Years ago a close friend told me, "Todd, don't believe anything you hear and only 50 percent of what you see. Then you will only be disappointed 50 percent of the time." 多年前的一个好朋友告诉我,"托德,不要相信你听到的任何事情和你所看到的只有一半的事情。否则你多半只会失望。

"While that may sound harsh, I have found it to be true. 虽然听起来很严厉,但我发现这是真的。

He owned one of the top CPA firms in Florida for nearly 30 years and told me story after story of how his clients had lost millions of dollars by trusting the wrong people. 近30年来在佛罗里达，他拥有最优秀的会计师事务所之一,告诉我一个故事接着一个故事，故事有关他的客户因为信错人如何失去了数百万美元。

When I was young and naive, I trusted just about everyone. 当我年轻天真的时候,,我相信几乎每个人。

In fact, I trusted people until I was given a reason not to trust them. 事实上我信任所有人直到有人给了我一个理由不去信任他们。

The problem with this way of thinking was that I continued to find myself being the victim of deceit and theft. 这种思维方式的问题是,我继续发现自己是被欺骗和盗窃的受害者。

In addition, I constantly found myself aggravated with people who shared private and confidential information. 此外,我经常发现自己和共享私人和机密信息的人交流甚密。

Let me give you 4 examples. Example 1.  How my accountant stole $73,000 让我给你举4个例子。例1.怎样我的账户被偷73000美元

When I moved to Tampa in 1991, I needed to find a new accountant. 1991年当我搬到坦帕,我需要找到一个新的会计。

After meeting with several, I selected one I liked. 会见几次后,我选择一个我喜欢的。

A couple of years later when making one of my quarterly tax payments, he told my dad (who was working for me at the time), 几年后做我的一个季度税款时,他告诉我爸爸(当时为我工作),

"Just drop the check off at my office and I'll make sure it's deposited and allocated to the correct quarter." The check was for more than $73,000. "就把支票在我的办公室,我将确保它的存款和支出用到正确的地方。"支票超过73000美元。

The following year I received a notice from the IRS stating I owed $73,000 in back taxes. 第二年我收到国税局的通知说我欠73000美元的税款。

I quickly hired a new accountant to figure out what had happened. 我很快就聘请了一位新的会计找出发生了什么事。

He determined that the IRS had not received the payment; yet the check had cleared my bank. 他认为美国国税局尚未收到付款;然而我账上已经没有钱了。

When we requested a copy of the check from the bank, we learned that the accountant had scratched out "IRS," made the check payable to himself, and deposited it into his personal account. 当我们从银行要支票副本,我们得知会计逃了"国税局",使支票打到他个人账户

We called the police, filed charges, and had him arrested. 我们报警，递交了起诉书，已经把他逮捕了。

Example 2.  How my relative was scammed for $50,000 例2，我的亲戚被骗50000元

Years ago a relative asked me to go along to meet with someone who was going to handle some of her money. 多年前一个亲戚问我会见拿她钱投资的人。

We walked into a nicely decorated office that resembled a bank. 我们走进了一个装修不错的办公室,像一个银行。

It had the standard bank type signage showing the return rate on their CDs, full-color brochures displayed on a walnut table-everything that would make it appear to be a legitimate financial institution. 它有标准银行类型标识来在CD上显示回报率,胡桃木桌子上放着全彩宣传册,使它似乎是一个合法的金融机构。

We met with an elderly gentleman dressed in a suit who explained his conservative investment philosophy. 我们会见了一位上了年纪的绅士穿着西装解释他保守的投资理念。

He convincingly presented a safe, secure investment backed by a major insurance company. 他令人信服地提出了一个安全、可靠的以一个主要的保险公司为后台的投资。

He even provided full-color brochures describing the investment in detail. 他甚至提供全彩手册详细描述了投资。

Everything appeared to be in order, so my relative invested $50,000. 似乎一切就绪,所以我相对投资了50000美元。

About a year later the office closed and she had been scammed out of a portion of her retirement fund. 大约一年以后办公室关闭,她的退休基金的一部分就这样被骗。

While I would like to say these two cases were flukes, I have had countless people try to take advantage of me over the years, 而我想说的这两个例子还算侥幸,多年来我有无数人试图骗我,

each disguised in a different way and many of which would not be considered illegal, as is the case in the next example. 每一个伪装的方式不同,其中许多不会被认为是非法的,就和下一个事例中一样。