Hello and welcome to the English Like A Nature podcast.
My name is Anna and you're listening to week 48, day.
One of Your English Five A Day, the second season.
Here we are for another week.
I hope that you are raring to go.
I certainly am.
So let's begin today's episode, as we always do, with a snapshot of what's to come.
Listen carefully.
When Anita discovered that someone had opened credit cards in her name, she realised she was a victim of identity theft, and the news gave her a sickening feeling in her stomach.
At first the bank tried to dismiss her worries, saying it was probably a small mistake which made the problem sting even more.
But a patient manager finally listened, helped fix the accounts and managed to restore her faith in the bank's ability to protect her.
OK, today is going to be a good episode.
Let's dive into the vocabulary now, starting with the noun…
Identity theft, identity theft.
Two words, identity, I-D-E-N-T-I-T-Y, identity.
Theft, T-H-E-F-T, theft.
All right.
Identity theft is the crime of using someone's personal information in order to pretend to be them and to get money or goods in their name.
So it's someone stealing your identity, pretending to be you.
That's not a very nice thing, is it?
Have you ever been the victim of identity theft?
Here's an example sentence.
Someone had committed identity theft.
They'd used my name, my date of birth and my parents' address to open accounts and buy expensive phones.
Next, we have the phrase restore someone's faith in someone or something.
To restore r-e-s-t-o-r-e someone's faith f-a-i-t-h in someone or something.
If you restore someone's faith in someone or something, it means you make it possible for them to trust or believe in that thing again.
So, for example, if I was born and I had faith in my fellow man, I trusted that if I was in need, my fellow man would come and help me.
But then let's imagine I was mugged on the street and there were many people nearby and I called out for help, but nobody came to help me in that moment.
At that point, I lose faith in my fellow man.
Now, later down the line, perhaps I have another experience, where it's a different type of experience, where someone does come to help me.
Maybe I drop my credit card and I haven't realised and someone calls after me.
They've picked it up and they return it to me.
Or I fall over and someone rushes to my aid, lifting me up, handing me a tissue for my grazed knee and giving me a lift to wherever it is I'm going.
That would restore, so bring back, my faith. in my fellow man.
Here's another example.
The experience didn't restore my faith in companies' ability to protect their customers from fraud.
Next, we have the verb dismiss.
Dismiss.
D-I-S-M-I-S-S.
Now, this verb means to decide that something or someone is not important and not worth considering.
So you can use dismiss in a number of ways, but here we're talking about deciding that something or someone is not important and not worth considering.
You dismiss it.
For example, if I tell you that you shouldn't wade in the river because there are some nasty organisms living in the river and you could get sick or you could get a nasty skin infection, but you don't think it's important and you tell me to be quiet and leave you alone and you carry on wading in the river, then you are dismissing my warnings.
You're dismissing my advice.
You're telling me it's not important.
You're not going to consider that as something for you to worry about.
Here's another example.
Identity theft can happen to anyone and I've learnt that you can't dismiss the warning signs.
Next, we have the verb sting.
Sting.
S-T-I-N-G.
Sting.
To sting means to cause a sharp, burning or painful emotional sensation.
So sometimes sting is very physical.
So your skin can sting.
Sometimes we put cream on and the cream causes a skin irritation.
So when you put the cream on, it will sting.
But here we're talking about the emotional sting.
So when something hurts you, burns you, it feels sharp and painful because you just learned something or experienced something that hurts you.
It stings.
Here's an example.
The constant worry began to sting.
Next, we have the adjective sickening.
Sickening.
We spell this S-I-C-K-E-N-I-N-G.
Sickening.
If something is sickening, then it's extremely unpleasant and causing you to feel shock, and anger.
You could even say that it makes you feel sick because you're quite disgusted.
It's sickening.
Here's an example.
It was sickening to think that such a simple mistake hadn't raised any alarms.
All right.
Well, that's our five.
Nice and simple.
Let's do a quick recap.
We started with the noun identity theft.
Identity theft the crime of using someone's personal information in order to pretend to be them and to get money or goods in their name.
Identity theft.
We had the phrase restore someone's faith in someone or something, which is to make it possible for someone to trust or believe in that personal thing again.
To restore someone's faith in something.
We had the verb dismiss, which is to decide that something or someone is not important and not worth considering.
To dismiss.
We had the verb sting, which is to cause a sharp, burning or painful emotional sensation.
To sting.
And we had the adjective sickening, which describes something extremely unpleasant and causing you to feel shock and anger.
Oh, it's sickening.
Fantastic.
Now it's time to work on our pronunciation.
So listening very carefully, please repeat out loud after me.
Identity theft.
Identity theft.
Restore someone's faith in something.
Restore someone's faith in something.
Dismiss dismiss sting sting sickening, sickening.
Okay, let's listen to the snapshot once again.
When Anita discovered that someone had opened credit cards in her name, she realised she was a victim of identity theft, and the news gave her a sickening feeling in her stomach.
At first the bank tried to dismiss her worries, saying it was probably a small mistake which made the problem sting even more.
But a patient manager finally listened, helped fix the accounts and managed to restore her faith in the bank's ability to protect her.
OK, I want you to keep your ears open for that target vocabulary once more as we head into story time.
I still remember the December morning when my mum rang me about the letters.
There's post here for you, she said, from your mobile network.
I hadn't lived at my parents' house for ten years, so my stomach immediately began to hurt.
When I collected the letters, my hands shook as I read them.
They were demanding payment for two mobile phones I'd never ordered.
The bills totalled nearly £3,000.
Someone had committed identity theft.
They'd used my name, my date of birth and my parents' address to open accounts and buy expensive phones.
What made it worse was that the fraudsters had got my name wrong.
They'd only used part of my double-barrelled surname.
I couldn't understand why the mobile network had approved the accounts when my name was misspelt.
It was sickening to think that such a simple mistake hadn't raised any alarms.
I immediately contacted the mobile network, a company I'd been a loyal customer with for 15 years.
I explained everything, reported the fraud to the police and waited for them to fix the problem.
But the letters kept coming.
Every week, I received multiple demands for payment.
The company was threatening to send debt collectors after me and add 14% interest to the bills.
Each phone call felt like the previous one.
I'd explain the situation to a new person who promised to help me, but nothing changed.
The constant worry began to sting.
My credit rating was dropping every month and I knew this could affect my entire future.
As a self-employed person, getting a mortgage was already difficult.
This fraud made everything worse.
Then I discovered the situation was even more serious than I thought.
When I checked my credit report with a credit reference company, I found that scammers had also taken out credit with a buy now, pay later company in my name.
Fortunately, another retailer had blocked their attempt to open yet another account.
The contrast was striking.
The Buy Now, Pay Later company, investigated in just one day, agreed it was fraud and removed it from my credit report.
The retailer called to check the details and confirmed they'd rejected the application.
But the mobile network?
They took months to act and only after a journalist contacted them.
I registered with a fraud prevention group and locked my credit report.
But the damage had been done.
For months, I lived with the stress of wondering if I'd be able to buy a house or get a loan when I needed one.
When the mobile network finally apologised and closed the fraudulent accounts, I felt a mixture of relief and anger.
Yes, they'd eventually done the right thing, but it had taken too long.
The experience didn't restore my faith in companies' ability to protect their customers from fraud.
Now, I check my credit report regularly and I'm much more careful with my personal information.
Identity theft can happen to anyone.
And I've learnt that you can't dismiss the warning signs.
Stay vigilant.
Your financial future might depend on it.
OK, well, that brings us to the end of today's episode.
I do hope you found it useful and, of course, entertaining.
Please come back again tomorrow for another five a day.
Until then, take good care of yourself and goodbye.
I have added the vocabulary from today's episode, along with the definition and the example sentences, to the 5 a day database, which includes all the vocabulary from the whole 5 a day series.
If you would like to access this database then click on the link in the show notes.
