(Also, o Discourse Overlords, dat winky. Seriously, who winks with their left eye?)
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I usually only roll with a few hundred on me, but once when I worked in the states I had to pickup 23 thousand from a bank to deliver to corrupt law firm.
Never a cop around when you need one eh?
I hope more countries do this loudly and often so that it starts to hurt tourism dollars. Tourism boards and chambers of commerce seem to be the only ones who are allowed to make changes around hereā¦
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How could law enforcement benefitting from forfeiture not end in disaster? At the very least the assets should disappear in the general budget of the state in order to minimize problematic incentives.
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I donāt know the details. I had a brief gig selling merchant services, and we were told everybody needs to buy new stuff, because computer chips!
Well, they could always forget to file their report about the seizure until they see whether they are going to get a court challenge.
The article say theyāve created an intelligence network to identify people driving with large amounts of cash. Thatās way beyond policing and deep into organized crime.
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I believe it is a āSecurityā measure from the credit card companies so that if nefarious neāer-do-wells have your credit card, they wonāt be able to purchase gas because they donāt know you zip code.
Think of it as a very easy PIN.
OK, apparently I am out of touch with the evolution of language againā¦ Google image-searching ādragoonā turns up a lot of fantasy art but not one single Uhlan or Hussar on the first page. Deep weird, thanks for the tipoff!
I was try to invoke an image of heavily armed, flamboyantly equipped knuckleheads - something like this:
or maybe this:
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I think most Americans donāt like the chip idea, since they can be read at a small distance? Iād just as soon we hurry up and get them though, it makes travel a pain not to have them.
If I searched for Dragoons and got back pictures of Uhlans then Iād think google were doing a pretty poor job.
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We were just in the US and used a made-up code for the zip to buy gas at the pump. Worked fine. Sems the zip might be more of a data farming technique than āsecurityā.
Weāre probably going off on a tangent, but there are two different technologies often referred to as a chip in the card. Thereās Chip and PIN which requires exposed contacts on the card to connect to the reader and thereās RFID chips which can be read at a distance.
Chip and PIN is intended to replace swiping and signing. You insert the card into the reader, it asks for your PIN and to confirm the purchase amount. You take the card out after it completes the transaction.
RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) is for quickly paying for something. You usually have to tap the card against the reader. It exists more for convenience and speed.
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RFID/NFC also breaks if you leave your wallet in the washing machine, which is useful, as there are few other bonuses to doing thatā¦
My bank started 2-step a couple months ago.
Oddly, I do. Iām somewhat ambidextrous.
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Well then, youāre weird and I donāt trust you.
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Never claimed not to be weird. I thought thatās why we all gather here, anyway. Happy Mutants, and all that.
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Yes, well. Thereās mutants, and then thereās winking with your left eyeā¦
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The thing is, itās not just large amounts of money - in fact, itās mostly relatively small amounts (especially as small amounts make it less likely the victims will even try to get it back, as itās just not worth it). Itās not even necessarily money. The cops have been known to grab whatever of value they could find, including the jewelry off peopleās necks (such as a gold crucifix, for example, in one case).
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Well, fancy-dress light cavalry and fancy-dress mounted infantry donāt look all that different to meā¦ but then again anything involving firearms is out of period for a medievalist, so what do I know! 
There are a lot of shades of Canadian nowadays - we have tons of diversity here, lots of melanin.
