Tess

One thing worth adding because it catches careful people: do not reply to the message at all, even to say no.

A response confirms the account is live and that somebody reads their messages, which is worth something to whoever sent it. These are usually sent in bulk, and the ones that answer get worked on properly: a phone call, a more convincing story, urgency.

Block and report the message, then deal with the money through the bank only. Every conversation about it should be with people you contacted using a number you already had.

On question 3, a valuation of a company with no revenue is a price for a probability distribution, not an estimate of present worth.

Nobody investing at that stage thinks the company is worth what they paid today. They think there is some chance it becomes worth a great deal, and they are buying a lottery ticket whose price reflects that chance and the size of the prize. Most of those tickets end up worth nothing, and the pricing openly assumes that.

Which is why "valued at" and "worth" are different words that get used interchangeably in headlines. The first is what somebody paid for a slice under specific terms. The second implies you could sell the whole thing for that, which is almost never true.

Take them one at a time, because each reading answers a different question and people run them together.

14.5V running tells you the alternator is producing. That is a genuine pass and you can stop suspecting it. It does not tell you the battery is accepting the charge, those are different things, and this is the confusion in what you have read.

11.5V after sitting is the important one. A healthy lead-acid battery at rest sits around 12.6-12.7V. 12.4 is about half charged. 11.5 is essentially flat, and getting there ten minutes after being charged means it is not holding what the alternator put in.

10V under the starter's load is then just the consequence.

So the shape of your evidence is: charging system fine, battery not retaining. That is a failing battery or something pulling it down overnight, which is your question 2.

"Not a gimmick and not a solution" is about the level of confidence the packaging deserved. Good to know the mechanism is at least the right one.

For question 3, yes, and it is entirely artificial.

An electric motor at zero throttle produces no torque and would simply sit still. Early electric cars did exactly that, and testers and drivers found low-speed manoeuvring unnerving: the car felt like it might roll away, and precise parking took real concentration.

So manufacturers wrote creep back in. The software applies a small amount of torque when the car is in Drive, the brake is released and speed is near zero: a deliberate simulation of a mechanical accident from a technology the car does not contain.

Most let you switch it off, and it is usually paired with the one-pedal driving setting. Worth trying both for a week: people are split, and the ones who dislike creep tend to dislike it strongly.