Update from Barclaycard

I got another call from them today. We started off with the security question, and I gave the caller my age next birthday. Then I told him it was my turn to ask the security question. So first of all, I asked his name, which he gave me, and then I asked his mother's maiden name. And he wouldn't give it! Good for you, I thought, you've understood how stupid this idea is.

He was calling to give me the good news that they've determined that they hadn't sent the spam (which I already knew) and this it had been sent by Freedom Marketing (which I already knew, that was actually explained in the spam). So then we got to the meat of the matter. I want them to put my email address on a Blacklist, which they then use to make sure that I don't get spammed in future, either by them, or by one of their affiliates. I explained to him that this was Best Practice. But apparently, they don't have anything like this. And he got very focussed on the fact that it hadn't been them that sent the email. Yes, I know that, but it was sent by one of your affiliates, and you could stop this happening in future. So he suggested that I contact Freedom Marketing, which I did two months ago when the spam actually happened (yes, it's taken them two months to respond to my complaint, which isn't exactly a good advertisement for Barclays customer service). So I explained that, yes, I've done that, but they have hundreds of other affiliates, and they could send their blacklist to all of them ... but they don't have a Blacklist.

So I asked for him to formally put this as a suggestion up through his chain of command, and he's going to do that. He also said that they'd be writing a letter to me to acknowledge this suggestion.

Quite a few of the people I've spoken to are either already using this system, or else immediately saw what a good idea it would be, as it would reduce their exposure to offences against the PEC Regulation (2003). So, I'll encourage Barclays to adopt it too. I feel sure that all they need, is some more encouragement from me.

I wish my hip bursitis was better so I could go out caching.