Stolen identities.

Having sent an email to our landlady on Tuesday suggesting we should meet on Thursday or Friday to pay the rent (We pay her several months in advance as we don't have a bank account here. This suits her as well as us. Are we part of the black economy?), Wednesday seemed a good day to go the hairdressers. It's a lot cheaper here than at my hairdressers in the UK. 

So there I was, waiting for the colour to "take" on my roots, when my phone rang. It was Phil to tell me that the landlady had turned up. He finds it hard to understand her South American accent so he prefers me to deal with her. He had fobbed her off with a promise that I would return within the hour, so would I please get a move on?! Typical! You plan things quite carefully and someone comes along and messes it up. As it was I got home in record time and was able to phone her and arrange for her to pop in almost immediately. 

Included in the rent for our flat is a parking place in the garage area in the basement. Now, we never use this and have tried several times to rent it out, all to no avail. Our landlady told us that she had discovered on a recent visit that someone was using the place!! The cheek! I can understand how it has happened. Someone has noticed that it is never used and decided to take advantage. The landlady had challenged him and pointed out that it was not his spot. He has a parking place but ours is more convenient. OK. Having sorted him out she went on her way. On her next visit she found he was in the spot next to ours, also attached to one of the flats owned by our landlady. So she admonished him once again, yesterday he was back in ours!!! It is becoming urgent that we sort this as our son and his little family are turning up with a hire car on Saturday, expecting to have a parking place. The offending vehicle has been plastered with notices, giving him my phone number and telling him which flat we have. We will be happy to rent our spot out to him, just not on Saturday of this week. So I await his phone call! Or perhaps a knock on the door! 

Our landlady tried to report the matter to the police. Once they discovered that the offence is taking place on private property they lost interest and said they could do nothing. She should make a "denuncia", in other words take him to court, a matter that could take months. How very infuriating. 

In the meantime, I have twice now had one of the banks on the phone to me asking if they could speak to a certain Señor Morrano, or some such name. The first time I was in the supermarket and just told them briefly it was a wrong number. End of conversation. The second call occurred while I was at home and the conversation went like this: 

Bank: Can I speak to Mr Morrano please? 
Me: I am sorry there is no Mr Morrano on this number. You have a wrong number. 
Bank: Oh, can you give him a message? 
Me: No, I don't know Mr Morrano. 
Bank: Can you give me his number? 
Me: No, I don't know Mr Morrano. 
Bank: Oh, you don't know him? 
Me: No. 
Bank: So this is not his number? 
Me: No. 
Bank: Oh, we'll make a note of that. Sorry to have bothered you. 

Clearly not a very bright bank employee. Which part of the conversation did she not understand? I think I can work out a possible scenario. Phil and I have had Spanish mobile phone numbers cancelled in the past if we have failed to use the phone for more than a certain length of time. We have then had to buy a new SIM card and get a new phone number. I can only assume that I was given the number of someone whose phone was also "caducado" for lack of use. Unfortunately that person's bank thinks he still has that number. I wonder if the gangsters and mobsters in films who buy cheap throwaway "burner" phones also receive random phone calls from people expecting to speak to the former holder of that phone number. You never see that happen in the films. It could be an idea for a comedy film though. 

Incidentally, we try to avoid the problem by switching on our Spanish mobiles every few weeks when we are in England and sending each other messages. It seems to trick the networks into thinking we are really using the phones. 

In this modern age of identity theft, does the "borrowing" of our parking spot and the passing around of phone numbers count as a form of taking over someone else's identity?