I came up with the term “inoculated” a number of years ago.
The term arose in a situation where someone was telling me about this “great new tax scheme.” It was clear from the description of the scheme that it would never work, and in fact it didn’t, once the IRS got wind of it. However, when I told this individual that fact his response was, “that’s exactly what I was told you would say.”
That’s when I realized that he had been “inoculated” against anyone telling him the truth. He was told that anybody he would explain this to– who had any knowledge of tax law– would tell him that it would not work. He was further told that this was because “they don’t understand it.” So when he was, in fact, told that it would not work, that played right into the promoter’s hand.
By validating the promoter’s foresight it just led to greater credibility on the part of the promoter.
Needless to say, when the IRS came calling, the promoter and his fee were no longer to be found, and the taxpayer was left holding the bag.
I was reminded of this is watching a TV interview of an individual who has written a book that is somewhat critical of the financial services industry. To be honest, I have not read the book and I’m sure that there is a lot of truth in what is written in the book.
But during the interview the author mentioned that she’s been criticized by financial advisors, and I thought to myself: “inoculation.” Because while there were plenty of things said in the interview that should be criticized, doing so would only play into the author’s hand. So I wrote this instead.
Anyway, the point here is that people need to be aware of these situations, especially if someone is being sold something. If you are being told that your advisor, your attorney or your accountant, “will not understand it,” you need to run the other way. If you are being told that what you are being sold is private, and you cannot tell anybody about it, especially your professional advisors, you need to run the other way.
Nobody has an exclusive. You need to get independent second opinions if somebody’s trying to sell you something.
Don’t let yourself get “inoculated.”
