I’m not quite sure what to make of this story of a Fulbright scholar in Norway who appears to get caught up in an OFAC-screening imbroglio and can’t pay her rent. Fortunately, the problem mysteriously disappeared before she winds up sleeping in Oslo’s famed Frogner Park.

The student was trying to wire money to herself from her account in the United States when she was told by her bank that the funds were blocked and that perhaps she should take a gander at the SDN list. She did that and, unable to find her name on the list, optimistically wrote to OFAC for some assistance. (Hey, I heard you back there. Stop snickering at the poor idealistic student.)

Miraculously enough she gets an anonymous response from OFAC, asking for more information, which she sends.

Two days later comes another message from OFAC, this time signed by “Michael Z.” Like Afghans, or spies, he evidently has only one name, but my hopes that he might be an actual person inexplicably rise anyway — only to sink again when he claims OFAC needs yet more information. All this so that Michael Z., presumed person, may help me “more effectively.” (More than what, I wonder?) He is, he insists, trying to locate my money with the help of my bank, which by the way is now blocking me from seeing information about my own account online.

Somewhat later, without explanation, the student’s funds are unblocked, giving a happy, if not particularly satisfying, ending to this odd story.

But here’s the rub. I haven’t mentioned her name yet. I haven’t done so on purpose. This story might make sense if her name was something like Aisha Qadhafi. But it wasn’t. It was Ann Jones.

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