Why Poles tend to distrust online trading, beware of lucrative job offers promising money for nothing and Santa with a twist.
Press reviewed by Krystyna Kolosowska
The Polish government is encouraging companies to do more trading online, writes Rzeczpospolita. The e-trade market in Poland constitutes about 1 percent of total retail trade. Only one in ten Poles buys or sells things online. Only one in 20 money transfers is made through the web. The daily points out that Poles still show considerable distrust towards online trading. The present legal regulations are also a stumbling block. For example, customers cannot be asked to make any payment before their order has been completed. Alas, this regulation is universally ignored. The government has prepared a programme to boost online trading, also by expanding the web thanks to EU funds.
According to Gazeta Wyborcza hundreds of people in Poland – the jobless, students, teachers – accept the role of go-betweens in laundering money from online theft. They are attracted by high rewards but are quickly tracked down and detained by the police. More than one hundred people are facing charges in this connection. They found job offers in their e-mail box, asking them to accept money transfers into their accounts and to pass them on in line with telephone instructions, usually to accounts in Russia and Ukraine. The go-betweens received 7 to 10 percent of the transferred sum. This is a plague, specialists say.
Dziennik writes that clouds are gathering over a bill which bans smacking of children in Poland. The Justice Ministry is convinced that existing regulations are sufficient to protect children against abuse. Its head said that courts would be flooded with suits and parents would exchange accusations if a separate smacking ban was enacted. Supporters of the bill quote results of research, which shows that about 50 percent of Polish parents regard smacking as an acceptable method of disciplining children.
The first street newspaper distributed by the homeless can be bought in the streets of Warsaw, writes Zycie Warszawy. Wspak, which roughly means topsy-turvy, was published in 5 thousand copies. Two hundred have been sold so far. “No one promised that the beginnings would be easy”, the organizers of the scheme say. Poles have to realize that when they buy this newspaper, they help the homeless to earn a living. This is a newspaper with a mission. Hopefully, it becomes as popular as similar such papers in Western Europe, for example The Big Issue in Britain, which sells in 180,000 copies a week.
The taboild Fakt writes about Santa Claus with a twist. He stole an excavator from a construction site but promised to say where it was hidden if the owner donates toys to an orphanage. The wish was fulfilled and the owner recovered the excavator. The thief turned Santa Claus was not detained.