Card fraud is rampant and the banks continually fight a battle to stay ahead of the crooks. Now for each card transaction we get a text message from the bank detailing the vendor and amount. This can be quite disconcerting. You think you're really popular with friends and family, just queuing up to text with you, meanwhile it's just the bank tolling your expenditure, day-in, day-out. SA banks haven't heard of free checking accounts so there are plenty of charges for the pleasure of keeping your money there. And although interest rates are low here, they are far from near-zero as in some countries, so the bank makes a nice turn on your current account. You must also put your pin number into the machine each time. The convention is for the staff of the restaurant or shop to hand you the machine and then turn aside while you type in your pin. It's always a very deliberate physical gesture, like: 'Don't worry, I'm definitely not trying to read your finger movements so that I can hack into your account...' We've had a few card frauds. Once somebody managed to charge up a trip on South West Trains to Devon to my wife's debit card. We knew she hadn't made the trip but the bank initially made us feel like the criminals rather than the victims. It took it a couple of weeks to accept our story. I guess they had to make sure we weren't pulling a fast one. The QSL is from BBC R Devon broadcasting from Exeter with 1 kW on 990 kHz heard in Kent in 1996. UK AM stations have been great QSLers over the years.
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