Author Archive

I think I need to call Oprah, Suze Orman, and HGTV.

October 2, 2009 | By: Elizabeth

Last night, after days of trying to unravel what appeared to be a case of identity fraud (one of the things that I think must truly be horrific to live through, putting your life back together after someone has stolen your credit-UGH) I discovered that a person at Citi Cards had made my pay-by-phone payment twice.  This was not a small payment.  I was paying the card balance off in full.  This was a day of celebration.  This was a day when my husband and I were to begin life anew.  We were finally digging out from years of debt related to our infertility, adoptions, unemployment, and me putting every penny my business earned back into my business.  Finally we were going to be on better financial ground and the world was rosy.  Along with the payment to Citi Cards were payments to other cards and a lot of very nice people who had extended us credit or been very lenient with billing policies to my family.  I have been very grateful to those people and they are the ones who had inspired me to give away free contracts to clients who can’t afford legal services, to discount all of my services etc.  This was a good day.  It was September 24th.  Lots and lots of checks were written, lots and lots of bills were paid. 

Unebownst to me, however, a woman at Citi Cards processed my payment twice.  Now really, when you’re paying that much money to a credit card company there should be mechanisms in place to prevent errors (hey, honey, maybe you should pitch this as a business process idea to your current employer?).  A way to make sure that the payment is made once and only once.  But, sad for me there is no such mechanism in place currently at Citi Cards and she processed it twice, and that was on top of the payment I had made six days earlier so that my bill wouldn’t be late.  For personal reasons I don’t feel comfortable sharing with you how much money was deducted from our bank account but suffice it to say that it covered all of those other checks and was an amount more than alot of people (including me) make in a year.  I had a lovely credit on this Citi Card but I didn’t need it.  And ironically, this was a card I had been arguing with DH over closing.  The interest rate on the card is astronomical (as are all credit card interest rates these days), enough really to make it impossible to use the card without paying it off in full every month.  I didn’t want to close the card because I read in one of Suze Orman’s (sp?) books that you shouldn’t close cards, especially cards that you’ve had for years and years (this one dates back to 1990) because it could negatively impact your credit score.  So, instead, DH and I agreed that we would put the card away and leave the line open. 

Imagine the scene now.  A call from the American Bar Association alerted me to the fact that my business credit card was being declined when I was trying to pay for a conference I am speaking at next week.  I am booking air travel for four upcoming business trips, and we’ve paid off people who have put our trust in us.  I called my business banker who was unable to figure out what was going on.  I started making calls to Citi Cards asking what was going on.  It took them two days to tell me that a wire transfer to my business card had been rejected.  Long story short, two days later, last night after a very LONG day at work, I went online to this particular Citi Card and discovered that it showed I had made this enormous payment.  here is the following chain of events: Pause.  refresh page.  refresh page again.  Get Twizzlers, Oreos, Diet Coke.  refresh page again.  Go online with all other credit cards we had paid on 9/24.  Every single one is showing rejected payments or multiple attempts at submitting the payment.  Check bank balances in our checking accounts.  All were negative balances.  Call banks for status check.  Eat twizzlers, Oreos, Gulp Diet Coke, and take two Xanax.  OMG.  I knew this could be resolved.  I knew this would be resolved.  But seriously. OMG.

I called the Citi Card 800 number on the back of the card that had the multiple payments processed.  I asked to speak to a supervisor.  I speak with a lovely young woman named “C” who seemed very calm about this (she must have taken more Xanax than I had).  I am thinking about potential causes of action I have against Citibank but I too stay calm (years of training as a litigator.  The US Atty I worked for doesn’t call me Mighty Mouse without reason!).  C seems to think that everything will be okay and they will put the money back into my account and credit me all the late charges and overdraft fees, penalties etc. I have incurred with other lenders and people.  I ask how quickly the money will be returned to my account and she tells me 2-4 business days.  And that my friends is when I lost it.  There were not enough Twizzlers, Oreos, Diet Coke, or Xanax in the Universe to calm me down in that moment.  I was not angry.  I don’t know what I was. 

I asked to speak with a supervisor.  I still get 2-4 days.  I ask to speak to another supervisor.  And another.  Finally, I get a very capable, professional, sympathetic vice president on the phone who immediately realizes that her bank made a gigantic mistake for which they could be facing some serious issues.  We shall call her Angel (somewhat of an overstatement but it will do.   Angel was human enough to tell me exactly what a big F-up this was and that the young woman who had processed the transaction had to be terminated because she was a “threat to the bank.”  She told me a lot of other things too but somewhere during this call with Angel — who even gave me her internal Citibank identification number, her personal fax number, a direct dial phone number, spelled her first and last name, and the name of her boss (who is the head of card services — I started to cry.  And cry.  And cry.  This didn’t seem to phase her one bit (I guess a lot of people must be crying on the phone with Angel these days) but more importantly, she heard every reason I was crying and she realized, one human being to another, what this transaction error had done to my life.  I will see if the money is truly back in our account TODAY as she promised, but this one person restored my faith in Citibank (at least for a little while) and I am sure in a few days I will have everything corrected and the result we had intended to create on 9/24 will be our reality.  And maybe I will even feel good again.  Right now I am just horrified with the number of phone calls I have to make today and the number of phone calls I imagine Angel will be receiving from people who need her confirmation that this really happened and I am not making up an excuse like the dog ate my bank card.

I slept fitfully, and awoke to the usual morning chaos of getting little people off to school.  My coffee was too strong, my back was killing me, and I realized that something in me had shifted last night.  Why had it taken so much effort to correct this problem?  Why had getting help from Angel made such a difference for me?  Why had I lost it like that? 

I looked around my house and realized what a disaster it is.  There is clutter everywhere, our furniture doesn’t match, we can never find anything when we are looking for it.  The only place in my life that is organized is my office and my knitting.  I love both of those things so I pay attention to them.  My business coach has helped me tremendously and my office is starting to run smoothly despite the fact that my right arm, Danielle, has taken a leave of absence.  But my personal life needs a makeover.  I am sad that I have neglected that which meant so much to me a few years ago.  The balance has totally shifted and I realize perhaps it has shifted in the wrong direction.  I have spent the last 5 years helping other people to the detriment of my family and my home.  I know there is a way to find better balance.  I know that I don’t have to live with cast off furniture from other people that clash.  I can love my home as much as I love my office. 

My children don’t lack for attention or love, of that I am sure.  But in the process of becoming the Stork Lawyer, I lost ME.  My marriage, my home, my financial life, they need a makeover.  Do you think Oprah, Suze Orman and HGTV could help?  Because as much as I want to restore the balance, I still have to help other people make their family.  I am serious, I was watching HGTV a few years ago when I was nursing my daughter, HGTV has a ton of makeover shows right?  Oprah may be a stretch but Suze Orman, doesn’t she have clients??  I need help to do this.  This is more than I can do alone. 

I want my life back.  And I want that money back in our bank account today!!!!!!!

p.s. this was not proofed or edited due to time constraints.  What was I saying about balance?

Filed under: Uncategorized

Adoption Scam in NY

September 28, 2009 | By: Elizabeth

From Today’s New York Law Journal

Lawyer Accused of Stealing In Adoption Scheme

A Roslyn lawyer already under investigation in connection with real estate fraud was arrested Friday and charged with stealing thousands of dollars from prospective adoptive parents. Nassau District Attorney Kathleen M. Rice said in a statement that Kevin Cohen, 41, promised couples “babies that didn’t exist” and pocketed the money while telling them the funds were in escrow accounts while the adoptions were pending.

One couple paid Mr. Cohen $65,000 after he falsely claimed to have located two prospective birth mothers who sought to adopt out their children, Ms. Rice said. Mr. Cohen, founded the nonprofit Roslyn Adoption Annex in 2004, which provides services to adoptive parents and adopted children. He is charged with second-degree grand larceny, first-degree scheme to defraud and third-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument. Mr. Cohen pleaded not guilty Friday afternoon but remained behind bars on $250,000 bail. — Vesselin Mitev

Filed under: adoption, Current Affairs

Fear of IVF, or Pregnancy, or Infertility Treatment Failure – Homework Assignment No. 2

September 28, 2009 | By: Elizabeth

This is supposed to be my quiet time.  My meditation time.  My alone time.  But no, alas, even with an earlier than normal wake-up time the house is buzzing with activity and my alone time must somehow be found surrounded by family, and soon in the mad rush to get to work.  But before everyone woke up I read something profound and I realized that perhaps this is a possible answer/solution to our fear of failure.  It’s from a book titled Ask and It Is Given: Learning to Manifest Your Desires by Esther and Jerry Hicks.  For some of you, it may way out there woo-woo kind of stuff.  But I am finding the book very enlightening.  I am working really hard on changing the way I THINK about things.  I want a more positive, life-affirming attitude.  I am definitely one of those make lemonade out of lemons kind of people, but truth be told, behind all the glasses of lemonade I am still filled with a deep and undying desire to be pregnant.  I have two beautiful children for whom I am profoundly grateful and would never change a day of my journey if it meant that I wasn’t THEIR mother.  But still.  There is a piece of me, just like in all infertility patients and all of my clients that yearns for something more.  I still yearn to be pregnant.  I feel like the guy in the movie Love Happens (Aaron Eckhart and Jennifer Anniston) who admits at the end of the move — oops, don’t want to give the ending away if you haven’t seen it!

Anyway, the passage is on page 50 of Ask and It Is Given, and it’s all about how if you realize you don’t want your car anymore and you decide you need a new car that the Universe will immediately start to bring that new car to you.  However, if you continue to focus on all the reasons you don’t want your current car, you are sending mixed messages to the Universe and it can’t deliver the new car.  By focusing on everything you DO NOT WANT about the car you have, you stop the Universe from bringing the new car to you (and let’s forget about how, when or why the Universe will bring you the new car.  Let’s assume for purpose of this post and your upcoming homework assignment that it WILL bring you the new car).

Now let’s substitute a baby or a pregnancy for the new car.  You want to be a mom or a dad.  But instead of focusing on being a mom or a dad, you’re stuck focusing on your fear of it not happening, of everything you hate about infertility treatment, about your lack-luster E2 level, whatever it is that you DON’T LIKE about your infertility or your adoption journey (hey, those dossiers are definitely a PIA to prepare).

Homework Assignment #2:  For the next few days think about what you’re thinking about.  See if you can carry a notebook around with you and everytime you have a negative thought, write it down and then next to it, replace it with a positive thought.  In the car hypothetical above it would work like this: Everytime you think of a reason you don’t want your current car, write down a quality you want in the new car.  Let’s say you want a new car because your current car isn’t reliable.  It’s in the shop constantly.  Instead of complaining about that unreliability and focusing on the unreliable, start thinking about what cars are reliable, start thinking about what it would be like to have a reliable car.  Make a list of reliable car manufacturers.  Replace the thought of unreliability with a thought of reliability.  Now let’s take this into the infertility and adoption world.   You just had a thought about how your follicles are developing really slowly.  Your scared they won’t develop or that you will get a lead follicle.  Write that thought down!  or whatever, just make note of it.  Now replace it with a thought or a vision of all of your follicles being 17mm.  In the column or line next to the negative or fear filled thought, put a thought like: “I just found out all my follicles are 17 or 18mm.  Tonight I find out if I get my trigger shot.  This is so exciting!”  You could elaborate more if you wanted or just keep it simple.  But make it a positive thought.

Slowly, every day I want us all to start replacing all our crappy, negative thoughts with a positive thought.  And then let’s see what happens!!

Love and Light,

your woo-woo Stork Lawyer who is off to draft a retainer agreement for a new client!  I am so excited to work her!

Filed under: Peace to Parenthood