Re: [gardeners] Who, where - a dangerous idea
Rosemary Carlson (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Fri, 09 Oct 1998 19:02:37 -0400
Let me tell all of you a story. I have reservations about posting this -
but I'm going to anyway! Last year (last summer), I received a call from a
police detective - an out of state police detective. This detective had
been researching me on the Internet through my webpage, search engines,
etc. He was able to find lots of material about me because I'm a prof at a
university - and we all have webpages, etc. I also teach via distance
learning (online learning) - so I was easy to track down.
So, why did this out of state police detective call me?
Because of my name - Rosemary Carlson. Seems that a person with MY name had
been an accomplice in a number of LARGE bank robberies from coast to coast.
She had finally settled (for awhile) in a small city in the east and was
running scams there. (not my city - out of state). The police were on her
trail. I'll spare you the details - but it seems she began using MY
identity from information she got off the Internet - my name and identity.
The police detective had researched me enough to realize this person was
NOT me. However, he wanted to fax me her photo (a police photo) in order
for me to see if I knew her, if perhaps she'd been one of my students,
etc., etc. So, he faxed me the photo - and I, to my knowledge, had never
seen her in my life. The name in front of her in the police lineup was
Rosemary Carlson - odd name for a Hispanic girl, don't you think?
Considering Carlson is Swedish. She was about 25 years old - I'm 46 - but
she wouldn't have known she was stealing the identity of a person older
than her as my age was no where to do found on the 'net.
Another interesting thing - she was a GARDENER - or so it appeared.....
At any rate, after I checked out (thoroughly) the detective and realized he
was for real, I cooperated with any questions he wanted to ask me - and
obviously I could answer nothing. So, he, I assume, took the investigation
in other directions.
So, that is my story. And this is why we all have to be, at least, somewhat
careful.
Rosemary in Lexington, KY
zone 6a
At 06:13 PM 10/9/98 EDT, you wrote:
>I made the mistake of joining an open chat and received pornographic material
>for about 3 weeks. So far on the gardening lists I read postings from people
>like me. Just people who want to talk to others about gardening. So what
>happened and what is all the concern about? I never open an E-mail unless I
>recognize where it is coming from. My son crashed his computer because of a
>virus he got when he opened a link though an anonymous E-mail and we had to
>have it rebuilt. Chris, Braintree Z5
>
>