…but it did. Just less thana year ago my wallet and all but one of my debit cards were stolen, including one for a business account that’s no longer used. Now I find I’ve racked up an overdraft of £54. Not a huge amount, but frustrating nontheless.

A month or so ago I got a call from the company I used to bank with when I ran my former consultancy, MSO Media. They did their usual trick of asking me to tell them who I was, and when I refused I was sent a letter…to an old address. They rang back today to tell me that I had an overdraft and to ask when I would be thinking of paying it. I explained that I’d had my wallet stolen quite a few months ago, but that when I had tried to report the loss of this particular card to the bank after reporting it to the police, the number I was given by their website didn’t work! How’s that for customer care? Because there was no balance on the account and (I thought) no overdraft facility, I saw no harm in letting it go. What a numpty.

The woman on the end of the phone clearly didn’t believe me, saying in not so many words “well, if that’s your story, you need to ring this number…”, which I did but put the phone down when I realised that I didn’t have my account details to hand. The bank don’t really seem that bothered about helping me out here, so I’m in no rush to bail out the loser who nicked my stuff. If there was any balance on that account I’d be more interested in getting results, but it’s not my money he’s had it off with, it’s the bank’s. Problem is now it’s also my debt, all thanks to a mistyped phone number.

So the moral of this story is, ID theft really does happen.