How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found, Doug Richmond [a court of thorns and roses ebook free txt] 📗

and state agencies. Your "fellow MD's" won't take long to see through your scheme, if for no other reason than to limit their competition. And if you claim a Harvard education, you are going to attract a lot more interest than if you completed your schooling at a community college in Toledo.

If you feel you must have educational credentials it is much better to buy degrees mail order than to use the ones that came with your new shell. At least you won't have to worry about running into fellow alumnus--and if you do, they won't be in any position to blow the whistle on you.

Still another route is to go through the educational process and get a new set of your own degrees. If you've already been that route, you can shave a few years off your studies by taking waiver exams. Many disappearees want to change the direction of their lives anyway, so there is a double reason to go back to school. And a university is perhaps the best place in the world to lay low while establishing your new identity. The social climate is generally free and easy, jobs without strings attached are readily available, and the world in general doesn't make the kind of demanding requirements on college students that it expects of the average working stiff.

Many disappearees I talked to were apprehensive about not being able to take their military records into their new lives with them. They had served honorably in one branch or another of the Armed Forces. While they were in the service they were told how valuable their military experience would be in finding a job. And they were of course told that no reputable employer would allow someone with less than an honorable discharge onto the premises.

Most of them realized, though, that no employer had ever asked to see their discharge papers. They also knew that many of their contemporaries who avoided military service seemed to get along just fine. Even out-and-out draft evasion didn't seem to damage one's ability to make a living.

If by chance you assumed the identity of an old war buddy, though, don't think of assuming his rank and background, and especially not his veterans benefits. This would be out and out fraud and highly illegal. Besides, the Veterans Administration has records coming out the wazoo and chances are you wouldn't get away with the deception for very long.

HOW TO GET CREDIT

Establishing credit is important to most disappearees, as it is for the rest of the population. At first blush it would appear that getting credit could pose quite a problem for the vanisher. And it is true that the person who takes a new identity will not be able to get immediate credit. While it will take time to build up a credit rating, it is not at all difficult.

The credit people look for two things before allowing credit: a steady job and evidence of having paid bills promptly in the past. Most disappearees need to find work immediately in order to survive. That takes care of the first requirement. Again, it is better if the job is regular and steady. Credit departments look askance at the writer or the door-to-door salesman, regardless of their income.

As to the second requirement, the heart of the problem is getting that first credit purchase. From then on, it's all downhill.

In any town of any size there are "jewelry stores" with their display windows filled with schlock and a snake-like character lurking in the doorway waiting to pounce on prospective customers. These places operate on the very small down payment plan. They figure that if they can get five dollars down on a $25 watch that they only paid five dollars for in the first place, any future payments are just so much gravy. They judge your credit worthiness by the clothes you wear and how clean you are, and even then their standards aren't very high. If you look decent and tell them you have a steady job, they will let you walk out with anything under a couple hundred bucks for a ten percent down payment. They know that a few people are going to rip them off, but on the other hand enough people will end up paying ten times what an item is worth on the "easy payment plan" to make it a very profitable business.

Buy a cheap bauble in one of these places, on the installment plan of course. Then make all the payments regularly. After you have the merchandise paid off you can move up to the kind of place that doesn't drag customers off the street by brute force. Small artsy-craftsy stores are an excellent choice. Again, the mark-up is high, even though the crafts people that make the stuff barely eek out a living. Many artists are willing to sell their work on the installment plan because it is important for them to move merchandise if they are ever going to get a good reputation.

With these two references you should be able to get a credit card from a local department store, like Macy's. With your job and your credit references they will be willing to extend you a nominal line of credit, usually about $300 to start. A couple of these cards, if worked properly, could lead you all the way to the big time: bank credit and major credit cards such as VISA or MasterCard. On the other hand, if you aren't careful to pay down your balances, they could lead you into serious debt problems, which may have been your reason for disappearing in the first place!

Don't worry if you aren't immediately accepted by the big credit card companies. Your recently cultivated credit record built up through nickle-and-dime retailers will be good enough to get you a car on the deferred payment plan. Being able to buy a car is the prime purpose for getting credit in the first place, because in this country having a car