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: : September 15, 1997
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: High-Tech Sleuths Find Private Facts Online
: By Maria Lopez
In January 1997 I visited Equador and much to my astonishment I discovered that Texaco's in Equador were luring customers through employing young women (9 to 12) as gas station attendents. To attract customers their uniform consisted of a string bikini with swinging red tassles. The girls had to wear 4 inch heels and stand on the highway waving a sign offering free massages to drivers who spent more than 10,000 sucres ($3). The girls said that the massages always involved sexual acts. The girls I spoke with said that they were unhappy working at Texaco but that they had no choice.
When I returned to Canada I wrote to Texaco in the US to ask them if they were aware of how their stores operated in Equador. They wrote back and said they had no control over how individual franchises ran their businesses.
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