You've undoubtedly been warned about how easy it is to have your identity stolen online over. And over. And over again. But we just never learn. Clearly, it's going to take a little something more to hit the message home. Something like, oh, stealing an actual person's identity, terrifying him, and creating what might be the creepiest ad in modern memory.
Enter Belgium.
Created by a Belgian bank in collaboration with an "award-winning ad agency," the four-minute PSA above is almost guaranteed to scare you straight out of any unsafe online practices. It all started when the poor schmuck in question, Tom Degroote, fell for a planted phishing email, handing out all sorts of crucial information. He followed that up by gladly accepting the Facebook friendship of some dude he'd never met (and who just so happened to want to make a public example out of him), so Degroote is, admittedly, not totally faultless.
Still, the PSA's "identity thief" does seem take some—er, extreme measures to get the point across, going so far as to physically take on Degroote's identity (with facial prosthetics that seem more Leatherface than Mrs. Doubtfire, given the circumstances). And of course, no punking is complete without a final confrontation. Our dopllegängered friend, however, seems less than amused.
So boys and girls, be careful out there. And never, ever move to Belgium. [Daily Finance]