My Orwellian battle with Vodafone

After launching an investigation into my missing phone, Vodafone informed me it could not deal with me any further until I went through a series of checks to prove that I was who I said I was.

I then became locked in an Orwellian battle with an automated system that sent email after email demanding, for example, that I confirm my email, until I gave up on my lost phone, because no amount of confirming seemed to work.

Maybe it was naive to try to tell Vodafone that one of their stores had sold me a Nokia that did not hold a charge, refused to refund or exchange it, then sent the phone away into the ether to be mended, where it apparently disappeared.

And that while I was in this store, a chirpy salesman made me sign a digital pad on the counter which it later transpires was them locking me into a new year-long contract without my knowing it — on the phone that doesn’t work.

All things considered, I thought I was very restrained in sending a polite email describing this series of events and asking for their response.

At one stage, they emailed a letter addressed to my name asking me to confirm what my name was

But instead of an apology and an offer to put things right, they emailed back very pompously informing me that they were launching an ‘investigation’ into my ‘latest complaint’, as if a.) they could not possibly just accept a blindingly obvious series of cock-ups on their part and b.) I was clearly someone who habitually complained about either Vodafone, or possibly everything. And so what if I am? There are no laws against complaining. There are laws about contracts, however. Tell the person they’re taking one out, for starters.

Anyway, they launched this investigation, instead of apologising, and that would be bad enough.