A Duplication Drama

I bought a plan with a life insurer,

'Double Protection' they said it was called.

They sent me a glossy welcome pack;

Through ten pages of content I crawled.

A few weeks later they wrote once again,

They said that there might be some trouble;

A chap in their system looks just like me

So I might be recorded in double.

I called them next day to make a complaint,

I got quite angry and started to shout.

“We'll have to look into what has occurred,

But be assured, we will sort it out”.

They phoned me to say I was indeed doubled,

My two un-matched records must be merged.

“Don't worry”, they said, “we do this a lot,

Your doubled data will soon be converged”.

They told me, “When you take out a new plan

The system checks if you already exist.

It’s a complex algorithm that’s used”.

But for some reason my double was missed.

Why didn’t they find me, I haven’t changed?

(Well, perhaps my address, once or twice!)

Why didn’t they keep my data up-to-date?

When your data’s stored twice it’s not nice.

They wouldn’t explain their algorithm,

“It’s a trade secret” they tritely explained.

“It’s under review to stop cases like you,

And many others who also complained”.

The fact that they said “this happens a lot”

Caused my confidence to be depleted.

Twenty days later they called me again:

"The merge of your data's completed".

I tried to log on but couldn't get in,

Had my user account been impacted?

“Yes”, they told me, “When records are merged,

Your credentials must all be redacted”.

At last, I logged in to check the results

But saw some info I knew wasn’t mine.

“Whose is this data I'm seeing?”, I asked,

“You told me my merge would be fine”.

They'd wrongly merged my new customer record

With someone else, NOT my double. They blew it.

That misbehaved merge had mangled my data

And worse - they don’t have a way to undo it!

‘Double Protection’ indeed!

© Ray Cohen, June 2023