First Barclays and Nationwide, now HSBC: please, banks, STOP IT!!!!

[Roobubba]

Here's an open letter to HSBC I wrote in response to them forcing me to carry around/use their IDIOTIC secure key device.
Facebook link to my letter

Dear Sir/Madam

 

I am utterly digusted that you have decided to follow Barclays in enforcing your customers to carry/use a 70s style calculator device to log in to internet banking.

I have many concerns about both this policy, and the device specifically, and will now be forced to look for another bank, unless you provide an opt-out or alternative security scheme which does not impose so massively upon my everyday life.

Allow me to explain my main objections to this device.

Firstly, you are not the first nor only bank to decide to do this. I do not only bank with you (and certainly will not, now), and therefore I could potentially be required to carry around 3 or 4 such devices with me if I wish to use internet banking anywhere but my own home. This is a totally unacceptable imposition on me. I have enough junk to carry around as it is.

Secondly, however small the device, it will not fit neatly into my wallet. This means that I am bound to lose it, which will cause even further impedence to my online banking.

Thirdly, you are placing a device that can tell whether a PIN is correct or not into the hands of the masses, like Barclays before you. In the longer term, I do not see this being a good thing. Very shortly after Barclays released their cretinous security devices, there were reports of these being deconstructed and hooked up permanently to a computer with a card in so that the user could access internet banking remotely via a VPN to their own house. Clearly this is a far less secure method of online banking than any that existed to date, but it shows the potential for misuse by making such a device so widely available.

So, in response to your letter with the enclosed idiotic device, I do NOT feel more secure with it, and I see immediately that it makes onnline banking nigh on impossible for me: I refuse to be forced to carry it around - who do you think you are to impose this on me?

Fourthly, given the scale of the operation, this is a huge waste of plastic, paper, and time. The environmental impact cannot be ignored, and that you're willing to throw away so much money like this in such a destructive manner worries me greatly.

Finally, I moved from Barclays because they did this a year ago. I cannot believe that the staff who I asked specifically "Does HSBC have any plans to bring in a similar device?" would not have been aware that you not only had plans but were actively implementing them. If they did not know this, then your intra-organisational communication is extremely poor, and I would be better off distancing myself from your company in any case. So, only a year after having asked that question, I feel that I was misled, and that the huge inconvenience you are causing me by this move is entirely avoidable, and is your responsibility.

 

You have not given me greater peace of mind, you have given me a massive headache. It is a totally unreasonable imposiiton by you. You should instead be putting resource into devising innovative ways of countering internet fraud that do not impose unreasonblly upon your customers. I have no confidence in an organisation that comes up with this as a good idea and forces its customers to use it without consultation or the option to opt-out. It is a stupid, cretinous and half-witted idea that lacks foresight.

Having failed to come up with a better solution to improve online banking security, I am left exceedingly disappointed in your organisation, and will now be forced to change banks again.

 

I do hope (at least eventually) that you see that this security device is bad for customers, is bad for the long-term health of banking security in the UK, and is a very bad reflection of your company. I trust that you will not impede me further in removing my funds from my account as and when I find another bank who does not have such idiotic ideas about online banking security.

 

Yours faithfully

 

Isaac Westwood

I moved from Barclays a year ago because they introduced such a thing. Now it seems they've had so many complaints about it, they're not making you use it to log in, only to make payments to new payees - that's still unacceptable to me: when I bought my guitar from Wez, I couldn't make the new payment to him because of this stupid device from Barclays. Thankfully, I managed to sort this by paying from my Alliance and Leicester joint account, then fiddling about shifting money from my personal account after the event, but it was a massive inconvenience at the time, and I will never forgive Barclays for doing that to me. Totally unnecessary.

If you're digruntled, like me, please also complain to your bank about it, and make as much fuss as you can be bothered to (and then a bit more!). Without our complaints, soon ALL the banks will follow suit and make you carry around their cretinous 70s calculators!

[Transcend]

As i said on FB earlier Co-Op and LLoyds also do this too.

And i believe halifax are starting it.

On the coop accounts it isnt as severe its only to setup new transfers everything else is still normal

[Roobubba]

And it's still not acceptable!

[Afghan Dave]

Well said!! These things are a F**king nightmare.

 PDT_003 PDT_045 PDT_046

[MrBump]

I don't have to use anything like that for my Lloyds current account...

[dave_mc]

no idea what that is, but that sounds like it sucks.

that being said, there's no way i'd do anything with my bank account online. the only thing i'll use online is a CC, because by law if you get ripped, unless you're a complete idiot and go about posting your CC number online, it's the CC company's problem. Not so with the bank- they may sort it out out of goodwill, but they're not legally obliged to, as far as i'm aware.

[Philly Q]

I have one of those for my NatWest account, but I only have to use it for setting up new payees and modifying standing orders.  Still, it is a pain in the arse.

[Transcend]

I don't have to use anything like that for my Lloyds current account...

you're lucky

[MDV]

Also with TSB, also dont have any such contraption. Thank $%&# for that too, it seems quite a detestible idea and I'd leave my bank if it tried to make me do have one.

[Afghan Dave]

...make me do have one.

???

Not like you MDV....  :lol:

[MDV]

I can only imagine either far too little or far too much caffiene would make me do type that.

[Ian Price]

 :lol:

[JDC]

I know you don't feel more secure but I think the point of them is to stop key logging viruses, also no one else can use your account for sending money without the "calculator" and card. In today's world of instant gratification it is still better than having to go the bank every time you want to do something. ;)

[plastercaster]

You know only this morning I lost the bloody thing.

Good man!

[Ian Price]

Having read this thread a number of times I'm getting the feeling that Roo may have found something to replace his hatred of Teles!

I don't use one of these things as - I don't really do much internet banking whilst on the move. Maybe that will change in a few years but for the moment this issue isn't getting in my way.