photo by Bruce-Michael Gelbert
Martha Pitkin
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On September 8, at the Cherry Grove Fire House, as part of Denise Harbin and Laura Dunlop’s Senior Forum seminar series, Grovite Martha Pitkin, a retired Texas attorney and Arts Project of Cherry Grove President-elect, informatively addressed the topic of identity theft or fraud by using, as an example, an incident of it that she and her partner Ellen are grappling with, which Martha called “a very time-consuming, energy draining process” that someone with a fulltime job would be hard put to undertake. Stealing someone’s identity, she said, can involve matters as diverse as thieves copying your credit card, obtaining your medical records, applying for unemployment in your name, or buying a gun, and ultimately ruining your credit rating.
Ellen became aware of the theft when someone purchased five Smart Phones, charged them to her Verizon account, and had them shipped to an unfamiliar address in Brooklyn. Then credit cards, for which she had not applied, began to show up. She had to file a police report, which then “sends up a red flag when someone applies for credit in your name,” and a Federal Trade Commission report. She also had to deal with authorities, who dismissed the occurrence as “small-time white collar crime” and labeled it “the Nigerian scheme,” although the thieves had convinced the U.S. Post Office to hold their mail and forward it to the Brooklyn address and had obtained, on line, Ellen’s credit report, which contained her Social Security number, birth date, and home address.
Martha and Ellen were forced to get a private mailbox, in order to secure their mail, and to change their passwords and home telephone number. They then found that the thief had tried to turn the table on them, claiming that it was her own identity that had been stolen! Trying to address the fraud turned, Martha said, into “a wrestling match with the bank.” The women suspect that it may have been an inside job, related to Ellen’s workplace.
Martha suggested putting a freeze on your credit report to protect yourself, one which you are supposed to be able to lift temporarily, when you genuinely want to use it. She also urged trying not to be obliged to give the last four digits of your Social Security number and your mother’s maiden name over the phone, to identify yourself, when asked, in an effort to safeguard against this increasingly widespread fraud.