Fraud can be an early morning felon

             The phone call came at 6:10. In the morning.

I know there are people who are awake and have begun their day by 6:00 a.m., but I am not one of them. I especially didn’t like hearing the voice that was on the other end of the receiver last Friday.

“This is the fraud department at Barclay’s Bank Mastercard. Is this Marcia O’Brien?” Oh, rats. Victimized? Again? And is it really the fraud department? I was waking up faster than I wanted. My red flags began flapping.

            “Yes, this is she.” I mumbled, trying to come to. It was one of those sleepless nights and I had hoped to snuggle in until an 8 o’clock wakeup.

            The fraud specialist on the other end of the phone was the real deal. My card had been compromised the night before for the paltry sum of $15.95. I don’t know what triggered the alert, but I was glad the bank was on top of it.

            What I hate about this annoying scene – which has happened to me a half dozen times – is having to redo the information everywhere the card is on file. I guess it’s a small price to pay for security. I’m an experienced victim.

            The first time I had to clean up after a credit theft was a little different. Decades ago, it actually involved the physical cards. I was seated at a New York City lunch counter, inhaling a sandwich, fending off the midday nausea of pregnancy. Because there was no room between the expanded me and the counter, I had no lap to hold my purse. I plunked it on the footrest between my feet – sort of a double-ankle vise.

Mid-sandwich, I felt something touch my leg and looked down to see a teenage boy reaching between those ankles and grabbing my purse. He ran out the door and headed up Madison Avenue. My instinct was to chase him, but he had a head start. I couldn’t run out of the restaurant because I owed for my lunch, plus how fast was I going to run after the kid in my bulbous condition? Fuggedaboudit. The restaurant owner called the police for me.

The two detectives (!) came to my office across the street that afternoon. I had lost my favorite purse, containing that month’s paycheck, my passport, monthly commuter train pass, makeup and wallet. The wallet contained my driver’s license, social security card, and 22 charge cards. Today’s Mastercard and Visa replace all those individual cards we used to carry like Sears, Bloomingdale’s, Shell Gasoline, etc.

Two days later, New York’s finest were back with my empty purse. It was found in a hotel restroom. The kid left my makeup bag and my wallet containing only my Turtle Club membership card. I had already called the 22 companies, the license bureau, my employer’s payroll office, and the passport bureau. American Airlines, my employer, paid the emergency replacement passport fee because I was headed to Toronto the following day on business.

That traumatic experience led to my carrying only the cards I might likely use on any given day. When Visa and Mastercard arrived, life became much simpler.

About 15 years ago, I made a rookie mistake. My best friend had driven us into Manhattan for a theater matinee. After the performance, I intended to pay for her parking. The city garages are so expensive that charge cards are necessary. I gave my American Express card to the attendant who took it to the window for processing while we chatted. I should have taken it myself.

Back home from the weekend whirlwind, I crashed, exhausted, hoping to sleep in. American Express had other plans. They called before 6:00 a.m. After verifying that I was me, the fraudmeister asked, “Have you purchased any international airline tickets or computers in the past two days?” Stunned, I told her I hadn’t. “We have eighty-nine hundred dollars in charges, including two tickets to Valparaiso, Chile and two to Madrid. Two computers with many accessories, and one piece of jewelry for $1200 dollars. Are any of these your purchases?” Nope.

That conversation was literally a wake-up call. Thankfully American Express took care of everything by not putting the charges through. It intrigues me that they know my buying habits so well. And they also knew I wasn’t in New Jersey, where the charges originated. The fraud agent said that all the purchases were made during one hour from the same Hoboken computer.

Beginning 20 years ago in Europe, sales people and waiters brought the machine to you – not the other way around. Your card never leaves your hand as mine had in that garage. As much technology upgrading as we have done in the U.S., most restaurants still take your card away to process.

Protecting that little plastic rectangle is always at the top of my paranoid list when I travel. The thought of losing it makes my blood run cold. Almost as chilling as having the phone ring at six in the morning. Again.

 

Curtain going up

 

 

Annie, the musical, is coming to Erie. We probably won’t be buying tickets this time around, but Annie holds a special place in our family’s memory. My two grown children probably don’t often think back to their first theater experience, but I’ll never forget it.

My son, Bart, was five years old on our first foray to Shea’s Buffalo theater. Alix, his big sister, was nine. We had purchased four front balcony tickets to make sure they could see well. The children were seated on either side of me. Separating them was always a good idea.

When the theater lights dimmed for the overture, Bart leaned over to ask if he could sit on my lap. Oh, no, really? I so wanted to enjoy this afternoon. But then I realized that he needed to be comfortable in the strange, new setting. “Okay, come on up,” I motioned.

Bart, my skinny little boy, all pointy elbows and knees, climbed into my lap. When the overture ended, the curtain rose on the girl orphans, singing and dancing across the stage. “Mom!” he turned toward me, all wide-eyed. “They’re real!”

“Yes they are,” I said.

“It’s not a big television set!” He was wowed.

“No. No it’s not,” I said. “Shh.”

As he pushed back a bit and nestled himself into my chest, Bart said “Oh, I think I’m going to like this.” And he did. Loved it actually. I have never forgotten what he said.

For days afterwards, both of my little jabberjaws talked a lot about what they had seen. That exciting and fun show was the beginning of a lifelong interest for both of them.

Over the next few years, we worked some theater into our vacations. We managed to see My One and Only in New York, the national road show company of “Evita” in Washington, and Phantom of the Opera” in Toronto,

It is easy for me to remember back to my first theater outing – when the bug bit me. It was soon after I graduated from high school. An acquaintance (a college man!) invited me to see “Showboat.” The music was so beautiful, and I’d never seen anything like the dancing, costumes, and sets. It was magical, transportive, truly a part of my early education. It was later that I learned about Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, the team who wrote the musical. And the beginning of an additional lifelong fascination with composers. I was lucky.

My late husband had never been to any kind of theater when we met. And yet, it was he who suggested that we attend the Olde Globe Shakespeare Festival in San Diego. During our first year of marriage, our budget for entertainment was divided between the San Diego Gulls hockey team and the Bard’s plays.

The woman who became my best friend for life is a native New Yorker – and a theater goer. When we were stewardess roommates together in New York, we had no bucks for theater tickets. But in the years that followed, it was from Ginger that I learned about the important Broadway singers, dancers, and even the directors whose shows would be terrific.

Ginger knows the Theater District inside and out: where the reasonable nearby restaurants are; where the nearest subway stop is; the closest church so she can attend a mass between a matinee and an evening show. I went to mass with her once at St. Malachy’s and was stunned at the quality of the singing voices around me. It took a few hymns to realize the parishioners were from the musical Broadway stage, also being faithful between Saturday performances.

Ginger has kept every PlayBill from every performance she has attended in the last 60-plus years, her seat ticket stapled inside each cover. The large cabinet containing the collection is stuffed, but it is a wonderful reference library when we begin discussing shows – like which play Julie Andrews was in after she starred in My Fair Lady. She has often taken me to the half price TKTS booth in Times Square. Those bargains help a lot with today’s Broadway seat prices equal to groceries for two weeks.

It was Ginger’s encouragement that drove us to want the theater experience for the children. Today, Alix takes her children to the theater – another generation bitten by the Broadway bug. And Bart still goes when he can. He went often during the years he lived in London and New York, including having theater tickets waiting for me when I visited him across the pond.

I don’t get to go much anymore, but the promise of a few hours of delight still has the allure: suspending reality, tickling your funny bone, putting a new song into your ear, and best of all, appreciating breathtaking talent.

When I’m in my theater seat, awaiting the curtain going up, my little brain is repeating “I think I’m going to like this.” The excitement has never faded.

 

Big Brother is Listening

 

 

Paranoia is not one of my problems.

I have never thought that “they” are out to get us. Cheat us. Control us. I hear a lot of political discussions about “they” and it’s always about the government and how they are using their records, their knowledge, to “keep us in place.” Puh-leez.

Through a long lifetime, I’ve realized that the government isn’t organized enough to do that. The right and left hand don’t always talk to each other. Tom O’Brien used to call the government the “Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight.” So, I don’t waste my time worrying about it.

But now I have a concern. Like many people we have a household assistant – Alexa. The only problem is when we mention Alix, my daughter. Alexa jumps in when she hears what she thinks is her name and whips into action. I usually reply, “Alexa, quiet.” And then I wonder, for the 57 th time, why I am talking to a machine that I didn’t invite to chat.

Eventually, I became aware that Alexa was listening all the time, that Big Tech has its ears open. One day we were in the kitchen talking about vegetables. Being seniors when we married ten years ago, there are still many things Dear Richard and I don’t know about each other. We were discussing eggplant, which is something neither of us crave on a regular basis. Or ever.

That night when I checked my computer, I had eggplant recipes in my email inbox. Are you kidding me? Alexa listened, and that little gossip passed our chat on to her cyber buddies. I’m surprised there weren’t vegetable seed catalogues in my inbox. However, Walmart did weigh in, listing the ingredients in the Eggplant Parmesan recipe, and how readily available they are in our local Superstore. Yikes!

About six weeks ago we unplugged Alexa. We didn’t banish her because of bad behavior. We had our cable and internet service upgraded to a wireless installation, hoping for improvement in both function and speed.

The service guy messed with the modem, recalibrating all its little thingies. He rebooted our TV, then left us to finish the work – the hooking up the printer, the desktop, two laptops, and Alexa. I just never got back to Alexa. The little wench is probably still crying in the corner. I’ll get to her as soon as I can remember how.

But now, even without Big Sister Alexa listening, we have another problem. It seems that “Big Brother” has taken over her duties. He moved into our house soon after our wireless upgrade. He never pays rent, he never takes a bath, and I guess he eats out. But he is listening. To everything.

Last month, Richard and I began discussions in the den about needing a new mattress. With work schedules, the holidays, and travel, we haven’t made it to a mattress store yet. But it’s not like we haven’t been invited. Following our first conversation, I woke up to a morning email from the Sleep Foundation. They wanted to educate me.

The next day I received email from the Sleep institute of America. They must have triggered the sleep disorder people who want to cure my nonexistent sleep apnea. Then came the targeted ads for CPAP devices to treat my phantom apnea, Fuggedaboudit.

All that was minor compared to the mattress hawkers. We haven’t made a purchase yet, but at least every other day we get personalized ads, infomercials, and videos for mattresses. You name it, we’ve heard from them. Sleep Number, Saatva (who?), Serta, Stearns & Foster, Dream Cloud, yada, yada, yada.

And now I’m left with more decisions than I ever knew I should consider. I naively thought we would walk into a mattress store, take our shoes off, and test drive a few pillow-tops. Now the mattress purveyors want me to consider gel content, memory foam, cooling, and innerspring wraps. Geesh.

The techies I have talked to say that our smart television is connected to the internet. The internet gives easy access to numerous streaming services in addition to being hooked up with our computers. Hulu, Netflix, Paramount and that pesky Peacock all have their ears on 24/7 and are passing around their gathered info? I dunno.

If they are eavesdropping, they must know that I struggle with my schedule. Someday soon, time management consultants will email me about organizing my day so I’m not still in my jammies at noon. Or, “We’ve noticed that you often make your bed after lunch rather than after breakfast. We’d like to help you with this scheduling problem.” Three Time Management Consultants will offer services. Then come the ads for free introductory planning classes. What’s next? I’ll bet it’s an ad for half-price pajamas.

 Now that would make me paranoid.

 

 

Christmas Kindness Has No Expiration Date

 

 

            It’s been 18 years since we sent trail mix to Iraq.

My son, Bart, was a Marine pilot. He flew the Cobra gunship, an attack helicopter that protected the Marines on the ground. A nasty machine. Having been gone for months, his squadron was deployed to Al Asad, Iraq during Christmas, 2005. His third deployment in three years.

While making family Christmas at home, I was missing him terribly – even accepted that his seat at the Christmas dinner table would be empty. I couldn’t imagine listening to “White Christmas” while living in that hostile desert. And I was having trouble with the constant worry and our inability to do anything about it.

One night watching CNN, the headline zipper running across the bottom of the screen read “Two-man helicopter down in Fallujah.” Both his dad and I stopped breathing. We knew Bart was in Iraq. We didn’t know exactly where he was at any one time. There was no more information. And there was no sleep as every possible scenario played out in our over-hyped imaginations.

When the morning brought no updates, Tom started digging through news sources. He finally learned the crash was an Army Blackhawk. Breathing a sigh of relief, I also immediately thought, if the news is OK for us, it’s got to be unbearable for two other families.

Finally, all of my anxiety bubbled up into action. I decided I wanted him and “his guys” to have something from home for Christmas. That whimsy led to thinking about the whole maintenance group that worked for Bart – 89 of them. What could we do that would bring them a smile?

First, I checked with the post office to determine the last date of shipping to the APO (Army Post Office). The APO then delivers, world-wide, directly to the military. It was the beginning of December as I learned we had less than a week to ship on-time.

Between buying and begging, and leaning on friends, we put together 89 packages. Whirley Industries of Warren donated their largest covered beverage mug with a snappy flag design. We packed the mugs with playing cards, candy canes, gum, and zip-locks filled with homemade trail mix. We all baked chocolate chip cookie bars, figuring that ordinary cookies would crumble. I can no longer remember the rest of the mugs contents, but they were full – and as it turned out – heavy.

Bart had forwarded the names of all the guys, so each 20-ounce mug was personally labelled.

Everyone baked the cookie bars from the same recipe, although Suzie and her friend Luann, both from Sugar Grove, delivered double batches of goodies. Together in my kitchen, four of us packaged the bars, trail mix and stuffed the big mugs. Actually, I never met Luann – she was Suzie’s good and generous friend.

I added three huge cans of popcorn and pretzels, one to each of the three v-e-r-r-r-y large boxes. Box #1, labeled to be opened first, contained a note and a Santa hat. I have no memory of how I got them into the post office. I probably blotted it out.

Around the end of January, I received a picture showing Captain O’Brien in camouflage and a Santa hat. Grinning. The guys all clustered around for a quick group shot. “Aw gee, Cap’n do we have to?” Yes, they did.

A few weeks later, all the baking ladies received a new American flag in the mail. Boxed flags were routinely flown over Iraq during missions to thank supportive friends back home. They were accompanied by certificates of explanation and thanks. My baking friends were stunned.

I was reminded of this story last week as a lady purchased a book at one of my signing events. When I asked if she wanted it inscribed, she said, “Yes, please. To Luann,” and she spelled it. Then she leaned in a bit and said, “You know, I still fly the flag that your son sent me, every day the weather is good.” She is proud of it.

I replied, “Luann? You’re Suzie’s friend Luann?” I couldn’t believe it. She is THAT Luann. Of the double cookie batches. From 18 years ago.

After this Christmas, I’m going to grab her for some lunch and catch up.

Luann is now 92. Still baking, working at church, still involved. The type of person that when a stranger asked her friend for help, she volunteered, “Count me in too.” The Marines should have recruited women much sooner.