Beat the bogus caller

I was at home at lunchtime today, enjoying the joint guilty pleasures of mujadarrah (a scrummy rice and lentils dish I first picked up in Jerusalem) and ER, when my video entry phone buzzed at me.*

I was instantly suspicious. Anyone calling at my door on a Wednesday at about 1.30pm was hardly likely to be offering me anything I actually wanted like a job or a nice skirt. I think my suspicious tone was probably fairly clear to the man on the other end.

Anyway, he said he was from Siemens (yes, I managed not to giggle at the silly name) and had come to check the electricity meter. My journalist training immediately kicked in.

"Do you have any ID?" I say.
He said he did, but before I went out to check it, I did a quick sweep of the flat - no open windows, back door locked. I took my keys and locked the door behind me.

Standing on the doorstep, a slightly impatient looking man with a Siemens jacket on it (when I told this story at work, it came out more like a jacket with siemen written all over it. They obviously decided to ignore the fact I said written and much hilarity ensued) and a siemens id.

This looked pretty legitimate to me, but oh, no, we tell all the old ladies who get their stuff nicked by nasty men pretending to be from the non-existent water board to take the ID away, call the telephone number on it and check the person is for real.

So I said to the man (let's call him Walter Fibley) I was just going to quickly call the number on it. He seemed taken aback but handed over the ID and I disappeared back into the house.

As soon as I got through to the siemen's blurb I was pretty sure the guy was really from the electricity company, but I thought I should see it through. When I got through to the man at the other end, he was very understanding and put me on hold while he went to check.

Unfortunately, he came back and said that he couldn't find the man, he was going to check with another department. When he eventually came back, he gave me a description of the man, (white, in his 20s, short dark hair) which could really have been anyone, but hey, it was good enough for me.

I finally let the man in and gave him back his ID. I should probably point out it was raining quite heavily throughout this.

In retrospect, the meters are in the basement so he wouldn't actually have had to come into actually my flat, and at 24 and pretty fit and compos mentis (yeah, I love self-flattery), I'm probably not the ideal target for bogus callers. But I can rest safe in the knowledge that had he been trying to rob me blind, I would totally have figured him out.

*I still get quite excited by the fact that I have a video entry phone with a buzzer and everything. Childish, I know, but it is funny to see these distorted faces unaware that you are spying on them.

I am concerned that my advice to tumble-dry my bloke's waterproof trousers may result in them melting.

More on that story later.