A very good point indeed, and reminds me of a story from the other day.

At CX we all get a rebated cargo voucher each year, offering us 100kg of online destination sublo cargo at ID90 rates - usually still cheaper than sea freight, but not always. Anyways we are meant to be provided with shipper & consignee details, a packing list, and the rebated voucher. The other day we get a box - no idea what it was - with a rebated voucher stuck to it and a phone number.

I call the number and get a SO's father-in-law who assumes somehow I can find his son-in-laws address in some system because we work at the same company (!). Privacy Act aside, I finally get the address and packing list out of him, and then he requests that it gets sent that night and even stickered the box to say this!

I wasn't in the greatest mood so I emailed the SO himself and told him it is sublo cargo and you can't pick flights, I need more info next time etc. His response was email of the week - "I am so sorry about that. My father in law is so annoying and is going senile. Just one of the many reasons he is not on my staff travel list!"

So yes it pays to be careful of who is doing your dealings with your passes or any form of concession

That being said, I have got my fair share of oddities when I have called other airline res centers.

I am always nice, never complain, and always introduce myself with my name, which airline I work for and ask how your day is going (the latter is an Australian thing, every phone conversation begins with each person asking how the other person is, even if you talked 5mins ago). So I do this with AA once, and the response from the guy was "Flight number?" - OK so i guess no time for the niceties in that call center. The next was SWA... I called to make a nonrev listing and she pretty much accused me of stealing a buddy pass. I called and said hey I have a purple pass can I please make a listing SFODAL, and she's all like "who gave it to you? where did you get it?." My response was "Ummmm my friend did, and I used to work there... why do you ask?" The tone in my voice was of clear shock as that was the first rude person at SWA I had ever encountered. Regardless the mood didn't lighten and she replied with "nevermind" and proceeded to spell my name completely wrong even though she read it back correctly.

Such is life