San Francisco woman, 93, inundated with mysterious mail for a year
For nearly a year, Dorothy Lathan has opened mail meant for strangers, a mystery that now looks like a possible identity-theft warning sign in her San Francisco home.
Dozens of envelopes have landed at Dorothy Lathan’s San Francisco home for nearly a year, many from banks and credit card companies and many addressed to a man named Carlos. The 93-year-old woman said the letters began last summer and kept coming even after she wrote “return to sender,” turning a nuisance into a daily source of worry for her family.
The first wave of mail included letters from BMO Bank addressed to Carlos and to Chocolate Squirrel LLC. ABC7 said three companies were tied to the same problem, and each listed Lathan’s home as the principal address in California Secretary of State filings even though she had no connection to the businesses. What should have been a simple mail mix-up instead raised the harder question of whether her address was being used without consent.
Lathan’s case matters because repeated business mail to a private home can point to more than clerical error. It can signal a bad database, a business-registration problem, or a more serious identity or mail diversion scheme. The letters arriving at the Van Ness address were described in follow-up reporting as mostly coming from banks and credit card companies, which made the pattern more troubling to the family watching it pile up.
Ella Selfridge, the CEO of the Seattle-based Chocolate Squirrel LLC, told ABC7 her company does not send consumer mail and trademarked the name in 2021. That left Lathan in the middle of a mystery tied to companies, mailing records and a stranger using her address. She said she contacted the post office, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the California Secretary of State, the San Francisco Assessor’s Office, several banks and the California state tax board, but the mail kept coming.
For older San Franciscans and the relatives who help manage their affairs, the case is a reminder to treat unexplained mail as a warning sign, not a curiosity. The Federal Trade Commission says businesses are supposed to watch for identity-theft red flags, and the FTC’s IdentityTheft.gov site provides recovery steps for victims. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service says suspected mail theft and other mail-related crimes should be reported at 1-877-876-2455.
California officials say elder financial abuse is a fast-growing threat, and the state has more than 4.2 million residents age 65 and older. In a city where seniors already navigate overlapping systems of banks, landlords, agencies and mail carriers, a steady stream of letters addressed to someone else can become a warning that something deeper has gone wrong.
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