The Better Business Bureau has recently reported that they’ve received an increased amount in complaints about Facebook Marketplace. Specifically, the complaints the BBB has been receiving are about big-ticket recreational vehicles like RVs and trailers.
The scams work the same way that they’ve been working on craigslist. The seller will set up a fake Facebook profile and list an RV for sale. They’ll have some story as to why they’re selling the RV like they’re out of the country or they’re deployed in the military. Then they’ll try to have you pay for the RV with some form of unusual payment such as wiring the money or paying with prepaid credit cards or gift cards. Both methods of payment are virtually untraceable.
Again, this is just another symptom of the larger problem of classified ads on other sites not being moderated. Facebook moderates their site for all sorts of content violations yet they’re taking the hands off approach when it comes to Marketplace. Then again, what do you expect from the company that took foreign currency payments for American political ads?
Previously, we’ve discussed the service offered by amazon called Amazon Key. This service would allow Amazon deliveries to be left inside your house after Amazon Prime members would pay for a smart lock and a security camera for around $250. This would allow delivery people temporary access to your home to leave your packages inside the home. Amazon will be rolling out the service this week to 30+ cities this week but will it be a successful launch.
According to tech blog Recode, it will not. They polled close to 8,000 people and according to Recode’s numbers, a majority of Amazon Prime members would not buy into the Amazon Key. Most of these Prime members cited security concerns as the main reason they would not enter the Key program. Non-Prime members were also polled and they also said that they found the idea of allowing strangers into the home unappealing. That’s not even taking into consideration liability problems that could arise from strangers being in your home if they injure themselves or if a pet were to attack or get loose.
In a culture that has largely sacrificed security for convenience, it’s refreshing to see that not everyone is willing to forego common sense for self-gratification.
It seems that something good has come out of the lambasting the US Senate gave tech companies last week over the Russian ads debacle. While that particular problem has no resolution, the senate inquiry has seemed to spark a change of heart for tech firms in at least one area, the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act.
This is the bill that would amend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 that has allowed sites like Backpage to avoid prosecution for their role in the sex trafficking of women and children. Previously, tech giants like Google had opposed the bill fearing it would open them to potential lawsuits even though the amendment to the CDA specifically targets sites that bad-actor websites. Now, The Internet Association, which represents such tech luminaries as Google, Facebook and Twitter, has reversed their opposition to the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act.
While it may not have been done out of the goodness of their hearts, but more to try to get Congress off their backs, this is still an important step towards the bill becoming law. Without as many allies, Backpage’s support is now crumbling. We are now several steps closer to seeing protections enabled to prevent girls and women from being trafficked on sites like Backpage and hopefully the successful prosecution of those who have profited way too long from their victims’ suffering.
Not pictured: Jack Dorsey, Mark Zuckerberg, and Larry Page
This week, Congress continued its probe into alleged Russian influencers purchasing ads on the internet’s three top platforms, Facebook, Google and Twitter. Rather than appearing themselves, the CEOs of each company sent their legal counsel in their stead. Yes, that’s not unheard of for businesses to send their legal representatives to Congress, but we’re talking about these companies taking money from foreign entities that might have influenced the outcome of the 2016 election.
While Congress by and large can be tech-illiterate, at least one Senator seemed to hammer the point home that these companies probably knew who they were taking money from. Minnesota Senator Al Franken showed everyone just how unwilling these companies are to divulge the truth.
“People are buying ads on your platform with roubles. They’re political ads. You put billions of data points together all the time. That’s what I hear that these platforms do: they’re the most sophisticated things invented by man, ever. Google has all knowledge that man has ever developed. You can’t put together roubles with a political ad and go hmm, those two data points spell out something bad?”
Stretch replied: “Senator, it’s a signal we should have been alert to and in hindsight–”
But Franken cut him off, asking whether Facebook would pledge not to publish a political ad paid for in North Korean won. As Stretch demurred, Franken interjected fiercely: “Please answer yes or no, sir. You’re sophisticated. You’re the chief legal counsel for Facebook. Please answer yes or no.”
Of course, Senator Franken did not get a straight answer out of Stretch. Instead the counselor hemmed and hawed his way through a non-committal answer.
However, the question remains, why weren’t the CEOs there to answer questions directly? What exactly are they afraid of? Perjury perhaps? Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg didn’t comment on the hearings until the day after Stretch’s testimony on an earnings call.
“I’m dead serious,” Zuckerberg said. “I’ve directed our team to invest so much in security on top of the other investments we’re making it will significantly impact our profitability going forward.” That investment will include hiring at least 10,000 new employees to focus on security and enforcement. CFO David Wehner later clarified that many of those new jobs won’t be full time but rather contract positions at partner companies.
“Protecting our community is more important than maximizing our profits,” Zuckerberg said.
Which doesn’t address the problem at hand at all. Zuckerberg was then said to have handed off the remainder of the call to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.
Facebook was the biggest offender in this story having served up alleged Russian ads to at least 125 million American users. Considering the entire population of the US is 323 million, that’s not a small percentage of potential voters who saw these misleading ads. That’s more than enough people to sway an election one way or the other. If protecting the community is more important than profits, why take the foreign money at all for American political ads? Facebook can claim hindsight is 20/20 all they want, but there were accusations of Russian political meddling even before these ads appeared on Facebook. So how could accepting Russian currency for American political ads not throw up a red flag?
If you don’t think the CEOs of this company aren’t cowards, please think of this for a moment. Even Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer eventually appeared before Congress. So when the CEO of a company that reportedly makes money from the sexual slave trade in this country appears before Congress and these other CEOs don’t, it goes a long way in showing just how scared of Congress they probably are.
If you’re the country’s largest retailer, but you’re losing ground to online competition, what do you do? You throw a party of course. Walmart has announced that in their run up to the holiday season will be holding ‘parties’ in their Supercenter stores in November and December. These parties, to be held on three separate weekends, will have increased stock at the stores with thousands of product demos.
This is another attempt by Walmart to take advantage of what Amazon can’t do. One of the problems with Amazon is that you can’t have any hands on testing with the products before you buy them from the website. You have to rely on sometimes unreliable user reviews. Whereas with Walmart, you can actually go into a physical location during these parties and inspect the merchandise.
The problem for Walmart is, that even with increased stock they won’t have the selection that Amazon wields. Walmart could very well find themselves in the same place that Best Buy found themselves in. Meaning that people will go to the stores to check out a certain piece of merchandise than order it from Amazon. Many consumers say that Best Buy is the best Amazon showroom there is and Walmart could find themselves in the same predicament this holiday season as more people continue to turn to online shopping in order to avoid the holiday crowds.
The month of October was pretty brutal month for the users of classifieds websites and apps. A few of the stories that stood out were the murder of a former policeman and the shooting of a newlywed couple. All the victims believed they were meeting someone to buy or sell something through online classifieds, but instead lost either life or limb.
A number of these transactions took place in broad daylight in public places;. That doesn’t matter anymore as criminals have adapted to the old suggested safety precautions that used to go towards keeping people safe. The best way to keep yourself safe is to insist on making the transaction at a local police station. Many police stations now welcome these transactions so they can be completed in a safe environment.
While Amazon has refused to comment on these license approvals or whether or not they’re getting into the wholesale pharmacy game, that hasn’t stopped some businesses from reacting. Pharmacy chain and industry leading benefit manager CVS has put a bid of $66 million to try to purchase health insurer Aetna. If the purchase goes through, this would put CVS on par with UnitedHealthcare who has their own healthcare and pharmacy benefits. This would streamline pharmaceutical procedural operations for the potentially new CVS/Aetna and has the potential to save consumers money with their healthcare and pharmacy benefits being under one roof.
However, the Amazon effect on this story should not be ignored. Billions of dollars have been put into action just on the rumor that Amazon is getting into the pharmaceutical market. When one solitary company has historically wielded that much power it ends up being targeted by the Federal Trade Commission. Maybe not during this administration, but in the future could we see Amazon being broken up like Bell Telephone was in the 1980s? If history is any indicator than the answer leans toward yes.
How about that World Series huh? A lot of people have been calling one of the best World Series in a long time. Wouldn’t it have been great to see the thrilling nail biter game 5 live in Houston? Or how about the possible Astros victory during game 6 in Los Angeles tomorrow night. You might be thinking about running out to try to get tickets, but remember there are a ton of fakes out there.
For example, a family in Texas bought a number of tickets from a man on craigslist. The man even met them at Minute Maid park in Houston. The family even tried to have the ticket booth review them for authenticity. They were told that the tickets seemed to be legitimate. However when they tried to enter game 3 they were turned away at the gate with the tickets turning out to be fraudulent.
Usually how scammers get their hands on authentic looking but fraudulent tickets is that they use stolen credit cards to buy the tickets. The purchase is usually then cancelled by the actual credit card holder and the tickets are voided but the scammer still has the paper tickets. When buying tickets to a major event like a world series you should only deal with reputable dealers and resellers. Otherwise, you may just find yourself in the parking lot of a historic game you can’t attend having lost a great deal of money with noting to show for it.
Not too long ago, Facebook made headlines when it was revealed they had accepted ad revenue from Russian interests who were allegedly trying to disrupt the 2016 Presidential Election. Facebook was even called before Congress and provided the government with the information they had about the Russian group. It was nothing less than a public shaming for Facebook, yet there’s a website that has long been used for political chicanery in this country by its own citizens and no official ever bats an eye at it. Of course we’re talking about craigslist.
Both major political parties in this country have accused the other of using paid protesters or paid supporters at many rallies and events. Many of these ads are posted in the jobs sections which means craigslist is accepting ad revenue for these ads. While there have been hoax ads and ads for paid political activism such as canvassing there is still evidence to show that craigslist is being used by political groups to undermine the truth.
For example, take this ad that was posted on craigslist in Charlotte, North Carolina, offering $25 for actors and photographers.
While the company who posted the ad, Crowds on Demand, did not specifically ask for protesters they did mention that they are in the business of hiring people to take place in protests. Even their website has a section for protests and rallies where they pride themselves in organizing a paid crowd to show up for almost any kind of protest. The internet being what it is, I thought Crowds on Demand could be an elaborate prank, but according to NPR they are in fact a real business entity.
Even the hoax ads that call for protesters can be disruptive as they often make the local news of where they’ve been posted. With politics being at a divisive high in our country right now, this usually leads to both sides of the political spectrum accusing each other of trying to fool the public.
While all of this is happening, craigslist just continues to accept the revenue for these ads, be they hoax or not, without doing so much as a basic check to see if these employment offers are legitimate, and they’re never investigated for fostering such inflammatory material for money. Again, craigslist will try to tell you they’re a socially conscious company when in reality they’re anything but.
Not too long ago we talked about how Amazon was working on a system that would allow your deliveries to be left inside your home. Now, Amazon has made that system official as they have announced their Amazon Key service.
That sounds all well and good, however, Amazon seems to really want you to have to pay for the privilege of allowing strangers into your home. First you need to be an Amazon Prime member which costs $99 a year. Then you’ll have to pay $250 for the Amazon Key package which includes a security camera and smart lock which can be unlocked by delivery people with an app. This sounds like it’s designed for people with disposable income who probably already live in decent neighborhoods who don’t experience that much package theft.
Then there’s the point of allowing strangers into your home while you’re not there. Camera or not, that’s still inviting a host of problems from theft of all sorts to stalking, to who knows what. One executive connected to the program said that people will come to trust these deliveries like they’ve come to trust Uber and Lyft. The only problem with that argument is rideshare drivers are letting you into their car, while Amazon Key let’s strangers into your home while you’re not there.
Leave a Reply