Day 282. Hanging on the telephone (9/8/13)

So I had these missed calls on my iPhone.

Weird number. Started with a +34 so clearly foreign. Showed the number to a couple of lads in work. 'Is your kid working away?' They asked. Not to my knowledge.

I left it. And then on Friday, as we were shopping in Liverpool One my phone went. Same number again.

Couldn't not answer it could I?

'Is that Mr Salmon?' (The L was pronounced IIRC, it happens quite a bit with people who don't know me)

A holiday company in Tenerife. I had filled out a form with their company earlier in the year apparently with the prospect of winning accommodation for two in one of their properties. They were right. I had. I'd done what I don't normally do and filled out a survey in an airport as we were heading back to England after a brief break in our friends' apartment. J had scoffed at this action. Nobody wins those things was, as I recall, the gist of the argument.

Except it appeared that somebody does win those things. And it appeared that on this occasion, that somebody was me. I had, they told me, won a week's accommodation. No flights but that's cool, flights are easy.

Only one drawback. Well, two if we're honest.

I was in the middle of a shopping centre, it was a bit loud and I'm on Orange so my signal is rubbish at the best of times so I couldn't really hear the girl on the other end of the line.

'Im sorry, the line is terrible, I can barely hear you'

The other drawback? I don't do business on the phone, I like to see details in front of me. So I said 'I'm sorry but I don't really do business on the phone, could you possibly email me the details?'

Her reply?

'Im afraid I can't, I'm live in the telesales department at the moment so can't email'

'Well could you possibly get one of your colleagues to email me so that I can make a decision on which property to take?'

So she said that she would see to that and read me my email address.

That was on Friday. On Sunday I rang the number from our house phone. There was a weird message saying that 'this phone number is no longer in use'

This puzzled me. What could possibly have gone so wrong in two days? I had spoken to the company on Friday, there must be some kind of technical error. I decided that it was probably best to leave the phone calls and just wait for the e-Mail.

Which, strangely, is yet to arrive. Perhaps all of Tenerife is suffering some kind of communications blackout.

Stop sniggering. It's not a con. I didn't avoid giving my credit card details to a totally unknown company just because I'm not daft enough to do something like that.

I'm going to Tenerife. I AM going to Tenerife.

Just as soon as my e-Mail arrives.

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