Mail Drops

As suggested above, one of the first things you should consider when contemplating disappearing is getting a confidential mailing address. You will likely want to get information about identity changing, like this book, that you don't want other people to know about. You'll also need the address for getting fake ID. And you may want to send some assets from your former life ahead of you into your new life. There are several ways to get such an address.

The first, and perhaps best way, is to rent an address. People and businesses all over the globe will sell you the use of their address for a nominal fee. These services are known as mail drops. It works like this: for a fee, someone will allow you to use their address for sending and receiving mail. Along with this basic service, mail drops provide a variety of extras. You can arrange to have them forward the mail you receive, or open certain mail on your instructions, or destroy mail, etc. They will also re-mail materials according to your instructions. For more information about how mail drops work and addresses and fees of mail drops, see the Directory of Mail Drops in the U.S. and Canada, listed in the reference chapter.

If your needs involve more than the services of a typical mail drop you may want to check on the huge number of enterprises in any large city that rent desk space, telephone service, secretarial service, etc. These firms cater to salesmen, construction workers, photographers, and other people with one-man businesses who need to have the appearance of a full-time office and staff. You can use their address as your business or residence address and hire them to handle phone calls and mail according to your instructions. Such services are especially handy when combined with mail drops for fabricating references on employment applications. More on this subject in the chapter on Coping.

Cars

It is amazing the number of people who take their cars with them when they disappear. When they do, it makes the Missing Persons Bureau's job so very, very easy. All they have to do is wait until the current license or registration expires, then get their information from the renewal or switch. Whether you sell it, swap it or ditch it, your car will be a very valuable and readily discovered clue to your new location and identity.

I interviewed one man who had taken off with his car but had no intention of allowing it to lead to his discovery. The car was a brand new, expensive model that had become the bone of contention between him and his wife. He grew to detest the car almost as much as he loathed her. When he left, he took the car with him halfway across the country.

He then located an auto wrecking yard on the outskirts of a small Midwestern metropolitan area where the employees stripped the car of any re-sellable items that couldn't be directly identified as having come from this specific car. He had all the legal papers to prove that he was at least co-owner of the car, so the owner of the yard had no objection to carrying out the man's request. The man then donated the parts to the yard in exchange for them not making an issue out of the paperwork that is supposed to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles in such cases. He also got a much more gratifying form of compensation than money: they let him watch as they "baled" the car, picking it up with a large, four-pronged claw, then dropping it into a machine that folded it and squeezed it into an unrecognizable cube of scrap metal.

Most disappearees who take their cars with them, however, sell them to work up a little extra cash. This inevitably leaves a paper trail that could in turn lead to their discovery and/or apprehension. It is best to forget the car and use public transportation to effect your escape.

Date: 2015-01-11; view: 841