OK so I've moved up to Seattle and need to get my business and personal bank accounts all settled in. So I stopped into my local Wells Fargo branch to introduce myself. He said he could save me some money but unfortunately I need to get new accounts. With the new accounts come plain old boring cards. I had personalized my cards before. Now I have new plain cards I need to reactivate, only to have to re-personalize them again!
So I go to activate one of them and they ask for my 17 gillion digit card number then the last 4 numbers of my business checking account number. Well I don't know that so I need to go to the Wells Fargo bank site to get that. While I'm doing that it keeps saying "Sorry I didn't get that" and eventually I exceed my limit of retries. Hey I was just trying to get to your slow web site!!!.
Of course I'm dumped into the tech support queue where some ditzy blonde answers the phone. She tells me that she'll need to have my full business account number. I tell her I don't have that. I only have the last 4 because that's all your web page gives me. Normally I have to open up statement to get the full account number but I can't do that because this account is too new and doesn't have any statements. "Well you could just look at your checks..." to which I quickly interject "Listen sweetheart I haven't used checks in 18 years!". Then she tells me that she could help me but I'd need to give not one, nor two, nor even three but four forms of identification in order for her to help me! I told her that in no way would I be comfortable with that because everybody knows you don't achieve real security until after 20 forms of ID are presented and hung up!
OK stop and think here for a second... Why can the automated phone system validate me with just the mere last four digits of my account number, which is probably pretty damn easy to obtain, but the human needs the whole account number and/or 4 forms of ID?!?
Bottom line: Since I'm now at the web site I hang up on the dtiz and simply go back around and punch in my 4 digits and I'm validated. Stupid is as stupid does - and I ain't stupid - but I do see it all the time!
So I go to activate one of them and they ask for my 17 gillion digit card number then the last 4 numbers of my business checking account number. Well I don't know that so I need to go to the Wells Fargo bank site to get that. While I'm doing that it keeps saying "Sorry I didn't get that" and eventually I exceed my limit of retries. Hey I was just trying to get to your slow web site!!!.
Of course I'm dumped into the tech support queue where some ditzy blonde answers the phone. She tells me that she'll need to have my full business account number. I tell her I don't have that. I only have the last 4 because that's all your web page gives me. Normally I have to open up statement to get the full account number but I can't do that because this account is too new and doesn't have any statements. "Well you could just look at your checks..." to which I quickly interject "Listen sweetheart I haven't used checks in 18 years!". Then she tells me that she could help me but I'd need to give not one, nor two, nor even three but four forms of identification in order for her to help me! I told her that in no way would I be comfortable with that because everybody knows you don't achieve real security until after 20 forms of ID are presented and hung up!
OK stop and think here for a second... Why can the automated phone system validate me with just the mere last four digits of my account number, which is probably pretty damn easy to obtain, but the human needs the whole account number and/or 4 forms of ID?!?
Bottom line: Since I'm now at the web site I hang up on the dtiz and simply go back around and punch in my 4 digits and I'm validated. Stupid is as stupid does - and I ain't stupid - but I do see it all the time!
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