Halifucked Or Spam From the Halifax
Over the last couple of days, I have received several spam e-mail from a marketing company, working on behalf of the Halifax. They all offered me a new credit card, which is like offering someone like Andy Murray a new tennis racket, as the ones I’ve got, are perfectly adequate for my modest needs.
So not only do we have bail out this wunch of bankers, but we have to endure their spam in our inboxes. Interestingly, it very much looks genuine and some of it has come to e-mail addresses, I’ve not used in at least ten years. I’ve kept them as spam traps for tossers like these and they’ve worked well.
Interestingly, the Halifax web site appears to have no means of contacting the bank on it, that is obvious to an irate non-customer.
The Future Worldwide Public Transport Ticketing is Almost Here
I read last month, that Transport for London would be aiming to introduce ticketing using contactless bank cards before the Olympics next year. They would work instead of or alongside the Oyster card.
So after some of the comments with regard to public transport in the Aston Martin post, I thought I’d look up the progress.
I myself have a Freedom Pass, so you might ask why I would need to pay in other way. I usually keep it in the back pocket of my trousers, so I have forgotten it a couple of times, when I’ve changed in the middle of the day. I also keep an emergency Oyster card in my wallet, in case I lose the Freedom Pass or I meet someone from outside London, who doesn’t have an Oyster.
So how is it all progressing? Read about it here.
This is an extract.
Hany Fam, President of MasterCard UK & Ireland, said: ‘We’ve been working closely with TfL since 2006 to make this shared vision a reality and recently announced a deal for the exclusive branding of TfL’s Oyster card wallet for 2011.
‘MasterCard was the first to introduce contactless bankcard payments on UK public transport in 2009 and we’re delighted that from 2012 consumers with a PayPass card issued anywhere in the world can use it to access London’s transport system.
‘We believe that London’s leadership will pave the way for adoption of contactless payments in other major cities across the world.’
What is this worldwide universal ticketing, going to do for worldwide tourism?
So perhaps the banks, helped by lots of clever engineers and computer programmers are going to do something worthwhile for a change.
You might ask what’s in it for them?
These contactless transactions are much cheaper to process than one with a pin. I suspect too that as your bank card will be able to buy your travel, your paper and your lunch, you’ll only carry one card much of the time and hence theft and the associated fraud will be a lot less.
On Line Banking Security
When I was in Greece, I increased my overdraft limit by logging in to my account over the Internet from an Internet cafe. The procedure at Nationwide is simple and relies on memorising three numbers or codes. One is ten digits long, but written down it looks like a US telephone number. So it is stored in my trusty Nokia 6310i, as a phone number complete with the US country code. As I have about a hundred numbers in my phone and fifty are in the US, it would be pretty difficult to find it, especially as I’m lying and you don’t have the other code words. But it does mean, I don’t have to take an obvious machine with me to see how my bank account is doing. I hope they don’t change the system and insist on using the machine to login, as this would be a less secure system. After all, I usually keep my debit card hidden when I’m abroad and only take it out when I need cash from a cashpoint.
I access other systems all the time like American Express and Zopa, but in all these cases, the only thing I need to remember is several code words. Nothing is ever written down.
The security system, I don’t like is that for the John Lewis Partnership Card. If you don’t login for sixty days, you need to ask for a new password and that comes in a secure package that I have difficulty opening with my gammy left hand.
If I didn’t shop at Waitrose, I’d cut the card up.
Security though is not just about logging in, it’s about what information you can glean from your on-line statements. The Partnership card just gives minimal information, but Nationwide gives quite a bit more. Zopa incidentally, is very comprehensive about what it tells you about each transaction. In my view you can never give too much information. How long before cashpoint machines take your picture, when you draw money out? I’ve always believed that you can upload a picture against your credit or bank card, so that if there was thought to be a problem, it could be checked. There are lots of possibilities.
And how about an alarm pin number? Suppose you are being forced to use a cashpoint, by someone with a knife! If you typed in the alarm number, the following would happen.
- The cashpoint would appear to have accepted the correct pin.
- A small amount of money say something like £20 would be dispensed with a message that said you were now overdrawn and that was your lot.
- The card would be retained and of course blocked.
- Nothing would be done to indicate the transaction was anything other than normal.
I Never Use My Visa Card On-Line
I’ve just been reviewing my credit card use, as it is getting to that time in the month when they get paid.
The interesting thing is that my Visa card is now never used on-line and hasn’t been for some months, as the stupid Verified by Visa system is a complete deterent to on-line use, as I pointed out in an earlier post.
The system may mean that my bank doesn’t see any on-line fraud with credit cards, but I just wonder if some people have cut-up their Visa cards in frustration at the security system.
The New Waitrose Credit Card Machines
They obviously weren’t designed by someone with a gammy hand. The old one where you just pushed the card into the slot worked well for me, but I can’t slide my card through the reader with the left.
I bet the system wasn’t designed by someone with a brain.
Incidentally, the script on many card machines says “Do not remove the card” and then changes it to “Remove the card”. If your eyesight isn’t good, like mine is at times, you can get a bit mixed-up and take the card out too early, as you see the word “Remove”.
Verified By Visa
I’m all for good Internet security, but this system on my Visa card is totally useless.
The reason is that I can never remember the password and as it has to be entered,partly in upper and partly in lower-case, even if I do, it is a nightmare to type in with my gammy left hand. So inevitably, I end up having to create a new password, which surely defeats the system in the first place.
Thinking laterally, if American Express can get their security right in a much simpler way and in many years of using their card on-line, I’ve never had a problem, then surely Verified By Visa in its current form is a waste of space.
I’ve just started to get spam from someone claiming to be verifbyvisa.com. Because of my problems in using the system, I was quite worried, but on checking, there was no problem.
Personal Security From American Express
I have all of my credit cards registered with a security program from American Express, so that if I lose my wallet. it’s just one call to stop everything. When I registered, they also sent me a rather nice key fob,so that if I drop my keys, it would increase the chances of their return.
A couple of weeks ago, I dropped my camera somewhere. It was only a fairly cheap Nikon, but I liked it and it has taken most of the pictures here. So I phoned Amex to see if they had some tags with which I could label my personal belongings.
I got a whole load of goodies yesterday.
American Express Personal Security
Note the security label inside the phone.
So all in all a good set of tags, from just one call to Amex.
Fair Treatment of Widows by the Banks
I didn’t have a particularly bad time when my wife died from the banks. But many others do!
I’ve just listened to the influential MP, John McFall, complaining that many widows have difficulty accessing money that will come to them. I didn’t, but the endless sending of death certificates to get information just makes the bereavement process worse.
It’s not just the banks but part of a much larger and very important area.
It is now over nearly two years since my wife died and I can now think rationally about what has happened since. And especially about some of the nauseous paperwork that has arisen! I should also say that I’ve not had it difficult, compared to some stories I have heard.
I was prompted to write to The Times about this and they published my letter on April the sixteenth, 2008, albeit with a few modifications.
Sir, I was widowed last year, and it is only now that I’m starting to get my life together. The response of the various government and local authority departments in handling all the paperwork involved has been very patchy.
Registrars: excellent, very sympathetic and efficient; Work and Pensions: bereavement allowance came through with a few hiccups, but not too difficult; Premium Bonds: system worked but could have been better; council tax: this was reduced automatically on signing a form by St Edmundsbury — totally painless; DVLA: its online systems worked well; winter fuel payment: found difficult to claim and missed it for last year.
The private sector wasn’t that much better, with some companies having people whose sole job appeared to be to deal with bereavement faring much better than those that didn’t. Some wanted death certificates, some accepted faxed copies and others took my word.
We need a lot more joined-up thinking in this important area, as, with nearly a million deaths in the UK every year, it would surely help the bereavement process for those left behind if every company, organisation, government department and authority were automatically notified. After all, if St Edmundsbury can do it here in supposedly sleepy Suffolk, then surely everyone else can.
They left out the piece where I praised The Carphone Warehouse, but severely criticised a large British company, who find it impossible to take my wife off their mailing list. The former showed how it should be done and the latter are a disgrace.
As I said in my letter, my local council met the Gold Standard and the Registrar effectively started the process of adjusting the Council Tax.
In tracing my wife’s credit cards, I ended up talking to a Fraud Manager at a well-known bank. We felt that it should be possible to have an automated system that would flag the cards of those that had died. Apparently, these cards are an area that is aggressively targeted by criminals.
He’d also had problems with some shares that had been held by his late mother. This is a common problem and was noted in some of the replies to my letter in The Times. Luckily, my wife didn’t hold any shares except for a few in a now-floated Building Society.
But I’ve since met several people, whose husbands or wives have died abroad and they’ve had problems with getting bodies home and others where the Death Certificate has been delayed because there was an inquest. If you haven’t got the Death Certificate, then the Banks won’t give you access to the bank accounts!
So I had it easy. But I know now, how I can make things even easier.
Beware of Calls from VISA/Mastercard – 2
I have just had another call from these crooks.
I thought that I should phone my credit card company and ask if there is anywhere where the scam can be reported.
They said there wasn’t! They also said that nothing could be done as they are abroad. But if enough people reported the calls to a central number, then at least the country of origin could be traced and shamed in the press.
So we’re all on our own on this one, then!
The Anonymous Widower 