9

YOUR ALTERNATE NAMES AND SIGNATURES

Anyone can sign your name. If your attorney, CPA, or anyone else warns you that you cannot legally sign another person’s name, ask them to prove it. The only caveats are that the person whose name you are about to sign would confirm that you are authorized to do so, and that this action is not remotely associated with fraud.

Example: You have the tax return for your Wyoming corporation, Oliver’s Oddities, Inc., ready to mail on the due date. However, you forgot that your cousin Oliver, who is substituting for you as the sole director, will have to sign. And Oliver is currently on an Arctic fishing trip. As long as you are absolutely convinced that Oliver would have signed, if he were present, then go ahead and sign his name. All the IRS wants to see is a signature. My only suggestion here is that, when Oliver returns, have him sign an acknowledgment affirming for the private corporate records that permission was given to sign his name. Clip this to your copy of the return.

IF YOU SAY IT’S YOUR SIGNATURE, THEN IT’S YOUR SIGNATURE

Example: Your husband John is off hunting elk in the Rocky Mountains when an unforeseen emergency leaves you short of cash for Saturday night bingo. In the morning’s mail comes his Social Security check. Can you sign his name and deposit his check in your joint account?

Yes, because you know that, if any question comes up later, he will acknowledge your signature as his own. Naturally, you sign the check before you go to the bank. (Note: Many husbands and wives practice signing each other’s signatures for just such purposes as this, and some are skilled enough to fool any banker in the land.)

Warning: If, instead of going hunting, John ran off with Flossy Floozie from the office, he will not want you to sign his name, in which case, repeat after me:

    “DO … NOT … SIGN!”

YOU CAN USE ANY NUMBER OF DIFFERENT SIGNATURES, INCLUDING ILLEGIBLE ONES

In fact, among European businessmen, illegible is the order of the day. I used to work with a banker in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. His name was Hector Adelfonso de la Torre Romero y Ortega. This was his signature:

image

“But why,” I’m often asked, “would anyone want an illegible signature?” Well, for signing letters to your friends, you do not want one, but why not have an alternative, illegible signature you can reproduce at will? Here are two reasons why such signatures are used so widely in Europe:

• If a copy of a secret letter comes to light, the identity of the signer will not be evident.

• Bank accounts can be in the name of another person or in the name of a legal entity, and the one receiving such a check will have no clue as to the signer. (Note: There should be no problem, in any event, with the bank itself. Only a few of the smallest banks actually check signatures.)

AN ALTERNATE NAME

Why would you, a model citizen and taxpayer, ever temporarily need another name? The reasons given in many books include overwhelming debts, threatened vengeance by wrathful in-laws, a marriage gone bad, being listed on a criminal site, included on a no-fly list by mistake, or getting on a Mafia hit list. But circumstances and situations can change in a heartbeat, and thousands of persons living a tranquil life one day have resorted to flight the next.

The fact that you are right and the charges are wrong may be meaningless—just ask any lawyer if he can get you justice. The stock answer is, “How much justice can you afford?”

By the way, let’s not call your second name an “alias,” that’s only for the criminal types. What you want is a perfectly respectable alternate name, an assumed name, a nom de plume, nom de guerre, also called a pseudonym. (These can be used almost anywhere, as long as there is no intent to defraud.)

Have you ever thought about being in the movies, even as an “extra”? Then you’ll want a stage name. Or perhaps you’d like to be a writer, like Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain? If so, your journey will begin with the first step, choosing a pen name. Women often use their maiden names in business and either men or women can adopt the British custom of using a hyphenated name. Hillary Clinton, for example, could do this. She could use Hillary Rodham-Clinton and in an alphabetical listing such a name would be under “R.” However, a pen name can be any name you like.

For privacy, nothing beats a common name because it is so hard to identify which one belongs to you. (Just ask any PI.) If your name is, for example, Meinhard Leuchtenmueller, you will want to use a much more common name where possible. Suppose you will be working out of an address in Minneapolis. Why not use something like M. Anderson for your mail-order business? (There are more than 10,000 M. Andersons in the United States, most of them in the upper Midwest.) Or, if you work out of Miami or Los Angeles, you might try M. Hernandez. Check the local telephone directories for the most common names in your area.

TITLES

A surprising number of people—even in America—have a desire for some sort of title that will make them feel important. If they wish, they can call themselves a doctor, a lawyer, a CPA, or a captain with Northwest Airlines. That is, in the United States. (Do not try this in Europe!) In the Land of the Free, it is not what you call yourself but what you practice. If you are not a “CPA,” do not advise anyone on taxes. If you pose as a lawyer, do not give any opinions on the law. For many, the title of choice will be “doctor.” The following are some guidelines for wannabe doctors:

DO NOT GIVE ADVICE

Explain that you are not “that kind” of a doctor. Maybe you deal only with viruses from Chad. Also, you will certainly be truthful when—if called upon for some emergency—you say you are not in “practice” and do not therefore carry malpractice insurance. Frank Abagnale Jr., in his intriguing book Catch Me If You Can, says that when passing himself off as a doctor in the state of Georgia, he had a standard answer for anyone who asked what kind of doctor he was.

“I’m not practicing right now,” he said, identifying himself as a pediatrician. “My practice is in California and I’ve taken a leave of absence for one year to audit some research projects at Emory University and to make some investments.”

However, Abagnale did not always stick to his standard answer. On one occasion, an attractive brunette mentioned an “odd, tight feeling” in her chest. He did examine her privately. His diagnosis was that her brassiere was too small.

Do not do as he did unless you are willing to risk both civil and criminal charges of assault.

IT IS PERMISSIBLE TO ACT THE PART

Subscribe to a couple of medical magazines and carry one around. Wear a smock with a stethoscope in the pocket.

“You can even join the county medical society” says Jack Luger, in his book Counterfeit I.D. Made Easy. He says you can simply explain that you are not licensed in the state because you’re doing research rather than holding a practice and that the most that can happen is they’ll refuse to accept you.

MEDICAL RECORDS

The following is from a long article in the Los Angeles Times under the headline “Some Fear Seeking Care”:

A survey commissioned by the California HealthCare Foundation … documents that one in six Americans engages in “privacy protected behaviors,” such as paying out of pocket for care otherwise covered by insurance, lying to their doctor about their medical history or being afraid to get care.…

LaTanya Sweeney, an assistant professor of public policy at Cannegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, demonstrated how easy it is to pierce the privacy in so-called anonymous medical records. Even when names have been stripped off records that contain date of birth, sex, race, and diagnostics, she can readily re-identify the individual by cross-referencing with a $20 voter registration list …

In one instance, she looked at data from the city of Cambridge, Mass., population 54,000, and was able to identify former Gov. William Weld because only five people in the city—and only one in his ZIP Code—had his date of birth.

The conclusions that some people may draw from articles like this are listed below, along with my comments in parentheses:

• Do not give the doctor a complete medical history. (If you are going to a doctor for some normal medical reason, why—assuming it does not apply to the case at hand—would you list any visit to a psychiatrist for depression, or admit to any history of a venereal disease?)

• Change your birth date and withhold your Social Security number. (If you are using your medical insurance or making a claim to Medicare you must, of course, list your true date of birth and SSN. If you pay cash, however, change your date of birth and withhold your Social Security number.)

• Get off voter rolls and never return. (Whether or not you do this must be a personal decision.)

WEB SITES ADVERTISING FAKE ID

If you google “fake ID” you will get millions of hits. Ignore them all. At one time I sent money orders to various sites, just to check them out. Sometimes I received a grossly inferior product. Other times I received nothing at all. Eventually I stopped losing time and money this way.

Lee Lapin, author of How to Get Anything on Anybody—The Newsletter, came to the same conclusion. In one of his issues he wrote, in capital letters, “AS OF THIS WRITING I KNOW OF NO, ZERO, SITES THAT SELL ANYTHING EVEN VAGUELY WORTH BUYING!”

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

How can I change my name legally?

I seldom recommend you do this. After all, you may use one or more additional names and still retain your legal name. However, to answer the question: When you legally change your name, you abandon your present name and choose a new one of your liking.

Should you chose this route, I suggest you choose a common name, one that will be shared with thousands of others. In the United States, 25 percent of men of retirement age have one of the following names: John, William, James, Charles, or George. As for a last name, why not pick a family name from the Mayflower? Here are some of the more common names, culled from a complete list kept by Christopher Jones, Master, 1620:

Alden

Browne

Carter

Clarke

Cooke

Fuller

Martin

Priest

Rogers

Thompson

Turner

Warren

White

Williams

The usual rules apply, i.e., the new name may not be the same as that of a famous person, nor can there be intent to defraud.

The use method   The use method requires no lawyer, no trip to the courthouse, and is not legally registered anywhere. Keep in mind, however, that you will not be able to open a bank account nor obtain a driver’s license with the new name. However, if you pay cash, you may be able to get by with no problem. You will of course always use your true name in the following instances:

• When stopped by the police.

• For your auto and home insurance.

• For your income tax return.

• When traveling by ship, train, or air.

The court method   State statutes regarding legal name changes vary, so if you dislike the requirements in one state, check those in another. A lawyer is not necessary, so do not use one; they keep records in their files. Various books on name changes are available and you may find one or more of these at your local library. A date will be set for a court appearance and the judge will question you to make sure you are not changing your name for a deceitful purpose. If no such reason emerges, you can expect approval of your new name, and this name change will be valid in all fifty states and the District of Columbia. You will now be able to obtain a new driver’s license and a new passport. With this method, of course, you have left a paper trail. There is a file somewhere that contains the name you were born with.

Warning: Some name-changers have been known to bribe an employee to take their old file and accidentally “misfile” it inside another, thicker file—some old case that’s long since been settled. Although that does solve the “paper trail” problem, do not do it. It is a criminal action. Some doing this have been caught. Further, it is not necessary. I have already outlined ways to use alternate names in a 100 percent legal way. Reread this chapter again.

What do you think about fake passports?

In 1992 I was offered a passport from the “Dominion of Melchizedek.” I turned it down. (As you may remember, Melchizedek was the King of Salem, mentioned in Genesis. No country was ever named for him.) Less than a year later, I read about one of the promoters being arrested at Incline Village, on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe. What surprised me wasn’t that he was arrested—I expected that—but that before being caught he’d sold thousands of the fake Melchizedek passports at inflated prices. Another “country” sometimes mentioned is the “Principality of Sealand.” Before you fall for that one, google the words “Principality, Sealand, hoax.”

I never recommend false passports, not even from former nations such as British Honduras (now Belize). All this does is draw attention to yourself, which you do not need.

How do private investigators track down celebrities to serve subpoenas?

First, they track down the name they were born with. Next, they discover the true date of birth. Once they have that combination, they investigate property purchases, marriages, family members, churches, charities, clubs, lawsuits, pets, memberships, schools, and vehicles.

The PIs who have a 100 percent success rate in doing this are the ones that have unlimited backing. Offer one of these specialists enough money, and they will track down any celebrity, anywhere on earth. They could also track you down, as I said earlier in this book, but unless you’ve made some mortal enemies who have the necessary funds and are willing to spend them, don’t lose any sleep over the prospect.