For some reason unclear my new credit card never turned up. I contacted the credit card issuers and was told that it had been sent off on the 30th of November! As the new card had not come back to them they also gave be a number to use at the post office, which I understand to be a recorded delivery reference number. After hanging around in a long queue for more than half an hour, with an impatient 3 and half year old, the post office counter assistant told me that the number meant nothing to her and that she could do nothing. Very helpful. Not.
I decided that the best thing to do was to put a stop on the new credit card, which meant that I then had to go to the Carabinieri this afternoon, with said 3.5 year old, to make a declaration that the card had been lost. Another 45 minute wait, but at least the Carabinieri (a ‘maresciallo’ – warrant officer rank) who eventually saw me was a nice chap.
Stop reading, start speaking
Stop translating in your head and start speaking Italian for real with the only audio course that prompt you to speak.
I now have to wait 10 days for a new credit card to come through. I’ve no idea what has happened to the ‘old’ new card, but my phone has not received any text messages telling me that it has been used for any transactions, which is a good sign. At least that card should be useless now.
It took about a morning to sort all this out. I suspect that credit cards are all too easily recognisable and so disappear into the pockets of unscrupulous postal workers. Apparently in the UK cheque books have been disappearing into similar pockets.
The WWW is a wonderful thing, but it seems to be leaving lots of us open to fraud these days and I would like to bet that ‘cloned’ credit cards are stolen specifically for use over the WWW. I just hope some transaction for some item bought in Nigeria does not turn up on my credit card account one fine day…..
