Post Office helpline staff had a script when subpostmasters and postmistresses called about their problems with Horizon computers. “Nobody else is having these problems but you”, they would say. Thus “helpline” at once became unhelpful – more of a “helplie”.
Now we know the awful truth about a system whose flaws were baked in, where the humans who suffered because of them weren’t believed – and, even worse, where denial became an ingrained response to each new complaint. But why were the computers trusted so readily, even when some people knew they were faulty?
Daily life shows us that people – more specifically, organisations – trust computers more than they should. In December newsreader, and columnist for this newspaper, Jon Sopel, discovered his personal energy bill from EDF had vaulted from £152 per month to £19,000. A few days earlier, the artist Grayson Perry had seen his leap from £300 to £39,000. Both then had to grapple with customer services (doubtless experiencing a higher-than-expected volume of calls) to unravel the problem.
