Company uses Web to attract authors, illustrators

Michael Kane
Sun

The staff have a blast at innovative Vancouver publisher Gumboot Books. Above is Tsugumi Kibe (from left), Izabela Bzymek, and co-owners Jared Hunt and Crystal Stranaghan. Photograph by : Stuart Davis, Vancouver Sun

Once upon a time there was a little girl who delighted in splashing around in the mud wearing brightly coloured gumboots, a frilly pink party dress and a baseball cap over her pigtails. She was almost never without a book in hand.

Fast-forward a couple of decades and Crystal Stranaghan has a double major in English and psychology from Simon Fraser University, has worked as a behavioural therapist with autistic kids, as a pre-school teacher and a fundraiser for a variety of non-profits, and is the author of Then it Rained, a book for four-to nine-year-olds that reminds us all about the joy of running free when the skies open.

She’s also the founder of Gumboot Books, an innovative Vancouver publishing house that uses the Internet to attract authors and illustrators from around the world, as well as stretch the limits of traditional marketing.

Rather than pay for conventional promotion, Gumboot invites non-profits, charities and community groups to sign up on its website and receive 10 per cent of every sale they generate. The more buyers the groups send to the Gumboot website, the more books are sold and the more money they raise. Book buyers choose which cause will benefit.

While nobody associated with Gumboot is rolling in the dough, and most have day jobs, Stranaghan says that’s in line with the Gumboot credo of going out and actually experiencing life, not sitting around waiting for the perfect conditions.

“Sometimes that means getting a little muddy,” said Stranaghan, 28, who pays the bills by serving tables at Steamworks Pub in Gastown. Here she met Jen Loffree, Gumboot’s 34-year-old distribution manager, and bartender Nick Gladding, a 26-year-old graphic designer from New Zealand, who dreamed up Gumboot’s distinctive logo showing the silhouette of a young girl in red gumboots reading a book under an umbrella. Stranaghan’s stepdaughter Mikayla was the model for the logo.

Pub connections led to Vancouver illustrator and animator Izabela Bzymek, 27, and Carrie Loffree, a 37-year-old mom living in Hungary who doubles as a translator and editor.

A friend also referred Stranaghan to North Vancouver’s Eleanor Rosenberg, a 26-year-old graphic designer currently living in Germany. Rosenberg did the quirky illustrations for Stranaghan’s second children’s book, Vernon and the Snake.

Other members of the team include co-owner and accounts manager Jared Hunt, 31, a server at the Fairmont Waterfront; Tsugumi Kibe, 27, a Japanese student interning as a translator; and Rosa Espadaler, 24, an illustrator in Spain.

Stranaghan says Gumboot is free to operate internationally because it is not dependent on government grants. Instead, the Internet holds the operation together. In fact, Stranaghan met Espadaler, the illustrator of Then it Rained, online.

“We both had blogs on the same site — hers was all artwork and mine was all writing — and as soon as I saw her artwork, I knew it was what I wanted for my story,” Stranaghan said.

“I sent her an e-mail asking if she might be interested in illustrating a book, and she said sure. We didn’t know each other at all when we started the project, but her English is great, and we corresponded almost every day by e-mail for the nine months it took to put the book together.”

When the book was done, Espadaler flew to Vancouver for the launch party in March.

Editor Chandra Wohleber, 33, who works as resource development coordinator for the United Church, contacted Stranaghan after seeing her first two books in her office in Toronto.

More than 20 titles are posted at gumbootbooks.ca, and Stranaghan says the company is seeking new talent.

“While many publishers focus on experience, we’re looking to help people get a start in the industry: fresh voices, talented young people. Generally, doing things a little differently are what we’re all about.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

Chantal Eustace
Sun

Delta resident Darren Stevens said he was happy when he learned someone stole $200 from his bank account in what he believes to be debit card fraud.

As co-founder of MySpy — digital software that keeps people updated on their bank activities through e-mail and text messaging — he said, he was armed and ready for a virtual attack on his finances.

“I was excited,” he said, chuckling. “We were really wanting to catch some criminals with this.”

On March 23, his MySpy software sent him a text message alerting him that someone at a Vancouver automated teller had withdrawn money from his account. Since he was at home at the time, not at a bank machine, he knew something was wrong. He believes someone used a counterfeited debit card.

Stevens said he immediately called police, alerted his bank and nipped the problem in the bud.

But most people don’t know they’re being robbed.

On Friday, Vancouver police alerted the public to a debit card skimming scam. They said thousands of people in the Lower Mainland could be affected by “parasite” handheld debit machines used to create counterfeit cards.

Members of an Eastern European crime gang were alleged to be surreptitiously switching debit pin pads with ones implanted with a parasite device. The only way to know if you’ve been targeted is to check your bank account, police warned.

Debit card fraud is on the rise, according to the Canadian Bankers Association.

In 2006, out of 35 million cards issued across Canada, about 119,000 were impacted by skimming — up from about 72,000 in 2005.

“It’s going up slightly,” said Caroline Hubberstey, a spokeswoman for the association.

Hubberstey said new technology is being considered in order to help protect consumers against this type of fraud. In the fall, micro-chip debit cards — like ones used in Europe — will be tested out in Waterloo, Ontario, she said. If this pilot project goes well, she said, these cards and card readers will be rolled out across Canada.

But local fraud specialist Jeff Burton, of the BC Crime Prevention Association, said customers need to take more responsibility for protecting themselves because technology alone can’t solve the problem.

“The bad guys are only a couple of steps behind any new developments in technology,” Burton said. He recommends people look at their online financial statements daily.

“There’s no way the consumer will know, until it’s too late, that their debit cards have been compromised,” Burton said.

As for Stevens, he said he blames the convenience of online banking, direct deposit and debit machines for making people complacent. “People are getting out of touch with their money,” Stevens said. “It’s all taking place electronically.”

He hasn’t had any updates on his case from police, he said, adding he doesn’t know where the fraud occurred. “The police told me [my card] was skimmed.”

The cash was returned to his account through his bank 24 hours later and he got his debit card replaced, he said, so no harm done.

Most of all, Stevens said, it was a good learning experience: “I take money out all the time. I don’t know if I ever would have noticed.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

North America’s fastest-growing crime like ‘Wild, Wild West for the bad guys’ in easy-credit age

Janice Tibbetts and Carly Weeks
Sun

Barbara Stafford’s identity was stolen two years ago. The Whitby, Ont. resident is still mystified that someone was able to steal almost $20,000 using a bogus driver’s licence. Photo illustration Malcolm Taylor/Canwest News Service

OTTAWA — There’s nothing safe about the life you live — unless you use only cash.

Otherwise, you are at risk of becoming a victim of identity theft.

It’s the fastest-growing crime on the continent, fuelled by a technological explosion, an economy hooked on easy credit, consumers who treat their identities cavalierly, businesses that don’t take adequate security measures to protect personal data, and a justice system that has been slow to respond.

With a bit of personal information — as little as a name, address and birthdate — a thief can use someone’s good name to siphon money out of their bank account or exploit their credit worthiness to rack up credit-card charges.

“It’s like the Wild, Wild West for the bad guys,” says Edmonton police Det. Bob Gauthier.

“I always joke that when I retire I’m going to do credit-card fraud. It’s such a lucrative business and it’s too easy if you know what you’re doing.”

Although definitions vary, identity theft — also called identity fraud — involves someone using another person’s personal information for financial gain.

Surveys suggest there are some two million to four million Canadian victims, but nobody knows for sure because nobody really keeps track.

What is known is that debit and credit card fraud hits the wallets of Canadians constantly and costs the economy about $1 million a day, according to Insp. Barry Baxter of the RCMP’s commercial crime branch.

Debit card fraud losses totalled $94.6 million in Canada in 2006, the Interac Association reports. Canadians reported $291 million in credit card fraud losses last year to Visa, MasterCard and American Express. Fraud involving fake or counterfeit payment cards made up 49 per cent of those losses, while “card not present” transactions, which include Internet, phone and mail-order purchases, accounted for 30 per cent.

Even so, says Baxter, the losses are a drop in the bucket compared to how much banks, card issuers and businesses reap from the use of plastic.

Canadians are among the world’s most frequent users of credit and debit cards, helping banks and businesses save money by making more services electronic and cutting labour costs. Electronic payments boosted the Canadian economy by 25 per cent over the past two decades, representing $107 billion of the economy’s $437-billion growth from 1983 to 2003, according to a study sponsored by Visa Canada in 2004.

Canadians also spend more money when they pay with plastic. Credit and debit cards are the main reason Canadians have increased personal spending by $60 billion in the past 20 years, says the study, conducted by economic consulting firm Global Insight Inc.

Consequently, the country’s financial institutions and businesses recognize that if consumers suddenly lost faith in the electronic payments system, there would be a serious hit to the economy.

“I think there’s acknowledgement that if there is a loss of confidence and faith, that you don’t want that to happen, and that is why you work hard to maintain that confidence,” said Caroline Hubberstey, director of public and community affairs at the Canadian Bankers Association.

The criminals range from petty thieves to organized crime gangs. Spouses rip off ex-spouses and there have been cases of parents taking out credit in their children’s names. In B.C., it’s become a crime of choice for methamphetamine addicts.

“It’s an easy way to pay for their drugs,” says Sgt. Ken Athans of the Vancouver Identity Theft Task Force, one of the few concentrated efforts in the country.

“For some it’s not about the drugs, it’s about the lifestyle. Some guys can live a $10,000-a-day lifestyle. A few ladies we’ve targeted, it’s about the buying, the shopping, the Juicy bags and the Gucci sunglasses.”

Identity theft sprouts in many forms. A store clerk, recruited by organized crime, can “skim” a customer’s bank or credit card by running it through a hidden, illegal machine, enabling the data to be downloaded onto a fraudulent card.

“Dumpster divers” can rummage through trash looking for personal information or discarded credit-card offers to use themselves or sell for money.

“Shoulder surfers” will steal a peek as prospective victims fill out forms that request their social insurance numbers or birthdates.

Small-time thieves will swipe mail from outdoor boxes and sell the goods to fraud rings or one of the thriving Internet black-market sites that buy and sell personal information.

There are also scams such as “phishing,” in which a thief sends a mass e-mail that appears to be from a reputable company requesting information. An offshoot, dubbed “vishing,” happens when a crook phones and leaves a voicemail requesting a call-back.

U.S. studies report that up to 80 per cent of thefts still occur the low-tech, old-fashioned way, such as by sifting through trash or stealing mail.

That’s what happened to Paul Lima, a Toronto writer and consultant, who considers himself one of the lucky ones because he caught on after only a week or so that he wasn’t getting any mail.

“The penny dropped,” Lima said, when his mother phoned late last November to see if he received his birthday card and a cheque for $50. He had not.

That’s when it dawned on him that he hadn’t received other cheques he was expecting from his clients. So he called Canada Post, which told him someone had changed his address about 10 days earlier.

Lima suspects somebody used a phoney driver’s licence to divert his mail to a Toronto post office box. He said he spent weeks cleaning up the mess — closing his bank account and opening a new one, cancelling his credit cards, contacting his clients to ask them for new cheques, calling the police, and asking a credit agency to flag his credit rating so it wouldn’t be mud.

Equifax and Trans Union, Canada’s two major credit-reporting agencies, say they each receive approximately 1,400 to 1,800 Canadian identity theft complaints every month.

The numbers, however, cannot be independently confirmed because there is no federal clearinghouse, as there is in the United States.

Businesses are not required by law to report when thieves hack into their systems. Banks, which have the best picture of the true scope of credit card and debit card fraud, don’t have to share their information with anybody.

Financial institutions and cellphone companies have been accused of being major culprits in allowing identity theft to thrive because they don’t want to drive customers away by screening them too vigourously.

“The banks just write it off as the cost of doing business,” says Gauthier of the Edmonton police. “They don’t want to come out and say, ‘This is a huge problem,’ because they’ll bite themselves in the foot.”

Greg Ivany, a Halifax university student who had $500 stolen from his bank account after his debit card was fraudulently duplicated, is suspicious of his bank’s reaction.

“They asked that I not contact the police because they do their own investigations and if I contacted the police it would hamper their investigation,” said Ivany. “I didn’t really understand because it is a criminal thing.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2007