I'm going to tell you a story that I'm afraid doesn't reflect well on me. But it's a cautionary tale and hopefully you will benefit from my telling of it. This happened yesterday.
I was checking my bank statements when I noticed something odd. A couple of months ago I'd ordered a take away curry via curriesonline. It was a memorable occasion because there'd been… I wouldn't say an altercation, but I'd been extremely annoyed.
You see, the curry had turned up 2 HOURS LATE, despite the fact I'd phoned up several times and received assurances it was on its way. You can understand I was a bit miffed. The film we'd wanted to watch was long since ended. We eventually ate in terse silence.
Anyway, this is by-the-by, except that it partly explains what occurred. I noticed only a couple of days later there was another transaction with the website. And this time it was for more than £300. I hadn't ordered any more curry, certainly not that quantity.
The only explanation was that they'd been equally annoyed with me (surely I'd been polite, if exasperated?) and taken money from my account! Unbelievable! My more rational mind realised it must be a mistake.
But how? You don't just accidentally transfer money out of someone's account. Perhaps it was a glitch with the website. The only way to resolve it was to phone them up. If they weren't willing to be helpful I was prepared to accuse them of… what? Stealing my money?
If it came to that, yes. But let's not be hasty. I found their number with some difficulty. They no longer seemed to be using the website I'd ordered through. This increased my suspicions. I dialled, quite angry again thinking about my previous encounter.
At first it said number not recognised. Had the business closed, was it all part of a scam? I dialled again. No reply. And again. The same. Useless. By now I had resolved to drive down there and talk to them in person, assuming they were still in business.
Just before leaving I thought I'd better double check my bank statement to make sure I got the amounts right. No mistake there. But… hold on. That's odd. The website had two slightly different addresses recorded on the statement.
The first one, yes, was curriesonline. But the second…
Oh god. The deep shame descended on me, a cold sweat of what I'd just done.
The second one was currysonline.
Oh god. The deep shame descended on me, a cold sweat of what I'd just done.
The second one was currysonline.
And with that it came back to me that the reason we'd had the curry was because our cooker had packed up. Two days later I'd gone to Currys and bought a replacement.
The moral of the story is, as I'm sure you'll all agree: don't be a fucking idiot.
I feel that sharing this story with you is my penance. I can’t get over how lucky I was that no one answered the phone. They would have denied everything and I would have lost my shit.
