It started with a text message. A raw, unfiltered exchange between a daughter and her mother that rips the lid off a world of corporate secrets. “I just totally had a brain popping realization,” Kirstyn Pearl typed to her mom.…
Imagine you’ve just had a beautiful meal at a Hawaiian resort. The server was fantastic. The view was perfect. The bill arrives, and you see a mandatory 22% “service charge” added to the total. You pay it, figuring you’ve just…
Picture this. Someone—a parent, a small business owner, a school janitor—reaches under a sink in Houston. They grab a bottle of Arcoiris All Purpose Cleaner. On the label, a promise made in two languages: it contains a “Bactericide” and it…
The Price of a Typo, 74,000 Times Over Imagine you’re trying to buy or sell a house. To figure out a fair price, you’d probably look at what other homes in the neighborhood have sold for. Now, imagine if the…
We all count on the rules. We stop at red lights, wait in line at the checkout counter, and trust that the numbers on our bank statements are real. We invest our savings for retirement or a child’s education with…
The False Promise in the Cereal Aisle Picture it for me please. You’re standing in a supermarket aisle in the Bronx, trying to make a healthy choice for your family. You see a familiar, friendly box: Life Cereal. Big, bold…
You reach for the spray bottle that you bought online. It promises to be a “hospital grade disinfectant,” your shield against illness. You use it on the kitchen counter where you’ll make your kids’ lunch. You use it on the…
When you buy a bond, you probably think you know what it costs. The price is right there, isn’t it? You trust the firm handling your money—your retirement, your kid’s college fund—to be straight with you. You trust them to…
The Bombs We Live Beside Life moves at a gentle pace on University Street in Guide Rock, Nebraska. It’s a small town, the kind of place where the biggest daily risk should be missing the lunch special at the local…
Imagine watching your life savings evaporate in an instant. You saw a stock, something cheap with a foreign-sounding name, suddenly skyrocket. It was the talk of online message boards, the “next big thing.” So you bought in, dreaming of a…