Losing It

A word of advice to businesses who get enquiries from stupid customers which are nothing to do with a transaction; how you deal with such queries will help your sales. A story:

Last Friday TCMT lost her wallet. It had either been stolen (but no use had been made of her credit cards) or left at a particular place. We had only been to one place where she used her wallet.

A phone call to this place received the response, 'No-one can help until Monday.' Detecting that this was slightly less than helpful she decided to pay a personal visit, a ten mile drive. After all it only had to be established clearly that they did not have the wallet there and it was time to be cancelling credit cards.

They were slightly more enthusiastic but insisted the wallet had not been handed in. They allowed her to escort them to the place where her wallet might have been lost. It wasn't there. Whilst waiting for one assistant to get another to help she heard herself described thus, 'It's that stupid woman again'.

She returned home and once more we turned the house and car upside down. No joy. Then bank cards were cancelled and an awkward thirty minutes was spent trying to replace only one of our two cards on our National Trust account (we are planning to visit a lot of properties next week).

The main sadness for TCMT was that the wallet was a gift from a son and much cherished.

This was the day before our ruby wedding anniversary and we had planned to spend it chilling and enjoying each other's company. The lost wallet took the edge off it.

The next day, Sunday, we felt a bit better and returned home after a morning out to a voice-mail message from the place that had assured us it didn't have the wallet and couldn't help until Monday. It had the wallet and had called on a Sunday.

It had been put somewhere it shouldn't have been put by the person who had found it on Friday evening. Nothing sinister. Just incompetence.

Losing a wallet can happen to anyone. It is a one-off stupid act. In failing to help us the place we lost it has won the stupid battle at least 3-1. And we would, if we had been really helped, have been singing the praise of the establishment that understood the predicament. As it is we preserve their anonymity.

It's a nice wallet, sentiment is resurrected and replacement cards have arrived.