Back on the same theme: logistics can be a nightmare.  And some issues are more critical than others.

The kids are currently not able to access their accounts.  Different problems but same distance and difficulties away from an easy solution.  Good thing they are with us when it happened.  While we were checking banks to try and sort out their problem we ran into another young woman encountering the same kind of problem.  She was experiencing a bit more stress about it all.  E-banking has it’s drawbacks and it is hard to anticipate what might happen.

Seems theft and e-fraud is really wide-spread and rampant in countries like Guatemala.  People instruct tourists to use the bank machine and then, after the cash withdrawal, repeat the process using a false PIN number (which, of course, will not go through).  Seems that step thwarts the current style of e-pilfering.  I guess it serves to ‘ erase’  something.  Not a good sign.

Who does this sort of thing?  Sophisticated thieves in Antigua, Guatemala?  The ones on scooters instead of mules?   But more vexing is who thinks up the solution and how does that go viral amongst the tourists?  I think the six degrees of separation theory comes into play here.

I must admit that I don’t really worry too much about all this.  I should.  But I don’t.  We’ve been ‘used’ before by some criminal who used a carbon copy of a Visa receipt and ran up about $3000 worth of purchases before I went to use my card again and was then notified.  Seemed the buying pattern didn’t fit my profile and Visa first stopped my card, then notified me and then rolled back everything.

Interesting to note that the purchase that tipped them off was a long distance call to Hong Kong..  They didn’t expect that from me but they do expect it from frauds. I am telling you that Visa ‘expects’ me to go to Guatemala more than they expect me to phone Hong Kong.  And they are right!

This is just a small part of the underbelly of globalization.  Now we can be ‘ attacked’  by international criminals.  Seems weird but, when you think about it, thievery manifested before in our travels only by pilfering.  Now it can happen without you even knowing it from a source you wouldn’t know existed.

We live in interesting times.