Morning:
8°c
WHEN it comes to money, you can file me under "c" for "careful". I don't spend what I haven't earned, I'm not one of those people who never reads their bank statements and I shield my PIN number melodramatically with my wallet whenever I withdraw cash. Imagine my surprise, then, when on opening my statement one summer, I found I had bought a boat from a man in Cornwall.
"I seem to have bought a boat from a man in Cornwall," I said to my husband. "That's funny," he said. "I seem to have bought an engine."
It transpired our cards had been cloned at Gatwick airport. Holidaymakers are prime targets for these scams, as they provide thieves with a nice little window of opportunity. When we reported it to the police, they said it was a matter for our banks to resolve. Happily, they did, promptly refunding £1,200 for the boat and £1,600 for the engine.
This happened back before chip and pin. But I'm dreading when it happens again - which it will, because card fraud is more common now than it was before chip and pin existed. Yet despite this scary fact, the banks now tell us that it is our responsibility to prove a transaction was fraudulent. How do we do that?
Despite dutifully remembering more four-digit pincodes than Carol Vorderman, my friend Caroline couldn't prove that £400 worth of petrol bought near her house had been purchased by someone else - and so her bank failed to refund the money. Chip and pin is working, all right - just not for the customer.
* THE first time I ever went into Starbucks, it was because of the name. Then I realised that Starbucks has the best name but the worst coffee. Sucking a wet sponge after doing the Sunday dishes would taste better than a Starbucks latte. It was founder Howard Schultz who dreamed up the demonic idea of having more than one Starbucks on the same street thus turning every British neighbourhood into a homogenised strip of green neon.
So while I'm sorry for the 600 people who will lose their jobs as a result of the closures announced last week, I'm not sorry at the prospect of there being one less Starbucks in the world.
* HOW good it was to see London's own Jourdan Dunn modelling at Paris Couture Week, where she lit up the catwalk for Dior, Lacroix and Gaultier. The accolade is further proof of her supremacy, since only the best girls are deemed worthy to model couture. And only the slimmest: for if you thought the ready-to-wear collections demanded tiny hips, you haven't seen a couture gown. Couture functions at a level where even Lily Cole would be deemed too curvy: it isn't right, but nor is it likely to change. The French might be vocal on many things, but mention the size-zero debate and you will be met with a resounding Gallic "bof".
