Prevail Credit Union Wants to Discuss Gay Porn
So I’m sitting down in front of my computer last week, editing a post for Slog, when my phone rings. It’s one of those automated voices asking me to confirm my name—is this a telemarketer, my phone company, the aliens?—but I comply and spit out my name. “Please state your address at the sound of the beep.” This is getting invasive but, what the hey, my address is no big secret. “No address by that listing can be found; please wait while we connect you with an operator.”
“Hello, this is Donnell, how can I help you?”
“I don’t know. You called me. How can you help me?”
“I’m very sorry, sir, I’m calling on behalf of Prevail Credit Union. We have some unusual activity on you account.”
“I went to Oregon last weekend.”
“Yes, sir, what is this charge on your account last night for $4.95?”
So, of course, for the first time in my life, I had spent five bucks to watch a movie on X-Tube—the most wonderful thing on all the Web—the previous night. Never spent a penny on porn before, despite all the pop-up ads, the blinking GIFs, the automatic reroutes to pay-as-you-blow sites, not once had I put a charge on my card for porn. But the one time I do, I’ve got Donnell on my ass about it. Of course.
“That was gay porn. I was downloading gay porn and watching it, Donnell. I’d never done it before, but, since you called me to ask, that’s what the charge is all about. Gay porn.”
A very uncomfortable silence.
“I like gay porn.”
“That’s all right, sir. And these charges at the Shell station?”
“I was buying gas on the trip to Oregon.”
“Have a good day.”
Seriously, did Donnell really have to ask me what the charges were for? He could have just asked me if I charged $4.95 to my account the previous night and if I’d been using my card in Oregon, right? Of course he could have. I think Prevail wanted to talk about gay porn.
April 30th, 2008 at 10:05 am
i got a bunch of fradulent charges to my debit card recently for (really bad) straight porn. nobody wanted to talk about it
even when i called them over and over to talk about it. finally they agreed to take them away and send me a new debit card. am i SURE that i didn’t visit a site and then forget? apparently they think some nights i just let my fingers do the walking in a booze and cocaine fueled haze