Like this:

Thankfully, I have been busy lately. This has caused me to curtail my blogging (I feel a little bit like the males in the latest Viagra commercial, “Since Viagra…my blogging has…well…sort of stopped…”)

Regardless, I want to take a moment to comment on a news item that I read today in the Edmonton Journal entitled “Post office tries to stamp out “Granny Scam” If I can figure out how to do it, I will try to create a hypertext link to the actual article.

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Post+office+tries+stamp+Granny+Scam/3337194/story.html

The crux of the article was that Canada Post is instructing its clerks to watch for potential victims of the “Grandparent Scam” and take preventative action against this particularly odious and prolific fraud.

For those of you not familiar with this particular social engineering variant, it involves a fraudster phoning an elderly person and pretending to be a grandchild in financial difficulty. The fraudster then convinces their victim to withdraw money and send it to them, often as postal money orders. In the worst case scenario, elderly people are encouraged to take cash advances against their credit cards.

I don’t know about you, but I grew up in an era where Canada Post bashing was a national past time. It seemed that they were perpetually on strike and that individual postmen always seemed to be making issues about everything from the amount of steps they had to climb to the weight of mail in their bags. For a time, there were people who would insist that Canada Post was representative of everything that was wrong with this country.

I admit that there may have been a few moments when I actually felt this way myself but, recently, I have completely reversed engines! Actually, I should have done it long ago. I live outside of a small town North of Edmonton and the individual service that I have received from my local Canada Post outlet has been nothing short of amazing. The women who run my local post office are patient, friendly and infinitely accommodating and…they always have been!

My outstanding customer service experiences aside, Canada Post’s latest initiative to encourage its employees to identify and intervene in situations where some of the most vulnerable members of our community are about to be victimized, is nothing short of courageous and laudable.

Sterling Security is currently involved in conducting a comprehensive anti-fraud framework for a Calgary financial institution. As part of the engagement, I discussed the possibility of recommending a “Vulnerable Customer Fraud Prevention Policy” with a former bank executive who I have known for many years.

“They’re not asking you for that.” He said. “They want you to address their fraud losses not those of the customers.”

“Yes. I realize that, but surely their customers are important to them and protecting customers must translate into a good business practice.” I replied.

“That’s not their job. The bank can’t be looking out after everybody like that. If I was still with the bank, I would never support that!” My friend shot back.

I am still pushing for a “Vulnerable Customer” policy for the bank that we are currently working with but, based on my colleague’s initial response to the idea, I don’t hold out much hope.

Perhaps one day soon, banks and other corporations will think more like Canada Post!