Sittin' on the Devils Between the Sheets of the Files

“The International Fraud Incident of ‘08, MTC #8 March 2, 2008: The BlogNinjas are raring to go with more Mystery Topic Challenge goodness. You don’t have to be a Blog Ninja to take part but if you want to read and then vote for your favorite, come by:
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“Last Thursday I received a call from the fraud department at Visa. It seems someone created a duplicate of my debit/ATM/credit card and used it at truck stops in Alberta, Canada and again several days later at an amusement park in Baltimore, Maryland. I suspect I’ll never know how they got my number, what they bought with my money or why they needed those things.”

Devils between the Sheets; Commercial Espionage in e-Commerce 1998 - 2008

by MooPig
2/March/2008

“There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight. The sort of script which is used in this book can be very easily obtained by anyone who has once learned the knack; but disposed or excitable people who might make a bad use of it shall not learn it from me.” (C. S. LEWIS, MAGDALEN COLLEGE, July 5, 1941)

Part One: Identity is who you are; or is it what you do?
The root of all evil is the Love of Money. I have always been really good at seeing the imperfections in things. Things and objects take on a magical dimension for me. When it comes to imperfections in human behavior, however, it turns out I do not easily read others. I either lack the knack, or make bad use of empathy.

In my spare time I once studied, trained, passed Health-Life-Property-Casualty exams and joined Jumbo Life Insurance company at NW Regional Office in Chicagoland, Rosemont, IL. Mind it; this was Jumbo's number one regional office in the country, a model for all others.

Until this time in my world of work, my work was engineering, science, and design, and had run with it. I had not reached a comfortable level of understanding science of finances. So I did a rather silly thing, to the chagrin of my wife and bairn. It was a change in career I perceived I needed to pursue. Hey, we all have a thirst for implicit knowledge, I am no exception.

The skinny is that because education of finance is bound by ethics, I reasoned jumping ahead by joining a securities sales group would work to our favor. This way I get inside workings and implicit structures explained by insiders of money businesses. "It will build confidence in money matters, and finish my character," I kept telling myself.

There were four of us newbie’s, with four diverse backgrounds and personalities. One guy was a previous Pawn Broker of fifteen years from Rush Street, another came from Real Estate Sales, and the third was a retired Army Colonel.

The second week, we were asked to take an ethics test. The whole force hunkered down in their cubicles. I buzzed through the test knowing I only had to make a seventy percent to pass, and really it was no sweat. Hey I’m an upstart!

But my Pawn Broker classmate, well he was puffing and panting. Pete, his name, kept looking down in his lap, and I could see his Ethics book there. I chuckled to myself. He saw me and whispered, “What did you get on number four?”

He in his late forties; I, early forties, as are most the sales force... “Uh, ‘C’,” I answered.

Then I looked around and saw many were in the same boat. “You only need a seventy to pass, Pete,” I whispered.

“What?” he looked miserable. He looked sick. His manager came over to look over his shoulder and whisper something to Pete.

The exam prompter, a retired sales manager walked past us. This morning ballet of our managers going around averaging all the answers and coming back to those in need, “Seven is ‘B’, ten is ‘none of the above’,” whispered Pete’s manager.

You see our sales managers were tutors and mentors and we had training tasks, besides tests. We both got regular reviews, partners as it were.

Then as the exam prompter circled again, everyone, men, women and cheaters, took on the 'old boy' look. I guess we were all trying to look objective and unconcerned.. laid back money movers.
“Cheating on the Ethics Exam,” I still chuckle. Everyone passed the exam, and we moved on.

Part Two: Is it Legal, is it ethical, is it the right thing to do, who gets the benefit?
So one day, several months later, I decided to look into the depths of a long time customer’s file to use as a reset button for setting new priorities. Maybe I could make my client's life a little more comfortable.

I lagged behind the others at first so I figured this dabble in a key client's file would help me with people. Guess what? Pete it turns out is a people person. His success at sales and service was immediate.

We had this antique data entry system, that if I describe it you could die from laughter; standard pre-1989, pre-MSDOS, miraculous it did anything... I may have forgotten more formatting than my children will ever encounter, thank God and all His pierced Saints.

My client, Ray, was fighting cancer that had recently invaded his kidneys. His bout with cancer cells put him in miracle category; he was on his eleventh surgery recovery. My mentor/manager George, introduced me to him so I would take care of his account. I visited once a month chatted and collected premiums, or delivered payouts. But my secret self wanted to know more.

His file did tell the whole story and more. By now I had the 'insider' look and walk of a money man. I pulled my cancer client's manila file and read through all the stages of his longsuffering illness. However, as I read the file, between the lines were insider protocols. Little devils jumped from the pages, and I realized my manager had put me on this case to teach me how to say ‘No’ to a person with terminal illness.

Last week I heard a joker in the lobby tel about how 'it is the first policy of Insurance Companies: Pay no Claim.’ It turns out; it is very difficult to wrench a payment from multi-levels of adjusters in Insurance pyramids. “My God man, my client just had his kidney removed!” I was becoming a people person?

Believe you me it is a messy business, selling paper. I am ethical, and did not cheat on my exam... well I did help Pete a little... but this day I asked, “How far can I go, or should I go, into my client’s money business?” What at first was desire to find a closer tie with my client, turned into a magic bus ride -- it was one of my most unbelievable experiences.

Tapping all the way into this man’s finances, to a point where I could have transferred all his assets anywhere. Withdrawals would have been easy; I had all his numbers between the sheets of his hard copy file and the antique green screen.

The only question that stops an identity theft would be 'Why?' The theft was not motivated, and would never match any activity of Ray's identity history of transactions. Yet there he was -- hung out to dry, as it were.

Remember, as a new hire I am supposedly bottom feeding trainee, not privileged, lowly upstart. My experiment flooded me with unfavorable results, so I tried another client and was able again using terminal, phone and file, to repeat the procedure all the way to a retired couple’s accounts: sadly, totally true.

Between the sheets of my clients’ files I had social security numbers, birth dates, intakes on all conditions of living situations, even children’s’ up to date information, and it was kept current by many with access. Regional terminals linked to home offices spewed out privileged information on the client’s past transactions, balances and history. With the phone I could elect voice-over menus and press in any numbers needed to access the client’s accounts.

Part Three: How strong are bonds holding an Identity together?
If someone benefits from the crime, then Identity Theft. Hopefully Jumbo has updated the files and data so there are encryptions preventing snooping like this. But now I know we are all on the same boat-ride, surrounded by leviathons. Unfortunately I had begun to see an unseaworthy vessel, with many imperfections, at Jumbo. "So money business is not in any way exacting," I concluded. Bonds that hold identity together are, after all, subjective.

“How good an agent would I make, knowing now what I know after crossing the line as I had?” I could fill the abstract traditional agent role, but it is ruined by the new destructive knowledge I now possess. Internally, the identity of each of my clients’ holds together, as long as I hold together, but it is still not enough. Until the safety of the identity is incorporated in the larger structure, it isn’t safe by any means. Regional Managers, Account Managers, Account Associates, Adjusters... who is in control? All of them. And who is in control of them? No one.

What happens if a new subjective motivation enters the picture? Jealousy for instance could set in motion an outsider to invade my client base. Well it happens... and it is easy pickings.

Curiosity set me on a subjective path that could have destroyed identities. I learned each identity put on the Internet is similar to a personal ad. Personals historically advertise one’s qualities and desires. Again subjective considerations follow one's identity.

Whether the ad is read and answered or not, is a risk taken sometimes just to make the one who advertised ‘happy.’ But any ad risks identity through permanent numbers and could lead the 'wrong person' to an innocent personal storehouse of information. Misuse of another's information causes extreme ‘unhappiness.’ Subjectivity is the bonding abent of our identities.

There is no punch line to this story, except that I evolved through failure. I don’t have the stomach for selling paper. I blossomed as a more empathizing person after my experiences in financials; maybe I never was all that unsympathetic after all.

I learned how the securities business is conspicuously inefficient, subjective, and involves identity floating on a random act of happiness or unhappiness. How to avoid it; it is a jumbo tangle of inhuman numbers and number games, structured like pyramids; nagging me, and I am sure others.

Still I want to feel ‘happy’ with my identity. And, when happy, I am like all others, naturally wanting to extend my ID into the sphere of virtual e-commerce. In most cases of identity risks, I have taken charge of its safety, while much is left to un-manageable circumstance.

Conclusion: Pawn Broker Pete
Happiness is thus a measure that a person computes, taking into account both one's self-estimated internal stability, and self-perceived normalcy relative to external society. When our identity is reduced and refined to code-lets and glyphs, our ID grows larger than life; however, our organic, purposeful, humanity to nurture the human race grows extinct.

"...The sort of script which is used in this book can be very easily obtained by anyone who has once learned the knack; but disposed or excitable people who might make a bad use of it shall not learn it from me.” (Lewis, CS)

In my life lesson: Jumbo Insurance Company’s overall goal could be succinctly stated as producing one happy top level agent, who out of the four of us upstarts was none other than Pawn Broker Pete. We three others faded into the background, just not suited for higher levels of arm twisting and identity crashing.

En route to his goal, Pete is guided by the happiness of the intermediary structures he has made. Uncertainty for the rest of us lies in the certainty that Pete will eventually find our identities sittin' inbetween the devils of the sheets of our files.
_______________________
Photo: (1916-17) The Pawnshop; The pawnbroker's daughter Edna Purviance condemns assistant John Rand for hitting Charlie, "a mere child!"
http://chaplin.bfi.org.uk/resources/bfi/filmog/film_large.php?fid=59448&enlargement=bfi-00n-ji1.jpg&resource=Stills

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Posted by MooPig who is really Patrick Darnell, who lives and loves and pursues happiness in Brazos Valley, Texas -- and has no more to do with Jumbo Insurance Co.