Chime receives backlash on TikTok over a housing scam

A TikTok user related her experience of being scammed by a fake apartment listing on Facebook, resulting in the loss of thousands of dollars. The woman also added that she was unable to dispute the charges with the online banking platform, Chime which she used for the transaction as they have completely washed their hands off the case. The incident piqued the attention of several users on TikTok who were quick to call out the online banking platform for its lack of accountability and user safety. Read along to know more.

The What and How

TikToker Steph rented an apartment through a Facebook marketplace ad, and on the 19th of September, she went to the specified location only to discover that she had been scammed by the person who posted the fake apartment listing. Steph was at a total loss because she had sent all the money she had saved for over a year to this particular person who turned out to be a scammer, “I have been living in my car for over a year trying to save all this money, and I just sent it all to this person. I am at the address, and they have blocked me and taken all the money that I’ve saved for months,” Steph says in the clip.

Although Steph called the police, the situation did not improve as they said that it could take “over a year before anything gets done.”

The original video gained over 140,000 views on TikTok, and commenters urged her to dispute the charges with her bank. In an update video, Steph mentions that although she had disputed the transaction immediately, the bank’s response was far from cordial. She received an email from the Chime Dispute Team on the 20th of September blatantly stating that her case was dismissed and that the company “considers the matter closed.” So much for accountability.

Soon after this video was posted, it received a comment from the official Chime TikTok account stating that they take these types of things seriously and that they are looking into the matter. However several commenters were chagrined by the pretentious attempts of the company to show that they cared while their actions stated otherwise.

A recent update video from Steph reflects the disappointment with the banking platform as she urges the users to not use Chime.

“I guess it doesn’t matter what the opinion of thousands of your customers is? Hundreds of comments saying the same has happened to them. I have offered screenshotted messages, written statements, and police statements, and nothing is good enough. I trusted this “bank” with my money but now I agree with the other thousands of people that say DO NOT USE CHIME!” Steph said in the video.

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Amazon Flex worker’s TikTok video sparks discussions about the side hustle

Imagine a situation where you are being paid a decent amount of money just to go home. We are not talking about any utopian situation here. This is an actual experience shared by an Amazon Flex worker on TikTok. The video has sparked discussions about the side hustle with users sharing similar experiences. The workers get to go home without much workload due to the lack of available routes during a scheduled delivery block. The video was posted by TikToker, Diana Dunham Nelson on the 14th of October. Read along to know more.

Getting Paid To Go Home?

The video posted by Diana Dunham Nelson shows a snap of the Amazon Flex Distribution Center. She works as a delivery driver to make some “extra money to pay off debt.” And from what has been shown in the video, it looks like that is going comfortably well. In the clip, Dunham-Nelson mentions that a large number of people means that there will be hardly any route available for her. At times, she gets paid the standard amount for even delivering just one package. Talk about ideal working situations.

“There’s so many people in here that I doubt there’s going to be a route for me to even do it, which is great because I get paid to go home for doing absolutely nothing,” Dunham-Nelson says. She ends the clip by showing her earnings in the app to prove that despite the lack of routes due to which she was not able to make any deliveries, she got paid a decent amount.

The video has garnered over 420,000 views as of Tuesday and several users shared their own experiences about working at Amazon Flex as a side hustle. They also attest to the fact that they too have been sent home at times due to the lack of routes. The major highlight of the side hustle is definitely the fact that they get paid despite the minimal deliveries.

“I remember the first time this happened to me. I was heartbroken because I had to pay something and went home just to discover I got paid!” a user said.

However, not everyone was equally lucky. Some users didn’t have it that smooth and had some bittersweet experiences to share.

 

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Uber Will Now Show Targeted Ads Based on Where the Customers are Going

According to recent reports provided by the Wall Street Journal, Uber will now show targeted ads based on where their users are going. This decision made by the company comprises the privacy of people by getting access to their location and then providing them with ads. Uber is used by people who cannot drive a vehicle themselves or when they do not have any means to reach their destination. Read the entire article to learn about the complete story.

About these reports

“Uber never misses an opportunity to push the boundaries on how extractive and exploitative a company is allowed to be,” Chris Gilliard, Just Tech Fellow at the Social Science Research Council, told Motherboard. “Using the granular details gleaned from people’s travels as fodder for advertising poses a threat to anyone who doesn’t want the intimate details of where they worship, who they date or what medical conditions they have being sold to the highest bidder. This news reaffirms that Uber is a surveillance company masquerading as a transportation company.”

In response to Motherboard questions, an Uber spokesperson said, “The information that Uber shares with such advertisers is limited to aggregated information or data necessary to assess the effectiveness of campaigns, e.g. the percentage of users who clicked on an ad, or the number of users who visit the retail locations of advertisers using our platform.”

Users can opt out of “certain disclosures” in the company’s Privacy Centre The spokesperson added the company is “fully committed to protecting the user and employee privacy and obeying applicable laws.” The company says it does not permit ad targeting based on specific medical keywords and said its advertising targeting policy “specifically prohibits targeting based on sensitive destinations or categories like medical centers, reproductive health centers, spiritual centers, and sexual orientation.”

About Uber

One of the most successful companies all around the world, Uber is a company that emphasizes and realizes the importance of movement in the lives of human beings. movement is essential for human beings to survive and grow and become something in their lives. Therefore, Uber is an app that bridges the gap between the digital and the real world and provides transport services so that people can make their dreams come true instead of making any excuses. The company treats everyone equally and provides the same service to all the people of this planet no matter which race, culture, or religion they belong to.

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BMW to invest $1.38B to expend its battery production in China

BMW announces that it will invest 10 billion yuan, around $1.386 billion to expand its voltage battery production. The expansion is for the production is the one located in Shenyang in Northeast China’s Liaoning Province. It is likely the company’s third complete power battery center globally. It is also the first one outside of Germany.

Image credits- BMW Press

The confirmation about the expansion came from BMW as it was set to axe all UK production and relocate to China for its electric MINI. According to a Times report, BMW makes 40,000 electric MINI cars a year at its Cowley factory on the outskirts of Oxford. Production will end next year as part of plans to reshape the carmaker’s line-up from 2024. However, the company stated to Global Times that the BMW plant based in Oxford will continue to manufacture MINI models. The Oxford plant plays an important role in BMW Group’s production strategy. It has a high degree of flexibility, expertise, and competitiveness.

According to the secretary general of the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA), BMW might have made the decision to cut MINI models productions costs. As the UK is not an ideal place for making high costs and fractured supply chains.

Production

BMW set up a joint venture company with Great Wall Motors as early as 2018 to develop new-generation MINI electric cars. The joint venture, named Spotlight Automotive Ltd, is located in Zhangjiagang port in East China’s Jiangsu Province.
A representative of Spotlight Automotive Ltd also told the Global Times that the company’s plant is now completing its trial production stage.

BMW is one example of overseas car companies’ recent moves to expand investment in China’s new-energy vehicle (NEV) market. For instance, German carmaker Volkswagen recently announced that its software unit will establish a joint venture with Chinese technology firm Horizon Robotics, as the company aims to strengthen its tech presence in China, its biggest market. Daimler Greater China, a subsidiary of Mercedes-Benz Group, also signed a memorandum of cooperation with Tencent Cloud Computing Beijing to jointly develop self-driving technology in China.

“Take BMW for example, if it runs factories in other countries but exports most of its products to China, that would increase costs like shipment costs, customs tariffs, and so forth, thus slashing their products’ price competitiveness,” Zhang told. On the other hand, many overseas markets lack complete car supply chains, which means that their local car factories have to import car parts from countries like Germany or even China. That would not only increase costs but prolong the car production cycle, Zhang said.

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According to India, Pernod is Delaying an Investigation into a $244 Million Tax Claim.

Legal records reveal that Indian authorities have requested a court to reject Pernod Ricard’s request to suspend the process around a $244 million tax demand, charging the French spirit giant with being a “habitual litigator” and planning to “defraud” the country.

The Indian customs authority filed a court document in Mumbai on October 3 that was previously unreported. This document highlights the growing disagreement between Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration and Pernod’s local unit over how the company valued some of its imports for more than a decade.

money control

According to the customs agency, Pernod took this action to avoid paying import taxes in full.

The conflict arises as Pernod Ricard experiences economic and regulatory pressure in India, one of its key growing areas, where it holds a 17% market share. It earlier informed Modi that ongoing disagreements over the price of imported alcoholic beverages have “inhibited new investments” in India.

Pernod filed a legal challenge after India requested unpaid taxes from the producer of Absolut and Chivas Regal vodka in June, claiming the inquiry should be halted since it was based on false industry data and the procedure was “neither fair nor rational.”

India’s customs office said in a 43-page petition from October that the French company was using “delay tactics” by asking a court for relief rather than replying to the government’s notice of a tax demand.
It alleged a plot “to rob the Government of India of its legal revenue” by the corporation.

The filing also noted that Pernod has a history of being “a frequent litigant and consistently attempts to abuse the due process of law,” a reference to some earlier tax demands that Pernod had contested in India.

 

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How to play Pokémon cards

With Pokémon Splendid Jewel and Sparkling Pearl delivering on the Nintendo Switch, the Pokémon TCG is back at the center of attention by and by – assuming it at any point left, that is. This amateur’s aide will kick you off with figuring out how to play the Pokémon Exchanging Game, from getting the fundamental standards of going after and status impacts to having the chance to holds with how advancements work.

Source: Pokemon.com

Whether you’ve quite recently found the Pokémon series interestingly, rediscovered it through the most recent computer games, or have been a fan since Red and Blue arrived on the Game Kid, this present time is the ideal opportunity to require up the very nearly 30-year-old series’ tabletop partner and figure out how to play the Pokémon Exchanging Game. As a matter of fact, there could be no greater time for veteran players as well – the Pokémon organization is re-delivering a bunch of exemplary one of a kind cards! The Festivals is accessible now, and will provide players with a sound episode of wistfulness. You’ll find it exceptionally simple to hop once more into the universe of Pokémon cards with these recognizable countenances close by!

One reason the Pokémon Exchanging Game has remained so famous over its life expectancy is thanks to its capacity to keep every one of the natural parts of the computer games required, without hushing up. Developments, shinies, mentors, fights, status sicknesses: anything you know from Pokémon, be it the energized Television program or the computer games, has found a way and spot in the exchanging game.

What number of cards do you have to play Pokémon TCG?

Aside from energy cards, you can’t have multiple cards in that frame of mind with a similar name.
At the point when you’re first figuring out how to play the Pokémon TCG, it very well may be ideal to get one of the pre-assembled decks accessible for the exchanging game. When you know the rudiments, you can figure out how to construct a Pokémon TCG deck to incorporate all your #1 Pokémon and redo your play style.

Instructions to play the Pokémon Exchanging Game

The fundamental progression of play in the Pokémon TCG is generally easy to get a handle on, yet it includes a couple of steps you’ll have to advance before your most memorable fight.

How would you begin the Pokémon TCG?

Toward the start of a game, players can flip a coin to see who plays first. Then the decks are rearranged, players draw a hand of seven cards and the main six cards are saved as prize cards; you add one of these to your hand each time one you rout a rival’s Pokémon, and guarantee triumph on the off chance that you get every one of the six preceding your opponent.

The two players can put one fundamental Pokémon card facedown as their dynamic Pokémon, in addition to up to five more essential Pokémon on their seat. On the off chance that you have no essential Pokémon cards in your grasp in the wake of drawing your underlying hand of seven cards, uncover your hand to your adversary and draw seven additional hands. You can rehash this however many times as you need until you have no less than one essential Pokémon – yet your rival will draw an additional one card for each time you do.

With just six Pokémon playable at any one time, picking your deck cautiously is fundamental.
A player can have a sum of six Pokémon in play immediately, albeit only one – the dynamic Pokémon – can perform assaults during each turn. The rest stay in your seat – a line of cards behind the dynamic Pokémon where you hold five other Pokémon who stand by to fight it out against your rival, a piece like your party in the Pokémon computer games. Both dynamic Pokémon and sidelined Pokémon can be developed and have energy appended to them. Assuming your dynamic Pokémon is crushed, you should supplant it with one from your seat; in the event that you have no Pokémon on the field by any means, you lose.

How do turns function in the Pokémon TCG?

At the point when each turn starts, the dynamic player draws a card from the highest point of their deck; on the off chance that you run out of cards.
During each turn’s subsequent stage, you can do all of the accompanying:
Play quite a few fundamental Pokémon from your hand to your seat.
Join one (and only one) energy card to a Pokémon from your hand. This can be your dynamic Pokémon or a Pokémon on your seat.
Develop a Pokémon by playing a Phase 1 or Stage 2 advancement on top of an essential or Stage 1 Pokémon, separately. A Pokémon can’t develop a similar turn it’s played, and can advance once per turn. (Except if a thing card like Interesting Treats determines in any case.)
Play quite a few thing cards.
Play quite a few coach cards. (But ally and arena cards, which just let you play one for each turn.)
Retreat your dynamic Pokémon to your seat by paying the retreat cost on its card in energy from your hand. You should then supplant it with a Pokémon from your seat.
Utilize quite a few capacities on Pokémon cards.

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Celsius Network a Cryptocurrency lender will face federal probes.

Celsius Network, The New Jersey headquartered cryptocurrency organization filed bankruptcy this year in July. The company has been actively offering different crypto services like the interest on the deposits of crypto coins to retail users. The company is under the investigation radar of 40+ US states for freezing the cryptocurrency withdrawals since June of the retail investors.

source : economictimes.com

The allegations are that the company management along with Alex Mashinsky, the former CEO of the Celsius Network manipulated the retail customers with misleading information about the amount of risk involved in the cryptocurrency investment. 

Who is Celsius Network?

The company was founded in 2017 by three founders Alex Mashinsky Daniel Leon and Nuke Goldstein. The company has been a cryptocurrency lending platform, the company has been heading its operations from a global team with offices in four countries. The company has been working on different cryptocurrency operations like digital crypto assets wallets for the cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and Ethereum. The company rose to popularity when it announced it to provide loans by pledging cryptocurrency as the security.

In this process, the company had given a loan of about $8 billion to their clients. The company earned sizable profits from the sale of its tokens, along with bitcoin mining. But by July 2022, it was revealed by one investigation that the cryptocurrency lender, just ran a Ponzi money-making scheme and was never a robust business model, the detailed investigation of this issue resulted in a fallen business model and the company filed the bankruptcy in June 2022.

What is cryptocurrency?

 A cryptocurrency is a form of digital money in which all the transactions between two parties like the sender and the receiver are completely encrypted and these transactions are decentralized which means they can not be monitored by anyone else apart from these two parties.

These transactions can be done by both the parting in any remote corners of the world and currencies like the bitcoin, Ethereum, dogecoin, ripple, and many more. The best features of cryptocurrency are they are fully secured and can not be hacked in any online transactions, unlike traditional online money transactions. 

When a lender is considered Bankrupt?

The creditors, who form the foundations for the organizational profit margin as any organization is not able to repay their secured or unsecured investments to the creditors, in any form of returns apart from the physical assets they have, then the organization is considered bankrupt and has to file the bankruptcy under chapter 11 of US laws.

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