Saul Goodman - Get Off the Grid! - Saul Goodman's Guide to Staying Off the Radar

Now that you’ve acquired your mark, it’s time to do some research.

Here’s a select list of some of the ways an enterprising identity thief might go about boning up on their target:

• Getting the mail!Only it’s another person’s mail, not yours. Just about any piece of mail can provide nuggets of information for you to use. Christmas cards from Grandma give you family information and names, credit card bills can clue you into a person’s financial stability (like, if the bill is three months behind, maybe don’t steal this poor sap’s identity; that’d just be cruel), as well as provide you with account numbers.

• Pickpocketing.I’m not trying to send a ragtag crew of readers out into the cold like some creepy Dickens character leading a pack of orphaned thieves. A really simple route to gathering almost all the info you need on someone whose identity you want to co-opt—just temporarily, and not for larcenous purposes, mind you—might be stealing their wallet. Go figure. Grab whatever you can, like social security cards and identification, then leave it someplace nearby so the unfortunate mark can maybe recover their Diners Club Card.

• Internet.The Internet is a monstrously great way to ferret out every tiny tidbit no one ever wanted you to know about them. There’s data stored in bases online people don’t even think about. Like that time you put your e-mail address up on a Deep Purple message board because you couldn’t figure out the right chords to “Smoke on the Water.” There are sites with old newspaper clippings that you can search and unearth the most mundane details about your mark, if they or their families were on the grid enough to show up in the local Lunenburg Ledger every now and then.

• Dumpster diving.How do private detectives do it? Cops? Fun fact: garbage is in the public domain.If the average Jane, Joe, Jim, or Juan was more paranoid, they’d realize that the crap they drop in the waste basket could give an ambitious identity thief a leg up on becoming, well, them . Yes, if you’re the kind of guy or gal who habitually carries hand-sanitizing gel, this endeavor might be a nightmare for you, but sometimes you’ve just got to get down and dirty in pursuit of your mission.

Take it from someone who’s gone fly fishing in the most pungent garbage you can imagine: dumpster diving is an athletic endeavor. I recommend that if you go this route, you know exactly what you’re after and have a reasonable amount of confidence you will find it. Wear the crappiest clothes you own, rubber gloves, a mask to breathe through, and maybe down a solid belt of Old Grand-Dad before you hop into that big green box. Also—and this is the trick—your search and rescue mission should not be a daytime activity. Be armed with a flashlight and make your leap in the middle of the night.

Let me illustrate what I’m talking about with a little story…

Steve Snowman decided he wanted to become a guy he knew named Brian Bowman, who happened to be about the same age and have a similar hairline to Steve’s. So: Steve plugged Brian’s known info into a search engine of his choosing. Soon he knew where Brian was born, that he had an Akita named Evita when he was a kid, and that he claims to be the Internet’s foremost authority on bespoke galoshes.

With these unsettling facts in hand, Steve drove to Brian’s place and waited till his target dropped an innocuous black trash bag in the dumpster. Soon, Steve made off with the goods! Once he got home, he put a big cartoon clothespin on his nose and began peeling scribbled notes, bills, printed e-mails and out-of-date coupons from the mess. From his research, Steve then had a great idea as to what Brian’s signature looked like, both printed and in old-fashioned script. He began practicing said signature right away. Not long after, Brian Bowman II could be found sailing around Bermuda in a boat named Aweigh it Again, Sam .

Moral of the story? Concentrate on the fundamentals for this stage of the festivities—social security numbers, ID, deep-cut information, family tree information that fleshes out your new false face.

In my previous incarnation as a magically gifted and fashionably dressed Albuquerque attorney, I have to confess: I knew how to get that green. I won’t say I was rolling in it, that wouldn’t be modest. I did have my exit plan pretty firmly in place when I lit out for my new life, and that exit plan required moolah .

On the most fundamental level: if you don’t have money, what are you going to do in your new life, anyway? Unless you plan on roughing it—more or less being homeless, which in this context still requires that you buy at least some basics like a backpack—mo’ money means mo’ choices. However, if you’re a man or woman of limited means who is not wanted in seventeen states for crimes against nature or humanity, the good thing about disappearing for you may be the same thing that makes unfortunate disappearances of the poor so sad—the state just won’t work that hard to try and find you again.

I don’t know what your time line is, but start socking away the exit funds now. For everything we’re about to muddle through together, money is your best friend…

…Unless the dear reader is Bill Gates–level rich, that is. If you’re so wealthy that the massive pot you have to piss in is made from fourteen karat gold, why are you even reading this? Because while you’ve got the means to blow town at a moment’s notice, all those Franklins crowding your bank account mean you have a much larger target on your back.

What I’m getting at is: the best candidate for using anything from our pleasant chat here to move on up to a deluxe apartment under another name and credit rating is probably some middle-of-the-road schmoe with just enough disposable income to start putting a sizable chunk away each month.

It’s not fair to beat this money drum and not give you a few ideas as to how to become a cadet in the marching band. Here are a few suggestions as to how to jump into your new skin with a little bit of cash in your pocket. The best part is: many are 100 percent legal. Mostly.

Work it.If you are willing to forego a good night’s sleep, get a second job. Or a first one, or a third one—depending on how many you had already. This is no time to act high and mighty: take stock of the kind of grunt work you can handle, and get to grunting. Whatever you choose to do—be it mowing lawns, loading trucks, or spinning signs outside a realty company—put as much of every little check away as you can. Though, if the local strip club wants to cover your car with some scantily clad skin for a cool $5,000 a month, that kind of mobile-billboard advertising might draw more attention than the check is worth. Try not to take on a job so out-of-character that it might make folks around you suspicious.

Cash back!At many grocery and department store checkouts, we get the option when using debit-credit card machines to be handed some cash back. Every time you shop, add twenty bucks or a solid Benjamin to the bill and then tuck that cash away in an old Florsheim shoebox hidden deep in your closet. It might take some time, but eventually you’ll be pretty impressed by the size of the nest egg you’ve built.

You can’t take it with you.eBay, Craigslist, flea markets, whatever—start selling off everything you can think of. You probably won’t need that state-of-the-art speaker system on the other side. Pare your life down to the bare minimum of comforts—it might be unpleasant in the present, but it means you’ll have the capital to afford more of those luxuries when you get where you’re going. So good-bye, collection of vintage Tiger Beat s! That mint-condition pinup of Paul Revere and the Raiders has got to ship out to a happy home somewhere far away… and soon you will, too.