Identity Theft Prevention and Personal Security Maintenance

In Charm City, I do not have a paper shredder. Therefore, when the liars and cheats of Bank of America send me three envelopes each containing five sheets of paper (two of them saying I am approved for a Credit Card because of my recent Checking Account opening, and one of them saying I am denied the right to any credit card with BOA due to a 'sketchy' application - someone has their act together), I must protect my identity with three times the precaution.

Usually three times the precaution with a paper shredder involves shredding your sensitive documents once, then collecting the shreds and re-shredding them, and then like an obsessive- compulsive Nervous Nancy re-re-shredding those documents that contain social security numbers, bank account numbers, personal identification numbers, and bra-size numbers (and letter(s), I suppose).

Without a shredder, three times the precaution involves the following process:

Crumple all of your sensitive documents. Tear them up if you wish, but crumple them at least.

Fill them into a large Ziploc sac.

In a smaller, separate Ziploc sac, put in a cup of laundry detergent and a Casio Illuminator watch that doesn't work any more.

Put the smaller Ziploc with detergent and out-of-commission Casio in the larger Ziploc gingerly, without closing the smaller ziploc and without spilling the contents into the larger bag.

Squeeze some dish soap into the larger bag, distributing soap all over the crumpled papers BUT NOT IN THE SMALLER BAG.

Now, fill up the larger bag (BUT NOT THE SMALLER BAG) with hot water, so that the crumpled numbers that are so darn important are submerged, but the detergent in the smaller bag is dry.

Close up the big bag - and close it up good...or else the terrorists will win.

Now shake, massage, and embrace the bag with all your might, making sure that water is mixed into the detergent/watch Ziploc and that things are really sudsy.

Then eat it. Just kidding.

Now, stick that impenetrable mass of information into the freezer.

Let it sit for 24 hours.

Then, send it down the trash chute in your apartment complex.*


Now, if any would-be Identity Thief happens upon it, remember you are triple protected:

1) It is frozen.
2) If it melts, the ink will be all smudged from the hot soapy water and kinetic energy.
3) If he is able to read anything, he'll be too busy wondering what the watch is doing in the mess to act on ordering your size bras off VictoriasSecret.com with your credit card number.


Triple protection - no paper shredder.


*if you do not live in an apartment complex, you are probably rich enough to afford a device that exists only to shred your paper

The Evils of America's Bank

My life now has meaning.

I hope Tameika is cruising Blogs while working her job
at Bank of America.

In Charm City, there are no WellsFargo Banks. This
necessitated a new banking institution for yours
truly.

There are all sorts of options for banking in this fine
city. The three I contemplated were CitiBank, M&T,
and Bank of America.

Now, Citibank has that great ad campaign were they put
orange quotes around all sorts of cool rewards as if
saying "Thank you" to the customer for their business.
Similarily, M&T has all these great signs up around
Charm City that show in the upper left a face of a
common (yet beautiful) person with a slight look of
uncertainty/anger/dismay/constipation/consternation,
and in the lower right corner a bigger version of the
same person's face SMILING. Between the two images is
the catchphrase (and thus living, breathing mantra of
every M&T employee): "Being appreciated makes all the
difference." Bank of America has ATMs everywhere (I
trip on them while walking to the Inner Harbor) and
their namesake plastered on the top of a huge
skyscraper.

I want to be told thank you.
I want to be appreciated.
I want to destroy Bank of America.

It all starts with the fact that at my place of
employment, they only allow direct deposit to Bank of
America. Fair enough, I thought. Bank of America
sounds like a good bank.

So I start the on-line application process, and as I
am about to click the link to apply for a checking
account, a pop-up window flies into my vision and
says (if it had a voice, it would be the cutest voice
ever) "Would you like to talk with an on-line
representative as you apply?"

This is a great idea. All those little dumb questions
that pop up when filling out the easiest of
applications annoy me. Yes, yes, little Pop-up
Window, I accept your offer. Thank you little Pop-up
Window.

Little Pop-up Window goes away and a bigger, badder,
scarier window pops up. It looks like a renegade IM
window. The prompt has

>Tameika: How may I help you! Let's start your application now!

I explain the situation of I am about to click the
link, but I have some questions first. I had decided
that I was going to grill Tameika on everything, just
to cover all the bases and not be one of those
disenfranchised consumers that feels like they have
been suckered but in fact just did not take time to
read the fine print.

I ask her if I can transfer funds to and from my Bank
of America (BOA) account and another institution's
account. A fairly simple question, and Tameika
handles it with

>Tameika: I'm not sure, please call our customer
service department.

Strike one, Tameika.

So I call customer service and get connected to a
gentleman whose voice can only be described as "Bren."
I ask him my question with careful,
I'm-just-out-of-college-and-I-am-determined-to-be-a-savvy-adult-customer diction. Are there any fees for transferring funds to
OR FROM my BOA account and another institution's
account?

Bren responds with verbal gentility: "Absolutely no
fees."

None?

"Absolutely none, sir."

So, back to Tameika, who is now glad to know that
factoid. I ask her if there is a fee to close the
account.

>Tameika: As long as it is open for 6 months or
longer, there is no fee. Otherwise it is 25 dollars.
Let's start your application now!

I will be in Charm City for at least 6 months, so I
figured this is okay. I asked her how soon I will get
a checkcard and checks.

>Tameika: In a week. Let's start your application
now!

I ask her if those are free.

>Tameika: Yes, the check card is free. Let's start
your application now!

What about the checks?

>Tameika: No, they're 8 dollars. Let's start your
application now!

Ugh. I don't want checks. Can I not have checks
sent...I'm on a tight budget you see...

>Tameika: Sure. Just write that in the comment
section. Let's start your application now!

Do people actually read the comments section or just
robots?

>Tameika: Humans. Let's start your application now!

Another question I had was on the fees. I asked her
to confirm that as long as I had direct deposit that I
would incur no monthly fees.

>Tameika: Right! Let's start your application now!

I then told her that my problem was that direct
deposit took 6 weeks to set up at my place of
employment.

>Tameika: That's fine! We give a 60 day grace period
to let customers get direct deposit set up! Let's
start your application now!

I then asked her if why I could not save the text in
the IM window so I could keep what she had told me for
my records.

>Tameika: I guess that feature is not yet
implemented. Let's start your application now!

So, I recapped to my consumer-savvy self:

-No monthly fees due to my direct deposit and the 60
day grace period to get said direct deposit
configured.

-No fees to transfer money in or out (thus I would not
need checks, and save 8 dollars because of not needing
checks).

Then it hits me - I need one check. Just one. Not
for rent, not for utilities, not for Elvis
Stamps...but to set up DIRECT DEPOSIT. Darn it. I'll
just eat the 8 dollars. Or send my checks back to mom
and dad and thereby Wellsfargo...No. I must grow up. Grown-
ups eat costs. I'll eat the frickin' 8 dollars.

So I apply. All was peachy. Peachy keen. Palisade
peachy keen...for one week. Then I start reading the
fine print. My outrage is displayed in a Ignatius
Reilly meets Ted L. Nancy type of email
correspondence with BOA (they let me save the emails,
unlike the text from the IM).

Email 1:

Message text: I feel I was lied to ... I was told that
transfers TO AND
FROM another institutions checking account was free. I
called customer
service to double check this before I opened the
account, because it was
crucial. Is this how you treat new customers? I'd
close my account,
but then you'd charge me 25 dollars because it hasn't
been open for 6
months. You guys really get us coming and going, don't
you?
Disgruntled in Maryland, fantasticterrific

Dear fantasticterrific,

Thank you for your inquiry dated 7/20/05 regarding
Other Online Banking
Features. We are committed to providing you with the
best banking
experience possible.

Allow us to apologize for any inconvenience that you
may have
experienced in this matter. Our commitment is to
provide the highest
level of service possible. These standards demand that
we treat our
customers and their requests with understanding and
respect. It is
disappointing to hear of an incident where we have not
met this
commitment. We are currently reviewing your message
and, if necessary,
someone will get back with you for further
clarification.

If we may be of further assistance, please contact us
again by e-mail.
Thank you for choosing Bank of America.

Sincerely,

Rosy Hay
Bank of America

Email 2:

I was told that there is no maintenance fee for 60
days to allow the set
up of a direct deposit so that the checking is 'free'.
If this turns
out to be untrue, I will close out my account
immediately, 25 dollars or
not! Is it true there is a 60 day grace on the
maintenance fee until
direct deposit is set up? -fantasticterrific

Dear fantasticterrific,

Thank you for your inquiry dated 7/21/05 regarding the
maintenance fee.

Please note the MyAccess Checking account features no
monthly
maintenance fee if you have a direct deposit to your
account each
statement period, for example: a payroll or Social
Security check.
Please note that for each statement period that a
direct deposit is not
received in the account, the monthly maintenance fee
is $5.95.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have
caused. If we may be
of further assistance, please contact us again by
e-mail.

Sincerely,

Noella Johns
Bank of America

Email 3:

I was lied to again! I was told the initial check fee
was 8 dollars,
and now I see my account has been charged 10 dollars!
I'm living on a
very tight budget! Why aren't you guys honest with
potential
customers!? I'm keeping the account open only long
enough to avoid the
25 dollar close fee, and then I'M CLOSING it. -fantasticterrific

Dear fantasticterrific,

Thank you for your inquiry dated 7/21/05 regarding the
Fee.

Our records indicate that the check order fee of
$10.00 was posted to
your account on 7/21/05.

Please note that the answer to your question may be
found in the
Disclosure Agreement that you received when you opened
your account with
Bank of America. According to this agreement, account
ownership;
statement periods; combined statements; funds
availability; NSF,
overdrafts, and overdraft protection; ATM and Check
Cards; paying
checks; returns and deposits; check safekeeping and
check copies; or
other sections appropriate to the customer's inquiry.

Because you are an important customer to us, we would
greatly appreciate
the opportunity in keeping your account relationship
with Bank of
America. If you need assistance with your account in
any way, please
send us another message, as we are more than happy to
serve you.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have
caused. If we may be
of further assistance, please contact us again by
e-mail.

Sincerely,

Noella Johns
Bank of America

Email 4:

This is egregious! I talked with ¨Tameika¨ on Bank of
America's live
chat as I opened the account. She said for 60 days
there was no
maintenance fee so that I could have time to set up
the direct deposit
without incurring fees. Is that true or not? Answer
that question,
please. If the answer is ¨not true¨, then I was
flat-out lied to AGAIN
by an employee. Very disgruntled, fantasticterrific

Dear fantasticterrific,

Thank you for your inquiry dated 7/22/05 regarding the
Online Banking
Features. We understand your concern and sincerely
apologize for any
inconvenience you may have experienced.

Please accept our apologies for providing the wrong
information to the
account. The MyAccess Checking account features no
monthly maintenance
fee if you have a direct deposit to your account each
statement period,
for example: a payroll or Social Security check.
Please note that for
each statement period that a direct deposit is not
received in the
account, the monthly maintenance fee is $5.95.

MyAccess Checking offers
-- Easy and unlimited access to your funds through
Bank of America ATMs
-- Online Banking with Bill Pay
-- Automated telephone banking
-- The Bank of America Check Card with Photo Security
-- No minimum balance requirement
-- Unlimited check writing
-- Unlimited teller transactions.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have
caused. If we may be
of further assistance, please contact us again by
e-mail.

Sincerely,

Christina Victor
Bank of America

There are two ways my life has new meaning (as I
mentioned long ago in this post):

1) To email BOA everyday and tell them that I am
their customer because I don't want to pay 25 dollars
to become 'not-a-customer', not because I am happy, as
well as that I wish I had M&T Bank telling me I was
appreciated or CitiBank telling me thank you.

2) If I ever offend someone and they want an apology
to coldly reply, "Sorry for the inconvenience."

I'll keep you updated on the BOA situation. If anyone
needs to vent on BOA, please post a comment.

__________________________________________________

The Blog Game

I invented this game while brushing my teeth last night.

It is very simple. You can play it right now if you wish.

Think of five words. Quick, c'mon! Write them down as soon as they come to you. Don't look around the room. And they can be cusswords, just be sure your mom or the Calvinists do not see your list. (I'll give tips on preventing Identity Theft and maintaining Personal Security in another post soon).

Have your list? Okay, good. Now, in your web browser's site address bar, enter

[word].blogspot.com

and see what pops up.

My list was as follows:

HorseTeeth

Bolo

Undercarriage

Kumquat

FieryLake

And all save one are duds in that no blog exists at the address site (even though I know for a fact that "Bolo" is a reserved domain..."Bolo," why are you sitting on this sweet domain name? Why!?!).

The only fruit of my labor:

Kumquat

Man, this game sucks.

Would you like your frustrations in paper or plastic?

Lately, grocery shopping has been a chore. The heart
of Charm City is very charming but not very
fecund. Wal-Greens and Rite-Aids are not (!) grocery
stores, because man cannot subsist on cheap make-up
and Captain Morgan alone.

My apartment complex is accomodating to this...not
quite. My apartment complex attempts to be
accomodating to this. A shuttle will come on Saturday
to cart all who wish to get real food out to a
Safeway. Today, I did this. Today, I regret having
done this.

First off, I get dropped off at the Safeway and ask
the shuttle driver when she will be returning.

"Hour an haff."

Excuse me? What am I suppose to do at a Safeway for
the hour and twenty minutes I am not shopping? Read
about TomKat in People? No, I'll tell you what I did
- figure out how to keep the food in my buggy cool. I
had acquired all my produce and items of purchase in
ten minutes, and then was staring in disgust at all I
had amassed that required refrigerant methods of
maintenance. So, I decided the best thing was to hang
out in the cooler areas of the store: produce, dairy,
eggs, deli, etc.

In my maundering, I passed a blood pressure machine,
and figured I should sit down and find out what numbers I
should buy for PowerBall. 132 over 62 with a 56 bpm
pulse.

I used to post 120/80 nine times out of ten. Can
someone tell me if I'm going to die soon?

Anyway, I pass an hour twenty of my life and keep my
purchases cool. Then the shuttle comes back. I am
the last to board, and I notice that a lot more people
are getting on than originally were dropped off.
Also, my cat-like acumen detected that these people
had groceries (the clues were the 80 blue sacks
hanging off of them AND the fact that I was at Safeway
on Saturday...I'm not gifted, just observant).

I step onto the shuttle with my six bags and have all
my presuppositions confirmed in quikrete: there are
no available seats.

I stand there and admonish my compatriots with my
eyes. I glared at the guy who wore aviators for
picking up groceries (and apparently no chicks) and
his seat of toilet paper and paper towels and cereal
boxes. I turn my eyes of rebuke to the lady who walks
as fast as two turtles heading in opposite directions
with their tails tied together and her 80 gallons of
gatorade (why does she need this gatorade..."does she
have it in her?" No! She doesn't break a sweat because
she doesn't break 1 mile per hour, so why is she
getting vast amounts of electrolytes?).

And then the straw that made the camel shout out
cusswords.

A small, petite Korean lady. Very kind. I have no
doubt she is the kindest lady on earth and says "I'm
sorry" and "Thank you" and "Please" to everyone. How
many seats should a small, petite Korean lady take?

One.
Two.
Thrrrrrrree. (KRUNCH).

NO! Five.

Five seats. One for her. One for her groceries. AND
THREE for her empty cardboard boxes.

Even with no seats for me to sit on, the shuttle
driver had sense and sensibility, and a small bladder
and a lead foot. She closed the door and started
going, and I quickly motioned for one of the
passengers to move her two sacks to the ground and let
me sit down.

My fingers became numb. Why? Ask the Korean lady if
she knows. No, she wouldn't, because she had a seat
for her groceries. If you do not have a seat for your
groceries, you cannot set them on the floor, because
the shuttle driver who is training for the Baja Race
next Thursday will easily displace all your various
cans from the bag. My fingers ached. My fingers
almost fell off.

Finally, I am dropped off, only to discover in the
safety of my own kitchen, that two eggs took a hit due
to the compressed grocery commute space. Which brings
up the point of why does this still happen? We can
build titanium bikes that weigh as much as a credit
card but we cannot design a box that is structurally
sound enough to keep Humpty Dumpty intact? What
happened to all those 8th graders who got A's in the
Egg Drop competition? Why are they not getting their
MS in Packaging Sciences? Is the Egg Industry buying
them out while they are undergrads in MechE? Is it a
conspiracy to get me to switch to liquid eggs sold in
cartons?

And the whole fiasco (which took two hours all
together...two hours.) made me think about
Consumerism. Now, I'm the last bloke to ever attack
this country and the prowess of its economy, but
c'mon. Did everyone need 10 bags of groceries for the
week? Why are my grocery bills 50 dollars every week?
My family got groceries for 100 dollars a week
(although, a sidenote: I definitely ate 80% of the
food that my family of four brought home during my
high school years, and somehow when I left for college
the bill did not go down at all, but increased. Did
my parents start getting lobster for dinner and caviar
toothpaste after I left the nest?)

I think dietary changes are in order. I think I will
start getting my fruits from Rite-Aid: Black
Cherries, Green Apples, Lemon-Limes, and Oranges.

Thanks, Zima!

__________________________________

The Fruit Conquest

The city is great.

But, as Bible Scholars have noted, Adam and Eve did
not live in the city because there was no fruit in the
city. So, what did Adam and Eve do?

They took a shuttle to the Garden of Eden.

Thousands of years later, not much has
changed...except the Garden of Eden has now been
replaced by a ghetto Giant Food Stores.

I wanted to get lots of fruit on my arduous out of the
city once-a-week shopping trip, and thought how cool
it would be to report that I ate these mass quantities
of fruit during the week, partially due to the fact
that fruits are healthy (unless they contain
Knowledge, Eve - who are you laughing at, Adam?) and
partially due to the fact that fruits go bad if you do
not eat them quickly.

In one week, I have eaten:

2 containers of Blackberries
1 pint of Blueberries
3 Apples
2 lbs of Clementines
4 lbs of Grapes

Now I know a lot of you are wanting a question
answered that you feel you cannot ask, so let me
address it: Grapes in and of themselves are not a
laxative, but grapes in and of excess of four pounds
are.

Oh, Blog, I wonder what shopping adventures await me
this week!

PETA would not approve.

If you are looking for a barrel of monkeys, then please click the barrel of monkeys.

Shame on you if you actually clicked it. Barreling monkeys for the sole purpose of entertainment is so cruel!

My Look-A-Likes

It is already hard not being pretty, but then to add salted insult to injury, perfect strangers come up to me and tell me who I look like. The first day I was in Charm City, a female employee at Ikea was telling me how hard nursing school is when you have to wait on transfer credit and not live at home anymore. I barely blinked and nodded when she asked, "Who do people say you look like?"

The conversation progressed like this:

"

,

,

and

."

"Ooooh...Paul Newman? I guess the eyes [is the trait you two might share]."

"So who do you think I look like?"

"

."

I flinched. In my mind I thought why couldn't I look like Simon? Everyone likes Simon. He even has a game named after him where you have to do what he says. None of the little boys and girls want to play "Garfunkel Says" because even little boys and girls know you cannot respect someone who does not respect themselves. Unkempt. Egregious.

She then said, "It doesn't matter, you're cute anyhow."

Hello Mrs Robinson.

I then asked her if she worked on commission. She said that she did not, so then we platonically cuddled on a sofa that folds into a bed that folds into chair that folds into a handkerchief that folds into a single Lingonberry and Allen wrench.

A few days later I was exiting a building and I heard the security guard say to a patron in the lobby, "Do you know who that boy who just left looks like ?" And then the door shut and I thought I would never find out. Well, it turns out that TB tests that fester purple need to be checked twice, so I returned to the building and sure enough she was working again. I asked her if she remembered me from the other day. She said that she did. I asked her if she remembered what she had said about me. She said I looked like someone from "the t.v.", but she could not place who.

I volunteered, begrudgingly:

"

."

She said that that was not it. Thank goodness. I'm likened to this Hyde guy way too often. So often that I did not even mention it to "No Commission- yet on a Mission" Nursing Student at Ikea. I pressed the security guard, and she said with a snap of her fingers, "Everwood - you look like the football star. Ooh, I loved that show."

I have never seen Everwood. I went home and researched it, and found out it was set in Colorado, which besides being square, also plays host to South Park and the #1 Party School in the world. Nevermind the Nobel Prize winning physicist who contracted and lost his arm to the flesh-eating disease, the world (or at least France) just cares about taking a swig of alcohol whenever the kid in the orange coat is killed during a Comedy Central SP marathon. Anyway, this kind lady must have been sampling the Sharpies after the Locking of the Revolving Door Hour, for I do not look as Abercromb Pomp as this:

"

."


So, with all of this, I decided to exhaust the list of all my look-a-likes, once and for all. Enjoy.

Wrap me up in Cellophane and tell me to be a Good Girl.

This is a 2-for-1: I am a horrible joke teller.

PBS what were you thinking!

(By default)

Non-Animated Version click here.

Not for love - But for money.

How does one get the Google Ads going?

Nevermind.