Of credit cards and phones
J and I signed up for an airline credit card back when we were making wedding purchases a year ago, thinking we’d receive our exciting $99 companion fare ticket out of the deal and cancel the card when we needed to. All this worked out fine except we never actually received the companion fare ticket and this has me calling the credit card every few weeks to inquire as to where it is and listen to them tell me that it is on it’s way. We haven’t actually used the card in months, so the last time I called I decided to just cancel the card then and there. But I had some very unhelpful customer service rep on the phone who couldn’t assure me that cancelling the card wouldn’t interfere with getting the ticket and told me to call back in an hour because the people who could help me were “experiencing a high level of calls at the moment.” On the way to hanging up, he asked me, as they do, if I wanted to purchase their fraud protection program. “Considering I’m calling to cancel the card, I don’t think I’ll be needing that,” I said.
Cut to exactly one hour later. My phone rings and it’s an automated voice from the credit card people telling me there has been some suspicious spending on THE VERY CARD I CALLED TO CANCEL (the one I haven’t used in months). They connected me to a rep who told me someone tried to spend $1,500 in a specialty store in Tennessee, but that they had the expiration date wrong on the card, so the transaction didn’t go through.
I know that outside of a conspiracy within the credit card company, this has to be a coincidence. But I’m very suspicious anyway. I closed the account and am hoping for the best regarding the $99 ticket.
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Dear people who keep calling even though I definitely haven’t called you,
Look, if you see that you’ve missed a call from a number you don’t recognize and there is no message left for you? Guess what? That person dialed a wrong number or their phone number has somehow randomly found its way to your phone; they don’t want to talk to you. If they wanted to talk to you, they would leave a message. That’s the ENTIRE purpose of voicemail. That’s why it exists. So that people who want to talk to you can leave a message and you can know that they called and call them back. I know you think it is the job recruiter calling to offer you an opportunity of a lifetime, or the producer, or the agent, or the person met last week you keep hoping will call and say they love you. But it is never going to be any of those people, because those people would leave a message. So if you call the number back, hoping it will be the answer to the desperate question in the back of your head, you will be wrong. And really annoying. Stop it.
xo, Liz
There is nothing worse than a non-message-leaver. Except maybe the people that don't take the non-message-leaving hints. Ugh.
I also love it when people blithely leave a message on my voicemail for someone else entirely.
Ah, but it's the thrill of the unknown. Hmm, who is that person calling me? I don't know. But I must know!
For a while, I was getting phone messages to confirm someone else's doctor appointment. And the speaker's English was so bad, that I could only catch a few words/syllables, so it would sound like "Miss BlahBlah, gobbledygook doctor's office, mumble mumble appointment, mumblegobledysomething something something." Needless to say, calling back and telling them they have the wrong number has never worked, and I still get the calls!
My number used to be one off from a sewing store called The Smockingbird (!) and I got messages all the time about people who were going to drop their sewing machines off. I have to wonder about people who don't think it's strange that a business's answering machine says "hi, this is Sally, leave a message."
Ooh! Ooh! I almost forgot that my current workplace's phone number is one off from Central Booking.
That makes for some fun times.