February 19 – The fourth official Friday Night BeerBlog

I’m going to jump right into it. Mike’s identity was stolen. He received notification from his employer’s HR department that they had gotten an email from the State of Kentucky that Michael McShane had filed an unemployment claim and that they needed verification. This HR email came at the end of the day with the caveat that if this was a fraudulent claim that Mike was the complete a whole list of things in order to report it.

The rest of the evening consisted of phone calls to freeze credit reports, notifying banks, calling the police, filing a fraud report with the state unemployment office, checking with credit card companies to make sure no suspicious charges had come across. The evening spilled into the next day with more phone calls complete with little sleep the night before. Because – someone out there has Mike’s golden ticket – his SSN.

We followed the instructions on what we could control in order to stop this madness, but there is still the unknown of what this person(s) can do with that ticket. Will they apply for a loan? Will they apply for a credit card? The fear of this unknown is palpable.

The time of Corona has been funky and there have been lots of hardships, but the world of cheaters, thieves and liars hasn’t changed. They were here before Corona and those cockroaches will be here after. Things like identity theft are more than likely not being done by people who are going through a hard time, it’s just the cheaters, thieves and liars who sucked just as bad before the worldwide pandemic and more than likely will twice as much after.

Mike and I both pride ourselves on following the rules. We believe in hard work and reaping any benefits fairly. We feel that we have passed this quality on to our children, although sometimes when they saw a teammate or another cutting the course to “success”, we had to make sure they knew that karma’s a bitch and will come knocking on the door at some point.

And that’s what this cheater, thief, and liar did to Mike. They have attempted to cut a corner and benefit from the hard work that Mike has done in order to benefit themselves. They don’t see this man sitting in a chair at the dining room table every day for 8-10 hours working his day job in order to provide for his family. This person doesn’t care about Mike. They care about themselves first and are willing to sell their soul while possibly financially forever injuring someone they don’t know.

I am usually a pretty passive person, but when I see one of my own being hurt, being put through additional stress on top of what we’re already dealing with, being unknowingly punished, I get pretty pissed off. Will we ever know who this person is that is taking liberties with Mike’s golden ticket? Maybe, maybe not. But I can promise you one thing, I will be passively meditating and praying that this morally empty person gets a knock on the karma door because I know if a person is willing to do this to a complete stranger, they are not doing anything good with their life.

Be careful out there people. Don’t let your guard down. We all want to be helpful, but the world is full of cheaters, thieves, and liars. Lock down your identity and be vigilant with your own golden ticket. Mike wasn’t thrilled that I was going to write about this situation. Nobody wants to admit that they have been a victim. But I think it’s so very important to own it and to warn everyone you know because in fact, this could happen to anyone. Absolutely anyone. And if we can forewarn friends and family to do a double check on their own identity or personal info, it is worth being seen in that way.

Now in the best Friday tone I can muster in the haze of disbelief I’ve been in – why in the HELL would someone want to be Mike? And how could the world survive with two Michael McShanes? And as I type this I realize that point is moot because we do know if at least one other out there – picture Friar Tuck from the Kevin Costner version of Robin Hood. Yes, that is Michael McShane. Same name, totally different picture.

Cheers.

LLM

The Podcast version is available here:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1594894/7973092