It's my own dumb fault for carrying my wallet in the back pocket of my backpack. It's my even dumber fault for carrying my Social Security card in my wallet. So I can't exactly fault the woman who assumed my identity and used it to open up a bunch of credit cards in my name. Mind you, I don't think it's okay that she did that--stealing is still illegal down among the proles, as well it should be. But the perp is not the sole source of this whole mishegoss. And while it doesn't excuse her crime, I would hazard a guess that the $1K watch she charged on that fraudulent account is going straight to her veins. Why else would she bother? Simply put, the girl needs help.
But at least that's fathomable. What isn't is the policy of the corporate behemoth retailers who issued this woman a credit card and allowed her to use it in their stores the same day. The ID check they run is cursory at best. If your name, address, and Social Security number match up with the ones in Big Brother's computer, and there are no red flags on your credit record, then you're all set. Start shopping, kids! We've got your back!
For the retailers, it's about money and brand loyalty. If they issue you a credit card, allow you to use it immediately, and cushion you with all sorts of second and third chances if you can't make your payments on time, you'll bite. But see, I'm receiving all these credit cards and statements in the mail. I did not open these accounts. So I'm calling the fraud departments and the credit bureaus and informing them thus. I now have a seven-year fraud warning on my credit record. This is not a personal tragedy--I learned the hard way that I cannot be trusted to pay off a credit card, and so I don't open credit card accounts anymore. But since I didn't open these accounts, I'm not responsible for the roughly $7,000 and change my identity thief racked up. And assuming they catch this woman, I highly doubt she'll be able to make restitution. So the stores end up absorbing the cost of the stolen merchandise, and what started out as a money-making venture ends up costing them instead.
Then again, what's $2,000 to a multimillion-dollar corporation? Even if it adds up--and it will, because I'm hardly the only dumbass out there carrying her ID in the back pocket of her backpack, and she's certainly not the only person with a lack of morals and a smack habit--there's always more where that came from. Someone will make up the difference, somehow.
I am so rarely on the side of accountability and responsibility that it's not a little jarring to find myself championing them now. I'm not a thief--just a slacker. A very, very lucky slacker. I had all the time in the world today to call up the credit card companies and file complaints. And the people with whom I spoke couldn't have been lovelier. Somehow I suspect the straits are far more dire for the non-English speaking woman who logs in 13-hour days at a Chinatown sweatshop and comes home to an apartment with no phone. What's she supposed to do if her wallet's stolen? Or the NYU professor--a Black male--who twice spent time in Rikers thanks to a case of identity theft? A weekend in the cooler is not the mere pain in the ass that has thus far been my experience.
I hope we're not too far gone to take our collective heads out of our selfsame asses and at least organize a good old-fashioned boycott of those merchants who issue credit cards at the drop of a hat. But I'm not suggesting this as a replacement for holding myself accountable and taking responsibility for my self-absorbed dumbassedness. I should not have been carrying my Social Security card in my wallet, nor my wallet in the back pocket of my backpack. And since the theft, I've been hoarding my wallet in a strong purse, with a zipper, that I hunch over like a rabid bear protecting her cubs. That's step one.
Now, about that boycott...?
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