Some sadistically cheerful young popsy called Keeley or Tasha, I can’t remember which, terminated the call because I breached security. My own security. This is a bit rich, even if I didn’t keep completely to the rules. I always cheat during the beginning of the recorded message when the Patricia Hewitt sound-alike tells you to enter your membership or connect card number.
I did enter the details once, you see, and the automated hell into which I descended was so macabre that I vowed never to risk an encounter with it again.
Since discovering that the more you co-operate with an automated system the more options it generates, I have conducted many long and exhaustive experiments with some of the great automated systems of the world to try to work out a modus operandi for bypassing them.
I know I’m going to get into trouble for telling you this but I cannot continue without explaining, so here goes. When the computer-generated voice that for some reason has been based on a former Labour Health Secretary says, ‘Welcome to Barclays Premier. To access your account or complete simple transactions press one. For Premier Life customers wishing to access their value-added features and benefits press nine — ha! you thought I was going to say two, didn’t you?,’ etc., I press one. Then when she says, ‘Please enter your connect card or membership number or for more options press star,’ I do nothing. That’s right. Nothing. How cool am I?
There is then a long pause during which you must hold your nerve until she says, ‘Please enter your connect card, telephony membership number or for more options press star.’ Resist. There will follow another long pause during which you have to be doubly determined. Do not give up now. No matter how gruelling the silence, remember that the darkest hour is before the dawn.
Eventually, she will say, ‘Please enter the long number across the front of your connect card, your telephony membership number or for more options press star.’
Seriously, stay strong. Most of the climbers who die on Everest succumb to the cold and exhaustion when they are almost at the summit. That last short climb is the steepest. When despair seems your only friend, suddenly, out of the darkness, you will hear: ‘I need to transfer you to a member of our telephone banking team.’ You’re nearly there… ‘Next time you call we will be able to process your request more quickly if you have your membership details to hand.’ Don’t listen. This is their last desperate attempt to get you to play their game. It is up there with ‘speedy boarding’ as one of the biggest fibs in the English language.
The only way to get a person on the phone at a large organisation is to refuse to press any buttons or say anything clearly to any voice recognitions systems leaving them no choice but actually to speak to you. Above all, never, ever have your membership details to hand. That way madness lies.
So, I got through to Keeley and told her I wanted to make a balance transfer to my catsitter and she asked me for the first digit of my five-digit security code.
I know this. I’ve got it memorised. I gave her the first digit. Then she asked for the fourth digit and, I admit it, I made a mistake. You could hear the shock and awe in her voice. She warned me I was skating on thin ice, or words to that effect. Could I please now give her the correct number?
The implication of her tone was that I must give it to her quickly and it had better be right or the alarm system would be activated and I would be frozen out of my own life for ever.
I panicked and said all five digits out loud, because the only way I could remember it properly was to recite it. I swear I could hear a siren going off in the background. ‘Miss Kite! You cannot say the five-digit code out loud!’
I grasped the edge of the kitchen table as the blood pounded in my head. I could only imagine what sanctions were about to be taken against me. More out of despair than anything, I stammered, ‘But I have. I mean, I have said it out loud.’
Which was when I heard the clunk. I still don’t know whether it was my breaching my own security or deploying a short sentence which could be construed as an unauthorised use of sarcasm which did for me in the end. I don’t have the security clearance to find out.
Melissa Kite is deputy political editor of the Sunday Telegraph.
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