Password Rant

The BBQ Pit
1

or: Dear Phone Company, I just want to pay my fucking bill - don’t you want me to?

Why oh why do service companies have to make it so difficult to use their stupid websites? My local phone bill is due today so I go online to use their “convenient” online bill pay option. To log-on to the site I must provide my user id and password. Ok – no problem yet. Of course it has been several months since I have used their web site and I can’t remember either my user-id or password. They may be written down somewhere at home, but I am work and I need to pay the bill now.

So in order to get my stupid user-id and password I have to answer several personal security questions separately for both my user id and password. I can answer the questions for the user id so why must I also be tested again on the same fucking questions for access to my password?

Both id and password are sent to me separately and finally I can get access to my account, but wait, before I can pay my bill I must change my user id and password since they have been “compromised.” So at the prompt I am told that both my user id must contain at least 8 characters and that my password must contain at least 8 characters and contain at least one number and at least one special character. No wonder I couldn’t remember my password. Also, my user id can not be my name in any way or my telephone number (that would be too fucking easy to remember!).

So why the does this service require so much damn security!? The only personal info on the site after logging on is my name, address, telephone number, and amount due. I can’t even see a list of the actual numbers I have called. If someone wants to log on to my account and pay my bill for me then go right the fuck ahead. Companies have become so paranoid about on-line security that they are making the internet more difficult to use than if I had walked down to the phone company and paid them in pennies.

2

Preach it !

I went through the same thing with my phone company yesterday. I forgot the password because it had to be eight characters, so my simple-to-remember system (which has only 6 characters) didn’t cut it, and I can’t remember how I modified it to 8 letters when I signed up.

And once when I lost a bank card I had to give the name of my employer as a security measure, this was when I was a student and had around 12 employers in the space of four years. Like I could remember which employer I had when I opened this account.

And those ones on the 'net where you have to type in exactly the answer to the security question you were asked four years ago. I know the answer to the question, but I can’t remember if it was capitalized, or if I used one or another short form … is my ‘birthplace’ my street, town, province, country? I can’t remember !

grr.

3

Years ago when I belonged to SBC’s phone system I ran into this problem. In response to that, I changed my usernames and passwords to always be long and contain one number, one letter, Etc.

My STANDARD password is now 13 characters long-All because of the fucking phone company.

Sam

4

Hee hee, those sorts of web sites piss me off no end.

For those sites, I have a special password. It’s “Fuck off and die!”. Notice the use of capitals, spaces and exclamation mark. Works a treat. For those that need a number, it’s “Fuck off and die 2 times!”

Seriously.

:smiley:

Max.