I signed up today and attempted to place a large order for supplies for my wedding; approximately £400 in value. After placing it, I received an email saying the order had been cancelled. I then found out my account was locked. According to Ocado, my postcode (a small country lane in rural Surrey) has been "flagged". The rep demanded that I send a copy of my passport so the generic customer services email address to"prove" who I was and that I would then be "allowed" to shop with them. I find the way I have been treated, as a brand new Ocado customer, incredibly offensive. I shop online extremely frequently and I have never been told that I need to send a copy of my passport before I am "allowed" to shop at a store, because my postcode is "suspicious". I understand the need for checks - I currently manage fraud investigations in Europe for a multinational company - but to place the burden of proof onto your customers in this way is unacceptable and demeaning. It is also entirely pointless - I have seen a great deal of photoshopped utility bills in my career, so I'm not entirely sure what Ocado expects to achieve by requiring customers under suspicion to prove their identity in this way. There are many other, more reliable, ways to check a customer's identity; in my case, it would be incredibly simple - I own my home, am registered to vote here and have multiple bank and utility accounts in my name at this address. A simple credit check or Voters Register check would prove that I am a real person, living at the address I say I do - a PDF sent via email does not. Furthermore, the request to send personal information to a generic inbox accessed by hundreds of different employees is an irresponsible method of handling data. I am not prepared to send my passport, driving licence or bank statements over the Internet; particularly when I am not sending such information to a specific named individual. To request me to do so is entirely inappropriate, and I am not sure how Ocado can claim to process personal information in a secure fashion when you are asking for such documents to be emailed to a mailbox to which many people have access. I will not order again and will recommend to my friends and family that they should also steer clear.