Monday, February 03, 2025

Chronicles of Twatrick: Possible identity fraud?

Here's a short followup to that last post related to an anonymous commenter describing how someone (and it's unclear who) filed a bogus complaint against him with his employer. NOTE: There is of yet no proof that this was Patrick Ross, but here's what just occurred to me upon rereading that comment, particularly this snippet [emphasis added]:

Due to posts on my Facebook page, he knows where I work. Someone has called and spoke to my main superior and lodged a false complaint. It wasn't known until after I was called in to a meeting and almost given a written warning, that it was fake. When the alleged incident took place I was in another city and couldn't have attended the accuser's business location causing issues over not purchasing products from us.

As I read this, the complaint would seem to be suggesting that the anonymous commenter ("AC") visited someone else's business and caused a commotion, apparently complaining that that company was not purchasing product from AC's employer. Is that how you read it? Because here's the problem.

Even if the bogus complaint was made anonymously, it seems that the only people who would be in the position to make such a complaint would be the owners or managers of that business; this strongly suggests that, even if the person who filed the complaint with AC's employer did not leave a name, they would have claimed to at least work for that company. Are you with me so far? And here's why that's important.

Because misrepresenting your identity for the purpose of harassment is a criminal offense in Canada called "identity fraud" (not to be confused with "identity theft"), as described here:


Note well that identify fraud does not require any attempt to steal or procure anything of value; rather, one of its characteristics (as I have highlighted) is to personate another entity simply for the purpose or harassment. So If Patrick (or someone else) called AC's employer and falsely (mis)represented themselves as a representative of that other company for the purpose of getting AC in trouble, that is absolutely textbook identity fraud according to the Criminal Code of Canada, which suggests it might be worthwhile to chase this down to see if someone committed an actual crime.

Again, this is all speculation but if Patrick Ross did indeed call AC's employer and misrepresent his identity in order to cause inconvenience to AC, that is pretty much a slam-dunk case of identity fraud, for which, uh oh ...


If I was AC, I would be calling a lawyer. And absolutely filing a police report. But that's just me.

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