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The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Justin Costello for using a false persona, as a Harvard-educated military veteran and hedge fund billionaire, to defraud investors out of millions of dollars. The SEC also charged Costello and David Ferraro, an associate of Costello’s, for promoting the stock of several microcap companies on social media without disclosing their own simultaneous stock sales as market prices rose. According to the SEC’s complaint, Costello portrayed himself to the public as a seasoned, licensed investment professional who was building a conglomerate in the cannabis industry . His alleged false representations included credentials as a Harvard MBA, experience managing a $1.15 billion hedge fund, and years of experience on Wall Street. As alleged in the complaint, Costello used these fabricated accomplishments to secure approximately $900,000 of investments in two different companies from more than 30 investors. As further alleged in the complaint, wh...

Chick-fil-A is under fire for a tweet that social media users said called out a Twitter user’s race. On Friday, Sept. 9, a Twitter user tweeted at the fast food chain, writing, “grilled spicy deluxe but still noooo spicy nuggets…………@ChickfilA…..” In direct response to the tweet, the official Twitter account for Chick-fil-A responded, “Your community will be the first to know if spicy items are added to the permanent menu, Don!” While the initial tweet only had six replies, Chick-fil-A’s response garnered more than 700 replies and 4,300 quote tweets due to the choice of wording used in the message. Many Twitter users called out the account’s decision to use the term “your community,” questioning if they were targeting the user’s identity, which appears to be Black. “What do you mean by ‘your community’???????” one tweet read.  Another user added , “Your community? I’m gonna need explanation for that comment. ‘Our’ community wouldn’t wanna think that there was some racial undertones beh...

d3sign | Moment | Getty Images Identity crime involving government benefits, social media accounts and other scams jumped by 36% in 2021 to an all-time high, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center. The good news is that there are several ways individuals can protect themselves. About 15,000 people reported an identity-related crime or attempted fraud in 2021, up from roughly 11,000 in 2020, according to the ITRC, which published a recent analysis based on internal data. Incidents have increased by 49% since 2015. That annual growth mirrors trends in overall fraud tracked by the Federal Trade Commission. Consumers reported 5.9 million total scams to the federal agency in 2021, a 20% increase compared with 2020. Identity theft was the top culprit, accounting for more than 1.4 million complaints. More from Personal Finance: Why workers have the 'upper hand' in the job market 4 steps to take before applications open for student loan forgiveness Social Security could be ...

The Internal Revenue Service is on the brink of a major funding infusion from Congress that Democrats and agency workers say is badly needed to boost efficiency and revenues, but the plan has inflamed critics on the right who see the IRS as a tool of government overreach, as disinformation around the proposal swirls on social media and cable news . At the IRS office in Cincinnati, where Will Kohler works as a tax examiner, supply shortages mean he sometimes has to use his own pens and paper clips. He has even brought in paper for the copy machine over his 10 years there, which he says is just part of the job at the chronically paperbound and technologically outdated agency. Kohler and other IRS employees said the $80 billion spread out over a decade contained in the Inflation Reduction Act — the Democrats' climate and spending bill expected to pass the House on Friday — would help address bottlenecks partly due to staffing issues, which can add delays and complications for taxpaye...