Bashing help desks and tech support sometimes feels too easy.

With that in mind, I’ll try something different. I want to offer kudos to the tech support call center at Digimarc Corp., for helping the U.S. Secret Service nab a thief.

Apparently Timothy Scott Short, 33, allegedly stole a Digimarc printer on Oct. 5 from a contractor that prints driver’s licenses for the state of Missouri. When Short, who has also been investigated in the past for unrelated identity theft charges, couldn’t get the printer to work, he called Digimarc’s tech support line two days later. He said he wanted to buy driver software for a printer.

Digimarc isn’t commenting on how the Secret Service ended up listening to a recording of the call Short made to the call center, but it’s pretty obvious that the company did a good job of identifying this apparently clueless alleged thief and helping to facilitate his arrest.