Mistaken identity month

People who know me probably won’t be surprised to learn that I go through my credit card bills line by line, checking them. This month I noticed a mysterious item from gotomypc.com, a debit for just shy of $180 about 10 days ago.

I called the 888 number and asked if they did billing for any other online business. The customer service rep said no, it’s just gotomypc.com. By a weird coincidence, a friend had been telling me about them earlier in the day; their service is basically remote desktop access to your home or office machines. On a hunch, I asked if it worked with Macintosh or Linux computers. The guy on the phone confirmed that it didn’t. I explained that we don’t actually have any Windows PCs in the house, and he readily agreed to cancel the account and credit my card.

The curious thing is that they had a correct name and billing address and everything. I thought perhaps the guy from LA who ran up the $6,000 cable bill in my name was back to his old tricks, so we pulled copies of our credit reports and checked them. Nothing. Can anyone think of an innocent explanation?

The second incident is odder. I received a bill from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ontario, who claimed they had been given my address by the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority.

I’ve never had any contact with either organization before. In fact, I’ve never been to Toronto, and I’ve never traveled by air to Canada. I can’t say I’m happy with air transport security confusing me with someone else, particularly since I’d quite like to go to Toronto some day.