Friday, September 23, 2005

The Hessian Strikes Again


So I went to the dentist yesterday. I had to get 2 fillings - which was not a shock seeing as how I haven't been to the dentist in 5 years. But still, it was my first. Cavity. Ever. It wasn't too bad. The cavities weren't deep enough to require novacane, so I didn't have to endure any anticipated pain or numb jaw. I actually got out of the appointment at a decent time, and thought I should return to work, since I had so much stuff to do. I thought i'd stop by my house (which was only a few blocks away) to grab some lunch.
Good thing I did. My bank had been trying to get a hold of me all day to tell me that the HESSIAN who stole my purse had been writing bad checks all over town. MOST of them at Wild Oats of all places!!!
She's a damn HEALTHY thief!
She must've racked up over $300 there in 1 day! What was worse, the wallet she stole luckily (so I thought) didn't have my ID in it, but an expired ID from when I turned 21. I didn't think much about it other than it was a bummer I didn't have that ID to remind me of what a goofy haircut I had back then (the bangs and all....). CO has issued new IDs a few years back, so it was the last of it's kind. It had frayed edges (which makes it easy to pull up the laminate and change the info - which is why CO FINALLY changed the ID to match the rest of the countries'...). BUT - apart from that - it had a hole punch in the middle of it, showing that it was no longer valid. Thought all the bases were covered, right?
Wrong.
Apparently at Wild Oats, they really don't care about such frivolous thing.
Even if she took up the laminate, put a picture of herself in there, changed the expiration date, and re-laminated it - there would still be a giant hole punch in the middle of it!!! One of the forged checks (my bank gave me photo copies) even had the cashier write "DL temp" at the top - stating it wasn't valid but she accepted it!!!
WTF????

I mean

WTF??????

What kind of people would accept a check like that? And who knows if the dates even jived! Did the thief even look 27? if she was using my picture, did she look 17? cause that's how old I looked when I took that photo on my 21st birthday!

Ugh.

On top of everything else, when I got to my bank I was about ready to explode. I asked them if no one used Telecheck anymore. It's been a few years since I worked retail, but I had my fair share of stolen checks and shady people come my way. How were these checks even clearing if I immediately closed my bank account when I realized what happened?
So the HESSIAN would actually scratch off part of the account number at the bottom of the check so the Telecheck type system wouldn't detect it. Why would it accept a check if the account number at the bottom was scratched off? What the fuck kind of anti-theft device is that? what kind of protection do these businesses really want? Are those machines just there as a front to make check thieves scared? To make the soccer mom feel secure? To make idiots like me believe I can't feel violated again and again after taking the correct steps to avoid it?

So I signed an affidavit and made a police report so when these businesses call me to collect their money from the bad checks, I have to make photo copies of all my documents and mail them to them. How great for me. I then have to call the 3 credit companies and inform them of identity theft.
Fantastic.

Guess I won't be shopping at Wild Oats for a while. and speaking of which, I think I might go down there and bitch to the manager for letting his cashiers be so stupid. Who knows if he will listen. But HE will be out the The $300, not I.
I will have bad credit.

7 comments:

Blackpetunia said...

Ach. Identity theft. It sucks. I'm dealing with some form of that at work myself. When we switched over to Nextel I found a company online who buys old phones and supposedly recycles them or whatever. Unfortunately, it didn't say anything about how blackberries must be totally wiped of memory and the SIM card is irrelevant. Blah, anyway, people are buying our old phones of ebay and have all the info from the people who had them, including emails and contacts. This is mostly my fault, and most of the people who had the blackberries were the higher up people. Suck, people suck I tell you.
Someone stole my mom's stuff once, they were using her SSN and everything in Arizona. She had to get a new number. Luckily this person didn't get that from you, right? I can't believe all the trouble they went to to write bad checks! It's sick.

Aaron said...

That sucks. It's probably a guy doing it. When they wrote those checks they must not have had to show ID.

jason said...

Sorry to hear about your bad luck. Man, I fucking hate thieves. They are number 3 on my list behind murderers and rapists (including pedophiles). Since you cancelled your cards and have spoken with your bank, is there any way to keep this from affecting your credit score? That can come back to screw you big time when trying to get a loan. On another note, how do you get pictures inserted into the text of your post? I want to set my blog up to do that.

Spoony Quine said...

` THAT IS OUTRAGEOUS! GRRRR! I hope things turn out not-so-bad. The anti-crime system is just not secure.
` My friend, EdgeWalker, had his home-made wallet stolen, though, and all he wanted was to have it back. However, the Evidence people insisted on keeping it and having a trial, which he didn't want, and wound up shredding it because they had kept it too long because they wouldn't give it back!
` Ug! I think the worst thing I've ever had stolen was all my diaries and everything else I've written, including the computer I wrote it all on. If it makes you feel any better, in the scheme of things, at least it wasn't THAT personal!

` And Jason, the main way I get pictures up is to click on the icon at the top of the post that looks like a photograph, which brings up another screen, where you can go through your computer and get pictures, or simply insert the URL of a picture on a web page.
` The rest kind of follows.

Blackpetunia said...

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locomocos said...

i'm not sure what to do about the credit thing. i don't understand why i have to do any of this, seeing as how i did everything i was supposed to with my bank. you'd think THEY would be the ones to contact all these places and my credit companies.

and so if the police have any of your pilfered items, they won't give it back and then they destroy it? sounds like a good scam to me...
but $20 says there's a crooked cop out there toting around a nice handmade wallet.....

Denny said...

Sounds like the man is trying to keep you down Cass. UHG.