Lloyds Bank have changed my Username/User ID without informing me

[Deleted User]

I've been a Lloyds customer  since the early 2000 and have never changed my username/user ID. To my shock I tried to log on this morning and I was unable to do so and I was being told my credentials are wrong. The first thing I though was my account had been hacked so I checked my IOS app and thankfully I was able to login via touchID.

I quickly noticed that my Username/User ID had been changed. This is a major breach of data security so I asked Lloyds CS whats going on and all they could tell me was a change was made in their backend.

As a software developer it is crazy to be changing your customers Authentication without them knowing it or consenting to it. I've raised a compliant asking to know exactly what happened and why/how it happened.

I was wondering if there was anyone in this community who had advice on this subject because I feel this is quite a serious breach of data security and feel some banking codes might have been broken here.

emmajones1976

At a guess, your 21-year old username is no longer compatable with their system in 2021 and it has been updated to ensure compliance, but a bit odd they never informed you first.

[Deleted User]

It's not a breach of data security but it's poor customer service.  

They're unlikely to tell you exactly what happened or why, but you'll get a broad response and probably an apology.

Daliah

emmajones1976 said:

At a guess, your 21-year old username is no longer compatable with their system in 2021 and it has been updated to ensure compliance, but a bit odd they never informed you first.

Even more odd if this had happened to only 1 person. Should be interesting to see whether any others have had their username changed. FWIW, the userid for my Lloyds online banking has remained unchanged for at least a decade.

emmajones1976

It could be a lot of the old ones were already compliant, maybe they need to be a certain length, no idea how they operate.

[Deleted User]

So it was replaced a 9 digit integer with another a 9 digit integer!?

It makes no sense.

Nick_C

So complain.  LBG are very generous with compensation in my experience.  They've chucked money at me a couple of times, when that was not what I was looking for!

SiliconChip

I don't know Lloyds systems but at other banks where I've supported IT systems one of the most critical items is the Customer ID, as this is what ties together all data held about an individual customer. Occasionally something can go wrong in some part of the system that is impossible to fix at a reasonable cost and the simplest solution is to create a new Customer ID and transfer all of the details from the old one to the new one. It's almost certain that if that happens a new username would also be required. It could be what's happened here, and the real failure is not advising you that it's had to be done. As @Nick_C suggests you might get some free money if you make an official complaint.

northwalesd

Daliah said:
Even more odd if this had happened to only 1 person. Should be interesting to see whether any others have had their username changed. FWIW, the userid for my Lloyds online banking has remained unchanged for at least a decade.

My 16+ year old account User ID remains unchanged.

[Deleted User]

Nick_C said:

So complain.  LBG are very generous with compensation in my experience.  They've chucked money at me a couple of times, when that was not what I was looking for!

It's called go away money and the OPs title says it all - 'my username/User ID' when it belongs to the bank and they can change it at their discretion.

CurryGuy

Deleted User said:

Nick_C said:

So complain.  LBG are very generous with compensation in my experience.  They've chucked money at me a couple of times, when that was not what I was looking for!

It's called go away money and the OPs title says it all - 'my username/User ID' when it belongs to the bank and they can change it at their discretion.

I think it's a perfectly reasonable titles because if they said "the banks username/User ID" it wouldn't make any sense and any letter will say this is the customers User ID because it's used to identify that specific customer.

I also agree it's silly to change a User ID without informing the customer when that is what they use to login. At the very least they could have sent an email but a letter may eventually turn up explaining it.