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After a few minutes playing with my new toy I noticed some text messages from O2 – these messages contained login and password details for O2’s online account management. I dutifully logged onto the O2 website and entered the details that had been sent to me – imagine my surprise when I was presented with a complete stranger’s account! That’s right, I had been sent the login and password to someone else’s account. So, I now knew this person’s name, address and phone number – I could look at their bills, see who they’d called and even add new services to their contract. I even had the power to change their password and lock them out of their own account!

Bizarrely when I called O2’s customer services they weren’t in the slightest bit worried about this lapse in security and I was just told to delete the text messages I received. I pointed out that me deleting the messages doesn’t change the fact that there was a major security issue and that if I was the one who’s details had been made public I would NOT be happy. A second phone call to customer services escalated the problem and I was assured that it would be investigated, but I also discovered another issue with my new upgrade – apparently I wasn’t allowed to have the data Bolt On that I’d been promised.

Basically I was informed that it was “impossible” (yep, that word again) to add the data Bolt On to my current tariff and that I’d have to switch to a new tariff if I wanted the data. The only problem was that the new tariff I was being offered at the same monthly cost only gave me 200 inclusive minutes compared to the 450 I’m getting now and 50 texts compared to the 150 I’m getting now. My current tariff also gives me free voicemail and the ability to roll over unused minutes and texts from one month to the next, but the new tariff would give me neither of those benefits. So, I was being told I had to switch to a tariff that would cost me the same, but give me less than 50 per cent of what I was already getting. Does that sound like a good deal to you? No, me neither!

I went back to the O2 store where I was told that the data Bolt On wouldn’t be a problem and after one of the salesmen spent a long time on the phone, he informed me that it was “impossible” to add the data Bolt On to my current tariff. Obviously he apologised for the fact that I had been misinformed when I upgraded.

You see the tariff that I have with O2 is very good, so good that you can’t get anything like it for what I’m paying. Therefore, the cynical side of me suspects that my upgrade issue is an attempt to get me off a tariff that isn’t economical for O2 and onto one that is. What better way to get customers to give up a tariff they’re happy with than to be obstructive when they wish to change something? I chose not to play that game and cancelled my upgrade (or should that be downgrade) and handed my new phone back.

Now, I’m fairly certain that adding 5MB of data allowance to ANY contract should not be “impossible”. In fact, if a procedure like that isn’t as simple as clicking a box on a configuration screen, O2 has got serious issues with its infrastructure. And, I’m also fairly certain that if I call the O2 Press office tomorrow I’ll find out that this isn’t “impossible” at all – but I’m not going to do that, not this time.

This time I have no desire to call the PR department and complain about my predicament. This time I have no desire for someone at the Press office to magically fix something that I had previously been told was “impossible”. Because, quite simply, after having this much trouble with my past two upgrades AND encountering such a woeful lack of customer security, I’ve lost confidence in O2 and I’m not sure that I want my personal contract there anymore.

I will of course allow O2 to respond to this column and hopefully give me an adequate explanation both for my second encounter with the “impossible” and for the major security issue that I discovered. In the meantime though, I’m going to call the lady who’s details I was sent by mistake and strongly suggest that she change her password!

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