My faith is restored

It seems nowadays that dealing with large companies and organisations can be a headache to negotiate sometimes. Not just a headache but an uphill struggle on slippery mud, where you get nowhere fast. I've had one such experience lately where I felt I'd be better off banging my head against a brick wall.

About six months ago I received a letter to my address but with a strange man's name on. Let's call him Mr Putin. (That is not his name, but it did sound Eastern European). Now I have lived at my address for 36 years and, apart from my husband and daughter, there has been nobody else living here, and certainly not by the name of Mr Putin,  unless he's hiding in my loft somewhere. I asked all the neighbours in my small cul-de-sac if they knew who this man was and nobody had heard of him. Reluctantly I opened the letter. It was from a leading UK High Street building society (let's call them BuildSoc) telling the said Mr Putin that his account was overdrawn and to contact them.

Now, call me paranoid,  but I was worried someone, or to be more precise Mr Putin, was using my address fraudulently, so I rang BuildSoc's head office and reported this. I was told to return the letter and it would be dealt with.

A couple of months later, I received another letter to Mr Putin. This time I took the letter to my local branch of BuildSoc and the counter clerk there promised the account would be blocked and investigated and that should be the end of the matter. 

Then in March I received a third letter to Mr Putin asking if they had the right address for him! Well, clearly not, as it was sent to my address again. I rang head office again and was on the phone for ages explaining, then being put on hold and then cut-off after 28 minutes!  I rang again and was cut off again after 11 minutes.  In the end I sent the letter back to BuildSoc with an explanatory covering letter. I asked them to sort this out once and for all and to let me know the outcome. Of course there has been radio silence ever since.

Then, yesterday, I received a fourth letter to Mr Putin asking if they had the right address for him. By now I felt like tearing my hair out. I rang BuildSoc again and was advised to take the letter into my local branch, which I did.

Within an hour of being home, I received a telephone call from a very pleasant lady (let's call her Diana) who apologised profusely and said she would look into the case and ring me today, which she did. Diana explained that she had listened through recordings of the very long phone calls I made in March and had traced what had happened since. She was amazed that I had been kept on hold for so long and she explained that indeed my phone calls were cut off because of technical faults the company was experiencing on that day. She said someone should have rung me back and had failed to do so.  She also explained the legality of trying to trace someone when they don't reply to letters and, whilst not promising that I may still get some more correspondence as they have legally to show they are trying to contact someone who may be forced against their will to not reply, she said it should all stop soon. Meanwhile to compensate me for my troubles and holding on the phone for so long, they would be sending me a cheque for £50. She asked me to contact her on her email if I experienced any further problems. BuildSoc has certainly gone up in my estimation. My faith in humankind is restored. 

Meanwhile my faith in mousekind has been shaken and slightly stirred. More on that another day...........