Let me fill you in (wouldn’t I love to, just!) I acquired my Barclaycard not later than1973. I applied for, and as far as I was concerned, received a card for cheque guarantee purposes only. I have never considered that I had an account as such. I don’t know when or by what flight of fancy I was awarded a credit limit of £300.
I have never used my card for purchase, or cash withdrawal. I have never lost, mislaid or loaned my card. There is no way that any money could be debited to my account. Consequently, I have never received a statement-
Until your present lulu, which came via an address which I left 12 months ago, and which I enclose so that you can put it on the nail behind the closet door.
So when you stop dashing about the office like blue-arsed flies, and sort it out, you will find you have made a mistake, you will sort it out, you will apologise and that will be it. Wrongggggg!
Your computer in Liverpool is expecting money, even as I write, and when it doesn’t get it the bells will ring, lights will flash and the message will go out down the wire to traders throughout the green and pleasant- ‘Don’t touch Neil; he’s on skids’. Then when you eventually cancel that advice, you won’t explain why. You won’t say ‘We made a cock-up and left him to carry the can, when all the time he was clean and we were the pillocks’. You’ll just say ‘It’s alright; let him deal’ and leave people to think I must have found another backer, all of which doesn’t do my credit rating any good.
And that’s not all. (‘What, more?’ I hear you cry. Read on, MacDuff). I’ll tell you. I paint pictures for a living- peaceful, pleasant pictures for which I need to be in a peaceful, pleasant frame of mind. In a day, I can paint a picture that will sell for over £300. I don’t do it every day, but that is what a day can be worth to me. After your unjustified (I owe you nothing) aggressive (red ink) threatening (‘cut up your card’) demand for money (I don’t think your local vicar, John Anderton, likes people who do that sort of thing) my day today isn’t worth an odd sock! There’ll be no £300 beauty today! Today’s best bet is some furious double digging in frosty ground, and heave the odd rock at next door’s goat!
So when you’ve got your act together, and you’ve all put clean knickers on, you can send me a cheque for£50 for loss of earnings, which is about right for the time of year, of a weekday (don’t credit my account) and we’ll say no more about the ‘defamation of character’ bit, and I can’t say fairer than that, John, can I?
Copies to: Mike Crayford, Manager, Barclays, North walsham.
Esther Rancid, BBC.
Mario ‘Bananas’ Buonarotti, Insurance Broker, and Importer of
Fine Coffin Furniture, Chicago, Ill.