I was outside grabbing a sneaky ciggy. My phone rang; Private Number. The caller stated that she was from the company with whom I have my mortgage. It was not entirely unexpected, because I am slightly messing them about (for a greater strategic purpose).
She asked me for my date of birth, address, and post code. I asked her whether she could confirm to me that she really was from that company. She sounded taken aback, although not resistant. "What did you want to ask me?" Thinking quickly on my feet, I said "Please tell me the amount of my monthly mortgage payment." And she did. Unassertively, I sort of apologised for asking. She said "No no not at all." To be honest, I'm not convinced that this is a particularly fraud proof or even Data Protection-safe way of communicating in either direction - my address and date of birth are both in the public domain. Yet it was dispiriting to hear the tone of surprise in her voice - it seems that I am a rarity who wants a degree of comfort I am not talking to a random phisher.
I was slightly irritated, though, at the call. To cut a long story short, in a state of panic I had cancelled my mortgage direct debit, unnecessarily, as it turned out. To set it back up again requires paper work. In a classic case of Round Tuit, I didn't send off the paperwork until late November, thus missing the December take. I was told on the phone on 30 November that they only have one run a month; I said, it's not that I don't believe you, but I really don't want to risk two payments being taken in one month. I agreed that I would make a manual payment well before Christmas and said that even as we were speaking I was setting up an Outlook reminder for next Wednesday.
She rang me up to tell me I am in arrears. This is contradictory to a previous conversation with one of her colleagues who had informed me that one only gets into arrears at the end of the month in which the payment is due ie although I customarily make my payment on the first working day of the month, it is not in arrears until close of business of the last working day. So my December paymet is due, but not overdue.
"Obviously," she said, "there is no note on the system when you will make your payment." Resisting the temptation to suggest that, therefore, 'system' is a misnomer, I thought "Obviously?" This is not the first time they had called me to seek information that I had already candidly divulged to someone else.
I see no point in being rude to such people. It's not nice for them and it's counter-productive, but this little blip has given me an insight into petty inefficiency
