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Jul 07, 2023

The grift that keeps on grifting

Over this summer I have had some direct exposure to behavior I had erroneously believed was a “city problem.” People and companies who take advantage of our citizens are beyond despicable. So many

Over this summer I have had some direct exposure to behavior I had erroneously believed was a “city problem.”

People and companies who take advantage of our citizens are beyond despicable.

So many really fine people have found their place in our community: People who are there to help when they see someone in need; people who go out of their way to help the schools, churches, and homeless; you know, the people who are kind when no one is looking.

Wherever fine people make their homes, the scumbags will follow, using our community trust to line their pockets by lying, cheating and stealing. I have seen this myself in our community. Disreputable people who promise work, take money, then do shoddy work if any at all. People who bring split AC units from Mexico and install them so poorly they leak down within 24 hours. There are plenty of reasons that these things are required to be installed by professionals. If a leak occurs inside the room it can displace the air, suffocating you. The refrigerants, while far safer than the old R12, are still harmful to the environment when they leak out. The only guarantee in the transaction is an unfortunate person who now has an non-working air conditioner and an empty wallet.

You can’t even use a gas pump now without poking and pulling at the card reader to see if there is a skimmer attached. Now, I see there’s a warning out about people skimming SNAP cards! That is literally stealing from people without enough to eat.

Skimming, for those unaware, is the practice of attaching a tiny card reader over a legitimate credit card slot, ‘skimming’ your card data as you insert your card into the ATM/gas pump/terminal.

Another way this can happen is via a small card reader when wait staff take your card at the end of a meal. We had this happen to us personally. We had finished eating at a restaurant while on vacation, and by the time we walked to the truck I was receiving fraud alerts asking if I had just purchased $800 in gift cards at a Bi-Lo 1,000 miles away. My bank was familiar with this process and said that the waitress had one such small card reader on her person and surreptitiously swiped our card on her way to the register. This sent our card data through her phone to a confederate in Baltimore, who encoded a blank card in their car, entered the grocery store and bought gift cards, all before we could leave our table and walk to the truck.

I have been in tech all my life and that was impressive!

We are all strapped for cash these days and are on the lookout for the best deals. We have to be. But we have to always bear in mind that anything that sounds too good to be true, probably is. Sometimes real deals come along. Never forget, the better the deal, the closer you should inspect what you are buying.

I have the feathers… Anyone have a barrel of tar?

Dan Martin lives in Luna County.