Caxton Kafka

Some years ago, my wife organised a Caxton card for Mike, our son, to use on his travels. She also put my name on it, so that I, too, could use it.

We haven't used it for a while, and a replacement card arrived recently; which posed a problem. The problem arose because since last using the card, we have changed various email addresses, forgotten the passwords, and forgotten in whose details (d.o.b. mother's maiden name etc) the card was originally registered.

I know, I know, we should have had records of all of these, but we didn't. To register the new card (and transfer the balance from the old card to the new) we had to log in. For that, we needed to enter the correct email address, and the password. Forgotten password: no problem - they'll email it. But as we had also changed email addresses...

Clearly the thing to do was to call the helpline. I explained the situation, and the young woman at Caxton asked for my date of birth and my mother's maiden name, which I gave.

Caxton: Sorry, that is incorrect.

Me: I see. But those are in fact my date of birth and mother's maiden name. Perhaps we used my son's date of birth and mother's maiden name when we opened the account: 9/5/96 and Plasom.

Caxton: Sorry, that is incorrect.

Me: Oh. What should we do then?

Caxton: I cannot continue this call, as you have failed to identify yourself.

Me: I understand that. But given I can identify myself by other means (I could send you a copy of my passport for example) I am wondering what we have to do to move this forward.

Caxton: I cannot continue this call, as you have failed to identify yourself.

Me: So do I have to write to Caxton, or what?

Caxton: I cannot continue this call, as you have failed to identify yourself. You could phone back, if you can remember the details you may have given when you registered the card.

Me: So I should keep phoning with different combinations of my own, my son's and my wife's details until I hit the right one? Is that what you are saying?

Caxton: I cannot continue this call, as you have failed to identify yourself.

Me: Yes, I understand that; but I want to know what I should do next, to establish my identity.

Caxton: I cannot continue this call, as you have failed to identify yourself (and hangs up).

This is a shortened transcript: I tried various tacks and questions; she was almost unvarying in her response. It really was like something from Kafka - or possibly Vaclav Havel - that almost overwhelming despair of banging your head against a bureaucracy that isn't even malevolent, simply stupidly unmoving...

--

I conferred with my wife and tried again later. I got a much more amenable young man, who asked me several identifying questions, and told me that I had got one wrong, but the rest were all correct, so on that basis he was happy to accept my identity. The one I had got wrong was my mother's maiden name. It transpired that my wife, in setting up the account had used all my details (date of birth etc) but given her mother's maiden name... I could have phoned many many times before hitting on precisely that combination, so was grateful that the second Caxton employee was less Kafkaesque than the first...