节目资讯
刊物:科技前沿
日期:2009-10-06
难易度:Medium
关键字:victimize, back up, account for, vulnerability, te
(Music).
Keeping your money and identity safe.
How to avoid being a scam victim:
If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.
Fact checking, good judgment and a healthy dose of skepticism are the best
defenses.
Use common sense:
There is no legitimate reason why anyone would give you a check or money order
and ask you to wire money in return.
Rational people can make irrational decisions when under stress.
If you are in financial trouble, recognize your vulnerability and think twice
before you get involved in a suspicious venture.
How to avoid identity theft:
Never give personal information of any kind over the telephone or online unless
you initiate the contact.
Check your credit reports.
Look for telltale signs such as an address change you didn’t make.
Monitor your bank account statements frequently for suspicious activity.
Shed or tear up unwanted documents that contain personal information.
Hello, listeners, we’re back talking about new Internet scams.
And right now we’re gonna talk about how to keep your money and identity safe.
So we’re gonna go through a checklist of things that we should keep in mind so
we can avoid being a scam victim.
OK. So the first point of how to avoid being a scam victim is:
If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.
That sounds familiar.
Yeah. We talked about that yesterday.
If something is too good to be true, well, there’s probably some kind of catch
or something you’re losing out on in the end.
Mmhm.
So if you get an e-mail offer or something in your inbox that sounds so
fantastic,
just be very careful about going ahead and signing up for more.
Right. If it says you... uh... we’ll give you a free car or we’ll... Um, you won
a million dollars, hmm, that may be too good to be true.
Yeah, like those banner ads that say, ”You’re the one million visitor. You may
already be a winner. Click here.”.
It’s like, ”Hmm, I don’t know about that.”.
Be careful about these things.
Uh, what’s the next one, Charlotte?
Well, it says here there’s three things you need.
You need to do some fact checking.
You need to check on... do your research and have good judgment.
So weigh the pros and cons of something.
Think about it thoroughly.
And also have a healthy dose of skepticism.
Well, skepticism or being skeptical about something means that you don’t just
believe it right away.
You start to think, ”Well, maybe it’s not true.”.
OK. I think in general, in life, skepticism isn’t always a positive thing.
It can kind of hold you back from things.
Uh, because you’re always saying, ”Oh. I’m not really sure if that’ll be as good
as they say.”.
”Oh, I don’t know if I believe that.”.
But in this case, it’s important to be skeptical.
It’s a good defense.
And that’s why here it says ”a healthy dose of skepticism.”.
A dose of something is an amount.
So the writer of this article... article’s saying, ”Skepticism isn’t always good
to always doubt, but you should have a healthy amount,
so that when you get these kinds of scams, you’ll go, ’Hmm. Maybe I need to
check. Maybe I need to do a little bit of research before I... I click on this
link.’”.
Good. So these are your best defenses.
They’re the things that are going to protect you the best.
All right. What’s that third one, Howie?
To use common sense.
There is no legitimate reason why anyone would give you a check or money order
or ask you to wire money in return.
Yeah. Yeah, there are so many scams where you get a little confused, you know?
And you say, ”Oh, yeah. OK. If I... if I do this, then I’ll get money, and hang
on.”.
Does this make any sense?”.
And I think it can be a challenge to use common sense because sometimes we feel
a little confused by these sorts of offers and e-mails.
That’s true.
They say, ”We want to give you money. But first, you need to give us money.
You need to use your money to open a bank account so we can put the money
inside,” or something like that.
Yeah.
So just use common sense, try to think of it all the way through, and consider
whether this really does sound good or not.
So what’s next?
Next, um...
Well, rational people can make irrational decisions when under stress.
Well, we talked about that like the financial stress: being desperate for making
some money.
And so even if normally you have a lot of common sense and good judgment,
if you’re really feeling stress, that might be a time where you say, ”Well,
maybe this is true. Maybe just this once.”.
OK. Good. Rational is... means just thinking very clearly about something.
Thinking all the way through.
And irrational means there’s no good reason why you’re doing something.
It’s true. I... I’m definitely normally a very rational person.
But if I’m... you know, frustrated by something or I’m having a really stressful
day, I definitely do get irrational.
We’re all that way.
Yeah.
So what’s the example they give here, Howie?
Well, it says here if you are in financial trouble, recognize your
vulnerability.
And we talked about that word yesterday.
Vulnerability.
Uh, it’s the noun of the word ”vulnerable”.
And when you’re vulnerable, you’re... you can be easily hurt, influenced or
attacked.
And this is to think twice before you get involved in any suspicious venture.
OK.
”Vulnerability.” I think it’s a very important word in this article.
Most of us don’t like to think of ourselves as being vulnerable to scams, but we
are, right?
That’s true. I think here it says, ”We need to recognize our vulnerability
rather than just taking for granted that it’s never going to happen to us,
realizing that we have weak... weak spots. Every person does.”.
Mmhm. OK. Good. Yeah, Howie?
And remember, this article also talks about the sour economy, the bad economy.
So maybe now you’re more vulnerable than ever.
You’re thinking, ”Oh, why not try this? Maybe if I really send my money to this
place, I can double it or triple it within a week or two.”.
Yeah. I think a lot of people... Because the economy is bad, people are trying
to do things with their money that they don’t normally do.
Sort of like invest or save or something.
They’re thinking, ”How can I be prepared for the future? Well, I have some money
now. How do I make sure it doesn’t run out?”.
And so when they see offers for things that sound good, they’re probably very
tempted to try them even if they never would’ve been before.
And so as always, you just need to take a good look and say,
”All right. I may be trying this more because I’m worried than because it’s
actually a good offer. So I need to be careful.”.
All right. So that’s being a scam victim.
It sounds like that’s really good advice for how to avoid that.
Well, what about avoiding identity theft?
Well, of course, you need to protect your personal information as much as
possible.
Try not to give out your ID numbers, your credit card numbers, even your address
over the telephone or online.
Especially if you did not initiate the contact.
So if someone is contacting you, don’t give information to them.
Yeah. If someone calls you up and says, ”Hey. So I just need to check your
credit card number. What is it again?”.
Right.
You have to be smart and know not to say anything.
Or even on a text message on your cell phone or on MSN or whatever um...
messaging service used.
If someone contacts you and asks for this information, don’t do it.
Mmhm.
I... I think that’s important: initiate the contact.
If I initiate the contact, it means I’m the one who decided to give this
information.
In other words, if I’m shopping online, of course I need to give my credit card
information.
That’s fine.
That’s... You should just be careful, but it should be fine.
The problem is when other people send me an e-mail, asking me to confirm this or
call me or text me.
All right. What’s next?
Check your credit reports.
Look for telltale signs such as an address change you didn’t make.
And telltale simply means to reveal previously unknown information.
Especially something that’s private.
Mmhm.OK.
Right. So an address change could be a big sign.
Because if someone got into your account, maybe they want to change it.
So the money is going to send and they go to their address instead of to yours
supposed to go.
So those kinds of things you need to check.
Even though maybe you get your credit card report in the mail, and you just,
”Oh, it’s probably the same. I’m just gonna throw it away.”.
But make sure you do check those things.
Mmhm . All right, I definitely get lazy about that.
And I think it’s important to be very careful about any kind of statements which
brings us to the next one.
Monitor your bank account statements frequently for suspicious activity.
Monitor means to check carefully.
Mmhm.
Right. We have this word ”suspicious” again, the second time here today,
and that means something that doesn’t seem right or doesn’t seem legitimate.
Something that is suspicious.
OK. Good.
And what’s the last one, Charlotte?
Last one, shed up or tear up unwanted documents that contain personal
information.
Well, recently I was moving to a new place.
And so instead of throwing out things, I definitly need to make sure I was
tearing them up before I threw them away.
Mmhm.
Yeah. Shedding things is a good idea, especially when there’s personal numbers
and information.
You never know who could be looking at your trash, so be careful.
Right. Mmhm.
All right. Well, all of this is scaring me a little bit.
Does this mean I should just stay offline forever, Howie?
Of course not, Naomi.
It just means that you just need to be extra careful, use common sense and good
judgment, and you’ll be OK.
All right. Charlotte, are you gonna venture out online?
Yeah, I think as long as, um, I follow these tips and really don’t give my
information to someone who I don’t know, I think that it’ll be fine.
All right. I hope... I’m sure you’ll all be fine too, listeners.
And thank you for being with us for these last couple of days talking about
Internet scams.
Speaking of the Internet, though, it never hurts to go online to
studioclassroom.com and check out our Topic Talks in English Corner.
We promise we won’t ask for all your personal information.
But we would love to hear your opinions about the articles and maybe suggestions
that you have for the show and for maybe some upcoming topics.
So hopefully we’ll see you there.
Until next time, this is Naomi...
Charlotte...
And Howie...
Saying goodbye.
Goodbye.