I’ve been having an annoying problem with my internet banking all week. Although I can chuck money between my accounts with gay abandon, actually making a payment has thrown up some error about incorrect message authentication codes. Every single time. All week. It just happened again just now.
I rang their technical support and they asked me some questions and put me on hold. So I tried again just fr fun while I waited. And it worked. And they’d not done anything – not even asked me anything that they could use to identify who I am. How irritating.
Anyway. That isn’t the story.
The questions I was asked went something like this:
Her: Is the site in your favourites?
Me: No.
Her: Are you accessing it through a search engine?
Me: Er, no.
Her: OK, can you log out and log in again?
Me: Yes… OK – done.
Her: And it’s still the same?
Me: Yes.
Her: OK, try this. Close all your programs down. And search engines.
Me: Um, OK. Done.
Her: Now open Internet Explorer.
Me: Wait… what? I don’t have Internet Explorer.
Her: (puzzled) You mean you don’t have it, or you need to install it?
Me: I don’t have it and I can’t install it.
Her: Then how are you accessing your account?
Me: With Firefox.
Her: Right, well we don’t support the Firefox search engine or other search engines.
Me: It’s a web browser. Like Internet Explorer.
Her: Can’t you use Internet Explorer?
Me: No. I don’t have a PC. I have a Mac. And Firefox has worked fine for me on your site for the last three years.
Her: Oh, this might be complicated then. We don’t support those search engines. Can I put you on hold?
Thank the Lord it resolved itself so I didn’t have to go any further with that conversation, eh?
