What's Your Mother's Maiden Name?

In 2008 there were 77,600 cases of identity theft reported to CIFAS[1], the United Kingdom's fraud prevention service. By 2012 this figure had risen to 123,600 and although it fell slightly in 2013 (to 108,500), identity theft is the UK's fastest growing method of criminal activity. Whether it is phishing, or vishing, shoulder surfing or card skimming at the ATM, or old fashioned rooting through rubbish for  bank statements and the like, there are so many vulnerable points in our lives that a thief could exploit and with each new piece of technology that comes along, those vulnerabilities increase. Just recently the news has carried stories of the threat to the public posed by thieves intercepting data from contactless payment cards and with Apple Pay just having been launched there will doubtless come tales of security vulnerabilities and fraud through that medium in the not too distant future.

Any vulnerabilities in Apple Pay will come to light, sooner or later.

From the individual's perspective, the fight against fraud and identity theft is similar to the security services' fight against the terrorist; the fraudsters only have to get lucky once while the public have to be ever vigilant, a difficult task when the crooks are perpetually innovating new techniques to part us from our money. The current method of choice appears to be the vishing scam where the fraudsters dupe their victims into withdrawing or transferring large sums of money from their bank accounts or deceive them into handing over their bank cards and revealing their PIN. One might think that with the amount of publicity these scams have received there would be no one left gullible enough to be taken in, but apparently there remain enough people unaware or easily duped for this form of fraud to remain popular and just last November two couples in Tunbridge Wells lost £57,000 between them. Even ex-bank managers can be fooled; a Nat West manager with 40 years' service is among victims of this type of crime.

Got one of these? You are at risk.

Touch wood, I've not had any of these sorts of calls. I have had calls advising me that I've recently been involved in an accident (not surprisingly, when I ask for details the caller is unaware of any) and I've had plenty of calls asking me to take part in surveys. To date I've also not had any calls purporting to be from Windows Support, but I did have a weird call some years ago that illustrates how even the most careful of us can get taken in.

Having working in banking for many years, and in the last couple years of my time in the bank in Risk Management, you would think that I would be quite familiar with the type of phone call that might be suspicious, but the call I had proved how easily one can be taken in, especially if you are off your guard.

It happened one evening. The phone rang and a chap introduced himself as being in BT's sales department. Would I be interested in broadband? he asked, and as it happens I was. We'd been discussing getting broadband as we were becoming increasingly frustrated by the slow speeds and inconvenience of dial-up, so I said yes. Of course had I actually already had broadband or just not been interested, this would have gone no further, but as it was the timing made me vulnerable. The man on the other end of the phone talked me through the process, but first he had to ask some security questions, didn't he? and like a patsy, I answered them, including the ubiquitous mother's maiden name question. He concluded the call by telling me that my new broadband router would be delivered within the week and that if I had any problems, to call 150, the usual BT contact number.

A week or so passed and no sign of the new router, so I called 150 and enquired about its whereabouts. BT had no record of the order. Fortunately I had the name of the guy who had called me, so I asked to speak to him. They had no one of that name in the sales department; they did have a senior executive with that name, but obviously he would not have been making sales calls! As you might imagine, I hung up on that call with a degree of unease and at the earliest opportunity checked my bank and credit card accounts for any suspicious activity; there was none. What I probably ought to have done, and certainly would do now, was check my credit score. In fact, out of interest , because I'm  writing this, and because there are all sorts of nasty things happening out there that we are all blissfully unaware of, I just checked my score, which was interesting. Even more interesting is how much information there is about us all out there in the ether and how easily and quickly this can be aggregated and used both by us and by legitimate enquirers.

Apart from the huge raft of publicity about scam calls, my "BT" experience has made me highly suspicious of any unexpected phone call, suspicious to the extent of treating calls from legitimate sources with some distrust. My bank phoned me a couple of weeks ago and in truth I was half expecting the call, which was about a new Standing Order instruction.  I fully understand why, even though they have phoned me on the number they have in their records, they wanted to ask me a few security questions but even this call was one I was initially very cautious about. A former colleague of mine had a call purporting to be from his bank (and as he worked for the same bank you can understand why he was suspicious when they started asking unexpected "security" questions), which he quickly identified as fraudulent by answering one question incorrectly and not being corrected.  I have found that a tactic that usually deters callers like those who want to undertake surveys or sell you something or help you following your "accident" is to answer every question with a question, or better yet ask lots of questions of your own before they get the chance to ask any themselves. Genuine callers will field your questions, the scammers will lose patient and hang up. I have made it my mission to get the cold callers to hang up first and by and large I've succeeded.

And I bet you've had one of these.

The fact that I am aware of a lot of the scams that are out there doesn't make me 100% safe of course. Anyone can be a victim because the fraudsters are coming up with new schemes all of the time. A high level of scepticism and a finely tuned bullshit detector are essential in this day and age.

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[1] https://www.cifas.org.uk/

A Midland Odyssey Part Four - No Moustaches Please!

I've lost count of the number of courses I went on during my working life, but one thing that stands out about them is the way in which they changed over the years. By the time I left work the majority of courses focussed on soft skills like communication, managing people and being a leader, but in the early days of my time in Midland Bank the courses were about the nuts and bolts of specific roles in the organisation.

Before I had even set foot in a branch I went on an Induction Course, which taught the uninitiated what banks did and what sort of roles we would be performing.  After starting work at Gants Hill I was sent on a Remittances Course, a Control Course and a Cashiering Course[1]. Later there were Basic and Advanced Foreign Courses and sundry others. Midland Bank had a Training Branch at Buchanan House in Holborn, just by Chancery Lane tube and what was striking about the place was how strict the rules were. It was a lot more formal than working in a branch, and believe me in the mid 1970's it was pretty rigid in branches.

Buchanan House. Picture: Google Maps.

One of the first things that was mentioned on courses at Holborn was the management rule about moustaches and beards or facial hair in general. Men were told that if they arrived at Training Branch on day one of their course clean shaven, then they were expected to remain so for the duration of it. Bizarrely, Training Branch management thought that away from the their normal office environment, men would immediately take the opportunity to grow beards or moustaches and that this would not project a neat image, that the public would somehow be affronted by Midland Bank staff growing facial hair; therefore it was forbidden. Graciously, management allowed that men already in possession of beards or moustaches would not be obliged to shave them off.

There being an actual branch of Midland Bank on the ground floor of Training Branch, one might have expected that being customers of the Bank as well as Staff members, attendees on courses could take advantage of these facilities to cash cheques or pay money into their accounts. This was most definitely not allowed. It was feared that lunchtimes would see the Branch so gummed up with people from the various courses queuing to cash cheques that the whole place would grind to a halt. In fact there always seemed to be a perception among the course tutors that, freed from the strictures of working in their normal Branch or Department, course attendees would run amok. In actual fact boredom was a more common occupational hazard on these courses, driven by the fact that many people were on whichever course it was at the wrong time. Some people were sent on courses too early, sometimes even before they had done the job it related to at all. The course therefore would go right over their heads. Others would have been doing the job for so long that the course added no value. These people often knew more about the job that the tutors and were usually a valuable source of knowledge for the small band of people who were, in the manner of Goldilocks, on the course at about the right time, having done the job for sufficient time to have an understanding but not too long that they knew it all. Of course there would occasionally be something that everyone wanted to learn about, normally something that was rarely encountered in Branches. Such a thing was Automatic Transfers. I can't recall anyone in Branches understanding them, so when I was sent on a Control Course I was particularly keen to find out about them, and so it seemed was everyone else on the course. Naturally therefore, Automatic Transfers were glossed over and not dealt with at all, leading me to believe that either the tutors knew nothing about them (very probable) or that they did not in fact work properly (equally likely). On reflection, it is more than likely that both were true.

Some people were sent on courses simply to get them out of the Branch. At times when there was no one on holiday and there were more people than jobs, sending someone on a course, no matter how inappropriate, was a good way of getting them out of the way. Hence there would be Cashiers on Foreign Courses being taught about Documentary Credits when the sum total of the foreign work in their branches was the sale of currency and travellers cheques. And there were many people who went on courses and then went back to their branches only to find that it would be months before they had the opportunity to do the job the course related to, which rather diminished the benefit of attending the thing in the first place.

In those far off days when flared trousers and kipper ties were de rigueur but not everyone in the country had a bank account, Midland Bank Staff Accounts were constantly under scrutiny. Management appeared to be terrified that staff would misuse their accounts. Overdrafts were not allowed, money going into a staff account (other than the Bank's salary) was treated with suspicion and required managerial approval, grudgingly granted only after an interrogation in which all that was missing was a bright light shone in the eyes of account holder. Applying for a credit card or personal loan required much more hoop jumping than would have been the case for a regular customer. Stories circulating at the time included one about the member of Staff refused a Personal Loan to buy a car on the grounds that the car he wanted to buy was superior to that owned by his Manager, who would therefore not permit this since he (the Manager) could not be seen driving a car inferior to one of his subordinates.

 If these restrictions were driven by a terror of fraud or theft on the part of a member of Staff then it was perhaps ironic that two of a very small number of cases of dishonesty that I heard about during my years in the Bank were attributed to people who worked at Training Branch. One case, which went to court and was reported in the national press, involved a tutor who misappropriated expenses. Course attendees were paid travelling expenses, in cash in my early days in the Bank, and one tutor was in the habit of inflating claims and creaming off the difference, which ran to thousands of pounds, albeit over a fair number of years. Another tale, which may or may not have been true, involved the cafeteria at Buchanan House. This served a desultory selection of rolls and sandwiches, crisps and chocolate bars and apparently turned a regular, if modest profit. Then the chap who ran the cafeteria was taken ill and spent some time on sick leave. Profits soared under his replacement's control, only to be restored to their more modest levels upon the original chap's return. If the rumours were true, the only thing being cooked in the cafeteria were the books.

Much of what I learned at Training Branch had to be treated with a liberal pinch of salt because as everyone who has worked anywhere knows, there is a correct way of doing things and practical way of doing them. Mind you, I can still remember the definition of conversion.[2]

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[1] For the non-bank types, Remittance, often called Waste, consisted of (among other things) batching up cheques and credits paid in over the counter and processing them for input or despatch to Head Office. Control was a job that included checking entries input on the computer (dumb terminal), dealing with unpaid cheques  and balancing the books at the end of the day. Cashiering is self evident.

[2] "By our actions, we deprive the true owner of their rightful property."

Feeling Weird

One of the reasons that I started writing this blog was because I felt that it would be cathartic, and this week I feel more in need of some form of release for my feelings than I have for some time, because last Friday I sold my late Mother's house and it has affected me a great deal more than I expected that it would.

My Mother died at the start of the year. I wouldn't say that it was either expected nor that it came as a total shock. Ever since about this time last year I had felt that Mum was not quite her normal self; "slightly off her game" was the way I described it. Largely I put it down simply to the fact that she was getting older, but she seemed to have lost a lot of her enthusiasm for life; in short she had lost interest in things, in life itself.

Mum came to us for Christmas dinner and although she was fairly subdued, she seemed to be a little more like her old self, telling us some things she intended doing in the New Year. She ate fairly well but went home quite early as she was feeling tired. A few days passed after Christmas and we had had no contact, which was not uncommon; we didn't live in each other's pockets and Mum was often out at the shops or at the church, so when I phoned and got no answer I wasn't unduly concerned. That was until we got a call asking if Mum was Ok as some of her friends had not seen her for a few days and she hadn't been answering the phone. We went to Mum's house and I admit to having an uneasy feeling as I opened the front door.

Mum was lying in the hall and clearly she was dead, from a heart attack it later proved and blessedly her passing must have been swift; the evidence suggested that she didn't suffer, for which I am grateful. Of course a sudden death like this, in the home and when not under specific treatment, adds to the bureaucracy that surrounds someone's passing, and the first few weeks of the New Year were spent dealing with administration.  From getting the Death Certificate to arranging the funeral; from notifying the utility companies to making sure the house was secure, anyone who has had to deal with a death in the family will tell you that there is often little time to grieve as you are too busy with practical issues.

Funerals are something of a watershed. Although it was a day when, on one level, I felt that I was saying goodbye to my Mother, I knew it was still nearer the start of the grieving process than the end. Research by the Sue Ryder charity has been published that suggests that people grieve on average for two years, one month and four days after losing a loved one, or, for those without any support, an additional eight months, three weeks and five days on average. The danger with this sort of research is that people can take it too literally and feel that once these deadlines have been reached they will be better. In my experience, and I am certain I am not alone, the grieving process itself is not linear, we progress and then we go back. We may take two steps forward then one step back because although many people say time is a healer, it only heals if we help it to.

Time passed and dealing with the practical aspects of settling Mum's affairs I had neither the opportunity, nor to some extent, the cause, to feel too upset.  Although it was odd in the extreme to go to Mum's house, to clean, tidy, dispose of furniture, sort through effects, get rid of her clothes, empty the shed, keep the lawn mown and generally keep the place in order while the estate agents were marketing it, it helped to be busy. Practical matters take the mind off the emotions.

Almost immediately that the house was put on the market, we had an offer; two in fact. A first time buyer (with mortgage) and a cash buyer. We plumped for the latter, which promptly fell through when local searches revealed that the council would not permit the conversion of the property for multiple occupancy. On reflection I was actually quite glad about that. Mum's neighbours had always been really good to her, and were supportive after her death; I didn't think it would be very nice for them to have a HMO (Home in Multiple Occupancy) next door.

A couple of other false starts and then we seemed to be proceeding quite nicely with a sale, again to a first time buyer, so no chain. This suggested that once things got to a certain point, there would be no need for a month between exchange and completion; I expected a week but because I've never been in this situation before, the call I had from the agents asking if we could exchange and complete the very next day threw me into a state of panic. On one hand I was reluctant to agree as there was still some residual tidying and cleaning to do, but equally disinclined to refuse in case something happened to cause the deal to fall through. In the end I agreed and spent a few hours finishing off and leaving the house in a fit state for its new owners. A few items that I couldn't work out what to do with now reside in my garage pending a decision.

And that was when I began to feel distinctly weird. While the house was unsold, a part of my Mum was still with me. Once it had gone, the final cord had been cut, the final link with Mum had gone. On a rational, logical level she has been gone since the turn of the year, but now the house had gone I felt that I missed her more than ever.  The sale of the house seems much more strange, more unsettling, than any other I've been involved with. Possibly because I didn't live there, didn't have to move out, I'm finding it difficult to come to terms with the fact that the house is now nothing to do with me, that I don't have to go round and do something tomorrow, or the day after. And now there's no one to go and talk to about things that the family are up to. Mum's not there to talk to on the phone, or to listen to about what's going on in her life, or at church.

I'm by no means unique in having to face up to a death in the family, by no means unusual in having to deal with the death of a parent, and it isn't as though I haven't had to deal with a sudden death of someone very close to me before, it's just that this time I am finding it harder to deal with than I expected. I've been looking through some old photos, and there's a strange thing, the photo albums I remember from my childhood were nowhere to be found when we cleared Mum's house. Some old pictures remain, found stuffed in envelopes, but some I distinctly remember, particularly Mum in a polka dot dress on her honeymoon to Jersey in 1955, have vanished. I miss them and I miss her. 

The End Of The Pier Show

There are many pleasure piers along the British coastline; sadly they all seem to be particularly prone to catching fire or suffering some other calamity. Weston-Super-Mare, Great Yarmouth, Eastbourne, Brighton and Colwyn Bay have all been stricken by fire and Southend's famous pier, the longest pleasure pier in the world at 1.34 miles, has suffered several fires including the dramatic blaze in 1959 when three hundred people had to be rescued after being cut off.  Among others, Southend pier was struck by the MV Kingsabbey in 1986, creating a 70 foot gap and in 1947 Penarth pier was hit by the Canadian merchant ship, Port Royal Park, a vessel of over 7,000 tons.

Fortunately, each time Southend pier has suffered a blaze it has been restored, although it has to be said that there is now less of a reason to walk to the end than there was, apart from the pleasure of the walk itself, as there is now little at the end of the pier apart from a cafe and the lifeboat station. Still, I'm glad that it has been consistently rebuilt as Val and I visit Southend several times a year and frequently walk to the end of the pier, sometimes returning to the shore by train if the weather is not too good. On more than one occasion we've walked to the end in a howling gale and been glad of the train, although one New Year's Day we walked the length of the pier and the weather was more clement than it can be in summer. Walking the pier is something I've been doing on and off since I was a child. When I was very young and my parents could not afford a holiday away somewhere, we would go out for days during the school summer holidays, sometimes to the museums in London but frequently to Southend and I have many happy memories of the train ride to the coast and walking along the seafront.

The Sir John Betjemen, the train on Southend Pier. Betjemen said 

"the Pier is Southend, Southend is the Pier"

Other piers have been less fortunate than Southend; many are now derelict, including Brighton's West Pier. Those that have been rebuilt or restored owe much to the efforts of local people raising funds for their renovation, and even now many rely on the admission charged to those who promenade along them, one reason why I think it important to visit seaside piers, to maintain this important part of our heritage. It is sad to visit Herne Bay for example and see the stump of the pier that is all that remains usable, with the pier head stranded hundreds of yards out to sea. Many of the piers that remain have lost a little of their glitz and glory, the music hall shows that were once a common attraction are now much fewer.

Southend Pier, from the PS Waverley.

Apart from the walk on the pier, those childhood visits to Southend normally featured a few similar activities. You can't visit the seaside without occasionally partaking of fish and chips and we would normally go to The Royal Fish Bar, which I'm pleased to say is still there, although I haven't eaten there for years...maybe next time. A visit to Southend with my parents would also usually mean a visit to the cockle sheds at Leigh where my Dad would indulge in some seafood, although this, accompanied by a pint or two of beer, an ice cream and the aforementioned fish and chips would often result in him feeling a bit queasy by the time we returned home. And I can still remember, on those walks as a child, looking down through the gaps between the boards, seeing the water and fearing, irrationally, that I might fall through a rotten board into the sea.

Leigh, famed for its cockle sheds.

We went to other seaside resorts when I was young. Folkestone once when I was very small; I don't remember it at all, although there are some photographic memories, and Eastbourne springs to mind as being one of the last seaside holidays I took with my parents, I must have been about sixteen. Nowadays I'm more likely to visit the coast just for a day, in fact one of the last seaside holidays I took in this country was to Bournemouth with Val, just for a few days back in 1997, although we had been to Bexhill for our honeymoon two years previously. 

Me with my parents on some long ago beach holidays...

...and Val, at Bexhill. Note the warm clothes, gloves and ice cream!

There is nothing quite like a day at the coast, be it Southend or one of our other favourites, Whitstable, which is quite a contrast from the Essex town. Where Southend has a pier and amusements, Whitstable is a working fishing port with quaint back streets and unusual shops. Both have their charms, both have their appeal but in both places we like nothing better than a walk beside the sea.

Southend Pier opened in 1830 and became popular with visitors from the East End of London, so much so that the Victorians dubbed the town "Whitechapel-on-Sea" because of the number of visitors from that part of the capital. It might not attract the same numbers today, it went into decline during the 1960's when holidays abroad became more affordable, but 6.4 million people still visit the town each year and a great many of the will tread the wooden boards out to sea. I can't imagine a summer without a visit or two and the memories it evokes.

It's Only Words

Somewhat more than 25 years ago I went on a course from work, during which all of the participants were required to deliver a short presentation. This did not need to be work related, although mine was (it was about Foreign Bills for Collection in case you are interested; a more memorable talk was on the correct way to wash a car, as I recall). These presentations were videoed and then we had the excruciating task of watching ourselves and critiquing our performance. The thing that struck me about my talk was that I had not realised it was possible to say "OK" so often during such a short time. Since then I have been conscious of the various verbal tics that I have and of the number of times I repeat certain phrases. It has made me keen to vary my speech, to search for synonyms and not to resort to clichés. For example I am at present trying to wean myself off starting sentences with "In my honest opinion," or "If I'm honest," because they annoy the life out of me so goodness knows how my listeners feel.

It is either because of the experience I had on that course or because I am something of a pedant, that I have accumulated a number of words, phrases and expressions that have gained common currency which infuriate me and I crave your indulgence while I share them with you.

1.       Bad Boys

I happen to be a fan of Jamie Oliver's cooking. I have one of his recipe books and I admire his efforts to get people eating wholesome, home cooked food, but every time he picks up a chilli, or a piece of fish, or whatever, and says, "Look at this bad boy," I cringe. I've noticed that in the latest Sky TV ads, Idris Elba is describing smartphones and tablets as "bad boys" and again, I just want to go "aaaargh!" A bad boy is a poorly behaved, male child, not a vegetable or a piece of technology: can we all desist from describing inanimate objects as "bad boys" please?

2.       Calls out

Just this week The Huffington Post stated that Secretary of State for Education, Nicky Morgan had been "Called out for hypocrisy" over remarks deemed to be homophobic. Apparently, to be "called out" means to be challenged, to which I would say to those using the expression, I challenge you to use proper English and not some lazy substitute. A call out is a publishing term; it is not synonymous with confront.

3.       Like a boss

This one annoys me immensely, perhaps irrationally, but this is my blog, my opinion, so get over it. "Like a boss" is commonly used to describe a person completing an action with authority and finesse, so why not just say so instead of employing an annoying surrogate?

4.       Cheeky

Everything these days seems to be "cheeky." Be it a "cheeky Nandos" or a "cheeky pint" after work or popping out of the office for a "cheeky cigarette." The word has become an inane adjective that ought to be consigned to the dustbin. A drink after work may properly be described as "a swift half" even if several pints are involved; a visit to Nandos may be described as "going to Nandos" and a fag break may be exactly that or "popping out for a fag" but, please, please spare me the "cheeky" whatever. A child can be cheeky; even an adult can be cheeky, but as with "bad boy", inanimate objects and activities remain steadfastly un-cheeky.

5.       Owns

I own a motor car, I own a house, I own a computer but if I beat you at a video game (unlikely I know) or at Scrabble, I do not "own" you. I detest the internet pages I see with headlines like, "Ronaldo owns Messi in El Clásico" after Real Madrid have beaten Barcelona. It's lazy, it's stupid and it demeans our language. If Real beat Barça then it may be legitimate to say "Ronaldo outguns Messi" or the like, but "owns"? Sorry, no, no and thrice no!

6.       Stylee

I can accept the use of the word style slightly out of context, by which I mean not as describing a procedure or design or description but as a means of emphasis, for example "United won in fine style" but "stylee"? Commonly used (overused) by music critics who think it is hip, it's a word that just grates on me (shudder).

7.       Paradigm

Now paradigm is a noble word. It means a typical example of something or a distinct set of concepts, but it has been hijacked by the trendy to grant importance to the bland. The fact that Russell Brand once used it in a Newsnight interview is enough for me to wince when I hear it. What he said was that voting is "a pre-existing paradigm which is quite narrow and only serves a few people" when concept or idea or model would do just as nicely, thank you. Paradigm is used generally by people who are trying to make themselves out to be cleverer than they actually are. You may think that this is a fitting description of Mr Brand: I could not possibly comment. Oh, and "pre-existing" is just superfluous.

8.       Team or Crew

Football clubs and cricket clubs have teams; ships and aeroplanes have crews. Your local McDonalds or Tesco have staff or employees, or at a pinch, servers. It really irks me to see the waiting staff in a restaurant described as "the crew" or the shop floor staff in a supermarket described as "the team" or "colleagues." I accept that alternatives may be difficult to ascribe but a little imagination would not go amiss, or perhaps just a little more formality. The same goes for many groups described as "squad" or "gang" unless they are soldiers or safecrackers respectively.

9.       Curate

A curate is a member of the clergy;  a curator is historically the keeper of a museum, or gallery, or library. In recent years the act of curating something has been debased to simply mean someone who uploads some pictures on flickr. On that basis anyone with any type of social media account to which they occasionally upload a photo is a curator.

10.   Broke the internet

I strongly doubt that this blog will break the internet. I also doubt that anything apart from nuclear war, North Korean superhackers or a catastrophic solar flare will break the internet. Pictures of Kim Kardashian's oversized rear end did not and will not break the internet. This term has become a hackneyed expression that simply means that a few internet sites have received a few more visits than  normal.

I imagine that some of you are probably wondering why I am getting worked up over this. "It's only words" you may say, and so they are; just a few misused, excessively employed, stale, tired out words for which the language has so many richer, more descriptive, fresher alternatives, amirite?