Cheek

 The Gorse Fox thought he was being scammed. A text arrived saying payment had been declined on his debit card and details would follow from another number. They did. Should he reply? He never replies to phone numbers in unsolicited text messages. He looked up the bank's Fraud Department's phone number and called them. Just as he finished traversing the menus and got put through to a call handler, the call dropped. He would call back later.

A minute or two later he received a call from the bank's fraud department. We went through some mutual questioning to ensure we were both who we claimed to be. We then looked at the declined transaction. It was right that they should have declined it. It was part of an elaborate scam by an Insurance Company called "Go Assist" purporting to be an appliance maintenance contractor. You phone them, as the Gorse Fox did last year, and they dispatch an independent contractor to fix the problem. They charge you an extortionate sum and give you a year's cover for that device. They also set up a recurring payment on your debit card to take another year's cover on the anniversary of the first. The Gorse Fox asked for his card to be cancelled and a new one sent out.

The Gorse Fox also phoned "Go Assist" and gave them a dressing down, demanding that his details were removed from their systems and that if he had any further attempts to debit his account he would report it as fraud. He wonders how many people are caught out like this and pay these premiums unwittingly.