The inside story,poor workers = See no evil

I have been thinking about this debit card scam and, the only conclusion I can come to is employees are involved!

I use debit card often, up in our little town and down in the big city, (I visit Maple Ridge and Burnaby monthly) the stores I frequent have debit pin pads that can`t go beyond the counter, there are employees waiting to hand me my receipt so how in the hell are these pin pads altered? I could see them possibly being completely swapped out for another,identical pin pad but.

I recognize the pin pads at the stores I frequent on the sunshine coast, they have markings, stickers, identifiable markings, and, if I can recognize the pin pads certainly employees can recognize their own pin pads.

This fraud is completely preventable....For example, how about putting small happy face sticker on the pad,a sticker that crosses the seam(where it opens) a simple happy face sticker or some other identifying marks on the pad that would immediately turn on a light bulb in the store clerks head! Of course the banks are aware of this type of fraud for years, an alarm,emergency shut down,all of these items have been available to the banks for years.

But this latest scam was of biblical proportions, dozens of debit card machines and millions of dollars and yet....I never heard of one person caught or chased off in attempting to tinker or alter a debit pad, and that begs the question....There is more going on here than meets the eye isn`t there?

Being a avid reader, there has been so many stories about people,con men that have stolen,defrauded,embezzled millions of dollars and when finally caught and sentenced they end up serving but a couple of years, so the penal system in Canada certainly isn`t a deterrent to these criminals.

Now I like to examine stories and I try to think outside of the box, here in BC, the most expensive province to live in with the lowest minimum wage,highest real estate prices in Canada and for the most part, young people even earning 10.00$ per hour are unable to rent anything! Nada,nothing, in fact a person needs to make 16.70 $ per hour to have even a chance at renting a decent place and having a few bucks left over spend, now I am no longer a teenager but I try to put myself in their shoes, working for peanuts, no money left over for living, car buying, entertainment, partying...

So if I was a young person today knowing that the justice system isn`t going to lock me up, and if some Armenian person,eastern European, or other recruited me for say....5.000.00$ to look the other way while they alter,manipulate, swap out the debit card pin pad.....Well, that would be very enticing.

The Employee, the recruitee.....It would be next to impossible to prove that they were a willing partner in this fraud, anyways, this fraud on this scale was done with the help of employees, and the more unaffordable, the more expensive this province becomes,the more Campbell taxes and raises costs to families the more of this type of activity will occur.

Could you imagine being a young person today with just a little education and the thought of trying to buy a 500.000.00$ dwelling, expensive car insurance,expensive food, HST, MSP..expensive beer, expensive tobacco, expensive rent, expensive transit, and you look at your pay cheque, 6.00$ starter wage or 8.00$ minimum wage , well it would certainly make me depressed and considering teenagers are depressed anyways well....You see folks, that`s why the underground economy is rampant in Europe, that`s why corruption in south America and Mexico and other third world countries is rampant because average people,workers, citizens.

Are being left in the dust,being sold out, left to twist in the wind and fend for themselves either by hook or by crook!

The Straight Goods

Cheers-Eyes Wide Open