Amazon's customer service backdoor

Re:Amazon's customer service backdoor by jimrandomh on Sunday January 24, 2016 @04:51PM (#10964190)

I would prefer that my bank, if it detects fraudsters trying to pull some sort of trick involving my account, to freeze things until I show up and present ID. That's inconvenient, but clearly better than the alternative.

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Re:Amazon's customer service backdoor by hibikir on Sunday January 24, 2016 @06:00PM (#10964454)

Banks would never do that, if just because they'd risk losing business in places where there's no local branches. Many of the national banks that offer the best conditions have no presence in a lot of metro areas.

And even if you make sure your bank has a local branches (which really, I've not gone to one in years, why would I need one?), what happens when you are on a trip, and your accounts are frozen? I've had my CCs frozen because the bank considered my expenses during a trip to be potentially fraudulent, but I could clear it up over the phone. Do we have to devolve back to carrying thousands in cash, like in the old days?

Security is always a tradeoff between avoiding fraud and being usable, and the tradeoffs that are great for some people in some situations are unacceptable for others.

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Re:Amazon's customer service backdoor by sgentle on Monday January 25, 2016 @01:46AM (#10965951)

My bank did this. They had actually made a mistake on their end; one of their reps put a hold on my account (presumably a suspicious transaction), but didn't put it in right so it registered as being my request.

I called up, asking why there was a hold, they said I put it there, I said I didn't. There was a long pause, followed by "for security reasons, we won't be able to help you with anything related to your accounts until you come into a branch and present photo ID".

It was a bit inconvenient, but I have to say I was pretty impressed.

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Re:Amazon's customer service backdoor by zyxley on Sunday January 24, 2016 @05:56PM (#10964443)

So... what about banks with no actual physical branches?

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Re:Amazon's customer service backdoor by jimrandomh on Sunday January 24, 2016 @06:50PM (#10964645)

In an ideal world, the bank would direct you to a notary public who would check your identity and public key fingerprint. (Sadly, the present state of things is probably too dysfunctional to manage that.)

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