TSB Security Check - Bizarre!!

GingerFurball_2

grumbler wrote: »

The only bit that isn't normal is that genuine customers fail their bizarre 'security' designed by some idiot.

The security questions are based on information they get from Experian.

tempus_fugit

GingerFurball wrote: »

1. Payment under review
2. Phone fraud department, fail security
3. Referred to branch with photo ID to remove blocks from account.

All part of TSB's normal process.

She didn't fail security though.

tempus_fugit

grumbler wrote: »

The only bit that isn't normal is that genuine customers fail their bizarre 'security' designed by some idiot.

Thank you grumbler, I was beginning to wonder if I was alone in this viewpoint. Proper security questions, fine, they are very reassuring and can be answered to everyone's satisfaction, but this was more like the Bridgekeeper's questions in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

tempus_fugit

colsten wrote: »

Several banks as multiple choice questions, based on the person's credit file. I have previously been asked by Halifax and by Barclays. It can get a bit annoying when they ask you on what date you applied for a current account when you got dozens of them but I have not failed any of their multiple choice checks as yet.

Again, that would be fine, but they didn't ask anything like that. In fact, there is nothing on the credit file to suggest why she should have known who Jenny Smith was, or why they think she has ever lived in Croatia, a country we have never even been to.

GingerFurball_2

tempus_fugit wrote: »

She didn't fail security though.

She did. She wouldn't have been referred to the branch with ID if she'd passed the security checks.

Super_Whiskey

tempus_fugit wrote: »

The questions were not answered incorrectly though. My wife said that she did not know the names mentioned and that we had not lived in any of the locations mentioned. All of this was correct, so to turn round and say that she had answered them incorrectly is just ridiculous. But what gets me is that, even if they had deemed the answers "correct", how on earth do they prove that the transaction was not fraudulent? They were from my wife to me, her husband, and to an account that had actually funded her account up to this point. As far as I am concerned the normal approach would be, as you say, to prove who we are saying we are, but the questions asked would not have done that in any circumstances. That is what is the mystery.

I do agree with your second paragraph, and if they had done that I would have been fine with it. But apart from entering the account number and sort code into the phone when she called, they did not ask her any of the normal security questions at all, e.g. name, address, postcode, date of birth or security question, so they had not even taken adequate steps to make sure she was who she said she was, which is quite worrying from an account holder's point of view.

If the answers were correct then your wife wouldn't have failed them. Either it is something she may have forgotten or the information that TSB were basing their questions on is wrong. If you were to speak to them again, after having been fully id'd, they might be able to tell you.

If your wife had passed TSB's security then as far as TSB are concerned, they're speaking to the account holder so it's a case of asking 'Did you do this?' and authorising or declining it.

In regards to your second part, again from the bank's point of view they are less likely to have a fraudster call up to try to authenticate a payment with the fraud team. By asking your wife these questions which in theory she should know, asking basic information such as that might seem irrelevant.

I understand where you're coming from, these questions do seem non-standard but TSB will have spent a lot of money developing a system which they believe will best protect them and their customers. As mentioned above, they might take the time to explain it to you and see what questions your wife supposedly got wrong and how she can check that information is correct going forward.

grumbler

GingerFurball wrote: »

The security questions are based on information they get from Experian.

Well, nothing stops the questions based on this information from being bizarre and next to impossible to answer by a genuine customer. Nothing surprising if the procedure was designed by some computer geek with two addresses and three accounts in his credit file.
There is far too many information in my credit files and I am not supposed to know all it by heart.

Once I failed 'security' at Barclays. The question was the street next to the one I live on. I named the big one and forgot about the 50m 'avenue' between my 'close' and the main road. Correctly designed procedure should have accepted both streets, but I am expecting too much from arrogant banks, am not I? It's far more easy for them to drag me to a branch than to put more thought into the procedure.

colsten

tempus_fugit wrote: »

Again, that would be fine, but they didn't ask anything like that. In fact, there is nothing on the credit file to suggest why she should have known who Jenny Smith was, or why they think she has ever lived in Croatia, a country we have never even been to.

For each of the questions, there was just one answer that matched the data on her credit file. It's how multiple choice questionnaires work - one valid answer, and some invalid answers.

tempus_fugit

colsten wrote: »

For each of the questions, there was just one answer that matched the data on her credit file. It's how multiple choice questionnaires work - one valid answer, and some invalid answers.

But how could they know if the answers were right or wrong? How would they know if she knew this person that they were asking about? The fact is she has never heard of the person, but they presumably thought she did. There are no details of this person on her credit file either, so THEY were wrong, not my wife.

tempus_fugit

GingerFurball wrote: »

She did. She wouldn't have been referred to the branch with ID if she'd passed the security checks.

She didn't because they did not ask her security questions. If they had, she would have been able to satisfy them immediately. Instead they asked a set of questions that were not related to her in any way and she was 100% going to fail because they were nonsense. None of you can say otherwise because you do not know my wife nor what is, or is not, on her credit file.