I'm increasingly wary of telephone calls to banks and other institutions where I'm repeatedly asked to give the answer to a security question. I took a call from my bank the other day and after introducing himself and discussing the nature of the call, the agent duly asked me for my date of birth and my mother's maiden name.
Basically, once you have those you can pretty much do what you want with my life. I stuttered and stalled and told him that since it was an inbound call, I wasn't comfortable giving out that information. At which point the agent was cool and invited me to ring back in myself, which I did.
But I was wondering whether I could have been made to feel more comfortable if I could have asked the agent a separate security question about their organisation. Like the name of the architect who designed it, the combination number for an extra sugar cappucino on the second floor coffee machine in their building, the person max capacity of their elevator or something else particular to the organisation that they could let me in on since I have to share all my secrets.
Last year a colleague at work had his bank debit card pinched from his wallet in his hotel room, 30 mins later he received a call from a supposed lawyer about a fictitious probate case he was representing in Australia concerning a (fictitious) long lost family member, and he was duly tricked into disclosing his mother's family name. Within 2 hours his bank account overdraft had been jacked up to £40,000 and promptly emptied. He got the money credited back in about 2 weeks and the bank took the hit. 100% true story.
We're wide open when it comes to securing our identities.
Basically, once you have those you can pretty much do what you want with my life. I stuttered and stalled and told him that since it was an inbound call, I wasn't comfortable giving out that information. At which point the agent was cool and invited me to ring back in myself, which I did.
But I was wondering whether I could have been made to feel more comfortable if I could have asked the agent a separate security question about their organisation. Like the name of the architect who designed it, the combination number for an extra sugar cappucino on the second floor coffee machine in their building, the person max capacity of their elevator or something else particular to the organisation that they could let me in on since I have to share all my secrets.
Last year a colleague at work had his bank debit card pinched from his wallet in his hotel room, 30 mins later he received a call from a supposed lawyer about a fictitious probate case he was representing in Australia concerning a (fictitious) long lost family member, and he was duly tricked into disclosing his mother's family name. Within 2 hours his bank account overdraft had been jacked up to £40,000 and promptly emptied. He got the money credited back in about 2 weeks and the bank took the hit. 100% true story.
We're wide open when it comes to securing our identities.