Telephone banking

General Topics
1

I’ve just had this conversation with my bank’s call centre, trying to activate a credit card:

Call centre person: ‘I’m going to ask you some questions for secuirty, and I’ll have to ask you to think carefully about the answers, because if you cannot answer any of the questions correctly, we will not be able to proceed today. Do you understand?’
Me: Um, OK. (Getting sinking feeling)
Call centre person: ‘For security, can you tell me your date of birth?’
Me: xx/xx/19xx
Call centre person: 'Also for security, can you tell me your cashpoint card number?
Me: xxxxxxxxx
Call centre person: ‘Finally, for security, can you tell me the last time you used your cashpoint card?’
Me: Um , no, sorry, I can’t remember. I don’t use my cashpoint card very often. I usually use my credit card- that’s what I’m calling about.
Call centre person: ‘Well then, what I’ll have to ask you to do is to visit your local branch, use your cashpoint card to get a mini statement, for example, and then call me again with that information.’
Me: Doh!!!

HSBC: If telphone banking security involves a trip to my local branch, what is the point? This is the second time I’ve failed to get through your secuirty. >:(

2

I got essentially the same questions (plus things like mailing address), but no hassle for me. The transactions record part of my “bankbook” is in a database with accompanying program that I wrote ages ago and still run, under an antique version of dBase. So it was no problem calling up my most recent Interac (debit) transaction.

If I was out on a shopping trip and hit two or three stores in the same plaza, I might not have recorded them in precisely the right order. But the bank was quite happy to get multiple answers which obviously were fairly close together both in time and location.