Facebook Ripped Off Game-Playing Kids And Their Parents In Multi-Year "Friendly Fraud" Scheme

Facebook engaged in a multi-year effort to trick kids and their parents into racking up massive charges based on deceptive in-game purchases - then refused to give the money back, according to unsealed records in a class action lawsuit. The in-game charges which added up to hundreds or even thousands of dollars were part of a system of "friendly fraud," according to Reveal News' Nathan Halverson, citing over 135 pages of unsealed documents which include employee emails, Facebook memos and secret strategies.

''When parents found out how much their children had spent – one 15-year-old racked up $6,500 in charges in about two weeks playing games on Facebook – the company denied requests for refunds. Facebook employees referred to these children as “whales” – a term borrowed from the casino industry to describe profligate spenders. A child could spend hundreds of dollars a day on in-game features such as arming their character with a flaming sword or a new magic spell to defeat an enemy – even if they didn’t realize it until the credit card bill arrived. -Reveal News''

According to an internal document which reveals Facebook's strategy, the "friendly fraud" by game developers was encouraged in order to maximize revenues. Another internal Facebook report shows that the company knew that in-game purchase options defaulted to "the highest-cost setting," and that it "doesn't necessarily look like "real" money to a minor - nor that their parents' credit cards were linked to their Facebook account in order to spend real money in the games. The "friendly fraud" was particularly rampant among the games "PetVille, Happy Aquarium, Wild Ones, Barn Buddy and any Ninja game. Facebook was well aware of the issue - even developing a method that would have mitigated the excessive in-game purchases, however the company did not implement it, "and instead told game developers that the social media giant was focused on maximizing revenues," reports Reveal.

Some parents turned to the Better Business Bureau (BBB) to lodge complaints, while others turned to the courts or their credit card companies for a refund. Facebook's chargeback rate of 9 percent far exceeded the Federal Trade Commission's red-flag level of 2 percent for a "deceptive" business.

''U.S. District Court Judge Beth Freeman ordered the documents unsealed on Jan. 14 after Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting intervened last year arguing the public had a right to know how Facebook targeted children. The judge gave Facebook until January 24 to unseal the documents, although she allowed the company to keep a few of the records sealed or partially redacted. The documents span a time period of 2010 to 2014. -Reveal News''

Facebook had a fix - and shelved it "If the devs are really concerned about the cbs and not refunds it could make sense to start refunding for blatant FF-minor," wrote Facebook employee Tara Stewart to a colleague on July 8, 2011 - suggesting that perhaps the company should just refund money to parents when their minor children clearly used a credit card without permission. Several months before this email, Stewart launched an internal initiative to help Facebook minimize credit card chargebacks from outraged parents who said their kids were tricked into the in-app purchases. An internal Facebook survey found that a lot of parents had no idea Facebook was even retaining their credit card information, nor did they know their children could use them without re-entering a password or another type of verification. In order to test whether kids were being duped, Stewart and her colleagues conducted an experiment in which children were required to re-enter the first six numbers of their parents' credit card on certain games before they were allowed to spend money. The test worked, according to Stewart - who called it a "good first step" as it lowered the number of refund and chargeback requests. "It forces the minor to prove he is in possession of the credit card," wrote Stewart. "Often refunds/cbs occur because a parent permits his child to spend at a small denomination and doesn’t realize that the CC info will be stored."

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-01-25/facebook-ripped-game-playing-kids-and-their-parents-multi-year-friendly-fraud

Trump Denounces Recorded Arrest of Roger Stone as CNN Scrambles to Explain

President Donald Trump denounced the arrest of Roger Stone, who briefly worked on his campaign in 2015. Stone was arrested at his home in Florida by a bevy of heavily armed FBI agents. The arrest was captured live by CNN.

“Greatest Witch Hunt in the History of our Country! NO COLLUSION! Border Coyotes, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers are treated better,” Trump said via Twitter on Jan. 25, hours after the pre-dawn arrest. He added: “Who alerted CNN to be there?

CNN, which has become openly hostile to Trump, tried to explain how its reporters knew the arrest was impending while claiming no law enforcement officials leaked info. It was the “result of determined reporting and interpreting clues,” CNN Communications responded on Twitter. The statement linked to an interview with David Shortell, listed as a “crime and justice producer.” Shortell didn’t explain how CNN knew to be at the scene. Other CNN employees claimed that Shortell noted some activity in Washington and hopped on a plane. “Shortell noted some unusual activity with grand jury in DC yesterday, trusted his instincts, got on a plane and made it to Stone’s house in time to catch the FBI going in,” claimed Kate Bennett, a CNN reporter. “There was unusual grand jury activity yesterday so decided to stake out—a decision any other reporter/outlet could have made,” said MJ Lee, another CNN reporter.

Shortell in another clip aired on CNN claimed that the “unusual activity” was that the grand jury met on Thursday this week when it typically meets on Friday, though he admitted that other information played a role. “Robert Mueller’s grand jury typically meets on Fridays. Yesterday, Thursday, there was grand jury activity,” Shortell explained. “We also had some other signs that maybe something was going on this angle, the Roger Stone angle. So we showed up at his house this morning, we were the only ones there, and lo and behold the FBI agents did come and arrest him.”

But a number of analysts and reporters said that it appeared CNN was tipped off. A law enforcement leak to the media regarding the arrest would be wrong, they said. “Regardless of what anyone thinks of Stone, this isn’t ok. The government shouldn’t be tipping off media outlets to add to the humiliation of citizens arrested in their homes for the amusement of the mob,” said Buck Sexton, a Hill host. “You don’t have to be a Roger Stone fan to be horrified by the stunt the FBI pulled off in conspiring with CNN this morning. The completely unnecessary raid is a routine that is straight out of a third-world police state. There is no defense of such an excessive show of force,” added Jordan Schachtel, a foreign policy and national security analyst for Conservative Review.

“President needs to have the FBI director in front of his desk this morning explaining exactly why an American citizen was assaulted by a SWAT team with tipped off cable news cameras. He should ask for the written safety analysis that showed this was required. There isn’t one,” added Townhall columnist Kurt Schlichter.

“No matter how one paints it CNN had special treatment to get access to the raid—as a volunteer member of law enforcement in VA, media, even if ‘tipped off’ would not be allowed to be anywhere near the execution of a raid—this was a dramatic set up allowed by the FBI,” said Tony Shaffer, a retired U.S. Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonel.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/trump-denounces-recorded-arrest-of-roger-stone-as-cnn-scrambles-to-explain_2779276.html

Did anyone find and load the CNN video of Stones arrest here??