Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Trick Question

I have a prepaid cell phone and this morning I decided I would register my credit card with the service so I could always be easily prepared to buy more minutes. There is so much crazy stuff going on right now that I can't afford to be unreachable because I ran out of minutes on the cell phone.
Since it is a prepaid service, the security check on the credit card is much stricter than what it was for my old cell phone company. Along with the social security number, billing address, card number and expiration date I was told I would be require to answer some randomly generated security questions, apparently sourced from personal data that is available though credit check companies or something like that. Still, that did not prepare me for the first questions, which was about what age range my sister who died eleven years ago would belong to. I told the customer service rep that the person she just asked me about was deceased, but if she were alive she would have fallen into the 37 to 41 year old range. The other two questions were about the location of previous residences and mailing addresses. The rep told me she would have to check with the supervisor about my answer to the first question. She got back to me quickly and said I had passed the check. No duh.
I hope they'll do something about their data base and not ask too many other people about dead relatives. I hadn't heard anyone who didn't know her mention her full name name in so long that for just a second I felt like maybe she was still around. Anyway, I'm all re-boosted now.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I can understand them asking what your mother's maiden name is, but the age of your sister... I'm at a loss for words. I'm so sorry they broached the subject over a credit check. I don't think I could have been very polite/co-operative if hit with the same question.