Free Scammed by Ron Chudley

prior to moving to the Cowichan Valley, so it was likely to be pretty full. That in mind, he opened the door carefully, ready to catch anything that might fall—but there was nothing to catch. The box was empty.
    Surprised, Greg immediately thought that he must have opened the wrong box. But a quick check of the number put that idea to rest; it was his box all right. Yet somehow, in almost two weeks, he appeared to have received no mail at all.
    This oddity was not enough to dampen his recovered spirits, but it did add to the feeling of being slightly less than at home as he took the elevator. Entering his apartment, he was aware of the dank smell that abandonment had produced. He went immediately to open the balcony door, thinking as he did so that the place seemed smaller, no doubt the effect of spending nine days rattling around in his parents’ big old barn.
    Crossing to his bedroom, he noticed that the light on the old telephone answering machine was blinking. That was another oddity, since he rarely used his landline. He’d only kept it connected because, despite using his cell almost exclusively, he wasn’t quite ready to cut free from the old ways. Whoever had called on the landline must have got his number from the book.
    Intrigued, Greg examined the machine. He hadn’t used it in so long that it took a moment to find the “play messages” button. He located it at last and pressed, and the message emerged loud and clear:
    Mr. Lothian, this is Malcolm Spender from Island Electronics. The cheque you tendered for the flat-screen TV you purchased last week has been returned NSF. Please contact the store as soon as you get this message. This is Tuesday. If we have not heard from you by the end of the week, the matter will be put in the hands of the authorities. Thank you.

TEN
    â€œI don’t understand,” Greg said. “I’m Greg Lothian, but I’ve never been in this store before, let alone bought a TV here.”
    He was standing in the showroom of Island Electronics, a small establishment on Fort Street which he hadn’t known existed till an hour before. The man he confronted, who was not the Malcolm Spender of the phone message, did not seem impressed. He fetched a file from the office and opened it to produce an invoice and a cancelled cheque with the letters NSF stamped in red. “This is your name, isn’t it, sir? And your address?”
    Flabbergasted, Greg looked at the cheque. The name and address were certainly his. The signature even looked something like his own. But the bank was one he’d never used in his life.
    The cheque was for twenty-seven hundred dollars.
    â€œThis is ludicrous,” he breathed. “This isn’t my cheque. I don’t have an account at that bank. What in the hell is going on?”
    The clerk shrugged, then looked beyond Greg to another man approaching. “Hey, Malc,” he called, “the bum cheque guy’s here.”
    â€œI tell you I’m not— ” Greg began, but was cut off by the newcomer.
    â€œWho are you ?” Malc demanded.
    â€œI told you,” the first clerk said. “It’s Lothian—the guy who ripped us with that dud cheque.”
    â€œI didn’t,” Greg snapped.
    â€œHe’s not,” Malc added. “This isn’t the man who bought the TV. This isn’t Lothian at all.”
    â€¢ • •
    It took a long time, a stack of ID and several phone calls, but at last the facts of the matter were sorted out. Greg was the victim of fraud. He couldn’t think how it had happened—and then he remembered: the theft of his wallet from the gas station. That’s what must have done it. He’d cancelled his credit cards and replaced his driver’s licence, but the documentation in the stolen wallet—including, of course, his Social Insurance card—had been more than enough for identity theft. That possibility might even have