Thanks For The Security, Wells Fargo

So, some time back Wells Fargo decided that bank passwords needed to be more secure. You have to include numbers. That’s no problem for me, as I have long intended to change our account password. I have difficulty remembering what the username and passwords are anyway. As soon as I finally hit the jackpot, I go into the accounts section and change the username to something I am going to remember. Then I go to change the password, knowing that the old password didn’t meet requirements anyway.

The problem is that because my old password didn’t meet requirements, they wouldn’t let me change to a new password. I get logged off, and then it won’t let me log back in because the password doesn’t meet the new requirements. Not that the password is wrong, mind you. And nevermind that it let me log into the password a half-hour before.

So our online banking is so secure that I can’t get in there without calling their number.

Will Truman

Will Truman is the Editor-in-Chief of Ordinary Times. He is also on Twitter.

9 Comments

  1. Our credit union was recently bought out by another credit union. Our new CU is very big on security. So now if I order something on line, I get a helpful automated phone call the next day to insure that I have indeed made that and the previous 5 or 6 purchases. It takes about 5-10 minutes to get through the damn thing, and if you ignore the calls eventually they put a hold on my card for my protection.

    • For a while, my credit card was getting a “suspicious activity” hold every time a payment to Audible went through.

      Because I guess people are scamming credit cards in order to order (DRMed) audiobooks online.

  2. I hate it when they put a hold on my card for making purchases in different states. Purchases made at gas stations tends to trigger their fraud alert system. Of course, if you’re driving through three states, you sometimes need to stop for gas.
    This was a real hassle when I was in the Chicago area, and I would go back & forth from Ill. to Ind. all the time. Seems to me like they would have figured that one out by now.

    • Dude! You have no idea. I wake up in a. different state every morning. Breaking in a new card is a real hassle.

    • Auto-pay gas stations are often the first test for stolen credit cards. If they don’t work, the thieves just ditch them and drive away.

  3. I recently received a voice message from a company wanting to “talk about my recent credit card purchases” and it named a 800 number I was unfamiliar with. I assumed it was trash, but something stopped me from deleting it and I actually called them.

    They claimed that they had been hired by my credit card company to handle potential fraud cases and wanted my CC number, SS, etc. This raised the BS meter to extreme. I called my CC directly and turns out it was legit.

    Now, a company you’ve never heard of calls you and claims they are looking into fraud, demands your personal info to help you “fix” it and my CC company never communicated that they were subbing this out to a vendor? Smart.

    Dumbasses.

    • Yeah. Early on, when I would get calls from Discover (who was the most trigger-happy about putting a hold on my card at the time), they’d never say who they were with. I wondered if maybe there were some privacy laws in effect.

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