okay Pat can you tell me uh
what actually they want what everyday occurrences are
define everyday occurrences
right or do you have
every time you use a credit card every time you log in to a computer terminal particularly where you have access to a network to a network
yeah
anybody can with the right kind of skill and tools
get very much involved in those things which are on your system that you don't particularly want exposed that's why we have such security measures for our corporate information
yeah if you absolutely
that's a point um
um actually um
uh using credit cards the information that the person that you give it to
um-hum
has of uh available to them is very limited that's to just your name i guess um you don't have to tell where you live
you don't have to put your phone number down
some people uh ask you for it but you're not required to give that information
that's right when was the last time that you used a credit card that they didn't ask for your driver's license as well
oh very very few up here yeah yeah they just don't they don't ask for a driver's license um
really um
well most of our checks are even printed with our address our social even our driver's license numbers are printed on there
yeah see my
because they require that
yeah my checks are it's just my wife
um-hum
and my name no address
um-hum
so it's just names on the check so no one can you know i mean they can i suppose with a little leg work if they wanted to
um-hum
um-hum
but the average person's not going to do that anyhow
right but we're talking about people who are interested in invading your privacy people who have a reason to do that
okay
people who are interested in building data bases of information about your financial background your educational background
um
uh one of the biggest fraud scams that i've heard of recently is people who have access to such information and they find out who's a widow and what she's worth and then they present themselves to her as a uh a rich suitor
oh okay that's yeah i
and bilk her out of anything that she has those are
i've read articles about that but people have to be pretty gullible um either that or or especially widows um
um-hum
um-hum
um-hum
there are very vulnerable people though older people are very vulnerable to such things and they tend to to
old people
right
right and and some people some of the older people today uh their husband's handled all the finances so now they find themselves left out in the cold and they're really really not savvy as far as it comes to finances to handling their own personal affairs
um-hum
uh
well on the other hand how can you be savvy with so much out there today there are so many clever scams
and and many of them are computer based and they're based on information that's available
yeah
in the public realm
i'm i'm still not convinced that
they can get you if you're if you're aware first of all you never should give your your uh credit card numbers over the phone to anyone
um-hum
that's right
which is which is kind of basic
um-hum
um
they people may generate lists are if you subscribe to a magazine i guess they sell lists of names to other people but they'll send you junk mail usually
um-hum
um-hum
that's right
um-hum
um and you can stop that easy enough just go to the post office and just have your name taken off
um-hum did you have you registered for a conference recently
uh yes i have
okay did they ask for your fax number
no they did not
okay i registered my people for several conferences in the past six months and they'll ask for your telephone number and they'll also ask for a fax number you would think on the surface that that is for
rapidly sending you confirmation of your registration or your hotel or something like that not at all those fax phone number lists are being sold in exactly the same way your street address numbers are sold and you now get solicitations brought over your fax
right
and you don't expect it from that source therefore you're not as uh
yeah but that's uh
you know you're not as leery
isn't doesn't corporate have a didn't they put a stop on that
uh some some cases
but that it it exists is what i'm saying those avenues exist
yeah right
yes they do exist and if someone wants to really find out about you i suppose if they wanted to go to all that trouble they could
um-hum
uh
i heard a story not long ago this guy saw a really attractive young woman and he said hey i'd like to know this girl more so he wrote down her license plate number
and he called a friend in motor vehicles and got her address and her telephone number and then he called a friend that he had in the credit bureau and he got her financial standing
yeah
okay
from that he also got her social security number and certain social security information is
uh a matter of is it is accessible if you know somebody in the government so before it was over with he knew that she was divorced she had two children what school they went to what her average income was he knew that she'd gotten a boat in the divorce because he was able to get those public records
right
he knew all about her
yeah you could do that if you really wanted to
and he introduced yeah he introduced himself to her he said i think our kids went to school together at such and such school she i don't really remember that
yeah
and i mean you know he was relying on her not remembering or
right yeah
or not being willing to admit that she didn't remember him and just moved right in on her
yeah
yeah
that's and you can do that anyone can do anything that's public record whether it's divorce or anything like that um whether you purchase a home that's all that's all public record
sure
um-hum
um-hum um-hum that's right
um what they do with that information people are really
um go out and do it i suppose somebody does the leg work and they generate a list
um-hum
um
uh it's uh i think lists are generated from lists now
um-hum that's true i'm still getting lists from many many years ago
and
right
or getting junk mail from a list that had to have been made years ago
yeah we had uh we've got a an account at Sears Roebuck
um-hum
and we had moved from one town to another town and they've got our address listed now with with double towns in it and i've trie d and tried and tried to get it off but you just can't get it so
um-hum
since then we've gotten solicitations from other people listing both towns so i know damn well that Sears has sold their list of names out to somebody else
um-hum
of course
but there isn't anything you can do about that
no you can't stop them from selling your lists although some of them really are honorable organizations and they will say if you prefer us not to put your name on a mailing list then we will not
right some of the some of the charities now will will do that if you chose choose not to have your your name
um-hum
um-hum
put on a list and i i do that you know we have our charities that we give to and then we say yes no just don't
um-hum
um-hum
because you do it and then you're on everybody's charity list
um-hum and you have to really do some research or you do not find out who is legitimate and who is not and sometimes finding out who is legitimate and who is not is more difficult than finding out public information about people
that's right that's exactly right uh most of the funds that a lot of these organizations collect
um-hum
um-hum
go to fund the organization i mean very very
absolutely
little of the funds get out to do uh anything worthwhile
that's right
um
it all started with the government
the government started keeping tabs on you and whether they
um-hum
those list that Internal Revenue has whether they leak out to the public or not i'm really not sure maybe in some cases they have in the past
uh once a list is out it's out forever
oh yeah you bet you bet and with computer technology now look how spooky it is for how accessible these things are
yeah
but the bulk of it probably
ninety seven to ninety eight percent of all those lists are going just for solicitations um some people maybe are using them for ulterior motives i'm not really sure
um-hum um-hum
but the bulk of them is and it's junk mail and you can you can you can get off those junk mail lists you just tell the post office
um-hum
um-hum
um-hum
so that will limit that amount of stuff
sure
i read uh i read and article where this this man
uh sent sent to everything they could possibly get and he was getting
reams and reams of paper all kinds of periodicals and magazines and letters and notifications and what he was doing with them he was storing them up and he was using them for fuel
um-hum
um-hum
way to go neat
during the winter time
that's great
what i do is on all the credit card solicitations
um-hum
if they have a return envelope with it i write across the face of it no thank you your rates are too high and i mail it back to them
um-hum
um-hum
um-hum
because now they have to pay the postage so now it's costing them something to do that
yeah they don't put as many of those prepaid envelopes in there anymore
they don't
not as many as i've seen in the past
oh up here they do well they're still doing it well it's just like up here we don't there's very very few times i've had to show my driver's license for to use a credit card
um
um-hum
yeah
uh and i'm not sure why
you know why it's so prevalent down there and
maybe it will catch up up here
um that's possible i really don't understand that either but my stars some of it sometimes it's very difficult now the gasoline credit cards require your license plate number as opposed to your drivers license
yeah we've got the
although some of them have a blank on there for it they don't generally enforce using it
we've got the ones you just stick your card in the pump
um i've not seen one of those
yeah so whatever you whatever brand that you buy you just drive up to the pump you put your credit card in it and then it says you know please commence pumping and then when you pump then when you're through
um-hum
um-hum
you put the nozzle back and it says do you want a receipt and if you can push yes if you want one and if you don't want one you push no
