three thefts

I arrived in Mexico on the evening of January 22. My flight landed at 8 p.m., and I wanted to get a nice dinner in the city I would be calling home for the next few weeks. So I broke out my Lonely Planet and spotted a place called Mirasoles eight blocks from the hotel I was staying that night. Quoth the guidebook: “This beautiful and classy restaurant offers Michoacan specialties; or alternatively, sample the Argentine parrilla with chimichurri.”
Sounded good. I went. Ordered some carne asada. It was overcooked and tough. Considering the state of my Spanish on January 22, I had probably asked for “grizzled tire rubber with a side of guac,” so I didn’t mind. I paid with my credit card — I hadn’t changed much cash into pesos yet and wanted to conserve my cash stash since banks would be closed the next day — and walked back to the hotel. It was the only time I used my credit card in my first three weeks here.
At dinner, my waiter — let’s call him Mr. Belvedere — was slow and unresponsive. But at some level I have to admire his speed. Because within a few hours of my dinner, with that galvanized steak still tangoing down my digestive tract, he had already taken my credit card number and started shopping.
$95 at a place called “Pilipinomart.” $32.37 to Vonage. $41.38 to MyWebFone.com. $27.98 to something called iTalk Broadband. $347 in all, in dribbles over the next three weeks, many of the charges tiny. I only noticed it all today, while scanning my statement online.
(I shouldn’t jump to the conclusion that Mr. Belvedere is the guilty party. I have no evidence. All I know is that my credit card left my wallet only once in Morelia, and the charges started appearing almost immediately after it did. Maybe it was the busboy. Maybe it was Dick van Dyke. Maybe it was the cow, bitter over being forcibly devolved from a fine piece of Argentine beef to a set of whitewalls. Who knows.)
This is actually the second time this has happened to me. When my friend Fiona and I were roaming around rural China in 1999, we left some bags with a good friend of hers in Beijing — thinking they’d be safer there than in Sichuan backwaters with names like Zoige and Langmusi. What we hadn’t considered was that Fiona’s friend had a boyfriend named Micky, and that Micky liked electronics, and that Micky enjoyed rummaging through our bags looking for valuables. Among the things he found was my credit card, and among the things he bought with it was a nice new TV. Total damage amounted to $470.
I didn’t discover all this until I was back in the states, looking at my credit card statement. We confronted Micky via email, and under pressure from his girlfriend, he fessed up. I just scanned my email archives; this is the apology email he wrote me:
I am very sorry for what I did. I know it is inexcusable even if I give you so many reasons. But please beleive me that I never meant to cheat you. I felt so guilty. I admitted my fault, only it was too late because you’ve gone home already.
I know you were very upset but I’m glad that you gave me the chance to pay you back without any complications. What’s done is done. All I have to do now is to pay what I owe you. I promise to pay; however, I cannot give the whole amount all at the same time. I can give you $200 this month and the remaining $270 by October. I know you are anxious to get the money soon but this is the only way I can manage.
I’m working on how to send you the money. I’ll go to China Bank and inquire about a bank to bank money transfer. When everything is clear, I will inform you right away. In this case, maybe i’ll be needing informations about your bank address and account name and #.
I hope that this is alright with you. If not, please tell me your preferred way of paying you.
Again, I’m very sorry. I have never done this before and will never do again. Curiosity and craziness overcame me at that time.
I remember being incredibly pissed off and Fiona trying to make me see it from Micky’s perspective. He was a poor college student from a poor family. While I at the time was a Toledo newspaper reporter fresh out of college — not exactly part of the moneyed elite — I must have seemed unimaginably rich. I imagined myself spectacularly frugal by backpacking through China for three weeks and spending less than $1,000, including air fare. But to Micky, I must have seemed indistinguishable from Daddy Warbucks. He probably thought I wouldn’t miss it.
I didn’t like that line of argument then, and I don’t like it now. Seems to give carte blanche to anyone in a poor country to take whatever they’d like. I was pissed at Micky, just as I’m pissed at Mr. Belvedere.
Of course, today I’d never even think about sending my bank account information to a known thief in China. But in 1999 — simpler times, I guess, or just a simpler Josh — I did. And Micky sent me the money — no doubt a fair share of his annual income. Don’t know if he kept the TV or not. I do remember his girlfriend being pissy to me in emails because I’d made Micky pay me back.
I’m not going to hunt down Mr. Belvedere this time. I’ll let the credit card company handle that.
The biggest irony of all? The last bogus charge was on February 11. They no doubt would have continued beyond then — if I hadn’t been pickpocketed on the subway in Mexico City last Saturday, February 12. Spent the better part of the afternoon feeling stupid and having money wired to me from the states so I could afford bus fare back to Morelia. (Eternal thanks to SuperFriend Molly for the aid in my time of need.)
But part of the ritual cleansing a pickpocketing prompts is, of course, canceling all your credit cards. Suddenly, Mr. Belvedere’s numbers were no good any more. Sometimes it takes one kind of thief to stop another.