Fried & True by Fay Jacobs Read Free Book Online Page A

making some computer geek wait 30 seconds, when his employer had left me on hold for a long days journey into night.
    Returning, I crouched under my desk, peered at the tiny numbers and started reporting them to the farmer in the Dell. Suddenly, I leaned too far with the phone cord, dragging my martini off the desk, followed by the phone, both of which hit me in the head. At this point, I was still laughing. I mean what’s a day without laughter, right Oprah???? Even the guy from Dell started to laugh when he heard the splash followed by the crash, followed by a loud word for a bodily function.
    Eventually the computer got fixed and my sense of humor lay in wait for the next insult.
    So yesterday I got an e-mail from AOL, which looked like all the other e-mails I’ve been getting from AOL. It announced that since I’d recently had a problem with my password, theyneeded to verify my billing information. What’s more, they needed this verification within 12 hours, or my account would become invalid—as a protection to me, the account holder.
    Well, reading this now, it positively screams “dumb schmuck,” but at the time I was e-mailing columns to my editor and PR stuff for my job, so I panicked. I followed instructions and went to the recommended web site. It sure looked like AOL—right down to the privacy statement and links.
    To make double sure this was legit, I minimized the page and surfed to the AOL home page–which looked identical to the one asking for my financial verification. So I typed in the bank information and all that other secret stuff that makes me Fay Jacobs and hit “submit.” The second I did it, I knew I’d been stung. I can’t tell you what brought forth the epiphany, but I was positive my screen name should have been [email protected] .
    I e-mailed AOL as fast as I could and they confirmed I’d been a victim of fraud—me and thousands of others. Scumbag hackers had cloned AOL graphics and made sport of getting people to spill their financial guts.
    I then spent six hours on the phone, alternating between numbing classical music and repetitions of my vital statistics to three credit bureaus, two credit card companies, two banks, the Social Security Administration, Macy’s, Nordstrom’s, my mortgage company, and the FBI (“Hello, Fraud Department? Can I speak with Clarice?”). By the fiftieth time I dispensed my social security number I started to go paranoid. Was I really talking to my bank or some con artist in Botswana? Would they soon find me locked in the den with newspaper clippings and secret code numbers pasted to the walls like that guy in Opie’s Beautiful Mind movie?
    At one point Bonnie suggested I go ahead and let the con men have my identity. What the hell, I had a perfectly good maiden name to use and I could just start over. I’ve never been lucky at Roulette or in my investment portfolio. I could give ‘em Fay Jacobs and see what they do with her. I considered it.
    But, having gotten used to me, I went to the bank the nextmorning, closed my accounts, cut up my checks, threw away ATM cards and signed up for all new stuff. Hopefully, those hackers who wanted to be Fay J. had nothing left to pilfer. My hope is they’ll try to use my accounts, discover them defunct and go victimize some poor schnook who took longer to realize he’d been had than I did.
    Of course, all this left me with exactly $6.54 in my wallet and no way of getting my hands on more until payday or my ATM cards arrive, whichever comes first. I thawed the spiral ham left over from last Easter and figured we could wade through the freezer burn and wait it out.
    Despite being purple with rage at myself for being so stupid, a couple of good things did come from this debacle. With my new accounts, my checkbook is balanced for the first time in 3 years. And I got the opportunity to warn you to be more careful than I was. Of course, since