Credit Card Fraud – After Death
As a complete afterthought to the previous post and not directly related, when my wfe died, I couldn’t find one of her credit cards and ended up at the security department of a major credit card company. As it happened, she had probably cancelled the card as we could find no trace.
But the guy I spoke to, gave me the fact that a lot of credit card fraud, involves creating new cards for people who have just died. The criminals would often use the notices in papers and then quickly create an ID. Whether it would work now I don’t know. But beware!
Credit Card Security – A Picture?
On Tuesday, I wrote about another credit card scam.
It strikes me that the Internet has moved on with things like Twitter, Facebook and all of the other social media. But institutions like banks seem to be very much stuck in the last century when it comes to embracing, not the social media, but the technology that drives it.
For instance, go into your average shop, supermarket or garage, the till is unlikely to be something archaic, but a computer with a screen, masquerading as a sophisticated money-taking terminal. So when I put my credit card in the card reader, this computer can do, and I hope it does, a lot more than just check the pin code.
As an example, we should be able to upload other data to our card account. For instance, suppose I uploaded the registration of my vehicles to the bank. Then in a garage, I could choose that these were displayed to the operator, so that if I was not in a named vehicle, he could check the card further. I think that only once in the last five years, have I filled up with fuel, without knowing the vehicle number. And that was when I collected a new horse box from Newbury.
But other things could be done. Why can’t I upload a picture to my credit card company, that is then used on my card? I’d probably put one of the Lotus. So if my card was cloned and suspicions raised, then it would be easy to check that it wasn’t the correct card. Perhaps, a description but not the picture could be downloaded to the terminal. After all if this said “yellow Lotus Elan” and it was a plain red card, this should ring a few bells.
But we could also upload a personal photo, that we gave permission to be downloaded when we used our card. It would probably only mean that if a few percent of cards had a picture on them, then criminals would be wary of using all cards in shops and garages. I suppose they could check that a card was picture enabled, but that would mean that they would have to do a purchase in a dodgy retailer, thus leaving a trail.
I also wonder too, why you can’t have SMS messages enabled on your card or bank balance. Say once a day, you get a balance and you are informed of every transaction over a preset limit. I can look all this up on the Internet, but it would not be difficult terchnology to impliment and I’d pay a few pence for the messages.
This are only a few of my thoughts.
But we have to ask, why banks and credit card companies are not thinking much more like the general population.
After all, according to many sources, bank and credit card fraud is going to get much worse. I also don’t believe that they can beat it on their own and they need all the help they can get. And especially from those with most to lose; their customers.
Beware of Calls from VISA/Mastercard
I’ve just had a call from an undisclosed International number saying they were VISA/Mastercard security and that there was a problem. I put the phone down on them, as I know the scam. If it’s the one indicated, they know your address and credit card number and they’re after your pin, with some cock and bull story.
Don’t ever type anything in.
I’ve had about six International calls that I did not answer in the last month or so. I suspect it’s the same crooked scam.
Zopa’s 300,000th Member
In their July Newsletter, Zopa has said this.
In the last week, we also recruited our 300,000th member – meaning that we’re now officially bigger than Belfast!
That’s a lot of members. It would be interesting to know how many have actually lent or borrowed.
But that figure does illustrate how many people now know about the concept.
Is it Usury?
I was rather surprised that Provident Financial, who reported good results this week, charge some of its customers an interest rate of up to 545% on loans. Martin Narey of Barnardos is not amused. And neither am I!
But to criticise the company is wrong, as they are merely filling a gap in the financial services market, that should be catered for by micro-finance companies and credit unions. As to the latter it has always puzzled me why they have such a low profile in this country, compared to the United States. They seem to be ideal for the times and also for lending small amounts of money in more stretched communities. Especially, as any profits stay in that community.
Could it be that the regulations are framed to protect the banks? After all, no credit union has ever taken the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the British Grand Prix or other major sporting event. And they probably don’t pay anything to the government, except perhaps VAT and Income Tax for employees.
At least though, the spam I used to get from doorstep lenders like Providential has stopped. (They didn’t send any incidentally! Or not to me at any rate!) This offered me loans at high rate and it came from spam companies in the United States. However, a letter to my MP, who talked to the government, stopped the process in days.
There’s another moral in that tale. Don’t underestimate the power of your MP! If you have a problem write to them!
Gambling, Zopa and On-Line Bots
A strange thing is that since I’ve been using Zopa, I have cut down my gambling on things like horse racing.
I think that using Zopa is a bit like on-line gambling with a bit of the same buzz, as you check the results of what has happened every day about 10:30 at night. Or it certainly seems so to me. But perhaps I’m more an information man, than a true gambler.
Whilst we’re looking at gambling, there is an interesting site, which talks about on-line bots, that do automatic processing on gambling, foreign exchange and other sites.
Not for me!
Computers are great slaves, but bad masters.
BigZopa.com
I’m convinced that Zopa is working. I get a good return and judging by the number of people who apply for loans who have good credit ratings, it provides a service for discriminating people who need to borrow money. I tend to think that anybody can lend money to those with bad credit ratings.
At present Zopa has a borrowing limit of £15,000, but what if you created BigZopa.com and had a limit of £1,000,000. You would obviously need a lot more money to be paid in, but it would be an interesting place to put corporate money.
The economies of scale would mean that the system would cost about the same to run as the current system. But it would obviously cost a lot more for the due diligence.
But BigZopa.com will come.
Incidentally, BigZopa.com is available to register. Try Low Cost Names.
Zopa Demand Increases
I keep track of the amount of money that is requested on Zopa.
Over the last few months it has risen substantially, as on April 1, 2009 it was £3.5 million and now as I write on the 14th July it is hovering around the £10 million mark. In other words demand has increased three times in three and a half months.
Incidentally, interest rates have firmed up in that period and started rising towards the end of April.
I still only have the one bad debt and accounts in arrears are about the same they were in April.
This means that my return is still at present just over five percent. But that includes all the money tied up in Zopa and not just that lent out.
Money-Go-Round
I remembered this term about Rossminster and just out of curiosity I searched the Internet for the term.
I came across this piece on the Bank of England’s web site, with that title. Judging by the picture I think it is about informing children about how banks work.
Banks work because we trust them. We are confident that they will keep our money safe, make it grow and give it back to us when we ask for it. But did you know that as soon as we give the bank our money, it gives it to someone else? This is because a bank is like any other business, the difference being that their product is money. Banks use money to make money.
Make your own conclusions.
Rossminster
Rossminster was a company in the late 1970s and 1980s that were tax consultants. Others thought they were tax avoidance merchants, but as my memory is not that good and it relies on a couple of articles I read thirty years ago in The Sunday Times, I couldn’t possibly comment. But as they got full page articles in The Sunday Times, they were obviously significant or had very good friends.
You have to remember that in those days the top tax rate was eighty percent. Yes! Eighty percent! And therefore there was a massive industry that wasted some of the best brains in the City of London to save people money. Gordon Brown should realise that high tax rates never collect money, as those brains in the City are much better than those at his disposal. And infinitely better than his.
The Sunday Times or some other newspaper christened their methods the “Money-go-Round”, in that if I remember correctly money was moved between accounts and the theory was that if it wasn’t there long enough you couldn’t tax it. I’m probably wrong there, and if anybody knows the real story correct me.
But I know I’m right about lots of accounts and lots of transfers as I was asked to quote for a computer system for the company.
I was introduced to the company by a friend, who was incidentally one of the bank managers to Rossminster. I suspect he saw the potential for revenue for his bank from all those transfers. It would be typical, as he was one of the few bank managers I’ve ever met, who looked upon businesses in a radical way, that was for everyone’s mutual benefit.
In some ways he was a rogue, but a rogue on the side of the angels.
He finally left the bank, as a main board director, to care for his wife who was gravely ill.
One day, I’ll put a book together of the stories he told me. But I’ll wait a few years yet.
The Anonymous Widower 