The same federal agency that once helped bring down the biggest crypto-based dark web drug marketplace Silk Road got swindled by one of the oldest tricks in the crypto scammer playbook. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration reportedly handed a fraudster a little more than $55,000 in confiscated crypto funds after it was duped by a classic airdrop phishing scam.

Forbes first reported on a warrant put out by the FBI investigating the scam. Those funds were stored in a Trezor crypto wallet, a more secure kind of crypto storage than an exchange-based wallet. The funds were further secured inside a “secure facility.” However, since all transactions are public on the blockchain, a scammer noticed when the DEA sent a test amount of $45.36 in Tether to a wallet owned by the U.S. Marshals.

The alleged scammer then performed what’s known as an airdrop scam. Essentially, the fraudster created a new address with the first five and last four digits of the Marshals’ account. Each crypto wallet has a unique address that’s about 30 characters long. Then, the fraudster sent, or “airdropped” some Tether into the DEA’s account, which shows up as looking like it came from the marshal’s address.

This works because the two accounts seem similar, so any layperson who only looks at the first few and last few characters to confirm will simply copy and paste the whole address rather than type it out. Trezor actively warns its users against airdrop scams, though in most cases, fraudsters want to access the wallet’s entire balance through a website link. These scams usually work against users investing in a new coin drop, but eagle-eyed fraudsters looking at crypto addresses might get lucky with a quick phishing attack, as they did here.

Amid the confusion, the DEA ended up sending funds to the fake marshal’s address, and by the time the two separate Department of Justice agencies realized what had happened, the funds had already been moved out of the scammer’s account.

[…]

Source: DEA Falls for Crypto Scam, Hands Fraudster $55,000 in Stolen Funds

What the article doesn’t explain is why the Feds were sending around these wallets at all, considering they were supposed to be impounded and evidence?

A buzzy startup offering financial infrastructure to crypto companies has found itself bankrupt primarily because it can’t gain access to a physical crypto wallet with $38.9 million in it. The company also did not write down recovery phrases, locking itself out of the wallet forever in something it has called “The Wallet Event” to a bankruptcy judge.

Prime Trust pitches itself as a crypto fintech company designed to help other startups offer crypto retirement plans, know-your-customer interfaces, ensure liquidity, and a host of other services. It says it can help companies build crypto exchanges, payment platforms, and create stablecoins for its clients. The company has not had a good few months. In June, the state of Nevada filed to seize control of the company because it was near insolvency. It was then ordered to cease all operations by a federal judge because it allegedly used customers’ money to cover withdrawal requests from other companies.

The company filed for bankruptcy, and, according to a filing by its interim CEO, which you really should read in full, the company offers an “all-in-one solution for customers that remains unmatched in the marketplace.” A large problem, among more run-of-the-mill crypto economy problems such as “lack of operational and spending oversight” and “regulatory issues,” is the fact that it lost access to a physical wallet it was keeping a tens of millions of dollars in, and cannot get back into it.

[…]

It called one of these wallets the “98f Wallet,” because its address ended in “98f.”

[…]

If a user loses both the hardware device and the seed phrases, it is virtually impossible for that user to regain access to the digital wallet.”

[…]

Prime Trust opted to laser etch them into a piece of steel called “Cryptosteel Hardware,” which are called “Wallet Access Devices” in the court filings, and which look like this:

According to the filing, it lost these devices, which is why it can’t get back into the wallet.

[…]

For several years, the company then took customer deposits into this address, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. In December, 2021, “when a customer requested a significant withdrawal of ETH that the company could not fulfill [from other wallets,]” it went to withdraw it from this hardware wallet. “It was around this time that they discovered that the Company did not have the Wallet Access Devices and thus, could not access the cryptocurrency stored in the 98f Wallet.”

[…]

Source: ‘The Wallet Event’: Crypto Startup Bankrupt After Losing Password to $38.9 Million Physical Crypto Wallet

HP has failed to shunt aside class-action legal claims that it disables the scanners on its multifunction printers when their ink runs low. Though not for lack of trying.

On Aug. 10, a federal judge ruled that HP Inc. must face a class-action lawsuit claiming that the company designs its “all-in-one” inkjet printers to disable scanning and faxing functions whenever a single printer ink cartridge runs low. The company had sought — for the second time — to dismiss the lawsuit on technical legal grounds.

“It is well-documented that ink is not required in order to scan or to fax a document, and it is certainly possible to manufacture an all-in-one printer that scans or faxes when the device is out of ink,” the plaintiffs wrote in their complaint. “Indeed, HP designs its all-in-one printer products so they will not work without ink. Yet HP does not disclose this fact to consumers.”

The lawsuit charges that HP deliberately withholds this information from consumers to boost profits from the sale of expensive ink cartridges.

Color printers require four ink cartridges — one black and a set of three cartridges in cyan, magenta and yellow for producing colors. Some will also refuse to print if one of the color cartridges is low, even in black-and-white mode.

[…]

Worse, a significant amount of ink is never actually used to print documents because it’s consumed by printer maintenance cycles. In 2018, Consumer Reports tested hundreds of all-in-one inkjet printers and found that, when used intermittently, many models delivered less than half of their ink to printed documents. A few managed no more than 20% to 30%.

[…]

Source: HP fails to derail claims that it bricks scanners on multifunction printers when ink runs low | AP News

Tesla has added a new Standard Range trim for both its aging Model S and Model X luxury cars this week, effectively slashing the barrier to entry for the automaker’s flagship sedan and SUV by a staggering $10,000 each. The Model S SR now comes in at $78,490, and the Model X SR at $88,490—both before the automaker’s mandatory $1,390 destination and $250 order fees.

As the name suggests, the $10,000 trade-off is how far the vehicle can travel on a charge. Model S gets an 85-mile reduction to 320 miles (down from 405 miles) and Model X shaves off 79 miles from its range, resulting in 269 miles to a charge (down from 348 miles). There’s just one catch that might rankle new SR owners: all Model S and X vehicles reportedly use the same gross capacity battery pack regardless of trim. In other words, the Standard Range variants have been software locked at a lower usable capacity to justify the price difference.

News of the pack being software-locked comes from Electrek which confirmed the suspicion by speaking with several Tesla employees on the matter. Unfortunately, Tesla was unable to validate the rumor officially since it dissolved its communications and public relations department some time ago.

Software locking a battery pack at a lower usable capacity is an old trick Tesla pulled from its sleeve that was previously used to limit early Model S cars to 60 kWh, down from 75 kWh. With these new configurations, the EV maker has also slowed the zero to 60 MPH sprint from 3.1 to 3.7 seconds in the Model S and from 3.8 to 4.4 seconds in the Model X.

[…]

Whether Tesla will let owners to “unlock” the remainder of the car’s battery as an over-the-air purchase later on is currently unclear. Tesla previously allowed owners of early Model S 60D vehicles to pay $4,500 to access an additional 15 kWh of usable battery (it later reduced the price to $2,000), whereas Model X owners have paid as much as $9,000 for the same privilege in the past.

[…]

Source: Tesla’s New Range-Limited Model S, X Carry a Big Discount | The Drive

BMW and Mercedes are also locking features that you already paid for – because you own the hardware of the car – behind paywalls. It’s something that really these companies shouldn’t be allowed to get away with.

Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan on Thursday pleaded guilty to money-laundering charges related to the 2016 theft of some 120,000 Bitcoins from Hong Kong-based Bitfinex.

The Feds arrested Lichtenstein, 35, and Morgan, 33, in February 2022 following the US government’s tracing of about 95,000 of the stolen BTC – worth about $3.6 billion at the time and $2.8 billion today – to digital wallets controlled by the married couple.

The Justice Department at the time described the seizure as the largest ever and has since recovered an additional $475 million.

[…]

Lichtenstein admitted in court he gained access into Bitfinex’s network using unidentified tools and techniques. According to prosecutors, once inside, Lichtenstein proceeded to initiate more than 2,000 fraudulent transactions that sent 119,754 bitcoin from Bitfinex into a cryptocurrency wallet he controlled.

Thereafter, the Justice Department said, he tried to cover his tracks by deleting access credentials and log files, and then involved Morgan to help launder the stolen funds by transferring them through a maze of financial accounts. At one point Lichtenstein used some of the funds to buy gold coins, which were then buried by Morgan.

An affidavit [PDF] from IRS investigator Christopher Janczewski, which documents the basis of the US government’s case, traces the flow of stolen funds through multiple accounts associated with the defendants.

[…]

 

Source: Couple admit laundering $4B of stolen Bitfinex Bitcoins • The Register

Royal Mail’s stamps are finally entering the digital world, with printed codes that can be used to track letters or linked to videos. Collectors, traditionalists and royalists are not amused

[…]

In February, Royal Mail introduced a new design for its standard stamps, which have changed so little since the launch of the Penny Black in 1840 that they are officially known as “definitives”. The new stamps – “plum purple” for first class, “holly green” for second – still feature the same regal profile introduced more than 50 years ago. But what is most bothering purists – and leading Johnson to the brink of direct action – is the addition next to the Queen of a digital barcode

The rectangular codes – which look like QR codes but are apparently not QR codes, which are a particular, and trademarked, kind of code – are designed to stop counterfeiting and to enable the tracking of all letters to improve efficiency. Correspondents will soon be able to share photo or video messages by linking digital content to their coded stamps. Recipients will view it via the Royal Mail app (currently the codes link to a short film featuring Shaun the Sheep and a plasticine postwoman).

From 1 February 2023, only the new stamps will be accepted. Any old stamps must be used before then or traded in. Christmas and other themed special stamps will remain valid indefinitely. Swapping definitives, which can still be done after the deadline, is free but will involve downloading and printing a form, or requesting one by phone or letter, and posting it to Royal Mail along with the old stamps.

[…]

Since the launch of the Penny Black as the world’s first adhesive postage stamp, the sticky squares have become more than a simple proof of purchase: they are collectibles, artists’ canvases, tools of propaganda and cultural icons.

[… ]

In the first year of the Penny Black, the number of letters sent more than doubled – then doubled again by 1850. Letter writing stopped being an elite pursuit and the postal service became profitable. Dozens of countries swiftly copied Hill’s example. Stamps were as significant an innovation in communication as telephones or web-connected home computers would be.

The first stamp was also a triumph of design. There was no need to include a country name – there were no stamps anywhere else, after all. Instead, a portrait of Queen Victoria in profile was added. Monarchs and colours have come and gone, and perforations and self-adhesion arrived. But the definitives have changed little in 180 years. The current stamps, originally designed by the artist Arnold Machin, have used the same sculpted profile of Queen Elizabeth II for the past 55 years.

Yet I am not alone in barely using them; the pandemic has only hastened a postal freefall, from a peak of just over 20bn letters sent via Royal Mail in 2005 (in the same year, the proportion of UK households with the internet tipped over 50%), to fewer than 8bn in 2020-21. These figures include commercial post; the smaller number of cards and letters bearing sticky stamps is likely to be in steeper decline.

“They’re trying to attract the younger generation by throwing in a QR code and a video of Shaun the Sheep,” says Andrew Jackson, 58, a collector and trader who runs Tagula Blue Stamps. Like Jackson, Johnson wonders if the change signals the beginning of the end for stamps. “Eventually it will just be the barcode, won’t it?” she says.

[…]

Royal Mail now produces more than a dozen sets of special stamps a year in an attempt to create demand among collectors. This year they include pictures of cats, birds, the Rolling Stones and heroes of the Covid pandemic drawn by children.

Many state-owned postal services are much bolder. In Ukraine in April, queues formed outside post offices when Ukrposhta issued 1m stamps to commemorate the defiance of the soldier who refused to surrender an island soon after the Russian invasion. In the image, the solider is flipping the bird at the Moskva warship, which was later sunk, in a visual representation of the message he had radioed to the ship: “Russian warship, go fuck yourself.”

But the potential for stamps to punch above their weight is doing little to boost demand. Gentleman says he rarely uses more than a pack or two at Christmas, preferring email for everyday correspondence. He’s not sure about the aesthetic appeal of the coded stamps. “I find it difficult to enthuse over them,” he says.

Some critics have been blunter. “Arnold Machin’s profile of the Queen is one of the simplest, purest compositions in the world,” tweeted Samuel West, actor and stamp collector, in March, addressing his next sentence to Royal Mail: “You took one of the great iconic stamp designs, and you fucked it up.” The writer and broadcaster Victoria Coren Mitchell simply said: “THIS IS AWFUL!”

The implications were more practical for some. Many canny letter writers buy stamps in bulk to avoid being hit by future price rises. Royal Mail’s swap scheme is designed so that nobody loses out, but I gather many collectors find themselves in a bind. Old definitives might have a higher value because they are rare. But some of that value comes also because the stamps could theoretically be used. Swap them and you’d throw away all of that value. Keep them and you’d lose much of it anyway. “A lot of value is just going to be lost overnight,” says Gerard McCulloch, an Australian collector better known as the Punk Philatelist.

Meanwhile groups representing older people say that, as well as creating inconvenience, the change risks marginalising those who still rely on “snail mail”. These users are also affected most by price rises (first-class stamps went up by 10p to 95p in April). “It will be chicken and egg,” says Dennis Reed from the campaign group Silver Voices. “Less people will send letters so Royal Mail will say, ‘We won’t have as many collections or post boxes’ – and even fewer people will send letters.”

[…]

 

Source: ‘Eventually it will just be a barcode, won’t it?’ Why Britain’s new stamps are causing outrage and upset | Society | The Guardian

It’s poorly described but a lot of people have huge collections of pretty stamps which they actually use. The value of these will be wiped out.

Elon Musk, Larry Ellison and other current and former members of Tesla’s board of directors will return $735 million to settle claims that they massively overpaid themselves, Reuters has reported. The deal wraps up a saga that started in 2020 stemming from a lawsuit filed by a police and firefighter retirement fund challenging stock options granted to Tesla’s board starting in 2017. Directors also agreed not to receive compensation for 2021, 2022 and 2023, and change the way compensation is calculated.

Tesla’s current board includes Elon Musk, his brother Kimbal, Fox News mogul James Murdoch, Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia and former Tesla CTO JB Straubel. The case is separate from a lawsuit filed by shareholders against a $56 billion compensation package awarded to CEO Elon Musk.

The Police and Fire Retirement System of the City of Detroit accused Tesla’s board of giving itself unfair and excessive compensation in the form of 11 million stock options between 2017 and 2020, saying it grossly exceeded norms for a corporate board. The $735 million settlement will be paid back to Tesla in what’s called a “derivative lawsuit” — the largest ever awarded by Delaware’s Court of Chancerty, according to Reuters.

Tesla argued that stock options were used to ensure Director’s incentives were aligned with investor goals. Tesla has yet to comment on the affair, but in court documents, said that it agreed to settle to eliminate the risk of future litigation.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is fighting a separate lawsuit to defend his $56 billion pay package. It was brought by shareholder Richard Tornette, who claimed that “the largest compensation grant in human history” was given to Musk, even though he didn’t focus entirely on Tesla. In 2020, he received the first of 12 $700 million payments as part of that package.

Source: Tesla reportedly suspected Musk was using company funds to build a literal glass house

Tens of thousands of fraudsters splurged on Lamborghinis, vacation homes, private jet flights and Cartier jewelry by fleecing the PPP loan system in a $200 billion heist — and did it because the COVID loan scheme was so easy to milk.

Approximately $1.2 trillion was rushed through Congress in 2020 and 2021 in COVID bailout cash for businesses and spent on the Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program (EIDLP) and the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) schemes.

But a new report from the Small Business Administration’s Office of Inspector General reveals an astonishing 17% vanished to fraud — an estimated total of $200 billion.

And the SBA says it estimates there are more than 90,000 “actionable leads,” while it has already prosecuted dozens — including a former New York Jets wide receiver, Josh Bellamy.

The spending spree on taxpayer dollars includes Donald Finley, owner of the now-shuttered Manhattan theme restaurant Jekyll & Hyde, who purchased a Nantucket home across from Dionis Beach with waterfront views with millions of dollars from PPP and EIDLP.

Finley faces up to 30 years in prison, and paying more than $3.2 million in restitution, plus a $1.25 million fine.

And experts say crooks created fake businesses or lied about their numbers of employees to get access to more free cash — because it was so simple to fleece the taxpayer.

“The fraud was so easy to commit. All of the information was self-reported and none of it was verified or checked,” Haywood Talcove of LexisNexis Risk Solutions told The Post.

“During the height of the pandemic, it was really hard to purchase [luxury] items like a Rolls-Royce, or a high-end Mercedes because you had people walking in with cash from the PPP program to purchase those items for whatever the dealer was asking,” Talcove said.

Justice might finally be catching up with some of the fraudsters: A total of 803 arrests have taken place as of May 2023 for pandemic fraud, the SBA said.

[…]

Source: PPP fraud is ‘worst in history’: $200B stolen, splurged on Lamborghinis and bling

Millions of people get phone calls from scammers and wonder who is at the other end.

Now we know: rather than someone in a call centre far away, a “bright young man” living in a lush flat in London has been unmasked as the mastermind behind so many of these calls.

Tejay Fletcher’s trial exposed how criminals with a simple website bypassed police, phone operators and banks to facilitate “fraud on an industrial scale”, scamming victims out of £100m of their hard earned cash.

Fletcher, 35, who ran the website iSpoof.cc, was jailed for 13 years and four months earlier this week following his arrest in 2019 in what is the biggest anti-fraud operation mounted in the UK.

The website allowed criminals to disguise their phone numbers in a process known as “spoofing” and trick unsuspecting people to believe they were being called by their bank or other institutions.

[…]

In 2020, he co-founded iSpoof.cc, which he built into what he called “the most sophisticated client spoofing platform available”, allowing scammers to change the number or identity displayed when they made calls so they appeared to be calling from a trusted organisation, often a bank or a bank’s fraud department.

[…]

His website was used for a large proportion of fraudulent activity in the UK – but copycats have since taken its place, and others are still falling victim to these types of scams, experts have warned.

How victims were scammed

The number of people using iSpoof swelled to 69,000 at its peak, with as many as 20 people per minute targeted by callers using the site.

More than 10 million fraudulent calls were made using iSpoof in the year to August 2022 – 3.5 million of them in the UK, the prosecution said.  More than 200,000 victims in the UK – many of them elderly – lost £43m, while global losses exceeded £100m.

For a basic subscription fee of £150 a month, users got a set number of minutes to make automated bot calls using the website or app version. They could then pay extra for additional features

[…]

Often, victims would get an automated call prompting them to confirm a transaction on an account.

The website allowed them to intercept one-time passwords, which were “ironically” introduced by banks to increase their security measures, noted John Ojakovoh, prosecuting.

iSpoof offered scammers extra features that allowed victims to type in a telephone pincode after being prompted to do so by an automated call.

Users could also pay for the ability to monitor calls live, or place calls pretending to be from an establishment that had old card details on file and wanted new ones.

Scammers could control what the automated call would say to recipients and access tools such as voice recognition.

[…]

iSpoof had a channel on Telegram, a social media platform, which it used to communicate with its customers and promote itself, the prosecution said.

The Telegram channel also displayed advertisements from companies selling bank details.

Fletcher would use it to conduct “market research”, running polls to find out which features users wanted most.

[…]

Fletcher was not particularly tech-savvy, but he used a website called freelancer.com to hire programmers to make the “building blocks” of the site

[…]

His lawyer said he had initially set out to create a simple website, but his co-founder suggested ways the technology could be made more sophisticated, which spurred him on. In 2021, he and his co-founder “fell out” and Fletcher ousted him, replacing him with three other administrators that he appeared to be supervising.

[…]

When Fletcher assumed control of iSpoof, the profits received had a “meteoric rise” from 5 Bitcoin to 117, prosecutors said. Fletcher received 64.38 Bitcoin, worth just short of £2m.

How police cracked the case

Posing as iSpoof customers, police paid for a trial subscription in Bitcoin and tested the website. They traced the money they paid to iSpoof and eventually discovered that the “lion’s share” of the profits were going to Fletcher.

They obtained a copy of the website’s server, which revealed call logs that further incriminated Fletcher and the scammers using his website.

[…]

others are also being investigated. Some 120 suspected phone scammers have been arrested, 103 of them in London.

[…]

 

Source: How a 35-year-old weed smoker behind 10 million scam calls made his fortune

YouTube has begun showing a pop-up to some viewers warning them that “ad blockers are not allowed” on the video-sharing site.

The banner, which you can see below, appears if the Google subsidiary reckons you’re using some kind of content blocker that prevents videos from being interrupted by or book-ended with adverts.

According to YouTube, this is an experiment and only a small number of watchers will see the pop-up when browsing YouTube.com. The box tells users, “it looks like you may be using an ad blocker,” and reminds them that “ads allow YouTube to stay free for billions of users worldwide.”

It also urges you to “go ad-free with YouTube Premium, and creators can still get paid from your subscription.”

There are two options presented: a button to “allow YouTube ads,” and a button to sign up for YouTube Premium, an ad-free subscription that costs $11.99 a month at least here in the United States.

Those who have seen the pop-up say they can ignore those options, and close the pop-up and continue blocking ads as usual – though for how long, who’s to say? There is a link to click if you’re not using an blocker and want to report a false detection.

What the YouTube ad block warning looks like … Hat tip: Reddit

“One ad before each video was fine, but they got greedy and started playing multiple unskippable 30-second ads, that’s when I went for ad block,” as one viewer put it. “There is zero chance I am ever deactivating it or paying for Premium now, that ship has sailed.”

[…]

Source: YouTube begins warning: ‘Ad blockers are not allowed’ • The Register

South Korea’s antitrust regulator has fined Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google 42.1 billion won ($31.88 million) for blocking the release of mobile video games on a competitor’s platform.

The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) said on Tuesday that Google bolstered its market dominance, and hurt local app market One Store’s revenue and value as a platform, by requiring video game makers to exclusively release their titles on Google Play in exchange for providing in-app exposure between June 2016 and April 2018.

[…]

Game makers affected by Google’s action include Netmarble (251270.KS), Nexon (225570.KQ) and NCSOFT (036570.KS), as well as other smaller companies, the antitrust regulator added.

In 2021, Google was fined more than 200 billion won by the KFTC for blocking customised versions of its Android operating system.

($1 = 1,320.4200 won)

Source: South Korea fines Google $32 mln for blocking games on competing platform | Reuters

Monopoly for the monopolists is starting to break down

obuaki Kobayashi, the trustee for the Mt. Gox bankruptcy, has announced that the deadline for repayment selection and registration of payee information for its creditors has been moved from Jan. 10 to Mar. 10.

According to Kobayashi, the change was made due to “various circumstances such as the progress by rehabilitation creditors in respect of the Selection and Registration.”

Mt. Gox was one of the leading Bitcoin exchanges in the early days of crypto but was forced to declare bankruptcy in 2014 after a supposed hack that led to the theft of 850,000 Bitcoin. Roughly 200,000 BTC has been recovered since the hack, and the repayment of Mt. Gox creditors has been a slow-motion development since the Civil Rehabilitation Plan was accepted by 99% of them on Oct. 20, 2021. As of July 6, 2022, the Mt. Gox trustee held close to 142,000 Bitcoins.

This latest announcement from Kobayashi means that the repayment to creditors will take even more time as the trustee looks to ensure that everyone who is owed funds can properly submit their claims.

Those who have yet to complete the necessary registration were encouraged to do so as soon as possible as rehabilitation creditors who do not complete their selection and registration by the new deadline will not be able to receive their repayment, the announcement said.

Some creditors may be required to bring the required documents to the head office of MtGox or a location designated by the Rehabilitation Trustee to receive repayment in Japanese yen.

According to the announcement, “The Rehabilitation Trustee will begin confirming the contents of your Selection and Registration, etc., after this point in time in order to make repayment as promptly as possible after March 10, 2023 (Japan time).”Creditors have the choice of receiving an early lump sum repayment, repayment for a portion of cryptocurrency rehabilitation claims in cryptocurrency, repayment by bank remittance, or repayment by remittance through a fund transfer service provider.

The new deadline is meant for those who have yet to complete the process while those that have already done so do not need to do anything further at this time. The update also requested that those who already completed the process abstain from making any revisions to their registration unless absolutely necessary to help make the confirmation process go as smoothly as possible.

The change in registration date also means that the repayment dates have been moved from their originally scheduled deadline of July 31 to Sept. 30 of this year. The release of the Mt. Gox Bitcoin remains a primary concern for many crypto traders, as some fear the release of a large number of tokens into the market will lead to a collapse in the price of Bitcoin.

Source: Mt. Gox creditors now have until March to register for payouts | Kitco News

The vast majority of companies taking part in the world’s largest trial of a four-day week have opted to continue with the new working pattern, in a result hailed as evidence that it could work across the UK economy.

Of the 61 companies that entered the six-month trial, 56 have extended the four-day week, including 18 who have made it permanent.

The findings will be presented to MPs on Tuesday as part of a push urging politicians to give all workers in Britain a 32-hour week.

[…]

The UK pilot, which kicked off last June, has been promoted by 4 Day Week Global, a not-for-profit organisation founded in New Zealand, and overseen by the thinktank Autonomy and a team of academics.

Companies taking part were offered workshops and mentoring to help them rethink working practices. Staff were given the opportunity to remain on their existing salary, working across four days instead of five.

[…]

In total, about 2,900 employees across the UK have taken part in the pilot. Surveys of staff taken before and after found that 39% said they were less stressed, 40% were sleeping better and 54% said it was easier to balance work and home responsibilities.

The number of sick days taken during the trial fell by about two-thirds and 57% fewer staff left the firms taking part compared with the same period a year earlier.

[…]

Ryle, of the campaign, said: “The economy doesn’t need us to be working five days a week any more. It was 100 years ago, the shift to a five-day week, and the economy’s transformed since then.”

Source: Four-day week: ‘major breakthrough’ as most UK firms in trial extend changes | Work-life balance | The Guardian

Merchants on Amazon Marketplace are paying the company a commission fee of more than 50% of each sale. A new report by Marketplace Pulse revealed Amazon raised the total cost sellers are required to pay out toward storage fees at company warehouses, packaging and delivery, and advertising on the site.

The commission fee has gradually risen since 2016 according to the report, but sellers were not heavily impacted because of an influx of customers and a substantial increase in sales during the covid-19 pandemic. But the report said that sales plummeted when the lockdowns lifted and buyers turned to things like travel and dining out rather than online shopping. The residual effects meant that Amazon suffered its slowest sales growth since its inception.

Marketplace Pulse reported that Amazon receives a 15% transaction, or referral fee, from the sellers who also pay between 25% and 35% in Fulfillment fees and 15% toward advertising and promoting on the site.

The average fees Amazon collected last year rose to 51.8% from 35.2% in 2016

[…]

Source: Amazon Is Pocketing Half of Retailers’ Sales