Creepy UPS identity confirmation

[Irulan]

on the topic of crazy security stuff - this happened yesterday and I'm still freaked out about it, in a not-good way:

I manage a bank account for my sister who is a nun in retreat. All the deposits and withdrawals are on automatic, so I don't check it a lot. I figured with the holiday season and rampant electronic theft going on I should probably take a look at it. I don't log in a lot, so the site came up the extra security questions, as it should. I had some trouble with the answer as the ones I had noted weren't working, and ended up calling the bank at the number they give if you have login trouble. It is a very small local bank, so I know I am calling someone at the bank and not a call center.

I explained that I was having issues, she verified me with a user name and birthday, and then when I was going over the answers to the security questions with her, she was giving me the answers! As is, "do you have XXXXX for the best mans' last name?", and "do you have XXXX for your childhood best friend?" WTF? The issue was corrected - I had noted first name not last name for the last name question but still.....yikes. I think I'm going have a chat with them.

[Thorn]

I explained that I was having issues, she verified me with a user name and birthday, and then when I was going over the answers to the security questions with her, she was giving me the answers! As is, "do you have XXXXX for the best mans' last name?", and "do you have XXXX for your childhood best friend?" WTF? The issue was corrected - I had noted first name not last name for the last name question but still.....yikes. I think I'm going have a chat with them.

It was things like this for which I recently changed banks. After several attempts at pointing their security problems to no avail, I decided I couldn't trust them. The sad part is that the new bank may not be any better, but so far, they haven't done any obviously dumb things.

Seriously, how many people know the birthday of their ex-spouse's ex-spouse?

I have been divorced for more than 20 years, yet my ex will still shows up on these reports. Consequently, when sites that use the data list "associated" people, his current wife shows up. If I were you, I'd pull my credit report at this point to make sure that your ex's debt is not on your report. The association seems to last, but you want to make sure that there is no debt linkage.

But I had to fill out one of those Q&A's recently for something and, yes, I found it creepy. And I tend to keep a relatively low internet profile.