Bitcoin fraudsters using images of celebrities including Deborah Meaden and Martin Lewis, charity warns

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Victims tricked into transferring a total of £34,000 by fraudsters in 21 separate cases last month
Cryptocurrency scammers are using the faces of celebrities including Deborah Meaden and money saving expert Martin Lewis to convince people to part with their cash, Action Fraud has warned.
Consumers were tricked into transferring a total of £34,000 by fraudsters in 21 separate cases last month, the charity said.
Adverts on social media and websites use images of the individuals to promote the investments including bitcoin, but in reality the money is simply stolen. The posts link to websites where people put in their contact details.
Read more Half of UK companies 'have been victims of fraud or economic crime' The scammers then phone would-be investors to convince them to transfer funds.
Mr Lewis said he found it “sickening” that scam artists were “leeching” off the trust of his audience.
“Let me be very plain,” he said. “I never do adverts. If you see my picture in a..

Heinz sparks international outrage with new 'mayochup' condiment

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Company accused of 'cultural appropriation', ;gentrifying' and 'colonising' beloved dressing
It all started with a tweet about a condiment.
Heinz, the popular ketchup brand, took to Twitter with a poll about a potential product launch, a concept they billed as novel to American consumers: a pre-made combination of mayonnaise and ketchup.
They called it “mayochup”.
“Want #mayochup in stores? 500,000 votes for ‘yes’ and we’ll release it to you saucy Americans,” the company tweeted.
While the product is already available in some countries in the Middle East, Heinz said it wanted to know if Americans would be receptive to a “US debut”.
Read more Heinz creates ‘chocolate mayonnaise’ in time for Easter The votes poured forth, totalling more than 680,000 by Friday morning. And so did the headlines: “’Mayochup’ is the hybrid condiment you never knew you wanted,” Business Insider wrote, adding “this beige-coloured condiment isn’t a prank.”
NBC’s Today wrote ..

Bulging Debt May Spell Trouble for Energy, Telecom and Retail

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Bulging Debt May Spell Trouble for Energy, Telecom and Retail While many companies have shrewdly taken advantage of rock-bottom interest rates over the last decade, in industries like retail, energy and telecommunications, bulging debt is a burden that investors may need to worry about.
Many retailers, for example, have been struggling with competition from online giants like Amazon and Walmart. The debt of major companies like Neiman Marcus, PetSmart and Sears is already rated as speculative (also known as high-yeld or junk). And Diane Vazza, head of global fixed-income research at Standard & Poor’s, said many debt-laden retailers have already suffered credit downgrades this year. These include Sears, Payless and Guitar Center Holdings.
Once a company’s debt is downgraded to speculative from investment grade, it may find the footing more slippery. Companies that fall into speculative grade ratings (B- or lower in the S.&P. ratings system) tend to accelerate toward even lower ratings, ..

Brexit: UK faces up to 100,000 job losses under new proposal to strip UK of euro business

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Mr Weber, who heads the European People’s Party, the largest group in the European Parliament, said that it was not conceivable that euro-denominated business could remain in London
Around 100,000 jobs may now be at risk after a top EU lawmaker warned that financial business denominated in euros must move from the UK to the EU after Brexit.
“People expect that we do the euro business and all the business which is linked to the euro on European soil,” said Manfred Weber, a political ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker
Mr Weber, who heads the European People’s Party, the largest group in the European Parliament, said that it was not conceivable that euro-denominated business could remain in London.
Read more European parliament leader demands UK be stripped of all euro business Mr Weber said the EU should support its own financial hubs such as Paris, Frankfurt, Dublin and Amsterdam.
Financial transactions can currently be ..

Jaguar Land Rover to cut 1,000 UK jobs as Brexit hits the motor industry

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Car maker said it remains committed to is UK plants despite the role reductions
Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is cutting 1,000 of its UK contractor roles, blaming continued difficult trading conditions in the motor market.
The job cuts are due to a fall in sales caused by uncertainty around Brexit and confusion over diesel policy, a source told Reuters.
Read more UK car registrations fall for 12th consecutive month The car maker said it “regularly reviews its production schedules to ensure market demand is balanced globally”.
A spokesperson for Jaguar, which employs more than 40,000 people around the world, said: “In light of the continuing headwinds impacting the car industry, we are making some adjustments to our production schedules and the level of agency staff. We are however continuing to recruit large numbers of highly skilled engineers, graduates and apprentices as we are over-proportionally invest in new products and technologies.
“We also remain committed to our UK plants..

Bits: Kevin’s Week in Tech: Another Facebook-Free Edition

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Kevin’s Week in Tech: Another Facebook-Free Edition Photo Steve Huffman, the chief executive of Reddit, clarified the online forum’s policies by saying, “To be perfectly clear, while racism itself isn’t against the rules, it’s not welcome here.” Credit Jason Henry for The New York Times Each week, Kevin Roose, technology columnist at The New York Times, discusses developments in the tech industry, offering analysis and maybe a joke or two. Want this newsletter in your inbox? Sign up here.
Well, friends, we did it again. We got through another week of wall-to-wall news about Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg’s two-day marathon of congressional testimony is over, and if you had better things to do than spend 10 hours watching a group of lawmakers ask an internet billionaire how computers work, you can catch up on our coverage here. (Or here, here, here, here, here, here, here or here. We’ve been busy.)
But as always, there is more to tech news than Facebook. So here are a few other stories that ..

JPMorgan profits soar 35% thanks to Donald Trump's tax cuts

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US Congress slashed the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% in December as part of a major overhaul pushed for by president
JPMorgan’s profits jumped 35 percent in the last quarter, compared to a year ago, partly thanks to a huge tax cut.
Congress slashed the corporate tax rate from 35 per cent to 21 per cent in December as part of a major overhaul pushed for by President Donald Trump that also cut taxes for wealthy individuals.
Higher interest rates also helped to boost profits, JPMorgan said.
Read more JPMorgan could cut more than 4,000 UK jobs, says Dimon The bank earned $8.7bn (£6.1bn) in the first quarter, or $2.37 a share, up from $6.45bn, in the same period a year earlier. Analysts had predicted JPMorgan would earn $2.28 a share.
Pre-tax income rose by $2.6bn to $28.52bn in the quarter, the company paid $240 million less in taxes compared to a year earlier.
“2018 is off to a good start with our businesses performing well across the board, driving strong top-line growth..