During tonight's shift a potential guest showed me the absolute worst fake ID I have ever seen. It's as though he understood the concept of ID but had never seen a real one for comparison. This thing was so bad I'm not sure where to begin.
For starters, the hotel requires valid government issued-photo ID. In fact, it's law here, not just policy. (quick side story: yesterday I had someone with a very thick foreign accent try to check in. I told him ID was required, he said "No, it's ok, I'm a citizen now" Turns out he also didn't have a credit card, he didn't have enough cash to pay for a cab let alone a room, and I laughed him off the property.)
Tonight's walking cautionary tale about the importance of birth-control decided to start with what seemed to be a legitimate birth certificate as the basis for his fraudulent bonafides. Now, in Canada, or for that matter everywhere as far as I know, a birth certificate is not photo ID. For the purposes of verifying identity, it's almost completely useless. But Dumbass in question decided to mock-up the reverse side as generic picture ID.
Let me mention at this point that he looked about old enough to drink, (bear in mind, drinking age here is 19.) I suspect the birth certificate he used belonged to his father, for reasons I'll get to shortly, but either way, it placed his age at nearly 50, not 20.
OK, let's move on to the picture:
Some people will borrow or steal the ID of someone else, ideally someone who looks at least vaguely alike, often an older sibling or cousin. That's one way to go. The ID itself is perfectly real and valid, it's just doesn't happen to be the bearer's ID.
The other option is to create a fake ID. Generally speaking, it should be as near to possible as your real ID, but with the birthdate changed. The other details should be real, or at least remembered, and you absolutely want the picture to be an actual picture of you.
This guy tonight decided to go another way.
First of all, the picture was black & white.
Also, it clearly wasn't printed on the card, but had been cut out, unevenly, and glued to the back of the birth certificate.
It looked an awful lot like a highschool yearbook photo from the mid-70s, and I suspect it was just that. It did not, however, look like the guy holding it.
There was some resemblance, maybe. My best guess is that this guy took his father's birth certificate, and then decided to use a picture of his father at his age. I dunno, there are just some many things wrong with this I can't fathom anything else.
Next, the details; name, birthdate, address, etc, were hand written. With blue ink. And lousy penmanship.
Finally, while I know there have been budget shortfalls, and the govt is making cuts where they can, I don't know of any govt office that has taken to laminating things with scotch tape.
There is absolutely nothing more I can say to illustrate how ridiculous it was.
For starters, the hotel requires valid government issued-photo ID. In fact, it's law here, not just policy. (quick side story: yesterday I had someone with a very thick foreign accent try to check in. I told him ID was required, he said "No, it's ok, I'm a citizen now" Turns out he also didn't have a credit card, he didn't have enough cash to pay for a cab let alone a room, and I laughed him off the property.)
Tonight's walking cautionary tale about the importance of birth-control decided to start with what seemed to be a legitimate birth certificate as the basis for his fraudulent bonafides. Now, in Canada, or for that matter everywhere as far as I know, a birth certificate is not photo ID. For the purposes of verifying identity, it's almost completely useless. But Dumbass in question decided to mock-up the reverse side as generic picture ID.
Let me mention at this point that he looked about old enough to drink, (bear in mind, drinking age here is 19.) I suspect the birth certificate he used belonged to his father, for reasons I'll get to shortly, but either way, it placed his age at nearly 50, not 20.

OK, let's move on to the picture:
Some people will borrow or steal the ID of someone else, ideally someone who looks at least vaguely alike, often an older sibling or cousin. That's one way to go. The ID itself is perfectly real and valid, it's just doesn't happen to be the bearer's ID.
The other option is to create a fake ID. Generally speaking, it should be as near to possible as your real ID, but with the birthdate changed. The other details should be real, or at least remembered, and you absolutely want the picture to be an actual picture of you.
This guy tonight decided to go another way.
First of all, the picture was black & white.
Also, it clearly wasn't printed on the card, but had been cut out, unevenly, and glued to the back of the birth certificate.
It looked an awful lot like a highschool yearbook photo from the mid-70s, and I suspect it was just that. It did not, however, look like the guy holding it.
There was some resemblance, maybe. My best guess is that this guy took his father's birth certificate, and then decided to use a picture of his father at his age. I dunno, there are just some many things wrong with this I can't fathom anything else.
Next, the details; name, birthdate, address, etc, were hand written. With blue ink. And lousy penmanship.
Finally, while I know there have been budget shortfalls, and the govt is making cuts where they can, I don't know of any govt office that has taken to laminating things with scotch tape.
There is absolutely nothing more I can say to illustrate how ridiculous it was.
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