Category: UNCATEGORIZED

Mobile cryptocurrency wallet BRD announced today that it now has more than six million users worldwide, thanks to strong growth in India and Latin America. With this momentum, the company expects to reach 10 million users by early 2021.

Founded in 2015, Zurich-based BRD also said it now adds about one million new users every two months, after initially taking more than four years to hit the one million user mark. It reached 550,000 monthly active users at the beginning of July. Co-founder and chief executive officer Adam Traidman attributes the increased interest in cryptocurrency, especially among first-time users, to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s causing a lot of people who are staying at home and sheltering in place to reconsider a lot of fundamental questions about their life and family right now,” he told TechCrunch. “It’s causing a lot of thinking about money and finances. People have had a lot more time over the last six months to look at their investments and as a result of that, we found that for cryptocurrency in general, but especially for BRD’s business, we’ve been growing dramatically.”

He added that BRD, which has raised $55 million in funding from investors like SBI Crypto Investment and East Ventures, has two main groups of users. The first are millennials who have discretionary income that they invest using apps like Robinhood instead of traditional brokerages. The second group are people who have been more financially impacted by the pandemic and are turning to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to cope with currency fluctuations in their countries or as a more cost-effective alternative to international wire transfers to send money to family members. Falling bank interest rates have also prompted many people to consider alternative places to put their money.

While Bitcoin and Ethereum are still the most popular purchases through BRD, in countries with volatile currency fluctuations, like Venezuela, Argentina and India, interest in stablecoins, which are pegged to the U.S. dollar, is growing. The company is also seeing more adoption in Eastern European countries.

BRD is a non-custodial wallet and cryptocurrencies are stored on users’ devices, which makes it more accessible to users in countries who need to undergo lengthy registration processes to use custodial wallets. The app also allows people to use Apple Pay or their bank cards to buy cryptocurrency. This ease of use is one of the reasons for its growth, Traidman said.

The company’s most recent funding announcement was a $15 million Series B announced in January 2019 for expansion in Asian markets. BRD also offers enterprise blockchain tools called Blockset and says it is currently used to store the equivalent of about $6 billion in cryptocurrencies.

Faraday Future, the electric vehicle startup with a messy and complicated past, is planning to go public through a special-purchase acquisition company (SPAC) deal.

The company’s chief executive Carsten Breitfeld told Reuters that the company is working on a reverse merger with a SPAC and “will be able to announce something hopefully quite soon.”

Breitfeld, formerly the co-founder of Chinese EV startup Byton, declined to give more information about who Faraday is talking to or when the deal will closed. A Faraday Future spokesperson contacted by TechCrunch also said the company had no further details to share at this time.

SPACs are blank-check companies that are formed to raise money through an initial public offering in order to merge or acquire other companies. As TechCrunch’s Connie Loizos wrote in an explainer, they’ve become more popular among tech companies recently because many had their initial public offering plans delayed by the pandemic. SPACs also present an alternative to the regulatory issues surrounding traditional IPOs.

Shortly after being appointed CEO in September 2019, Breitfeld told Automotive News that Faraday Future wanted to raise about $850 million by the first quarter of 2020. By that time, company had already received $225 million in bridge financing led by Birch Lake Associates. The funding’s purpose is to finally bring Faraday’s flagship vehicle, the FF91 luxury electric SUV, to market.

Though the SPAC deal’s timeline is still undisclosed, Breitfeld told Reuters that Faraday Future plans to start volume production of the FF91, its first electric luxury SUV, 12 months after securing funding. This would represent a major milestone for the company, which was founded in 2015 but hasn’t produced a production vehicle yet. Faraday Future has made several prototypes, including one that went up for auction in August.

If the deal is successful, Breitfeld told Reuters that Faraday Future will first build the FF91 at its Hanford, California plant, but then work with a contract manufacturer in Asia that it has already entered into an agreement with.

Faraday Future’s financial issues date back to 2017, when LeEco, the Chinese tech company it was closely linked to, began dealing with multiple financial headaches of its own. They worsened when Faraday Future fell out with its main backer, Evergrande Health, in 2018.

Many of those issues were tied to Jia Yueting, founder and former CEO of LeEco and Faraday Future, who filed for personal bankruptcy earlier this year. Filings in the case revealed that Jia’s bankruptcy was funded by one of Faraday Future’s main holding companies, Pacific Technology. The documents also revealed that Faraday Future had just $6.8 million in cash at the end of July 2019.

Breitfeld told Reuters that Jia no longer owns stock in Faraday Future. The approval of Jia’s bankruptcy enabled Faraday Future to once again pursue investments to produce its electric vehicles, though now that may hinge on the success of its SPAC deal. Breitfeld acknowledged that Faraday Future’s past raises questions. “Because of the history and sometimes the bad news of the company, not everyone is really trusting us,” he told Reuters. “They want to see that we’ve become a stable company.”

Instagram today is celebrating its 10th birthday with the launch of several new features, including a private “Stories Map,” offering a retrospective of the Stories you’ve shared over the last three years, a pair of well-being updates, and the previously announced IGTV Shopping update. There’s even a selection of custom app icons for those who have recently been inspired to redesign their home screen, as is the new trend.

The icons had been spotted earlier in development within Instagram’s code, and it was expected they would be a part of a larger “birthday release.” That turned out to be true.

With the update, Instagram users across both iOS and Android can opt between a range of icons in shades of orange, yellow, green, purple, black, white and more. There’s also a rainbow-colored Pride icon and several versions of classic icons, if you want a more nostalgic feel.

The new Stories Map feature, meanwhile, introduces a private map and calendar of the Instagram Stories you’ve shared over the past three years, so you can look back at favorite moments. Though this may surprise some users who thought Instagram Stories’ ephemeral nature meant they were deleted from Facebook servers over time, it’s not the first time Instagram has pulled up your old Stories to build out a new feature.

Instagram’s “Story Highlights,” for example, first introduced in 2017, allowed users to create a permanent home for some of their formerly ephemeral content.

Two other new features also rolling out with the latest release are timed alongside the kickoff of National Bullying Prevention Month. The first, which will begin as a test, will automatically hide comments similar to others that have already been reported. These will still be visible under the label “View Hidden Comments” if you want to see what’s been removed from the main comment feed.

This feature is somewhat similar to Twitter’s “Hide Replies” feature that launched globally last year. Like Twitter, the feature will place the inappropriate or abusive remarks behind an extra click, which supposedly helps to disincentivize this sort of content, as it could be hidden from view. Except in Twitter’s case, the original poster had to manually hide the replies. The Instagram feature, however, is attempting to automate this functionality.

Instagram says it’s also expanding its nudge warnings feature to include an additional warning when people repeatedly try to post offensive remarks. Already, Instagram provides an AI-powered feature that notifies people when their comment may be considered offensive by giving them a chance to reflect and make changes before posting. Now this feature will target repeat offenders, suggesting that they take a moment to step back and reflect on their words and the potential consequences.

The company also released new data about trends across its platform as well as an editorial look back at Instagram’s major milestones.

Here, it revealed trends across music — like how KPOP is the No. 1 most-discussed genre — along with other trends, like top songs, AR effects, top Story Fonts and more. Instagram said more than a million posts mentioning “meme” are shared on its platform daily, 50% of users see a video on Instagram daily, there are over 900 million emoji reactions sent daily and the average person sends 3x more DMs than comments.

The updated app is available across iOS and Android.

Even as close to 1 billion debit cards are in use in India today, only about 58 million credit cards are in circulation in the world’s second most populous nation.

According to industry estimates, between 30 million to 35 million people in the country today have a credit card. Part of the reason why the vast majority of the population has not made the cut is because they don’t have a credit score — or if they do have an eligible credit score they don’t see any appeal in the paltry rewards most credit cards offer in the country today.

The credit card industry in India appears to be stuck in a deadlock. Part of the reason why so few people in the country have a credit score is because banks and credit card companies are still relying on age-old methodologies to determine someone’s creditworthiness.

Most banks in India are only comfortable with issuing credit cards to individuals who have a full-time employment with one of a few hundred companies listed in their spreadsheets that they last updated years ago.

Through his new startup called Uni, Nitin Gupta wants to address some of these issues. And he is one of the few individuals in the country who is positioned to do it. He co-founded PayU India, and then ran ride-hailing firm Ola’s financial services business.

During his tenure at PayU, the startup established a dominance in the payments processing business in the country. And at Ola, he launched Olamoney Postpaid, a service that allows customers to pay for their rides at a later stage. Olamoney, which was valued at $250 million last year, is now one of the largest financial services businesses in the country.

Serious VCs are now willing to bet on Gupta’s new venture.

On Tuesday, Uni announced it has raised $18.5 million in its Seed financing round led by Lightspeed and Accel . The startup currently does not have a product, but it took Gupta only two months in the middle of a global pandemic to raise what is one of the largest Seed financing rounds in India.

In an interview with TechCrunch, Gupta said at Uni he is joined by two more senior executives — Laxmikant Vyas and Prateek Jindal — who have stellar records in the financial services business.

He declined to reveal what exactly Uni’s product — or line of products — would look like, but suggested that Uni is building the modern age consumer credit card. “It would seem very obvious when it comes out, and people will wonder why nobody else thought of it,” he said, adding that he is working with multiple banks for partnerships.

The adoption of digital payments has grown exponentially in the country in the last five years, but the credit card business is still struggling to make inroads, he said, adding that he sees an opportunity to expand the credit card base to 200 million over the next five years.

Bejul Somaia​, a Partner at Lightspeed India, said, ​“Nitin and Uni’s team are passionate about unlocking the power of financial services for millions of Indian consumers using new tech-powered solutions. We are excited about their mission and proud to support them from day one.”

Cybersecurity entrepreneur and crypto personality John McAfee’s wild ride could be coming to an end after he was arrested in Spain today, now facing extradition to the US over charges spanning tax evasion and fraud.

The SEC accuses McAfee of being paid more than $23.1 million worth of cryptocurrency assets for promoting a number of ICO token sales without disclosing that he was being paid to do so. Furthermore the DOJ has levied a number of counts of tax evasion against McAfee, saying that he “willfully attempted to evade” payment of income taxes owed to the federal government.

In a brief announcing the arrest and unsealing of indictment documents, the DOJ also details that the charges are confined to McAfee the individual and that they did not find any connection with the “anti-virus company bearing his name.”

The DOJ’s charges against McAfee are a bit dry but detail 10 counts against the entrepreneur. McAfee faced 5 counts of tax evasion, which each carry a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison, as well as 5 counts of “willful failure to file a tax return,” each carrying a maximum penalty of 1 year in prison.

The SEC filing is a much more interesting read, with 55 pages detailing a lengthy investigation into McAfee’s alleged fraudulent activity promoting a number of ICOs throughout 2017 and 2018. The report specifically notes that McAfee allegedly received more than $11.6 million worth of BTC and ETH tokens worth for promoting seven ICOs. Unfortunately, those offerings were not named in the suit. He additionally received $11.5 million worth of the promoted tokens, the suit alleges.

We have reached out to John McAfee for comment.

Venmo’s first credit card is here, a former Amazon employee is arrested for fraud and we review the Nest Audio smart speaker. This is your Daily Crunch for October 5, 2020.

The big story: Venmo launches a credit card

PayPal -owned mobile payment app Venmo already offers a Mastercard-branded debit card, and it announced a year ago that it was planning to launch its first credit card as well. Today, it made good on that promise.

The Venmo Credit Card is a Visa card that offers personalized rewards and 3% cash back on eligible purchases. The cards come in five colors and include the user’s own Venmo QR code on the front.

Naturally, it also integrates with Venmo, allowing customers to track their spending and make payments from the mobile app. The card is currently available to select Venmo users, with plans to launch for the rest of the U.S. in the coming months.

The tech giants

Feds arrest former Amazon employee after company reported him to FBI for fraud — The company says it reported Vu Anh Nguyen to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in July 2020 over allegations of falsely issuing refunds for products ordered on Amazon.com to himself and his associates.

Nest Audio review — Brian Heater says it’s a welcome update to the Google Home.

Instagram expands shopping on IGTV, plans test of shopping on Reels — The product lets you watch a video, then purchase the featured product with a few taps.

Startups, funding and venture capital

Ola fails to get ride-hailing license renewed in London, says it will appeal and continues to operate — The India-based ride-hailing startup is not getting its Transport for London ride-hailing license renewed after failing to meet public safety requirements around licensing for drivers and vehicles.

Cooler Screens raises $80M to bring interactive screens into cooler aisles — Cooler Screens is led by co-founder and CEO Arsen Avakian, who previously was founder and CEO of Argo Tea.

GrubMarket raises $60M as food delivery stays center stage — The startup provides a platform for consumers to order produce and other food and home items for delivery, as well as a service supplying grocery stores, meal-kit companies and other food tech startups with products for resale.

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

Accel VCs Sonali De Rycker and Andrew Braccia say European deal pace is ‘incredibly active’ — De Rycker’s comments point to a future where there is no single center of startup gravity.

Two Kindred Capital partners discuss the firm’s focus and equitable venture model — The London-based VC, which backs early-stage founders in Europe and Israel, recently closed its second seed fund at £81 million.

(Reminder: Extra Crunch is our subscription membership program, which aims to democratize information about startups. You can sign up here.)

Everything else

Camera that will film a spacewalk in VR delivered to the International Space Station — The camera will be used to film a spacewalk in immersive, cinematic VR for the first time ever on an upcoming ISS astronaut mission.

Original Content podcast: Netflix’s ‘Away’ deftly balances space exploration and human drama — I worried that the show might be a bit too weepy and melodramatic, but I was wrong.

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 3pm Pacific, you can subscribe here.

With the president hospitalized, his doctors evading basic questions and an election 29 days away, chaos reigned after Trump tested positive for the virus that’s killed more than 200,000 Americans. Now, after a four-day stay at Walter Reed medical center, the president said he will return to the White House. But more questions than answers remain.

Unlike a normal residence, the White House has its own medical unit, offering “full-time” care and facilities for emergency surgery, including the ability to administer supplemental oxygen — which he previously received at the White House — and even a crash cart for resuscitation.

If the president leaves the hospital Monday evening, the situation could become even more opaque. Trump is eager to return to an image of normalcy, but he’s still a high risk patient in the throes of a wildly unpredictable and deadly virus that seldom charts a linear course to recovery. And because it’s clear that Trump is eager to feign normalcy at any cost with less than a month to go before the election, his return to the White House is not a reliable sign that he’s anywhere near being in the clear.

One result of obfuscating the president’s health? The internet is left to eagerly fill in the gaps.

Top-down misinformation

Doctors provided the first update about the status of Trump’s health on Saturday, but that event backfired, with White House Physician Dr. Sean Conley later admitting that he omitted information in order to keep the president’s spirits high. Conley also threw the timeline of Trump’s diagnosis into question — confusion that’s only been partially resolved since.

The White House’s coronavirus outbreak is a big opening for opportunists, according to Yonder, an AI company that monitors online conversations and tracks disinformation. In an online info ecosystem the company says is “broken,” a fresh crisis is rocket fuel for false claims and conspiracies.

“From groups suggesting the diagnosis was a hoax for political gain to QAnon supporters suggesting it was all part of a plan to isolate and protect the President from his adversaries in the ‘deep state,’ social media continues to act as a weaponized rumor mill,” Yonder CEO Jonathon Morgan said.

“In every case, agenda-driven groups on social media are using another national crisis to their advantage, and obscuring the truth in the process.”

On Friday, left-leaning conspiracy theories like #TrumpCovidHoax posited that the president wasn’t actually sick with COVID at all, suggesting he might have been malingering to elicit sympathy or avoid facing off with Joe Biden after a disastrous debate performance just days earlier.

Those beliefs are still rampant on social media even as the White House’s COVID-19 outbreak sidelines Trump’s own press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and campaign manager Bill Stepien, with the chaos threatening to take Trump’s reelection campaign completely off the rails.

‘Dire’ real-world effects

Hubris about the basic facts of the virus is undeniably what got the White House into this mess to begin with. Last week, a study by Cornell University found that President Trump is indeed the nexus of misinformation about the pandemic, with mentions of his name driving 38 percent of the broader COVID-19 misinformation ecosystem.

“The biggest surprise was that the president of the United States was the single largest driver of misinformation around Covid,” the study’s lead author Sarah Evanega said of the results. “That’s concerning in that there are real-world dire health implications.”

Those dire real-world implications took root over the weekend, as the virus threatened the president’s health seriously enough that his treatment team administered at least three powerful experimental treatments: the monoclonal antibody therapy Regeneron, which is still in clinical trials and not broadly available, the antiviral drug Remdesivir and the steroid Dexamethasone, which is prescribed in severe COVID-19 cases.

Hydroxychloroquine isn’t part of that his current drug cocktail, but the unproven COVID treatment the president touted — and took — earlier this year is again making the rounds online among some of the his supporters who are urging doctors to throw it into the mix.

Stella Immanuel, who was central to the “America’s Frontline Doctors” viral video that pushed false claims about COVID-19 treatments earlier this year, tweeted Friday that “Whoever told the president to stop taking HCQ should be punched in the face.”

In July, Trump called Immanuel an “important voice” who had “tremendous success” treating the virus before claiming that he is not familiar with her moments later.

Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs also tweeted his support for Hydroxychloroquine in the president’s treatment, in spite of the fact that the drug has not been shown to effectively fight the virus.

Circles promoting the pervasive pro-Trump conspiracy theory known as QAnon have their own ideas about the president’s condition, even viewing the Trump’s announcement that he had the virus as a “breadcrumb” encoding a secret message about Hillary Clinton. On Friday, 17 Republicans refused to support a bipartisan House measure condemning QAnon.

QAnon supporter DeAnna Lorraine Tesoriero, who ran a failed bid for Congress, suggested that Trump actually contracted the virus from a microphone at Tuesday’s debate rather than from his open disregard for mask-wearing and social distancing, two measures the CDC and global health experts say effectively reduce transmission.

While misinformation is thriving in the absence of answers about the president’s health, factual medical advice emerged in at least one place amidst the chaos. After initially publishing — and then removing — facts about airborne transmission of the virus, the CDC added that information back to its website on Monday.

According to the CDC’s new guidance, which reflects scientific consensus, the virus can linger in the air for “minutes to hours” and infect people more than six feet away.

The fintech industry is on a tear. Popular consumer services like Robinhood to Coinbase and Revolut have managed to attract millions of customers, but the most interesting trend right now is embedded finance.

Tech companies that don’t necessarily provide financial services can embed services from fintech companies directly in their products. At the same time, fintech companies can find a new distribution channel by providing financial products outside of their main product. They don’t necessarily need a consumer product anymore.

At TechCrunch Disrupt, we talked about this trend and the most important changes in the fintech industry with three experts — Hope Cochran, a managing director at Madrona Venture Group (and former King CFO), Ruth Foxe Blader, a partner at Anthemis, and John Locke, a partner at Accel.

Banking as a service: Every tech company is potentially a fintech company

We started the conversation by talking about banking as a service. For entrepreneurs hoping to launch a fintech company, there are many regulatory requirements and it can take a while to set up the infrastructure.

“If the intention is to offer something else and it happens that you need fintech infrastructure, then it makes no sense to build it yourself,” Cochran said. “They should utilize the banking-as-a-service model. But maybe their intention is to create a true fintech and the secret sauce is to build it.”

Even in the latter case, it doesn’t mean that founders shouldn’t consider banking as a service for the very beginning of their company, as it can serve as a bridge before switching to their own infrastructure.

“But the problem with building it yourself is that it takes years to get it out there and get through the regulatory hurdles and you can’t see if your product and idea are actually working. So if you want to get to market much faster and iterate and see if you’ve hit upon something that will work on the market, I think banking as a service is a really important tool,” Cochran said.

Locke doubled down on that idea and described banking as a service as a massive opportunity for an entire wave of entrepreneurs, but if you don’t launch your product fast enough, another entrepreneur will find a way to enter the market more quickly.

It has been over four years since Project Jacquard, Google’s smart fabric technology, made its debut at the I/O developer conference. Launched out of what was then Google’s ATAP unit, Jacquard is currently best known for being available on Levi’s jeans jackets, but Saint Laurent also launched its $1,000 Cit-e Backpack with built-in Jacquard technology. Today, Google is adding a fourth product to the Jacquard lineup with the launch of the Samsonite Konnect-i backpacker, which, at $200 for the Slim version and $220 for the Standard edition, is a bit more friendly on the wallet than the Saint Laurent backpack.

Jacquard, in case you need a refresher, is Google’s technology for adding touch sensitivity to fabrics. That means you can touch the sleeve of your jacket or, in this case, the strap of your backpack, to trigger a handful of functions on your phone. The whole system is powered by a small tag (which you charge via a mini-USB port). That tag can also relay notifications through its built-in LED and a small vibration motor.

The number of gestures — and what they can trigger — is relatively limited, especially since you can only really assign three gestures: brush up, brush down and double-tap. You can assign standard media controls to these (think brush up for “next song”), drop a pin to save a place, hear the current time, ping your phone, hear directions to your next waypoint or arrival time or trigger the Google Assistant. Gestures can also trigger your phone’s shutter to take a selfie and there’s a “light” function that lights up the Jacquard tag’s LED. Why this last function exists isn’t quite clear to me because that LED is weak. Google says it can help you get noticed in a crowd or stay visible at night, but unless you’re trying to be found in the darkest of caves, nobody will be able to see it.

As you can see, the main idea here is to let you access some of your phone’s functions while walking through the city with your headphones on.

It’s been about a year since Google and Levi’s launched the Jacquard-enabled trucker jacket. At the time, that was the launch of Jacquard 2.0, with a couple of additional features and a new dongle that now works across products. At the time, our review and those from our peers were pretty tepid. I’m not sure it’ll be all that different this time around.

I’ve tried out the backpack for the last few days. Like before, Jacquard does what it promises to do. The gesture recognition worked as expected. Alerts from my phone made the tag vibrate and the backpack itself is comfortable, if not the flashiest entry into the market. It’s a Samsonite, though, and the target market here isn’t necessarily college students but business travelers (though that market is pretty dead for the time being).

The backpack itself comes in two versions: slim and standard. The only real difference here is that the slim version has a vertical zipper and the standard version a horizontal one. It features plenty of pockets, a padded laptop compartment and everything else you’d want from a modern backpack. I could easily see myself going on a business trip with it.

Like before, the question remains whether Jacquard is a gimmick or actually a useful technology. Thanks to the pandemic, most of us aren’t heading out as much as we used to — and we’re definitely not going on a lot of trips. Maybe it’s not the right product for this time, but I can see myself using it more than the jacket once all of this is over. Chances are I’ll use a backpack wherever I go, after all, whereas I don’t wear a jacket half the year.  The promise of Jacquard is to allow you to focus on the world around you, without the distractions of your phone. For that to work, it needs to be ubiquitous or you’ll just forget you ever had it. That works better on a backpack than a jacket — at least for me.

Whether that’s worth $200 to you is a decision you must make for yourself.

Amazon today disclosed that a former employee has been arrested for committing fraud against the online retailer. The company says it reported Vu Anh Nguyen to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in July 2020 fro falsely issuing refunds for products ordered on Amazon.com to himself and his associates. The U.S. Dept. of Justice on Friday brought charges against Nguyen for federal wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, according to court filings.

Nguyen was previously employed with Amazon as a Selling Support Associate based in Tempe, Arizona. In this role, his job involved providing support for Amazon’s third-party sellers and assisting in the creation and management of seller listings using a “Spoofer” account, which allow Amazon employees to view and edit third-party seller accounts.

From these accounts, employees are able to manually authorize refunds for items ordered from third-party sellers, which is how the abuse occurred.

In the criminal complaint, Nguyen is alleged to have committed wire fraud between November 2019 and February 2020 by using his employee access to falsely and fraudulently issue $96,508.13 in refunds to himself and others. These refunds were not requested by legitimate purchasers. During the course of this scheme, Nguyen used or caused the use of interstate wires, the filing states.

The scheme involved approximately 318 unauthorized refunds for orders purchased through eight Amazon accounts belonging to Nguyen and others. These included refunds for high-value items, like computers and electronics, none of which were ever returned to Amazon.

Nguyen also operated two third-party seller accounts, Bullsy and ItemsQuest, where refunds were issued to orders he was shipping to his own home or others had access to.

Nguyen also ordered $222.04 worth of items sent to his home as a part of this scheme, the complaint alleges, then fraudulently authorized a concession refund for the items, allowing him to essentially keep the items without paying.

In addition, on Aug. 14, 2019, Nguyen committed identity theft related to the wire fraud activities by using the name and credit card information belonging to a third-party, the FBI says. This involved an order totaling just $47.80 for household items, like a drawer organizers and cabinet liners.

Nguyen had originally been hired by Amazon on March 4, 2019. His employment was terminated on March 24, 2020 after he ignored repeated attempts by Amazon to reach him about the fraudulent activity the retailer had detected.

Separately from the Amazon fraud case, Nguyen was the target of a Dept. of Justice/FBI investigation for a type of securities fraud known as “free-riding,” which had resulted in losses of approximately $695,000 across eight brokerage firms, the complaint notes. On the SEC.gov website’s post about the litigation release, however, those losses are said to have actually totalled over $1 million.

Amazon, in press release issued today, notes that it has systems in place to mitigate misuse of its tools and to monitor and detect suspicious behavior. These systems had identify the suspicious refunds, prompting its investigation. Amazon then reported the case to the FBI.

The retailer regularly pursues investigations and lawsuits aimed at tackling fraud across its platform. Recently, this included supporting wire fraud charges against four individuals who committed $19 million in a fraudulent invoicing scheme targeting Amazon’s vendor system. It also this summer launched a counterfeit crimes unit to tackle the growing problem with counterfeit products sold on its marketplace, and helped stop multiple fraudulent affiliate marketing schemes.

While many of the fraud schemes involved external parties, sometimes Amazon’s own employees are involved. In September, the U.S. Dept. of Justice charged six people with bribing Amazon employees in exchange for restoring their banned products or services, an indictment alleges, for example. In the past, Amazon employees have also been arrested for merchandise theft.

Amazon offered a brief statement on the new charges involving Nguyen.

“We thank the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation for their swift work to the hold this fraudster accountable,” a spokesperson said. “There is no place for misconduct or fraud at Amazon. We hold our employees to a high bar, have systems in place to proactively prevent fraud, continue to monitor activity, and will pursue all measures to protect our store and hold bad actors accountable.”