Trust in Economic Transactions

Trust in Economic Transactions

September 26th, 2007

I had heard that finding housing in Paris was tough, so I started looking online before coming to Paris. I found some websites renting furnished apartments aimed at short term visitors, who would prefer an apartment to a hotel, but I found that the rates were too high for my student budget. Having lived in the U.S., I had used websites such as eBay, Amazon.com, Paypal and Craig’s List without any problems and had developed some amount of trust in the use of online services. So I looked on Craig’s List and after a little while, I found a place close to the university where I will be based at a very good price. I e-mailed the person, who called himself Lionel Doyen, showing interest in his posting. I did not hear back from him until some days later. We had a serious e-mail exchange between July 15th and August 8th, 2007 regarding the details of the proposed real estate deal.

In his first reply to my inquiry, he wrote, “Excuse me for my poor english, I am a french speaking. You send me a message for a sublet studio in Paris center. The studio is still available, because I was not in Paris for longtime. I have just come back in Paris. I will try to explain you the things clear. it is a private studio. (…)full equipped (…). The monthly sublet is 500 euro, charges included. This apartment, I stay there since 7 years. But, now, I have finish the university, I am married and will stay with my wife in the biggest apartment from September. But, the problem is my junior sister will come to Paris next year (September 2008) to go to the university. That is why I want to conserve this studio for her (…) it is the reason I want to sublet it for a year, from this September until September 2008 or less.”


Lionel Doyen presented himself as an international graduate student from Africa who had graduated from Sciences Po. The story sounded feasible to me, yet after receiving this email, I asked for more details about the condition of the place and the street. He then insisted that I, or someone I knew, go visit the apartment. I asked a friend of mine living in Paris to do that for me. He went to see the studio and met Lionel. He found nothing wrong with the guy or the place, except that there was no talk of the mandatory renters insurance. And he told me that the French law about sublets is different that in the United States.
So, I addressed this issue with Lionel over email. Lionel said he would talk to the owner about subletting. At first he told me that the owner had told him that it was not possible. I asked him to insist. Some days later he told me that he had talked to the owner and that the owner would accept me as a sublettor, provided that I pay him directly. Lionel told me that the owner was a Canadian person living in Belgium, called Ernest Olivier Koumang. He also told me that he required a one month deposit in order to secure the apartment for me.

Given that this apartment was the only option I had seen online that fit my price and that it was extremely close to Sciences Po, with the understanding that online / international transactions always involve some degree of risk and trust, I wired the requested security deposit to the Belgian bank account.
Soon after, Lionel confirmed that the transaction was complete, but then I never heard from him again, including how we could coordinate for him to give me the keys. He ignored my e-mails and voice messages from that point forward.

When I arrived in Paris, I went to the address of the apartment. No answer. I talked to the employees of the business located at street level of the building; they told me that the apartment rent was a scam, and that they had had dozens of people asking about the same thing in the last months.

I went to the American Center in Sciences Po and told them my story. They told me that the same thing had happened to a graduate student from American University a week before. Indeed, doing a simple Google search on the above names returns a lot of recent warnings in English about this scam. He seems to specialize in English-speaking students coming from abroad, who want to find housing in Paris, online, and prefer to communicate in English. By offering apartments in nice neighborhoods at good prices and in English, he fills this niche. He does not deliver the product but keeps the deposits.

I went to the police but they told me the case would take a long time and that they could do little about the situation. While many others had reported the case to the police, the French police is not that well coordinated across different precincts and because this scam involves “an American website” and a Belgium account, they pass it to Interpol which is poorly funded and under-staffed (see a recent interview with the head of Interpol, Ron Noble, on 60 Minutes, during which he was moved to tears talking about the failure of the US to take Interpol seriously
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw1Qisp6hmQ.

Was this scam, due to lack of intelligence and vigilance, trusting too much? Maybe, and partly so, but this reminds us that all economic transactions depend on trust.

Taking a cynical and historical view, Professor Mihm of the University of Georgia says in relation to the recent housing mortgage crisis,

“John Adams, the former president, wrote in 1809 that ‘every dollar of a bank bill that is issued beyond the quantity of silver and gold in the vaults represents nothing and is therefore a cheat upon somebody.’ But Adams, you might argue, was missing an important point: credit is by definition a contradictory creature. It depends on trust and confidence and yet invites the possibility of fraud or, at the very least, grave disappointment. In some deep, unsettling sense, credit depends on credulousness. Or to put the matter differently, credit depends on promises — and promises, as the saying goes, are made to be broken” (Mihm, 2007).

Nor that I agree with the last statement, I want to believe in a system of exchange that is always reliable and just. But when there are no known previous transactional records, personal knowledge, strong regulation, stories, or the possibility to build new social relations, internet transactions between private citizens (“de particulier à particulier” as the French say) depend entirely on trust. And trust involves risk. But so does life.

To learn more see:

Mihm, Stephen. 2007. Counterfeit Nation. The New York Times Magazine. Idea Lab. August 19, 2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/magazine/19wwln-idealab-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Mihm, Stephen. 2007b. A Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men and the Making of the United States. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

For an analysis of trust and distrust and their much larger implications read:

Tilly, Charles. 2005. Trust and rule. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Policing, Racialization and Boundary Making in a NYC Subway Station

Policing, Racialization and Boundary Making in a NYC Subway Station

September 18th, 2007. 3:30 p.m.

After finally getting my French visa, I go into the 86th street subway station in the Upper East Side to wait for the 5 train. I enter the subway station and soon I notice a police officer standing behind a handcuffed guy sitting on a bench close to the turnstile. The person is looking down. The police officer is trying to look straight ahead, into nothingness, and is having a hard time trying to efface any emotions from his face. People are passing by and looking at the person. I can see strong reactions in their eyes, in what seems to me to be a mix of empathy and disapproval.

The way the police officer and the person held are located in the station draws much attention from the people passing by on their way in and out of the subway station. When I realize this, I try to make the situation less obvious. I wish I could hide the spectacle from the onlookers. Suddenly a woman with olive skin sits down at the opposite end of the bench where the person is. She is not intimidated or undecided. She sits and the police officer does not object. I immediately follow and sit next to her, closer to the “suspect”. Not long after, a middle aged woman with dyed blond hair and a postal service uniform sits next to me, even closer to the two main actors, not feeling threatened at all. By sitting next to the two people, it seemed that we have taken away a lot of the "abnormality" away from the situation, by using our bodies to physically and psychologically make it harder for people passing by to notice and look at the detainee. One exception is one person with a white cap and a tattoo who has seen the whole situation from across the gate on the other side of the turnstile.

After the mail-woman sits down she starts asking me questions in a somewhat “bad English.” I agree with her general statements about empathy, curiosity and solidarity. And she asks if I know what had happened. I said I do not. After this she ascertains “I am sure he is Mexican.” I ask why she thinks so. She says that it was because of his “features, hairstyle and attitude.” Immediately I ask her where she is from. She says proudly, “I am Puerto Rican.” She asks me where I am from and I say Mexico. Having explicitly established our “Latinity”, I then switch into Spanish. I say, “Es una pena que lo hayan detenido. Quien sabe que habrá hecho.” It is a shame they stopped him; I wonder what he did. She agrees and says that she is worried because “he clearly is a Latino and he makes all of us look bad.” I agreed with her. My sociological imagination has been wondering all this time about the “boundary-creation effects” of displaying this man as a criminal so publicly, without any context, now for more than five minutes and without any explicit purpose.

We stop talking, realizing that the answers lay next to us. We then move from being onlookers into being more active participants. I ask the police officer why he was holding him. He pretends not to hear and does not answer. I ask again. He says that, “he is taking care of him and that everything is under control.” I then ask if he is waiting for reinforcements to take him somewhere. He nods to answer the question while also indicating that he is not interested in conversation. I sense a certain sense of shame and doubt in the avoiding look of the policeman, like if he wished this was not his job. We ask what the guy has done and he repeats, “Everything is under control.” As if our main concern would be “order and safety.” He is doing his job and trying to present an aura of order and professionalism.

Given the policeman’s disengaged attitude, we start addressing the detainee directly, in Spanish. I ask him what had happened, and the very first thing he says is, “I was going to work.” Thus, establishing his primary identity as that of a responsible hard working person. He explains, “Se me estaba hacienda tarde. Vi el tren venir y para ahorrar tiempo, ya no compre el boleto y pues brinque, pues.” [I was late. I saw the train coming and to save time. I did not stop to buy the ticket and I jumped the turnstile.] Because of his accent I could tell that he was indeed from Central Mexico, either Puebla or Guerrero. He acted remorseful while he tells us that all he wanted to do was to get to work on time. He was wearing the white clothes typical of a restaurant bus boy.

After explaining his reason and his crime, the man hold shifts blame and starts repeating the phrase, “Este pendejo!” or “what an asshole!” referring to the police officer who happened to be African American. He is angry for the situation he is in and he reflects his anger to the policeman who stopped him. His way of referring to him, reflects the confrontational relationship between many working class Latinos and African Americans in New York City. After shifting blame, the man starts getting more nervous and desperate. But we are all powerless in regard to the situation. Noticing, the changed state of his captive, the police man asks us to stop the conversation. I tell the guy to calm down in Spanish, while making a gesture - bringing my open palms down slowly- in what I know the policeman will understand, and see as a response to his concerns about keeping his subject under control.

I tell the guy he will be fine, trying to calm him down and make him feel a little better, despite his desperation and obvious powerlessness, especially given what he sees as the low stakes of the rule he had broken. He tells us that he knows he will be fine but that he would be fined, and that he will waste a lot of time by being stopped and that he will be late to work. He will have his pay check diminished and could even lose his job. I assume, he is very angry because all of this will get on the way of him sending money to his family and saving money to go back to Mexico. So maybe being detained in the subway had happened to him before or we know people to whom this had happened. We do not get to ask because more policemen come and take the man to a patrol car outside of the subway station. This all happens too quickly.

After the event is over, I then board my train on my way to the Bronx. Inside the train car, next to me I see the guy with the white cap, presumably a second generation Puerto Rican, who had seen the whole thing from outside the turnstile. I ask him in English if he knows what had happened. He said that the guy had jumped the turnstile - followed by the statement, “the subway is too expensive.” I nod. He asks me how much the weekly pass is. I say I am not sure. He says it always is a hard situation to see someone taken for a petite crime of two dollars. I nod and we stay in silence with what feels like a feeling of solidarity with the captured man.

I then wondered what would have happened if the perpetrator had been white or more educated? Why was a Mexican, probably an undocumented worker with no knowledge of English, the favorite target of police officers? The man did not look particularly “dangerous” or “guilty” but he was indeed different, a minority and unable to speak English and defend himself or ask for his ticket or summon. The increased police presence in the in NYC subways, was first justified as anti-terrorism task, but here it functionally turned into immigration control and a reinforcement of stereotypes and social boundaries.
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Arriving at the Fordham Road stop on the 4 train line in the Bronx, a similar situation is going on. But this time the perpetrator is a Puerto Rican woman, she is free - she is not handcuffed. She does not speak English and one of the police officers is African American, and does not speak Spanish. But there is also a female Dominican police woman who not only acts as a translator but also as a broker and advocate. Fortunately, after hearing a convoluted story they let the woman go.
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This incident is not necessarily surprising giving the increase in police presence around the anniversary of September 11th, the anti "broken-windows" type of policing implemented by Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and the aim to increase immigrant deportations. Nonetheless, the racial card came to the fore in this set of social interactions. One could notice a very distant and somewhat condemning white Upper East Side constituency; a north-bound black population looking somewhat proud at the control of a “Mexican illegal” by an African American law enforcer. And a very sympathetic and empathetic set of Latino onlookers, including some who actively tried to intervene, find out more, and “normalize” or decriminalize the situation.

The incident in the Upper West Side either ended in the release of the worker after a fine. Or in his deportation, after this minor infraction was used by police officers to send him to the jurisdiction of ICE immigration officials who then most have filled deportation papers, something that has been increasingly the case, according to people who follow these issues

(http://familiesforfreedom.org/?q=taxonomy/term/1)

I am not justifying jumping the turnstiles but I just felt bad about the look in face of the detained man who, after years of probably being invisible in New York, suddenly felt very visible but still powerless, he was exposed, he looked ashamed like he wished he wasn’t there …

Feelings of Frustration, Immigration and the Context of Reception

Feelings of Frustration, Immigration and the Context of Reception

October 2nd, 2007

I have been in Paris for almost a week and I cannot find an apartment. Besides a large demand for small apartments, a big problem has been the lack of papers. While having a student visa, from the point of view of many renters, I am “undocumented”! It has become commonplace to ask for letters of “caution” from one’s parents, bank or someone in France as a kind of financial guarantee. I understand this but as foreign student, this is very hard to obtain.

The official letters from Columbia University and the Institute des Sciences Politiques (Sciences Po) demonstrating my fellowship are not enough. After adding up the amount of scholarship in dollars, many real state agents ask me how am I going to live like that in Paris for a year! They also ask for proofs from previous housing in Paris, or French pay stubs. Since I am just arriving from New York, I do not have either. The student housing available is long gone. Sciences Po is affiliated with some groups that help students find housing but not for people over 26. There are many postings at printed and internet services such as “de particulier à particulier” (pap.fr) or similar websites but apartments are gone hours after they are posted, and the renters take on an air of royalty, they know how coveted their rooms are and they act accordingly.

I have noticed that, unlike in the United States, in France, to do almost any kind of contract - for banking, housing, telephone contracts, etc. - they ask for a official ID, preferably issued by the French government, which, for non-citizens, many times their passport or visa turn out not to be acceptable, but instead the much preferable “La Cart de Sejour” is requested – a police issued document that attests to temporal legal status in France (Patrick Weil has documented precedents of this document in French history around the definition of who is and is not French).

This contemporary document control asserted while negotiating with private institutions serves as a de facto migration control (see Weil, 2006). Besides this, keep in mind the fact that the police can stop anyone and ask for documents at any given time with no previous excuse, this kind of control, done by private parties, must also affect the access that immigrants have to housing, banks, cell phones, etc. Not that it becomes impossible to access these services but it is a strong barrier, as according to a couple of informants, that results in many immigrants living in cramped quarters with more than five people in a small room, many times lacking water or adequate sanitary conditions. And many new arrivals get prepaid phone cards which are convenient but also have much higher per minute rates instead of formal telephone contracts, which have monthly fixed rates.

Since I have not yet found housing, I am staying with friends of friends. Three young French guys are being my hosts. I like them very much, and we are becoming good friends. They are extremely intelligent, generous, and trusting. They are very nice and are rarely in the apartment all at the same time, yet after one week I am starting to feel bad for inconveniencing them.

Lacking a house and facing a lot of administrative and bureaucratic hurdles in France, I do not feel welcome. I feel like I do not have a place of my own (except of when I am in the libraries and/or when I am in cyberspace). When I feel I may be inconveniencing my hosts, I just go to public areas. During the day I can go to the university and to the public libraries but at night it is a little hard to find a place to work with one’s laptop and access the internet without having to pay a lot or without being harassed by the waiters. After a while, this feeling of nomadism takes an emotional toll on you and increases the levels of stress and awareness (something which by the way has pushed me to be very productive). But I can only imagine how it must be for newly arrived immigrants who are made to feel unwelcome. The emotional toll and the feeling of transgression are like a shadow that follows you everywhere and makes you be extra-self conscious and uneasy.

After thinking about this, I talked for three hours in a café with a berber from Tunisia in what turned out to be my second interview. In part of the conversation he told me how he does NOT feel “Chez lui” - at home- in France and how his home is in Tunis, where he is going back to retire and die when he is old. He told me that in spite of speaking French, working as a boulanger, and having lived in France for more than seven years he is constantly reminded in many ways that he is not welcome. Furthermore, he told me he lives with his sister since he has not been able to find housing in Paris in the last months (more on this later, for the moment, I will keep the rest of the details of this interview private to safeguard the anonymity of my informant).

According to psychoanalytic developmental theory, people go through important individuation events in childhood and adolescence where the person, formerly indistinguishably connected to others, starts building mental borders around his/her body and mind, and becomes individualized, gaining consciousness of his/her person as independent and separate from the primary caretaker, and the family. Akhtar (1985) poses that migration is like a “third individuation”, where the individual is forced to create a further distinction between him and the larger society, in terms of leaving one’s society physically behind, and of always being somewhat on the outside in the new society, because of one’s condition of being a stranger and an alien. This is another example of the feeling of alienation that classic sociological theory talks about [more on this third individuation and psychoanalytic approaches to migration and their relation to sociological theory in a future blog].

What is interesting is the strong psychological challenge that immigration, without guaranteed housing and avenues of reception, presents to the immigrants (see Portes, A., and Rumbaut, R. for the comparison between the context of reception in the U.S. for Cubans and Mexicans and their long term implications). An unwelcoming “context of reception” for immigrants prevents the fast and seamless assimilation that the French state and society expect and demand in their Republican and integrationist ideal (much more on this later).

Akhtar, S. 1995. A Third Individuation: Immigration, Identity and the Psychoanalytic Process. Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies. 43:1051-1084

Portes, A., and Rumbaut, R. 2006. Immigrant America: A Portrait. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Weil, Patrick. 2005. La République et sa diversité. Immigration, intégration, discrimination. Paris, Seuil, "La République des Idées".

Weil, Patrick. 2005b. Qu’est-ce qu’un français ? Histoire de la nationalité française depuis la Révolution. Paris, Gallimard, "Folio Histoire" (Nouvelle édition revue et augmentée, 651 p.).

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