Directions: In this section there is a text in English. Translate
the five underlined sentences into Chinese.
March 27, 1997, dawned as a normal day at the Collins’ home.
By the middle of the morning, Jack Collins was at his desk, writing
checks, paying bills the way he always had: on time. Then
the phone rang, and the nightmare began. (31)An
investigator for a bank was on the line, asking in a severe voice why Collins, a
university physicist, was late on payments for a $27, 000 car, bought in
Virginia the previous year. "I don’t have a car like
this," Collins protested. The last time he had set foot in Virginia was as an
officer at a submarine base, three decades ago. But his name was on the
contract, and so was his Social Security Number. During
the months that ensued, he and his wife learned that someone had bought four
more cars and 28 other items-worth $113,000 in all-in their name. Their hitherto
good credit record had been destroyed. (32)"After a lifetime of being
honest," says Collins, "all of a sudden I was basically being accused of
stealing and treated like a criminal. " This is what
it means to fall prey to a nonviolent but frightening and fast-growing crime:
identity theft. It happens to at least 500, 000 new
victims each year, according to government figures.
(33)And it happens very easily because every identification number you
have--Social Security, credit card, driver’s license, telephone-- "is a key that
unlocks some storage of money or goods," says a fraud (欺诈) program manager of
the US Postal Service. "So if you throw away your credit card receipt and I
get it and use the number on it, I’m not becoming you, but to the credit card
company I’ve become your account. " (34)One major
problem, experts say, is that the Social Security Number (SSN)-- originally
meant only for retirement benefit and tax purposes--has become the universal way
to identify people. It is used as identification by the military, colleges
and in billions of commercial transactions. Yet a shrewd
thief can easily snatch your SSN, not only by stealing your wallet, but also by
taking mail from your box, going through your trash for discarded receipts and
bills or asking for it over the phone on some pretext.
Using your SSN, the thief applies for a credit card in your name, asking
that it be sent to a different address than yours, and uses it for multiple
purchases. A couple of months later the credit card company, or its debt
collection agency, presses you for payment. You don’t
have to pay the debt, but you must clean up your damaged credit record.
(35)That means getting a police report and copy of the erroneous contract,
and then using them to clear the fraud from your credit report, which is held by
a credit bureau. Each step can require a huge amount of effort.