French Letter: À la recherche du phone perdu

Never lose your phone. More than that, I am tempted to say, never buy one in the first place. 

Two weeks ago, at a motorway service area far, far away, probably somewhere in the Vendée, I left my smartphone on top of a rubbish bin while I disposed of the packaging and remains of what passed for my lunch. Only the following day, back home in Brittany, did I realise the catastrophic nature of my misfortune. 

I looked everywhere, in every possible pocket. Then I strip-searched the car. I even scoured the usual places where I keep the phone when I’m at home, which are, in order of likelihood, my bedside table, my desk and the kitchen, next to the toaster. Finally, I searched my pockets again in case, miraculously, it had reappeared. It had not. 

Fear and loathing quickly set in. An image lodged itself in my mind of a thief, a nasty, ill-kempt fellow, with broken teeth and boils. I could hear him cackling as he walked into one of those wind-blown repair shops that exist in the backstreets of most French towns in which – or so it seems to me – petty criminals with greasy fingers specialise in hoovering up information from lost phones so that they can blackmail the hapless owners, empty their bank accounts or, at the very least, embark on an extended sequence of calls to their cousins in the furthermost reaches of the galaxy. 

I was wrong about this, so far at least. The reality is that my French server suspended my phone with immediate effect, having assured me that so long as my device was protected by an appropriate password, I had, in fact, little to fear.

“Appropriate”? What did that mean? Since when were four numbers plus a top-line symbol not enough to secure my peace of mind? At least I wasn’t one of those poor saps who opted for 0000 or 1234.  

This morning, my new phone arrived – a posher version of its predecessor with, for some reason, four camera lenses that, in combination, would appear to rival the optic powers of the Hubble telescope. 

The issue now was to reactivate the phone. I called the Orange helpline, listened to the corporate jingle for several minutes – more irritating even than the endlessly repeated squawk of SNCF – and then to a series of messages in which I was advised of the charges likely to be applied to this call and the options available, ranging from 1-4. Only upon pressing 2 was I informed that – désolé – all lines were busy and that I should try again later. 

I am trying again now, as I write. Please bear with me … [musak – Streets of London] 

Oh dear. I have just spent twenty minutes on the line with a very nice Indian lady from Orange France. She took me through a lengthy and bewildering series of stages that began with me having to click, in order, on pictures of six animals and objects, including a seagull and a teapot. I was then required to identify myself in three different ways and to compose and confirm a new password. At the end of the process, I pressed Renew Your subscription, only to be informed that my mobile number had been suspended – well, duh! – and that I should contact Orange to put things right.

It was at this point that my charming interlocutor lost a little patience, both with me and with the system, and I am now advised to proceed to an Orange store 15 kilometres away which, with any luck, should be able to restore my sadly missing connectivity. 

But the pain doesn’t end there. As I was typing the previous-but-one paragraph, my landline rang and another woman, announcing herself as an agent for our internationally known insurance company, began to interrogate me about the cost and nature of our top-up health insurance, known in France as la mutuelle. She appeared to have all my details to hand, including the upcoming bill that we will be paying in January by direct debit, but needed, apparently, to confirm various details of our client status. 

Only gradually did I realise that she was not what she said she was, but an independent insurance broker out to capture new business. I did not tell her to sod off (the words in French didn’t come), but I hope I made clear to her that by misrepresenting herself she had wasted my time as well as her own. Now I suppose I must contact our existing company to ensure that I have not inadvertently switched our cover – and all this on a day when, in addition to completing this column, I have other urgent work to do. 

When we lived in New York, nuisance calls were an everyday fact of life, often beginning with the good news that I could sue everybody and anybody anywhere in America for just about anything that had gone wrong in my life at no cost to myself, so that the words, in Brooklynese, for “sod off” were regularly deployed. But here in France, the government-backed website that is supposed to block persistent nuisance callers requires you to enter the offender’s number, and since such numbers are routinely withheld, it is impossible to make progress. 

Even when a number does come up, it invariably doesn’t register. Try calling back the weasel who wants to insulate your home for one euro (guaranteed) and see – or rather hear – what happens: Desolé, mais le numéro que vous avez composé n’est pas attribué. Game, set and match. 

Oh for the good old days when the only running issue with the telephone was wrong numbers and the occasional crossed line. At least then, if someone appeared to be trying it on, there was the satisfaction of slamming down the receiver.