You will perhaps remember that not long ago a laptop was stolen that contained identifying information of veterans and current military members.  Today we received a letter in the mail assuring us that the FBI is highly confident the information has not been accessed.   This letter came from the Secretary of Veterans Affairs.

For starters  "highly confident" is not entirely comforting.   The idea that following this theft individual credit monitering is not needed (as per letter) is assinine.  Worse,  the grammar in the letter sets off my own alarms. 

"The data were downloaded to the hard drive."  If 'were' had been used wrong once I wouldn't think twice.  The same with servicemember.  These errors are through the entire document.  I'll hand it to the author of this letter because two grammer check programs didn't catch the "were" but if the author of the letter didn't catch it wouldn't it stand to reason his secretary would?

The spelling errors were in fact caught in three of my spell checkers.  Doesn't the military offer word processor programs that include spell check? 

So then my point,  more like concern, becomes a question of the validity of this letter.  Perhaps it is a genuine letter.  It is possible the letterhead doesn't include information we were all taught letters should contain.  It is possible that the 'errors' are simply that.. errors. 

Maybe I'm just jaded enough to not trust anything; letters, phone calls, faxes that I myself did not generate.  That is a sorry state of affairs when you have to go to such lengths to protect your personal information to the point that even if it was the Red Cross contacting me I would not bother with the phone call or letter.   My standard answer has simply become,  "I'm sorry, I don't do this over the phone."