This is more than a little bit scary. A criminal, exactly what kind isn't clear, has been reading the major Australian employment website Seek.com.au - and then he (it's almost always a "he") is sending invitations to become involved in money laundering or, possibly, to be a victim of a long-established scheme to defraud his victims. The scam letter is a collection of so many currently trendy phrases that it might be convincing - especially to someone who is in awe of cryptocurrencies, blockchain (as they call it) and so many other trigger words. Oh, and there's an interesting twist to the old version of this crime.
We can do no more than post the content of three spams that arrived in five minutes and urge readers to block the domain trixologyvapors.com to prevent this hyperactive spammer's material reaching staff.
Australian banks are getting a justifiable kicking in the media. and to a degree by regulators, after year after year of bad management, bad conduct and failure to put in place effective risk management and compliance policies and procedures especially in relation to money laundering, etc. But it would be wrong to read the headline that a consultant to Macquarie Bank has been convicted of money laundering means the bank made errors in law, although arguably there may have been an error in judgement.
There is suspicion, belief and knowledge. Then there is wilful blindness and, finally, sheer bloody mindedness aka stupidity. A solicitor was warned that her client should be the subject of proper KYC / CDD and her research showed a clear connection to alleged criminal conduct. She went ahead with the multi-million deal anyway and made no suspicious activity report. The fine might seem small and some would argue she should have been jailed but, as the first solicitor to be prosecuted for this conduct, the importance of the case comes not from the penalty but from the fact that it was brought at all, and that it was successful.
Ah, Shreveport. It's one of those picture postcard towns that seems more suited to a Nicholas Sparks novel or a Hallmark TV romance than to intrigue and dirty dealings. But...
The European General Data Protection Regulation is a fantastically complex piece of legislation but it is not an "Act" or, as Acts are called in the EU, a Directive.
It has been brought into law across the EU (and beyond) and will come into force on 25th May 2018.
Most importantly, it proves how domestic law in member states can be written by Europe outside the democratic process.
I get it. India has more than 1,000 million people and lots of them work in some IT related job and they all have to earn a living. But, why do they all have to plunder our details from domain name registrations and send us offers for their services. Do they not realise that there are hundreds, literally hundreds, of them doing that every single day.
Tata's Jaguar Land Rover has had an amazing run: it's profits have been spectacular and it has produced (admittedly having inherited some excellent work from Ford which sold the company on the cusp of it turning around) some excellent cars. But it's had to cease production of its iconic Defender Land Rover (the company says that to keep it abreast of changes in regulation was not feasible) and it's alienated some of its core - and amazingly loyal - customer base. So, as a luxury car maker which makes some extraordinarily competent vehicles that farmers and soldiers don't want (would you take a power washer to the interior of a Range...
The story of Warderly International Holdings Ltd is strange. Formed in 2002, it floated almost immediately. In 2007, shares were suspended when Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission raised questions about the management of the listed company and, as was learned much later, allegations of insider trading.
A press release from the USA's Inland Revenue Service is headed "Many corporations will pay a blended federal income tax." For heaven's sake: what sounds like something special is nothing of the kind and is an example of buzzword-mania when simplicity would better serve the audience. It's time that government departments stopped trying to sound trendy and just said what they need to say.
On 4th April, Mark Zuckerberg was in full PR mode: he'd posted family photos on Facebook, carefully emphasising that in his house both Jewish and Christian festivals are marked with food but no sign of frivolity and he'd been seen looking suitably tired. He'd brushed off, at least so far as America is concerned, his refusal to appear before a British Parliamentary Committee. And he'd had a bit of the news agenda taken away from his own, and Facebook's bad news stream by the shooting at YouTube. And so, on a conference call with media selected by Facebook's PR people, when he began to present what he calls "Hard Questions: Q&A...
The UK has said that it intends to refuse to register new diesel and petrol cars and vans from 2040. Lorries will not, at that time, be affected. It's apparently in a bid to reduce air pollution. Does the move from petrol / diesel inevitably mean a move to fully electric and if so what will happen to the toxic batteries when they die? And where does all the raw material required for all those batteries come from? Are we walking replacing current ecological disasters and and geo-political tensions with new ones? [Free content for seven days]
As if the crisis in retail isn't a sign that the global financial crisis, and the UK's part in it, isn't over, the news from manufacturing and other sectors of large-scale redundancies, non-renewal of contracts for term-staff and closures or restructuring of businesses in non-high street retail isn't enough, mailboxes are being spammed with one of the earliest signs of a financial crisis, threatening to ensure that recovery is a long way off. At the forefront is a spam promoting SAGA, the company that is supposedly the elderly's best friend.
The Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai often throws up things that seem like anomalies but after 14 years of doing it, the strange is becoming the norm. And it's that unpredictability that makes this the race where, so often, the season comes alive. This year was no exception: while loyalty would have had some fans predicting the winner, no amount of analysis of form of driver or team would have identified the winner nor the final result down to tenth place. It was a race of derring-do, bravery and magical overtaking by experts and dismal failures when others tried identical moves. Literally edge of the seat stuff with multiple battles...
This weekend has been an interesting weekend for spam, not the least of which is because such a large amount got through our first line filters: far more than usual. But they were all stopped at the second line of defence and as we trawled through the blocked messages, we came across several that were worthy of comment. One is that old chestnut, the United Nations scam; another is the latest example from a spam-house that now allows us to identify their server farm and it is particularly interesting because it appears to promote a scheme that fell under the bus when the British tax authorities began action in relation to that scheme...
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