I was thinking further about the post office problem in connection with those who are incapable of having easy access to their weekly welfare money or old age pensions. Some are going to be mentally disturbed, some illiterate, some physically handicapped, and in consequence require the money to be collected by others. It occurred to me that an identity/credit card, specifically for this purpose could be provided to both those able to collect the money themselves, and those who had to have it collected by others. I have stood in the queue at the cash out of a supermarket and seen people paying by credit card for their goods and receiving cash as well as the receipt. I don’t think it’s beyond the capability of the government to provide a foolproof system whereby an individual can obtain money from a specified source, such as one given shop or supermarket, by the use of a specialised card issued to the claimant, or someone nominated by the claimant, with a shopkeeper rewarded commensurately.
Boiler Room Scams are now being discussed on the television, and I found it interesting, when I looked up ‘USA share scams’ on the Internet, that the FSA made it very clear that if you had been dealing with an unlawful trader, you’re on your own. On the television programme dealing with this, which was referred to as the ‘boiler room scam’, a representative of the FSA gave the impression that they were happy to try and deal with the matter after the event, but only to give warnings before.
You will probably think I’m stupid, for what I am about to write. The FSA has been sent a vast amount of information about the people who have lost their money, in an unbelievable amount, including one individual who lost a million, the whys and wherefores of why the money was lost are fairly obvious, preventing a recurrence is more important. I assume that those running the scams are able to tap into records of people buying and selling shares, or dealing in large quantities with banks in the form of savings. So to me it was logical that the FSA should investigate all those who have been involved in losing money in the scam, and look for common occurrences of their financial dealings that would indicate the sources of the information that has led to these scams, and lay traps for the people in the boiler rooms to step into. I got the impression, although I may be misjudging the case, that the FSA was just standing about wringing its hands