Click n'collect

Following the suggestion from Maigret, I have taken to a drop of Calvados of an evening if I don't fancy my usual white wine for some reason. For some other reason, I have got used to the stuff sold by our local Waitrose, from the people at reference 1. A touch expensive at £25 or so for a half litre bottle, but we can probably afford a small habit.

Then a couple of days ago the stuff had gone missing. The young man stocking up thought it had been delisted. More space needed for ready meals.

So back to the click-and-collect of the not very happy experience noticed at reference 2.

Yes, the stuff was still available online, so I buy two bottles, just to be on the safe side, using my PayPal account. In due course I get an email instructing me to report to customer services after 1430 on Saturday with reference number, photo id (unspecified) and bank card used for this transaction (not applicable).

So I turn up at around 1530 on the appointed day. No one at the customer service desk, although there one or two hard cases collecting their free coffees.

After a while, I collar a young lady who explains that I need to type my reference number in to the little machine on the service desktop. A step which I had completely forgotten about in the two months since the last occasion.

After a while, a parcel turns up, which I am prepared to take on trust, it being about the right size. But they are not going to take me on trust. Photo id please. So once again I proffer my senior citizen's identify card, issued by our fine local council. Oh no sir. That won't do at all. Driving license or passport. Oh no young lady, sezzaye. Your email didn't say anything about that. All ready, for once in a while, to pop off. The young lady in question was very young, almost certainly a Saturday girl, and decides that she is not paid to deal with people popping off at her. She settles on the face saving compromise of a very cursory inspection of my bank card, the one which was not used for the transaction in question. I leave with box, for some reason in rather a bad temper.

Temper slightly improved by gleaning an abandoned, nearly new Upsy Daisy from a bollard in what is left of our market square. An important personage in the life of many a two year old girl.

On the way home, I wonder why Waitrose go through all this identification rigmarole for goods of such modest value. Is it really very likely that some bad person knew that I had made this purchase? Or had stolen my PayPal details in order to make a purchase of their own on my account? And gone to the bother of forging my identity card?

And what about the facts that my driving license does not have a photo and my passport is about to expire? Does that disqualify me from the world of click n'collect?

Perhaps Waitrose have fallen prey to some wandering management consultant who specialises in expensive security advice.

PS: in the course of all this, I discovered that the acronym 'VSOP', often applied to products of this sort from France, actually stands for 'very superior old pale'. Odd that the French, usually very touchy about anglicisms creeping into their language, should be so keen on this acronym. For the UK market only?

Reference 1: http://www.calvados-pere-magloire.com/mag/en/home.php.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2018/12/wine-hunt.html.