Someone stole my identity and changed my name to Bang Bang.

I found out something was wrong when I couldn’t log into one of my accounts. I was unable to change my password the easy way because to change a password, you must know your password!

They sent a verification code by email, which I entered. Another request for me to verify my password. Perhaps they didn’t understand me when I indicated the first time that I didn’t have my password. It had been changed.

This time, they offered to send a code to my phone, a phone number that now begins with the country code 44, the U.K. Hard fail, with no other alternative for secondary verification.

The in-app and customer support chatbots proved futile. “I understand your frustration,” the second chatbot kept replying.

I caught myself just before I started to scream, “Then why aren’t you doing something about it?”

I searched and found a customer support line with a live human, likely in Singapore because I could understand her. I’m the one with the replaced identity, but I was receiving the grilling of a lifetime. After more than an hour, she told me her supervisor needed her to get off the phone, and she promised my account would be unfrozen in 48 hours.

Dead in the water? Not quite. I still had 48 hours to take matters into my own hands.

When I went back to my email, I scrolled to find six or seven orders placed by Bang Bang. I found a shipping confirmation on the one order that slipped through to an address in Austin, Texas. Texas? Really? Charged to a card ending in four numbers, a card I have never owned. Then, I found the gold—a FedEx tracking number.

I called FedEx and explained the situation to a customer service rep, who laughed as hard as I did when I gave her the name the petty criminal used. When I gave her the rest of the details, she laughed even harder and then voided the shipping label.

Three jurisdictions, zero consistency, and I was doing the vendor’s work.

The criminal part was easy. Then, I had to fill out the FBI paperwork.