I've never set foot in a PetSmart and haven't owned a critter since my family's beloved boxer, Archie, slobbered off this mortal coil sometime during the Nixon years.
So that $38.28 payment to the pet store jumped off the screen as I did my online banking a few Saturdays ago.
There, taunting me from the signature line of Check No. 3512's electronic image, was a big, flowery, cursive rendition of "Kim Christensen."
My name, all right, but not my signature -- and definitely not the scribble of someone who got straight Ds in penmanship. Not only had my mark been forged, but judging from its feminine flourish, it was by someone who assumed, like untold others before, that Kim must be a girl.
"Damn it!" I yelped (about the forgery thing, not the girl's-name thing, which I'm pretty used to by now.) "Someone stole one of our checks!!"
Then I spotted a check to a Huntington Beach business I had never visited, and it hit me: Someone had stolen all of our checks -- 150 to be exact. PetSmart would be but the first stop on a weeks-long tour of hot-check hell.
I'd ordered a new batch of checks a couple of weeks earlier and had no way of knowing that some lowlife had got to them before my wife and I did. The bank says it mailed them, so it appears that our letter carrier left the box on the front porch when it didn't fit through the slot in the door.
My bad for not having a better mailbox. But like millions who pay bills online, I rarely write checks anymore, except for the yard guy and miscellaneous expenses.
In 1995, U.S. banks processed 50 billion checks. By 2003, the latest year tallied by the Federal Reserve, the number had slipped to 37 billion. This year, look for a slight uptick, thanks to my larcenous alter ego.
Banks lost $711 million to check fraud in 2005, according to the Fed's most recent study, but no one has good numbers on the billions more it costs consumers and merchants each year.
Fortunately, Wells Fargo agents work the phones on Saturdays, and one of them froze our account so that no other checks could clear.
That Monday, I'd go to the bank, open a new account, sign an affidavit of forgery for the two cashed checks and get a full refund of $222.18. I also had the major credit bureaus place alerts on our files, so no new accounts could open without our knowledge.
Unfortunately, none of those steps would stop the thief from passing more checks, which soon were bouncing from La Canada Flintridge to San Clemente, with our names and address on them.
