‘The Inventor’ is a monster movie. Elizabeth Holmes is its star.

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“She didn’t blink.” 

It’s a peculiar observation, but when ex-Theranos receptionist Cheryl Gafner makes it, it’s hard to shake — Elizabeth Holmes, the fraudster behind the now defunct blood testing company Theranos, doesn’t blink. 

Or at least when she does blink, it is done with purpose, a cool and calculating gesture that accompanies a specific word or phrase. To Holmes, blinks are seemingly for conveying sincerity and establishing trust, not an involuntary response to, y’know, having eyeballs.

It’s an unsettling behavior to witness, particularly when put in the context of Holmes’ dangerous multi-million dollar fraud. But gaining awareness of creepy details like this one is an essential part of The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley viewing experience.  Read more…

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View More ‘The Inventor’ is a monster movie. Elizabeth Holmes is its star.

FTC fines company for fake Amazon reviews in first case of its kind

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The U.S. government is taking on fake Amazon reviews.

On Tuesday, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it had reached a settlement in the agency’s first ever case against fraudulent Amazon reviews. 

In the FTC’s complaint, it claimed that defendant Cure Encapsulations, Inc. and the company’s owner, Naftula Jacobowitz, paid a third-party website called “amazonverifiedreviews.com” to post fake reviews for its weight loss supplement on Amazon. Along with the falsified reviews purporting to be from actual customers, the FTC also alleged that the company made “false and unsubstantiated claims” for the pills known as Quality Encapsulations Garcinia Cambogia.  Read more…

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Romance scams cost more money than any other type of consumer fraud, says the Federal Trade Commission

The Federal Trade Commission has released data that shows romance scams cost more money than other types of consumer fraud reported to the agency last year—and the problem is getting worse. Romance scammers target people through dating sites and apps or social media, often using fake profiles and sob stories to convince victims to send […]

View More Romance scams cost more money than any other type of consumer fraud, says the Federal Trade Commission

Facebook agrees to do more to tackle scam ads after celebrity defamation lawsuit

Facebook has agreed to plough more resource into combating the use of its advertising platform by scammers, saying it will do more to tackle scam ads that use well-known public figures to try to trick consumers. It plans to launch a dedicated scam ad report button in the UK, slated to go live in around […]

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Scammers are sending bomb scares to nab BTC

A new scam is making the rounds that promises to disrupt countless offices and schools. The scam is simple: the scammers send an email threatening to detonate a bomb if they don’t get a certain amount of Bitcoin within a specified time frame. Because there is little upside to ignoring a bomb threat at this […]

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Google warns app developers of three malicious SDKs being used for ad fraud

A few days ago, Google removed popular Cheetah Mobile and Kika Tech apps from its Play Store following a BuzzFeed investigation, which discovered the apps were engaging in ad fraud. Today, as a result of Google’s ongoing investigation into the situation, it has discovered three malicious ad network SDKs that were being used to conduct ad […]

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DoJ charges Autonomy founder with fraud over $11BN sale to HP

UK entrepreneur turned billionaire investor, Mike Lynch, has been charged with fraud in US over the 2011 sale of his enterprise software company. Lynch sold Autonomy, the big data company he founded back in 1996, to computer giant HP for around $11BN some seven years ago. But within a year around three-quarters of the value […]

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Now Tesla could face criminal charges for Musk’s ‘taking Tesla private’ tweet

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s tweet from more than a month ago keeps biting him in the… well you know.

When Musk mused on Twitter on Aug. 7 about “taking tesla private at $420” it sent everyone into a tizzy.

Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 7, 2018

And then there were the real consequences like a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation and lawsuits from shareholders. 

Eventually Musk called off the privatization talks, but now the electric car maker is reportedly facing possible criminal charges for fraud based on that same tweetBloomberg News reported Tuesday that the U.S. Department of Justice is investigating the company.  Read more…

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View More Now Tesla could face criminal charges for Musk’s ‘taking Tesla private’ tweet