The Dog, Part 2

Last week I made this statement:  THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "IDENTITY THEFT."

First, let's examine the concept of "theft."  If I steal your car, then I have the car and you don't.  I'm driving it around and you're walking.  I cannot steal your identity.  If I could, then I would be you, and you wouldn't.  What we have here is FRAUD.  I haven't "stolen" your "identity."  I have defrauded someone by saying that I'm you.

So let me tell you a story.  (Allegory warning!)

I go to an ATM in a bad part of town.  (Anyone who knows me can easily visualize this.)  I take out a hundred bucks and turn around, and there stands a guy with his hand in his pocket, who appears to have a gun.  He says "give me your money," I hand him the hundred bucks, and he runs off.

Now I start to stew on this, then I see you coming.  I step into the alley and watch you take your money out of the ATM.  I stick my hand in my pocket, point my finger and step out and say "Give me a hundred bucks."  You say "Here!  Take it all!"  I say "No, I just want a hundred bucks" and hand you back the rest.

Who robbed you?

(I did, in case you haven't figured that out.)  What we have here is a "transfer of victimhood."  What the banks have labeled "Identity theft" is in fact bank fraud, and they are the victims.  The reason they are victims it that they have failed in their duty to properly identify the people they do business with.  Rather than fix their problem, they have convinced their customer that he is in fact the "victim" of a crime that they have made up and called "identity theft."  Now I hear commercials asking you to pay about $400 a year for a "service" called "Identity Protection."

But I feel like I'm beating a dead horse.  I'll try to think of something interesting to blog about next week.  But for now I have 975 days until I can retire, and you kids get off my lawn.