Security Questions

I understand the need for security and asking personal questions only we know is a good idea. My complaint is the selection of questions they use.

For instance, most of the sites must assume we are college age and have a good memory of our childhood. A sixty-year old man isn’t going to remember his favorite childhood food or next-door neighbor in the third grade.

If your family was military and you moved around a lot and they ask the name of the elementary school you went to. Which one?

Another question is, “What is the baby nickname of your youngest/oldest child.” You have to remember which child you used.

Recently my husband was trying to get into one of our bank accounts online and it wanted to know his wife’s nickname. I don’t have one. I have a pseudonym but that isn’t really the same thing.

Then they want questions like childhood friend. Well some of us had more than one friend and if we forget which one we chose for the question we are in trouble.

There has got to be an easier way to get past security online. I’m all for the fingerprint scanners on computers so at least then they can see if we are who we say we are.

Personally, I prefer the old days when we went in the bank and they knew us because our kids went to the same school. You chatted about the weather and you didn’t feel like a criminal trying to get your own money out of your own bank account. Two of my banks are that way but we have this one that had really good rates and is not convenient to drive to.

My father in law was a president of a bank in the small town he lived in many moons a go and he knew most of the customers and in some cases never even asked for a driver’s license to make transactions. I wonder what he would think of the way we bank today?


Pink Floyd-Money: