We recently documented how Amazon has come under fire from its merchants for allegedly trying to undercut them on pricing and products. Now, the e-commerce giant is under scrutiny for a different reason: security. Amazon is now saying it was hit by an "extensive" fraud last year, revealing in court documents that hackers were able to transfer funds from merchant accounts over the course of six months, according to Bloomberg.
The "serious" online attack included hackers breaking into about 100 seller accounts and moving cash from loans or sales into their own bank accounts. The hack took place between May 2018 and October 2018, according to Amazon’s lawyers.
Amazon said it was still looking into the compromised accounts and that it believed hackers changed the details on its Seller Central platform to bank accounts in their name. Amazon believes that the accounts were compromised by phishing techniques that looked for login information. Amazon has reportedly concluded its investigation of the incident.
Lawyers for the online retailer asked a judge in London to approve searches of account statements at Barclays and Prepay, two banks that "have become innocently mixed up in the wrongdoing." Amazon says that it needed the documents “to investigate the fraud, identify and pursue the wrongdoers, locate the whereabouts of misappropriated funds, bring the fraud to an end and deter future wrongdoing."
The filing doesn’t denote how the suspected wrongdoers were able to add new bank account information to merchant accounts. Amazon has issued more than $1 billion in loans to merchants and one of the units named in the filing was Amazon Capital Services U.K., a division of the company responsible for making these loans.
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Showing posts with label Amazon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Amazon. Show all posts
May 9, 2019
September 12, 2018
Whole Foods Workers Revolt Against Amazon – Aim To Unionize After Awful Working Conditions
Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, earns $268,000,000 every day, while regular Amazon and Whole Foods Market employees make an average of $15 per hour. Reports have uncovered the horrible working conditions inside Amazon’s massive warehouses — as some employees had to pee in bottles because they lived in fear of being disciplined over ‘idle time’. Now a group of workers at Whole Foods is trying to form a union, seeking better compensation after the Amazon buyout left the company with deteriorating working conditions, workers claim.
In a memo sent to nearly every Whole Foods employee on Thursday, the union’s organizers said Amazon is accelerating layoffs and consolidating stores put employees’ livelihoods at risk, and that more consolidation was expected. This is the second time Whole Foods workers have tried to organize, but it is the first time under the new ownership of Amazon, said the Fast Company.
The union demanded a $15-an-hour minimum wage, better retirement benefits, paid maternity leave and lower health insurance costs, among other benefits — as the current situation shows all is not well in the popular grocery store as Amazon is their new corporate overlord.
“Over the past year, layoffs and the consolidations of store-level positions at Whole Foods Market have upset the livelihood of team members, stirred, anxiety, and lowered morale within stores,” the memo declared. It then claims that Whole Foods CEO John Mackey sold the store to Amazon “with an agreement to trim hundreds of millions of dollars of labor from our stores.” The letter continues, “There will continue to be layoffs in 2019 and beyond as Amazon aims to aggressively trim our labor force before it expands with new technology and labor models.”
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In a memo sent to nearly every Whole Foods employee on Thursday, the union’s organizers said Amazon is accelerating layoffs and consolidating stores put employees’ livelihoods at risk, and that more consolidation was expected. This is the second time Whole Foods workers have tried to organize, but it is the first time under the new ownership of Amazon, said the Fast Company.
The union demanded a $15-an-hour minimum wage, better retirement benefits, paid maternity leave and lower health insurance costs, among other benefits — as the current situation shows all is not well in the popular grocery store as Amazon is their new corporate overlord.
“Over the past year, layoffs and the consolidations of store-level positions at Whole Foods Market have upset the livelihood of team members, stirred, anxiety, and lowered morale within stores,” the memo declared. It then claims that Whole Foods CEO John Mackey sold the store to Amazon “with an agreement to trim hundreds of millions of dollars of labor from our stores.” The letter continues, “There will continue to be layoffs in 2019 and beyond as Amazon aims to aggressively trim our labor force before it expands with new technology and labor models.”
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March 29, 2018
Trump: "Amazon Pays Little Or No Taxes, Puts Thousands Of Retailers Out Of Business"
If President Trump's tweet was not enough, White House spokesperson Raj Shah has just confirmed that tax policies need to catch up to Amazon, and President Trump would support tax changes aimed at leveling the playing field, which now favors the online retailer as Amazon has advantage over brick and mortar stores.
“Right now, there is no Internet sales tax and as a result companies like Amazon can buy and sell goods without having to pay basic retail taxes,”
AMZN is extending its losses on these latest headlines...
As we detailed earlier, the main driver behind yesterday's FANG plunge, was a report in Axios, according to which it was not Facebook that Trump wants to go after, but rather Amazon:
“He’s obsessed with Amazon,” a source told Axios. "Obsessed", and added that Trump has allegedly talked about changing Amazon’s tax treatment because he’s worried about mom-and-pop retailers being put out of business. Another Axios source said that POTUS has "wondered aloud if there may be any way to go after Amazon with antitrust or competition law."
Trump’s deep-seated antipathy toward Amazon surfaces when discussing tax policy and antitrust cases. The president would love to clip CEO Jeff Bezos’ wings. But he doesn’t have a plan to make that happen.
Read the entire article
“Right now, there is no Internet sales tax and as a result companies like Amazon can buy and sell goods without having to pay basic retail taxes,”
AMZN is extending its losses on these latest headlines...
As we detailed earlier, the main driver behind yesterday's FANG plunge, was a report in Axios, according to which it was not Facebook that Trump wants to go after, but rather Amazon:
“He’s obsessed with Amazon,” a source told Axios. "Obsessed", and added that Trump has allegedly talked about changing Amazon’s tax treatment because he’s worried about mom-and-pop retailers being put out of business. Another Axios source said that POTUS has "wondered aloud if there may be any way to go after Amazon with antitrust or competition law."
Trump’s deep-seated antipathy toward Amazon surfaces when discussing tax policy and antitrust cases. The president would love to clip CEO Jeff Bezos’ wings. But he doesn’t have a plan to make that happen.
Read the entire article
March 20, 2018
Six Things We Can Learn About US Plutocracy By Looking At Jeff Bezos
1. The rich rule America because of a system wherein money translates directly into political power.
Amazon has increased its spending on Washington lobbying by 400 percent in the last five years, far in excess of its competition. Bezos hasn’t been doing this to be charitable. With growing antitrust concerns, taxation to avoid, lucrative Pentagon deals to secure, and what some experts are describing as an agenda to control the underlying infrastructure of the economy, he needs Washington on his side.
2. Because money equals power and power is relative, plutocrats are naturally incentivized to keep the public poor.
Plutocrats necessarily rule such an oligarchic system as surely as kings rule a kingdom. But if everyone is king, then no one is king. If your entire empire is built on a system where money equals power, then you are necessarily incentivized to keep money out of the hands of the public while amassing as much as possible for yourself.
3. Controlling the media is very important to plutocrats.
Jeff Bezos, the most crafty plutocrat alive, did not purchase the Washington Post in 2013 because he expected newspapers to make a lucrative resurgence. He purchased it so that he could ensure exactly what WaPo did to Bernie Sanders in 2016. The neoliberal Orwellian establishment that Bezos is building his empire upon requires a propaganda mouthpiece, so Bezos purchased a long-trusted US newspaper to accomplish that. WaPo is now easily the most virulently pro-establishment among all large mainstream publications, not just defending establishment narratives but actively attacking anyone who challenges them.
4. Plutocrats form alliances with defense and intelligence agencies.
Jeff Bezos is a contractor with the CIA and sits on a Pentagon advisory board. He is doing everything he can to cozy up and ingratiate himself to the establishment on which his empire is built, up to and including kicking WikiLeaks off Amazon servers in 2010. This dances very creepily with Amazon’s involvement in surveillance systems and digital “assistance” devices like Alexa.
5. The people willing to do anything it takes to get to the top are the ones who get there.
Normal human beings would have a difficult time knowing businesses are dying and workers are getting poorer as their empire grows. Jeff Bezos just keeps growing. He will happily collaborate with depraved intelligence agencies, manipulate and propagandize Americans, and expand the gulf between the rich and the poor just to be king of the world.
6. It will never be enough for them.
Jeff Bezos is worth 131.5 billion dollars as of this writing, and he is getting more ambitious, not less. He doesn’t need that money to buy more stuff; it isn’t about money for him. It’s about power. The impulse to rise to the top of your monkey tribe is an impulse buried deep within our evolutionary heritage, and when that impulse isn’t checked by empathy for your fellow man it creates an unquenchable drive to grow and grow in invincible power no matter what kind of suffering that creates.
Read the entire article
Amazon has increased its spending on Washington lobbying by 400 percent in the last five years, far in excess of its competition. Bezos hasn’t been doing this to be charitable. With growing antitrust concerns, taxation to avoid, lucrative Pentagon deals to secure, and what some experts are describing as an agenda to control the underlying infrastructure of the economy, he needs Washington on his side.
2. Because money equals power and power is relative, plutocrats are naturally incentivized to keep the public poor.
Plutocrats necessarily rule such an oligarchic system as surely as kings rule a kingdom. But if everyone is king, then no one is king. If your entire empire is built on a system where money equals power, then you are necessarily incentivized to keep money out of the hands of the public while amassing as much as possible for yourself.
3. Controlling the media is very important to plutocrats.
Jeff Bezos, the most crafty plutocrat alive, did not purchase the Washington Post in 2013 because he expected newspapers to make a lucrative resurgence. He purchased it so that he could ensure exactly what WaPo did to Bernie Sanders in 2016. The neoliberal Orwellian establishment that Bezos is building his empire upon requires a propaganda mouthpiece, so Bezos purchased a long-trusted US newspaper to accomplish that. WaPo is now easily the most virulently pro-establishment among all large mainstream publications, not just defending establishment narratives but actively attacking anyone who challenges them.
4. Plutocrats form alliances with defense and intelligence agencies.
Jeff Bezos is a contractor with the CIA and sits on a Pentagon advisory board. He is doing everything he can to cozy up and ingratiate himself to the establishment on which his empire is built, up to and including kicking WikiLeaks off Amazon servers in 2010. This dances very creepily with Amazon’s involvement in surveillance systems and digital “assistance” devices like Alexa.
5. The people willing to do anything it takes to get to the top are the ones who get there.
Normal human beings would have a difficult time knowing businesses are dying and workers are getting poorer as their empire grows. Jeff Bezos just keeps growing. He will happily collaborate with depraved intelligence agencies, manipulate and propagandize Americans, and expand the gulf between the rich and the poor just to be king of the world.
6. It will never be enough for them.
Jeff Bezos is worth 131.5 billion dollars as of this writing, and he is getting more ambitious, not less. He doesn’t need that money to buy more stuff; it isn’t about money for him. It’s about power. The impulse to rise to the top of your monkey tribe is an impulse buried deep within our evolutionary heritage, and when that impulse isn’t checked by empathy for your fellow man it creates an unquenchable drive to grow and grow in invincible power no matter what kind of suffering that creates.
Read the entire article
July 28, 2017
Amazon Hosts Robotics Competition To Figure Out How To Replace 230,000 Warehouse Workers
There is little doubt that Amazon operates some of the most technologically advanced warehouses in the world. As of the end of 2016, the Seattle Times noted that the company 'employed' roughly 45,000 robots spread across 20 fulfillment centers around the country.
As can be seen in the video below, the KIVA robots, a company which Amazon bought for $775 million in 2012, move product bins around the company's massive warehouses with relative ease. The bins are delivered by the KIVA robots on a just in time basis to human 'pickers' who grab whatever products are needed and finish the packing process before boxes are shipped off to customers.
But while they've seemingly mastered the art of moving bins around a warehouse floor with, for all essential purposes, miniature robotic forklifts, a solution to automating the simple task of picking individual items out of those bins has remained elusive. And, with 1,000's of very expensive, sickly and generally needy humans currently fulfilling that task, you can bet Amazon is eagerly pursuing that solution with some level of urgency.
In fact, just this weekend, Amazon will be hosting a robotics competition with 16 teams from around the world who will get a chance to show off their robotic "picking" technology for the chance to win a share of $250,000 in prize money. Per Bloomberg:
Read the entire article
As can be seen in the video below, the KIVA robots, a company which Amazon bought for $775 million in 2012, move product bins around the company's massive warehouses with relative ease. The bins are delivered by the KIVA robots on a just in time basis to human 'pickers' who grab whatever products are needed and finish the packing process before boxes are shipped off to customers.
But while they've seemingly mastered the art of moving bins around a warehouse floor with, for all essential purposes, miniature robotic forklifts, a solution to automating the simple task of picking individual items out of those bins has remained elusive. And, with 1,000's of very expensive, sickly and generally needy humans currently fulfilling that task, you can bet Amazon is eagerly pursuing that solution with some level of urgency.
In fact, just this weekend, Amazon will be hosting a robotics competition with 16 teams from around the world who will get a chance to show off their robotic "picking" technology for the chance to win a share of $250,000 in prize money. Per Bloomberg:
Read the entire article
June 19, 2017
With New Patent, Amazon Will Collect As Much Customer Data As Google
A day after Amazon announced it would jump head-long into the bricks-and-mortar grocery business by agreeing to buy Whole Foods Market for $13.4 billion, reports from earlier this week about a new patent issued to the company are starting to make more sense. The patent, which was first reported by the Verge, is for wireless technology that can effectively block customers in Whole Food’s retail locations from “showrooming." "Showrooming" is the practice of using retail locations to test out products before buying them online - a practice that Amazon, by making it easy to comparison shop on a smartphone, helped pioneer.
In its report, the Verge focuses on how the technology will help the company solve a problem that Amazon itself helped create – a problem that has plagued virtually every other traditional retailer.
"Systems and methods for controlling online shopping within a physical store or retailer location are provided. A wireless network connection may be provided to a consumer device at a retailer location on behalf of a retailer, and content requested by the consumer device via the wireless network connection may be identified. Based upon an evaluation of the identified content, a determination may be made that the consumer device is attempting to access information associated with a competitor of the retailer or an item offered for sale by the retailer. At least one control action may then be directed based upon the determination.”
But the technology described in the patent also raises serious concerns about the company’s plans for vastly expanding its capacity to collect and store customers' data. As MarketWatch’s Theresa Poletti reports, with this added capability, Amazon may soon be gathering as much data on its consumers now as Alphabet’s Google Inc.
Read the entire article
In its report, the Verge focuses on how the technology will help the company solve a problem that Amazon itself helped create – a problem that has plagued virtually every other traditional retailer.
"Systems and methods for controlling online shopping within a physical store or retailer location are provided. A wireless network connection may be provided to a consumer device at a retailer location on behalf of a retailer, and content requested by the consumer device via the wireless network connection may be identified. Based upon an evaluation of the identified content, a determination may be made that the consumer device is attempting to access information associated with a competitor of the retailer or an item offered for sale by the retailer. At least one control action may then be directed based upon the determination.”
But the technology described in the patent also raises serious concerns about the company’s plans for vastly expanding its capacity to collect and store customers' data. As MarketWatch’s Theresa Poletti reports, with this added capability, Amazon may soon be gathering as much data on its consumers now as Alphabet’s Google Inc.
Read the entire article
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