BBC Learnings · Section 10

Falling for fraud

Fraud is the criminal activity of getting money by deceiving people or tricking people by doing something dishonest.

Level: B1 · 117 sentences

Transcript

  1. Fraud is the criminal activity of getting money by deceiving people
  2. or tricking people by doing something dishonest.
  3. There are many ways to do this
  4. and much of it is happening online these days.
  5. We'll talk more about this in a moment,
  6. but first a very honest quiz
  7. question for you to answer, Rob.
  8. According to UK Finance, an organisation that represents the British banking industry,
  9. how much money did criminals steal through fraud and scams last year?
  10. Was it a 1.2 million pounds,
  11. b 120 million, or c 1.2 billion pounds?
  12. Well, I imagine it's quite a lot,
  13. so I'll say 120 million pounds.
  14. OK, we'll find out if you're right later in the programme.
  15. Now, I just mentioned the word scam,
  16. which is an illegal way of making money by tricking someone.
  17. We may think that we'll never be scammed,
  18. but already millions of people have fallen for fake emails,
  19. phone calls or letters that look genuine
  20. and ask us to give or update our financial details.
  21. To fall for means to believe something that is a trick
  22. or a lie to be true.
  23. This year, for example, thousands of people
  24. in the UK fell for a fraudulent or fake email
  25. requesting that people update their direct debit
  26. details for paying their TV licence.
  27. That's a payment we have to make
  28. in the UK to fund the BBC.
  29. This is something the BBC Radio 4
  30. programme You and Yours has been discussing.
  31. It's BBC fraud investigator reporter Shari Vell
  32. explained why it was easy to be deceived.
  33. It's a sleight of hand fraud.
  34. The criminals get you to look
  35. over there whilst they rifle your pockets
  36. and I have the email here and It looks completely convincing.
  37. All the right logos, all the right fonts.
  38. It just says that my direct debit
  39. on my TV licence has failed
  40. and I need to pay it.
  41. It's very polite. So some great language there.
  42. She said that this scam was a sleight-of-hand fraud.
  43. Sleight-of-hand means the use of clever skill to gain something dishonestly.
  44. In this case, money.
  45. As Shari said, the criminals get you to, metaphorically,
  46. look over there whilst they rifle your pockets.
  47. Rifle means search something in order to steal from it.
  48. So to steal from your pocket.
  49. Very dishonest. Now, like in this case, fraudsters,
  50. the people who commit fraud, gained financial information by phishing.
  51. That's not phishing using a rod, line and hook,
  52. but by sending an email that looked
  53. like it came from your bank.
  54. asking for confidential information.
  55. But banks do warn us not to give away
  56. our financial details online and to change our passwords regularly.
  57. But sometimes criminals are very clever
  58. in what they do and it's easy to be fooled.
  59. The You and Yours programme also heard
  60. about this from social engineer Jenny Radcliffe.
  61. What does she call this type of fraud?
  62. The more sophisticated frauds are ones
  63. that have been thought through very carefully.
  64. And this has been thought through.
  65. It's a fraud that can be layered.
  66. So, you know, we're getting some information from you.
  67. What you really look for is a window into someone, a key,
  68. that unlocks just a small part
  69. of their identity or their personal data.
  70. And from that, a good fraud will build
  71. and build and build on it until the consequences
  72. to some people can be completely devastating.
  73. So Jenny Radcliffe is talking about sophisticated fraud.
  74. That means it's clever and often
  75. complicated, so it can confuse us.
  76. Yes, criminals need just a small piece of information about us –
  77. a key that can eventually open
  78. up our identity and expose our personal data.
  79. And, as Jenny says, for the victims of fraud,
  80. the consequences – the outcome – can be very bad,
  81. especially if somebody loses all their hard-earned savings.
  82. It can be devastating.
  83. Of course, banks and security companies
  84. are working hard to beat the criminals,
  85. but it still remains a problem.
  86. And earlier I asked you, Rob, according to UK Finance,
  87. how much money did criminals steal through fraud and scams last year?
  88. And I said b £120 million.
  89. That's a lot of money.
  90. It is. But it's even more.
  91. In 2018, criminals successfully stole £1.2 billion through fraud and scams.
  92. And that's just in the UK.
  93. Globally, it's even more.
  94. Well, it certainly is a serious issue,
  95. but hopefully we haven't deceived you
  96. with the vocabulary we've discussed today.
  97. Hopefully not. We've been talking about fraud.
  98. That's the criminal activity of getting money by deceiving people
  99. or tricking people by doing something dishonest.
  100. Next we had scam, which is an illegal or dishonest way
  101. of making money by tricking someone.
  102. The people who do it are scammers.
  103. We talked about the phrasal verb fall
  104. for. When you fall for something,
  105. you believe something that is a trick
  106. or a lie to be true.
  107. Then we heard about sleight of hand,
  108. which means use of clever skill to gain something dishonestly,
  109. and rifle, which means search something
  110. in order to steal from it.
  111. Phishing, spelt with a ph, means tricking someone
  112. by email or online to get their personal data
  113. by pretending to be from your bank.
  114. Finally, we discussed sophisticated fraud.
  115. When something is sophisticated, it's clever and often complicated.
  116. Unlike our programme, Sam.
  117. Let's hope so!