My eight-year campaign to cancel my mobile phone contract

The man in the phone shop greeted me with what I presume is a look specifically designed and reserved for those asking to cancel their contracts. This look could best be described as ‘You are dead to me. Get out.’

I have been trying to cancel this contract for many years. I never use the phone, I have another one, with another company. But the bill for the old Sim card still comes out of my bank account and I can’t work out how to make it stop.

I rang them as usual at the start of the year – this has been my New Year’s resolution for seven or eight years now – and a nice enough man on this phone line explained to me that he couldn’t possibly cancel my contract over the phone, I would need to go into the shop.

So I went into the shop, and, you guessed it, the very first thing the man in the shop said to me was that he couldn’t possibly cancel my contract in the shop, I would need to ring the phone line.

He then refused to say another word. He stood in front of me in silence and simply existed. It was like performance art. He could get work as a street artist called the Amazing Non-Speaking Phone Man.

‘See how he stands and stares at you for hours without moving a muscle! Marvel as you clap in front of his face and he doesn’t even twitch!’

I rambled incoherently: ‘Oh, er, I did ring the phone line but they said to come into the shop, because, to cut a long story short, the phone this Sim card was bought to go in is a second phone, and it doesn’t work any more, so they can’t cancel it over the phone because that would involve sending me a text to this phone, and this phone won’t switch on…’