Priceless

I got home tonight and the phone rang.

"Hello, may I speak to Mrs Raingod please?"

"Who's asking?"

"This is so-and-so from American Express. Is that Mrs Raingod?"

"No, this is *Miss* Raingod, how can I help?"

"Oh, I'm sorry Miss Raingod! American Express takes its customer's security very seriously and we are calling to make you aware of identity theft. Do you know anything at all about identity theft?"

By this time I had started sweating slightly, as my credit cards have been used fraudolently in the past, plus I had my purse stolen with my life in it just under two years ago, plus the incident with the grocery delivered to my "son" a few months ago.
However I kept listening to him and eventually I said that yes, I knew what identity theft was about, and yes I did shred important documents before binning them, and yes I knew Experian Credit Agency, and what was he trying to sell me, exactly?

Amex man had a chortle and went on to explain that American Express was offering some sort of protection package against identity theft, which included free unlimited access to Experian credit reports plus various other stuff. I'm not sure what precisely because when he said that I switched off, and shortly after I interrupted him, telling him I didn't want to waste any more of his time as I wasn't interested. It was at this point that he asked the question he'll probably regret for the rest of his career...

"And may I ask why, Miss Raingod?"

"Two reasons: the first one is that I already do what I possibly can to minimise the risk (including shredding and checking my Experian credit report for free every other month or so). The second reason is that a few years ago two of my credit cards were maxed for fraud. While my BoS Mastercard resolved everything within a few days without me having to lift a finger apart from notifying the Police, Amex made a major mess of it all and it took me 9 months of fighting them to sort it out, therefore I'm not going to put *them* in charge of looking after my financial security."

Dead silence followed by a grovelling apology. I felt a bit sorry for the guy who was really nice and good at his spiel. If he hadn't been calling from Amex I might even have considered the offer, or at least listened to it, but really... There are some things money can't buy...