Bruce Cameron

Aug 30, 20120

The Bruce Identity

Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2007.

If I were going to steal someone’s identity, I’d pick Matt Damon. The guy is young, handsome and has a great career going for him, when he’s not stuck with the task of trying to find jobs for Ben Affleck. I’d do most of the stunts in my next movie (“The Bourne Omnipotency”), except for the ones involving movement.

But this is all idle speculation, because I’m not likely to steal anyone’s identity — I have enough trouble being myself, I can’t imagine how hard it would be to try to be some stranger. I also can’t imagine having my own identity stolen — why would anyone pick me when Matt Damon is still available? Yet that’s exactly what happened to me in August: I became a victim of identity theft.

Apparently, a criminal decided to write a bunch of checks on my bank account, which normally I wouldn’t mind because there are few things I despise more than paying bills. In this case, however, the only bills he paid were to himself, issuing checks that he printed up on his computer. He even managed to forge my graceful, unique signature, which is not easy to do unless you’re able to scribble.

The forger was to my bank account what a puncture is to a balloon. “Identity theft,” my Personal Banker pronounced when I called her. (To make our business relationship more intimate, my bank has assigned me a Personal Banker. It’s a different person every time I call.)

“So what about my money?” I asked, calmly sobbing.

I could hear her typing at her computer as she unleashed her bank’s powerful anti-fraud software. “Looking ... Looking ... Found it!” she pronounced.

“You found my money?” I breathed, relieved. I decided that I needed to pay more attention to my Personal Banker from now on, maybe send her flowers or buy her a puppy.

“Sure did!”

“Where is it?”

“It’s gone.”

“Gone?” I sputtered. “What do you mean, ‘gone’?”

Apparently “gone” is the technical banking term for “no longer there.” But all is not lost — under certain restrictions (I must cooperate with the authorities, I must press charges even if it turns out the guy is my mother, I must not send my Personal Banker a puppy), the bank will reimburse the stolen funds.

But for the next several days my money is gone, my bank account is frozen, and my identity is stolen property.

“I am a victim of identity theft,” I told my neighbor Tom.

“You’re kidding! That’s horrible!” he responded. (Tom likes me even more than my Personal Banker.) “OK, here’s what I can tell you. You’re a writer. You’re a terrible golfer. You were born in, um, Montana? Maine? One of the “M” states, I think. Or maybe Guam.”

“Identity theft isn’t amnesia, you idiot,” I replied.

“Oh.”

“Wait, if I had amnesia all you could think to tell me about myself is that I’m a terrible golfer? That’s not even true!”

“It’s so true,” he countered. “My grandmother golfs better than you, and she hasn’t even played in four years because of her house arrest.”

I elected not to honor Tom’s insulting comparison to his grandmother with a reply because the woman intimidates me. “Identity theft is where there’s someone out there impersonating me,” I explained.

“Oh, OK. That explains your last column! It was a real stinker.”

“He’s not writing columns, Tom, he’s writing checks. He must have stolen one of my bills with a check in it and used it as a template. He’s taking my money. It’s gone!”

“So this guy is like the anti-Bruce? He’s out there doing evil, while the real Bruce does nothing at all?”

“Yes! Huh? No.”

“How do I know I’m talking to the real Bruce and not the imposter?”

“Well, ask me a question,” I suggested.

“OK. Where were you born?”

“Michigan,” I answered promptly.

“No,” Tom said. “That’s not it. I’m hanging up.”

That’s what identity theft does to you: It imperils your relationship to your idiot neighbor and also to your money.

I’d like to tell you that I made some avoidable mistake, but I didn’t. All I did was pay my bills.

I’ll never do that again.

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