Customer's "Pants" Password Has Bank's Knickers in a Twist

Steven Jetley from Shrewsbury, England, had a falling out with Lloyds TSB bank, so he decided to have his password reflect his feelings towards the bank:

A man who chose "Lloyds is pants" as his telephone banking password said he found it had been changed by a member of staff to "no it's not". [...]

Mr Jetley said he first realised his security password had been changed when a call centre staff member told him his code word did not match with the one on the computer.

"I thought it was actually quite a funny response," he said. "But what really incensed me was when I was told I could not change it back to 'Lloyds is pants' because they said it
was not appropriate.

"I asked if it was 'pants' they didn't like, and would 'Lloyds is rubbish' do? But they didn't think so.

"So I tried 'Barclays is better' and that didn't go down too well either.

"The rules seemed to change, and they told me it had to be one word, so I tried 'censorship', but they didn't like that, and then said it had to be no more than six letters long."

Link - via reddit

(Why is "pants" an objectionable word? Here's the explanation)


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Newest 5 Comments

You think you have security? HA!

They ask you for a particular digit, perhaps, but they can see the whole thing. It's how they verify security with you, and it's why their employees are bonded.

And they have every right to dictate to you the terms of the password you use in dealing with their company. Imagine if you worked in the call centre, and were exposed to belittling and offensive comments every day just through passwords alone.

If Barclays is better, go to Barclays.
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are we talking about his PIN? or the account number? or the password to an online banking system? i'm slightly confused as to what security is actually being put in jeopardy here... i mean, i understand the story and the breach of privacy, and it's all quite hilarious and terrible at the same time. but the last time i checked, the only way you can get assistance with your account is to give them your account number so they can, yunno, assist you.

but seriously, what am i missing? what is a telephone banking password? i'm not familiar. wouldn't a phone password be numbers and not letters? or am i really arguing semantics? you guys can ignore me if you'd like..
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I have to say my initial reaction to this story was laughter, followed by anger that a bank can censor passwords in this way.

What does concern me is the security issue. Many people use the same password on numerous accounts as it makes it easy to remember, if a bank employee can openly view your entire password it leaves them open to huge security issues. With Barclays bank (who have the worst customer service on the planet!) they can not see your full password and only ask for the 2nd and 6th letters as an example.

Perhaps you should change your password to iscrap!
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