Rant: Identity theft

Receiving a scanned copy of an arrest warrant from my mother’s co-worker isn’t the kind of street cred I was hoping for, but sometimes you have to take what you can get. Apparently I’d missed my court date for some grievous offence within the jurisdiction of the Land Transport Authority. If I failed to turn myself in within a week, they’d physically arrest me.

For starters, I hadn’t even received the first letter informing me about my trial; later I discovered that it’d been sent to my previous home, which had been sold and demolished. Regarding the ‘crime’ itself: I don’t even know how to drive, and had no idea what I’d done to p**s off the LTA. I was sure they had the wrong person and called up the guy who’d signed my warrant. This was his response to my situation:

‘ISSSSIIIITTTTT?’

Clearly, I was going to have to sort this out in person. Upon arriving at the LTA, we (me and my ‘person who is a Singapore citizen, above the age of 21 years to stand as [my] surety’) launched a vigorous rebuttal. These were the charges against me: in August 2008, I’d stolen a National Serviceman’s concession pass and used it on bus route 851. I told the attending officer that I’d lost my IC (identification card) last May and had filed a police report; it proved the transgressor was clearly a two-bit imposter and I was a clear-cut victim of identity theft. This key piece of evidence failed to resonate as he re-explained why we were there, in case we didn’t understand. We tried to explain to him why we were there. It was tragicomical. I noted that my bail was set at $1,000. $1,000 for a $50 fine.

We were referred, most insultingly, to Penalty Fees, which shares an office with Customer Relations upstairs. I’d had fingers crossed for cuffs but that obviously wasn’t going to happen. To cut a ridiculous story short, everything boiled down to a bunch of paperwork and we were told that my case had been ‘frozen pending further investigation, in light of new evidence that I may not be the person in question’. These events caused me to reflect on several things. First, what kind of army boy cries over his lost bus card? Secondly, whoever my imposter is/was, kudos to you; the photo on my old IC is hardly flattering – lord knows I looked pretty bad as a 12-year old. And thirdly, to the arresting officer who apprehended the culprit: Wow. Now I know why they took the better part of a year to catch Mas Selamat – because you suck at your job.

Kids, if you’re going to get nailed for a crime you didn’t commit, make sure it’s incredibly badass and befitting your reputation, as most people don’t have the luxury of a column to explain that stealing bus cards is minor-league rubbish. On the flipside, if you’re going to steal someone else’s IC, at least do something cool with it. Seriously.