A few years back a parcel arrived at home for me. Addressed to me; my name, my address. Ooooohhh, I thought, must be my birthday!!! Even though it was in November and my birthday’s in June. So I opened ‘my’ package and in it was delighted to find half a dozen puke yellow polo shirts, size: ‘child small’. Wow! Just what I wanted!!! How could they know??? So rather upset, cos I really wanted the James Bond Dinky car, I phoned the mail order company whose name was on the invoice. To tell them a mistake had been made. I had never ordered, blah, blah, blah.

And was told: ‘ah, actually, that’s part of a fraud operation’. Holy shit. Jail time.

The way it works is that someone sets up a mail order account at an address that won’t flag up the credit police and orders something cheap and fairly worthless, like 6 puke yellow kid’s shirts, and the invoice is processed. But before payment is due, the dastardly fraudsters phone again and order 12 plasma tvs, 96 inch, and, er, can you send them to a different address please? Of course Sir, where would you like them? Because the fraudster’s account looks clean and fine and the computer says ‘yes’.

They put me, ‘free of charge’ on some register or other which would double check every transaction in my name from then on. Like the sex offenders register for people with higher credit ratings.

A few years later I received a call from t-mobile, my phone bastards. Well, they’re all bastards, mobile phone types. “Did you order the latest, state-of-the-art, all bells and whistles, £1200 Subaru Super-phone?” Doh. “Ah, we thought not, because normally you’re a cheap bastard who only wants free upgrades to a 4 year-old Nokia”. “But someone ordered it in your name and requested a different delivery address.” Fraud. More fraud. Andy fraud. “They even knew your password!!” I don’t have a password. “Oh, there’s one on the account, they must have set it up. Its ‘Manchester'”.

Manchester!!!! What is the fucking chance of that being my password? I hate Manchester. Hate the city, hate the people, really hate the football teams. Manchester; not on my watch.

Yesterday I came home to find a bank statement from the Royal Bank of Scotland. With whom I have never banked. In the name of ‘Mr Mike A Agha’. At my address. Where I’ve lived for 27 years. Where before that Mr & Mrs Block lived for 40 years. The account was opened with 100 quid on the 25th of January, and closed the same day.

So we phoned the bank; cos you can’t open an account without proof of address, and there’s no way Mike A Agha could have that. Mainly because I’d have seen him around. Even I’d have noticed a potential fraudster making a cup of tea with my kettle. Surely. But the bank simply didn’t give a shit. They don’t care.

But its not a mistake, not a typo, a clerical error or a computer glitch. Its fraud of some sort. It always is.

Where is Mike?

Happy Frauday

A xxxx