When I first moved to Minneapolis, everything in my life went horribly wrong. I transferred to a small arts school, and my girlfriend wrecked my car, said girlfriend became an ex-girlfriend, and the house I was
living in was condemned. I was working for minimum wage at a comic book store during the day and going to my night
classes at arts school. It was not a high point in my life. But the only thing that kept me going was the thought of spring break. Just one week back home
with my parents and friends and away from this life. And I'd been saving, I'd been saving for six
months for this trip because when you make
minimum wage saving for anything
takes a really long time. And so I finished my last final at school and I went home, and celebrated my new bachelorhood by ordering a Domino's pizza, eating it off napkins, and playing video games all night. And two days later, I was packed, and I was ready to go home, all I had to do was
drop my last paycheck off at the bank, and I went into the bank and I handed the teller my check and I got the receipt
and I flipped it over, and on the back my
account balance was -$536, and I felt all the life
just drain out of me because I just couldn't catch a break, and so I asked to see
my balance statement, and there they were, two $600 Western Union
money transfers, a bunch of random delivery orders, and a $400 charge to a website
called inmatecanteen.com. And so, so I sat down with the banker, and she saw that the
charges were false, and went about trying to reverse them, and while she was doing that
I went and I sat in the lobby and I started thinking about how unfair identity theft is. Because when somebody
steals your identity, they only take the good parts,
you know? They don't take the rat trap apartment, and the depression,
and the shitty job, no, they just take the one thing that I'd been looking forward
to for the past six months. And while I'm mulling this over, the banker comes back
and she tells me, that the bank is going to
give me all my money back, but it's going to take
about a week of processing. And so I go home, and I
can't get it out of my head, because the bank wasn't going
to do anything about this, and the police weren't going
to do anything about this, and these people that rob you, they don't get caught, nobody cares enough. But this identity theft was different, because this person had messed with the most dangerous type
of person that exists. Which is someone with limited options and a lot of free time. And so I decided to start
my own investigation. And so I took my bank records and I started going through them and I called Western Union
and they were no help. And I went to inmatecanteen.com and I called the support number but it was disconnected. And so all I had were
these delivery charges and I noticed something, which is that they were local. And then it hit me. The last charge that I had
made on my own account, was the last night of my finals, the night that I ordered
that Domino's pizza, and I realized that when I
read my credit card number over the phone, the woman at Domino's
must've written it down and used it again, the woman at Domino's robbed me. This was more upsetting because this was someone that could live six blocks from me, who spoke to me on the phone and heard my voice, someone who I trusted. I mean, I trusted Domino's, out of all the people or things in my life that could betray me, Domino's was not on the list. And lastly because I spent
years as a delivery driver and this broke the code of ethics. So this wasn't just a theft. This felt personal. And so I had a suspect. And the next day I
marched into that Domino's and I demanded to know
who was working the night my identity was stolen. And the manager on duty passed me his manager who passed
me to his manager, and eventually they told
me to come back later and they would have the
names for me. So I continued my investigation, and I went to a place
called the Green Mill, which was a restaurant where some of the delivery, the false delivery
charges had taken place. And the manager there was really helpful because there was nothing else to do, and he gave me a week's
worth of delivery tickets, and I started digging through
them looking for a match, and after about 30 minutes,
the phone rang, and he picked it up and
started taking down an order, and then he picks up a piece of paper and starts waving it back and forth and I come over and on the paper is a credit card number. And it's my credit card number, and the person who stole my credit card is on the other end of that phone and the manager is looking at me like, "Well, what do we do now?" And I look him straight
in the eyes, and I say, "Give me a topper, a hat, and
I will take that delivery." And he looks at me, and he says, "And that will get me fired." And I say, "Okay, maybe
that wasn't the best idea, tell them that your driver is out sick, and that it's pick-up only." And so he does, and he hangs
up, and he looks at me, and he says, "They'll
be here in 15 minutes." And so I grab a newspaper
and I sit down in a booth and I prop it up, and I sit down for my
very first stake out. And an agonizing 17 minutes later, a car pulls in, a woman
gets out and comes inside, and asks for her pick-up order, and I start writing down every detail, the fact that it's a
white, lifted, Chevy Tahoe. The license plate number, what she's wearing, and
what she looks like, and meanwhile she's
having a conversation with the manager, and he's
saying that the card was declined and he needs to run it again, but she says she doesn't
have it on her and it's in her car, and she leaves the restaurant
and doesn't come back. And so I asked the manager
to do me one more favor. I ask him to *69 the
number she called from. And I add that cell phone to
my growing list of evidence. A couple hours later I receive a call from a man who introduces himself as the head of Domino's security. And he was calling to apologize, to thank me for my help
in the investigation, and to know that once I
had filed a police report, that Domino's had my back. He had also pulled the hours I wanted and had them waiting at
the original Domino's shop. So I went back and I picked them up, and I started asking questions there. And I asked if anyone there drove a white, lifted, Chevy Tahoe. And the daytime driver said that a girl who worked the night shift did. A girl who matched the
description of the person who came into the Green Mill, who was also working the
night my identity was stolen. Lastly, I took the cell phone number, and gave it to the manager, because I didn't want to call it myself and arouse suspicion, so he called it and she answered and confirmed her identity,
condemning herself. So next I asked to see
her application, because those places always
keep those things on file, and at first the manager was wary of the legal things with that but once I assured him that this was for the police report, he relented. And so after I've copied
down this information, now I have her first,
middle, and last name, her date of birth, her
social security number, her driver's license number, I know her car make and model, and the license plate number, I know where and when she
works and where she lives, and her previous job references, and her email address. And so I go home,
and I'm in a frenzy, and I can't stop. And so I google her email address, and when you do that you can pull up all of the accounts that you've created
with that email address. And so I found her eBay account, and her Flickr account,
and her Myspace, and her Myspace was set to public, and I can see her
pictures, and her comments, and her blogs, and I realize that
I am going crazy. But the thing about going
crazy is you can't stop. And so I open one of her blogs called, "50 Things About Me." And the very first question
is, "What is my favorite food?" and she wrote, "Pizza." And so by the time I'm
at the end of this list I realize that I know
more about this woman probably than most of her
co-workers and friends. And that this is a real person that I will be sending to jail. But she broke the code. And so I call the cops, and the next day they
send out a police officer to take my report. And the fraud report starts out normal, it's just, how much money was stolen, and when was it stolen, is
the bank reimbursing you. And then the last question,
almost as an afterthought, was, "Do you have any
additional information which might benefit the case?" And I said, "Why yes I do." And I start listing things. And the confusion on
the officer's face turns to laughter once
she hears the full story, and she says that, "Well,
you've done my job for me." And I agree. Later on that day I receive
a call from the detective now working this case. He says that, "With all my information, he cross-checked it with DOT records, and the criminal database,
and that it all checks out, and that by the end of the day there would be a warrant out
for this woman's arrest." I tell him that she's
going to work tomorrow at Domino's at five. And after a pause, he says that he'll have a
squad car waiting for her. And so lastly, I ask the detective, if I can be there, because I'd done a lot of work on this and I kind of wanted to
see the look on her face, that same look of shock and horror that I had when I was sitting in that bank and I flipped that receipt over and saw everything I'd saved gone. But he said that was impossible. He did say, that if I
happened to be walking across the street at around 5 o'clock, that no one would
probably be the wiser. So I got to go undercover one last time, and I found myself
standing across the street from that Domino's at 5 o'clock, squad car parked in back and two officers inside. And I saw that white,
lifted, Chevy Tahoe come around the corner, and park, and her get out,
and go through the front door, and I could see her back arched up as she froze and saw the officers because she knew she was caught. And then they handcuffed her, put her in the back of the squad car and they drove away. Case closed. But then a couple hours later, I receive one of the
most surreal phone calls I've ever got in my entire life. The man on the other end of the line introduced himself as the
CEO of Domino's he was calling to
personally apologize, thank me for my help
in the investigation, and I assume,
avoid a giant lawsuit. And so he asks me how
much money was stolen and told me that Domino's would
reimburse me for everything, and I told him that the
bank was already doing that and it wasn't about the money. And so he asked me what I wanted. And up until this point I
hadn't really thought about it but what do you say, I
mean, free pizza for life? A pizza named after me? No, I'd lost my taste
for pizza at this point. No, I told him I didn't
want this to happen to anyone else. I told him that I wanted
him to pursue this to the furthest extent of the law, and that every new Domino's
employee that gets hired would hear this story. That if you fuck with
credit card information of customers that you will go to jail. And he said that he could do that. And later I received
two letters in the mail. The first was a letter
that said the woman had pleaded guilty to all charges and will be serving a
short prison sentence, the second, a personal
thank you letter from the CEO of Domino's, a check for the exact
amount of money stolen, and 500 Domino's Bucks. And I realized that I actually
did get everything back that was stolen. The money, yes, but for that week, I wasn't the pathetic,
depressed art student. No, for that week, I was
Tristan Jimerson, private eye, the gumshoe that knows that revenge, like delivery pizza, is best served cold. Thank you.
