Every time a new piece of technology comes on the market, you can be sure that the con artists will be not far behind.
The big change in credit card tech this year has been the rising popularity of radio frequency indentification cards.
These are ‘tap and go’ systems that allow you to make payments for items by just tapping your card in the shop. No swiping, no signing, no PIN.
The idea is that the 30 seconds you save at the checkout will be used to enrich your life in some way. Its a fairly pointless product.
Of course, this has lead to RFID theft. The con artist stands next to you and taps your wallet in your pocket with a receiver. He can then copy information from your card.
Luckily, you can now buy a RFID blocking wallet that will protect you from the con artists.
To sum up…
1) A product is invented to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. (RFID cards)
2) The new product causes a problem. (RFID theft)
3) Another new product solves the new problem. (RFID wallet.)
4) Rinse and Repeat.
Soon we will probably learn that the RFID wallets cause cancer and we’ll need a new solution to that.
I’m sitting down playing a friendly game of Bridge with my good friends Jimmy “Trouble Waters” Smits, Max “River Kwai” Stone and Johnny “London” Phoenix.
I’m half way through dealing the hands when Johnny reaches over and tries to touch his cards. Jimmy pulls a gun and threatens to shoot Johnny.
“Where I come from,” Jimmy says. “We shoot people who touch their cards before their dealt.”
After everyone calms down, I go back to the dealing. But we have a problem. With all the fuss when Jimmy pulled the gun, I’ve completely forgotten who should get the next card.
Since I can’t touch the cards in any way or Jimmy will shoot me, how can I make sure that everyone gets the right cards without counting the cards on the table or the ones in my hand?
As I’ve mentioned before on the blog, QI is one of my favourite shows on television.
For the uninitiated, QI is a panel game show in which erudite Stephen Fry asks the comedian contestants almost impossible questions. Points are gained by being funny and interesting.
ABC in Australia show the 2005 episode ‘Cheating’ this Wednesday night.
There are companys and individuals out there who are not necessarily con artists in the legal sense of the word but still keep alive the spirit of the swindler. I like to think of them as pseudo-scammers.
You know the people I mean. Charity collectors who are actually legally pocketing a portion of your donation, angle shooters at the poker player, the bank etc.
One of my favourite ’scammy’ companies is ‘Cash 4 Gold.’ You can read the long list of complaints against them here.
And now read one man’s attempt to scam and the pseudo scammers.
An age old scam, The Rocks In The Box has been resurrected by a con man in the UK.
The swindler offered to sell two men two laptops and three iphones for £1,000. The men checked out the gear and agreed to buy the merchandise.
It was only when they were far away did they realize he had swapped the bag of electronics for a bag of rocks.
Legend tells use the scam goes back to medieval times when swindlers would swap a bag of pig for a bag of cat. Hence the saying, the let the cat out of the bag. However, there is no real evidence that this is anything but a bit of fairy tale etymology.
Not to be confused with fairy tale entymology
If you want to see how a professional does, watch the video below.
