Opinion

When Dignity Left After Identity Theft

REUTERS

Font Size:

Charles V famously said “I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse.” That has no bearing whatsoever on what I’m about to say, but you have to admit it’s an awesome line. A little closer to time and place, Winston Churchill observed that “nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.” Having just experienced identity theft, I wonder what Sir Winston would say had he endured this modern assault on personhood.

Incidentally, I’ve solved the problem of identity theft. We simply must utilize technology to weld the positive things in our life, like our good credit, to the negative things, like our emotional baggage. That way a guy who absconds with my credit also inherits a certain emotional distance and irrational fear of Norwegians. Hope the Kid Rock tickets were worth it, buddy! Though this idea has blockchain proof-of-concept written all over it, my calls to Silicon Valley go unanswered.

But back to our story. Let’s go to that fateful day. It started like any other. I had read Marmaduke and confirmed the absence of coded love messages from Charlize Theron. Work-wise, I had only one investment opportunity to consider. A slam dunk, it fit most of my target metrics – high-yield, short-term, liquid, uncorrelated risk. Yet something didn’t add up in this unsolicited email from a Nigerian Prince in dire need of a funds transfer. My senses alive, I was worried when I received a call from credit card customer service. Not shoot, I just ate two of the four tongs in my plastic salad fork worried, but worried. The discussion went something like this:

Fraud Monitor: We noticed some abnormal swipes in Sandusky, Ohio. They appear to have been done on the premises, not remotely. Specifically, a Bea Arthur Commemorative Plate Set was purchased. You are not in Sandusky right now, correct?

Me: Correct. I’ve never been to Sandusky. I’m certainly not there now.

Fraud Monitor: So just to be clear, while we’ve been talking you didn’t buy a Rue McClanahan Decanter Set, right there in Sandusky?

Me: No, I did not.

Fraud Monitor: Of course not, you just said you’d never been to…hey…this just came across the transom. I think I know the answer, but I’ll ask it anyway: you are not in Sandusky right now, buying a Lazy Susan in the silhouette of Estelle Getty, right?

Me: Are you ****ing kidding me?

I know I shouldn’t have gotten short with him. He was just doing his job. But the exchange chaps me. I don’t know what’s worse: that some guy passing himself off as me is darting about the Midwest and spending my hard-earned cheddar, or that he is blowing it on such weird stuff. The way I see it, if someone’s gonna take a free ride on my credit, I’d at least like to see him double down on things I’d buy if money were no object. This would have been an entirely different conversation:

Fraud Monitor: Looks like our man in Sandusky just bought a case of Midleton Very Rare Irish Whiskey and Gordon Lightfoot’s Gord’s Gold autographed guitar. And numerous Slim Jims.

Me: Now that’s what I’m talking about.

Instead, as I write I’m getting bombarded with pop-ups from Golden Girls Cosplay communities and Maude Fanboy Cruises. One person is even hawking WWBWD? — What Would Betty White Do? — bumper stickers, to which my reply is Ask her, she’s not dead. But that’s when I got cocky:

Me: Thanks for doing your job so well. I appreciate it.

Fraud Monitor: No need to thank me. It’s really the complex algorithm we have in place to detect pattern abnormalities. I’m just brought in for the close calls, familiar as I am with your personal spending habits.

Me (nervously): How, uh, familiar are you with my personal spending habits?

Fraud Monitor: Intimately… if you know what I mean.

Me: I swear, I was buying that for a friend. Total joke gift. Please don’t judge me.

Fraud Monitor: Sir, we’re professionals here. We go through extensive training, and if there’s one thing I can tell you, it’s that we don’t judge our clients. Not even total freaks like you.

So on balance I am grateful not to be out three large just so someone in the Midwest can trick out his dining room in proper Golden Girls splendor. My two takeaways? First, it is unsettling to be so well known by someone you don’t know at all. The price of interconnectedness, I suppose. And second – and this is related to the first – the next time I feel the urge to buy an issue of Garden & Buns, I’ll just pay cash. 

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel