“Elegance is refusal” - Coco Chanel
16th October 2020 / Issue #391
giffgaff Happenings
by bluemoonbaz
Our second golden goodybag is coming October 20th - with 5G
Well here’s some information that will grab you, our second golden goodybag! For £35, you’ll get unlimited UK calls, texts, and unlimited 5G UK mobile internet every month you recur. Head over here and read the news and add your comments.
September 2020 Payback Calculations updated 🥳
Wow, that month went quickly, but hey! Who doesn’t like to see Alex’s payback update 🙂. Head over here for all the details.
End of Year Charity Nominations 2020 Now Open
Yes, it’s time for us members to choose a shortlist of charities. We have until October 26th at 1pm, you can choose nominations on the link added below and take the top five charities through to the voting phase, which will decide how much money is donated to the final 5 charities. A daily update and summary on nomination totals can be found here. Direct your feedback here.
Welcome to the 2020 Members Hot Deals & Tips: October 2020
In these uncertain times 😷 and with the festive period coming soon, it’s great to see our members helping each other get the best deals and savings. See the thread here.
Monthly agent update (September 2020)
Our monthly update from @h_henna gives us a window into how our giffgaff agents are performing over the month.
Cake Corner - the baking chat thread 🍰
This month’s theme is 🎃 Halloween 🎃. Head over here and share your baking successes and disasters. Let’s all see your creations and get some ideas on how to make or bake 😉.
Our weekly roundup from your fellow members’ recent discussions and or interesting posts
Say Hello!
by kathleen414
A big welcome to giffgaff to our new friend @pixel25 who popped onto the community and left us this lovely message: “Hi everyone, I have just joined giffgaff and loving it so far! Great signal and great price! Looking forward to finding out what the community is all about 😁” Say hello to our new recruit here.
@marii10 says “I have been with giffgaff for a few years but it’s my first time posting on here. So just wanted to say a quick hello to you all.” It’s fab to see you have found our community and we hope you’re staying with us now 🧡. Head over here and say hello.
Please give our homecoming member @meritez a hug on their return 🤗. It’s always lovely to welcome back members to the community 🧡. Say hello here.
Happy giffgaffiversary!
by ijustcantdoit
It’s my giffgaff Birthday Party today
@pinks29 says “Well it’s gone quick, but it’s my 2nd year Anniversary today with giffgaff. Here’s to a few more years. Nice to be on the forum chatting with all you nice people including giffgaff team. Have a piece of this virtual 🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂 plus a hug 🤗.”
5 years at giffgaff
@cass905 says “Oh my gosh 5 years and I’m still loving this place! I cannot believe its been 5 years here it’s been really really lovely. There has been ups and downs but mainly ups! I want to shout from rooftops giffgaff is great.”
9 years with giffgaff 🥳🥳🥳🥳
@karenyates says “Well that went quickly but definitely one of the best choices I’ve made when came to giffgaff 😉.”
10 years today
@isabel1066 says “Since joining giffgaff I thought it was November but I’ve had the email from them.”
If it’s YOUR giffgaffiversary, please let the team know by sending a private message to @ijustcantdoit.
Photo Of The Week
by brulaw
This week’s featured photo is outside my mum and dads house there is a ….. by @cps15966. Some of the comments on the photo include:
- “That’s so beautiful! Is it a field maple do you think? You should take more photos as the colours change, I bet it’s going to look stunning over the next few weeks.” (catherinelaw)
- “Wow what a beautiful colourful tree. It’s absolutely lovely.” (lollsxx)
- “That is beautiful. I love seeing the trees changing colour as autumn progresses.” (simone_w)
- “Your parents are lucky to have a beautiful tree outside there house good photo.” (pete131347)
- “Autumn colours are so amazing, sadly its followed by winter.” (otbc11)
Another great week for stunning pictures, it seems that no matter what the weather you all still get out there and get these lovely photos to share with everyone. As always, thank you all and please keep snapping and sharing on the Photography forum.
On This Day In History
by jammydodge
1834 The original Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament) was almost totally destroyed in a devastating fire originating from an overheated chimney flue. Only Westminster Hall and a few parts of the old Palace survived.
Source: Wikipedia
1958 The first episode of children’s television programme ‘Blue Peter’ was broadcast on the BBC with presenters Leila Williams and Christopher Trace.
Source: Daily Mail / BBC Picture Archives
Tech Developments
by revilo10
FinCEN Files: A gaff deep dive - Part 1
After a short break, Tech Developments is back, with our biggest deep dive yet. Let us begin with money, we all use it, and trillions of pounds move around the world every single day, from bank account to bank account, country to country, entity to entity. We trust banks to look after our money and we’re all familiar with the features and procedures banks use to help prevent fraud. However, billions upon billions of pounds of dirty, dark money moves around the world every year - and recently it was exposed how banks have failed over the past few decades to properly report, stop and track this money which has flowed through accounts under their control.
You may have seen the FinCEN files hit the headlines a few weeks ago, but what are they? FinCEN is a department of the U.S government’s treasury, and late in 2019, a source leaked thousands of papers and reports to Buzzfeed News, who then shared the files with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), who then grouped together a team of hundreds of journalists from 88 countries. For the last year, this team has dedicated thousands of hours to going through these reports, which list thousands of suspicious transactions from some of the world’s biggest banks which were reported to FinCEN, but the money still moved. Some of these banks include HSBC, Barclays, JP Morgan, Standard Chartered and many more. The reports and papers detail these transactions and how the banks failed and even allowed the transactions to flow through their systems.
Thanks to connections with a group of journalists The gaff and Tech Developments has managed to get a hold of some of the reports and transaction lists which helps us expose these dirty transactions and help tell the story of how dark money has made its way around the world. We will also be exploring the story of WCM777, a Ponzi scheme run by a Chinese man known as Ming Xu, which led to the death of one of its investors and was allowed to run through HSBC’s accounts and which the bank was warned about previously.
Join us next week where we will dive into the first part of this investigation.
Sources: ICIJ, Buzzfeed News, BBC, Anonymous Source.
Thanks for reading!
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