Twice, now

Yes, internets, twice now I have been a victim of identity theft. The first time I could see how it could have happened. I was at my home in Kirkland. It was a nice early summer day and I had the doors open. People do that in the great northwest after 9 months of sodden greyness. I was working on my laptop in the dining room and had taken a break in the kitchen for some dinner. Heard some noise in the dining room. I looked up to see the back of someone bolting out the door with my laptop. Yep. They came in, saw my computer sitting there, ripped it out of the plug and took off with it. They took off down the alley and were gone before I could get after them.

I keep a baseball bat by the back door now, in hopes of being able to use it on the next thief. Of course, thieves have more rights than I do, and when challenged in court the ACLU musters defense for these types of folks whose rights are just continually violated.

I digress. About 3 months later I started getting calls from collection agencies on the bills I had rung up on credit cards I had taken out since the summer. Seems I had opened a Target Account, an account at Old Navy (yes, I'm 62 and buy almost ALL my fucking clothes at Old Navy - gotta look hip), and several other accounts. About $20k in all. It took me about a year to recover from this and my credit report is STILL not clean. It takes 7 + years to rinse through the system.

Theft number 2 has just happened. Somebody used my debit card number (not the card - I have the card) used the number and my PIN number to empty my bank account. They did it at two different retail stores in Seattle. My bank is working with me to clear the debt.

At first I thought it was some low life street bum or some such person. Now I'm thinking it was probably someone with some savvy. Probably some banker who got shorted on his bonus this year from federal TARP funds who needed to make up for the shortfall in his income, now that he can't make loans to people who don't have the money to pay them back. Or - maybe a Boeing machinist who can't strike for a few more years.

It's always something...