The wonderful world of Rik ‘Ranting’ Harris

^{London tonight - Catching the card fraudsters - Aired 20.00, 27th October 2008 on ITV1}

Morland Sanders investigates the credit card fraudsters, and straight away you learn that he isnt no Roger cook, rather a limp wristed, hairspray coated wannabe. On reflection he would have been better suited to some sing-along childrens program - i wonder if CITV are hiring?

Back to the plot. It seems that in 2007 plastic card fraud alone cost £535m, an increase of more than £100m over 2006 (figures published by APACS, the UK Payment Industry) and, apart from sending spongebob square head to give him a damn good talking to, what are we doing to help combat ‘card not present’ fraud?

Ive compiled a list..

• The government has allocated £29 million to be spent through 2010 putting into place the recommendations made in a cross-government fraud review conducted by the attorney general.
• A new fraud strategic authority will lead the battle to fight fraud in the UK, and a new fraud reporting centre will improve police intelligence about fraudsters targeting this country.
• A national lead force for fraud will enhance police work on fraud cases.
• The Home Office and the Corporation of London are each contributing additional resources towards the cost of an expanded City of London Police fraud squad and are both contributing just over £1.12m in 2007/08. This money helps the City of London Police expand its fraud squad so that it can better take on organised crime, and take a leading role in the investigation of fraud in London and the south east.
• Setting up a Dedicated cheque and plastic crime unit (DCPCU) This specialist police unit that we helped establish, aims to reduce organised card and cheque fraud using intelligence provided by the card industry, which funds it.

Thats great, and i know im no fraud expert, but im willing to offer my advice free of charge. How about..

• ONLY SHIPPING TO THE CARDHOLDERS ADDRESS??! - making this one change would stamp out 95% of all card not present fraud, sure it would be a little inconvenient for some, but a small price to pay.
• Texting the registered card holder the transaction so they have to reply to authorise it
• replacing chip and pin with thumb print readers - having the print stored on a central server rather than the card.
• embedding the card holders photo onto the credit card.

I know that the last two points would be expensive to roll out, but with the fraud costing £500 million a year and rising, im sure they wouldn’t have to wait long for the return on investment.

There seems to be a trend in the UK of putting all our resources into ‘catching the crooks’, instead of preventing the crime in the first place. - Its the CCTV, Speed camera mentality… clearly we are not bothered about the crime actually happening, but reactively catching the crooks (or not) after the event. SURELY its better to take away the ability to commit the crime in the first place?!

Just seems common sense to me..

_{Oxfam has made an urgent appeal for more aid to help millions of Ethiopians on the brink of starvation.}

Hang on – haven’t we been here before 1984, 1989 and 2004 as I recall…. Band Aid I, II and 20 (what happened 3-19?!) the orginal band aid helped raise an obscene amount of cash thanks the exploits of that scruffy Geldoff bloke.

I thought I would do some research and find out actually how much was raised… I remember hearing figures of £10million back in the day although now it seems all financial data has disappeared. Weird eh?I cant believe that they have spunked the countless millions that have been raised and donated over the years – there has to be another reason why they are back to where they started 25 years ago.

There is, and it’s the population issue. Because the selfish f**kers cant see past their genitals they just keep pumping out Aids infected malnourished offspring like its some kind of ‘repopulate the earth’ drive. Why, oh WHY, if you cant afford to feed yourself would you keep having children? How could you knowingly bring a child into this kind of environment?

The other reason for the population explosion is better medical provision than before with immunisation programmes (for killer diseases like polio), better birthing facilities, more widely available medicines and medical expertise. – Thanks to our original charity payout they are living longer but still dropping kids like starbucks waste water.

So, to recap.. We give them a bucket load of cash, help, and volunteers for 25 years and they repay us by doing NOTHING to help themselves. And now we need to help them again? – No. unless some kind of birth control can be introduced they will just continue to suck on financial resources like a crack head on benefits. 
We have enough problems of our own at the moment without worrying about a country that cant be bothered to help itself.

Listening to the news this morning as i was getting ready (yes, this is a sure sign that im getting older.. no more big breakfast on channel 4, no more MTV.. just the news.. eek) and i hear that Mr Glitter has been released from jail and will be back in the UK shortly.

One has to ask, why the hell would he want to come back - surely hes better off just sliding away to a country far far away where people wont know him (or try to bottle him!). What the hell is there for him to come back to? - why have they even released him?

Glitter was found guilty in March 2006 of offenses against two Vietnamese girls, aged 11 and 12. He had denied the charges, saying he was teaching the girls English. Yehhh right… Perhaps he should have waited until they where old enough to be ‘taught’

2 years for raping 2 GIRLS is a piss poor piece of justice but even more sickening when you take their ages into consideration. The man should have fried for the offences he committed. Yet further evidence that it doesn’t matter what you’ve done wrong.. as long as your famous, you will be let off lightly.

_{** Update **}

_{Jokes added, with some amusing pictures too…}

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Fred, 15, was gunned down whilst he slept in his parents home in peckham.
Jonny and billy burst into the house in the early hours of the morning and sprayed the teenagers bedroom in bullets from a Mac-10 machine gun.

It was a revenge attack that was meant for Freds brother Spud. It seems Spud has annoyed some fellow Drug dealer by not sharing proceeds from a series of ‘cash in transit’ robberies - and that’s all you need to do these days to guarantee a shower of bullets from a converted blank firing automatic weapon.

The thing that annoys me with this story (apart from the people dying stuff…) is Spud is on remand now for the robberies and he has had his sentence REDUCED by a judge from 5years to 2years because ‘Spud blames himself for his brothers death..’

Well funk me with a rubber chicken, OF COURSE ITS YOUR FAULT, THE BULLETS WERE MEANT FOR YOU! - I have no clue what was going on in the mind of that high court judge, but surely the message that we have been trying to portray is ‘DRUGS KILL’ - if you dick around in circles like that, people WILL get hurt. You cant have your cake and eat it people.

His sentence should have been INCREASED with the additional charge of manslaughter for his brother, seen as he was DIRECTLY responsible.

_{Names have been changed to protect no one, but just for fun}

I bought a teddy bear last night for £10. I named it Muhammad. I then sold it for £20. Do you think i made a Prophet ?

I really dont get this crap. How can naming something be classed as offensive? - what about all the parents that have called their children Muhammad? Im sure somewhere there is a rottweiler with the same name. Its kids and its a NAME. What ever happened to that sticks and stones may break my bones line we were taught as kids. Mummy mummy, that boys calling me fat.. ‘just ignore him hunny…’ - indeed.

ABDOL : Mummy mummy, some teacher has allowed her kids to name a teddy bear Muhammad.

Mrs ABDOLS mum : Just ignore them hunny..

Gets me soo annoyed, we bend over backwards (and over again) to accommodate multi cultures in the UK, and we change OUR way of life so we dont upset anyone. Imagine the situation the other way round?

Little Johnny Smith : Mummy a kid in school is jewish and we arnt allowed pork for school dinners anymore.

Little Johnny Smiths Mum : RIGHT!!, pass me my death threat banner making kit, call 10,000 of my closest friends and we are gonna demand that kid be hung!

If this Prophet is as much of a dude as they all say he is, why would he be upset that a childs stuffed teddy is named after him?

Just watched an advert that i couldnt quite believe. ‘New Dove skincare range now comes with 15% oxygen formula’

um.. Oxygen.. you mean the shit we breathe everyday? for free?

So, lets get this straight.. 15% oxygen is better than 0 in a skincare product..

so why not just sell it with ‘100% oxygen’ have a stand in the local supermarket with plastic bags of air, for £9.99 of course!

This is my response to ITV’s American idol gives back charity special screened on Friday night.
Medical procedures are always about resources. The NHS is stretched to the max with budget cuts, fat cats needing new holiday homes, drug companies ramping the price of drugs specially for our health service and just general bad accounting.

Imagine a situation where they have 2 sick people, but only enough resources to help one of them. A Heart wrenching set of events I agree, but how would you reach a decision on who to treat? – well, in the words of the doctor from Star trek voyager, ‘ I would weigh up who has the better chance of survival, and then treat that person.’

So what about the starving African people that were portrayed in American idol? – Simon and Mr hairspray himself, Ryan Seacrest trawl through villages with the default kid, flies buzzin round his head blurting about how both his parents died, yadda yadda yadda.

He and his sister were desperate for food, clothing, blankets and water. That’s the usual survival shopping list in this part of the world. Then they make an appeal to us to help fund the drugs they need to help with their AIDS infections.

What? – last I heard AIDS was terminal. Why, when most of the country cant even afford clean water are you spunking funds on drugs for people who are going to die anyway?
This is horrible I know, and your probably thinking ive lost the plot, but if you stop to think about it.. THEY CANT AFFORD TO FEED THEMSELVES. So, surely, who has the better chance of survival? The ones with the terminal disease or the ones without?

And why do so many children have AIDS in Africa? – do they share needles whilst smacking their bitch up? Do they have bad luck with blood transfusions? Do they pick a bad partner to ride their baloney pony? No, they have selfish f**ker parents with the HIV who already cant afford to keep themselves in food, then deciding to hump like bunnies and produce infected children.

Stop sending rice, start sending condoms. Stop helping those who are gonna die anyway. Concentrate on the ones who WILL survive and eventually help the others.

Cat Deely was introducing various bits in the program to give it the ‘link to the English person’ – I wonder if she donated her fee to the charity on this charity special show?

And lasty, the whole program is sponsored by Chicago town. They do make lovely pizzas…

As i am now in a relationship i have to share an interest in my better halves’ choice of television viewing, This includes ITV’s Grease is the word where chavs freaks and pretty boys all collect and try to out do each other with their singing, dancing and acting abilities. (or lack of!)

This airs at prime time on a Saturday evening. I watch one of the auditions where Cherrill, a cross between whoopi goldberg and vanessa feltz starts prancing around in front of the 4 judges for the part of Sandy (originally played by olivia newton john).

Once finished the judges in turn give their witty little comments as to if the performer should go on to the next stage. To my disgust, Sinitta - the failed 80’s pop princess says, ‘That was great Cherrill it would be great to see a black sandy’.

Hello.. Sinitta, you are on national television. You cant be seen to have a preference towards someone because of their skin colour, its called Racism. Oh wait, thats right.. it doesn’t work both ways does it. Its only racism if its a white person saying it. I keep forgetting how we have come so ‘PC’ that we have now actually become racist by favouring the minority.

before i get too carried away i think ill leave you to make your own mind up. BBC news reports back in 2000 that ‘BLACK SCHOOLS are booming’ Um, black schools? you mean with all black pupils? - what if a white kid wanted to join, what would happen? Can you imagine it the other way round? - White schools? there would be an uproar.

Just to add to my annoyance one of the parents, Shellan Crawford comments, ‘Black kids don’t get an equal chance in our educational system unless you can afford to send them private. ‘ - Oh fcuk off will you. are you suggesting teachers are spending more time with white kids? surely if that was the case, the teachers attitude needs to be addressed rather than making specialist ‘Black’ schools, this will only segregate the races more.

If the kids are thriving so much with their own people, surely this PROVES that integration may not be always be the right answer, so stop forcing the issue and let PEOPLE decide without keep firing the racist card at us.

Comments..?

This has got stupid. History has shown us that charging people more in an attempt to stop them doing something does NOT work. They tried it with smoking, with beer, and now the STM charges (Shaft the motorist). Are they really serious about reducing congestion? - im sure they are, but have they thought about it? clearly not.

1) Bendy busses - take up twice as much road as the traditional double deckers but yet have a third less seats? - have you ever seen a bendy bus drive across a junction (sometimes a BOX junction) get stuck, then completely gridlock the intersection?!

2) Buses produce a whacking great amount of Co2, yet do you think i can find the actual figure on TFL’s website? - of course i cant. What i did find was their green statement about upgrading their bus fleet to be eco friendly in like 70years.. the quote reads very scary.. ‘An entirely hybrid fleet would produce 200,000 fewer tones of carbon each year…’

Erm, 200,000 TONNES of carbon.. LESS?!?!?! - so how much are they producing as it is now?! less cars means (apparently) more busses… more carbon. Genius.

3) Putting the prices of public transport UP…- yeh.. that will get more people to leave their already over priced cars at home and then fork out MORE to get into work. - my local bus service raised charges from £1.50 minimum fare to £2.00 ! - if there is 2 of you, its actually cheaper to get a cab (£3.50 to harold Wood station from my house, £4 on a bus). save 50p and get a seat. Another great way to push public transport. NOT.

Finally… here are some suggestions to reduce congestion…REDUCE the cost of public transport

Spend MORE money on roadwork’s, finishing them quicker.

Make a MADATERY test for cyclists and start enforcing ROAD laws with them. Red Lights, crossings etc, if they want to use the road they need to obay the LAWS of the road too.

STOP putting speed humps every 12 metres on all roads within a 5mile radius of London (HALF my journey into work contains speed humps.)

OFFER discounts on public transport for people who own cars. (why pay twice..?)

OFFER discounts on car insurance if you agree not to use car within certain radius of London (could be policed with ANPR cameras like Congestion charging)

 

Right, i think thats it. Im annoyed now. oh wait.. theres one more thing.. why is my 1.8 VW GOLF classed as a ‘gas guzzler’ ? - i am taxed the same amount as a V8 RANGE ROVER ?!

Grrr, i don’t understand. I have changed my mind. Well i think i have. This Jade goodie thing.. i have argued that i dont think she was a racist. Then i think about Jade Goodie’s “shilpa poppadom” statement.. and i don’t think you can argue with the fact that she did involve a racial stereotype by this comment.

Is this racist, Yes. Is this enough for front page headlines in the UK and burning flags in India, No, of course not. Dirk put it so well when he mentioned ‘wow, that think in Iraq must be over if this is all the world has to worry about’ - if only he knew the sheer scale of this he would laugh his American a$$ off, all the way back to his Custom GMC van and his machine gun wielding friends.

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