Er, thanks for caring... I suppose

The phone rings. I pick up the receiver and hear a computerized voice saying, ‘Hullo! This is an important message for Miss X [my name badly mispronounced – this isn’t starting very well…] from Y [the name of a bank that doesn’t like to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or anything at all, in fact, usually, and certainly never calls me in the evening]. We have noticed suspicious activity on your credit card. Please contact us at this number as soon as possible: 0845, etc. etc.’ I go, ‘Don’t be so silly, you fraudulent people you!’ And put the phone down.

The next day, the same message is left on my answerphone. Ok, I can’t ignore it again; I need to tell my bank that someone is calling their customers, panicking them and asking them to call them back. Obviously, if they do they will be confirming that they are who those fraudsters think they are and will be ripped off somehow.
Except that it was my bank calling me.

‘What fraudulent activity? I’ve just checked on the Net; there’s nothing unusual there.’

‘Well, the day before yesterday you spent £1.28 in Tesco, instead of your usual £1.23. And yesterday you spent 59p in Superdrug; you never buy anything in Superdrug.’

‘So?’

Hey, don’t get me wrong: I’m delighted they’re looking after me and my peanuts so well, but leaving scary messages on answerphones is not on. We keep getting told not to believe anything; not to click on links in emails, for instance, in case they’re ‘phishing’ emails so I said to the nosy man, ‘Who in their right mind is going to call a number they’ve never heard of before, these days? That number isn’t mentioned anywhere in your literature.’ ‘It’s on the back of your credit card.’ I checked: it wasn’t.

They should have asked me to call the number I’m used to calling the rare times I feel like a chat with them, not a different – and, to me, suspicious – one.

It’s slightly creepy, isn’t it? There are people out there who are sitting in front of computer screens and scrutinizing our purchases. ‘Oh, look, she bought something for 32p in TK Maxx the other day. Wonder what it is.’

Slap!