Amazon Hit By "Serious" Hack, Resulting In "Extensive" Fraud, Cash Stolen From Merchants

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.

The dollar amount stolen by the hackers has not been disclosed but the incident could mark the latest in a series of incidents that may deter merchants from using Amazon to sell goods. In an April report, we detailed how Amazon merchants were feeling more and more like they were on the wrong end of a lopsided deal with the company, which has been selling its own brand of "Basics" that often undercut its own merchants.

One vendor interviewed, Jason Boyce, has been wary of regulation as small business owner. Despite this, he was willing to consider proposed regulations by Senator Elizabeth Warren that would prevent Amazon from competing against its merchants. Boyce said: “If you’re going to have a marketplace, you shouldn’t be able to piggyback off the hard work and labor of your sellers to beat them.”

“Amazon crushes small companies by copying the goods they sell on the Amazon Marketplace and then selling its own branded version,” Senator Warren has previously said.

Boyce, a former Marine Corps officer, started selling his product - basketball hoops - online in 2002. In 2004, he got a call from Amazon who said that they "liked" his products and he began to list them on the site. But over the next few years, his experience on Amazon resulted in competitors entering in the market and pushing down prices. So, like a good businessman, he pivoted to other products, developing his own line of foosball tables, air hockey tables, bocce ball sets and exercise equipment.

Then, in 2009, Amazon started selling its own products, Amazon Basics. Among its offerings, Amazon started selling bocce ball sets that cost $15 less than Boyce’s, and giving them ideal page space to win the shopper looking for the lowest price.

“They’re pulling market share away from us and our competitors as well,” Boyce said. Now, it appears merchants are having their money pulled from them, too.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-09/amazon-hit-serious-hack-resulting-extensive-fraud-cash-stolen-merchants

S&P Futures Drop*, Chinese Stocks Plunge As Tariffs Loom

(), bold and red=additions

(moar game playing by Munchkin's and crew-just keep him away from the adult table and stick him in a corner where he can't hurt anyone)

Four words from Donald Trump during his Panama City Beach rally on Wednesday night is all it took for the rug to be pulled from under markets: "China broke the deal" Trump said with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He on route to Washington for two days of talks, and then said another three to cement the sell-off: "They'll be paying."

pretty disingenuous with that tyler's, they were never going to do a deal unless face-to-face with POTUS-but I see how you need to pander to the european audience

And though Trump added that "it will all work out", Beijing warned it will retaliate should the U.S. hike tariffs as advertised at 12:01am on Thursday against Friday. With traders already extra jumpy in a week in which the trade war tide reversed unexpectedly and furiously, that's all it took to accelerate this week's slide in risk, and world shares tumbled for a fourth day running on Thursday, the result a sea of red amid global markets.

S&P500 futures dropping again on Thursday, sliding as much as 0.8% as the deadline approached for America and China to raise reciprocal tariffs.

As the flight from risk continued, Treasuries and the yen climbed with gold as investors sought havens, while the yuan fell to its weakest since January. European stock markets sank almost immediately after a torrid day for Asia. Europe's Stoxx 600 hit session low shortly after the open, falling for the third time in four days, led lower by shares in cyclical sectors including automakers and miners, European tech stocks dropped as much as 1% dragged by a drop in semiconductor shares after Intel’s disappointing forecasts while banking stocks tumbled, with Banco BPM down 6.3% after disappointing quarterly results. The Stoxx 600 was down as much as 1.1%, its lowest level since March 29; the index has fallen 3.6% since hitting its peak in late April, on track to post its biggest weekly drop since December. There was broad based carnage in tech as well: wafer-maker Siltronic -3%, Infineon -2.6%, STMicro -2.6%, and AMS -1.6% all tumbled after Intel gave long-term forecasts for low, single-digit sales growth.

INTC

48.08 -1.16 (-2.36%)

Pre-Market: 7:56AM EDT

(not bad for a company that just shit the bed on 3 year forward guidance)

In rates, Treasury 10-year notes jumped due to the escalation in risk-aversion, just hours after Wednesday’s auction saw the weakest demand for the benchmark bond in a decade.

(Risk aversion….these big 'tutes have ZERO concept of that as they just pile into the next trading vehicle no matter what it is)

The yield spread between three-month U.S. government bonds and the 10-year notes shrank to 3 basis points, compared with about 15 basis points a few weeks ago. The spread first turned negative in late March, spooking investors, who read the development as portending a recession. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield stood at 2.4529%, having touched its lowest level in five weeks of 2.426 percent on Wednesday before an especially poor 10Y auction sent the yield surging.

(my guess is that they drop the markets a little today so that they can increase the yield on the 10 year-the system is on a knife edge with the T notes hovering around stated curve inversion)

See cap #4

nevermind that if you adjust for real inflation, like what we all see, the yield curve has been inverted for several year's.

Commodity markets also felt the U.S.-China trade strains according to Reuters. Brent crude futures dropped 0.6 percent to $69.92 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude also retreated 0.6 percent to $61.75 despite a surprise fall in U.S. crude stockpiles. London copper hit its lowest in nearly three months, going as low as $6,111 a tonne.

Expected data include PPIs, trade balance, jobless claims, and inventories. Canadian Natural Resources, Hydro One, Dropbox, and Yelp are among companies reporting earnings.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-09/sp-futures-tumble-chinese-stocks-plunge-tariffs-loom

https://www.bloomberg.com/markets/stocks/futures

https://www.dailyfx.com/crude-oil

https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/bond/tmubmusd10y?countrycode=bx

>>6453583

For newfags only

caveat: This is not advice and please DO NOT act on anything you read here. These are observation's from experience ONLY.

Do your own due diligence and make your own decision's.

>>6453587

>>6453589

ECB in touch with Carige after BlackRock pulls out of rescue

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The European Central Bank has been in touch with special administrators who run Banca Carige after BlackRock pulled out of rescuing the ailing Italian lender, an ECB spokeswoman said on Thursday.

“We have been informed of developments and are in contact with the temporary administrators,” the spokeswoman said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eurozone-banks-italy-carige-ecb/ecb-in-touch-with-carige-after-blackrock-pulls-out-of-rescue-idUSKCN1SF0WP

see this

BlackRock's investment committee rejects planned takeover of Carige-report

https://www.reuters.com/article/eurozone-banks-italy-carige/blackrocks-investment-committee-rejects-planned-takeover-of-carige-report-idUSS8N1IX01B

>>6453682

Here is who 'own's' Hilton by equity or debt.

Blackstone began selling share's in may of last year and it's unclear what they still own since this data was published

This data is well behind but it's all there is to go by. This is one thing that will need to change going forward. Who own's large chunks of equity in ANY company, and what they have done with it-it should not be a mystery.

https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/hlt/institutional-holdings

>>6453767

he not the only one. DC solar was a massive ponzi. Granted this is not close to Berkshire's loss but….as you say it's a start.

Pasadena-Based East West Bancorp Takes $7M Charge Related to Solar Ponzi Scheme

East West Bancorp., parent of East West Bank, the largest independent bank headquartered in Southern California, disclosed in a regulatory filing May 8 that it has written off some tax credit investments related to exposure to a potential solar Ponzi scheme identified by the FBI back in February.

The bank, which initially said in a filing in February that it had a $53.9 million exposure related to its investments in mobile solar generators sold and managed by DC Solar between 2014 and 2018, said in a 10-Q filing for its first quarter financial results on Wednesday that it had recorded a pre-tax $7 million impairment charge related to the alleged fraud.

With an impairment charge, if the fair value of exposure is less than the carrying value, then the goodwill is deemed “impaired” and must be charged off.

A bank spokeswoman could not immediately comment as to whether future impairment charges might be required to deal with the $53.9 million exposure.

DC Solar filed for federal bankruptcy protection in February, following an FBI agent raid at the company’s Benicia, Calif.-based headquarters in December that revealed an alleged scheme whereby new investors were used to pay off old ones. The FBI described a Ponzi-like scheme involving potentially hundreds of millions of dollars.

“The company continues to closely monitor the progress of the allegations set forth in the FBI declaration, and it is reasonably possible that an uncertain tax position will be required for at least part, if not potentially all, of the tax credit benefits the company has claimed,” according to the May 8 SEC filing.

http://labusinessjournal.com/news/2019/may/08/pasadena-based-east-west-bancorp-takes-7m-charge-r/

The 13-F forms are out with qtrly report's and going forward thee will be moar.

>>6453800

they move rather slowly with this and I feel you on that. This is the same issue that GOOG used in it's recent filing too. Using "goodwill" to mask reality. Strzok's wife is the enforcement officer at the SEC so…..

>>6453827

like the music stuff. Learn to separate the product from the people producing it. You are going to find fault with everything if you go down that route.

>>6453847

some can't do that and that's fine. Learned long ago…this. people going to live in the wood's with no music? Fuck that. None of those people were ever hero's to me. They were for many though. This is much harder to do with movie's and since I don't watch TV or watch anything after about 2004/5 it was easier. Not so for spouse-took longer for them.

>>6453868

all from the same ilk. Solyndra was the template methink's. System like's to roll this shit out and test it. Then they go full retard. As far as hard connection's to those people I'm sure they will come out. Didn't musk's bro own part of solyndra too? I do know that hussein admin subordinated the gov's position in the bankruptcy process to put his campaign donor's ahead of them.

>>6453903

>Ditch the clown sauces

you should take your own advice