CORONA, Calif. ยท The address was his, but the name on the credit-card offer took Sami Habbas by surprise: "Palestinian Bomber."
"I thought it was a joke or something," said Habbas, 54, a Palestinian American who served in the U.S. Army.
Habbas opened the letter, and the salutation read "Dear Palestinian Bomber."
When he called the company, JPMorgan Chase & Co., provided his ZIP code and invitation number, two operators said to him: "Yes, Mr. Bomber, what can we do for you?"
"It's very upsetting," Habbas said. "I'm not what they are saying, a Palestinian bomber. That's uncalled for. I have a name. My name is Sami Habbas."
The information came from a list Chase purchased from a vendor, said Kelly J. Presta, Chase Card Services executive vice president. Chase Card Services, the Delaware-based credit card line of JPMorgan Chase & Co., said it doesn't know how that name was attached to Habbas' address but it is investigating.
"Although no Chase employee was involved in creating this information, we are embarrassed by this incident and regret that our automatic screening procedures did not catch this erroneous information," Presta said.
Habbas, a grocer who has lived in the United States since age 3, doesn't know why he would be singled out or how anyone would even know he has Palestinian heritage.
"It just hurt me to think I am discriminated against in my own back yard," he said.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington, D.C., has asked Chase for a formal apology.
"The most important thing is to make sure this doesn't happen again, to any American, regardless of their race or religion," said Sabiha Khan, spokeswoman for the Muslim civil liberties group in Southern California.
posted
The formal apology seems rather pointless. I know someone who was registered as "Mr. Ami Stupid" by a "friend."
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posted
Well, it depends. If all that came up on the operator's screens was "Mr. Bomber", they might have thought it was a ligit name.
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posted
ketchupqueen--it's california. I know a number of Californians who have changed their names, and there was one guy in "news of the weird" from California who changed his name to "perpetuity God" or something.
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posted
But you would think that when they saw the name on the screen... Unless Javert's got it right, and they only had "Mr. Bomber".
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posted
steven, people do weird stuff elsewhere than CA. (I live in and grew up in CA, btw.) And who would change their name to "Palestinian Bomber"?
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posted
sorry, kqueen. Forgot that's where you live now.
here's the story.
AP news wire> "God Gets Nine Months For Indecent Exposure"
SAN RAFAEL, Calif. - A man who legally changed his name to Ubiquitous Perpetuity God began serving a nine-month sentence for indecent exposure Wednesday.
(That must one *huge* jail cell.)
God, 68, has been convicted 18 times for similar offenses since 1978.
(Now I see where the "Ubiquitous" and "Perpetuity" monikers come from.)
God said he acted so women "could have some type of awareness of God," according to police reports.
God was born Enrique Silberg in Cuba and later immigrated to the United States in search of "women, silver, gold, knowledge and God," he told his probation officer Richard Howell.
(And, apparently, in that order, too. Looks like he never quite made it past the "women" stage of the search.)
A court-appointed psychiatrist, Dr. Diane McEwen of Tiburon, said God suffers from "a severe psychotic delusional disorder."
I find the fact that he wanted silver and gold especially funny.
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posted
Wasn't there a sergeant in the US military (the rank could be wrong) who changed his name to Optimus Prime?
Posts: 3852 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:You would think they would have figured out that wasn't a real name at some point, though.
If memory serves, Scott R has four kids named: Junebug, Super-K, Litebrite, and Inkling. Not to say that those names are in the same league as "Palistinian Bomber".
It's just to illustrate that "real names" aren't always conventional ones.
And I think that Scott R doesn't even live in California. Virginia, is it?
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posted
Where I currently reside, you can only change your name once, whereas, in Cali, I believe you can change your name as many times as you like.
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posted
I've worked in customer service call centers. The company had the full name "Palestinian Bomber" on file, as they sent out in the letter, so you can be fairly sure it was in the file the phone rep saw. It was likely listed as separate fields for last name, first name.
What you may not realize if you've never worked a call center before, is that the basic responses of answering the phones becomes almost totally reflex. The reps who said "Hello Mr. Bomber" might have realized it was an odd name right as they were saying it, but they're just following an SOP exactly as they do on several dozen other calls that day.
Name mix-ups are one of the reasons I prefer asking the customer for last name, but many companies think it's "friendlier" to greet you with your name before you say it. Still, whoever registered him with the fake name is far more to blame than Chase or the reps who answered the phone.
posted
It still has to be approved by a judge. A judge can deny your request at their discretion if you've done it too many times or it's obscene or something.
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posted
still, if I decide to change my name because I'm psychotic, I'd say I have a better chance of getting it done in Cali than elsewhere. It's just a weird place on many levels. That doesn't mean you're weird for living there. We go where the jobs are, generally, right?
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posted
Actually, I love CA. It's the best place I know of to live, despite housing costs. There are so many wonderful things about it.
And I know plenty of real weirdos in other states. I think you have some prejudices about California.
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posted
Tante, I think that you're joking, but I'm not absolutely sure. You know that those are just ScottR's kids' Hatrack handles, right? Kind of like how Icarus's daughters aren't really named Banana and Mango?
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posted
I dunno, Lyrhawn, but I remember seeing a press confrence on CNN where his commanding officer said he was "proud to have Optimus Prime fighting for us in Iraq".
On a slightly related note, comedian Dane Cook said he wanted to name his kids after Transformers. "Megatron, you leave Optimus Prime alone!"
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posted
Then there's the story about the woman who wanted to name her kid "placenta" when she heard the doctor say that word.
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