Hah much do ah oh yah?

On crime and Boston accents

Dave Balter
3 min readJan 6, 2025

Hah much do ah oh yah?

It’s a reflex, a knee-jerk reaction, an answer before even the utterance of a question.

This from Erik Joseph, the owner-operator of a small hardware store in Boston a few decades back. He’s standing behind the counter, unshaven, unkempt, his offer curt and drawled in the lilt of a deep and gruff Boston accent, as Fletch (Matthew Fletcher to his Mama) arrives holding a pile of credit card statement in his hand. There are scribbles and highlights on the statements; dozens of transactions over many months, collectively the better part of a year.

Fletch is more caught off guard than anything, as this is a most befuddling start to an innocent discussion. Denial was certainly an expectation. Concern possibly, or complete bewilderment, leading to calls to the credit card company light citizen-detective work and, certainly, everything all sorted out.

But nope, what have we here? Acceptance and, well, Joey Skim Scam’s obvious admission of guilt.

Fletch leaves with a check in hand, all settled up, everything taken care of, it won’t happen again, was just a misunderstanding, no one really needed countless hammers and maybe drills and some nuts and bolts each and every month. No one needed a few charges here, some small spends there, it wouldn’t be noticed, no one is really checking, are they? Let’s just keep this between us, ok?

Balter Midjourney 2025

A few moons earlier and Fletch is reviewing a different set of corporate credit card statements. Hmm, that’s odd, Fletch offers to himself (this in his head, not out loud, because that would be weird). I don’t remember the company buying expensive jewelry, and this trip to Aruba looks odd, too. Fletch highlights the charges, and scribbles in the margins, and approaches Andrew, their new wet-behind-the-ears 26 year-old junior accountant, statements in hand, to see if he might be able make heads or tails of the charges.

Ah’ll pay it back, Ah swayuh, tenders Andrew, without so much as the beat of a kick drum.

Turns out Andrew wanted to propose to his girlfriend (and also happens to be from Boston), and so engineered a nice little island vacation for himself, plus a sparkly diamond ring to take the ride with them — all this on the company’s credit cards, of which Andrew was responsible for tying out at the end of every month.

Unlike Joey the Hammer Hustler, Andrew had no money to pay back the fraudulent charges. Andrew was sweating. Andrew was scared. Andrew saw his career as an accountant flash before his eyes. Andrew clearly had some internal struggles around the moralities of right and wrong. Andrew didn’t want anyone to call the cops.

Balter Midjourney 2025

So Andrew called his Mom, who arrived and promptly paid off the debt with a check. Mama wasn’t pleased.

It’s highwayh robbahry, I tell ya.

What’s Boston got to do with any of this?

Nothing, absolutely nothing.

Hidden charges, financial sleight-of-hands, and organized thievery, yep, they could have happened anywhere. They just happened to happen in Boston.

Fletch is wicked smaht, and, no, I’m nawt a cahp.

But ask yourself, when’s the last time you looked closely enough at your credit card statement to know whether the charges all add up, and that no one is slipping in a little something extra, something that might be overlooked, misread or just, well, intentionally stolen.///

PS: I guess crime doesn’t pay

Joseph hit with 46-count indictment

Dec 19, 2007

Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley announced a 46-count indictment against a Belmont man who allegedly used his Fort Point hardware store to gather customers’ credit card numbers and bill them for hundreds of thousands of dollars in fraudulent transactions.///

As for Andrew, tuhns out his girlfriend said ayuh.

How d’ya like dem apples?

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Dave Balter
Dave Balter

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