046 Credit Cards and Scams

In the previous episodes, we talked a lot about immigration visas, so this time I want to talk about a different kind of visa: the credit card type! So in this episode, we'll be talking about what a credit card is, some common credit card scams, as well as a few personal stories about encountering scams.

Bookmark Chapters:

00:00 Start
03:15 What is a credit card?
09:37 Beware! ESTA scam for Japanese people
15:25 Chiba housing scam story
26:39 Credit card churning
33:05 More scams

Transcript

Hello everyone, how are you doing? I hope you are excited for yet another episode of Kuli English Podcast. It's me, your host, Chris. So, last time I talked about a bunch of complaining stuff. 

So I think I spent like the whole episode for like, you know, 40 to 45 minutes just complaining about random stuff. So I was complaining about how, oh, you know, it's so hard to get this visa or like, oh, things didn't go my way or this thing was disappointing, that thing was disappointing. I don't like the guy standing next to me. 

I think I complained about a bunch of stuff. And I actually want to take this episode and continue. So, you know, in the last episode, if you didn't like that I was complaining, well, this episode, I might continue a little bit of that. 

But the focus of this episode is not complaining. Again, so the whole point of this podcast is for me to try to talk about things in an easy to understand English way so that you can have fun while listening to English. And then kind of like on the side, you like learn a little bit of English. 

And I'll try to do my best to explain certain phrases too. But the main focus is not necessarily education. It's just about trying to talk about interesting things.

So anyways, last time we talked about visa stuff, right? So I talked about going to the terrible place is what I called it. It's actually called the Immigration Bureau, but you don't have to know that term. I just went to the terrible place and I tried to get a visa. 

And then I don't really want to talk about the visa part of that. I want to talk about the other meaning of visa. So visa, a credit card. 

So a credit card is what people use to like pay for things sometimes. For example, if you go to a restaurant, you can sometimes pay with cash or you can pay with, I don't know, a debit card. Or sometimes you maybe have like another way, like some kind of app on your phone that you pay with. 

For example, in Japan, they use an app called PayPay quite often. And then in the U.S. they sometimes use like Venmo or like some kind of other payment method. But a credit card is just another one of those. 

And you know, there are many different ways to pay for things. Like sometimes when you pay your friends, you don't even pay them with money. Sometimes you pay them with just words. 

You say like, oh, thank you. And then hopefully the thank you is worth a lot to that friend. And then, you know, they don't come and get mad at you and say like, yeah, that's not enough. You got to pay me some real money. 

So anyways, I'm going to be talking about visa stuff. A little bit of complaining, but mostly about like credit cards in general. 

And also I'll be explaining credit cards to you as if you have never had a credit card. So if that story seems kind of boring, I'm sorry. Well, you can always just, you know, not really listen and focus on whatever it is you're doing while you listen to this English podcast. 

So anyways, let's take a short little break. And then I'm going to come back and complain to you about this one time where I like ran into like a scam kind of, but then because I had a credit card, I got saved. But anyways, let's take that short little break.

All right, so let's go ahead and get started and talk about credit cards. So I love talking about credit cards. I really do. 

So anyways, so when you have a credit card, usually what happens is the whole process of getting a credit card is you apply for a credit card. And then they look at your information and they think, oh, are you rich? Or, oh, are you poor? Or, oh, do you have no money? And what they really want is they want to know that you'll be able to pay for the things that you buy on your credit card. So, you know, when you apply for credit cards, it's probably pretty good to tell them that you're rich, even though maybe that's a lie and maybe that's not good. 

But I always tell the credit card companies that I'm very rich. I'm very rich. I can pay for anything. 

And then I hope that they like me and they usually they approve it. So anyways, once you have the credit card, once you get approved, they mail it to you. And then you have the credit card, you have like a physical card, and it has like, you know, a bunch of numbers on it. 

It has the expiration date on it, has the security code on it, has a bunch of different pieces of information on it. And then it also has your name on it. And then when you use it, what you do is you basically type that information online. 

So for example, if I'm buying lots of potatoes on Amazon, actually, I don't really buy potatoes on Amazon. Let me give real examples. So in the US, when I was living in Sunnyvale, I really liked this one brand of milk, it was called Lactaid. 

And it's like a little bit sweeter than other brands of milk. So to buy that I could buy it from like the supermarket. But I can also buy on Amazon and Amazon will deliver it to my door. 

And you know, milk is like, it's like not super light. Like for example, if I'm buying like pencils, they're pretty light. But if I'm buying milk, and sometimes it's a little bit heavy. 

So I want the employee to bring it to my door, and it's like the same price. So then what I do is I bought a lot of milk on Amazon, my favorite milk. And then so so when I buy stuff on Amazon, then I guess I enter that information online. 

And then I enter you know, the number, credit card number, not only that, but also some other pieces of information. And then also enter my address. And the address like there's like kind of two different addresses, and they can be the same. 

And one is the shipping address, which is where Amazon ships it to you. And that's where the guy goes like, knock, knock, knock. Hello, I have your milk for you. 

And I say, oh, thank you. Or I just like ignore them and hope that they put it on the ground. And then they leave so I can get it without saying hi. 

And then instead of that, so that's the shipping address. And there's another address, which is called the billing address. So the billing address is, it's, it's the address that's registered for the credit card. 

So when you apply for the credit card, and then when you manage your credit card online, and when you pay bills and stuff, like it has a certain address. And then that address is kind of like secret information. It's kind of secret, I guess. 

But that that information, sometimes when you enter your credit card information online, they'll also ask you, oh, what is your billing address? And that's just like an extra check. It's like an extra password check to see, is your billing address correct? And then if it's not correct, then the credit card company will like deny the charge. And they'll say, no, no, no, you can't use it. 

The information isn't correct. It's the same as like entering your, your credit card number incorrectly. So like, if it's like 1234, you like mess up and you put 1235, then that should be wrong, right? Then it's not going to go through. 

So anyways, that was like a long explanation for, I guess, what a credit card is and how you use it. But now let me tell you some stories about how the credit card can actually come in handy. So one of the main things is if you buy something, and then that something is like actually not good, it's like a scam. 

Okay, so I don't mean not good, as in like, let's say I, I don't know, I bought a new video game, and then I played it, and then it wasn't a good video game. So you can't, you can't do anything in that case. In that case, it's like your fault, you got the game. 

But if I try to buy like a video game, and then I don't know, the website like takes my money, and then it doesn't give me the game, then that's, that's what you can call a scam. Okay, so that's like a scam. That's, I did my part, and they didn't do their part. 

Like we had this promise, right? I was going to pay them money, and they were going to give me this great game, and then I didn't get it. So then in that case, I can complain to the credit card company. So when I say complain, I don't mean like I just tell the credit card company about my sadness, and that's it. 

But rather, I mean like you complain to them, and then you, it's called a, you file a claim, or you can also casually say like complaining. And then what that means is I complain, but also I expect the credit card company to do something for me. Because the credit card company, like their job is to like basically protect the customer. 

So you know, if I try to buy milk, or I try to buy a video game, and then I didn't get the milk, or I didn't get the video game, well, then that's when the credit card company says, okay, so you know, we believe you. So what we're going to do is we're going to take that money, and like steal it back from the, from the person who sold it. So you know, if I bought milk from Amazon, and Amazon didn't give me my milk, then I can complain to my credit card company. 

Of course, I can also complain to Amazon, and then maybe we can resolve it directly. But I can also complain to the credit card company, and then they'll do it for me. And so this is called like, it's called a charge back. 

So when you charge, for example, like your phone, you're like charging it, you're charging the battery from, I don't know, like 40% to 60%. That's called charging your battery. And then I guess you can also think of it as like money. 

So if I'm charging my account with money, then I like add money. And then charge back means to like take back, take back the money. So you know, I paid Amazon for milk, but they didn't give me milk, then charge back, and then the credit card company like steals that. 

And then the merchants like ah, like they don't have a choice. Okay, they, they lose that money. And so then this is called the charge back. 

And charge back is really good, because if you are the customer and you're right, then you get the money back, and then you don't have to deal with it. And so let me, actually, let's take a short little break here. And then I'm going to come back and tell you some real stories that I experienced where I used charge back. 

But of course, first, we take a short little music break.

All right, so let's go ahead and dig in. Let's go ahead and get started. 

So I'm going to be telling you about this. Well, let me tell you the short story first. And this one is actually not about me, but about one of my students. 

So I had a student that I used to see regularly for English lessons. And it was like a group lesson with three or four students. And then one of the students was actually going to go to the US. So it was like a trip. 

It was supposed to be like fun trip. And then so they were going, they were planning to go for maybe like one week, maybe two weeks, I kind of forget. But they had like a short little trip planned. 

So it's just a short trip. It's not like they're moving to the US forever. That, actually, that was like a different student.

But the student that I'm talking about right now is the student that just went to the US for like a week or so. And then as a Japanese citizen, to go to the US, like you're not an American citizen, so you're going to need like a visa or something, right? And then so the US and Japan have something where they're like, okay, so, you know, we'll make things easier for each other. So if you want to come visit this country, then like we'll make it easier than if you're from another country.

So for example, if you are from China and you want to go to the US, then the process is different than if you are from Japan and you want to go to the US So in the case where you are Japanese and you want to go to the US, you don't actually need a visa. You need something easier. It's called an ESTA, an E-S-T-A. 

And this is like a special thing. And if you are like not from Japan, then it doesn't matter. But the ESTA is supposed to be like an easier way to get like permission. 

But the problem is a lot of Japanese people, I think they haven't really applied for any visas themselves or they haven't really gone outside of Japan. But going to the US, there's like a, there's like an extra hurdle. There's like an obstacle. 

And that is, oh, I have to go abroad for the first time. Oh, I got to apply for a visa. Wait, do I need a visa? Wait, it says here that I need an ESTA. 

So the answer is you just need an ESTA. And when you apply for the ESTA, you can do it online yourself. And the website, it's not only in English, it's also in Japanese. 

And so this, if you can do it, that's great and that's normal. Okay. It's going to cost $40. 

But, but this is where a lot of companies, bad companies, evil people, they set up websites that look like the government, that look like the American government, or they look like they are very good websites. And they want you to buy the ESTA from them. So for example, again, let me, let me go ahead and review here. 

So if you are Japanese and you want to go to the US, what you need is not a visa, but you need an ESTA. And then to get the ESTA, you want to do it from the official website. But then there are other fake websites that you basically go to, and then you fill out the same information. 

And then what those websites do is they either, they either actually like have someone manually enter that information into the real website and then give it to you. So they're like a middleman. So instead of you paying $40 to do it, you instead like do the exact same thing on a different website, and then it costs you like $120.

And so this is what happened to my student. So my student, you know, she hasn't really gone to like the US before. I think it was her first time. 

So then she like applied for an ESTA. And then when she applied for the ESTA, she went to like the wrong website. And it's like hard to know which one's the right website. 

I'm going to tell you a story where I kind of got tricked like in the past year as well too, later. But what happens here is, well, if you pay for it with a credit card, what you can do is you do the thing where you steal the money back, and it's called the chargeback. And so what you do is you call the company. 

So whatever the credit card company is, maybe like Chase or American Express or whatever. And you call them and you say, hello, like on my credit card, like there's a charge, and it wasn't me. You can say it was and they tricked me, or you can say like, oh, it just wasn't me. 

And then that's like the easiest explanation. You say like, oh, my credit card was stolen, and then someone else used it. And then they'll be like, okay, sure. 

And that's like a super easy explanation. Even if it's a lie, they usually will just take it. They usually side with the customer. 

Side with the customer, meaning they believe the customer story, even if the merchant is like, wait, I actually gave them their milk, or I actually gave them whatever they bought. But usually people side with the customer. So then that student was able to charge back, and then they got back their $120.

And then they also, you know, did the proper ESTA, which is just $40. So again, if you weren't really listening, and you're Japanese, then remember that if you're going to go to the US, you just need an ESTA, and the ESTA costs about $40, and you should do it yourself online. You shouldn't do it like another, don't do it in another website, because you still have to enter all the same information, and that other website won't help you at all. 

It's not even the real website. So in that case, I'm not really sure if you can call this like a scam, but it's kind of like a scam. Like they shouldn't exist. 

And then if you enter that information, like that website, that other company also gets your information, and then they're not really giving you anything, because they're pretending to be like the government. So it's not very good. So in that case, that was a charge back, where like my student was able to get their money back. 

And I have a one more story, and should I take a break? Actually, yeah, let's go and take that short little break, and then I'll come back, and I'm going to tell you about like the scam that I encountered in Chiba, which is like a place in Japan.

All right, so let's go ahead and get started with story time. And I do like story time, because I think I like complaining, and this story is going to have some complaining. 

But so actually, I'm going to give a little spoiler here, and the spoiler is I am still alive. Okay, so I'm talking right now. I'm recording this podcast, which means I'm alive, and I'm going to tell you this story from the past. 

And if at any point you get like stressed, and you're like, oh no, is he going to be okay? Well, the answer is yes, I'm okay. And let me tell you that story now. So around sometime last year, so I had this group, and we were going to Chiba. 

So Chiba, if you don't know what Chiba is, Chiba is a place in Japan. So I live in Tokyo, Japan. Everyone knows where Tokyo is. 

And then next to Tokyo is Chiba. And Chiba is kind of considered like, you know, not as populated. It's a little bit more rural. 

It's a little bit less urban, a little bit less populated. Maybe it's like countryside, I don't really know. But it's close to Tokyo. 

And then you can go by train, you can take the train. But I was actually driving, and we have our group. And then we booked a place on booking.com. Okay, so booking.com is like a website, and they like offer like hotels and some other stays. 

And I think it was my first time using booking.com. And of course, there are other websites that let you do that. For example, like you can go to hotels.com, or you can use Agoda, or you can use, what else is there, Airbnb. And they might have like different types of stays. 

Some are like, you know, hotels, some are hostels. Hostels meaning like you stay, and it's a little bit more shared, and you interact more with other people. Or maybe like a guest house, maybe like a traditional Japanese ryokan, ryokan is how you say in Japanese. 

And then, so booking.com has a bunch of these. And I booked a place on booking.com, and the photos were really, really pretty. Okay, so like it's like a big house. 

They have like a hot tub. The hot tub is like a, I guess it's like a fancy bathtub. And it has like jacuzzi jets or something. 

So I was like looking forward to that. We were all looking forward to it. And then there were a bunch of other nice pictures too. 

They're like, okay, here's like a lounge area. Here's like the kitchen area. Here's like the TV area. 

Here are the bedrooms. So it looked really nice. So we went there. 

And then actually, so then the story starts like getting a little bit suspicious, right? So in the beginning, like we booked it at this one place. And we were supposed to go to that area. But the actual address that they sent us after we booked it was a place that was further away. 

And I was like, okay, it's like kind of further away. Wow, we'd have to drive another like, you know, 20, 30 minutes to get there. Okay, okay. 

So like, you know, it wasn't off to a great start. But you know, we're like, okay, we'll stay positive. And then we got to go.

And then we went there. And then the road there, it was like really, really hard to go up. Like it was at like the top of like a hill. 

And like the road was like not really paved. So paved meaning like smooth, like, you know, concrete, but it had like a lot of rocks, a lot of grass, and a lot of bumps and dirt on the ground. So like wasn't very smooth. 

And then the car, which is a rental car, like it's not a four wheel drive. Okay, it's a two wheel drive. So I was thinking like, is this gonna be okay? I don't really know. 

So then we went there. And then we're like, okay, we're here. But you know, if we saw the pictures, and it looks great. 

So let's do it. And then, you know, we do like the check in process. And there's like this little check in process that you have to follow. 

And it really depends on the place. But we went there. And then we checked in.

And then we opened the door and we went in. And it was like, wait a minute, this place looks different. And then it was like, you know, we were expecting all the beautiful pictures with like a nice dining room with like a beautiful TV with a beautiful jacuzzi with like the jets and stuff. 

Oh, man, it was supposed to be really good. But actually, the place that we went to, it looked really nasty. It was like dirty. 

It looked like someone had been living there. Like, it wasn't even like, it didn't look like it was meant to be like, reserved, or like given, or let it look like it wasn't meant to have people stay there. It was just really nasty.

And then there's like, there's like stuff on the table. And there was like some kind of swimming suit, like something like hanging, and someone's computer was open on the desk. And it was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what the heck? Is this the right place? And then that place, actually, we knew it was the right place. 

Because like the host sent us like this message. And the message says, Oh, when you check in, make sure you enter the password, which is like, you know, 1234. And I don't remember the real password. 

But, you know, imagine that the password is 1234. And there's like this special box, and they have this picture. And it's like, you need to go to the box, and you need to enter the password. 

And then you take out the key. And then that's the key to the house. And so we followed that process. 

And that's how we got into this house. And the house was otherwise locked. Okay, so if you didn't have the key, then you can't get in the house.

And then we're like, wait a minute, this is pretty, pretty weird. And then like the front of the house, like there's like a lot of tall grass. And I was thinking, I'm kind of stupid, right? I don't think there's actually snakes. 

I don't think there are actually any snakes. But I thought, oh, wait, what if there are snakes, and then I get bitten, and then that will suck. But there were no snakes. 

But like the grass was kind of tall. It wasn't like the pictures. The pictures online made it look like it was really good. 

And then we looked inside the refrigerator. And this was crazy. Like the refrigerator was like full. 

Okay, there's a bunch of like food. And then, and then I looked at the food, and a lot of the food wasn't even expired. So, so like, somebody had recently bought it and put it in the fridge. 

And it's like, all right, this, this, I don't think this is right, this something must be wrong. And then, so this, this, I would call it a scam. But, but, you know, of course, what happened was that we ended up leaving because we're like, wait a minute, this seems like a trap. 

Like, this seems like a good place to trick people, especially any foreigners that don't know what they're doing. We trick them to come to this house. And then, you know, we get them and steal their money and then take their credit card or something like that. 

So I was kind of scared. And then, you know, I took some pictures, just in case we need this for proof. And then, and then we left. 

Okay, so we got in that car, it went right back down the hill. And then we never went back again. But, so we fled that area. 

Fled meaning like you, you run away like really fast. Flee is the opposite of fight. Okay, so like fight is to like, you know, fight someone, and the opposite is flee. 

And the past tense of that is fled. So we fled that place. And then, so afterwards, I like contacted the owner, right? So I messaged the owner, I said, hey, so we went to the place, and it looked completely different. 

And like, I sent a bunch of pictures. And I'm like, yeah, so we opened your key with your password. And then it looked really messed up. 

So I think something's wrong. Did you guys send us to the wrong address or something? And they're like, no, it's correct. And then I was like, okay, well, can I have a refund? And then there was a bunch of back and forth. 

And they basically said, no, they're like, no, you can't have a refund. We can refund you in the event that something is wrong, but it's your fault, because you went to the wrong place. And I was like, that's stupid. 

We went to the right address. And then, you know, we use the password to open the lockbox. And you only have one lockbox, you only have one key, and have one password, right? So like, of course, it's right. 

And they're like, no, no, no, it's your fault. And I was like, okay, whatever. So you know, I tried to get the money back, and then it didn't work. 

So then what do you do? Well, we're not going to talk about chargeback yet, that's level three. But first, I went to level two, which is I talked to booking.com. And I talked to booking.com. And I said, hey, I booked a place. And like, when I went there, it was actually really dirty. 

And it looked like completely wrong. Like, it was just like, completely different from the pictures. And I took pictures, so I can show you the pictures.

And then this was on the phone. And then the lady, she was like, oh, okay, well, you know, that sucks. So what we can do is, we can ask the owner to refund you, but I can't refund you. 

And I was like, what? What are you doing? Why do you even exist? Is what I was thinking. But anyways, the lady was like, nice. And she's like, oh, that must have been terrible. 

Oh, there was poop on the toilet. I am so sorry. And it's like, well, it's not your fault. 

But I do want my money back. And then so she's like, okay, well, I can try to ask them to refund you. And then she asked them to refund me. 

And then they didn't refund me. And then, so then this is when we reached level three. Okay, so we used the chargeback. 

So I contacted my credit card company, which was Chase. And then I talked to Chase. And I said, well, I actually didn't call them. 

I just messaged them. And then I said, yeah, we booked this place. And then the place was basically a scam.

And then Chase doesn't really let you enter that much information. It's like a really short summary. And if they want more information, then they'll ask you. 

So I said, yeah, we booked this place. And then like, I spent a lot of time like writing emails, Japanese emails to like complain about this to try to get my money back. And then Chase, you know, like I was writing that message. 

And I'm like, okay, how can I write this in like a short way so that it fits in here. And then when I submitted that, Chase just immediately refunded me. Okay, so they didn't even read the message.

They just refunded me. They said, okay, well, we believe you. So just here's your money back. 

And then we'll go like take the money back. And then I was thinking like, wait a minute, but I have a bunch of pictures! I have proof! Don't you wanna see the proof? I took pictures of like, you know, the fridge. I took pictures of like the table. 

I took pictures of like the poop on the toilet. I took pictures of everything. And then Chase, like they don't even have a person because they just said, oh, we only involve people if we don't automatically approve it. 

And you've been automatically approved. So you just get your money back and then that's it. And I was thinking like, oh, okay. 

And then that was that. So it was kind of a long story, but I was talking about how if you can use the charge back feature, then it's actually, it feels pretty safe. So I guess even though I was in that circumstance and I was thinking, oh no, like I already paid for this and it sucks. 

And I feel like, tricked. Well, don't worry because I can use anger to resolve that feeling. Okay. 

So if I feel like I'm going to get my money back, like, ha, you don't get the money, then I feel better. So basically because I knew that I could do the charge back, then I was pretty confident. It's okay. 

Let's just go ahead and leave here because it seems dangerous because we don't want to get stabbed. We don't want to get bitten by a snake. We don't want to get robbed and have all our stuff stolen. 

Let's just go ahead and leave. And then, and then we left. And I think that was the right thing to do. 

So this is like a long story, but basically I'm telling you, I used charge back and it was great. So let's take a short little break here. And then I'll come back and talk to you about credit cards in general.

Okay, let's go and continue. So, to talk about credit cards in general.

I just told you that, I guess, you know, in the event that you buy something and it ends up being kind of like a scam, I say kind of like a scam because sometimes it's not really a scam, but you feel tricked and then you can still charge back in that case. So, if you encounter a scam or you feel like you got tricked, then you can go ahead and charge back. 

And that is kind of like the main perk, that's the main selling point of a credit card. So, you know, what is the difference between having a credit card versus not having a credit card? Well, I guess the credit card can protect you from certain things. So, for example, if you stayed at this like crappy place and instead of paying by credit card, then let's say you paid by, I don't know, mailing in cash or something, then you can't really just get the cash back instantly. 

Like you would have to contact them and they would have to send you the cash back or, you know, you'll have to do something. But the credit card is like the easiest way because there's kind of like this middle person, which is the credit card company, and you pay the credit card company and the credit card company pays the merchant, the person who's selling the thing. And then any time you have a complaint, you say, wait a minute, stop, and then you like contact a credit card company and say, wait, there was poop on the toilet, I don't want to pay them. 

And then the credit card company's like, okay, we always believe you. And so this is one of the perks of having a credit card. And there are other perks too. 

So credit cards in general, the way that they really get you to try to sign up with them is they offer you something called points. Points or cash back, I'm not really sure, there are other names for it too. But, you know, points or cash back, what happens is, let's say if I bought milk, okay, and I spent, let's say, five dollars on milk. 

Let me give a different example. Let's do something easier. Okay, I got it. 

So let's say I bought a new PlayStation 5 controller, which is true. I actually, I bought a new PlayStation 5 controller so that I can play games, even though I don't have a PlayStation 5. I like to use the controller to play on the Mac. But anyways, so if you bought a PlayStation 5 controller, it's not actually worth a hundred dollars. 

But if I spent a hundred dollars, then usually I get like one percent back or two percent back, depending on what credit card you have. So a hundred dollar purchase, then I get one dollar of credit.

And then now let me mention the thing that I talk to friends about the most is actually credit card churning. So churning, churning is like, it's not even like necessarily a basic phrase to use. 

So if you talk with, you know, American people, people who grew up in the US, if they never did any kind of credit card churning or credit card management stuff, then they won't really know the term churning. But churning, what it means is like you sign up for something, and then, you know, it's like, oh, in the first three months, if you use this much money, we'll give you like extra points. And what you want to do is you want to take, you want to take the stuff. 

I was going to say free stuff, but it's not free, because you still have to use it a little bit. So for example, if you sign up for a credit card, they're like, okay, if you spend, you know, five thousand dollars in the first three months, then we will give you some like credit. We'll give you like five hundred dollars or something like that. 

And then, so it's like incentive. It's to try to get you to use your credit card. They want you to use the credit card, and then they want you to keep using it like for the rest of your life. 

And then they can like slowly make money. But if you go ahead and like just use the credit card only during the first like three months or so, and then once you get the reward, you like stop using the credit card, and then you like use other things too, it's kind of like a little bit cheating, but this is called churning, and this is what I like to do, and this is what my friends like to do. 

And the people that do it, I don't know why, but everybody's always really proud of like churning. They're always like, yeah, dude, I saved five percent by churning this credit card or something like that. And then I say that kind of exact same stuff when I talk about it with my friends too. 

So this is called churning, and the churning originally comes from the word like to churn, I guess, milk into butter. So when you make butter, butter is made from milk, and what you do is you like you, you churn the milk. Okay, so churn means to like take something and spin it, and then keep rotating it. 

And in the image of a credit card, it's kind of similar to like rotating credit cards. So imagine like you have like a credit card, and then you use it, and then you're like, okay, I'm not going to use it anymore because they don't give me any more good stuff since I'm not new. And then what you do is you move to the next one. 

So you take that credit card that you've been using, you put it on the side, and then you rotate. You churn to the next credit card, and then you just keep going until like you run out of cards to churn. Or at some point, you kind of give up, and then you just like stop churning, and then you keep using the same credit cards because that's like the easiest. 

The least amount of work is to just keep using the same credit card forever, and then you don't have to think about it. You don't have to look up, oh, this credit card gives you 3% back at restaurants, but this card gives you 5% back on gas or something like that. Like if you think too much about it, it's like a little bit, like a little bit troublesome. 

It's a little bit like hard work.

But this all is like, I guess if you do a good job, then you get a lot of credit card points. And then credit card points allow you to like go and travel or like buy plane tickets for free or like, I don't know, it depends on the credit card. 

So I currently am using a, actually, I don't know if I should talk about this. I don't want it to sound like I'm recommending financial advice, because that definitely, it's a line that I think I don't really want to cross. So this podcast is supposed to be, I talk about fun stuff, and then like we leave it at that. 

We do it in English. I don't want it to be like I'm giving you like things to do in life. I can give you tips, advice, but I'm not going to give you specific recommendations that you should do this.

But if you want to know, you know, you can ask me, and then I'll tell you, oh, I use a and then that's like the censored noise. Like I gave you a beep. I use a beep credit card.

Okay, so let's take one last short little break here, and then we'll come back and we'll finish it up.

All right, so we're going to go ahead and make our way into this last section here. So I've been talking about credit cards, and I've been talking about how I think credit cards are great, and actually I talked about how if you encounter scams, or if you encounter situations where you got tricked, then you can usually tell the credit card company. 

Okay, so for example, let's say I tried to buy milk, and then I already paid for the milk, and I've been waiting for my milk, and I wait, and I wait, and the milk never comes. Then I'm like, oh no, I got tricked, but I can at least get my money back. So what I do is I tell the credit card company, I say, hey dude, I like bought milk, and they didn't give me my milk, and the credit card company will give me back my money. 

And it doesn't have to be milk. It can be like, I don't know, a video game or something like that. But what about if someone like steals your information? So I guess if like a robber comes up to me and like says like, hey, you better give me your credit card or else I'm going to beat you up, and you know, he's got like these big arms with these big muscles, and he's going to beat me up. 

That's scary, okay? I don't want to get beaten up. So then, you know, if I give him my credit card, then he's going to go home, and he's going to buy milk. So he goes home, and he goes to Amazon, and he enters a new credit card, and then, you know, he just looks at the card, which has all the information. 

It has like my name, the credit card number, all that information. It has it all. And then, you know, if it goes through, then when I log into my credit card online, then it will show like a charge. 

It'll say, oh, Chris bought milk, and then I can be like, oh, no, no, that wasn't me. So in this case, you know, I could just tell the credit card company like, oh, I got tricked. Someone stole my card, and that's like the easiest to understand. 

But there are other ways to scam people, and I just want to mention these so that you can be aware so that if someone tries to trick you and take your credit card information, then hopefully you'll notice, and then you won't give them any information. 

But a really common one is a card skimmer, okay? So to skim something is to kind of like take something off the top. But a card skimmer, you know how when you try to buy stuff at like a convenience store or like a restaurant or something, usually you like, sometimes you swipe your credit card, right? And then it'll ask you for like a pin code, and you enter your pin code, like one, two, three, four, whatever the pin code is. 

And then like that's it, right? But actually, what some people do is they attach something that's called a card skimmer, and this is illegal, okay? You're not supposed to do this. But what you do is you attach an extra device on top of the machine that reads your card, and then that device basically just like looks at your card and then copies it. So then when you swipe your credit card, like the skimmer will see the swipe, and then it'll like remember it, and then it'll try to use it to like pay for other stuff. 

And then there's like a fake keypad. It's not, it looks like a real one, but it's actually fake. And then when you enter your pin code, like one, two, three, four, then like they remember it, and then they keep the information. 

And then even though they don't have your credit card, they have the information, and then they can use it to buy other stuff. And that's not good, right? This is illegal. You're not supposed to do that. 

But I guess just be careful when you swipe your credit card, because if you swipe it, like tap, tap to pay, like just by touching it, it's gonna sound weird, but that is the most secure. So that's better than swiping, and it's better than inserting the chip as well. It's just got the most security. 

I'm not going to talk about why. And then now let me mention another scam that sometimes comes up. And this one is like, this one is, it really depends, but there are many different versions of the scam. 

And what happens is someone calls you, okay? So for example, if I'm the one getting scammed, so imagine I'm like telling everyone, hey everyone, I got a new credit card, and I've been buying a lot of milk, and it's great, and I'm so happy. And then somebody somewhere has my phone number and my name, and they want my credit card information so that they can go home, and they can buy their milk with my money. So what they do is they call me. 

They call my phone number, and they know my name, and they say, hello, is this Christopher? And then, you know, they're like putting on like this voice that makes it sound like they are an employee of like the credit card company. And they say, I'm with the credit card company. I represent the credit card company, and I'm here to help you. 

You are my customer. It's a lie. It's a lie, but they do that to trick me. 

And then if I play along, or if I actually get tricked, and then I say, oh, yeah, yeah, that's me, that's me. How can I help you? And they say, oh, well, and usually they have the same story. And they say, oh, there has been a fraudulent transaction on your credit card. 

And by fraudulent transaction, that means like, oh, there's been like a charge, and we think it's fake, like probably someone stole your card. And remember, this is the bad guy saying this, okay? They're trying to trick you into believing them. And then I'll say, wait a minute, what is the charge? And someone's going to say, you bought 200 liters of coconut water on Amazon.

I've never bought 200 liters, okay? I've bought many liters of coconut water on Amazon, but I didn't buy 200. So then, you know, if I'm getting tricked, I'll say, wait a minute, no, that's not me. That's not me. 

That's a fraudulent transaction. Can you stop it? And they'll say, okay, sure, we can stop it. And this is where the bad guy starts to smile. 

And he's like, yeah, sure, we can stop it. All I need is your credit card information. So can you just confirm for me all of your credit card digit numbers? So just tell me all the digit numbers, okay? And then I'll say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 

It's a one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. And I tell them everything. And they're like, okay, can you also tell me like the name? Can you tell me the zip code? Can you tell me the verification security code? Can you tell me like the expiration date? And then you give them all the information, and that's not good. 

Because if you tell them this information, it's the same as them stealing your card, okay? And so this is kind of like, it's tricky, right? Because when they call you, you don't really know if it's really them or not. And so if there's one piece of advice I can give, it's that the credit card companies, they will not directly call you, okay? So if they do, it's very rare. But anytime they call you, what you should do is you should hang up, and then you call the number on the back of the card, okay? So incoming phone calls. 

So incoming, meaning they call you. If you pick up, sometimes the phone number, that can be a lie as well. But the opposite, outgoing phone numbers, so phone calls that you dial from your phone, those will never mess up. 

Those will always be correct. And it's just the way that phone numbers work. It's a little bit confusing. 

I'm not going to talk about it too much. But basically, incoming phone numbers, people can lie. Like, I could call you and say, I'm your mom. 

If I know your mom's phone number, I can do some stuff, and then do some stuff, meaning like some technology things. And then when I call you, it's actually my phone number, but I look like it's the mom's phone number. And then that's like tricky, right? But outgoing phone calls, they always work.

So if a bank person calls you and they say, I need some information, number one, like you probably won't really notice because at the time you're getting tricked. And what they want to do is they make you panic. So when you're like, oh no, I didn't buy 200 liters of coconut water. 

It wasn't me. I didn't spend that much money. I didn't spend a thousand dollars. 

And then they'll say, oh yeah, yeah, that's fine. I can help you. And they want you to hurry up and like give the information.

And then if you are panicked, then you don't really think too much. You don't really calm down and say, wait a minute, credit card companies shouldn't just call me like that because you know, if you're calm, then you probably make a better decision. So what you should do is, you know, don't panic.

And then what you say is like, okay, I'm going to call the number on the back of my card, just in case you are a scammer and then you just hang up. Okay. So if they are a real employee, then you don't have to worry about their feelings. 

If they're a scammer, then you really don't need to worry about their feelings. But when you call the number on the back of your card, then that one will definitely connect with the real people. And then those people you can actually trust. 

Okay. So, so that is like the phone number scam. Okay. 

And this comes in all forms. So it's not just credit card information, but maybe like bank information or, you know, it's a really common thing. They know some of your information, maybe they know your name and like your credit card number, but they also want the verification code. 

So what they do is they go through the whole thing and they act very professional. And their goal is to not get caught because if they don't get caught, they get your money and everybody wants to, wants to have money. So you gotta be careful about that. 

And then also one more thing, I already gave an example of this before, but sometimes there are like scams where the website pretends to be something else. And I did mention that story where I had a student and the student like was trying to look for an ESTA and then like they ended up going to the wrong website. Well, actually, when I went to Malaysia, Malaysia also has a system where if you're going into Malaysia, you're supposed to fill out this form. 

And then it tells you like, it just, it just tells you, oh, this is required by the government. And we collect this information. So it's like, when are you coming in? Where are you coming from? And then when are you leaving? And then where are you staying? And it's just some like general information. 

And I thought maybe it's related to like, you know, back during COVID, you would like track people and try to keep an idea of like, oh, where people are or something, but it actually might not be even for that. But in Malaysia, so like, you know, on the plane, they announce it on the thing. And then I'm like, okay, so I guess when I land, I got to fill out like the visa thing.

And then so I landed, it's not even a visa thing. The visa thing makes it sound complicated. It's just like a form where you register some traveler information. 

That's all. And it's not supposed to be very hard, but I like, you know, filled it out kind of. And then as I was about to submit it, I use Google Chrome, which is like an app on my phone. 

It's a browser. And then it tells me, wait a minute, like this website has been reported for like scams and hacking. And I was like, wait a minute, that sounds pretty suspicious. 

And then I look at the website and I realized, oh, like I misspelled like Malaysia or something. So like the website wasn't actually like the real website. It was a fake website. 

And then the fake website, like it wants you to pay. It's like, oh, just pay $20 and then we'll register this thing for you. And I thought it was like, oh, okay, how am I supposed to know? Because it was my first time visiting Malaysia. 

I didn't know. And so you can imagine this is like a trick, right? So people who actually go to Malaysia, they might know the truth, which is when you fill out that form, it's free. And then there's a website online that you can do it on. 

But then if you don't know that, if the only thing you know is someone told you, oh, you have to fill out a form and you don't remember if it's going to be free or if it costs money, then when you fill out the website, then you'll be thinking, oh, this is probably the real website. And then you'll like fill it out, right? And then you might even pay money. You might even use your credit card and then pay them. 

And then they get your information, either that, or they just charge a credit card. And then I guess you can go and charge back, but it'll take some work. You have to explain and say like, oh, it was a fake website. 

It was actually not good. So, you know, like it's not just because I'm a, like a native English speaker that I'm able to like do these English websites, but it's like, anybody can get tricked. So, you know, just be careful. 

And then if you're not sure, then like pause, wait a second, and then look things up. And when you look things up, look things up on like a different website or like, you know, ask something that you think will give you reliable information. So if you're like calling a scammer and then they're like, hey, okay, so, you know, you didn't buy all that stuff. 

Let me, let me help you. So just give me all your credit card information. If I say, wait a minute, I think you're a scammer. 

Like they're going to do their best to say, no, I'm not a scammer. Like I'm here to help you. And that, that is like confusing.

So what you should do is say like, you know, just wait a second and then take a moment to pause. And then, you know, you don't have to listen to anything and don't feel that pressure to like, you know, immediately resolve this because even though it's natural, it's a very human emotion to get like into like a panic when you have this kind of stress. Like the truth is they rely on that.

So if you just get in the habit of, you know, occasionally going, taking a deep breath and then like thinking things through, like, I think it's actually pretty good. So anyways, I talked so much, so much about credit cards and like, you know, Visa stuff. And let me also leave with just one last thing. 

So I said, like credit cards are great and stuff, but the truth is the way that credit cards make money is that they like take money from the people selling. So if you like pay with credit card at like a restaurant, like you pay, I don't know, $5, the restaurant does not get $5. Okay. 

They actually ended up getting less. They lose a certain portion of that as like fees. And then, and then it's kind of messed up, but like they don't get that $5. 

And then for me, I don't even spend all $5. I actually get like some in points and then like some other perks and some other stuff. Uh, so credit cards are actually like, they are good to use and they're useful, but, uh, you know, whether they are good for the world, it's another story, but I'm not going to talk too much about that because we're out of time and we got to wrap things up. 

So, uh, thank you so much for listening until the end of this episode of Kuli English podcast. And if you want to support me, if you want to follow or subscribe on YouTube or Apple podcasts or Spotify, then feel free to do so, but you don't have to. Uh, but anyways, thanks so much for listening and I hope to see you next Tuesday on Kuli English podcast.