I've been a Netbank customer for about 6-7 years now and it's been a great experience.
They recently instituted a "state-of-the-art security"system. You have the usual username/password, but now a series of questions/answers. You pick 5 of them and you need 1, usually, to log-on each time you want to transact with the bank.
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate security as much as the next guy, but I'm not sure this is the best way to do it.
Why? Well, if you look at the questions, you'll see a lot of them are opinions, not facts. That's for starters.
For example: what's your favorite song? Well, whatever it is now, it's not the same as it was 2 years ago (or maybe even last week)
And the facts questions....there are some problems there as well.
For example: what was the first/last name of the person you took to the senior prom?
Ok, so I took Stephanie Heideman (obviously I didn't select that question), but is it:
- Stephanie Heideman
- stephanie Heideman
- Stephanie heideman
- stephanie heideman
- StephanieHeideman
- stephanieHeideman
- Stephanieheideman
- stephanieheideman
I ran into this problem today with the "which team do you like to see lose?"
Well, there are a few and I guess I forgot which one I chose (it may have been baseball season when I answered and now my frame of reference is football).
I had to call and re-set my password. Annoying
This is a comprehensive security system, but I'm not sure it is the most customer-centric way of doing it.
I've seen some other (more graphical) security systems pop up, which have some promise.
(and, to top it all off...when I try to pay my e-Bill at 2.15am...the service is down!)