Hot, annoyed rant

[bunn]

Hated Webhost of the Week: Easyspace

They have a whole setup of forms that make it look like you can set up and configure your hosting nice and easily yourself. This is a LIE! Practically everything useful is nothing but a mailto form that asks someone to set things up manually - and they take Aaaaaages! I've got a support request that I submitted Monday morning that hasn't been looked at!

Also, annoying little things like you can't actually use their webmail login link if you are already logged into their control panel. Presumably you are supposed to remember the direct address of their webmail system. GRRRRRRRR. And they emailled my main account password to me in plaintext.

edit: ARRRRRRRGH - I just downloaded the software they were failing to give me the download address of, having phoned and refused to go away till they told me - and it is knackered and falls over! I only ordered the thing as a favour for a client who wanted a real cheap content management system with no install time. B***ocks to that.

Though, not as annoying as the RAC. Perhaps I am overreacting here, but I really feel uncomfortable if I am phoning an organisation of which I have been a member for 15 years, and before I can give them a new credit card number, they want not just my name and membership number, but my full address, postcode, date of birth and car registration. They don't need all that info to take a payment, they just don't! I'm trying to give them money! Asking for my date of birth when I'm about to give them my credit card number gives me uncomfortable identity-thefty feelings. These was perhaps unfairly exacerbated by the quality of the line, which made it pretty clear that the person at the other end was in Bangalore and no doubt being paid some absurdly tiny wage.

Possibly if it had been cooler I'd have just given my details, but when they asked for date of birth something snapped and put the phone down and took out a new policy with Britannia rescue instead.

Comments

[chainmailmaiden]

My Dad got annoyed with his bank recently when they phoned him about his account. They started to ask him for all sorts of personal details, but he refused to give them out. His reason was, it was all very well for them to ask him to prove who he was, but the only proof he had that they were who they said they were, was that when he answered the phone the chap said "Hi, I'm Adam from Natwest..."

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I hate that! They really have the wrong end of the stick about security: the best way to be secure is *not* to put every conceivable detail into a database and then demand all of it be repeated for every call. That just puts temptation in Adam from Natwest's way.

It's not like the poor sods who work in callcentres are so hugely well rewarded that they have no incentive to go selling people's details, after all!

[chainmailmaiden]

Dad said he thought they should do something like allow him to give them a password, then they could prove they were legitimate by quoting that to him before he had to give them any of his details.

One time when I was on the phone to Egg they asked me if anyone else was in the room with me and when I said yes, they said they wouldn't talk to me until they'd gone in case they overheard what I said. Since it was Bacchus, I wasn't bothered if he stayed or not so I just told them he'd gone. I presume they do that to cover themselves so they can say they've done all they can to ensure no-one overhears the conversation, but as you point out, fraud would be far easier to commit from their end considering the data they have access to.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Something my bank has done from time to time is ask me to quote a recent transaction. I reckon it would be much harder for someone to impersonate me saying 'Oh yes, I bought a bag of tripe sticks for £12 on Ebay on Monday' than to know my birthday. Loads of people know that.

[chainmailmaiden]

That sounds like a very good idea. My sister in law always has problems when they ask for her mother's maiden name as it's the same as her first name. She always gets a pause then:

'No not your name, YOUR MOTHER'S MAIDEN NAME - THE NAME SHE HAD B E F O R E SHE GOT MARRIED' *

To with her reply is 'Yes I KNOW. They are the S A M E...'

[helflaed.livejournal.com]

Um- sounds familiar. I ended up working for another motoring organisation (naming no names, but their patrols wear yellow)

I worked in a call centre after University (couldn't get a proper job, made do with that until I got a slightly better one)

It could be a complete nightmare establishing identity, especially when the joint member called, and we were not allowed to talk to them about membership details at all. We had to ask all sorts of questions before makeing any changes at all. Yes I know we had to be careful with personal information but sometimes it just went too far.

Other things did make more sense- "Yes sir, I know you want to know if your twenty year old daughter has broken down but we can't tell you if she has or not" They got really annoyed- and we weren't allowed to say "You could be anyone from a caring father to a psycho ex and we are not telling you. Now go away" or "No madam we can't tell you the address we have for this membership"

You get to be very distrustful working in that sort of environment, and the dire data protection warnings you get make you even more cautious.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I was impressed that Britannia actually asked me if I wanted to give my 'joint member*' the ability to call and talk to them on his own behalf.


*even the phrase sounds suspect!

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

'joint member*' the ability to call and talk to them on his own behalf.
Ooh That's rather innovative! Bloody good idea that's waited way too long though.

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

Some of this came up in a news piece on the Beeb site yesterday, there's a new email Phising scam variant using VoiceIp. And people pointed out that banks ask to have all this info confirmed but you don't know it's a bank that's calling - hence the villains can get all your info!

One guy said whenever he was cold called by his bank he put the phone down and then called his bank, so if they wanted to talk to him he knew who he was talking to.

[helflaed.livejournal.com]

I'd never thought of that. You have a dirty mind.