Is This the Party to Whom I Think I Am Speaking?

As I read the letter addressed to my husband from the Pennsylvania funeral home, my first thoughts were of Mark Twain’s cable, from London to the press in the United States after his obituary was mistakenly published. The cable read: “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

The case of mistaken identity began within a few days after our move to Atlanta two years ago. In fact, they began as soon as we had a listed telephone number. I was not working at the time and was thus home to answer every phone call.

“Mrs. Walker?” she began sweetly.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Is your husband’s name Simon E. Walker?”

“Yes.”

“Is his social security number 123-4516-0980?”

“No.”

“Is his birth date May 17, 1944?”

“No.”

“Have you ever or your husband ever . . .”

“Now just wait a minute,” I finally interjected. “What is this about?” An imperceptible pause followed and I imagined the person on the other end was deciding in an instant whether she should divulge the reasons for her call or not. Over time, and many calls later, I found that sometimes the callers would divulge, and sometimes they wouldn’t.

If the person did spill the beans to me, it went something like this: “I’m with the such and such credit collection agency and have been engaged to track down Simon E. Walker from Atlanta, Georgia, in order to make arrangements for the payment of several outstanding debts.”

“But, I have already told you that the social security number and birth date you have on record do not belong to my husband.”

“Is your name Pam?”

“No, it is not.” Another pause, usually longer than the first.

“How long have you lived in Atlanta?”

“Not that it’s any of your business since you obviously have the wrong person but about two weeks.”

“Two weeks?” she asked with incredulity dripping from her tone.

“Yes, two weeks.”

“Perhaps your husband is not the man we seek.”

“No, my husband is definitely not the man you seek.”

All in all, I think I spoke to fifteen different members of various credit collection agencies trying to track down the indigent Simon E. Walker of Atlanta, Georgia, who owed something to what seemed like just about everyone in the United States. Six months after we moved to Atlanta, Mr. Sixteenth caller rang our phone. We began down the now ritualistic inquiry path but this time I asked, “Mr. Sixteenth Caller, you sound like an intelligent person. You already know from my answers that you have the wrong Simon E. Walker. Is there any way you can get word to the person who has published our phone number to your company as a possible lead, to communicate that they’re barking up the wrong tree?” Mr. Sixteenth Caller agreed that he might be able to accomplish this task and indeed he did. We haven’t received another call since.

Last May, however, we began receiving a different kind of phone call. This time it was an electronic voice. It was always the same voice and the same message. Sometimes one of us would pick up the phone and hear it, other times it would be on our message machine. This time, the call came every single day including Sunday. “Hello!” the perky voice began, “This is Heather Kelly and I want to hear from you. This is not a sales solicitation so please call 1-888-123-4567 Monday through Friday.” When it became obvious that perky Heather Kelly’s voice was going to harass us until doomsday, I got to work doing some research on the internet. Turns out Heather Kelly is a front for a collection agency. From my research, her voice is harassing hundreds of people around the country who are delinquent on their Sprint bills. Only problem is that none of the people she is harassing have ever done business with Sprint except maybe the unfortunate “other” Simon E. Walker in Atlanta, Georgia. Because we are members of the “No-call List,” I used the system to report the problem. Within ten days, Heather stopped calling and so far we have been free from credit agency calls of any kind.

The final mix-up came to light a few months ago. A letter addressed to my husband arrived from a company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. When Simon opened the envelope and read the letter he turned to me and asked, “Did you know you were dead?” I looked at the letter and enclosed pamphlet from the funeral home that sent the mailing. Simon was given six options for his dearly departed wife’s headstone—four of them were double headstones with engravings like “Together Forever,” and “On Earth and Now in Heaven.” All I can think is that poor Pam, the wife of the man born in 1944 with social security number 123-4516-0980 is dead. May she rest in peace.

copyright DJ Anderson, 2007