Editor: Is the Langley Times trying to confuse us?
One week we are told to watch out for ‘drive-by’ thieves who snatch purses off women’s shoulders and “beware of ‘cat burglars’ who steal garage door openers out of cars and then enter homes and rob you.
And then, a week later, we are told by the authorities that crime is down in Langley City.
Who’s keeping the statistics?
Do these statistics include the repeated phone calls from the criminals telling me my Microsoft computer needed repairs, and if I just key in this special number he can enter my computer remotely and “fix” the problem while cleaning out my computer data?
I kept one poor buzzard on the line for almost 15 minutes asking him to repeat questions telling him, “I’m having problems understanding your accent” and trying to make sure he had the right computer.
I finally asked, “Are you telling me lies?”
He said “Oh no sir, I am telling you the truth.”
I said, “That’s good, because liars go to hell.”
He quickly hung up and I never got to tell him I don’t even use Microsoft (I own a Mac).
Did that count as an “attempted robbery?” Not likely.
Do these statistics include the criminals from someplace out-of-country, who links to my phone by an Ottawa 613 telephone exchange and screams at my wife that unless she pays CRA the owing back taxes she owed that day (by giving her VISA number to him) her Royal Bank account would be closed immediately.
He does not know she uses MasterCard, and a different bank, but tries to intimidate her to give him her account info just the same.
Did that count as an “attempted robbery?” No.
Or what about the criminal who managed to drain money out of my bank account to pay three different companies for charges I never made? When reported, my bank repaid my account, but when I reported it to the authorities I was told that since I had been repaid by the bank it was a “victim-less crime.”
Did that count as a real robbery?
We all know the answer is no.
Sure the actual investigated, physical crimes with visible victims may be down in Langley, but let me suggest that unreported fraudulent, off-shore “invisible” high-tech crimes affecting citizens of Langley are way up, and nobody appears to be recording those statistics.
Jim Cunningham,
Murrayville