So, I’m on the phone with my mom this morning and that irritating you’ve got another call beep starts up.
I tell mom I’ve got another call, she says goodbye.
I answer the call. She asks if I know a person by the name of me before I was married. Yeah, that’s me, but I haven’t used that name in twenty years. She’s calling on a deliquent Discover card bill, for an account that was started back in 1989.
And this person lives in Richmond Virginia. No, not me.
She rattles off a social security number. Nope, not mine. She rattles off another one, with two different digits. That’s mine. She asks me if I know anybody by these names. Nope. She gives me a phone number of the person she’s looking for. I don’t know that number, I have no desire to have that number, because I sure as hell ain’t calling it. I don’t know those people from Adam.
I should have asked her how the name was spelled. I bet it was “Diane”. Mine is “Dianne”.
How’d you get my number? I ask. She called my mother in law, which would mean she has my married name as well as my maiden name. And my mother in law gave her this phone number without having thought it out.
So, I think she was satisfied that the person she was looking for wasn’t me. But after talking to my mom, my mother-in-law and reflecting on this whole thing, I decide to call back the number who called me. Just to make sure it wasn’t some sort of scam.
Of course, it didn’t show on caller ID because it was a call waiting call. I *69 and got the number. I call it. They want my account number. Don’t have one. I kept pushing 0 on the number pad. Finally got through to a rep. Told her my story.
She asks for my social security number. I give it to her. Nope, nothing on file. Phone number? Nope, don’t have anything on file. Mother-in-law’s phone number? Nope, nothing for that either.
I’m safe.
What I think happened is someone quit paying on a credit card they’d had since 1989. Someone with the same name as me, before I was married. Who knows why, maybe they died. It certainly hasn’t been in collection for sixteen years (can you imagine the interest?). This representative plays Nancy Drew and looks at SS records and find a number similar to the one she’s got for the person she’s looking for and the name is the same as the one they’re looking for. So she tries to find a number for me and can’t, so she finds one for my mother-in-law.
Of course, even though I was reassured I was safe, I’ll still be a little nervous about this. Especially since my married identity was stolen a few years ago (with no long lasting consequences because I was right on top of it, but still….).
In a dull life, there’s never a dull moment.
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