Steal My Identity, Please

By Joel Stein

When Adam Cohen asked if he could try to steal my identity for a cover story, all I thought was, "Good career move." If I could persuade other staff members to join the program, I could transition from writer to subject, and get my name in the magazine every week without doing any work.

But then I started to worry. What exactly would Adam be looking at? Would he know how much I made, and would he tell other people, who would then make fun of me? Could he see all those cookie things in my home computer, and could he tell which were the, um, mature sites I was looking at and which were the kinky sites that were just pop-ups that wouldn't let me click off them? And would he buy that excuse?

The dumb part about agreeing to this is, not only does Adam give me the creeps, but also I should have learned my lesson, because someone I didn't know had already stolen my identity. At first I just kind of vaguely noticed that I wasn't getting my American Express bills anymore, which at the time just seemed like a good thing. Then I got a call from the AmEx fraud department asking me about some charges on my Optima card. I had never used my Optima card. It's just one of many credit cards I ordered because I got frequent-flyer miles for signing up. I would agree to just about anything for miles.

It turned out someone knew enough about me to change my address and order new credit cards. I'm pretty sure he got my information from the Internet, though really, how hard is it to grab someone's Social Security number and mother's maiden name? Especially when that someone's mother was divorced and using her maiden name. The kids suffer in so many ways.

The new me, the Sandra Bullock in The Net me, lives on Laconia Avenue in the Bronx. Luckily, AmEx's massive computer system noticed subtle differences from my normal spending patterns. This impressed me until I realized the computer had failed to consider that I would never survive a week of living in the Bronx.

The fraudulent charges consisted of two ATM visits, one for $500 and one for $400.75. I was impressed, not only that Bronx ATMs have quarters, but also that my thief was getting just enough to meet his needs. The other Joel Stein also made two visits to a Bronx Mobil station, for $19.56 and $21. I'm guessing cigarettes and beer. The Bronx me is a lot tougher.

He also got a great price on a flight to London, and $843.75 worth of goods at a store called Videotron. I'm guessing porn. I intend to blame a lot of things on the fake me. But the saddest thing about the criminal me is that he actually wound up charging less than I did in the two months we both had the cards. I considered canceling my card and letting him keep his.

AmEx paid for the whole thing. If this is the gravest privacy danger we face, then you can all know Mom's name is Burd. In fact, since AmEx wouldn't tell me what happened with its investigation, I'm still rooting for the other me to outrun the AmEx cops. He's tough, he's a world traveler, he's frugal, and I'm pretty sure he can help me take care of Adam Cohen if Adam ever tries to break into my home computer.