4 ms·

I'm curious if the password problem is really as big as he says or if he's just biased because of his experience at PayPal. I don't always remember my password

I'm curious if the password problem is really as big as he says or if he's just biased because of his experience at PayPal. I don't always remember my password, but I've never encountered a site that didn't offer one of the following: 1) Password retrieval/reset by email 2) Password retrieval/reset by secret questions Also, don't most browsers these days ask you if you want it to save your password? Then there is password plugins. I thought most people use the same or an easy password anyway.

gte910h 17y ago
Yes, I'm with you. "The password problem" is a non-starter for me.
- chrischen 17y ago
  for me, remembering what username or email I used is the problem. It's further compounded by the fact that password retrieval sends it to the email I don't know I used, and that they usually don't have an obvious username retrieval method.
davemc500hats 17y ago
so 2 items to explain this further: 1) financial sites have more secure / higher-friction password recovery techniques than non-financial sites 2) more inside-baseball point that i didn't get into -- PayPal security questions weren't in the acct signup flow, they were in the after-txn flow of email confirmation. HOWEVER, since many people either a) intentionally or accidentally didn't provide the right email, or b) even if they entered the right email, they didn't go thru email confirm, then result: MANY MANY people -- i estimated at least 10%, possibly up to 25-50% -- never entered their security reminder Q's. this subsequently resulted in limited ability to recover password info without having to FAX IN driver's license or other paper info, which most users screamed about. in short: it's a long story, but password recovery for financial sites is much harder than non-financial sites, and for PayPal is even harder still than other normal financial sites due to the way we had implemented mandatory acct creation workflow and security reminder Q'n workflow. needless to say, this was a fucked-up situation that resulted in a lot of customer service hassle... which i got to experience first-hand on many occasions. (sorry for the long-winder explanation, but you asked, so... but it's not your fault. even many people who worked there didn't understand this very well. it used to frustrate the hell out of me)

gte910h 17y ago

Yes, I'm with you. "The password problem" is a non-starter for me.

chrischen 17y ago
for me, remembering what username or email I used is the problem. It's further compounded by the fact that password retrieval sends it to the email I don't know I used, and that they usually don't have an obvious username retrieval method.

davemc500hats 17y ago

so 2 items to explain this further: 1) financial sites have more secure / higher-friction password recovery techniques than non-financial sites 2) more inside-baseball point that i didn't get into -- PayPal security questions weren't in the acct signup flow, they were in the after-txn flow of email confirmation. HOWEVER, since many people either a) intentionally or accidentally didn't provide the right email, or b) even if they entered the right email, they didn't go thru email confirm, then result: MANY MANY people -- i estimated at least 10%, possibly up to 25-50% -- never entered their security reminder Q's. this subsequently resulted in limited ability to recover password info without having to FAX IN driver's license or other paper info, which most users screamed about. in short: it's a long story, but password recovery for financial sites is much harder than non-financial sites, and for PayPal is even harder still than other normal financial sites due to the way we had implemented mandatory acct creation workflow and security reminder Q'n workflow. needless to say, this was a fucked-up situation that resulted in a lot of customer service hassle... which i got to experience first-hand on many occasions. (sorry for the long-winder explanation, but you asked, so... but it's not your fault. even many people who worked there didn't understand this very well. it used to frustrate the hell out of me)