BUDD: Scams seem to multiply like rabbits. As quickly as the police identify and stop one, another seems to appear. The most recent to surface in Regina is called the $20 bill scam. It happens at ATM machines and so far it has claimed several victims. One of them is AidanCharleton. He's in Regina. FINLAY: Mr. Charleton, how did you lose your bank card?
CHARLETON: Well, I was minding my own business when I went into my Royal Bank, local Royal Bank automated teller - FINLAY: M'hm. CHARLETON: - in broad daylight on a Saturday in the middle of the afternoon, and there were three people waiting in there: a woman at the machine, and two guys. She finished her business at the machine and left, and the next guy went to go up. He stepped up and just removed a deposit envelope, and perhaps that should have been the first warning that something was unusual here, because he'd been waiting. Why hadn't he filled out any slip or endorsed his cheque, whatever he was putting in there? FINLAY: M'hm. CHARLETON: But then he stepped back to let me go forward, and the guy who was with him stepped aside, too. So everybody's in a hurry at the ATM. I step forward and quickly put in my card and make my withdrawal, and just as I'm getting to the point at which it says - the sign flashes up on the ATM "Do you want another transaction? Yes, No" - FINLAY: Right. CHARLETON: - I think I pressed no, and just at that point one of them says to me, "Is that your $20 by your left foot there?" And so I turn around and momentarily take my eyes off my card and I say, "Well, I don't think it's mine, but I don't know. Maybe it's the woman that was just here and she was headed down - she looked like she was headed down to the corner confectionary. Maybe I can catch up to her." So I turn around and get my money and my receipt and what looks like my card. It's the same colour. FINLAY: They all look alike.
CHARLETON: Well, this is a gold card, too.
FINLAY: Oh.
CHARLETON: It's not - because it has a higher credit limit, - Okay. CHARLETON: - credit line.
FINLAY: Right.
CHARLETON: But it looked like my gold card. And I head down, look for the woman. She's not there. Get change at the Mac's, go back, I'm going to give them $10 and I'll take $10. It's found money. I'm pretty sure it's not mine, but I'm willing to take it. Anyway, they're gone. CHARLETON: So I don't think anything more about it for another couple of days when I'm out of town. I go to pay for - get some gas.
FINLAY: Go to use your bank card.
CHARLETON: Bank card and it won't go through. And I know that there's money in the account - not an awful lot, but enough for that. And do it again, enter the password, nothing works. Fortunately, I've got another account and so I don't have to hitchhike back to Regina. But go back to the bank, and at that point report the - oh, by this point I've discovered that the card actually doesn't have my name on it. It has a woman's name. It's not my card, even though it looks like it. CHARLETON: So I turn in that card at the bank and get a new card and still can't get access to my account. It turns out that the bank's program automatically stops things as soon as there's an unusual amount of traffic - number of transactions on the account, and when I print out a record, I can get access to that. FINLAY: Yes.
CHARLETON: There are deposits of over $10,000 and withdrawals of about $5,000, which in that account I never have $10,000 to deposit ever.
FINLAY: Right.
CHARLETON: But at that point, we figure out that something is amiss.
FINLAY: Did you then click as to what must have happened - like when? This is a couple of days later.
CHARLETON: Right.
FINLAY: You wonder when you lost your card and the switch happened. Did you figure it out?
CHARLETON: Well, it was only at that point that I actually did, because on the way back I thought, gee, had we gone out for supper - FINLAY: Yes. You just picked up the wrong - CHARLETON: - and it got switched at a restaurant or - FINLAY: Yes. CHARLETON: - something. Or my first thought was that the bank had just spewed out the wrong card.
FINLAY: Yes.
CHARLETON: But that didn't make any sense. And then all of a sudden it dawned on me that it must have been some sort of scam, because I did take my eye off the card, and somebody must have been looking over my shoulder - FINLAY: To get your PIN number. CHARLETON: - too to get the PIN number.
FINLAY: Well, they took $5,000 from you.
CHARLETON: Between $5,000 and $5,600, something like that.
FINLAY: Are you liable or are you going to work something out?
CHARLETON: Well, I think the bank has been very helpful here, and I think they have to treat every case on a case-by-case basis. They have to check everybody out and make sure that you're credible, but they have been quite understanding. FINLAY: Has this happened to anybody else in Regina?
CHARLETON: Well, there was an article in the local Post today, and the police told me when I reported it a week and a half ago that there had been several people, and the Post I think said six or seven in Regina. And the police - or the Royal Bank had told me that it had also occurred in other western Canadian cities such as Winnipeg and Edmonton. So it's likely to spread. I guess the message, since I teach English literature, beware of Greeks bearing gifts.
FINLAY: Yeah.
Well, and you were so kind, you were going to go back and split the $20 with them. Boy.
CHARLETON: Yes. Well, there's a sucker born every minute, but I've learned to keep my eye on my card - FINLAY: An honest one. CHARLETON: - and my PIN close to my vest.
FINLAY: Do you know what they look like? You don't usually scrutinize people standing behind you in a bank line-up. CHARLETON: No. You don't look at them very closely. They were wearing the usual sort of scruffy blue winter parkas just like mine, and didn't look much - FINLAY: Yeah. CHARLETON: - different from anybody else. But I and other people will have given them a description - FINLAY: Yes. CHARLETON: - and hopefully the cameras will have caught them in various other places.
FINLAY: Oh, right, right, because they can also check the tape on a certain day and a certain time - CHARLETON: Yeah. FINLAY: - to get pictures of them, yeah.
CHARLETON: So they should have some pictures since there are several other victims that between us we could identify.
FINLAY: Well, good of you to let us all know.
CHARLETON: Well, I guess an ounce of prevention is - you may not - even if people aren't out of pocket, it is distressing and inconvenient. FINLAY: Someone's out of pocket. CHARLETON: Yeah.
We all pay for it eventually.
FINLAY: Thank you very much.
CHARLETON: You're welcome. FINLAY: Bye-bye.
CHARLETON: Bye-bye.
BUDD: Aidan Charleton spoke to us from Regina.
BUDD: George Simon was one of the true champions of the swing era. He encouraged the musicians, recorded them during the war, wrote about their music, even played on an occasion or two with the Glen Miller Band. On Tuesday, George Simon died of pneumonia. He was 88.
BUDD: He made his greatest impact as a writer. All through the '40s and into the '50s, he was editor of the influential jazz magazine Metronome. He was a tireless booster of young talents like Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and Peggy Lee. Simon went on to write several books on the swing era and his essays turned up in the liner notes of albums by the period's biggest stars. BUDD: In 1937, when the Glen Miller Band was still a heart- scrabble group of struggling musicians, George Simon sat in on the drums. It was only Miller's second recording session. Around that time, Simon took a stab at writing lyrics for a song Glen Miller was working on, and it was tentatively titled "Now I Lay Me Down to Weep." Simon's effort was called "Gone with the Dawn." Eventually, Mitchell Parish wrote the final lyrics, and when the song came out on the B side of "Sunrise Serenade," it was dubbed "Moonlight Serenade." It became Glen Miller's theme song, and here it is. BUDD: Now, I ask you, do we give you dance opportunities or what? "Moonlight Serenade" by the Glen Miller Orchestra. Miller's friend, biographer and sometime drummer George Simon died this week. He was 88.
BUDD: That's all the time we have for As It Happens for this Thursday, February 15th. Coming up on CBC Radio One, news and weather.
FINLAY: After that, Shelagh Rogers and This Morning Tonight.
BUDD: Then The Arts Today has a report from the Berlin Film Festival.
FINLAY: As It Happens will be back again tomorrow. I'm Mary Lou Finlay. Good night.
BUDD: I'm Barbara Budd. Good night.
