Why must my mobile provider harass me all through my holiday?

We have been on a family holiday to Tangier, Morocco, and of course my mobile phone came too. Not that I was intending to use it much – minimum impulse roaming; I would mostly wait until we had wifi for the purposes of Instagram and the rest of it. And I don’t tend to use the telephone bit at all.

We had been at the villa two days when the barrage began – text after text, email after email, all from O2. I can’t pretend I am someone who can tell one service provider from another, but I know I am ‘with’ O2, and suddenly they were all over me.

‘Hello,’ their texts began. ‘From the way you have been using your phone, it looks like you might be abroad. Call us straight away so we can make sure your phone isn’t lost or stolen. If we don’t hear from you in the next 24 hours, we’ll stop the roaming on your mobile.’ In other words, I would be cut off.

I duly rang the 13-digit number from the terrace and, after the usual interactions with a robot operator, spoke to a helpful lady in South Africa, named Taanu I think. She asked me the usual security questions (‘Who is your favourite musical performer?’ – I can never remember whether, years ago, I chose Joni Mitchell, David Bowie or Bryan Ferry, but luckily called it right) and the courteous Taanu promised all was well, and I would hear no more from O2 during my fortnight’s holiday.

But overnight arrived three more texts, all identical to the first, accompanied by three emails saying the same thing. I heard them pinging on to the iPhone by my bed at dawn. During lunch, four more arrived (two emails, two texts), and then a further six overnight.