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Lazy web site designers rejecting valid addresses

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It happened to me again today.
Visiting the EE web site to top up the credit on my phone.  The credit card they had on file was out-of-date, so I had to enter a new one.  It then asked me for the card-holder's address.  Like many web sites, there's an option to type in just the house number and postcode, hit a button, and it automatically fills in the rest of the address using data from the Royal Mail database.  So far, so good.
The problem came when I hit the "done" button to enter the new details.  My town name was invalid.  That's the town name it's just filled in for me!  The trouble is that some web site designers can't be bothered to handle town names that have punctuation marks in them.  Instead, they just assume that town names must be only letters and spaces, and reject anything else.
If it sticks, force it.
If it breaks, well it wasn't working right anyway.

Comments

  • tacpot12
    tacpot12 Posts: 9,244 Forumite
    Ninth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Yes, it's lazy coding, or lazy testing. It shows a lack of knowledge about the data that the system is required to handle. Have you used the feedback option on the website to report the problem?
    The comments I post are my personal opinion. While I try to check everything is correct before posting, I can and do make mistakes, so always try to check official information sources before relying on my posts.
  • Ectophile
    Ectophile Posts: 7,972 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    I used their Facebook messaging system.  So far, the only replies have been from a robot apologising that they are busy.
    If it sticks, force it.
    If it breaks, well it wasn't working right anyway.
  • That's the problem with Facebook: it's all robots or idiots on there.
  • IvanOpinion
    IvanOpinion Posts: 22,136 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    It depends on how old the code is.  There used to be known security issues that allowed bad actors to inject malicious code into fields using punctuation.  The easy fix was to disallow punctuation.  Things have moved on since then but maybe it is just old code that has not yet rippled to the top of the 'To Do' list or maybe it has just been forgotten about. 

    If it concerns you, then  you could try leaving feedback and I am sure that someone will ensure it gets added to the backlog.
    I don't care about your first world problems; I have enough of my own!
  • Ectophile
    Ectophile Posts: 7,972 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    I'm sure that somebody was worried that I might enter a town name of
    STOKE'; DROP TABLE CUSTOMERS; --
    But there are better ways to prevent SQL injection attacks now.
    (Obligatory XKCD reference: https://xkcd.com/327/ )
    If it sticks, force it.
    If it breaks, well it wasn't working right anyway.
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