Fear and Loathing on the Learning Curve: Observations on Life, Tech and Web Design from a Slightly Misanthropic Mind

Usability Ballache: O2 Broadband Sales

I’ve just moved into a new flat in North London and so we’ve had the joy of set­ting up the vari­ous essen­tial util­it­ies — chief among them (of course) being the Interwebs. Being an O2 mobile cus­tomer I get pref­er­en­tial pri­cing for O2 broad­band — they’re also cur­rently offer­ing 3 months free for new signups. And if that wasn’t enough, Quidco were (until a few days ago) offer­ing up to £100 cash­back. Cha-ching!

Ordering this most bar­gain of pack­ages, how­ever, proved to be a bit tricky. O2 require that you pay by Direct Debit, and that the bank account you spe­cify for that must be registered to the address for which you’re order­ing broadband.

On top of that, they authen­tic­ate the cus­tomer fur­ther by check­ing the details of a debit or credit card which must also be registered to that address. Having just moved here, none of my cards or accounts are registered here, so I would have to amend the details on one of my accounts before I could place an order.

Fair enough, you might think — as did I, to a point — so I changed my account address to the address of my new flat. The order still wouldn’t go through, how­ever — there was one fur­ther obstacle still to nav­ig­ate. Turns out the address has to match exactly, unlike most e-tailers where only the num­bers in the address (plus the post­code) have to match.

Entering my post­code and build­ing num­ber in the order form pro­duced a list of addresses, includ­ing the build­ing my flat is in, but not a list of flats. Instead, the closest address was “28, Flat A-G, <my street> […]” (num­ber changed to pro­tect the guilty). So I could select every flat in the build­ing, not just mine. OK..?

The kicker was that most e-commerce sites allow you to cus­tom­ise the address after pick­ing it from a list. Not so with O2, where the lis­ted address was all I got; no oppor­tun­ity to edit. So I had to change my bank account’s address to this — incor­rect — address before the order would go through. And all cor­res­pond­ence arriv­ing here is addressed to every flat, not mine. Good work, O2 web developers.