TheBanyanTree: Up close and impersonal

[Tobie Shapiro]

May 10, 2000000006


Dear Grown-Ups,

		Feyna and I have a meeting every morning.  We help 
her function.  Sometimes we go through the list of things she's 
supposed to do, and check them off.  Sometimes, we get on the phone 
and look for employment.  Sometimes, we do other things.  Today, we 
went through her mail.

	There are Wells Fargo Bank statements all the way back to 
when she first got her account.  And in one of them, there was an 
erroneous charge of $9.95, which is more than she makes in a month. 
Yes, someone used her ATM card number at an Oakland Chevron station 
on March 13, 2006.  We know Feyna didn't do this transaction, because 
Feyna doesn't buy gas.  But also, she was in Monterey on the 13th of 
March.  We called the bank, and Feyna got to get up close and 
impersonal to a phone transaction with an anonymous banker who tried 
to sell her identity theft coverage.  Essentially, you have to do the 
same things you do if anyone should use your cards or accounts.  It's 
up to you to look for discrepancies, find them and report it, but in 
addition, the bank offers charging you $12.95 a month for the 
service.  She gave me a look.  I gave her a look back and shook my 
head.  She told the nice banker, who had read a monologue about the 
service without inhaling once, that she wasn't interested, and the 
nice banker read another monologue, probably monologue #2 recited 
when someone sounds like he or she is not about to bite.  Feyna gave 
me a wild, frantic look and mouthed, "What do I do?!"  I told her, 
sotto voce, that she should tell the nice banker, "Thank you, but I'm 
really not interested."  and just keep telling her that until she 
reads the monologue about thank you and good bye.  After a couple 
rounds, it worked.

	My girl is growing up.

	Love,

	Tobie
-- 




Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net