The perils of living one's life solely with plastic

I received a call from my credit card company last week informing me that my card had been used in Brazil, and I needed to verify a 36-cent charge at a fast food outlet in Rio.

I have never been to Rio. It is on my list behind Rome, Australia, and Christmas Island, so I was pretty sure it wasn’t me. My wife went shopping in Spokane that morning, but she hadn’t had time to get to Rio, so I ruled her out too.

As neither of us had made the purchase, the agent for the credit card company said that they should cancel the card and issue me a new one. I told her that I wasn’t concerned about the 36 c...