automaton said. Hold on. I’ll just put you through to a member of our team who’ll be able to help you. Just so you know, all our calls are recorded for training and legal purposes.
I listened to the muzak for a bit.
Hello, you’re speaking to indecipherable, how can I help you? a real person said to me down the phone from somewhere that had the sound of very far away.
He asked me some security questions, to check it was really me.
There’s a transaction on here, I said, that I didn’t make and I didn’t authorize.
Don’t worry, Ms Smith, he said. Thank you, Ms Smith. I can see that, Ms Smith. Yes, Ms Smith, thank you.
He put me through to some more muzak. Some minutes later a woman answered. She also had the slight delay round her voice which signalled that although she was here in my ear, I was maybe on the phone to somebody on a totally different planet. She asked me the same security questions. Then she told me that this card had been presented for use yesterday for a transaction costing two pounds –
Two pounds! I said and this is what went through my head as I said it:
I’d never use a credit card for something so small
. It was as if
I
needed proof that I hadn’t used my credit card even though I knew full well that I hadn’t.
Meanwhile, the woman was still speaking.
– card was then withdrawn just before the transaction went through, she said.
It wasn’t me, I said. I’d just like to make that really clear.
She told me Barclaycard would be in touch with me, that I’d hear from them over the next three weeks and that I was to be sure to reply within the
requested timeframe or they would consider the matter resolved and charge my card accordingly.
For a transaction that I didn’t make? I said.
Be sure to reply within the requested timeframe, Ms Smith, she said.
And look – it’s in dollars, I said. I haven’t been to the States since 2002. I want it noted right now that I made no such transaction and that my card has been defrauded. I want this sum of money, for a ticket I never bought and a transaction I never carried out, wiped off my account. And I want you to stop this card this instant.
Yes, I can do that, Ms Smith, the woman said. There. Just a moment. Now. The card is now stopped. Please now destroy this card, Ms Smith. Barclaycard will send you a new card within the next five days or so.
I don’t want a new card, I said. Someone’ll probably just get its details and defraud it too. And how did Lufthansa get my details? Why did Lufthansa believe that this was me buying a ticket when it wasn’t?
It will now go forward for further investigation so that we can ascertain the facts of this situation, thank you, Ms Smith, the woman said.
It wasn’t me, I said again.
I sounded petulant. I sounded like a child.
Thank you for being in touch with Barclaycard, Ms Smith, she said. Have a lovely evening.
I pressed the hang-up button on my phone and found I was in my front room.
What I mean is, even though I’d been there the whole time, I’d actually just spent the last half hour somewhere which made my own front room irrelevant, even to me.
I stood by the fireplace and it was as if I had been filled with live ants. I went antsily around the house from room to room for about half an hour. Then I stopped, stood by the dark window, sat down on the edge of the couch. I told myself there was nothing to do about it but laugh it off. It happens all the time. People are always getting scammed. That’s life.
I picked up a book but I couldn’t concentrate to read.
I began to wonder instead who the person was, the person who’d pretended, somewhere else in the world, to be me. What did he or she look like? Was he or she part of a group of people who did this kind of thing? Or was it a single individual somewhere in a room by him- or herself? Somewhere in the world this person knew enough about the numbers on a card in my wallet in the dark of my pocket to fool a respectable airline
I listened to the muzak for a bit.
Hello, you’re speaking to indecipherable, how can I help you? a real person said to me down the phone from somewhere that had the sound of very far away.
He asked me some security questions, to check it was really me.
There’s a transaction on here, I said, that I didn’t make and I didn’t authorize.
Don’t worry, Ms Smith, he said. Thank you, Ms Smith. I can see that, Ms Smith. Yes, Ms Smith, thank you.
He put me through to some more muzak. Some minutes later a woman answered. She also had the slight delay round her voice which signalled that although she was here in my ear, I was maybe on the phone to somebody on a totally different planet. She asked me the same security questions. Then she told me that this card had been presented for use yesterday for a transaction costing two pounds –
Two pounds! I said and this is what went through my head as I said it:
I’d never use a credit card for something so small
. It was as if
I
needed proof that I hadn’t used my credit card even though I knew full well that I hadn’t.
Meanwhile, the woman was still speaking.
– card was then withdrawn just before the transaction went through, she said.
It wasn’t me, I said. I’d just like to make that really clear.
She told me Barclaycard would be in touch with me, that I’d hear from them over the next three weeks and that I was to be sure to reply within the
requested timeframe or they would consider the matter resolved and charge my card accordingly.
For a transaction that I didn’t make? I said.
Be sure to reply within the requested timeframe, Ms Smith, she said.
And look – it’s in dollars, I said. I haven’t been to the States since 2002. I want it noted right now that I made no such transaction and that my card has been defrauded. I want this sum of money, for a ticket I never bought and a transaction I never carried out, wiped off my account. And I want you to stop this card this instant.
Yes, I can do that, Ms Smith, the woman said. There. Just a moment. Now. The card is now stopped. Please now destroy this card, Ms Smith. Barclaycard will send you a new card within the next five days or so.
I don’t want a new card, I said. Someone’ll probably just get its details and defraud it too. And how did Lufthansa get my details? Why did Lufthansa believe that this was me buying a ticket when it wasn’t?
It will now go forward for further investigation so that we can ascertain the facts of this situation, thank you, Ms Smith, the woman said.
It wasn’t me, I said again.
I sounded petulant. I sounded like a child.
Thank you for being in touch with Barclaycard, Ms Smith, she said. Have a lovely evening.
I pressed the hang-up button on my phone and found I was in my front room.
What I mean is, even though I’d been there the whole time, I’d actually just spent the last half hour somewhere which made my own front room irrelevant, even to me.
I stood by the fireplace and it was as if I had been filled with live ants. I went antsily around the house from room to room for about half an hour. Then I stopped, stood by the dark window, sat down on the edge of the couch. I told myself there was nothing to do about it but laugh it off. It happens all the time. People are always getting scammed. That’s life.
I picked up a book but I couldn’t concentrate to read.
I began to wonder instead who the person was, the person who’d pretended, somewhere else in the world, to be me. What did he or she look like? Was he or she part of a group of people who did this kind of thing? Or was it a single individual somewhere in a room by him- or herself? Somewhere in the world this person knew enough about the numbers on a card in my wallet in the dark of my pocket to fool a respectable airline
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