Most of March so far has been pre-occupied
with trying to sort out the £227,000, which was stolen from the practice bank account,
through our Internet banking, at the end of February. I don’t mention it with any hint self-pity
but bring it up to try and warn you all about the devious methods used by the
fraudsters. It’s amazing how much you
learn, once you’ve been a victim. The
front page of one of the Sunday Times supplements, which went to print just
over a week later was entitled, “Why Friday is the most dangerous day for
fraud.” The reason being is that after
about 4 pm on a Friday the majority of banks’ fraud lines are closed until
Monday morning. This gives the
fraudsters all weekend to move their ill-gotten gains from the bogus account to
which it has been moved from the victim’s account, without the fraud department
being available to be contacted to freeze the aforementioned account. http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/business/money/Consumer/article1527879.ece?shareToken=19135c367b19ac3a111d31237f45ea92
User beware - if you get any exceptional
phone calls from the bank on a Friday afternoon, especially from a man called
Peter, who duped us, (a name he uses regularly, we’ve now been told) it could
be a hoax. I’m sorry to tar all
“Peter’s” with the same brush but I’m still smarting (a lot) about it.
We are currently in negotiations with the
bank, which have offered to refund half of the loss. I will elaborate on this scam at a future date,
once we have reached a settlement.
At the beginning of March, I went down to
London to attend the National Equine Forum (NEF), which was held at the
Institute of Mechanical Engineers at 1 Birdcage Walk, which is just a stone’s
throw from the Houses of Parliament. My
trip coincided with one of my colleagues, Becky Wall, having to go to the RCVS
to sit the practical and theory part of the CertAVP examination in Diagnostic Imaging;
so I chaperoned her to and from the venue.
Obviously it involved a trip on a Boris Bike and we did a bit of
sight-seeing, passing Buckingham Palace en route, which I think put Becky in
relaxed mood for her exam.
Obviously at the end of the day, when we
met up again it was all death and destruction from Becky…she’d done really
badly, couldn’t answer any of the questions, it wasn’t at all what she
expected, nothing she’d revised came up, she was going to fail, bla, bla, bla! She received confirmation the following week
that she’d passed, with flying colours…but in her opinion didn’t deserve
to! That is such a girly thing to do….I
remember well that if I said I’d failed…I’d failed and deservedly so.
Back to the NEF; it’s the 23rd
time the event has been held and it is growing year on year. The aim of the forum is, “To host an annual
assembly of individuals who reflect every area of the equestrian industry, to
hear presentations from experts on diverse and topical aspects of the industry
and allow them to share their views.”
Effectively, the who’s who of the horse-world…. and Monty (David
Mountford our CEO) and me. High profile
attendees included the NEF president, HRH the Princess Royal and Lord de Mauley
TD. The main topic of discussion for the
day was the need for the “industry” to implement a robust and workable equine ID
system, which has been pinpointed as the cornerstone for equine health, welfare
and management in the UK. There was a
debate, chaired by Roly Owers, which included representatives of the Chief
Veterinary Officers of the four UK countries.
Full
report about the NEF: -
Incidentally, I had arrived at the NEF
fashionably late, at the same time as Celia (Marr), who is always great value,
which meant we were seated together. The
catering wasn’t what we were used to in that the mid-morning and mid-afternoon
breaks were “comfort breaks” with water only and no coffee, and no coffee at
lunchtime either – WTF, no caffeine! At
the mid afternoon break Celia and I sloped off to Café Nero, which was just
around the corner for our fix. I was
fine with an Americano but Celia ordered two double Espressos’ – even the guy
servings’ jaw dropped. Respect – I bet
she can eat 3 Shredded Wheat too…. No
wonder she achieves so much in a day; with that much caffeine who would be able
to sleep?
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