There is something very very wrong in the way the world is turning out. I got a call from Tripadvisor (London) – one of the worlds largest travel and rental websites – because I had a request for one of my properties unanswered. So the agent calls me on my mobile and we have a bad connection. I suggest he calls me on my landline which he then does. Both numbers used come from his database.
So after introduction he says he needs to verify my id by asking me some security questions. I know they work that way, but he caught me on one of my good days and I made his day a bit more difficult than he had imagined.

So I asked him, before he verifies my ID how I could verify his.
Think about it. You get a call from a number unknown to you from a foreign country and a person unknown to you wants to verify YOUR id after having called you twice using numbers from HIS database. What???

Now of course there is a system behind that. He works for a big firm “tripadvisor”. They don’t need to id themselves! I am the small fish here. And that’s whats upsetting me. Because in reality he is the small fish sitting on a headset in some cubicle without any rights to speak freely off the given scheme. He does not even have the right to id himself. So trying to solve a problem with this person is absolutely futile. He is trained to a certain flow chart of questions and answers and if you do not comply he is totally lost for words because its his job on the line. That’s crazy. Upsetting. Costs my valuable time. And happens ever more.