Can I get your number?
Criminals are out to steal the digits from your credit card
Marlo Campbell

I have finally experienced a 21st-century rite of passage — and it wasn’t my first Botox injection.

Last week, I officially became a victim of identity theft.

I got the call early in the morning, pre-coffee — not a good time for bad news (or coherence in general). A very understanding woman at Visa explained that my credit-card number had recently been used on an Internet shopping service and that she would have to cancel my card. Ten-plus years of carefree consumption came to an abrupt halt. Just like that.

Suspicious by nature, I began mentally retracing my steps as soon as I got off the phone. I still had my card in my wallet, which meant my number was lifted by a criminal-minded clerk at any one of several establishments in the city.

Sympathetically, I can understand why a gas jockey or waitress might want to steal. It’s tough to survive in the service industry, and ill-gotten financial payback must seem tempting, especially these days, when passive-aggressive revenge almost seems like human nature — cars get keyed, houses get egged and graffiti mocking the genitalia of ex-boyfriends shows up in women’s bathrooms. It’s like we can’t help ourselves.

I distinctly remember my first coffee-shop job at which, as if minimum wage wasn’t bad enough, I was required to wear a decidedly unglamorous visor. Back then we punished nasty customers by serving them ‘fly muffins.’ (Without getting into specifics, I might suggest this rule to live by: Don’t piss off the people who serve you food.)

With this experience in my background, I have thus always thought of myself as a low-maintenance, polite consumer. One of the good ones. I hang up my unwanted items in the change room. I keep quiet when the Domo guy doesn’t wash my windshield. I rarely ask for extra bread when eating out, and I always tip.

So having my credit-card number stolen came as a real insult.

Random injustice doesn’t sit well with me. More than feeling violated, I felt indignant. Did I misjudge my courtesy bagger? Did my server target me before or after I allowed her to upsell me a coffee? How dare someone reduce to me to a string of digits when I’m so clearly undeserving of punishment, so clearly on their side.

Then again, I do have a bad habit of taking things too personally. According to the Canadian Bankers Association, 177,081 Visas and Mastercards were fraudulently used in 2004. Apparently the club for victims of identity theft has a lot of members, and we can’t all be assholes who had it coming.

Sadly, I never did find out what was purchased with my card. Irrationally, I hope it was something cool. Vindictively, I hope it was defective.

Overall, my identity-theft experience was relatively painless. My replacement card is in the mail and my credit rating is unharmed. Soon I’ll once again be able to shop with impunity, impulse-buying things I can’t afford and don’t really need but want all the same.

I figure if I’m destined to be a victim regardless of my actions, I should at least be able to face my fate in a new pair of killer shoes.