Dedicated to the citizens of Mason County, Washington since 1886

Stop! Thief! Oh? Nevermind.

Do you suppose it’s against the law for someone to penetrate the neural network of your credit union or bank and then lift the numbers linked to your financial accounts?

The answer appears to be no, according to the state of Washington. Here’s the Revised Code of Washington that covers the crime of identity theft:

RCW 9.35.020

No person may knowingly obtain, possess, use or transfer a means of identification or financial information of another person, living or dead, with the intent to commit, or to aid or abet, any crime.

The statue makes it clear that identification theft is a crime only if it is accompanied by “the intent to commit … any crime.” If you purposefully obtain information related to someone’s finances, but you don’t do anything illegal with that information, you’re guilty of nothing. Case dismissed.

Here’s where I’m going with this: I’ve been thinking it might be a good idea to become a multimillionaire, and not just any multimillionaire. I want to be a multimillionaire with the financial liquidity of a Colombian drug kingpin or a Texas televangelist. I have no idea how I’ll acquire that kind of cash, but I have decided how I’ll spend it once I get it.

What I’ll do over the course of a calendar year is pick a handful of deserving someones in Washington and obtain their financial information. Maybe the deserving someone will be somebody I see opening a door for a bowed old man or someone with a bumpersticker that reads, “I’m a pagan, praying for the rapture.” Maybe it’s someone who asks a homeless person for directions to a good place for breakfast. Perhaps it’s you.

Once I obtain their information, I’ll start paying their bills: Mortgage or rent, credit card balances, car loans, gasoline cards, utility bills, money they owe to their parents, money they owe to their kids, school tuition. I’ll randomly deposit money into their savings accounts. I might even go to their hometowns and leave $100 bills in their paths.

I’ll do all this anonymously because that’s the type of person I am. I’ll quit my job, too, so I’ll have plenty of time to tend to the finances of my people. I want to be a full-service, full-time, client-facing mysterious benefactor.

Some of my people might have fraud-alert triggers on their financial accounts — some credit unions and credit-reporting services offer that feature. My people might get calls from those places, telling them something highly unusual is happening with their accounts. My people will respond, “That’s all right! Everything’s fine! And don’t call again! Bye!”

The credit union and credit-reporting people will be mystified, my people will be happy and I’ll be doing what I want in this life.

Oh.

I’ll never communicate directly with my people, but I will hire someone to watch them, and that person will report to me about how my people are behaving. Are they being kind to others or are they spending all their time planning their next vacation to Maui? Are they getting snippy with the help? Are they overusing the word “perfect” or the phrase “Have a good one!”

If I decide I don’t like the behavior of some of my people, I’ll turn off the cash spigot and give them two weeks to think about what actions might be displeasing their fairy godfather. Then I’ll put them back on the program until they displease me again, then it’s off the program for a while. I’ll work them like a yo-yo until they turn into people I approve of.

Wouldn’t that be fun?

Author Bio

Kirk Ericson, Columnist / Proofreader

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Shelton-Mason County Journal & Belfair Herald
email: [email protected]

 

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