So I'm not me

UP until this day I was a believer. I belived in electronical transference, in working coperatively through IM/chat/mail, in coding remotely through the use of internet; in being able to exist in a virtual world, where you didn't have to be physically present in order to be a part of something. However, this approach has it's dangers, as I noticed today.

I admit it, I'm some kind of mentally retracted moron that can remember ascii codes for ñ, > and < (and it's entity representation for HTML), but that is unable to retain the moronic four number PIN for his savings account. So, as one might imagine, I forgot the darned number for the third time and the card got blocked. Since it was far too late to do anything about it, I went to the Internet, and found out what I had to do. The answer was simple: "Go to any of our offices with your Citizenship Card (what the hell, Cédula de Ciudadanía) and the card and we will fix your ordeal in no time.
I effectively went to one of their offices, the lady who I spoke to made me fill a form, with the number of the account and my signature, and faxed it to the office my account was residenced in (which was about 1 hour away by any means of transportation). The fax had to be returned from this office, accepting the change and telling me the new PIN (or the old one, I don't even know). Fifteen minutes later, the fax was not yet there so I decided to leave and come back later.
About two hours later the fax came back: It said the signature didn't match the one they had in their files. To put it in simple terms: I was not me.
So tomorrow, I'll have to go directly to see if me, in the flesh, is really me.
Luckily (or unluckily) the thing is stored by physical means, which allows the physical me to receive the new code, no matter what (or so I hope). But what about electronical stuff?
What happens when we forget the password because SSH automatically introduced it for us in our key? May God help us then