Category: Fight Back

Google Fined 1.5 Billion Euros by the EU

The European Union has levied a third antitrust fine against Google.

EU antitrust commissioner Margrethe Vestager said that the technology giant had abused its dominant position by forcing customers of its AdSense service to sign contracts stating they would not accept advertising from rival search engines. “The misconduct lasted over 10 years and denied other companies the possibility to compete on the merits and to innovate.”

This brings the total in fines against Google by the EU to 8.2 billion Euros, but it’s also ends the last of the investigations that were in progress.

The third fine is lower than the previous two as Google actively worked with the European Commission to change its AdSense policies after the EU announced its case in 2016.

In 2006, Google started selling its AdSense for Search product. This let companies place a Google search box on their website. When a search is entered Google shows the results but also its adverts.

Google made customers sign contracts banning them from including rival search engines on their sites. In 2009, Google allowed the inclusion of rival search engines as long as Google’s was more prominent. In 2016, around the time the EU announced its case, the company removed these terms altogether.

Possibly, to avoid further anti-trust cases On Android phones, Google used to automatically install its own services (including Google search) but has recently switched to allowing users which services they want.

Today’s fine brings an end to EU’s current trilogy of open probes, the organization is still looking at a number of other areas of Google’s business and could open new cases in future.

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Facebook and Google Stopped $100 Million Fraud

A Lithuanian man, Evaldas Rimasauska, conned Google and Facebook into transferring over $100m into accounts he controlled.

He sent fake invoices to Google and Facebook between 2013 and 2015.

Mr Rimasauskas and his associates posed as Quanta Computer, a hardware company based in Taiwan that had done business with Facebook and Google.
M r Rimasauskas pleaded guilty to wire fraud in federal court in Manhattan, where Judge George B Daniels said the charge could carry as many as 30 years in prison and a fine up $1m or twice the crime’s proceeds.

In a statement, Geoffrey S Berman, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, said: “As Evaldas Rimasauskas admitted today, he devised a blatant scheme to fleece US companies out of $100m, and then siphoned those funds to bank accounts around the globe.”

Mr Rimasauskas was extradited from Lithuania to the United States in 2017.

In a court appearance, Mr Rimasauskas said that he had knowingly participated in fraud and that his role was to set up the bank accounts to facilitate the scheme, Bloomberg reported.

After money was wired from the tech companies to the bank accounts in Cyprus and Latvia, the Justice Department said in its statement, Mr Rimasauskas “caused the stolen funds to be quickly wired into different bank accounts in various locations throughout the world, including Latvia, Cyprus, Slovakia, Lithuania, Hungary, and Hong Kong.”

In emailed statements Sunday, Facebook said the company had “recovered the bulk of the funds shortly after the incident and has been cooperating with law enforcement in its investigation”.

Google said it had “detected this fraud and promptly alerted the authorities. We recouped the funds and we’re pleased this matter is resolved”.

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The Banks Secret Blacklist of Fraudsters

Banks and financial institutions build up lists of fraudsters and dodgy businesses and try to varying degrees to protect their clients from those companies.

They identify dodgy companies largely through customer queries, complaints and disputes over card payments.

These blacklists are secret because if made public, the institution would have to provide evidence in each case where the company challenged them. Where they have such evidence it is passed to the Police,

but having proof of a scam is very different from warning people of a company that may have dodgy practices.

The lists may include so called ‘legal scams’ such as copycat firms which charge excessive fees for official services such as passports, driving licences and European Health Insurance Cards. This is not illegal, but it is morally wrong.

They may also include photographic and modelling agencies, timeshare sellers, firms selling computer software and security packages and investment companies.

Websites that offer free trials for beauty products but fail to make it clear shoppers will automatically be signed up for expensive subscriptions can be included.

Some may push unnecessary insurance such as cover for products.

Nationwide also blocks payments to illegal companies such as investment firms identified as scammers by the financial watchdog.

When a customer tries to make a card payment to one of these black-listed companies the bank will block it.

Each bank has its own blacklist. Britain’s biggest building society, Nationwide, says it blocks payments to more than 1,000 companies.

Lloyds Banking Group says about 1 per cent of payments are registered as high-risk.

If you see these sorts of dodgy company dealings, do tell your bank.

Stay safe.

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Santander Forced to Pay Scam Victim

When someone has money stolen from their bank account by scammers the banks can usually get away with blaming the individual  and not pay compensation.

In some cases that is reasonable – if people make no attempt to check who they are transferring money to or why then it’s not the bank’s fault.

But scammers are increasingly sophisticated in these attacks and many people are caught out even after taking what they think are the right precautions.

In a recent case ‘Victor’ believed he was talking to Santander’s  fraud department and gave the fraudsters the information they needed to access his account. The Financial Ombudsman believed he had acted reasonably and ordered Santander to repay the amount stolen – nearly £12,000.

If the bank refuses to pay after such a fraud – the victim has 6 months in which to complain to the Financial Ombudsman and there may be more such cases as people fight harder to make the banks pay up.

Of course, it is still the individual’s responsibility to act sensibly at all times and do their best to avoid fraud.

If you transfer money away without adequate consideration – that’s your fault and no-one else’s.

If you have any experiences with scammers, spammers or time-waster do let me know, by email.

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eBAY Vehicle Scam Alerts

This a Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/GroupEVSA/

It is a closed Facebook group – so you have to apply to the moderators of the group for access.

You answer their questions and you get access to the group messages etc.

This purpose of the group is to allow reporting vehicle scam listings on eBay UK (and Gumtree, which is owned by eBay).

They give this initial advice:-

“Please try to be 100% sure if you say “This is a scam”. If you are not absolutely sure, by all means post the link but instead make it a question, e.g. ‘Is this a scam?’

Thank you”

This is clearly necessary to stop the group belong filled up with messages about mistakes and misunderstandings rather than actual scams.

Jack Buster uses this group  i.e. better known as “Buster Jack” (the scam buster). He uses this group a lot to post results of his work and people post items they want Buster Jack to investigate and potentially stop.

e.g. Some help please, selling my camper and someone from Malta wants to pay a deposit fly over and drive it home, what are the chances of it being fraudulent and how should i insist i am paid if it is to be safe? thanks in advance.

The replay was this useful advice.

Card payments can be reversed, cash and BACS payments into the account cannot. As soon as the money is paid either way transfer all the money you have in that account to a connected account such as a saving account and then they cannot reverse the transaction; That is what the scammers do!

Tell them to turn up with cash.

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Neighbourhood Alert

The website is www.neighbourhoodalert.co.uk/

Neighbourhood Alert provides an advanced community messaging system solution for police forces, local authorities and Neighbourhood Watch.

The Neighbourhood Alert message system was initially developed to complement the existing Neighbourhood Watch service in the area and is now used by more than 30 police, fire and rescue, local authority, utility and national organisations throughout the UK.

The Alert database grew to over 500,000 members in June 2017.

It has a database of members who want to receive relevant alerts and there’s now over 50,000 members.

Registered Members 644,772

Registered Businesses 24,902

Businesses Messages Sent Today216,722

The Neighbourhood Alert system is an online, secure community messaging system that allows authorised administrators to log in and send messages to registered people in the community who have chosen to receive them.

There is also a survey tool (Community View),that helps the police to gain a real-time understanding of opinions from any community group you choose, by incorporating Experian’s Mosaic data.

There is also Social Sense which is an integrated solution that enables digital media teams to take control and manage activity across multiple social media accounts.

There is a smart phone APP providing registered users with quick and easy access to the latest alerts, as well as the ability to configure their account settings. It allows you to receive messages based on your location in real time, via push notifications.

If you have any experiences with scammers, spammers or time-waster do let me know, by email.

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