‘Thanks for calling Tesco bank,’ said the voice, before rather lavishly promising to get me to a member of the team who was going to help me.

This wasn’t quite how it turned out, although I would say, up until the moment I asked to change my address I was a very satisfied customer.

If any of these questions did not suit me, I would be allowed to object, he said, as though reading me my rights

This credit card has a very reasonable interest rate, and a nice big limit. However, it has decided that I do not have the security clearance to change my address because I have never logged into its website.

I haven’t felt the urge to. I pay by direct debit and receive a letter each month which is perfectly adequate. When I sold up in Surrey I paid almost all of it off, leaving a bit behind to give myself a credit rating.

I put a re-direct on the mail, changed the addresses on everything I had time to change, then, when I got to Ireland, I worked my way through all my other accounts, until I got to this.

Whereupon I hit a total wall of impossibility because when I rang up they said I didn’t have the security clearance to change anything because I didn’t have an online account. Fine, I said, please can I have an online account? They then embarked upon an interrogation worthy of Mossad in order to get me through enough security so they could start the process of me changing my address by going online.

Three questions were going to be asked, the man announced dramatically. If any of these questions did not suit me, I would be allowed to object, he said, as though reading me my rights.

Fine, I said, ask your questions. ‘What was your first car?’ he said. ‘Easy,’ I said. ‘A Ford Fiesta.’ It was red and I called it Bunbury, after Algernon’s fictional friend in The Importance of Being Earnest. I could hear typing, then: ‘What was your first pet?’ ‘Ah I know this! Chloe, the Cairn Terrier.’ Used to break through the garden fence and follow strangers walking past the house for miles. Once had to pick her up from a student’s digs at Warwick University. Another time my aunt spotted her strolling down the high street, called her name, and she pretended she couldn’t hear.

He reminded me that it wasn’t a test, he was going to record these answers so they knew it was me the next time I called or logged in. Lastly, what was my first job? This was tricky because, strictly speaking, it was working for Romano at the eponymous Italian restaurant in my home town when I was 14, but I’m not sure that would be legal now so I said: ‘Worcester Evening News.’

He recorded this then told me he was going to send me a code in the post which I could put into the website and change my address.

At that point, I let pass the issue of him sending me clearance to change my address to my old address. I had a redirect on the mail. This would work, I decided.

Months later, the builder boyfriend came in from doing the horses one morning carrying a wodge of soggy mail he had taken from the mailbox on the farm gate.

A sodden letter from Tesco bank yielded a code that was just about visible, but which had expired because the redirect had taken so long.

Off I went again, this time to a young girl who said she couldn’t do anything because I didn’t have any security questions set up on my account. I argued but it was hopeless. She said she would have to ask me three questions and record my answers. Off we went with the car, the pet, and the job: ‘Worcester News?’ she said. ‘How you spelling it?’ I spelt Worcester but, in a fit of optimism, not News. I decided not to insist on the Evening, because I couldn’t assess whether she could spell that or would be insulted when I spelt it. I would just have to remember not to type it in if I ever got that far.

She told me she would send a code to me in the post. I told her that wouldn’t work because the redirect meant the code would expire. And once this doesn’t work again, and the redirect ends, all the monthly letters with my card number on them will keep going to an old address where someone else could, in theory, start opening them. I pointed this out and she threatened to burst into tears.

‘Please don’t shout at me,’ she said, her voice all wobbly, with an undertone of snowflakian menace. Fine, I said, have it your way. In the name of security, send my credit card details to someone else.