… So four years ago, I was a member of a class action suit. Publishers Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan and Penguin had settled several antitrust lawsuits about ebook prices that had been deemed too high. Because I had bought many books on Kindle, I was entitled to a credit.
I had been awarded about $300 as my share in the settlement.
Sweet.
A nice little windfall.
But I had a question. Could I spend it on any ebook my little heart desired or did I have to buy ebooks published only by these errant publishing houses?
The official communication from Amazon did not address this issue. And I could find no further clarification anywhere on the internet.
I had to go Old School.
I called Amazon.
My call to the Help Line was answered promptly and in a pleasant Anglo-Indian accent. I was pretty sure that I had reached a call center in India.
“Amit” was terrific. He answered my question immediately. (Don’t ask what he said, however. The next bit drove all the other recollections of this call clean out of my mind.)
And then he said, “I see by your information that you live in Chicago, Illinois. Is that correct, Mrs. Ross?”
“I do, ” I assented. “Where are you?”
“I’m in Mumbai, India,” Amir confirmed my educated guess.
“And I have to ask you a question, if you don’t mind,” he continued. “Would you happen to be related to a gentleman named Bill Ross? He, too, lives in Chicago.”
“Well,” I started- as my head began swimming. “Ross is a pretty common name here. I’m not really sure…”
“He belongs to BLANK BLANK Country Club,” Amit added helpfully.
I was flabbergasted. Mumbai has a population of 18.41 million people.
The Earth has a population of 7,632,819,325 at the latest count.
My luck. I had to call Amazon and get the one guy in India who knows my ex.
“Yeah, you could say I’m related to him. How do you know him?”
“I worked at the club last summer and I met him there. He was a very pleasant gentleman. Be sure and send him my regards when next you speak with him.”
“Will do,” I promised.
And I will.
The next time I speak with him.
And I won’t be in touch with you, Dear Readers, until Sunday, July 1. I’ve got friends coming in from out of town and I can not be a good hostess and a good blogger at the same time. Please forgive me and hang in there.
See you on July 1.
Now watch this.
Odds are we have ALL been there.
I am very impressed that know how many people there are in the world.
Do you realize that McDonald’s could have served 52.4 burgers to every person alive today???!!!
This has nothing to do with the point of your column, but just in case you’re ever on a game show and you’re asked how many burgers McDonald’s has sold and you need to phone a friend, you’ll know who to call….I’ll bet Amit wouldn’t know that answer!!
And I am very impressed that you’re so up on McDonald’s stats. And since I seldom eat there, just think. Somebody has had to eat almost 100 hamburgers to make the stats come out.
Thanks for the offer, Steve. You can be my lifeline anytime. 😊🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔
What an amazing coincidence you reached the one Amazon call center employee who had met your brother while working here in the States. Did your brother remember him?
I haven’t forgotten one of my calls to a helper for my email server several years ago. He was likely working for a call center in India, too. It was very strange. He ended up asking me if I would allow him to be a Facebook friend of mine.
I told him sure but he would have to send a FB friend request. I figured if he did, I would delete the request anyway and report him to my server. He never made a request. The whole experience was a bit creepy to me, especially since he had the password to my server account.
Susan, I’m sorry you had that icky experience. Our virtual world seems more connected all the time and we have to use causation. But even though I appreciate your on-point comment, I had to take points off for failure to read closely. The guy knew my ex husband. Not my brother. Sorry.😌