Starburst

Hi All, Just returned from annual hols in Cyprus to find out my Barclays debit card had been cloned and ?750 had been withdrawn in cash advances from a bank in Canada. The last two places I used my card in August was Barclays ATM Lordship Lane and Sainsburys DKH. From the 1 April 2007, new procedures came into effect in England, Wales and Northern Ireland which mean that banks and financial institutions become the first point of contact for cheque, plastic card and online fraud offences. In most cases consumers will be required to report instances of this type of fraud straight to their bank or building society and not to the police. It will be up to the financial institution involved, and not the account holder, to pass details of the relevant crime on to the police. This change in the way fraud is reported has come about after the introduction of the Fraud Act 2006 and follows discussions between the Home Office, Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) and the financial sector. The aim is to reduce the level of bureaucracy involved in fraud recording and to streamline the reporting, recording and investigation of such frauds. APACS statistics show that there were just over 700,000 cases of card fraud in 2006, with the average loss per case amounting to ?608. One of the advantages for consumers unfortunate enough to be a victim of these types of fraud from 1 April onwards is that they will only have to report the details to their bank or the financial organisation involved. Previously they would have reported the matter first to their bank, then to the police, and then back to their bank to pass on relevant details given to them by the police.

I was chatting to the friendly owner of Willam Rose some while back about the shop next door, and he said that an elderly lady lived there and they had approached about leasing/buying her shop bit to expand into. Apprently she's not terribly friendly and said 'absoultely not' and 'by the way make sure you customers don't queue outside my shop front either' !! So they now have to do this queue management thing and direct people to the kerb side when it reaches the end of their shop front.

Back on thread, the Tyre shop is due to close on Thursday of this week. No news of what it may become?

I saw Andi Peters, of 'Broom Cupboard fame' BBC kids telly. I was leaving the Bishop after a spot of lunch on Tuesday and he held the door open for me, what a nice celebrity :-)