On Sunday evening I received an e-mail from AT&T telling me that I had exceeded my data plan for the month. The e-mail was addressed: "Dear Charles Crews." Hmmm. There have been a considerable number of men in my life, but aside from my daddy, my brothers, and a couple of random cousins, none of them were named Crews. I immediately e-mailed my younger son, who manages our cell phone account and asked two pertinent questions: 1) Why TF does AT&T think my name is Charles; and 2) Don't we have unlimited data? He quickly responded: 1) I don't know; and 2) yes. He can be succinct when required.The more I read and re-read the e-mail, the more things became clear to me. The cell phone number in the subject of the e-mail was not mine. This didn't alarm me; I just determined that first thing Monday morning I would be on the phone to AT&T.
The first person I reached at AT&T was the kind of CSR who only knows how (or is only allowed) to read from a script. After being transferred a couple more times, I got to a young man who was a step above reading from a script, but whose pencil was just not very sharp. I had to explain several times that the e-mail on the phone number I gave him was mine, but the phone number was not. Even after about 15 minutes on the phone with him, I'm not sure they have my e-mail address listed correctly on my phone number.
When I finally got off the phone with him, after receiving his assurance that they would immediately call the other party and get the correct phone number on the account, I called the other phone number. I didn't, however, get Charles Crews. I got Cousin Charles's 12-year-old daughter. She didn't quite grasp what I was saying, but I just told her to tell her daddy to call AT&T, and got off the phone.
Last night, about 32 hours after the calls, I happened to notice there was a message on my landline answering machine. When I played the message back, lo and behold, it was Jan Crews. Really. She said her daughter hadn't understood my call, and would I please call her and explain again. I called her this afternoon and said, "Hi, Jan Crews. This is Jan Crews." It was fun. But I learned from her that AT&T still hadn't called her or her husband, 48 hours later.
But should I be alarmed? Is it a simple keying error on the part of the original CSR when my Cousin Crewses set up their account? Or is it a more egregious error. My e-mail address somehow migrated from my account (well, really, Tyler's account) over to Charles and Jan's account? I've had this e-mail address for three years. Could Charles have set up the account and not remembered his wife's address? Could he have misspoken? Or is it a matter of opening up my account without my authorization.
I'm not usually a Chicken Little. I don't suspect the sky of falling any minute. I'm really not concerned with the amount of information that's available about me, floating all over cyberspace. Now if AT&T takes away my unlimited data plan and replaces it with Cousin Charles's limited data plan, I'm going to have to have a serious talk with someone at AT&T.
But for now, I think I'm going to assume it was a keying error, and figure my social security number is still safe with AT&T.
At least I hope so.
Photo credit: Sven Grzebeta
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