Today I had reason to call my mobile phone service supplier O2. I dialled their Customer Service Number 44 45 and after being given various options quickly twigged that I was’nt going to speak to a human being unless I pressed the button to ‘ upgrade ‘. All the other buttons transferred to a voicemail apologising for the fact they were all Covid 19 absent.
Eventually I got through after holding and hearing horrible music for 20 plus minutes. As I did I could barely hear the human, I detected he was male, spoke broken English and faded in and out like he was sitting on a telephone pole in a high wind. The human asked me if I was happy to go on an Identity check. No problem I responded and then the nightmare began. He asked me for a ‘ memorable word ‘ which I didn’t have and probably had forgotten since setting up the Account many years ago. He then said he would send me a text and I was to read back the four number on it. I did just that.
Then he asked me to give him the last 4 numbers of my Bank Account. I gave him those. He thanked me and I thought I was through, now able to tell him why I was calling. He kept thanking me for using O2 but I told him I wasn’t very happy at this moment. Then he asked me to give him the last two numbers I had dialled before calling him. I explained that was difficult as the two previous calls were names not numbers and I would have to access the numbers if he really wanted them. He insisted and as I scrambled in my contacts I could see that many people were calling me, that e mails were flooding in and here I was trying to convince a stranger who I was and if I did exist that I had my own identity.
I managed to write down the numbers as I sucked the top of my biro off and write the numbers down on the back of my coffee napkin. It was great balance as I got there. He then agreed that the numbers were correct but then he then asked me for my address. At that point I failed as I remember the address I had registered at office or home and I failed to give the right one but he was now barred from asking another question and told me I had not passed security checks.
I pleaded sanity with him and it was now becoming the challenge of the day. I invited him to ask me the date of my direct debit or roughly what my last bill was. Alas he wouldn’t have it but then I asked him to cancel my account. At that point he freaked out and I said to him that I had no idea if he was really O2 and that I needed to speak to his Manager. He then asked me how could he help me ?
Sometimes in life you have difficulty proving who you are and sometimes in life you can have difficulty knowing what you are. We now live in a mad world of codes and numbers , passwords and memorable things that we all forget. Life is hard enough, is O2 really a phone company or is it an organisation that drains it customers of Oxygen dealing with them. I returned to write this blog, my wife recognised me and I felt finally in touch with myself and who I really was. Who are you ?
qbitblogger 