Stupid banks' practice of asking for personal details

When banks started making unexpected (e.g. sales) calls to existing customers, asking for people to give personal details, people used to do it, then got wise, then banks wised up.

If I get a call from the bank like this, I ususally offer to exchange a bit of e.g. my date of birth. Early on, they didn't like doing this, but now they understand it. I think both the public and the bank phone staff are getting used to dealing with these security issues, but as much as the bank staff needed educating, so do the public (look how many phishing scams are successful).

If you don't like your bank's behaviour, change your bank.

My credit card company have started ringing me with an automated message when they spot what they regard as unusual activity. It's fairly well done, and I only have to press a few buttons to select options to identify me and check the transactions. I have had one of these when I've been abroad, and although I had to pay the cost of the call, I think I'd rather have them, than end up needing the card abroad in a hurry and finding out its blocked, or that there's an unusual transaction(s) on my card that I don't find out about until I get home...

In message , Postman Pat writes

They never call me...

I did. This is the new one ;)

I was with MBNA for ~ 10 years. They kept calling me to sell me stuff (as well as mailing me the stupid "credit card cheques" - a great thing to fall into the wrong hands). They insisted (on multiple occassions) this activity could not be blocked, so I never gave them my mobile # because receiving mobile calls is usually a hassle for me. Unfortunately this meant that the card often got blocked on holidays... Only when I ditched them did some bloke phone me up and say the previous years' advice was bollox and the sales calls and mailings could be stopped after all.

Last time they blocked the card, I told them to stick their card up their back end. Only then did somebody with a brain call me and tell me of these options.

I suspect the CCCs are trying to minimise the cost of fraud so they block the card at the drop of a hat, with pretty dumb software, and that puts the onus on the card owner to sort it out. 99% of the time the transaction is fine, but the CCC couldn't give a t0ss about the inconvenience because they all play the same game so there is nowhere else to go.

In message , Postman Pat wrote

I got a call from Legal And General (number withheld).

I was half expecting the call but the L&G representative started asking for ALL my account and personal details. After around 6 questions I refused to give any more answers and said would phone back so that I could confirm the call was from who he said he was.

I was given a phone number and extension to call but when I said I would fist check it a valid number on their web site I was told that it wasn't listed there, or on any documentation that I have!

Alan wrote

When a credit card is blocked as a result of this kind of event (not calling the CCC back) do they block all transactions, even obviously good ones like regular utility billing?

If so, one needs to have a second CC for regular/important stuff.

The public do need educating but it doesn't help when most of the calls turn out to actually be from your bank. Perhaps banks should employ people to phone their customers, ask for personal details and then tell them not to be so careless if they do hand them over.

Last time I went abroad I phoned my bank and told them when and where I was going to reduce the chance of my cards being blocked.

LOL!

This whole authentication process is backwards. They call /you/ on a number that /you/ have given them. You should be authenticating them, as they could be anyone pretending to be your bank, rather than the other way around.

When banks first started calling like this me they did not understand the problem. Now they seem to understand my reasons for refusing but they still do it!

Another poster mentioned an automated calling system but that's no better since these still expect for you to give sensitive information, not the other way around.

And then there are the automated calling systems which start "talking" as soon as the call is answered. So if the answering machine picks up the call, only the end of the message is recorded.

You must have a strange answering machine. Mine would only record the beginning of the call.

The automated system 'talks' through the greeting and the answering machine only starts recording after the 'beep' following the greeting. So all of the message before the 'beep' is not recorded.

LOL: and they come round and turn your house over...

I'd rather deal with the problem as it arises than tell them I was abroad...

You have a strange answering machine. Most "pick up" the call and say "Hi, you're through to James Bond, please leave your name and number after the tone".

They therefore miss the first few seconds of an automated call.

Indeed. My mistake, sorry. But Graham's too, I would plead in my defence. He had a rather unorthodox way of saying what he meant, so much so that I completely missed what he meant.

The thing about such messages is that they typically ramble on to the point of being in danger of exceeding the time quota an answering machine will allow. By saying "only the end of the message is recorded", I assumed he was on about some bizarre answering machine behaviour whereby it shifts the incoming message into a 2-minute-long buffer (or however long it is) and then loses everything which is shifted out at the other end, thus keeping only the last 2 minutes of the call.

I tend to think of beginning and end as being small parts of a much bigger whole, and so everything except the beginning of a message is not the same thing as the end of the message.

Automated calling systems are impolite enough, but automated systems which interrupt your greeting (recorded or otherwise) are the height of bad form. Think of a real person answering the phone "Hello, Mr Bond's residence, this is his secretary Jane Smith speaking, how may I help you?". How difficult can it be for technology to recognise not only the beginning of speech but also when it stops and expects you to start speaking?

Er... quite....!! Saucepans and kettles ?

As an aside, the automated answering systems used by banks etc. always give me time to say "I am recording this conversation too". Removes all doubts about legitimacy of my taping important calls...:-)))

Got an amusing message on the BT answer yesterday. The first bit of sales/you have won drivel was missed so all that was recorded was a cut off syllable followed by "Simply Press the number 1 on your telephone now".

Could keep certain people on there for ages ( 1 is the BT answer code for listen to the message again) :-)