A global crackdown on social media money gurus begins
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A global crackdown on social media money gurus begins. Live from the UK, this is the Marketplace Global Update from the BBC World Service. I'm Leanna Byrne. Good morning. So the financial regulators from the UK, Australia and the UAE are teaming up this week to crack down on dodgy financial advice on social media. They're targeting so-called finfluencers. And no, they're not shark enthusiasts. They're online personalities pushing unauthorised investment tips.

The BBC's Kevin Peachey has more.

This week's action across six countries has led to three arrests in the UK. The FCA says it will result in 650 requests for deletions from social media and 50 takedowns of websites operated by unauthorised influencers. Kevin Peachy there. Meanwhile, India's central bank has made its steepest rate cut in five years, slashing its key interest rate by 50 basis points to 5.5%.

The move is aimed at boosting growth as inflation falls to a six-year low. The BBC's Archana Shukla is in Mumbai and looking at this for us. Hello. Hi, Leanna. This is quite a significant rate cut, isn't it? This is a bolder than expected cut. Some of the economists that I spoke with say that it clearly shows that growth is possibly not picking up and needs a big push. Remember,

for the last financial year that ended March, India reported its slowest pace of growth in four years at 6.5%. And then there is this big looming threat of these tariffs. So with this rate cut coming down, borrowing would become easier and would help people spend more when it

also helped the Reserve Bank of India was lower inflation. In the last couple of months, we've seen inflation come down under the target range and that gives him room to cut this interest rate. So can you see that lower interest rate feeding into the wider economy? Well, certainly. India's

Thank you.

And this is what will get a boost with this rate cut. The BBC's Archana Shukla, thank you so much for joining us on Marketplace. Thank you, Liana. Now let's see the numbers. ♪

Global stock markets are a little subdued as investors await key U.S. jobs data that could shape the Fed's next move. And Tesla shares clawed back some ground after a dramatic feud between Donald Trump and Elon Musk wiped $150 billion off its value. Meanwhile, hopes of a thaw in U.S.-China trade tensions is helping to steady nerves and oil and gold prices have edged higher.

Here's a question. How can you spot if a website is fraudulent? And if it is, what can you do to take it down? The minor scam set the BBC's James Graham on a quest. It all started with good intentions. I wanted to buy my brothers a present. This is my son, 12-year-old Eric.

explaining a bad shopping experience. I went on the website and it gives really trustworthy reviews and it never arrived. I mean, it arrived in a digital download, but they pretty much scammed us. The site suggested real posters at great prices, but all we received was an email with a few links, supposedly to digital downloads. It turns out this was mentioned in the small print and

On the review site, Trustpilot, there were more than 80 reviews, all negative. Here are a few read by BBC producers. Complete scam. The site's designed and worded to mislead you into thinking you're going to receive a physical product. Says free worldwide delivery. Takes your address and then doesn't send the poster. We'd only lost $30, but I called my bank and sent a report to UK fraud body Action Fraud. In the meantime, I tried to look into the ownership of the site.

The global domain name system is managed by a non-profit called ICANN. It has a site called Lookup which gives some information.

This led me to a company called 2Cows in Toronto, which sells and manages domain names. It's actually one of the biggest in the world. My name is Reg Levy and I'm Associate General Counsel for 2Cows Domains. I asked Reg what steps are taken when a potential scam site has been reported. We work closely with law enforcement, with abuse reporters and with our partners in the industry to

to look at the domain and evaluate whether or not there is something going on and then identify who is best situated to take action. Often it is the hosting company because the domain name registrar cannot remove content from a domain name.

All we can do is remove the domain completely from the internet. So the content is still on the internet and can easily be linked to a new domain. And that's why we typically say that the hosting company is best situated to remove the content. In this case, the host was Shopify, the online payments giant also headquartered in Canada. With Shopify, you have everything you need to supercharge your business all in one place.

Shopify was also processing the payments. It has a complaints process, so I sent an email and got this reply, voiced by a producer.

To discuss this issue further, please contact the store directly. Please note there will be no follow-up from Shopify on your report. I wanted to ask Shopify if it was doing enough here, but despite sending several emails to its media team, I've still had no response. This felt like a dead end. And as a consumer, I've seen firsthand how hard it is to get smaller scam sites shut down. Perhaps the best strategy for staying safe online is vigilance.

Katja Raider is from the UK Consumer magazine, which... If a price seems too good to be true, then it probably is. Don't feel pressured into making any purchases and always do your research. As for my case, the bank refunded the money, but action fraud said there were no lines of inquiry for the police to pursue. The site is still up and people are still complaining on Trustpilot...

In the UK, I'm the BBC's James Graham for Marketplace. Poor old James. And finally, Beyonce's country era has landed in London, complete with rhinestones, tassels and even a mechanical bull. But while the show dazzled, slow ticket sales and high prices have been the hot topic. Some fans were left fuming over ticket prices, with last-minute deals undercutting early buyers by hundreds of dollars. Nah.

I'm sure it's worth it to see in Queen Bay. I'm Leanna Byrne with the Marketplace Morning Report from the BBC World Service. Really quick before you go, please complete a short anonymous survey by going to marketplace.org forward slash survey. It should only take about 10 minutes. And as a token of our appreciation, you can enter your name to win a $75 gift card when you've completed the survey. You do all of us at Marketplace a huge favor by filling it out.