Hello, why do I have to prove that I am myself or that I have paid for something?

In a burst to get my finances back under control, I checked my credit card in between. The new Matrix bought, check. Rains bags for my partner's birthday, check. A hotel that I had already paid for upon departure, pardon? It was really there. The intermediary hotel provider claimed a few hundred euros on my card for something I had already paid a lot for.

You can't get me any angrier, so I knocked on the door of the hotel I was already not so satisfied with. They had to release that amount from my credit card as quickly as possible. And then nicely but a bit forcefully. A day later, a thousand apologies trickled into my inbox, it was resolved with the intermediary. Until I suddenly received an email from customer service asking if I could prove that I had paid. And that makes me angry. Because why do I have to prove that I have fulfilled my payment obligation, while that f*cking hotel (pardon my French) makes a mistake?

It's the world upside down. As if the steward or stewardess asks you to show your statement from the company they work for, because otherwise you can't board the flight. Now you should know that administration is not my forte and that I find unnecessary admin a waste of my time, but administration for someone else? I would never do something like that voluntarily. In fact: I would charge triple the rate for it, so I can be sure they ask someone else.

I just don't think it's customer service. Once, I had to prove to Instagram that I was myself. Also something like that. Someone else ran off with my identity and I had to take a selfie with something that could prove my identity. So those professional criminals were asking my aunt to send texts with a code or link, while I was standing there like a kind of convicted criminal holding cards next to my head in the living room. And then just waiting, because at Instagram you can't talk to anyone at all.

The annoying thing is that I just knew at check-out in the hotel that it would go wrong. At the reception desk, the lady at departure printed out a hefty bill. I had to swallow, because this was something completely different than what the intermediary told me when booking. Fortunately, it was about three days of breakfast that I hadn't had at all, because I prefer to check off the little places in the city. And then you already know: here comes more hassle.

In the meantime, I have already sent three times whether they are completely out of their minds, but it doesn't help. So I will just obediently send the invoice from my account. And maybe an invoice with administration costs? Seems fun to me.