Passwords, etc

[peterbirks]

I forgot my IG Index online username last week. So I telephoned IG and tried to remember my account number. I was close, but no cigar. All that I could remember was my password -- the one part of the system that I had set up myself, rather than had allocated to me by someone else.

The guy at IG Index was quite helpful, and offered to send me my account number, because, well, I was very close.

American Express is less helpful. Even with a Platinum Card, getting through to the Personal Service department requires the negotiation of a significant number of hurdles. Direct Line online is even worse. After all, how often do you consult a page about your home insurance and/or contents insurance details? Not more than once a year, I guess. So, well, it's a bit of a stupid idea to allocate a password to it that you can't change, isn't it?

I don't know what the solution is to these "rarely visited" sites, apart from allowing the user to allocate his own username and password.

Anyhoo, I had an interesting experience while buying something online on Sunday. I followed the required instructions until, at the end, it asked me to input my Visa number, start and expiry date, and security number. So far, so standard. But then it said that my details didn't match.

So I re-entered them, and I got the same result". "Details do not match".

Odd, I thought. Hmm, I'd better get it right this time, or I'll be locked out by Visa.

Then I saw what had happened. The web site, "trying to be helpful", had taken the first name and surname from the fields I had filled in at the start of the purchase process, and had combined them into my name on the Visa card. The problem was, my Visa card is not "Peter Birks" but P J Birks. Indeed, I have a raft of names on credit and debit cards, such as Mr Peter J Birks, Mr Peter Birks, Peter Birks, Peter J Birks, Mathodon The Vengeful ....

What possessed the people designing this site to assume that the first and last names that you input on page one of the buying process would be the names required on the credit card at the end? Presumably someone who only has credit cards consisting of his first and last names "just assumed" that everyone else was the same.

It seems an intrinsic trait of the kind of person who designs forms on the web to not have much imaginiation -- not much "left-field" thought. After all, thinking outside the box, to use a ghastly piece of jargon, is not the kind of trait that will lead you to say to the career master "When I grow up I'd like to work in Visual Basic (or whatever) and design web forms".

_________________________


Update: I know that Peston is a bright chap, and quite often we come to similar conclusions; sometimes, indeed, we think along incredibly similar lines... see(http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2009/05/royal_mail_and_hmgs_creative_a.html), and compare it to my posting on Saturday (about the Royal Mail pension fund...)

Separated at birth....

Comments

Peston

[(Anonymous)]

Hah I did read that article and wonder where the hat tip to your blog was.

Div

Re: Peston

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's more of a fine example of how two journalists can write almost precisely the same piece when confronted with similar source material. Not infrequently I've written a story based on a company's figures and later noted that the person at Dow Jones has written almost precisely the same story with precisely the same structure. It goes to show that 95% of the writing is craft and 5% of it is art.

PJ

Re: Peston

[(Anonymous)]

I didn't know that Alice-in-Wonderland economics was so widely used term. Or is it a common term in any context? Nonetheless I think that is a similarity in the 5% art part.

Aksu

Re: Peston

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

It's not that uncommon. At the turn of the century there were a number of Alice In Wonderland political pastiches, including a book "Alice In Blunderland", and the term "Alice In Wonderland economics" could quite easily occur to two people. However, I think there's a simpler explanation at work. Tony Travers of the LSE used that term, which was then picked up by The Guardian on Saturday morning. I got my material from the FT, so it's possible, nay, likely, that the same phrase was used there.

PJ

Re: Peston

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Just noticed that the Travers piece appeared on Sunday 10th and referred to a different piece of Treasury lunacy (PFI bailouts).

PJ

[jaybee66.livejournal.com]

Rubbish!

I've been reading about Royal Mail pension problems since at least February.

I notice you only slap yourself on the back when you are right but (like oh so many poker players) omit the many occasions you get things arse about face.

Now, I know that this blog is normally for you to feel sorry for yourself so that your coterie of sycophants and suck-ups can rub you up or gang up on people (such as myself) who don't see the world as you do but please don't tout yourself as the next Nostradamus.

As a former alter-ego would have said, "You'll only make yourself look silly sweetie".

Keep it rational

[geoffchall.livejournal.com]

I know you make these comments from James up as some pseudo alter-ego Pete, but you should at least make him sound real and not like some lunatic who write letters in green biro.

Re: Keep it rational

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

I think he had a bad day at the office, Geoff.

PJ