Remember not all that long ago when the idea of AI coming into our lives was full of wonders, scares, frights, and worries? Well, that didn’t last long, did it?
In a short time, AI has now become present just about everywhere. And personally, I must admit to being very impressed and more than a little surprised at how well it can perform some tasks. With that being said, however, there are many things that I would not yet be comfortable trusting it with. And certainly, taxes are one of them. Tax law is complicated due to a lot of push and pull from competing sides and ideologies and is always open to change. This isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing in itself, but it means you want to be sure that when you have questions, you get correct answers. So that makes it a little disconcerting that TurboTax and H&R Block have added AI chatbots that do not seem to be doing the best job according to a recent article in the Washington Post. It’s one thing to have some chatbots, say in customer service, that do not give the answers you want. Those you can shrug off and move to another tactic without any loss but a little bit of time. With taxes, though, you could be looking at something could result in a smaller refund, end in someone paying more than they had to, or potentially even open the possibility of an audit. A tricky piece here is that it is difficult to really address how to handle this. These tax chatbots are being made by trusted providers, so it is not some wild act for someone to believe in it. So how should we travel these waters? Well, I will admit to stealing a bit from the Post article, but what it says about this is simple and makes complete sense – AI is great for when there are no real-life consequences. And there is not even debate here about whether or not this is a real-life situation. In conclusion, I am not going to be alarmist and say don’t ever use these AI bots to get an answer. I will, however, say that these answers should not be taken as gospel. If you are going to use one, you at least also owe it to yourself to do another search elsewhere and confirm the answer. Warmly, Josh Bousquet Connect to Us ~ Facebook ~ Twitter
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Sometimes sayings are heard so often that they lose their meaning. After all, cliches only become so by being said a lot. At the same time, though, they get said that often because of how true they are. So, when you hear that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is … well, that’s probably actually true.
This has occurred to me recently with seeing how cryptocurrency is being used to defraud people. And since even those who are experts in this area often have a difficult time being able to explain to the layperson just how crypto works, it should not be surprising that it is used as part of a scam. I first saw this when John Oliver took on pig butchering scams during his weekly HBO show. Then I read another story with a headline highlighting nearly $2 billion in fraud, helping to show just how big this is. What stands out to me about these situations is just how legitimate they seem. These are often being carried out in web and app platforms that look legitimate. This is not the traditional scam idea of someone calling up threateningly and demanding payment. These play out slower, they come with victims making multiple payments over time to an investing platform, payments that they can even “see” are earning them good money in interest, when instead their money is already gone. But just as that first cliché held meaning, others can too. So, if you see any type of investment opportunity that you do not understand – investigate it first. Now granted, in such schemes this is not going to be a foolproof way to avoid it, and that is what makes it so frightening. Any amount of time spent doing so, however, without blindly trusting is time where you have a chance to turn the other way. Unfortunately, the presence of scams overall is almost becoming a cliché itself and any mention of them feels like it might rapidly be becoming background noise. Pretty much everyone has had to deal with them at this point, and that makes it easier to just kind of accept their existence because you saw one and made it through. They always change, though, and they can always grow. Paying attention will only serve you well. Warmly, Josh Bousquet Connect to Us ~ Facebook ~ Twitter Last week, many AT&T customers had a frustrating day when the company’s mobile service went down for almost 12 hours. And it is a testament to the ubiquity of our need for connection when just hearing this story gives all of us a little internal cringe. AT&T itself also understands how important this is as it did not take the company long to announce that it would issue a credit to those potentially impacted – to the amount of $5.
Wait, that’s it? On first read, these things did not seem equal to me. From a business perspective, not having service for that amount of time could really slow things down. From a personal perspective, I imagine there were some kids trying to get picked up by their parents who couldn’t get through to them. And that’s just to start, it is easy to spin out from there and imagine many inconveniences this could cause. And $5 for that just feels … cheap. That amount, however, was touted by AT&T as the average cost of a full day of service. And yes, that math checks out. So instead getting stuck in feeling like it’s not enough of a recompense, maybe instead it just shows that with how much we rely on our phones that the cost of service is a bargain. This then sent my mind down that business perspective lane again – is it possible that a company can get too good at providing a service? I mean, we wake up every day and our phones work, connecting us to the world in a myriad of ways, and even though all of this is still relatively new we just take it for granted. And we use it that much and it only costs $5 a day. Well, to utilize the most overused comparison there is – that’s only like a cup of coffee! On the one hand, this sounds great for phone companies. They send us a bill every month that we can’t imagine not paying. The biggest danger there is from customers moving to other companies but not actually discontinuing mobile service overall. On the other hand, when a rare problem comes and a company goes to correct it, even making a solid good faith gesture (like AT&T did) may feel too little, too late. So, do you have to overcompensate? If you don’t, will it send some people to a competitor? I do not have any answers to these questions, but just thought they were interesting to ponder as this is a business situation we do not encounter often. Warmly, Josh Bousquet Connect to Us ~ Facebook ~ Twitter It feels a little silly to return in a blog post about something that quite likely will not come to pass, but it feels needed. I am referring to the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers At that passed the House of Representatives on January 31 but is currently stalled in the Senate.
The bill is not being ignored, though. Last week, IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel was part of a hearing when he was asked about the potential for the bill’s passage, and his answers echo much of what I wrote on this a couple of weeks ago. So, I figured it was worth addressing some highlights. First, Werfel estimated that it would take the IRS six to 12 weeks to implement the changes if the bill was passed. Even if this were passed immediately, that short window already pushes things into April. So, you would have to be betting on both the Senate (which is not) and the IRS (which traditionally doesn’t) working very quickly to make it worth holding off on filing your taxes because of this. Second, Werfel stated that only 10% of households would see adjustments to their tax returns due to changes in the Child Tax Credit. This means that if you are unsure if this would even affect you at all, it likely won’t. Furthermore, if you file early, it is not as if you will miss out on getting the extra credit. It will still be applied to your existing return. The advice after this is still to not wait on moving forward with your taxes. So many people start to think about tax season when the calendar turns to the new year and at that point April 15 sounds far away. On January 1, though, you are still about a month away from receiving all the forms you will need for even most basic returns. And now we are rapidly approaching the end of February, so we are only looking about having seven weeks to go before the deadline. This time goes by fast and it is easy to hear about possibilities about why you may want to wait, but there is rarely anything concrete to be gained by doing so. And many times, even those potential reasons fade away. So keep on top of things while you still have the chance to be proactive and not feel the weight of a tough deadline push. Warmly, Josh Bousquet Connect to Us ~ Facebook ~ Twitter Recently, I saw a headline about ransomware attacks and thought that I had not heard about them in a while. Then I got into the article, discovered that 2023 had the highest amount of ransomware payments ever (over $1 billion) and then started to wonder why I hadn’t heard about them in a while. And the only answer I can come up with is that it has become so commonplace that it isn’t newsworthy anymore for it no longer captures eyes and attention.
From there, it only stands to reason that online security as a whole is probably suffering the same point. At this point, security software is probably ubiquitous enough that everyone has installed something at some time, but if news of scammers and criminals barely register anymore, are we giving it enough thought? Do we even know things such as:
Another interesting point is that ransomware saw a big dip in 2022, with the total amount received by attackers dropping to $567 million after being at $983 million in 2021. The jump last year, though, says that drop looks to be more an aberration than a trend. And really, even if only half a billion dollars is out there to be had, that’s enough for bad actors to keep working on getting it. We can see some of the same type of conversations surrounding gift card scams now, they’re everywhere, people are growing ever more aware of them, but they’re not stopping. So let this just be a warning to keep on top of your security and don’t let it just fade to the back of your mind. It does not need to be front of the mind all the time, but it cannot be forgotten. Even as scammers are becoming ever more ubiquitous, our security systems need to match that. Warmly, Josh Bousquet Connect to Us ~ Facebook ~ Twitter |
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