By HILARY GAVIN
IF I’M HONEST, I’m not a film critic and I’m not up-to-date with the movie scene, but – saying that – one motion picture that has recently grabbed my attention is THE BIG SHORT – a real-life BANK FRAUD expose in the U.S of A.
Yes, I realise banking is an anathema to the majority of people struggling to pay their family bills and make ends meet in Britain today, but – if you get the chance – stream the 2015 film on Paramount because it’s a eye-opener.
I’ve posted the movie’s official Paramount Pictures trailer, which centres on the real-life sub-prime mortgage scandal in the States in the Naughties, above.
And I’d say the one scene in this trailer that struck home with me was the depiction of the movie’s narrator Jared Vennett (actor Ryan Gosling) telling Connecticut-based trust fund manager Mark Baum (Steve Carell) that the “sub-prime US mortgage bubble” in the late Naughties was “fuelled by stupidity”.
“That’s not stupidity, that’s fraud,” retorts Baum. “Tell me the difference between stupidity and fraud and I’ll have my wife’s brother arrested,” Vennett counters, to background laughter in the Wall Street office. A telling scene indeed.
So my question to you, my readers, today is, how much of the online and real-life fraud we encounter daily in our modern-day banking is the result of stupidity and how much of it is down to outright criminality?
Now, I’m not going to begin to explain the sub-prime mortgage scandal of the mid-Naughties in the US to you in this blog post but I’d recommend you watch The Big Short because it explains it so much better than I can ever do.
Of course, the bottomline was that US bankers got so greedy selling mortgages to folk who couldn’t repay the loans that it resulted in a housing market collapse.
And here’s the ironic bit – because the people who got rich out of this collapse were the hedge-fund managers who bet against (or shorted) the US economy.
To be honest, I don’t want this blog post to become bogged down with financial mumbo-jumbo – especially as I’m not well-versed in global economics. If you want to learn more about this subject in-depth, I’d recommend you take a look at the work by the brilliant BBC iPlayer documentary-maker Adam Curtis.
However, I do want to send a message to our high street banks and building societies in the UK to ask that they put their own houses in order whilst also publishing literature on “How to Spot Online Scams” to loyal customers.
As you know, I’m a journalist and writer, (although I admit I’m finding it nigh-on impossible to earn a living nowadays in the profession I chose to take on), so I know the basics of publishing laws and the importance of being transparent about your charity or registered company on flyers and literature sent to customers.
And this is why I’m so concerned about the Parking Charge Notice (PCN) Civil Enforcement sent to my home address after I over-ran my stay at a Co-op store car park that deploys DVLA car registration plate recognition cameras on privately-owned land in the old fishing village of Selsey, West Sussex.
Don’t get me wrong, I have held my hands up to overstaying my welcome at the car park, and I am willing to pay the £60 fine BUT – as a stickler for honest, safe business publishing laws – I have serious misgivings about the fine that Civil Enforcement (Limited) issued to me on September 23rd, 2025, and which Royal Mail delivered to my home in Hunston two days ago.
My main worries (see fine pictured above) are: 1. Why does the Civil Enforcement logo on the PCN fine simply say Civil Enforcement and not Civil Enforcement LIMITED as is shown on the app if you scan the QR payment code?
2. Why is the registered company number and address for Civil Enforcement Limited at Horton House, Exchange Flags, Liverpool, Merseyside, L2 3PF (as displayed publicly at Companies House on Gov.UK) in such small print in the footer of my fine and is the text blurry? Of course, reputable print workers are worth their weight in gold so they should be able to cast their eyes over it.
3. Why does Civil Enforcement only give me the option to pay my £60 fine by scanning the QR code or going online? The How to Pay instructions on the back of my fine aren’t clear to me and I’d like the choice of paying by BACs, or sending a cheque by Royal Mail to Civil Enforcement’s accounts department. To date, I have no idea why high street banks and building societies repeatedly tell me they can’t advise companies on how to set clear out payment instructions on printed bills.
I still maintain that confusing – and quite frankly – suspect-looking car park fines issued by Government-approved enforcement companies open honest folk – who like to pay bills on time – up to fraud on their bank/building society accounts.
Of course, I’ve also got my qualms about the CCTV images of my car entering and exiting the car park at the lower part of Selsey High Street because I would have thought they should have the date and time printed on them. I’m also wondering whether Civil Enforcement is required by law to print my car registration plate clearly below these images because my research suggests they should do so.
Quite honestly, I had intended to only park at the Co-op for a short while on the afternoon of Tuesday, September 16th, 2025, but I got waylaid. I thought I’d only over-run by a few minutes but, I didn’t take a good look at my watch at the time because I had other things preying on my mind and I might have taken longer.
Saying that, I’m sure other retailers at the lower end of Selsey have CCTV footage of me and my companion milling about that day and grabbing a much-needed bite to eat in the Boulevard cafe by One Stop opposite.
Yes, I admit it, I broke parking regulations at the small Co-op store car park on September 16th, 2025, M’lud, but I’d still like to know when, why, how or if, our UK Government passed legislation allowing PRIVATE landowners to contract car park enforcement firms to deploy car registration plate recognition CCTV to track our addresses down via the DVLA based in Swansea, South Wales.
As I said NO British citizen has the right to do so – so when, where, why and how, did our Judiciary give away these powers to approved PRIVATE landlords?
Righto, I’m not going to bang on about freedom and the Magna Carta in my blog post now – although I am a history graduate and bygone years fascinate me.
Believe it or not, I’m actually going to do quite the contrary because I’ve briefly spoken to some highly-intelligent young cyber security graduates over the past week or so who have told me that they, like me, worry about these issues.
In fact, one young cyber security graduate told me she had concerns about the proposed national ID Cards and possible security breaches. Of course she’d be much better placed to explain these concerns than me – but she did mention that producing these ID cards overseas might indeed breach GDPR legislation.
Now, I’ve already contacted HMRC to question their policy of outsourcing their work abroad, citing national security, because I believe I’ve read somewhere that this branch of the Civil Service shouldn’t share our tax records aboard. As yet, I haven’t had a reply from HMRC, who I reckon have possibly ignored me.
Anyhow, if you’ve read my Facebook posts on social media (please click on the right one), you’ll realise that I tried to pay my £60 parking fine by scanning the QR code but I got a processing error along with a hyperlink to pay online.
My question is: Can I trust this link?
Of course, time is ticking because I only received my £60 fine, which was issued on September 23rd, 2025, in the post via Royal Mail a few days ago. It’s Thursday, October 2nd, 2025, now and the last thing I want is a visit from burly car park enforcement officers at my home chasing for not paying a fine I find suspect!
Unfortunately, our high-street banks and building societies tell me my worries are nothing to do with them, and the front desk of my local police stations will, no doubt, “laugh me out of court” as they’ve done on cyber worries before.
So, it looks as though I will have to consult my TRUSTED FRIENDS at my local Citizens’ Advice Bureau who, on the whole, I have found have been sitting up and paying attention to me. Brilliant people.
My only hope too is that the CCTV technology deployed by Civil Enforcement LIMITED isn’t winging my DVLA records over the airwaves overseas.
Naturally, as a trained and experienced journalist, I’d normally write to the company’s South African-born CEO Mirlene Helen Lorain TALJAARD as shown on Companies House on Gov.UK for “a right of reply”.
But, now, do you think tech-savvy Mirlene would really take any notice of a silly old “demented” woman like me? Who knows?
By HILARY GAVIN
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Hilary (Fiona) Gavin
Freelance Journalist & Writer
T/A Business ‘n’ Commas (Sole Trader)
6 Southover Way
Hunston
CHICHESTER
West Sussex
PO20 1NY
Tel: 07940 444664
Email: grumpywoman@hilarygavin.blog
Active on social media on Facebook and LinkedIn (but please click the right ones)
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