A mum-of-four was left horrified after EE sent her a new broadband router – with the password ‘bomb-tower-sad’.
Stunned Marie Henry, 49, was setting up her home internet with her daughter after changing supplier when she made the discovery.
Marie couldn’t believe the “disgusting” word combination and felt it was offensive and inappropriate.
But when she called mobile provider EE to challenge them about the unfortunate password, the call handler asked: “Well, why is that disrespectful?”
The handler eventually apologised and claimed the key was an automatically-generated series of words plucked from a computer game before changing it to a random string of letters.
Retired ambulance worker Marie, a grandmother, of Swansea, Wales, said: “I decided to change my broadband supplier and I went with EE.
“I got my router in the post and then I got this password which is on a little bit of card.
The password was ‘bomb-tower-sad.’
“My daughter read it out first. I thought she was just messing around. Then I looked at it and I couldn’t believe it.
“I thought it was absolutely disgusting. I couldn’t believe what I was reading.
“It is disrespectful to everyone who lost their lives in 9/11 and other, more recent, bombings and terror attacks.
“It could have been sent to someone whose relatives died in the Twin Towers.”
She added: “I phoned EE and the first person I spoke to said, ‘Oh, sorry, you can go online and change it.’
“Then I called up again about something else and the customer services guy said, ‘Why is that so important?’
“They told me it was a computer-generated password, but surely there is someone who checks the outcomes?
“When my grandchildren come round they ask what the password is and I have to tell them. I’m just disgusted because it could really upset someone.”
EE said they will review the list of random words they use to generate automatic passwords to remove any inappropriate terms.
A spokesperson said: “We work with a third party to automatically generate default passwords consisting of three randomly selected words which customers use to login to their home WiFi, which is a much easier experience for our customers than a random string of letters and numbers.
“Customers can then change this to their own unique password. Our partner does have a list of inappropriate words which are ruled out of these combinations and we’ve asked them to urgently review this list in light of Ms Henry’s complaint.
“We apologise to Ms Henry for any upset caused.”
