Google, Facebook Employees Targeted In $100M Phishing Scam

When the Justice Department recently said that two major tech companies had paid out a total of $100 million to a scammer posing as a hardware manufacturer, it chose to not name the businesses that had been conned. But now, both Google and Facebook are confirming that they were the ones victimized by this phishing scheme.

Some background, first: According to federal officials, the scam dates back to 2013, when a Lithuanian man named Evaldas Rimašauskas allegedly used fake email addresses, invoices, and corporate stamps and pretended to be a large manufacturer that regularly did business with two companies.

He is then accused of emailing employees at the two companies and tricking them into transferring $100 million worth of payments to him.

In March, Taiwan-based Quanta Computer Inc. acknowledged that the alleged scammer had impersonated the company to deceive his victims. However, the DOJ remained mum on the identities of the targeted companies: In the initial press release issued by the agency, the victims were only identified as a “multinational technology company, specializing in Internet-related services and products” and “a multinational corporation providing online social media and networking services.”

Now, Fortune says an investigation has revealed that the first company is Google, and the second is Facebook. Both companies confirmed to the site that they paid money to the impostor.

“Facebook recovered the bulk of the funds shortly after the incident and has been cooperating with law enforcement in its investigation,” a company spokesperson said.

Google also admitted it was a victim.

“We detected this fraud against our vendor management team and promptly alerted the authorities. We recouped the funds and we’re pleased this matter is resolved,” a Google spokesperson told Fortune.

Why would the DOJ remain silent on the identities of the companies? The U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan declined to explain, but sources told Fortune that the DOJ will probably name the tech companies after Rimašauskas is extradited, possibly in a few months.

Fortune raises another good question, noting that neither company informed investors about the wire fraud scam: As publicly traded companies, should Google and Facebook be required to disclose such an incident as a “material event” — something that affects an organization’s strategic direction, mission, or business operation — to their shareholders?

It depends on the nature of the incident, a former head of the Securities and Exchange Commission explained to Fortune: If it’s just a matter of losing some money — in this case, practically petty change for the tech giants — then it might not be material enough to merit a disclosure.

Money isn’t always the most important factor, however, as a company’s reputation can be seriously dinged by such incidents. Yahoo learned that lesson the hard way when Verizon required it prove that the massive data breach that affected at least 500 million Yahoo users was not a material event.

Both Google and Facebook declined to comment to Fortune on that front, but insiders indicated to the site that the scam wasn’t material enough to warrant a disclosure.

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Reebok Takes On Nordstrom With $425 ‘Sweat-Stained Shirt’

Earlier this week, Nordstrom came under fire for its latest entry in the “crimes against jeans” files. While Twitter mercifully mocked the department store for its $425 jeans with “caked-on-muddy coating,” at least one other retailer was apparently waiting in the wings with its own joke: Reebok debuted a pre-sweat-stained t-shirt, for you guessed it, $425.

Reebok on Wednesday provided the perfect response to Nordstrom’s Barracuda “mud and dirt” Straight Leg Jeans, the “Reebok Authentic Sweat Shirt.”

The one-sized red t-shirt, already listed as sold out though it was never actually for sale, comes with accurately placed “actual stains that will last forever” — as long as you don’t wash it.

The sports retailer wasted no time in parodying Nordstrom’s claim that its jeans were meant to evoke the “rugged, Americana workwear” vibe without the actual work.

In this instance, Reebok claimed the shirt was made with “authentic sweat for those who don’t have time to put in the real work.”

While Reebok’s version of the high-cost pre-worn/dirty apparel, some Twitter users questioned why anyone would want a sweat covered shirt. For its part, Reebok was quick to make clear it was all in good fun.

@deedeehttr Are you referring to our "Authentic Sweat Shirt"? Ha, we're just kidding around with that!

— Reebok (@Reebok) April 27, 2017

@katiapatakss

— Reebok (@Reebok) April 27, 2017

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

Delta Boots A Passenger From A Flight For Using Restroom At The Wrong Time

Anyone who’s flown has heard crew say that everyone needs to be seated, strapped in, and ready for takeoff in order for the plane to taxi on down the runway take its takeoff turn. So it’s a really, really unfortunate time to develop a sudden need to go. Still, emergencies happen — but on one recent flight, Delta took the time to go back to the gate and kick a passenger off the plane after a big bout of bad timing.

One passenger on a Delta flight just really, really couldn’t hold it in anymore and ran for the restroom while his plane was on the tarmac, the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel reports. Instead of admonishing him and carrying on, however, flight crew turned around, made everyone get off the plane, and had him met with law enforcement.

The incident took place on Delta flight 2035, from Atlanta to Milwaukee, on April 18. When the passenger was done with his business, the plane returned to the gate and two Delta agents tried to get him off the plane. He refused to go, so Delta made everyone deplane, and then prevented him from getting back on board with all the other passengers a short while later, another passenger told the Journal Sentinel.

That other passenger recorded the whole thing, and posted the videos to a blog created for them.

Delta’s first attempt:

And the second:

The woman who made the recordings also shared her frustration with how Delta handled the situation in an open letter to the airline, calling it, “the most outrageous treatment of a paying customer that I have seen in my two decades of flying.”

He said it was an emergency, she writes, but agents told him to sit down and then, when he was done, was told that the pilot “would have to talk to him,” and after that is when he got the boot.

The peeing passenger told the Journal Sentinel that he knew he was the reason everyone was being made to get off the plane.

“The pilot came on and said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sorry for the inconvenience but we have to return to the gate and remove a passenger,'” right after he got back to his seat, he said. “It escalated to that point that fast.”

“It was already understood and decided that I was a problem and I was getting kicked off the plane,” he told the paper. “When I exited there were FBI agents waiting for me with Delta personnel.”

He received a partial refund of his ticket cost, and booked a flight home on a different airline for three times what his original Delta ticket had cost.

In a statement to the Journal Sentinel, a representative for Delta reminded the paper that federal law requires passengers to comply with instructions from the flight crew.

“Our flight crews are extensively trained to ensure the safety and security of all customers,” Delta said. “It is imperative that passengers comply with crew instructions during all phases of flight, especially at the critical points of takeoff and landing.”

by Kate Cox via Consumerist

Southwest CEO Says Airline Will Stop Overbooking Flights

Overbooking is a common practice in the airline industry, where carriers generally prefer the possibility of paying out vouchers or refunds to bumped passengers over leaving the ground with empty seats that could have been filled. But after a recent United Airlines incident pushed overbooking into the spotlight, airlines are rethinking the practice. United and Delta have raised their maximum payouts to bumped passengers, and this morning Southwest CEO Gary Kelly said his airline will soon stop overbooking.

Calling it a choice that has to be made an “airline-by-airline” basis, Kelly told CNBC that “I’ve made the decision — the company’s made the decision — that we’ll cease to overbook going forward.”

While recent news has no doubt nudged Southwest toward this conclusion, Kelly says that an end to overbooking is something “We’ve been taking steps over the last several years to prepare ourselves for.”

The airline CEO didn’t give a specific timeline for when the practice will end, but told CNBC, “It’s something that we will be discontinuing here very shortly.”

Kelly claimed that Southwest currently overbooks “very, very modestly… In today’s environment, I’ll bet we don’t overbook a flight more than one seat.”

When pressed on the issue, he stopped short of saying that ending this practice means there is no longer a need for Southwest to worry about having to compensate bumped passengers.

“We’re in the customer service business,” says Kelly. “The last thing that we wanna do is deny a customer their flight, so we’re gonna work very hard to eliminate as many pain points to travel as possible.”

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

45% Of Americans Carry At Least $25,000 In Debt

If you owe creditors less than $5,000 (not including a mortgage) you’re in a rather small group of Americans with minimal debt. According to a new survey, nearly half the country owes at least $25,000 — and spends as much as half of their monthly income paying down their debt.

These stats come from a new Harris survey [PDF] commissioned by Northwest Mutual, which found that nearly three-quarters of Americans are struggling with debt.

More precisely, 47% of consumers are carrying at least $25,000 in debt. The average amount of debt — excluding mortgages — for all borrowers is $37,000. On the high end of debts, nearly one in 10 borrowers said they have outstanding balances of $100,000.

According to the report, consumers’ debts are comprised by a variety of sources with 29% of debt coming from mortgages, 19% from credit cards, and 7% from education loans. However, it should be noted that for millennials, 23% of borrowers said they have outstanding student loans.

When asked about how debt impacted their lives, most consumers reported that it was a significant source of stress and pressure. For instance, four in 10 consumers said debt had a “substantial” or “moderate” impact on their financial well-being, while the same number considered debt to be a “high” or “moderate” source of anxiety.

Despite these feelings, when given the choice how to spend an extra $2,000, 60% of consumers said they wouldn’t use it to pay down such obligations.

In fact, the report found that the lure of spending remains strong for those in debt. After covering necessities, respondents said 40% of their monthly income goes toward discretionary spending on entertainment, leisure travel, hobbies, etc.

When asked what financial pitfalls they are prone to, one-quarter of survey participants flagged “excessive/frivolous” spending as their downfall.

“While giving into temptation can feel good in the short-term, it often contributes to an ongoing cycle of buy and borrow that can become hard to escape,” Rebekah Barsch, vice president of planning, Northwestern Mutual, said in a statement.

That’s a sentiment many consumers agree with, according to the report.

Of those in debt, about 36% said they expect to continue being in the red for six to 20 years, while 14% said they expect to be in debt for the rest of their lives.

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

Rumors Swirling Again Over Possible Apple Peer-To-Peer Payment System

It’s like we fell asleep and woke up in 2015: Once again, the rumor mill is whirring along with claims that Apple is working on a Venmo-like peer-to-peer service that would allow people to transfer money to each other with the click of a button.

According to Recode, Apple has had some chats with potential partners in the payments industry about a service that lets iPhone users send money to other iPhone users.

Inside sources told the tech site that Apple is also talking to Visa about offering a debit card — possibly in digital form only – that would be tied to the new peer-to-peer system. The Apple cards would be funded with money sent through the new service, and could be used to make purchases even before the money hits your bank account.

Users could also tie the digital debit card to their Apple Pay digital wallet to buy things at physical stores.

Whether or not this will all actually happen is unclear, as one person familiar with the matter told Recode that the platform could launch later this year, while another said the announcement and launch date may not be set yet.

Apple and Visa declined to comment to Recode.

It’s worth noting as well that a few months after reports first started popping up about an Apple peer-to-peer payment service, the company filed a patent application that would allow iMessage users to pay each other from within the messaging app itself, as well as from within other iOS features.

If Apple does manage to succeed in getting something off the crowd, it will have plenty of competitors in the peer-to-peer payment arena: There’s PayPal’s Venmo, Square Cash, and many major banks, not to mention Facebook.

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Wegmans Hash Browns Also Recalled For Possible Golf Ball Bits

Golf balls and potatoes are both round, dimpled, and typically found on the ground. That’s about all they have in common, though, so the recall of hash browns produced by McCain Foods and sold under supermarkets’ private labels that may contain diced golf balls is still an interesting agricultural mystery. Now another retailer, northeastern chain Wegmans, has recalled its store brand hash browns.

Here’s what you should look for: 28-ounce bags of frozen O’Brien Hash Browns with the production code B161021 printed on the bag.

The affected products were distributed to the chain’s stores in Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia sometime after they were manufactured in October 2016.

McCain, the manufacturer, has asked customers to either return the hash browns to a Wegmans store or throw them away.

If you have questions about the hash brown recall or whether the products in your house from Harris Teeter, Roundy’s, or Wegmans are part of it, contact McCain Foods at 630-857-4533 or 630-857-4423. If you find plastic and foam in other potato products, or anything else in your food that doesn’t belong there, contact the Food and Drug Administration and your local health department.

In addition to protecting the public from a mouthful of golf ball foam, recalls like this have the interesting side benefit of revealing which companies actually manufacture store-brand products. These frozen potatoes sold at three different grocery chains actually come from McCain, a major name brand in the frozen potato space.

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist