Some people are unlucky enough in life to become a victim of crime when they have their bag or wallet stolen. Those people always say that the loss of all the cards is worse than actually losing the money. Well in the last ten years I’ve had my wallet stolen a grand total of four times. At that phenomenal rate I can expect my purse to be pinched another 20 times in my lifetime.

The first theft was reasonably unavoidable. A pickpocket posing as a potential room mate, she checks out my flat, goes upstairs to double check the room, and then checks out with my wallet.

The second time was inexcusable. On the eve of the Edinburgh Festival, my bright yellow wallet which had been sitting not so unassumingly in the top of my zipper-less shoulder bag, vanished into the heady Scottish night. My lost or stolen confusion resolved the next morning thanks to the best advice ever given by Dad “check the bins near the pub you were drinking at”. So off I went, true to my vagabond tendencies but looking more like a hobo. I didn’t have to look far, it was in the first bin, there it was abandoned and exposed, devoid of all content.

The third theft occurred in Melbourne and was again attributed to a certain characteristic… blasé-drunken-stupidity… and the fourth and most recent was unfortunately much of the same. Beyond proud of my perceived sixth sense I arrived in Barcelona in my typical disorganised fate-driven fashion, no hotel booking and no idea where to stay. I head for Las Ramblas and after rambling around for a couple of hours I find a room in an hostel. Its 1 am and the street below is pumping so I hit the town on this more “cultured” side of the globe and run into a group of drunk Kiwis. Fast forward many shots and many hours later and I head for home, weaving through the medieval maze to find my unpronounceable street, but do you think I can find the hostel? Drunk, tired, with aching arthritis I stop at another hostel to hopefully ask for directions. Its closed so I sit in the foyer and at some point curl up to my handbag. I wake up a few hours later (about five doors from my hostel), still curled-up, minus a handbag.

Its pretty traumatic when you are in a foreign country and you lose all your money and all your cards (on the first night), even for an old hand like me. But I’m not sure that that adrenalin rush is worse than the one you get when you realise your identity has been stolen.

Up until Cloncurry, the only time anyone had come remotely close to stealing my identity (that I knew of) was at high school before class one day, sitting on the pile inducing back steps of E Block. There I was egging Mary Jane Matts to sign her name on the bricks. “Righto” she said, ceremoniously removing the lid of the thick black texta. Excitedly I watch from across the corridor as she spells out across the height and width of two full bricks: W-E-N-D-Y  K-R-A-M-E-R.

And talking about identity theft, lets not forget at work last year when I had received the umpteenth email of the day. It initially looked normal enough, sent from the Director’s assistant, until I realised it was actually from me. A not quite hostile email sent to the owner of one of the drilling companies, one of our contractors, reprimanding them on a certain task they were failing to perform sufficiently. For a dumb half second I actually stopped and wondered whether I had written it myself. But then the surge of adrenalin rushed in a radial fashion from my heart when I realised the Director (referred to as Warren in Then & Now - From Cloncurry Slave to Newcastle Sloth Part II) was using not just my name but my identity to stir up a political storm. And although I appeared to be saying it, I actually had no say in it at all.

I’ve been the victim of credit card fraud twice now too. And believe me, regardless of the large sums of money that can be involved, this is one of the least intimidating forms of theft (while banks continue to have “fraud squads” and insurance… anyway). Scary perhaps considering a bunch of Scottish junkies posing as the very Australian Wendy Kramer managed to fuel up all their cars at a local petrol station using my ANZ Visa card one time. About 25 cars all up.

And then there was the phone call on a lazy Friday morning just last week from Westpac Bank. It was rather uncanny as I had just paid off my credit card in full and there it was sitting nervously on the kitchen bench next to the scissors, anticipating its impending sacrifice. The voice on the other end, once they established that it is in fact me, says “have you noticed anything strange when using your credit card in the last month?”. What… besides it not being maxed-out for the first time in the last five years! “No actually, someone in the Philippines has been using it to purchase flights with a Filipino airline”.

Now I don’t want to sound like I’m the victim here, though it certainly does appear that way. I have also embraced crime at different times throughout my life. For example, as a 16 year old I stole a packet of cigarettes once from the checkout at Big W. Oh… and not forgetting snatching my brothers Easter eggs as a ten year old (and on and off for much of my adult life). He would wait until I had scoffed mine down in the first five minutes and then bring his out for weeks afterwards, delighting in devouring them in front of me (a torture method not yet condemned by the Geneva Convention). It soon stopped when I started eating mine in the first five minutes… and then began stealing his.

And I did mention last week how Fantastic Furniture involuntary gave me 900 dollars, but what I failed to mention was how one of the salesman phoned me later that night, near to tears, telling me he was about to lose his job because of the mistake. I acted dumb (like I hadn’t noticed the stuff-up) and paid back the money.

Acting dumb is a fine art if you are endowed with that skill. It gets me out of countless situations including being busted by customs at Sydney Airport one time. Come on, no one declares shit at airports, especially if the line-up is as long as it is at Kingsford Smith. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry, I had no idea that was still in there (RE: dried fruit in my backpack)” always goes a long way.

So if like me, you have had your wallet stolen four times, defrauded twice, and been the victim of identity theft i.e. had an overweight 60 year old bogan multimillionaire criticise the head of a drilling company whilst pretending to be you… you must have at times felt well and truly ripped-off.  Perhaps none of this has ever happened to you… but even so you cannot escape the daily rip-offs we all endure… by the banks for example. Every one of us certainly gets to feel a bit down-trodden and generally ripped-off every once in a while. So…what would you do if a silly arsed bank teller attempting to put $10,000 in your account sneezed and actually deposited $100,000 in your account. You would act dumb right? What if they sneezed three times and transferred 10 million into your account? Would you still act dumb? Run Leo run I say.

PS If you haven’t been living under a rock this week (or perhaps on the other side of the globe) you will know I am referring to the New Zealand couple who were accidently credited $NZ10 million ($A7.8 million) so pissed off to China. Do you agree with what they have done? What would you do if it was you?

I haven’t thought too long and hard about this but personally I think I would probably take half and run and give the rest to charity. Can you imagine Westpac asking for five million bucks back from the WWF or Oxfam or Camp Quality… talk about a public revolt!

Good luck to Leo and Kara, though I fear they may not have to act dumb in the end.