Last week, I visited Skyparks – the new building near the airport – as the word was that Vodafone has opened on the sixth floor. My friend needed to renew his mobile contract, anyway.

Our adventure started right when we were trying to find a parking space as there were no signs of where customers are to park their cars.

We eventually found ourselves going through the main door. There was a security guard at the reception but no one stopped us from going further in. We went to the fancy lifts and pressed number 6 but nothing happened. A moment later the lift started going up but we stopped on the second floor.

An Air Malta employee came in and we went back to ground floor. After about five minutes battling with this lift, we went to the reception to ask the security guard what was happening and he asked for our ID card. I gave him mine because he only needed one and he gave us a ‘visitor’ pass.

So we went back to the lift, scanned our ‘visitor’ card and went up to the sixth floor, where there was a locked door and another scanner device but this time our ‘visitor’ card was not valid. Then, a woman came out of a room, scanned her magical card, opened the door and we went in with her. I immediately knew that something was wrong as it was nothing like the traditional Vodafone customer service outlets. I drew the attention of the woman, who by now had started walking down the corridor leaving us there alone free to do what we pleased, and she told us that there was no customer service but just offices. We went back downstairs, returned the visitor card and ended up paying €1.80 for having parked for 12 minutes.

After this little adventure, I started thinking that, after all, the expensive fancy lifts were there for nothing as I just gave my ID card and we were let upstairs. And although there was a card scanner at the doors, we were let inside with no one asking us why we were there.It was clear to me that if we innocently were let directly to the offices, where a certain amount of data is kept, anyone can sneak in very easily.

I am not writing to criticise but I want to share this experience, which, for someone like me, was nothing but frustration. Yet, it can be a big opportunity for someone with a less innocent motive.