This building was my office for my first proper job. I replied to an ad in a paper (that’s how old I am) and was granted an interview.
There were three other candidates and we were all asked to do a literacy and numeracy test, I passed and was offered the position, which was answering the phones for a car insurance company called Enterprise Insurance, giving quotes, taking credit card payments and filling out and posting cover notes.
After a few hours training on my first day, the two impeccably dressed and groomed directors just disappeared and left me to my own devices.
I pick things up really quickly and soon I had a decent phone manner and learned to navigate my way through the ‘bible’ of quotations I was given (I didn’t even have a computer), and I took 7 payments for a years cover, filled out, signed and posted the cover notes on my first day.
On my second day, a customer who happened to live a few streets away from my house rang up to complain that he had been in a minor collision and the other person's insurance company had asserted that his cover didn’t exist and was not valid. I said I’d check his policy and get back to him.
Half an hour later, I was sat by myself in the office and three Asian men walked in with baseball bats and demanded money back for four invalid policies. They were swearing and threatening me and though I’m no shrinking violet, I was a bit scared until they started making racial comments to me so I stood up to them and they fucked off saying they’d be back with more people at close of business.
I promptly locked the office, posted the keys through the letterbox and went home.
Half an hour later, I was sat by myself in the office and three Asian men walked in with baseball bats and demanded money back for four invalid policies. They were swearing and threatening me and though I’m no shrinking violet, I was a bit scared until they started making racial comments to me so I stood up to them and they fucked off saying they’d be back with more people at close of business.
I promptly locked the office, posted the keys through the letterbox and went home.
My girlfriend at the time’s Dad was a Detective Sergeant in the CID at Millgarth station so I rang him, explaining that I had been merrily signing legal documents and was effectively an unintentional accessory to fraud. He told me to leave it with him.
It turned out the two directors were young lads that worked for an insurance company in Bradford and had decided to set up a front, renting an office, putting adverts in various papers and then stealing documents and quote bibles from their employers, then taking money, keeping it and not insuring people at all.
All they needed was a phone monkey to do it for them while they were at work (which is why I never saw them).
I don’t know what happened to them and I never bothered to find out but I never got any comeback from it.
Suffice to say I never got paid either.
Suffice to say I never got paid either.
