Daft Old Duffer returns. Guest opinion articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. Ed
I decided to transfer some funds from my current account to a savings one. This involved setting up a standing order.
No problem, I thought. I am after all a master of the Internet banking scene (well, more or less), and I have performed a similar function before. Albeit a long time ago.
Set about my task
With complete confidence therefore I opened by banking page and proceeded to point and tap away with unerring skill, entering in all the security numbers and then the numbers securing the security numbers, and finally the security numbers necessary to prove that the security numbers confirming the security numbers were secure.
Triumphantly I reached the end, not once having had to back track and click all the bits I had overlooked on the first pass, or even to re-enter my password and e-mail address, correctly this time.
And that was when my cockiness was brought to an abrupt halt.
A spanner in the works
By a message informing me a special security number (yes yet another blooming security number) had been sent to my mobile and that I needed to locate it and enter it in the box provided before I was permitted to proceed.
Trouble is, I don’t have a mobile, being one of those rare eccentrics that somehow contrive to live life without having a hand clamped permanently to one cheek.
Waiting ’til there was a reasonable chance of getting through to India – ie. eight o’clock in the evening, I tapped yet more buttons until I located a human being.
Situated as usual in the room next to the one containing the telephone, door partly open and air conditioner fully on.
There was nothing he could do, he informed me. No mobile telephone, no transfer.
My own fault of course for being so inexcusably backward.
Off to the bank
I don’t give up so easily however. Determined to insist on my right to give away my own money if I want to, I hied myself the very next day to the nearest local branch of my bank, joined the statuary queue of puzzled and frustrated customers and eventually was able to explain all to the nice young lass behind the security screen.
I had, naturally, brought along every conceivable scrap of identity, all numbers and passwords I possessed, my passport in case my driving card wasn’t enough, my debit card and my cheque book and my little notebook with the cover held in place by a dinky elastic band which held every other detail about me and my lifestyle, my address and my national insurance card.
Laying all this out before the nice lass I explained my errand and awaited her refusal to comply. I have a long experience of dealing with ‘convenient’ banking you see, and still expected to be rebuffed by some query I hadn’t got an answer for.
I wasn’t even going to get mad about it, just turn away with a sigh, return home and come back another day to try again.
Sorted in a jiffy
She studied the pile of paper I had strewn before her, looking puzzled. She asked me to repeat my request.
I did so and she selected my debit card, tapped away on her digigadget and handed me a print out to confirm my transaction was completed.
All done in a smooth trice, and all she needed to look at was my debit card number. Everything else I was required to gather up and wedge away in my embarrassed pocket, while she continued to smile on the old idiot who hadn’t got a clue about modern day banking.
Now, I don’t really expect an answer to this. Not one that lines up with everyday common sense that is
But why does a transaction face to face with a lass I’ve never met before, nor will ever meet again, require nothing more than my card number, while the same transaction over the Web requires a minimum of four long and complex numbers, my e-mail address entered twice, a password and a special extra gobblegook number sent to me secretly over a phone?
(Mind you, I’m still not sure about the result of my branch visit. I still expect, daily, an e-mail informing me my transfer can’t go through after all, because of whatever idiot hitch some resident geek has spotted somewhere among the electronicals)
Image: Keith Williamson under CC BY 2.0
