TO Crime Fighters

*cue black and white*

It was just another day in the office - the ticket office, that is. We were slogging our way through ticket orders when he came up to the window asking for help. Same old story, same old schlub looking for a free ride to a concert or two (which we're happy to provide). We had just changed computer systems, so I took down his information to start a new account - then found that I couldn't print the tickets. I turned the order over to my associate, and here's where things started to get strange.

When I told my pally the schlub's name she jerked and turned pale - and then jumped to her feet to confront the man at the window. "Say," she says, "do you happen to know someone else with the same name as you? I ask because a very good friend of mine with the same name kicked the bucket recently, and I attended his funeral just this week!" He was a cool joe, I'll give him that. He denied everything, and we gave him the tickets. Another satisfied customer! But all was not well on the inside. My associate, following a hunch, checked out the address we'd been given, and commented that it was awfully close to where her friend had lived. Digging a little deeper (by pulling her PDA out of her bag), she unearthed her friend's address and found that they were, in fact, the same. Dun dun DUN! Further investigation led to the discovery that the phone number for the account was a mickey. It looked to us like we'd stumbled onto a case of identity fraud, and it was up to us to make it right.

We contacted the widow and filled her in - turns out she was in the middle of reviewing her finances with her son and it was the perfect time to notify the bank and the credit cards. That’s one widow with one less scam to sort out! We hit up our building security for the surveillance on the lobby, and have shaken them down for a picture of the potential perp. We've now contacted local police, and everyone is on high alert, just waiting for the next hit. The real clincher was when, after receiving "his" tickets, our fraud-pusher remarked that it was too bad the "other" guy was dead, since he wouldn't be able to attend the concert. Folks, we don’t take that kind of levity lightly, especially in regards to larcenous illegalities. Also, we’re a non-smoking building, so don’t hold out for any atmospheric haze in this particular post.

I’ll post updates as the information comes in – we may never know, though, because chances are we scared the man straight when he came in for illicit free tickets and encountered probably the only ticket office in the valley where the employees were intimately acquainted with his deceased victim, and not afraid to throw their suspicions around.

That’s the way we do business.

*cue return to color*