Is it Theft if Someone Gave It to You?

I came home from Fort Lauderdale to find my mailbox stuffed with envelopes from Charles Schwab Bank. Panic was starting to set in even before I got the envelopes in the house. I started opening the envelopes and discovered debit cards, account verification letters, and notices of returned items.

The first thing I did was call Schwab Bank to let them know I had not opened any of these accounts, nor did I currently have any accounts with them. They said they'd pass the information on to their Fraud Department. I think they should have passed me through to the fraud department but I don't write their policy. The next thing I did was phone the police. The number three thing on my list was to call Experian and place a hold on my credit file. Next step was to call the folks at IDShield.

The following day I got a checkbook from Schwab Bank and a few more account verification letters and another notice of returned items. Once again, I thought I'd let the good folks at Schwab know. They still didn't seem particularly concerned.

Mark helped me open and organize everything. When all the mail had been opened, I had 30 debit cards all issued by Charles Schwab Bank. In addition to these debit cards I had four welcome packets, account verification letters for 32 accounts, one checkbook, and six notifications of returned items.

The account verification letters showed the email address used to open the accounts. (Not surprisingly, it wasn't mine.) While Schwab wouldn't tell me much of anything, they did confirm with IDShield that my name, address and social security number had been used to open the accounts.

I'm still not understanding why someone would open a bunch of accounts and order debit cards for them when there was no money in those accounts. Although someone must have put some money in one of those accounts because I received a box of checks and the verification letters indicated that checks would only be issued after the account had been funded. Yet all of the attempts to transfer money to PayPal failed. (At least as far as I know and if some were successful, it might have been done in my name, but it was done without any of my money.) Perhaps I'm just not devious enough to figure this out.

My best guess is that this is a direct result of the Equifax breach. We found out about it while we were in Italy so there wasn't a great deal I could do about it at the time. And then when I learned that the IRS had contracted with Equifax to keep their data safe, I assumed that we were all doomed and I bought IDShield while we were still in Florida, before I knew what was waiting for me in my mailbox at home. (Even though they are treating this like a pre-existing condition, they have been very helpful in guiding me through the reports that I need to get and the precautions I need to take to ensure that nothing comes of it.)

But the other thing I don't understand is why bells and whistles were not going off over at Schwab Bank. Perhaps I'm naive but I can't imagine that most people open 30 accounts. I can imagine scenarios where someone might need four or five, but I just can't imagine that someone opening 30 accounts doesn't set off an alarm somewhere. And just this morning I got the answer to that. It did set off a stink alarm. I was contacted by the Fraud Department at Schwab and we reviewed the scenario - apparently the 30 accounts got their attention but not before the cards and checks had been mailed. They confirmed with me that the identity thief has my name, address, phone number, and social security number - but NOT my mother's maiden name. (And this is why I will not play that silly game on Facebook where you list your parents and grandparents surnames!)

He was also able to tell me the name associated with the PayPal account that was supposed to be the recipient of the failed transfers. I think he was surprised when I recognized the name. I know I was surprised.

Bottom line. Whoever did this has stolen my time and my peace of my mind, but so far no money. Watching closely.

Size Matters

We were in Fort Lauderdale for a conference - the National Association of FHA Consultants. We hadn't rented a car so on the evenings that dinner wasn't provided, we needed to go somewhere within walking distance.

It was Florida. Near the coast. Fresh seafood is my first choice. We went to a place that billed itself as a seafood restaurant (it was really a sports bar). The fish selections included tilapia, salmon, and fried shrimp. I'm sorry, those don't actually count as seafood as far as I'm concerned. I opted for a salad with a bit of crab. (And it wasn't even real crab, but I'm okay with surimi.)

The next night we went to an Argentinian Steak House. It was lovely. Even though we had a refrigerator in the room, we didn't want to take back any food. So we both opted for what we thought would be the smallest option - filet. We made our salad and side dish selections and ordered a glass of wine.

The side salads arrived. Each would have fed a family of four. We nibbled at them because who wants to fill up on salad when filet mignon is on the way?

We should have been suspicious when no sizes were listed on the menu. In my experience filets are usually 6 oz. or 8 oz. Small when compared to ribeyes, T-bones, or strip steaks. Imagine my surprise when my plate arrived at the table with three filets on it. I was confused. If they had put Mark's filet on the same plate as mine, who was that third one for? I was still pondering that when another plate showed up for Mark with another three filets on it. Oh my!

Then the side dishes turned up. Enough mashed potato for a small army and sweet potato fries. Way more food than we could eat. The food was fabulous! I wish I could have eaten more of it but it was just so much. It turns out that all of their servings are a pound of meat. I wish we'd known that before we ordered. We could have shared everything and still had food left over.

I will be asking about serving sizes in the future. Live and learn.

Can We Add to Your Stress Today?

We like to go to the airport early to cut down on stress. We'd rather have our boarding passes and be through security way ahead of time. It doesn't matter if it's international or domestic - that's what we do.

What we don't do is pay extra to choose our seats. A seat is included in the price. When you're flying coach, none of them are particularly comfortable and we're never in such a big hurry that we absolutely must be the first people off the plane. I don't care which seats we have although we do like to sit together.

On our flight to Fort Lauderdale, we were a bit surprised that our boarding passes did not include seat assignments. Maybe it was because we were two hours early for a flight where we weren't even checking luggage. But we didn't notice the lack of a seat assignment until we arrived at the gate. Once we realized we had no seat assignments, Mark went to the desk to get it fixed. We were on American, by the way.

Mark returned to where I was sitting. "She says she's working on it." Who knew it was such a time consuming task?

"I don't like it when I don't have a seat assignment. The last time that happened half the plane was boarded before they gave me a seat. I don't like it at all", I said

About that time a woman seated near me weighed in on the topic. "It just adds to your stress level."

I agreed. "It does." She asked how long ago we'd booked the flight. "Weeks, maybe as much as a month."

"Hmmmm" she said.  "Who did you book it through?"

"American."

"Hmmmm" she said again. We shared a few air travel horror stories and she told us she was part of the crew on our flight and offered to check with the desk for us.

When she came back, she told me that she'd advised the desk to "take good care of Mr. & Mrs. Elliott."

We chit-chatted some more until it was time for her to board. We were still waiting for seat assignments. Boarding was starting so I went to the desk to check on it and was told that she was working on it and to just listen for our name.

Our name was eventually called. Our seats were opposite each other but it was fine because we each had an aisle seat. Our new friend was surprised that we didn't have adjacent seats, but we reassured her that across the aisle was absolutely fine. And with that, she put us on the list for free food and drinks because they'd "inconvenienced" us.

I wish I got free food and beverages every time someone inconvenienced me. I'd probably be more overweight than I am already. Not that the food was that great, but by that time I was getting hungry. And it was free.

A Thousand Dollars???

While we were away there were several times when I was convinced that Mark wasn't hearing properly. Anytime I'd ever mentioned that he needed to get his hearing checked he went on the defensive. I wasn't accusing him of not listening. I was concerned that he wasn't hearing. Big difference.

There had been a couple of things that he didn't hear waiters say. I heard those things and assumed he had. It was only when his order wasn't "as expected" that I realized that he hadn't actually heard what the waiter said, even though he'd indicated approval.

But what finally made him realize he wasn't hearing things properly was the incident with the last Italian cab driver. Remember I mentioned yesterday that the cab ride from the hotel to the airport was 40 Euro? Mark paid this to the hotel and was given a voucher to give to the cab driver.

After the driver unloaded our bags he was waiting to be paid. He said it was 40 Euro. Mark didn't hear what he said so I said, "You need to pay him." And he said, "I paid the hotel." Then the cab driver said "I need the voucher."

Mark's eyes got wide as he exclaimed "What??? A thousand dollars?"

"No. The voucher. He needs the voucher."

Once Mark got over the shock of being asked for a "thousand dollars" he produced the voucher from his wallet and the cab driver was happy, I was relieved and Mark realized that he couldn't actually hear as well as he thought he could.

That is now being fixed.

Restaurants Near Me and $5 Toast

So to pick up where I left off yesterday. The full service restaurant was closed. The snack bar wasn't up to much. Mark was checking his phone for "restaurants near me". Nothing was coming up. We decided to go for a walk and see what might be available.

After nearly a half hour of walking, we did find another snack bar. Bigger than the one near the hotel and we were able to share a sandwich for a very late lunch. But it wasn't someplace you'd want to have dinner. And you had to go through an area that didn't look like a place you'd want to be after dark. There were some beautiful homes along the way, but they appeared to be well fortified - gates, bars and such. There must be an element around there that people want to keep out.

We asked the desk clerk for recommendations. He recommended pizza delivery. Hmmm. No. Try again. He recommended a wonderful restaurant that was a 20 Euro cab drive away. But the food was wonderful - although the servings were far too large. (Had we known, we'd have shared.)

Anyway, food problem solved. Let's move on to the transportation problem.

We had the 20 Euro cab ride from the restaurant back to the hotel. So the lack of the full service restaurant at the hotel turned out to be a bit expensive. And here is where the math gets strange. A cab ride from the train terminal to the airport was 45 Euro. The cab ride from the terminal to our hotel was 40 Euro. It seemed as though the cab ride from the hotel to the airport should cost about 5 to 7 Euro at the most. But it was 40. So if we'd gone straight from the terminal to the airport, it would have cost 45 Euro. But stopping overnight at a hotel along the way caused that price to go up to 80 Euro. (Don't forget the extra 40 for cabs just to have a proper meal.) And of course every cab driver gets a tip. So I suspect that it might have been cheaper in the long run just to pay the higher rates at one of the airport hotels. (Actually, I don't suspect. I know it for a fact.)

Then there were the technical problems. I would have taken a shower as soon as I checked in to that hotel but we needed to try to find some lunch. And when we returned from lunch, I needed to complete payroll because I wouldn't be able to do that from a plane. By the time I took care of all the business it was time for dinner. When we got back, I went in and started the water running for a shower. Plumbing is not one of my strengths. I often ask Mark to just leave the water running for me so I don't have to figure out how to turn it on or adjust the temperature. Showers in England nearly always mystify me but the Italian ones were pretty straightforward. But after several minutes of running the water, it just wasn't getting hot. I called my engineer but he's often not at his best when it's late. (In fact, unless water is pouring onto the floor, he doesn't work much past 5 pm.) He wasn't getting anywhere with it and I just don't do cold showers. I used my micellar spray to wash my face and just went to bed. Of course, the following morning Mark figured out the combination of switches needed to turn on the hot water. But it didn't get hot in time to take a shower before we left.

And then to add insult to injury we were charged 14 Euro for the "included" breakfast. I just really hate paying $5 or more for a slice of toast.

One Day We'll Laugh About This - But Not Today

For our last night in Italy, Mark booked us into a hotel near the Rome airport. It had a full service restaurant and full amenities so we could go to bed early and be well rested for a day of airports and airplanes. We'd taken the train from Spoleto to Rome. I noticed that a taxi from the train terminal to the airport was something like 45 Euro.

We took a cab to our hotel. It was 40 Euro. The driver dropped us off in the parking lot and we went to what we thought was the door. I'm not really good at reading Italian, but I was pretty sure the sign said "closed for remodeling". The whole place can't be closed for remodeling. Nobody does that.

Next door was a snack bar. You could get pizza, beer, coffee and ice cream. It was a bit scruffy looking and all the clientele were sitting outside smoking. You couldn't consider it a full service restaurant and it did not go through to a hotel. Mark went to investigate the other end of the building while I stayed with the bags. He came back to say that it was apartments on the other end. No hotel that he could see.

He stayed with the bags and I went around to the other side of the building. No doors, just a parking garage with no cars in it. It looked totally abandoned. Clearly we needed to call Hotels.com. They would sort this out, get us into a hotel that was open and maybe even help us find a taxi. Mark phoned them. I'm not sure what was going on, but I could tell it wasn't going well. He was left to die on hold more than once so we decided that perhaps I should try calling. By the way, did I mention that it was getting hot outside?

I called and tried to explain that it appeared that we had been booked into a hotel that was closed for remodeling and we needed to get that sorted out. The young lady told me they were having issues with their computers and asked if I could call back in a couple hours.

"No. I can't. You don't seem to understand my problem. We are standing on a sidewalk in Italy in front of a closed hotel that we have already paid for. It is hot. I don't even have a place to sit down. Someone needs to help me now."

She was indicating that I would need to book a different hotel and pay for that one. "No, I've already paid for one. I shouldn't have to pay again." But while she went to track down a supervisor to help, the call dropped, or maybe she decided it was too difficult to deal with it and she hung up. Who knows?

Not wanting to run out of phone battery, we opted to give up on Hotels.com since we'd called four times. We decided to call American Express Travel Services. American Express was a big help three years ago when my bag was on a trip of its own and Mark was hospitalized in Paris. Perhaps I should rephrase that. American Express didn't actually help with much but they gave the appearance and impression of being helpful. Which in some perverse way, is actually helpful because it makes you feel better even though nothing has actually changed. And since they had helped us with hotel bookings before, I assumed they would do so again. That young lady came back on the line to tell me that I did NOT have concierge service with them as far as she could tell. Since we'd been there for nearly an hour, I was starting to feel a bit stressed. I only knew that they'd been helpful before. We may have been trying to use points the time they helped us. Who knows? I pointed out that I had more than one account with American Express - Gold, Blue, Business. It doesn't matter. I am stranded and I need help. 

Anyway, while she was looking to see what help might be available on another account, the call dropped. I supposed we were on our own. We decided the best plan would be to find a taxi, go to the airport and stay in one of the hotels that are actually located AT the airport rather than just near it. We would just have to sort things out with Hotels.com when we got home.

There was a taxi parked in front of the snack bar. Turns out he was off duty, having a beer and not interested in taking anyone anywhere. About that time, a taxi pulled in and dropped off a couple and their luggage. As they were looking around trying to figure out where to go, I was preparing to let them know that the hotel had been closed for remodeling. Mark was preparing to snag their taxi. Just as Mark and the taxi driver had all of our stuff loaded into the back of the cab, I noticed that the couple had disappeared into the "apartments".

I ran down to have a look myself. I can see why Mark thought they were apartments. All of the upper floors had substantial balconies and there was a bank of mail boxes out front - the kind they have in apartment complexes. But there was also a relatively small sign with the name of the hotel.

We gave the cabbie a fiver for his trouble and removed our bags from the back of the cab. It seems that only the full-service restaurant was closed - the hotel was open and they were expecting us.

And in fairness to Mark, once we were in our room, it was fairly obvious that it had once been an apartment. It was quite large for a European hotel room and you could picture where the kitchen had been. It had far more closet and storage space than any hotel room needs.

So all of the stressing out had been for nothing. But wait! There's more to this story. But it's getting too long, so I'll finish it tomorrow. Stay tuned...

Out and About in Spoleto

This was our third visit to Spoleto. We visited familiar places and a few new ones.

Piazza Liberta - a great place to grab some lunch or a coffee - and remarkably empty in this photo.

The view from our bedroom window at Casa Feeney.

One of the old city gates.

They have an escalator that will take you up where you can overlook everything and then walk down to where you want to go. This is a view from the top.

People still use these fountains around town to fill up their water bottles.

Chiesa di San Ponziano was built in 1256. The mosaics and paintings have survived for centuries. Most of the old paintings are in the crypt.

The opera house in Spoleto.

The Duomo and Bell Tower in Spoleto. Also known as Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta.  The inside is exquisite.

A really great place to watch the sunset. 

Montefalco

Nothing like wine tasting in Italy! We had a driver and a list of vineyards to visit. They are a bit more generous with their pours than the folks in Napa and Sonoma. As a consequence, we only visited two - Tabarrini and Milziade Antano.

Tabarrini puts out a spread of food to go with the wine. They have a fabulous tasting room, complete with video presentations. Remarkably, they graft grape vines onto elm trees. Who would have known! But we were pleased to learn that we could order their wines from California - we just can't have them shipped to Texas.

Milziade Antano is much smaller. We specifically wanted to visit this one because we'd had a bottle of their Montefalco Rosso when we were in Spoleto five years earlier. We were so taken with it we photographed the label and had been looking for it ever since.

It's a very small operation - especially when compared with Tabarrini. Someone saw us pull in and came to meet us. He took us into the building with all the barrels where a small table was set up with their red wines. We had a taste, he answered our questions and we bought a couple of bottles for our hosts. As we left, he returned to his work in the vineyard. We learned that their wine is sold in New York and we could order a case, but it was going to be so expensive we might as well go back to Italy. (I miss the days when you could put a bottle of something in your carry on bag!) We also learned that they have replaced the brown label with a white one for the U.S. market, which means that even if we'd found it (which we did not), we probably wouldn't have recognized it because we were looking for the brown label.

A Visit to Volterra

Volterra is one of the Tuscan hill towns - complete with the old city walls. Volterra's claim to fame is it's torture museum. (We didn't go. Neither of us is really in to torture.  Air travel is torture enough for us, thank you.)

One of the guides I was reading also indicated that there is a bar festooned with bras. (We didn't go there, either.) We really only had a wander around the town and shops - a short stop on our way to Spoleto.

It's a very photogenic place. Even the worst photographer in the world could get some good photos here.

Here are some of the photos we took in Volterra.

The Mother of All Foundation Failure

As a home inspector, Mark took a special interest in the leaning tower. The "lean" is most obvious when you view it next to a more level building. I've heard of it since I was a child but this was my first time to see it. As a child, I wondered why they built it that way. When I figured out that they actually intended it to be straight, I wondered why they didn't fix it when it first started leaning. What I didn't realize is that it is the bell tower for the church next door, which seems somewhat common in Italy. (The church and the tower for the bell are often two separate structures.) So it's not like it housed people, and it's not like it would crush the building next door. (Might have been different if it had been leaning the other way.) It was perfectly functional as a bell tower. 

But what is funny is all the people who are climbing up on pedestals near the fence so they can pose as though they are holding it up or preventing it from toppling over.

While it seems a miracle that it is still standing after all these years, it's my understanding that it underwent massive foundation repair a few years ago to keep it from toppling over. But they kept it leaning. Who can blame them. It's a landmark. If it didn't lean, no one would be interested in seeing it all.

Camp Firenze

We wanted to visit Florence, not spend our life savings on a hotel room. And because European hotel rooms are typically smaller than we in the US are accustomed to, we particularly didn't want to spend a fortune on a room that wasn't even big enough for us to store our bags. (We WERE once in one that small for one night in the UK.)

Anway, while searching for rooms, Mark happened on Camp Firenze. Essentially it's a campground with slots for campers. (Interesting to see how different it was from American campgrounds. But they also had what they called chalets - very much like a cabin or cabana.

Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchenette and a front porch. All the comforts of home and only 3 miles from the city center. A store and a restaurant on site, as well as laundry facilities, pool, and a shuttle into the city center. There was also a running/walking trail along the banks of the Arno and other restaurants in easy walking distance.

The photos on Hotels.com made the rooms look fairly spacious.

The truth is you couldn't swing a cat in there without getting hair in your teeth. I'm not sure how they managed these shots but these make it look bigger than it is. But it was big enough for us. We used the spare room with the bunk beds to store our luggage and we had one bathroom for showers and I had one for putting on makeup. I'm not sure we had a window behind the settee but if we did, it would have opened up to the back of the unit behind ours. 

For us, it was perfect. We're just not that into night life these days so there was no need to be right in the center of the city. I also prefer to eat breakfast in. Otherwise it can be a fairly expensive meal. (I hate paying $5 or more for a slice of toast!) 

My understanding is that it is fairly new, perhaps less than a year old. And if that's the case, you should go now because these units are going to have a short shelf life. The card keys have already been replaced with old-fashioned keys. There was a small tear in the kitchen flooring. The toilet in one of our bathrooms was leaking and the cabinet doors were not in the right position. 

On Hotels.com, it said there was daily housekeeping. I can only assume that their idea of housekeeping is not the same as mine. My idea of housekeeping is that someone comes around to make the beds, refresh the towels and empty the trash. I had my doubts when we had to make up the bed in the first place. The only "housekeeping" that happened is the trash bin outside the unit was emptied daily. No one made beds or refreshed the towels. But that was fine. I can either make my own bed or live with the consequences and I didn't have to worry about staff coming in and rifling through our stuff while we were out. 

There were also some other amenities that you expect in hotel rooms, like hair dryers, that were not there. The Chinese family in the unit next door sent their English-speaking teenager over to see if we had one. (We did not - but I often let my hair air dry and didn't care.)

The food in the restaurant was good. Better than the off-site places and less expensive. And the staff were all conversant in English, which was good for us because we're not really conversant in Italian.

We also enjoyed being able to sit outside. The porch/patio area was very private. 

 And best of all, there were some really fabulous sunsets.