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.
Google "check forgery" and "police report" and you'll learn that if you're a victim of the former, you'll need the latter to prove your innocence.
Good luck.
A Long Beach police officer listened to my story, put me on hold for a couple of minutes and then said he couldn't take a report. Because it involved the mail, he said, the theft was a federal case, not a police matter.
"You'll need to report this to the U.S. postal inspector," he said, and wouldn't budge.
Well, thanks, but it seemed the Postal Service had done enough already. Besides, I was determined to get my exculpatory police report, and nothing less would do.
At headquarters the next morning, I was primed to play the "I'm a taxpayer!" card and demand a report be taken. But if I've learned anything in 30 years as a reporter, a good bit of it spent in cop shops large and small, it's this: The squeaky wheel in the front lobby almost never gets the grease. Arrested, maybe. Favorable treatment, not a chance.
I walked to the window ready to throw myself on the mercy of the public servant behind the glass but didn't have to. He flipped through a fat paperback copy of the California penal code, reckoned that my complaint fit under "forgery" and sent an officer out to interview me.
"Thanks a bunch," I said afterward. "When can I get a copy of the report?"
"Usually in about three weeks," he said.
Three weeks? Are you kidding? I'll be in debtors' prison by then. So this is what a stroke feels like, I thought, as my neck muscles tightened, my vision blurred and acid bubbled up around my Adam's apple.
Only by the grace of a sympathetic records supervisor was the wait time cut by about a week -- and none too soon.
It seems that without ever leaving the comfort of my own home, I had used checks for purchases at a CVS pharmacy in Seal Beach ($63.21), a Wal-Mart in Long Beach ($193.41), a Sports Chalet in La Canada Flintridge ($200), a couple of Marshall's clothing stores and a string of Vons, Ralph's and Albertsons in Los Angeles and Orange counties.
My wife got in on the act too, showing up as the signer of a second forged check at CVS, which apparently was our favorite pharmacy. We bounced only one at Rite Aid.
By then I'd made a mental list of all the supermarkets and drugstores we hadn't heard from yet, and it was not comforting. Just knowing that someone has six of your checkbooks and a ginned-up ID to use them is enough to spark alternating currents of infuriation and helplessness.
