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American Express: your last name is improper
- PaulHoule 4y agoThat seems like a way to get a discrimination lawsuit. On the other hand there was that guy who changed his name to "Spider Mann" who had all kinds of problems because of it... But in that case you could say it is his own damn fault whereas if you have an unusual family name because of your culture you really can say you're a victim.
- cafard 4y agoThomas, Heinrich, and Golo would have sympathized with poor old Spider, I'm sure.
- SahAssar 4y ago> That seems like a way to get a discrimination lawsuit I don't think names are a protected class, right? Regardless it is stupid, but I'm not sure if it on its own can be called anything else than lazy engineering.
- ss108 4y agoNames are an attribute. Hijabs and turbans are not protected classes either, but religion is. In this case, one would argue nationality, probably, but I'm not sure what the strength of a lawsuit would be or on what basis.
- SahAssar 4y agoI don't think the last name "Pot" is going to be clearly associated with any protected class. If they where banning all last names prefixed by "O'" or the name "Rousseau" that'd be a bit different.
- ss108 4y agoYeah, this is kind of the issue; I don't know if "Pot" is indicative of any clear nationality or heritage. Kind of a lacuna in the law--I think almost everyone in the country would agree this person has a legit grievance here, but not sure what the exact legal theory would be...
- Perenti 4y agoReasonably common and significant name in Kampuchea. One of the things these lists reveal is the depth of cultural bias out there.
- tjrDL6MjB2Zwwa 4y agoThey would be required to make the victim whole based upon the harm endured.
- tjrDL6MjB2Zwwa 4y agoguys... it's a name. The victim can sue due to damages, but it's still just a name. I believe there's someone running around with a first or last name of literally "null" who has problems regularly. They should absolutely be able to sue, but there's no way in hell someone is deliberately did that as a result of even neglectful discrimination. It's just poor engineering.
- mdaniel 4y agoRelevant: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-... (maybe Amex developers stopped reading before reaching 31)
- aranaur 4y agoThis is exactly the list I was thinking of. > I can safely assume that this dictionary of bad words contains no people’s names in it.
- headPoet 4y agoAddresses in Scotland use a slash to separate flat number from street number; e.g. 15/4 West Wallaby Way is equivalent to Building 15, Flat4, West Wallaby Way. I've had multiple websites tell me that my address isn't valid, and some delivery companies remove the number after the slash so the delivery driver knows which building, but not which flat.
- mdaniel 4y agoThe addressing system in New Zealand is also some especial "I have seen things" and I never worked on it but my colleagues said that Tokyo was also "you should pull up a chair"
- Hallucinaut 4y agoNZ is exceedingly plain so I don't get that comment. Most are of the form 1337 Great North Road Pt. Chevalier Auckland 1002 You could even omit Auckland as it's implied by the simple 1000-series postcode. The property boom may have led to subdivisions making a 1337/2 necessary but the vast majority of buildings outside of metro areas are detached, single family properties.
- Semaphor 4y agoMy house number is 12-16. Even some government websites in Germany can't handle that and go with 12 ( which, to be fair, works for all purposes, but it's incorrect)
- terribleperson 4y agoTo me, this is very similar to the recent post about email address validation. Very often, companies feel the need to validate certain inputs themselves and do a terrible job, when there's a better solution. When it comes to addresses, if they're in the U.S. there is an easy way to validate delivery addresses - the USPS. They offer free access to an API that includes address validation, and thankfully most shipping services now use it. Some services still screw things up, but its less of a problem than it used to be. I notice that the Royal Mail equivalent is paid. Perhaps that's part of the problem, or perhaps the Royal Mail validator fails addresses with slashes in it. I also noticed that the Royal Mail is a publicly traded company. I'll uh, refrain from commenting on that.
- zamadatix 4y agoEven in some world where such a list made sense to check it's still nowhere remotely close to being correct anyways - e.g. "seamen" is blocked not "semen" and it's only got a few entries.
- runnerup 4y agoInterestingly it appears this check happens clientside so a super-knowledgeable user could bypass the check by using the browser console to empty the “bad words” array.
- feoren 4y agoIt's common for the same checks to happen client-side (for user convenience and good error messages) and server-side (for the actual security/validation).
- duxup 4y agoI tend to do checks on both client and server side. Client side so they get immediate feedback, nice error indicators and etc. Server side for other/ additional checks.
- feoren 4y agoIt's impressive how they managed to actually get the worst of both worlds here. There are infinite combinations of swear words that they can't catch from their puny static list. It's like they asked an intern to spend 10 minutes on this problem. Names you can use: dickshit, bitchfuck, pisshole, gonorrhea Names you can't use: this person's actual name. "gonorhea" [sic]. And "trust"!?
- _8j50 4y agoWhy would "trust" not be allowed?
- tlb 4y agoIt's common to have bank accounts in the name of "The [name] Revocable Living Trust" for US estate planning purposes. Perhaps they're trying to catch those and require that credit cards be in the natural person's name only.
- mixdup 4y agoI don't even get the point of this list. It's going to do a credit check, if someone puts in William Cocksucker and he doesn't exist or have a credit history, he's not getting approved for the card