6 ms·

The problem is that customers don't remember basically anything. I don't know my telephone banking password for any bank. When I call, I get asked to tell them

by Blahah 6y ago

The problem is that customers don't remember basically anything. I don't know my telephone banking password for any bank. When I call, I get asked to tell them what my last transaction was, or my mother's maiden name and DOB (public info), or what town I last used my card. I've been wrong about the recent usage questions more often than I've been right, and they say "close enough". The technological measures have to account for human behaviour. Otherwise you just end up with almost everyone not being able to access almost everything almost all of the time. People are forgetful, irrational, stubborn and stupid. So are institutions. Put them together and you have a social engineering dream world (literally our current world).

rapnie 6y ago
When I bought my house a couple years ago, I had to put my signature to make a big and urgent money transfer. The bank however didn't accept my signature for some reason, though I had been using it every time with them. It appeared that normally they not really check if it matches, but this time given the transfer amount they did. And it just so happened that the signature they had scanned in their system was the first one I ever made as a kid (30yrs ago) when I opened the account. Finally after many retries they turned the monitor to show me the expected signature and let me practice it on a piece of paper, so it would pass some other approval stage. With a 200 yard line waiting behind me, sweating profusely, I finally managed to reproduce something. The sale went through, luckily, and immediately after I ditched that bank account.
- WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
  > immediately after I ditched that bank account. Because they showed you the signature and let you practice, right?
  - rapnie 6y ago
    Yup, but also because they could have my evolved adult signature on file, or at least asked me after certain time interval to update it for their records.
- tinus_hn 6y ago
  It sounds really useless but requiring a signature means a fraudster would have to forge a signature which is a separate, perhaps more easily proven crime that carries extra penalties.
- ValentineC 6y ago
  > The sale went through, luckily, and immediately after I ditched that bank account. I believe most banks allow their customers to change their signature to something they can replicate more consistently — but it probably relies on showing up to a branch and producing sufficient ID.
- mitchdoogle 6y ago
  This kind of poor security is why we need legislation to make banks responsible for financial damages due to identity theft or fraud. When they will be on the hook for potentially millions of dollars, maybe they will care more about security and offer better protections than a signature
- somewhatoff 6y ago
  I was told that a bank would not approve a transaction because the signature I had provided in a Word document was not similar enough to the one on file. Helpfully, they provided me with a screenshot of the one they had on file... one copy and paste later and the problem was resolved. One copy and paste
koheripbal 6y ago
This is a more general and larger problem where society is constantly bending over backwards to cater to the 2% lowest performers. If you added up all the costs of the people at the lowest extremes (by various metrics), I'd venture to guess that we could increase our prosperity (by various metric) by an order of magnitude. Example: When I started my startup, we made the decision not to hire any salesperson who wasn't proficient in using a computer (we have no IT support line). We also made the decision to not sell to any customer that couldn't figure out how to use the website (we have no telephone support). I cannot even tell you how multiplicative the benefits are. The 2% employees who couldn't use a computer or clients who couldn't use the website were responsible for 90% of the issues we had at my prior company. Everything from regulatory complaints, to lawsuits, to ad-hoc report requests, to virus infected PCs, to... the list goes on and on. Having smart people is great. Not dealing with idiots is equally important.
- notJim 6y ago
  > This is a more general and larger problem where society is constantly bending over backwards to cater to the 2% lowest performers. As your parent said, it's not 2%, it's more like everyone. No one is perfect all the time. More importantly, it's one thing when hiring, but are you seriously suggesting 2% of the population shouldn't be able to use Twitter or online banking or other online services? 140,000,000 people should effectively face social death because you can't be fucked to help them? This is backwards, we should be sacrificing profits and convenience to be more inclusive.
  - koheripbal 6y ago
    I think we need to be honest about what the most dysfunctional bottom 1-2% are costing us. ...and it's not correct to say that "everyone is imperfect sometimes" because the correlation between people who are problems across various metrics, is high.
    - edeion 6y ago
      Would you share the plans you have in store to help them cope better with our society?
dayjah 6y ago
> “close enough” I guess one, admittedly brutal, solution is for customers to act like the immune system. Call up, fudge your way through to something that should be protected, and then escalate to a manager and report that you got access to your own account with vague details; they can listen to the call log to verify. Worst case is that the rep gets fired (which sucks..) but if enough reps get fired then future reps will be hired and trained more diligently.

by Blahah 6y ago

rapnie 6y ago

When I bought my house a couple years ago, I had to put my signature to make a big and urgent money transfer. The bank however didn't accept my signature for some reason, though I had been using it every time with them. It appeared that normally they not really check if it matches, but this time given the transfer amount they did. And it just so happened that the signature they had scanned in their system was the first one I ever made as a kid (30yrs ago) when I opened the account. Finally after many retries they turned the monitor to show me the expected signature and let me practice it on a piece of paper, so it would pass some other approval stage. With a 200 yard line waiting behind me, sweating profusely, I finally managed to reproduce something. The sale went through, luckily, and immediately after I ditched that bank account.

WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
> immediately after I ditched that bank account. Because they showed you the signature and let you practice, right?
- rapnie 6y ago
  Yup, but also because they could have my evolved adult signature on file, or at least asked me after certain time interval to update it for their records.
tinus_hn 6y ago
It sounds really useless but requiring a signature means a fraudster would have to forge a signature which is a separate, perhaps more easily proven crime that carries extra penalties.
ValentineC 6y ago
> The sale went through, luckily, and immediately after I ditched that bank account. I believe most banks allow their customers to change their signature to something they can replicate more consistently — but it probably relies on showing up to a branch and producing sufficient ID.
mitchdoogle 6y ago
This kind of poor security is why we need legislation to make banks responsible for financial damages due to identity theft or fraud. When they will be on the hook for potentially millions of dollars, maybe they will care more about security and offer better protections than a signature
somewhatoff 6y ago
I was told that a bank would not approve a transaction because the signature I had provided in a Word document was not similar enough to the one on file. Helpfully, they provided me with a screenshot of the one they had on file... one copy and paste later and the problem was resolved. One copy and paste

koheripbal 6y ago

This is a more general and larger problem where society is constantly bending over backwards to cater to the 2% lowest performers. If you added up all the costs of the people at the lowest extremes (by various metrics), I'd venture to guess that we could increase our prosperity (by various metric) by an order of magnitude. Example: When I started my startup, we made the decision not to hire any salesperson who wasn't proficient in using a computer (we have no IT support line). We also made the decision to not sell to any customer that couldn't figure out how to use the website (we have no telephone support). I cannot even tell you how multiplicative the benefits are. The 2% employees who couldn't use a computer or clients who couldn't use the website were responsible for 90% of the issues we had at my prior company. Everything from regulatory complaints, to lawsuits, to ad-hoc report requests, to virus infected PCs, to... the list goes on and on. Having smart people is great. Not dealing with idiots is equally important.

notJim 6y ago
> This is a more general and larger problem where society is constantly bending over backwards to cater to the 2% lowest performers. As your parent said, it's not 2%, it's more like everyone. No one is perfect all the time. More importantly, it's one thing when hiring, but are you seriously suggesting 2% of the population shouldn't be able to use Twitter or online banking or other online services? 140,000,000 people should effectively face social death because you can't be fucked to help them? This is backwards, we should be sacrificing profits and convenience to be more inclusive.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  I think we need to be honest about what the most dysfunctional bottom 1-2% are costing us. ...and it's not correct to say that "everyone is imperfect sometimes" because the correlation between people who are problems across various metrics, is high.
  - edeion 6y ago
    Would you share the plans you have in store to help them cope better with our society?

dayjah 6y ago

> “close enough” I guess one, admittedly brutal, solution is for customers to act like the immune system. Call up, fudge your way through to something that should be protected, and then escalate to a manager and report that you got access to your own account with vague details; they can listen to the call log to verify. Worst case is that the rep gets fired (which sucks..) but if enough reps get fired then future reps will be hired and trained more diligently.