Technology chief Duncan Tait has taken to carrying large wedges of cash with
him when he goes abroad after having his credit cards cloned five times in
the past 18 months while on business trips.
“I’ve had my cards cloned twice in both Africa and Pakistan, and once in the
US, in the past 18 months, but HSBC’s fraud team have done an outstanding
job and caught the culprits each time,” said Tait.
“But it does get very inconvenient and I always have to take two debit or
credit cards with me. Really, I’ve now shifted towards taking cash
everywhere I go and just using that.”
Tait is the UK managing director of Unisys, which provides technology systems
that are used by governments and police forces to run security systems, and
by companies to run mortgages and payment systems. In the quarter to June,
the company globally made profits of around $29 million (£15 million). Tait,
42, has 5,000 employees working for him and travels around the UK, Europe
and further afield to visit clients and staff.
Do you know how the cards were cloned?
Usually, it’s happened in restaurants. But I know several people who have
travelled with me, listed everything they’ve got with them on a landing card
at the airport and stated which hotel they are staying in. Then, surprise,
surprise, everything gets stolen from their room. That’s a tip from me – be
very careful what you put on a landing card.
Have you had many other adventures abroad?
Well, on the way to the US, they always find it very entertaining to make you
virtually strip off to go through security. It’s partly our fault because we
supply the technology to enable them to do it. In South Africa it can take
ages to get through customs, which are often manned by people with very
little experience. You have to run to get to the front of the queue,
otherwise you can be waiting ages. It’s very irritating dealing with people
who think that when they wear a uniform they’re running the country. I went
to Pakistan recently and two hours after we arrived, the president resigned.
Tens of miles away there were suicide bombings, which was a bit
disconcerting.
Tell us about your flights
I’ll invariably fly from Manchester and have to change at London, usually
Heathrow. If I’m connecting, I’ll never again put luggage in the hold if I
can help it. I came back from three trips in a row with British Airways and
each time my bags weren’t there and had to be delivered to my house two or
three days later. I have to say, the service for dropping off bags is
exceptional. When it happened the first time, I apologised to the driver
that he had to come out as far as my house and he said he had to do around
10 deliveries a day in my area.
Why do you think there is such a problem?
It’s when you had to switch from Terminal 4 to Terminal 1 that you got the
problem, because the bags never made the connection. But also, a lot of
people just don’t take care of the bags. I was sitting in the lounge at
Heathrow and saw a man driving a luggage cart. He took a roundabout too fast
and three bags dropped off. He looked around and saw they’d fallen off the
cart, but couldn’t be bothered to pick them up and just carried on. I phoned
up the authorities, partly because I don’t like to see discarded bags under
a building in these days of security problems, but again no one was bothered
about it or rushed to pick them up.
