody should be telling you when the ground moves. Pick one thing in here and check it this weekend. That’s it. That’s the entire job.
Back Monday.
— Steve
Bonus Section
A few places I actually use, and what I get out of telling you. Each one shows a plain link and my referral link. If you use mine, the company may hand us both a small bonus. The plain link goes to exactly the same place — it just pays me nothing, and you nothing. Use whichever you like; genuinely, it’s your call.
I’ve also listed places I like that pay me nothing at all, so you can see the difference.
Cash that actually earns something
Betterment — their Cash Reserve account is the closest thing here to a plain high-yield savings account. (my referral link)
Robinhood’s cash sweep pays competitively too. The good rate sits behind their paid Gold tier — I pay for it myself — so on a small balance the subscription can eat the gain. It’s under Investing below. Do the arithmetic before you subscribe.
And one where nobody pays anybody: TreasuryDirect is the government’s own site. You buy Treasury bills straight from the Treasury with no broker in the middle — $100 minimum, in $100 increments, terms from four weeks out to a year. There is no app, no bonus and no referral link in existence for it. I mention it because for money you know you won’t touch for a few months, it’s usually the honest number the others have to beat.
Saving without having to think about it
Acorns — rounds up your spare change and invests it automatically. I pay for it, and the reason is simple: it saves money I’d otherwise spend without noticing. (my referral link)
And the version that costs nobody anything, me included: a standing transfer out of checking on payday, at the bank you already have. Acorns works because it moves the money before you notice it; a transfer you set once and forget does the same thing. If you’d rather not open another account, do that instead — I’d genuinely rather you saved something than used my link.
Investing
Robinhood — the platform I run my own experiment on. Uninvested cash is swept to FDIC-insured program banks, so it doubles as a cash account. The competitive rate requires their paid Gold subscription, which I pay for myself — worth it at my balance, but do the arithmetic on yours. And note Robinhood doesn’t pay that interest itself; the program banks do. (my referral link)
And three I recommend on merit, where I get nothing at all: Vanguard for low-cost index funds, Schwab for a full-service brokerage, and American Century — I was a happy customer there for decades.
Rates and terms move, and each of these has its own conditions. Go look at today’s numbers before you move a dollar.
A free conversation about your situation
Damon Day is an independent debt coach, and my co-host on Get Out of Debt Guy — you can also hear us on Spotify. I want you to know that before you decide anything. I receive no payment for this referral.
The consultation is free. The only time money changes hands is if you decide you want to hire him as a consultant. Go to DamonDay.com and schedule — he doesn’t cold-call anybody, and neither do I.
Or ask me, anonymously
Ask Steve — free, private, and I’m not selling anything. No account, no email, no sales pitch at the end of it.