Burger review: Whiskey Cake in Plano

After several ventures into the darkest bars Dallas has to offer, it was time for a change for the crew at Burger Breakdown. It was time for a burger that hadn’t been cooked on a grill that may or may not have been cleaned in the last year, and it was time for a place where you could actually see who was sitting across the table. It was time to visit somewhere where it was okay to be sober past noon.Choose from our large selection of cableties, It was time for a visit to Plano, and time for a visit to Whiskey Cake.

The change couldn’t have been bigger. Plano and Whiskey Cake feel like a world away from the Lakewood dive bar scene. Brightly lit and overflowing with exceedingly friendly waiters and waitresses, the restaurant offers a homey,Grey Pneumatic is a world supplier of impactsockets for the heavy duty, small-town feeling that you don’t often find in Dallas area eateries. And even though it’s packed to the gills with eager patrons rushing through their lunch breaks, there is hardly any wait at all for a table. The restaurant, the brainchild of restaurateur Randy DeWitt and design consulting group Plan B, is set up like an old warehouse, with hanging light fixtures and exposed brick throughout. And while the walls and hanging lights may look ancient, the polished, hardwood floor and beautiful oversized windows look brand new. But pretty ornamentation isn’t the only reason to visit. The main reason to visit Whiskey Cake – and it’s obvious because they’re on almost every table in the place – are the burgers.

The Basic burger ($11) may be just that, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s plain. Chef TJ Legnick’s creation is served on a small brown ceramic piece of tile covered with a bit of butcher paper and a small skewer holding the burger together, on top of which is a large pickle that manages to drip all over the top of the bun. While some may think this small inconvenience would dampen the meal, it really only adds to it. And don’t make the mistake of thinking basic means small, either,Broken chinamosaic Table. because it does not. Half of this burger is enough to please a normal man. Served on a slightly toasted/buttered challah bun, the brisket patty is grilled medium with little to no pink in the middle. Charred well, but not at all burned, the meat, topped with thick slices of Swiss and American cheese, was moist and meaty,Welcome to projectorlamp. benefiting from accompanying bacon, veggies, and mustard.

The Basic is stuffed with tomatoes, romaine lettuce, and strips of red onions, which all tasted like they had just been harvested that day. The bacon is crispy, and the crunch goes well with softness of the bun and patty. However, the mustard is the star of the burger. It blends well with the cheeses and meat and adds just the right amount of bite.

And then there is the OMG Burger ($12). The thing is a mess – a delicious mess – but still a mess. It comes to the table with a giant steak knife plunged through the middle to hold it all together. The second the knife is removed the whole thing collapses on itself and all that’s left is a pile of soggy challah bun, roasted crimini mushrooms, a giant onion ring and a brisket patty all smothered in Port Salut cheese. Honestly, it’s best to just attack this thing with a fork. To compare the OMG and the basic is pretty simple; it has the same bun, same patty,Get information on airpurifier from the unbiased, independent experts. same veggies and slightly fancier mustard (a grain mustard, but the taste is similar to the mustard on the basic. The main differences are the onion ring and the mushrooms. The onion ring could be a meal in itself. It’s massive. Stacked under the bun and on top of the patty, it’s impossible to get at all of the items in one bite. What really kicks the flavor in the pants is the mushrooms. Creamy and moist, the roasted crimini mushrooms make the whole burger. The combination of the Port Salut, brisket patty, and mushrooms is a pleasant surprise.,

It may be far away or too bright and fancy for the dive bar burger aficionado, but Whiskey Cake offers amazing burgers at reasonable prices. Yes, it’s a burger that sounds like it belongs in a preteen girl’s text message, but it’s well worth the drive.

Lost in the piles and files

I was frantically looking for a document the other day so I could finish my taxes. I began in the master bedroom, moved to the kitchen where papers are sometimes piled up, and then went on to the home office. After cleaning off two desks and the top of a filing cabinet, I began to clean out a box. I didn’t find the document but I did discover three unopened envelopes that contained offering checks to our church—dated July 2011. Oops.

I then moved to the church office down the highway and began the same process there. After taking a couple of hours to go through piles of stuff on my desk and a box of more stuff I kept in the shower (Yeah, I know), I opened a desk drawer. There I saw it. No, not the sought after document. Rather,Grey Pneumatic is a world supplier of impactsockets for the heavy duty, I saw a file folder marked “Urgent.Diagnosing and Preventing coldsores Fever in the body can often trigger the onset of a cold sore.” Behind it was a file folder marked “Important.Stone Source offers a variety of Natural stonemosaic Tiles.” The stuff in the “Urgent” file was dated 2005 and 2006. I guess it wasn’t that urgent after all. I couldn’t bear to look in the “Important” file. Who knows how long it had been in the drawer?

As embarrassing as this story is to tell, in the great scheme of life the misplaced and forgotten items were of little long-term significance. Everyone misplaces things, even important things. The tragedy is when we lose and misplace ourselves, intending—someday—to make things right.

As a pastor, I know scores of people who are “used-to-be’s.” That is, they are people who used to be committed,GOpromos offers a wide selection of promotional items and personalized gifts. faithful Christians. They used to be dependable church members. Perhaps they used to be Sunday School teachers, board members, youth workers, or children’s workers. I know people who used to be ministers, pastors, priests, and even bishops. Some of these people used to be tithers and generous givers. They used to be examples that inspired people. They used to pray. They used to read the Scriptures. They were people upon who the Church could depend. But no more.

Some are pale shadows of who they used to be while others are not who they used to be at all. Somewhere, somehow, they lost themselves in the boxes, and piles, and files of life. They have become, for all practical purposes, of no value. The checks that sat in my cardboard box in the basement office did no one any good. They had potential but not as long as they remained lost. There are those who were once useful, vibrant,The beddinges sofa bed slipcover is a good ， even powerful, but have sadly become “used-to-be’s.” You know who you are.

Easter is the highest, holiest day in the Church calendar. It is also the day that most commemorates and celebrates the return of hope to those who had become hopeless. It is a day of being “found.” It is a day where people who have lost themselves and have lost their way can return to God, to Church, and to usefulness.
Be found this Sunday. Hide from God and His purposes for your life no longer. Don’t stay lost in the piles of stuff that life heaps upon you. Go home to Church. If you don’t have one, find one. If you would like an invitation, come to my church—even if only for one Sunday. God will restore you and life will become good again—but you must want to be found. Your file really is marked “Urgent.” Don’t ignore it—please!

Payment fraud is organised, so what do you do?

When your merchant processor calls to inform you that the card associations have flagged your company as falling within their criteria for a fraudulent operation, the threat of having to close your doors for the very last time can take on awesome proportions. Is this scenario a real possibility, and what can you do to prevent it from ever happening to you?

Seasoned risk management professionals will tell you that payment fraud today is very sophisticated and well organised. Where there is money involved, the criminal element of our society has focused their efforts on various schemes that will conveniently and easily transfer its value to their coffers.

Their primary objective, as if directed from some planning division, is to create a steady flow of income beneath the radar screen of detectability. For this reason, one can never eliminate fraud completely, but you must manage it down to an acceptable and predictable ‘cost-of-doing-business' level.

This frightful call situation happens more frequently than we would like, even under today's highly electronic and terminal-driven payment environment. Card payment fraud can come from many sources, but one prevalent method is to force a number of fraudulent transactions through a single merchant portal, fence the goods and then disappear.

It may take days for consumers to object, but investigators quickly assemble data and look for a common point of purchase (CPP), in card payment parlance. A call follows to notify you that your merchant system has been breached.

How can you prevent this call from ever taking place in your situation? Unfortunately, systems today are extremely complex. Even highly sophisticated and large merchants with ample resources devoted to fraud prevention have suffered from breaches in their networks.

In response, the card associations came together as one to fight crime by developing the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI-DSS) that has been an ongoing effort for the past five years.

The world of merchant account payment options can be very daunting, especially for smaller merchants, but processors have typically developed a cadre of experts to assist merchants in their respective compliance activities.

Navigating through these turbulent waters requires experience on a daily level with the variety of attacks that can transpire between the point of sale and the eventual posting of a transaction to a consumer account. If your processor does not provide support of this nature, then it may be a good time to switch your allegiances.

After a breach has occurred, the first step is to secure with the assistance of your processor, who should be a capable PCI forensic investigator. This individual will determine where and how your system was breached and recommend changes to prevent any further data compromises from happening down the road.

The changes may be as simple as upgrading your operating software to the next release, or may require a major overhaul of your entire method of doing business. Either way, it is a costly procedure.

To avoid larger costs in the future, the prudent way to go is to review your merchant account payment options and determine where the weaknesses in your present system of controls exist. PCI standards are very specific, especially in their encryption requirements of personal consumer and card data during every step in your internal processing regimen.

Due to its inherent complexity, your processor may require an outside auditor to confirm your PCI compliance before accepting larger volumes of transactions from your merchant network. Compliance levels do vary according to size so you need to be aware of when critical levels are on the horizon.

The card associations continually update merchant processors on their level of PCI compliance and issue fines when the facts warrant. If the processor can justify his position and find fault with your PCI status, he will most likely deduct the fines from your daily deposit stream. The time to act is before the breach, not after.

Small Business Owners Now Making Accepting Credit Cards A Priority

Today's customers have high demands when it comes to convenience and a lot of local small business owners are quickly discovering that the old methods of doing business are no longer appropriate in many areas.

Today's customers have high demands when it comes to convenience and a lot of local small business owners are quickly discovering that the old methods of doing business are no longer appropriate in many areas. Today's entrepreneurs can get set up and started doing business so quickly that businesses which do not adapt to the current commercial environment are going to be beat out fairly rapidly by competition that is willing to cater to the demands of today's customers. For those that want to be able to get the right type of customer into their business today, the type that is ready to do business right away, being able to process credit and debit cards is an absolute must. There really is no other way to explain the rising popularity of merchant accounts among today's small business owners. The fact that these are so easy to obtain via a service such as Pay Pal definitely makes it a great deal easier for many business owners who are looking to accept these cards without needing to pay extreme fees in the process. Since there is so much business to be done for those who accept such cards, more and more companies are coming to the idea that finding the right set up is worth it.

USBSwiper is one of the most popular names among small business owners looking to scan credit and debit cards. With a wide variety of swiping machines available that can be hooked up to a laptop PC for easy payment processing, the company is able to offer a total solution for businesses and make having a low cost, hassle free merchant account through a service like Pay Pal something they are more than willing to do. When the average business owner considers just how many sales they could miss if they are not able to process these cards they quickly see exactly why it is a good idea to look for a solution that fits their needs. Since portable technology such as this makes everything so much simpler on the business owner, it is often going to be their first choice for card processing. That allows them to deliver products and services straight to a customer's home if need be and even print up professional receipts on the spot.

Sweden's Seamless Eyes Mobile-Pay Plan To Bypass Cards

Stockholm, Sweden-based Seamless awaits patent approval for its SEQR mobile-pay application, which enables clerks to scan a barcode displayed on a mobile-phone screen to authorize payment drawn from the customer's bank account, the company stated in a press release.

Cash registers supplied with the Seamless software send the sale total directly to the customer's mobile phone. The customer enters a four-digit PIN on the phone to authorize the account withdraw through the application, the press release stated.

Seamless officials could not be reached to comment about the software initiative or to provide details about which mobile phones could accept the software after its patent approval.

The entire process of paying through the mobile phone takes half the time of a standard credit card payment, Seamless CEO Peter Fredell stated in the press release.

In that process, merchants send the consumer's item list and sale amount to the "transaction switch" of the SEQR software.

After the consumer scans a barcode sticker merchants attach to each cash register, identifying that register with a mobile phone, he is prompted to tap a button on the phone to send the information to the SEQR software, which confirms the cash register and sends the sale information to the consumer's phone for authorization. Banks verify the information, confirm funds are available, and process the transaction, the Seamless website states.

"If we imagine that all retailers in the U.S. started using SEQR, the total savings could be as high as $24 billion each year, and this demonstrates the massive potential of SEQR," Fredell said. The release did not say how much merchants would pay for Seamless' transactions.

The mobile-pay system would provide significant savings for retail and grocery businesses because they pay high fees to credit card companies and often have to invest in new payment terminals each time a new standard is introduced, Fredell said.

Seamless' mobile-pay plan is not the first, nor will it be the last, trying to replace a card account with a bank account for retail payments, Zil Bareisis, a London-based senior analyst for research firm Celent, tells PaymentsSource.

Seamless is likely to face many challenges once the software is on the market, Bareisis suggests.

"One of the challenges faced by many such mobile-payment plans in the past was payment guarantee to the merchant who takes on the risk of funds not being available during settlement," Bareisis suggests.

Starbucks Corp. this week expanded into Europe its closed-loop mobile-pay service, which also relies on barcode scans.

Seamless' software supports a multimerchant scheme, and that will present a significant task for mass acceptance, Bareisis contends.

Unlike four-party networks, such as Visa Inc. and MasterCard Worldwide, which rely on their member issuing and acquiring banks to attract cardholders and merchants into the system, Seamless would have to build its own network, Bareisis says.

Bareisis wonders how Seamless will convince banks to participate in the system "if the premise is built around cannibalizing the banks' revenues from cards."

Bruising fruit fight

Guy Gaeta has given up dealing with fruit merchants.

He now drives the five hours from Orange to Sydney several times a week to run his own stall in the growers shed of the Sydney Markets.

There he sells his apples and cherries direct to consumers and retailers to avoid the middle man.

"It's open slaughter (sic)," he says

The merchants "pay as little as you can to the grower, or as much as you can to keep him," he says.

"But we don't know what the thing is sold for. No government has ever been able to fix it up."

Growers want a receipt early, once their consignment of fruit and vegetables has arrived.

But meet the wholesalers at the Sydney Markets and they'll all tell you, it's just too complex to give a receipt for all the produce as it arrives in the early morning, before they have ascertained its quality, or market demand.

Bill Chalk is long running president of the Chamber of Fruit and Vegetable Industries at the Sydney Markets, where he also has a wholesale business called Southern Cross Produce.

"Now if you were to negotiate a price with all these growers before you started to sell; my staff started at 3am and the buyers are in here trying to buy, what time do we negotiate the price and how do we do it?" he asks somewhat rhetorically.

But it's more than the failure to deliver a price early.

For the growers it's also about the confusion of whether at Sydney Markets, they're dealing with agents or merchants.

Apple grower Guy Gaeta believes the biggest problem is merchants are acting as agents, but not declaring their service fee as a commission, and therefore not paying GST.

"If you're acting as a wholesaler, you should be purchasing the crop, within a certain amount of hours, you should be telling the grower what you're paying," says Mr Gaeta.

So growers should be getting a receipt.

"They're not doing that. They're telling them, a week later, they send em a fax, of what they sold them for, but when the paperwork is done they don't show the 10 per cent as if they're working as an agent," says Guy Gaeta

But if that's the case, why isn't the tax office cracking down?

"They're scared," he says.

Bill Chalk does agree with the fruit growers that the Horticultural Code, that was drawn up during the Howard Government, is a "dog's breakfast.... no one practical person sat down to work this out.

"How would you like to be on the phone at 2am negotiating a price, and you don't agree."

The produce "just sits here."

It's 5am at Sydney Markets and already wholesale merchants, have been there for up to three hours.

It's a dangerous place to walk around, as the 700 forklifts buzz around and despite laws to the contrary, presume right of way.

Bill Chalk explains this market is big and complex.

"30 per cent of the population of Australia gets its fruit and vegetables through Sydney Markets somehow.

With 5,000 workers, "Sydney is the largest market in the Southern Hemisphere, the second-largest in the world, and the largest privately owned market in the world."

Wholesale markets like this in Sydney; in Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth are the key distribution point for almost all Australia's horticulture.

It's where retailers large and small, processors and the food industry come to buy fruit and veg for us, the consumers.

Bill Chalk says boxes arrive from many suppliers, of varying quality and there'd be endless paperwork if receipts were to be written.

"I"ll say this - they don't understand the practicalities. In your mind, you think it's quite simple, don't you.

"Well I'll show you this, I've never thought of this, I'm running off the cuff here, there's one, two, three, four different producers on that pallet. So I've got to write four different receipts?"


But back on the farm, there's mistrust about the markets, and the pricing system.

Peter Darley has 25,000 apple trees - of the most popular varieties, on the rolling hills in the central-west NSW.

He's been lobbying for changes for 11 years.

"It doesn't matter what state you are, I think the key problem in each state is the lack of transparency, in the actual sale price.

"Now if you were to actually go and buy a motorcar, you'd ask the price you're going to get for it, or if you were selling it you wouldn't sell it without first getting a price.

"But as horticultural producers we consign produce to that market and we don't know what we're going to get for it.

"They operate under a merchants' agreement. Now a true merchant must give the grower a price, the grower agrees to that price, that's fine, the wholesaler can then go on, and make a mark up on that produce and make a profit himself.

"He's doing that now without setting a price with the grower."

He says it takes at least five days to get a price out of the wholesale merchant.

Peter Darley is on the Horticulture Taskforce, to try to modify the Horticulture code that was introduced under the last government.

He says the lack of transparency is "decimating the industry. We just can't operate anymore.

"The price we've seen in the last few weeks, the prices retailers are charging and the low price farmers are receiving, somewhere in the middle, is it price gouging by the retailer or is it price taking by the wholesaler? Because there's no transparency in there, no one knows."

Peter Darley says the problems go back eleven years, before there was any code.

"The government brought in voluntary retail grocery code, that was never very successful.

"Next the government brought in mandatory code, but it only covers wholesalers, (and it should cover everybody.) retailers, processors, exporters, wholesalers.

"That's one where we agree with the wholesalers.

"That's where we'd look for transparency."

"We've seen retailers charge high prices, pink lady apples e.g are $7.99 ...to $9.99 a kg, but if the grower is receiving $2. to $2.20/ kg, that's about the top price he's receiving. Clearly there's a huge margin that's disappearing out of the equation," says Peter Darley.

The federal independent member Bob Katter has launched his own changes to the Horticulture Code in Parliament, to try to make every transaction transparent.

"Why wouldn't you give the farmer evidence of sale?

"Every other sale that takes place in the world and in this country gets that," Mr Katter told Parliament.

"But the poor old farmer, all he gets is the rough end of the pineapple, Mr Speaker."

Now dubbed the Katter code, not only does it call for transparency and a receipt, it wants a price setting in 24 hours, a payment within 45 days, and the money to be placed in a trust account.

At the moment, the fruit merchant can go broke and the grower wears the whole risk.

It's fuelled by the likes of Makse Srhoj fruit grower in Katter's productive Far North Queensland electorate.

Makse Srhoj says he's been left unpaid for fruit and pumpkins he's sent and Sydney or Brisbane four times in the past eight years.

The worst case was a Brisbane wholesaler went bankrupt.

"It was probably about four years ago, with trading company Benays which involved half a million dollars to about 10 or 12 farmers.

"And how much were you owed?"

"I was owed around about $44,500 actually. I'd delivered pumpkins."

He says both the consumer watchdog ACCC and to ASIC (the Australian Securities and Investment Commission) concluded the amount was too small to chase.

Sydney Markets believe it has far fewer bankruptcies than the wider economy.

Within the past decade the market has run a Credit Co-op to ensure the traders get their money.

President of Chamber of Fruit and Vegetable Industries Bill Chalk says Sydney traders can limit their liability if the retailer they sell to doesn't pay.

But he doesn't see why the co-op should invite growers in.

"Just like any debtor, if for some reason one of the majors defaults, I'd have no way of getting paid either.

"That's part of a business risk. Growers need to do their research. And for the size of the industry this is, it doesn't take long for growers to work out who pays and who doesn't.

"People still get caught, but percentage wise it's whimsical on turnover of payments to growers."

Where to now?

Merchants you meet at the markets believe their relationships with growers are important, and are based on trust.

But for mango and pumpkin grower Makse Srhoj whose been burnt many times, trust is a poor excuse for a lack of transparency.

And Guy Gaeta has his own suspicions of Sydney Markets, which are not being investigated.

"I don't know of too many farmers going around with $400,000 cars.

"You're telling me they're small businesses? We're the small business supplying them.

"We're giving them the wealth and we're not getting our fair share of what truly the fruit has been sold for."

The growers are continuing to lobby the Government to get rid of the old contracts, arguing merchants have too much power.

Katter's code has taken the next step and will be investigated by the House Agriculture Committee. It's called for public submissions.

Bob Katter's trying to force fruit merchants to be more open in their dealings with growers but it's likely to be met with fierce resistance and it's what numerous Government inquiries have failed to do in the past.

Frequently Exchanging Stocks at OTCBB

Wall Street started flat as investors stay undecided regarding the direction of attempts to rescue Europe from its debt crisis. In this uncertain trading environment, some stocks are trading actively include MediSwipe Inc , Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. and Avstar Aviation Group . MWIP and ACTC are currently trading more than their average daily volume whereas AAVG is trading below it.

Let’s have a more thorough look on these penny stocks.

A merchant payment solutions and financial products firm for the medical health care industry and its fully owned subsidiary 800 Commerce Inc. a leading enabler and turnkey ecommerce solution source counting mobile payment solutions, recently declared new merchant services agreements for September surpassing eight million dollars in monthly gross processing volume. Its shares gained 120.93% to $0.0095 with the total traded volume of 41.17 million shares beating the average volume of 1.21 million.

The latest merchant processing agreements comprise wellness centers, e-commerce and high risk merchant accounts. Under the recently signed agreements, MediSwipe and 800 Commerce will offer merchant services, gift/ loyalty cards and personal digitized healthcare records to the fresh merchant network. The Company will also inform shareholders on the correct filing date of the 800 Commerce Spin-off and dividend share within the coming few days.

A leader in the field of regenerative medicine, declared today that the company’s chairman and CEO, Gary Rabin, will give presentation at two upcoming conferences: the Rodman & Renshaw 13th Annual Healthcare Conference in New York and Terrapinn’s Stem Cells USA & Regenerative Medicine Congress 2011 in Boston.

Mr. Rabin will give updates on the company’s two continuing human clinical trials using hESC-derived RPE cells to treat macular degeneration and further programs. Its shares slipped 2.82% to $0.172 with the total traded volume of 6.59 million shares beating the average volume of 3.70 million.

Fraud costs airlines USD1.4 billion a year. Regional airlines the fraudste

The aviation industry is inherently exposed to numerous external influences, such as fuel costs, the economy, exchange rate fluctuations, natural disasters and political instability, as recent world events highlight. Fraud is another external challenge facing the aviation industry, with major cost implications - although this can at least to some degree be controlled and monitored by aviation companies.

In an exclusive Q&A with CAPA, David Britton, VP of industry solutions at risk management/fraud prevention company 41st Parameter, explains how online fraud is affecting the aviation industry.

1.     In 2008, airlines lost around USD1.4 billion to fraud, representing around 1.3% of the world total. Where does this figure stand today?

Overall, the airline industry continues to experience an "attack rate" of 1% - 1.5% of revenue, although some geographies, including the Middle East and Latin America, are subject to rates as high as 3 – 4% of revenue.

2.     Given the increasing proportion of business conducted online, are airlines particularly susceptible to fraud compared to other industries?

The attack rate for airlines is comparable to the overall rate for e-commerce merchants selling physical goods online.  Two areas where airlines are more sensitive to fraud losses are 1) the perishability of seat inventory, and 2) margins that make the loss of even a single seat to fraud painful to recover from.  Ideally, airlines either prevent a fraudster from completing a booking, or are able to discover a fraudulent booking in sufficient time to cancel the reservation and resell the seats.

3.     Is it primarily larger carriers that have taken steps against fraud? Are the smaller carriers more susceptible to this type of crime?

All carriers are susceptible to fraud, but it was the largest carriers that pioneered aggressive countermeasures to fight fraud.  With fairly strong protections now in place at the majors, fraudsters are shifting their focus to airlines they have an easier time booking with – and the least chance of being stopped at the gate and asked for an alternate form of payment before they can board. 

Who is at a disadvantage today?  Airlines that fly routes competitive with carriers that have superior fraud prevention capabilities will naturally absorb a disproportionate share of fraudulent booking attempts.  At the same time, mid-tier or regional carriers are now becoming the "carriers of choice" for fraudsters.

4.     Are particular airline models targetted in fraudulent activities (LCCs? FSCs? Charters?). LCCs, for example, tend to have a higher proportion of bookings made online. Does this expose them to greater risk?

 Fraudsters attack based on where and how they have the greatest likelihood of successfully booking and flying, so carriers which have marginal protections in place vis-o-vis competitors will naturally be at a disadvantage.  Likewise a carrier that does not have consistently strong protections across booking channels will see fraud migrate to the least-protected channel. 41st witnessed this during an implementation where the carrier chose to deploy enhanced fraud protection against its online channel first, to be followed by the call centre and kiosks.  Within a month of the tougher fraud protection being put in place for web-based bookings, fraud in call centre reservations had surged 40%. The following month, both the call centre and kiosk channels were placed under the umbrella of the fraud detection solution and the trend was reversed.

Both full-service and low-cost carriers suffer fraud attacks.  Exposure varies by routes (certain cities have a higher preponderance of fraudulent bookings) and on long-haul flights premium cabins are often preferred.

5.     Which carrier types manage fraud well?

Managing fraud well means minimising fraud losses while simultaneously not offending or inconveniencing customers. Said another way, maximising passenger revenue by not rejecting valid bookings or cutting off sales too far in advance of a flight to allow time to process manual review queues. Both of these objectives must be met within the constraint of an operating budget for fraud detection and prevention that is appropriate given the size of the problem.

With airlines experiencing fraud attack rates in the 1–3% range, there are carriers that actually reject 8%-25% of good orders because their automated fraud screening methods can’t examine bookings with sufficient granularity to accurately interpret whether a booking request is fraudulent or not.

6.     What percentage of airlines would have fraud prevention departments in place?

 The Deloitte Airline Fraud Report 2010 states that 52% of the respondents to its survey of IAAIA member airlines (copy available from Schwartz Communications) had "no system to formally detect and track fraudulent attempts to obtain tickets, and only half of respondents had a formal system to pick up unusual transactions or suspicious activities."

Virtually all of the major carriers have systems in place today.

I enjoy the fact that every day is different

Jolynn Dobson Cook, RN, COE (Laurel Eye Clinic and Laurel Laser & Surgery Centers in Brookville, Pa.). Ms. Cook is the administrator of the Laurel Eye Clinic and the Laurel Laser & Surgery Centers, a position she has held for 13 years. As administrator, she oversaw the development and construction for both ophthalmic ASCs owned by the practice. A certified ophthalmic executive, Ms. Cook is a registered nurse and also holds a degree in healthcare administration. She is an annual presenter at the national ASOA Congress and the Hawaiian Eye meetings. In 2010, she completed her second term as the president of the National Board of Certified Ophthalmic Executives. In addition, she has authored articles for Administrative Eyecare and BSM Connection, a publication associated with business management and training company BSM Consulting. Ms. Cook is a member of the BSM Advisory Board, which provides guidance into BSM Consulting's distant learning and practice management content and development, and has authored two ophthalmic educational courses.

Lynda Dowman Simon (St. John's Clinic: Head & Neck Surgery in Springfield, Mo.). Ms. Simon is the administrator at St. John's Clinic: Head & Neck Surgery. Ms. Simon has been at her center since 1994. Prior to coming to St. John's, she worked for 13 years at a local hospital in the open heart center and urology. According to Ms. Dowman Simon, St. John's is the only ASC in Missouri dedicated solely to ENT procedures, and the center's patient satisfaction rating currently sits at 98.17 percent. "Coworkers [who are] hired, stay," she says. "I have not hired a new person in over 3.5 years." The center, which is part of Mercy Health systems, performed its 30,000th case on July 5, 2010.

Vicki Edelman, RN, CASC (Blue Bell Surgery Center in Blue Bell, Pa.). Ms. Edelman is the administrator of Blue Bell Surgery Center, a four-room, multi-specialty ASC that opened in Sept. 2008. Surgeons specialize in orthopedics, ENT, pain management, plastic surgery, general surgery, ophthalmology and gastroenterology. Blue Bell sees around 225 patients monthly and is managed by Ambulatory Surgical Centers of America. Ms. Edelman has been with Blue Bell since May 2008, during the center's construction phase. Ms. Edelman credits her center's success to the energy, resourcefulness and dedication of her team. "My job would not be possible without their tireless efforts to maintain our high standards, and their support in providing quality patient care to the community we serve," she says. She has been a nurse for 32 years and began her career in medical surgical nursing and high-risk obstetrics. Her first management role was as assistant nurse manager at Philadelphia's Albert Einstein Medical Center's short procedure unit and admission discharge unit.

Carolyn Evec, RN, CNOR (The Surgery Center at Beaufort in South Carolina). Ms. Evec opened a surgery center in Mississippi and served as its nurse manager prior to joining The Surgery Center at Beaufort. She has 30 years of nursing experience and has held various management positions including director of surgery, director of medical and surgical services, vice president of patient services and director of rural health clinics. Ms. Evec has helped improve efficiency at her center in many ways. "With the help of the staff, we developed an ordering system for supplies that now involves all of the staff and eliminated a part-time staff position," she says. "We now order supplies two days a week, and it takes only about an hour to complete the process." Ms. Evec says, "I love the privilege and challenge of being involved in all aspects of the operations of the center. Coming from a clinical background, I have really enjoyed learning and being responsible for the business side of operations as well. I enjoy the fact that every day is different and that I have the ability and support of the medical staff to affect change when needed."

Andrea Fann (Orthopaedic South Surgical Center). Ms. Fann serves as the administrator of Orthopaedic South Surgical Center, a United Surgical Partners International facility. She has served in the position — her first administrator role — since 2005, before which she worked as business office manager for Buckhead Ambulatory Surgery Center and as director of front office operations for Atlanta Outpatient Surgery Center (both HCA facilities). She prides herself on providing an honest, warm and caring atmosphere for everyone who enters her center: employees, physicians, visitors and patients. "When we take care of our employees and provide strong leadership, they are more productive, and their happiness is seen by our patients and physicians," she says. Ms. Fann doesn't take her role for granted. She firmly believes that a manager does not automatically become a leader and that installing the right team is essential for ASC success. In 2010, Orthopaedic South Surgical Center was recognized as a Clayton County Chamber of Commerce Small Business of the Year Finalist.