Con-artists target banks...
TALLINN - Internet con-artists phishing for personal information and PIN numbers are hammering bank customers hard. SEB Uhispank the country’s second biggest bank say they are the latest to be hit.  “This wasn’t very professionally done and there wasn’t even any attempt to hide that fact. But there were still people who honestly fell for it,” said Tammo Otsasoo, director of the e-Technology division in SEB. Phishing is becoming a widespread crime despite that fact that most of it originates abroad and Estonian is not widely spoken. “Take what happened in the beginning of the year, which is a good example. Hansapank was attacked, but at the same time, Swedish, German and English ba...

  Cleaning up with GPS technology...
TALLINN - One of the most impressive feats of grassroots organization in Estonian history has been successfully concluded after tens of thousands of people took to the streets to pick up trash.   Teeme Ara (Let’s do it), gathered – and properly disposed of – thousands of tons of waste at illegal dump sites spread around Estonia.  The event involved a huge amount of planning and coordination. It came together on May 3 as nearly 50,000 people scoured Estonia collecting refuse.  The brainchild of Ahti Heinla and Rainer Nolvak, both highly successful Estonian entrepreneurs from the high tech industry, Teeme Ara was aimed at addressing the immediate need to clean up many n...

  Public shuns politicos...
The popularity of politicians sunk to an all time low as a new survey revealed that 40 percent of people had no party preference at all. All parties lost support in the survey, carried out by research company Faktum and Ariko pollsters. “There was no difference between the ruling coalition and the opposition parties in the public’s eyes. The parties with the stronger support lost more supporters and those with lower support lost fewer, but the tendency was the same in each case,” political scientist Anu Toots told Pealinn. The Center Party had 26.4 percentage points in April, down 5 percent. The Reform Party won  13.5 down, from 16 percent. The Pro Patria (For Country in Latin) an...

  Germany extends block on workers...
TALLINN - The German government has decided to extend its blockade of Eastern European workers until 2011. Marta Traks, a leading specialist at European Employment Services, told The Baltic Times that the move was unlikely to seriously affect Estonian emigration. “Estonians aren’t so interested in going to Germany – they mainly prefer Nordic countries like Sweden. Germany is in fifth or sixth place. The majority of people who want to go to Germany are those who don’t speak Estonian,” she said.   Germany remains an unpopular migrant destination even after it canceled restrictions on machine, car, and electric engineers. Those who have graduated from a German university are also al...

  Debt collectors turning to illegal methods...
TALLINN - Debt collection agencies have started to resort to using bullyboy tactics to get money from bad creditors, many using tactics that lawyers have deemed dishonest and outright illegal. Some debt collectors letters send warning to debtors claiming that they face jail if they do not pay their debts. Others send aggressive text messages on a daily basis. Meelis Pirn, a lawyer with Kaasik & Co said the letters that debt collection agencies have been sending out – many of which threaten jail time for bad creditors – were at best misleading and at worst criminal. “It’s certainly not legal. It falls under the law of obligation and cannot be handled in criminal court. They do this ...

  A quiet anniversary for the Bronze riots...
TALLINN - This time last year the world looked on in amazement as the usually quite city of Tallinn became the focus of the worse rioting seen in the region in recent memory. Residence say that one year after the riots people have calmed down and had time to reflect on what has been gained and lost from the incident. As The Baltic Times went to press the anniversary of the riots, on April 26, are expected to pass quietly. Julia Schutting lives close to where the rioting took place. “What I saw on that day wasn’t nice of course. I am not worried. I hope that there is not a repeat. But I really don’t think that is going to happen,” she said. She added, however, that there was bound to ...

  Property comes back into vogue...
TALLINN - There are clear signs that the months of carnage in the property market, which caused misery to homeowners and property speculators alike, may be ending. Although the situation is still dire, experts and property analysts say that they have seen signs of recovery in the past few weeks. “Very recently, in the last four to eight weeks, I have personally seen a change in climate. A few buyers are emerging from the woodwork,” said Carl Wells, a senior international consultant at Goodson and Red, an international real estate company with offices in Tallinn and Bucharest. Wells said international investors who invest in residential property were beginning to make their way back to t...