I just realized yesterday that my wallet has disappeared, with all my credit cards, Polish ID card, and driver's license inside. Most likely somebody stole it. No strange transactions have been observed on my credit card accounts yet, but these are generally not much of a concern, thanks to credit card insurance. What is more troubling, is that perhaps some other woman is currently using my stolen ID and the driver's license doing nasty things on my account.

Apparently there is little one can do in Poland (EU?) in order to invalidate a stolen ID card. While there is an inter-bank Polish-wide database of stolen ID cards, it is being used only by banks, so it can only prevent other people from applying for small loans (for bigger loans, one would need more documents). But there are so many other things one could do, such as renting a car (and then committing a crime with it), signing up a deal with a mobile carrier (and then committing a cyber crime using this phone, or just making a really huge bill), or perhaps buying an SSL cert...

With apparently no better option left, I decided to write this blog post -- hopefully somebody will find it, e.g. before issuing a Class 2 SSL cert to the fake Joanna Rutkowska.

Here are the numbers of my lost/stolen documents:

• AFS739530
• **********5058

Luckily I have had my ID details written down somewhere, and the driver's license number I extracted from my Hertz profile.

A scene at a police department in Warsaw:

• Hi, I would like to report my wallet being lost or stolen...
• Madam, was your wallet stolen, or have you lost it?
• Officer, how could I possibly know this...? If I lost it, do you really think I would remember the very moment of losing it?
• Madam, you must be sure whether it was a crime or not!
• ...
  

A scene on the hotline, calling my mobile provider (note that I decided to use the word stolen this time):

• Hi, my documents have been stolen -- I would like that you indicate my ID card as invalid in your system (that you hopefully share with other telcom operators)..
  
• You should report such an incident to the police, Madam...
• Right, but I guess that neither you, nor any other mobile provides in Poland will consult a Police database before signing up a contract with a strange person who might be using my stolen documents, correct?
• Oh, but we will not sign a contract with a strange person who uses your documents! Only with you!
• And how would you know it was not me, if that person was similarly aged and looking, and was using my stolen ID and driver's license?
• ...