Monday June 07, 2004

I got a call from Apple Computer this morning asking me how I like my iPod. I was somewhat surprised they called since I bought it back in August of 2002, but hey, they were also asking me about new features that I'd like to see in future iPods, which was cool. But it became apparent at some point that I was being asked about an iPod I had supposedly bought this past January. Which I hadn't. Dismissing that as a glitch, we terminated the call.

But I've learned to pay attention to small anomalies like this and to root cause them. As when a bank mailing showed up at my home several months ago, addressed to someone who has never lived at my address. Odd. Throw it out, assuming some silly mistake? Long story short, I did follow up and determined that someone had opened a credit card account against my social security number and run up a bill that was now being sent to collection. Interestingly, while Capital One seemed completely unable to determine at the time they opened the account that the name, sex, and address of the person who opened the account did not match any of my particulars, it was not until they were owed real money that they were able to find my real address for collection purposes. A pox on them.

Back to Apple. A second call to Apple determined that not only was there an iPod on my account, there were two 20" flat-panel iMacs, too. After being told I'd need to have my police department or credit card company contact Apple's Security Department, I was eventually able to speak to someone at Apple who determined that no charges for those items had been made against my credit card and, in all probability, there had been some sort of corruption of the AppleCare database that intermixed other customers' items with my own. So, this one was a false alarm.

But these days, it pays to follow up and check out all of these seemingly small anomalies. (2004-06-07 12:02:32.0) Permalink Comments [0]