I’m in a rut again. I can’t get motivated to accomplish anything. And I’ve got so much I need to do. A million things. I hate this. This evening I went on a really really long walk across Alton. And I remembered this really idiotic, crazy, retarded, incredibly stupid phreaking adventure I had when I was 19. Well it was more along the lines of fraud or felonies than phreaking. Anyway, I was living in East Alton, working at 7-Elven and living with my parents. I’d been collecting credit card numbers from customers at work and I had quite a collection of them, along with their names and addresses. I even had the mayor of East Alton’s credit card number which I attempted to order a laptop on later that year. But that’s not the stupid part.

While living in Los Angeles a few months earlier, I’d tried to wire myself money through Western Union with some stolen credit cards. I tried it several times and it never worked. I finally found out that the reason was because Western Union needed to call me at the phone number that was on file with the credit card company to verify I was really the card holder. The obvious solution (other than giving up on the idea) was to call up the credit card company and change the card holder’s phone number to a pay phone I could stand at. But I didn’t do that. Instead I ordered call forwarding for these peoples’ phone lines so that I could go to their house, beige box their lines and forward their phone calls to a pay phone that I could answer.

Two of the credit card numbers I had belonged to people in Edwardsville, Illinois. So I picked them as my victims and ordered call forwarding for their lines. Then I asked my parents if I could borrow their truck for the night because my manager needed me to work in the Edwardsville store which was 25 miles away. (The Edwardsville 7-Eleven wasn’t even affiliated with the 2 7-Elevens in town that I worked at.) So around 1:30 in the morning, I start driving to Edwardsville with a map, a homemade beige box, the number of a local pay phone and all kinds of tools. I found the neighborhood and parked the truck several blocks away, thinking if I had to run away quickly I wouldn’t want them to see what kind of vehicle I got into.

The neighborhood was really nice and I can’t believe nobody happened to notice a scruffy-looking, big-haired stranger walking down the road with his jacket bulging full of phreaking supplies. If a cop would have passed me I’m sure he would have questioned me or at least parked somewhere and watched me. My mission was a complete failure. I didn’t get any lines forwarded. The first house had lights all around it and I didn’t feel comfortable walking up to it. The second house had their TNI box way up high where I couldn’t reach it, even when I stood on their deck. It was so stupid and insane, walking around on some family’s deck and snooping around their house at 2:30 in the morning. Their house was on the lake so I walked to the lake and just sat in the grass for probably an hour before getting bored and going home. I’m amazed that I didn’t get caught that night. Or at least chased. I think I gave up on the Western Union idea after that. About a month later is when my girlfriend and I looted 7-Eleven and fled town.