The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced on Tuesday that it will be taking action against the online cash app and neobank Dave, which it says used “misleading marketing to deceive consumers.” At issue is how Dave marketed $500 cash advances to consumers that it rarely offered, and the “Express Fee” it charged if customers wanted their money immediately.

The FTC claimed the service was misleading because Dave’s marketing implied that its cash advances would be “instant,” using terminology like “on the spot” to describe them, without disclosing the fees involved until after the consumer completed the sign-up process and gave Dave access to their bank account.

The fees ranged anywhere from $3 to $25, the complaint stated. If the user chose not to pay the fee, they’d have to wait two to three business days for the standard transfer to go through, the complaint says. What’s more, the FTC says, Dave would also sometimes charge a surprise fee, which it described as a “tip.” The user interface was designed to make this difficult for users to detect or avoid the fee, leading to consumers feeling scammed, according to the FTC.

This latter issue is another example of the “dark patterns” — or manipulative design practices — companies use to guide users to take actions benefiting their own goals, not the consumers. Examples of the type of behavior the FTC now wants to penalize are things like automatically checking boxes when users sign up, or showing larger buttons for the actions the company wants users to take.

According to a recent study by the agency, a majority of subscription apps and websites use dark patterns to trick consumers.

In Dave’s case, consumers were shown images of a cartoon child surrounded by food and messaging like “10 Healthy Meals,” “15 Healthy Meals,” or “20 Healthy Meals,” implying that the tip would go to providing meals for people in need. However, the FTC says that only 10 cents of each “tip” is donated and the company keeps the remaining amount. In other words, the tip doesn’t actually provide a full meal, much less 10 to 20 meals. Also, when consumers tried to lower their tip, they would see an image of the food being taken away from the child until they were left with an empty plate, the complaint says.

According to SEC filings, Dave received more than $149 million in revenue from tips from 2022 through the first six months of 2024, the FTC said.

Another issue was that Dave charges a $1 monthly membership fee debited directly from customers’ bank accounts. But when users discovered the fee, they were not able to easily cancel it, according to the complaint. Some even tried to delete their account to escape the fee and were still charged, the FTC says.

The full complaint includes several screenshots of Dave’s tricky techniques, which the FTC says are in violation of Section 5(a) of the FTC Act and the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (ROSCA). The agency is seeking an injunction to stop Dave from continuing its behavior and may also seek a monetary award or other relief as deemed by the court.

In response to the complaint, Dave said that it’s “disappointed” the FTC has chosen to file suit.

“The FTC asserts many incorrect claims regarding Dave’s disclosures and how the Company acquires consent for the fees associated with our products,” a company statement reads. “For the avoidance of doubt, Dave’s ability to charge subscription fees and optional tips and express fees is not in question. We believe this case is another example of regulatory overreach by the FTC, and we intend to vigorously defend ourselves. We take compliance and customer transparency very seriously and believe that we have always acted within the law. We remain focused on serving our members who love and rely on our products,” it said.

By manipulating a quantum fluid, researchers could form liquid knots that never unravel. These could help us shed light on odd quantum objects from the dawn of the universe.

When tiny whirlpools called vortices form in a fluid, they can make loops that can then be knotted like a loop of string. But while a string can form knots that won’t unravel without the help of scissors, knotted vortices in a fluid break free more easily. They can explode into a diffuse swarm of…

On Wednesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted a simple URL on X: chat.com. It automatically routes to OpenAI’s popular chatbot, ChatGPT.

Prior to this, the domain was owned by Dharmesh Shah, the founder and CTO of HubSpot. In early 2023, Shah purchased the chat.com domain for $10 million. However, just a few months later, he announced that he had sold the domain, though he wouldn’t disclose the details of the sale or the buyer. Notably, he did confirm that he sold the domain for more than he had originally paid for it.

“The reason I bought chat.com is simple: I think Chat-based UX (#ChatUX) is the next big thing in software. Communicating with computers/software through a natural language interface is much more intuitive. This is made possible by Generative A.I,” Shah wrote in a LinkedIn post announcing the purchase — which chat.com briefly redirected to before he resold it. After the sale, Domain Name Wire noted that Shah had mentioned another buyer had been interested in the purchase and speculated he’d flipped it to them.

While the domain’s full ownership history remains unclear, domain sales database NameBio reports that chat.com sold for $15.5 million on March 28, 2023. This timing aligns with Shah’s LinkedIn post from May 25, 2023, announcing his sale after two months of ownership. OpenAI declined The Verge’s request for comment; Shah didn’t reply to a request for comment in time for publication. TechCrunch reported that OpenAI confirmed it acquired the domain.

The drop of “GPT” from the chat.com domain aligns with OpenAI’s recent rebranding efforts. In September, the company announced a new series of reasoning models starting with “o1.” At the time, former chief research officer Bob McGrew told The Verge he hoped that the o1 series would mark “the first step of newer, more sane names” to better communicate the company’s work. Still, as TechCrunch reported, the company isn’t hosting ChatGPT on chat.com, so this likely doesn’t represent an official name change.

People hoarding “vanity domains” is a tale as old as the Internet itself. Just a few months ago, AI startup Friend spent $1.8 million on the domain friend.com after raising $2.5 million in funding. For OpenAI, more than $10 million is a drop in the bucket — the startup just raised $6.6 billion.

• ToxicPanda can initiate money transfers and even grab MFA codes
• The banking trojan is targeting consumers in Europe and Latin America
• More than 1,500 devices already compromised

A Chinese hacker is targeting Android devices in Europe and Latin America with a banking trojan able to steal money from victim’s accounts.

A new report from cybersecurity researchers Cleafy says the trojan, ToxicPanda, is quite similar to a piece of older, known malware called TgToxic, which was first spotted in 2023. The two have some similarities, although ToxicPanda can be described as a “lite” version, since many features seem to be stripped down, and some were left as simple placeholders.

Finding a great pair of wireless headphones isn’t terribly hard but there are so many options it can feel overwhelming, luckily you have a deal like this one on the Sennheiser Momentum 4 that you can look forward to. At their full retail price, these would normally cost you $379.95.

However, right now Amazon has them on sale for $249.95, so you save $130. That’s a pretty good deal that amounts to a 34% discount. Now this isn’t the lowest price we’ve seen them and based on price tracking from Camel Camel Camel, the all-time low was $219.95 back in October. Today’s price is somewhat close to this discount though and $130 off is nothing to scoff at.

Now one thing worth noting is that this deal is for the White color of these headphones. All the other colors are $290 or higher, so technically this deal is the lowest price if you factor in those other color options. The Sennheiser Momentum 4 is a premium pair of wireless headphones with several noteworthy features that make it a desirable pair of headphones for music. For one, they have a battery life of up to 60 hours. That’s an astounding amount of listening time on a single charge.

They also have adaptive noise cancellation so you can block out the world when listening to all of your audio. They’re also built with premium materials and are super comfortable to wear for long periods of time. These come with some nice extras as well, including an airplane adapter and a 3.5mm AUX cable if you want to use these as a wired pair to conserve battery life. Additionally, they support voice assistants and easy-to-use touch controls for various functions.

Buy at Amazon

Amazon has a deal on one of LG’s premium OLED TVs ahead of Black Friday. The 65-inch LG OLED evo C4, which only arrived earlier this year, typically costs $2,700. Today, you can get it for an all-time low of $1,394. That’s even lower than its October Prime Day sale price.

Although the C4 skips out on some bells and whistles of the ultra-premium LG G4 flagship TV, that model starts at $2,600 and goes all the way up to $25,000. (Cue spit take.)

LG

The LG C4 includes AI features, thanks to its Alpha 9 Gen 7 chip. That enables AI Super Upscaling, which enhances your picture quality on the fly. Meanwhile, Multi View lets you split your screen into two, letting you plop your favorite content on each side.

Even if AI features aren’t high on your priority list, the TV has plenty of presentational perks. The 65-inch display has over eight million self-lit pixels and all the quality improvements you’d expect from OLED, like deeper blacks and richer colors. The TV has 100 percent color volume (meaning it can display the full range of colors at any brightness level) and 100 percent color fidelity (content-accurate colors). It boasts a 0.1ms response time and up to a 144Hz refresh rate for high gaming frame rates.

The TV gets brighter than its predecessor, reaching nearly nearly 1,000 nits. Its brightness booster feature magnifies individual pixels. If you have an LG soundbar, you can transmit wireless, lossless Dolby Atmos audio from the TV to it. As Engadget’s Steve Dent summarized at launch, that feature can give you high-quality surround sound with less hassle.

The TV supports Alexa out of the box if your smart home is plugged into Amazon’s ecosystem. Its array of ports includes USB, Ethernet and four HDMI inputs.

Check out all of the latest Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals here.