Numbers slowly picking up - about 80 in tonight, though it was a bit of a second night performance, where I was a bit more relaxed, which is good in some ways, but meant I almost forgot where I was a couple of times and left a few minor bits out by mistake. But I didn't fall off my skateboard, so at least that's something. Pre-sales are a bit stronger for the weekend and hopefully there will be some press about the show which should also help.
A couple of days I ordered some DVDS, a CD, some tennis balls and a new television through
Amazon Admittedly this is quite an eclectic mixture of items, but it seems to have sent the outside world into a bit of a spin. Yesterday I got a call from my credit card company to tell me that they had frozen my card and asking me if the purchases were all mine. Fair enough, better safe than sorry, but maybe it's an odd thief who would select the smaller items, rather than going for two or three big hits. Also I think if I was using someone else's credit card I might have bought the most expensive tennis balls and not ones that were on offer for £2.99. But it was easily sorted out and I would rather the companies checked things out when they're suspicious.
Today I got a call from someone from Amazon telling me that one of my items would be delivered on Friday morning and then asked me to confirm my address. I have never had this happen before in all the times I have used the website and was a bit suspicious. After all surely they have my address, I typed it in when making the order, so why did they want me to tell them it again? Perhaps this is something they do for more expensive items - I have never bought something as expensive as a TV from them before - but I think I was justly suspicious about just giving out my details to someone who had happened to ring me up without any verification of who they were.
"Why do you want to know?" I asked.
The woman, who already sounded pretty surly, became immediately more uncivil, "So we can deliver your item to you, sir," she sighed.
"But surely you know my address already. I entered it when ordering."
"We just want to double-check it. You might have made a mistake."
To be honest that seemed unlikely. I know my own address and have, as far as I know, always managed to enter it correctly on every form I have ever filled in on the internet. In fact, it just fills itself in using autofill.
"Surely you can understand my reticence," I said, "You could be anyone and I am not sure I should give out information to you over the phone."
"Well if you don't confirm the address we won't be able to deliver the item," she threatened, now properly peeved at my obstinance.
"Why don't you tell me the address you have there and I will tell you if it is correct?" I asked, not unreasonably. Surely that would be the solution to the problem. If she had my address, then it wouldn't matter if I told it to her or not.
"I can't do that sir. The data protection act forbids it."
"So the data protection act forbids you from telling me the address that I live at, but it doesn't forbid me from telling you, a complete stranger who just happens to have rung me?"
"That's right."
"Well I don't think I am want to tell you."
"Then I will have to cancel the order."
Really? I mean, would she? Lose an order just because I couldn't tell her some information that I had already told her. In hindsight I wish I had made her play a game where she would reveal the first letter of my street name or the number of my house, just to prove that she was who she said she was and that this wasn't all part of some scam - and maybe my defences had been raised because of the call from the credit card company. In the end I elected to give her my post code, which would at least prove that I hadn't lied on the form (for some reason) whilst not pinpointing the exact location of my house as a post code is shared between a few houses. She seemed happy with that - well satisfied at least - as she then abruptly and grumpily hung up.
Admittedly I was making her dull day a bit more difficult, but then you think she might at least understand why I was suspicious. To be affronted by my caution seemed inappropriate. But ultimately I wanted to have my TV delivered and so I gave up a big piece of information to this stranger, and am still not sure that it definitely isn't part of some trick. It's a little suspicious at least.
About forty minutes later my phone rang again. The number displayed was another 0800 number and so I answered it, expecting a follow up from the woman, but this time it was a different woman who said that because I had once been a member of a book club (I am not any more), the book club wanted to reward me for my custom by giving me a free book. Maybe I was being paranoid, but this seemed like a strange thing for a book club I don't belong to any more to do. But she ruined it anyway by telling me that the book they wanted to send me was a Danielle Steele novel, which if the book club knew anything about me they would know I am not at all interested in possessing. So I told the woman I wasn't interested and hung up before she could then go into detail about the offer to rejoin the club which was undoubtedly following.
Maybe I have watched too many episodes of "The Real Hustle", but part of me wondered if this was just another attempt to garner information out of me. It would have been quite unsubtle to ring again so soon, but over the course of a few weeks anyone who had found out your phone number and maybe details of a few online purchases (any employee of amazon or the credit card company or computer hacker) could easily persuade you to give up all the personal information and passwords to give them control over your personal life.
Maybe I am being mental, but I don't think so. I have fallen victim to a scam myself, many years ago, when I rented a flat off of a bogus estate agent who then ran off with my deposit and first month's rent. At the time I was a little suspicious of him, but couldn't see how he could be conning me if he had the keys to the flat and obviously knew the people working on it and if he had his own office and phone number. It turned out he had rented the office by the day, had a phone answering service (who obligingly for him would inform me that he was out of the office at the moment when I rang - even though he had not office) and was also conning the Landlord by pretending to look for a client when in fact he was just stealing the money of the dozen or so people he was letting the same flat to.
As I went in to pay the man, still not sure he was on the level, but unable to see any way that he couldn't be, I even promised myself that I wouldn't hand over the cash until the Landlord himself had signed the contract, but somehow the swindler managed to convince me to hand over the cash (it had to be cash of course) anyway. He was, of course, taking advantage of the fact that the person letting a flat is keen to show that they can afford it and that they are the ones who have to prove they are worthy when there are several potential people who would want to live in the house.
I realised pretty quickly I had been had, when none of the electric or gas boards knew anything about the flat changing hands and suddenly the man stopped returning my calls. So I turned up on the day pretty certain I was going to find I had nowhere to live, which wasn't true for all the other people who also showed up, who hadn't even twigged that anything was wrong. The fact that I had been so suspicious and yet still gone through with the deal was really galling. It took me a long time to get over the feeling of stupidity, which still lingers now even as I recount the tale.
I was incredibly lucky in the end as the crook got caught almost by chance on one of the next times he tried the scam, only because the Landlord liked the look of someone looking round the flat and tried to play a sneaky one himself and offer her the flat cutting out the estate agent - to be told by the woman that as far as she knew she was moving in at the weekend. They had the presence of mind to not let on and get the police involved and arrest the bastard as he took the woman's money. Even though he was declared bankrupt after he was convicted (he'd been stealing to pay his mortgage and his wife's credit card bills and was a genuine estate agent in real life) I somehow managed to get my money back, though it all happened at a time when I was very poor and having lost a thousand pounds or so meant I had endured quite a hard few months - not least because I had nowhere to live and no money to rent anywhere else, so I had to live with my girlfriend's parents (I had actually been planning to move in with that girlfriend, so my life might have been very different if the move had gone ahead - though in hindsight I am quite relieved I didn't, so maybe I have something to thank the conman for - or maybe those months at her parents were what caused the whole relationship to go wrong- we certainly didn't make any effort to move in together after that).
So anyway, it pays to be suspicious and to go with your gut instinct and I am annoyed that I gave out my postcode, even though I can't see any use that a crook could make of it... but then I thought that last time.
Take care out there folks. Trust your gut. Especially if it is as well developed as mine.
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