File this in the All Bozos Don’t War Clown Make-Up Department:
Officials at JP Morgan Chase have apologized and promised to improve their screening policies, after a credit card solicitation letter sent to a 54-year-old naturalized American citizen came addressed to “Palestinian Bomber.”
The form letter for a Visa Platinum card arrived earlier this month at the home of Sami Habbas, a grocery store manager from Corona, Calif. The words “Palestinian Bomber” appear above his address and the salutation reads, “Dear Palestinian Bomber.” The document included the signature of Carter Franke, chief marketing officer for Chase Card Services.
Oh! That isn’t the way letters are supposed to be addressed? Then I need to complain about the letter I got addressed to “Dear Five Foot Two Jew From Connecticut..” MORE:
Habbas is a naturalized U.S. citizen of Palestinian heritage. He told ABC News he is “extremely upset” at receiving the letter, pointing out that he has lived in the United States for 51 years and also served in the U.S. Army, receiving an honorable discharge in 1969.
“It’s upsetting, derogatory, and slanderous,” Habbas told ABC News. “I have no idea how this sort of thing happened.”
Well, it sounds like whomever sent the letter to him knew a enough about his ethnicity to aim the letter at him. If they had sent it to a rabbi it wouldn’t have had the same impact. MORE:
Habbas was even more shocked when, on several occasions, he said he called an 800-number for JP Morgan Chase and spoke to operators in an effort to complain. Each time, he says the operators called up his information on a computer but apparently didn’t catch on. According to Habbas, “The operators always said, ‘Yes, Mr. Palestinian Bomber, how can we help you?’ “
Hey! That explains what they said to me on the phone! “Mr. Jew From Connecticut your balance is $40…but for you, it’s $39!!” MORE:
After receiving the letter and his experiences with the operators, Habbas contacted the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Washington D.C., a Muslim civil liberties group. CAIR denounced the Chase letter as “racist” and asked JP Morgan Chase to launch an investigation, conduct sensitivity training, and issue a formal apology to Habbas.
In a statement, Chase vice president Kelly Presta blamed the incident on information in a list purchased from a third-party vendor. The company said it was taking steps to improve the screening procedures and offered “sincere apologies” to anyone offended by the letter.
“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,” said Presta, executive vice president of Chase Card Services.
It sounds like someone had a list and looked at names and tinkered with them. If Chase really wants to find out what happened, they’ll be able to narrow the list of suspects.
None of this makes sense anyway.
The credit card companies passed their bankruptcy bill in Congress (with the help of GOPers and Democrats who were, of course, voting their consciences and not for one second thinking about campaign contributions).
If they really marketed to Palestinian bombers how could they get their money back?
Credit cards melt where Palestinian bombers eventually go.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.