WEBVTT
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This program is designed to provide general information with regards
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to the subject matters covered. This information is given with
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the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station
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are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial, legal, counseling,
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professional service, or any advice. You should seek the services
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of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas.
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The information contained in this podcast is intended for informational
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purposes only and is not a substitute for individual professional
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legal advice. The podcast information was carefully compiled from vetted
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sources and references. However, Rose Resources outreach to safeguard the
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elderly cannot guarantee that you will not fall victim to
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a scam. Let's talk about scams. It's the must listen
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show for anyone who wants to protect themselves and their
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loved ones from scams. Every Tuesday at am Pacific time
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on K four HD Radio, Joyce Petrowski, founder of Rose,
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and her guests will provide valuable insights and practical tips
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on how to recognize and protect yourself from scams. And
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now here is your host, Joyce Petrowski.
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Good Morning, everybody, welcome to Let's talk about scams. I
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am Brian Watson, community outreach specialist for Rose and I
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am filling in for Joyce today. Thank you for joining us.
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Hopefully you will enjoy today's show. We are going to
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go a little bit old school. We're not talking technology
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today like we normally talk about. We're talking about a
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scam that's a little bit old school and you'll find
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out why really quickly. So I work part time for Rose,
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and I've had the privilege of working for Rose for
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the last two years. One of my other part time
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jobs is I teach a course at the University of
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Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. The course is called White Collar Crime.
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It's a lot of fun. I have amazing students. I've
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taught the course twice and in twenty twenty four, I
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brought in a guest speaker named Paige Hanson and Page
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is a cybersecurity expert. She has a very big web presence.
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She does a lot of educational videos, very entertaining, very
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smart person. And I brought Paige in to speak to
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my class at the u of A. And by the way,
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Page also happens to be on the advisory committee for Rose.
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So that's how I met her in the first place.
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And in this class at u of A, I bring
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in a guest every single week because you know, I
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don't want my students to have to listen to me,
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you know, two days a week. I like to bring
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in a guest who knows more about a subject than
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I do. So Page came in to the class and
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she spoke about scams and cyber and protecting yourself and
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a lot of really great tips, especially you know, smartphones,
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privacy settings and things like that. And then she did
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a demonstration where she had some checks and she cut
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them up, and she set up some stations around the
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classroom and with little containers, and each container she poured
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a little bit of actone, basically another name for nail
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polish remover, and she had the students right on the
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checks with a couple of different types of pens, and
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the students could put the checks inside the acid tone
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and then let them sit for a while. And it
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was really cool demonstration because one anytime you can do
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a hands on demonstration in a classroom, it always makes
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things better. But this is what happened. We put the
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checks inside the acetone and on some of the checks,
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the ink just started to dissipate and go into the
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acetone and disappear. And then on some of the checks
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the ink stayed. You know what was the difference. Well,
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if you just use regular ballpoint pen ink, that ink
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is dissolved by the acetone and disappears. And criminals do
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this because what they do is they can get a
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check and they'll steal it out of the mail or
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some other place. They'll put the check inside the acetone.
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Everything will dissolve and then they'll change the paye. So
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instead of writing a check to a utility company or
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to a family member, they can write the check to themselves.
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They can also change the dollar amount. But this was
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interesting as well. The ink from the gel pens did
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not dissolve. It maintained its integrity, which was really interesting
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and it was news to me. And again that's why
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I bring smart people into my class at the University
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of Arizona. So what makes gel ink different. The ink
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in gel pens actually permeates the fibers of a paper,
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It goes down into it and is more resistance to
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chemicals that erase inc compared to a traditional ballpoint pen.
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And so What is a gelpen. Well, here's one right here.
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It looks just like a regular pen. You can buy
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it at the store. It writes the same way, but
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it actually as gel inc. It's just a it's a
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it's it's a better type of ink. It's it's got
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the properties that will, like I said, permeate the fibers.
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Here's a pack that I'd used in the classroom this
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past year when I did the similar demonstration. So if
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you use gel pens, it offers an extra layer of
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defense against what's called checkshing. Checkwashing is when criminals take
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a check, put it in acid tone or there's there's
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other chemicals that will work as well, and that they
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try to change, you know, the altar, the check chain,
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changing the paye or changing the dollar amount. So it works.
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So my recommendation today is use gel pens when you
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write checks. Now, some of you out there in radio
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slash podcast land might say, well, I do everything online
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now now I don't write anymore checks. Checks have gone
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the way of the Dodo bird. Well that's true. You
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know most of my payments I do through auto payments.
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Through you might have the electric company and the water
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company and garbage pickup and when I write my credit card,
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pay my credit card bill. Absolutely, and we want people
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to use auto payments. But even with all these automatic
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withdrawals that are set up, I end up writing one
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or two checks a month. So we're still putting our
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personal information out there and exposing ourselves. So how big
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of a problem is checkwa washing FBI and the Postal
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Inspection Service have put up warnings recently that check fraud
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is on the rise. Vinson, which is the Financial Crimes
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Enforcement Network, reports that the average loss on a check
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fraud in the States on just a single transaction is
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forty five thousand dollars. So the criminals they steal your checks,
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they alter it, and they take this money and it
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causes all kinds of headaches and then you have to
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deal with your bank and maybe you'll get your money back,
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maybe you won't. It all depends. But at Rose, we're
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in the prevention business. We want to reduce the ways
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that we are susceptible to being scammed, and this is
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one of them. And like I said, it's an old
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school technique. This is not modern technology. This is a
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scam that's been going around for a long time. But
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all good scams and all good crimes come around, they
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repeat themselves, and we're seeing this. So we're in the
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prevention business. It rose, and that means we like to
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offer some good advice. So here's some tips as it
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relates to checks that I want to share with everyone today.
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So first of all, in your checkbook, keep a gel pad,
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and in your checkbook that's dedicated to writing checks. I
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ev I've even put a label on my pen it
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says gelpen. I got my label maker out and I've
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labeled my gel pen as a gel pen because sometimes
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they'd actually don't say it. They'll say it on the packaging,
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but they won't say it on the pen. But this way,
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I know this is a gel pen. So when I
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write checks, I know I'm using a gel pen. And
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remember you can get gel pens wherever you buy regular
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pens off a supply store, big box store, grocery store.
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Gel pens cost a little bit more, but we're not
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talking that much more. It's worth the extra cost if
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they do cost more. And when it goes when it
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comes to mail, we recommend not putting your outgoing mail
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in the mailbox in front of your house. You know
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a lot of times, we have that little red flag
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you can put up and so the mail carrier knows
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that you have some outgoing mail. Don't do that. It's
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basically telling criminals, hey, there's mail in here, come steal it.
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And someone could drive by, they could walk by, open
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up your mailbox, grab your mail, cut it open real quick.
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They're looking for checks or they're looking for cash, but
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don't put your mail in that outgoing mailbox. If you
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live in a community with one of those shared mailboxes,
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a lot of times they have a secure slot where
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you can put your mail in. That's a good place
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as well. I like to go to the post office
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and drop off my mail. But when I go to
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the post office, I don't use the blue boxes. Why well,
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the people brought mail in those the blue big mailboxes.
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But criminals know that as well, and what they'll do
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is they will go phishing from me. And this is fishing,
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the conventional spelling, you know, f I s hi. They
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will literally take a string with something sticky at the
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end and drop it in there and try to pull
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out mail. What are they looking for? They're looking for checks.
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So the worst time to use those blue mailboxes is
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after hours or on the weekends because that mail could
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be could be sitting there overnight, unsupervised in the dark.
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You know, the only time I ever use those blue
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mailboxes is during the day when I know they're going
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to be picked up and there's traffic around. But you
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know what's even better, go inside, park your car, go
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inside the mailbox the post office and drop it in
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the dedicated slot. That extra time eliminates the possibility of
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scammers stealing stuff out of the blue mailbox. Is Now,
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what if you say, hey, you know what, these these
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blue blue mailboxes are so convenient. I can drive right
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up to them. I don't move real quick anymore. It's
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a hassle to get out of the car. I use
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a cane or a walker, a wheelchair. I'm just going
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to use the blue mailboxes. Yeah you can, but let's
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figure out another way to get that mail inside. How
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about you ask someone you know what. You know, sometimes
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we don't like to bother people, But I have learned
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that people like to help people, you know. You know,
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so why not ask a neighbor, a family member or
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friend and say, hey, are you running errands today? Could
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you take these to the post office on your way?
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Maybe they're going to the post office as well. I
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was on vacation this summer and I was at a
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Target store and a lady came up to me and said,
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excuse me, sir, can you help me get something? And
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she needed something on the top row at Target or
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the top shelf. And I'll tell you what it made
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my day when someone asks for help as simple as
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getting something on the top shelf at Target. Like I
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grew up as a short kid, I was a late bloomer.
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I was always the shortest kid in my class. So
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now that I'm five nine and I can reach the
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top shelf, I love helping people that are shorter than me. So,
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you know what it made my day to help someone.
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She was so appreciative. Same thing. You're at the post
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office parking lot and you see someone say hey, could
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you take these inside? You will make someone's day. And
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so after seeing this demonstration on checkwatching, I only use
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gel pens now. It's just one of the common sense
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things that we can do to make scamming harder. It's
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not going to prevent you from ever having your check scammed,
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but you know are stolen and altered. But you know what,
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it's just one little thing that you can do now.
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It was brought up to me and we had a
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discussion at our last rose Board meeting. You know, you
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could use a gel pen and still be victimized. You
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know why because on our checks. Everything's on those checks,
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it's got the routing number of our bank, and it's
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got our bank account numbers. There's another crime out there
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called check writing, where the fraudsters will actually buy check
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writing software. This is a legitimate software that businesses use
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to write checks, and they will basically steal your routing
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number and your bank account number that are printed at
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the bottom of the checks. In this case, the gel
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ink doesn't matter, So you know, there's the scammers always
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have a way around. So to avoid the check writing
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scam by the scammers, we recommend using online banking, which
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a lot of you do now. Of course, there's a
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lot of security measures to consider when you do online banking,
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and that'll have to just be a discussion for another day.
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But you know, just to review today, buy it bipens
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that say gel inc. Put a little label on there
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that says gel pens. Keep it in your checkbook, and
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then when you do have to mail checks, make sure
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it's somewhere secure a community mailbox that has a drop slot,
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or take it inside the post office. And if you
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do that, you know common sense tips you're following, you're
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probably going to protect yourself. So Roseadvocacy dot org is
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our web website. We are trying to get a thousand
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people on our mailing list. We're getting close, so please
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go to Rosadvocacy dot org. Right on the front page
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you can sign up for our monthly mailing list. We
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put out a nice email once a month with all