Monday, June 28, 2010

1278 His-dentity

Read one of those stories the other day that makes you shake your head. It’s good to have confidence I guess, bad to be so cocky you throw down a challenge.
Other people just can’t resist rubbing your nose in your own hubris.
The story was about Todd Davis, CEO of a company called LifeLock. He must have been raised on those commercials like the one where the Gillette guy pugnaciously challenges you to find a better razor.
Or possibly the one where Robert Conrad dares you to knock a battery off his shoulder. Your first thought is to wipe that smug look off his face by unlimbering a shotgun and shooting the damn thing off, shoulder and all.
So that’s kind of what happened. Mr. Davis actually listed his real Social Security number on TV to prove his company could prevent identity theft.
And then proceeded to have his identity stolen thirteen times.
The identity thieves ran up thousands of dollars in fraudulent charges and loans.
Poor Todd. There’s a lesson here. Don’t ask for trouble. And remember that the credit card companies are only too happy to charge stuff without thorough checking. They get to hold your money or show the charges on their books for as long as it takes to settle the dispute, so it’s actually in their interest to encourage less scrutiny.
Big money is all about the float, dude.
There are a couple of good sides to it all. By offering himself as a guinea pig for his own product, he was able to find where he went wrong. There’s at least thirteen holes he now knows to fill.
And bonus, he also has a great way to fool his wife when those gentleman’s club charges appear on his bankcard.
America, ya gotta love it

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