I nominate fucking ‘Verified by Visa’ for a new cunting.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not against companies trying to cut down on cyber fraud. But the new system takes the fucking mick.
Up until a month ago after entering your billing address, HSBC would take you to a Visa page where it asks you for a password. No problem, do that all the time. Bit of a faff remembering all these passwords on the internet, but you know – it’s a necessary evil.
Then recently the fucking cunts want to start sending you authentication codes on SMS to your mobile, which you then have to enter on the website after you have entered all the other bullshit. I was absolutely gobsmacked!
This may seem like a nit-pick, but for some people this makes buying shit online a total, unworkable ballache. So we are simultaneously going towards a world where everything is done online, but at the same time making it even more difficult to buy things online. Well which one is it? As of now I still can’t fucking slide five pound notes into my wall socket.
So why is this a problem? Why does it deserve a cunting?
Well it all depends on where you live and what you do. If you a latte sipping, quinoa munching soy boy, then being outside of mobile reception BUT having access to the internet is not a common occurrence so this isn’t a massive problem. You know for sure the San Francisco-based visa exec who okayed this, hasn’t been without phone reception since he went to that gang-bang in the desert five years ago. So, like, what’s the big problem?
Well, for the rest of the human race, you know the ones who work for a living, it’s a major fucking problem. I will list some of the scenarios where you might now be unable to buy products and services online: Live or work in an area with poor reception, live or work in an area with intermittent reception, travel or work in countries without international roaming, operate in a country with shit infrastructure, or suffers from local telecom monopolies; work in an industry that operates offshore, such as energy, shipping, fishing, defence; work in secure environments that restrict mobile phones, such as security, defence, diplomatic or intelligence sector; work abroad for UK government agencies which do not allow you to use UK based phones OR LINK YOUR PERSONAL ONLINE ACCOUNTS TO LOCAL PHONES; operate in an area which uses sat phones, use multiple work phones, carry out cyber-security 101 by swapping phone numbers regularly, or just simply DON’T OWN A FUCKING MOBILE PHONE! In all the above scenarios, it is sorry out-of-fucking-luck from Visa.
My family live in Devon, as far from townies as we can possibly get these days. I have to walk upstairs to one of the windows, wave my phone around like it is a fucking lightsabre, and maybe I’ll get the message in time to make the payment.
Don’t talk to me about WiFi calling – it is such a fucking crapshoot whether a phone, OS, and network are going to work together. It has worked in the past, doesn’t work now and I don’t have the time or energy to work out why.
Most of my adult professional life has been in places without my UK phone because of security issues with GSM tracking. So you are now telling me that a British grunt scratching his balls in Kabul, Afghanistan, who wakes up on 13 Feb thinking oh shit! didn’t get my girlfriend a present for Valentine’s. He loads up the web browser, chooses something naff and cliche, perfect for a squaddy’s missus, only to find that he can’t buy it. Why is he being penalised for doing a man’s job?
Also, what happens if you are a highly-functioning alcoholic? Lose you phone on a night out in Bangkok brothel, stumble back to your hotel room, sleep through your 0900 flight, load up the lappie, try to book a new flight – fuck! I now have to get on a call queue to speak to some fucking chick in Bangladesh while trying to sort my shit out to get home before my wife works out where I am.
Phone numbers are not a fucking ID system. It is a just a number for routing calls. What next, the next phone number is yours for life, it is your fucking barcode, etched next to your rectum. Fucking cunts are just so desperate to get us a global user ID system to make their life easier, in the meantime willing to fuck over millions of people with a poorly thought compromise. Plus you just know they will be selective on this, buy from Amazon? No problem. Buy from a small independent retailer, oh! you’ll need to verify yourself. Fuckers.
Don’t get me started about how the world got into the situation where Visa and Mastercard basically run the global payment system. How did the government think – well we have printed money as a representation of value, but we’ll stop there and let some US corporations do the rest. We need a digital currency, so when Visa and Mastercard start turning the screws, we don’t have to just bend over and take it.
Fuck Visa and fuck their shit.
Nominated by Dick Malone
Calm down, dear! Try using Amex!
4
I had a American Express card many years ago…
Young and foolish. People around me had a ‘Barclaycard’ or some such like. Not me – I’d seen the ads “accepted in over a million places worldwide”… I even like the green striped design on the card ‘something different’ for me.
First, the bloody card they sent me was ‘bright’ blue… WTF…”Hello Sir… ah, the blue card is what we issue to our UK customers. We can issue you our ‘classic’ green card…charge of £20 per year” Fuck off !
Second “accepted in over a million places worldwide” … not in the UK…. “I’m sorry, we don’t take AMEX”, “Unfortunately we don’t accept ‘that’ card Sir”, “oh I’m very sorry, American Express aren’t one of our financial partners..” – it Turned out AMEX charged shops 2 to 3 times the fee of Visa for handling transactions – Shops & Bars told AMEX to get fucked !
5
Actually Dick, I think you have a fucking cheek moaning about your debit card. What you should be worried about is the future of architecture. All the aspiring architects will be dead soon. Another stay cunt was taken out last night.
Get your fucking priorities right.
6
I’d arrived in Singapore from Sumatra and tried to use my credit card only to find it blocked.
When I finally got through to inter help they said “we blocked your card because some cunt in Sumatra’s been using it!”
Facking cahnnnttttssss
9
I had this trouble at the weekend. I hardly get a mobile signal and ended up locking myself out of my bank account too when I tried to use some little device to access my account in order to alter my “mobile” number to the home number.
Must admit that HSBC were helpful when I got through to them in a foul mood. Unlocked my account and arranged that the “verified” number would,in future,be sent to my e-mail address. Haven’t had cause to use it yet,but hopefully it’ll work.
I remember a few years ago when the tax-office thought about bringing in a system where you apparently needed a mobile phone on contract in order for them to verify your identity. I rang them up to tell them that not everyone had a mobile and certainly not on contract (although most dole-whallahs do). Bloke on the phone agreed and said that they’d been swamped by people ringing up to tell them the same thing. Never heard anymore about it,the idea must have been dropped. I wonder how many civil-servants had spent Fuck knows how many man-hours coming up with that particular scheme?
Most of this shit is just another part of them snooping and controlling every aspect of our lives…and all sold to us as “for your own good”…..load of bollocks. It’s for their own good.
Fuck them.
13
Well cunted Mr Malone. On more than one occasion I have had to forgo accessing a service cos I don’t own a mobile phone.
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, labelled, numbered, or forced to own a mobile fucking phone!
My life is my own. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…
13
Good morning Dick. Masterful cunting. Couldn’t agree more. Recently tried to pay Dart Charge online on the Dart website. Fine and dandy until the last bit – verified by visa – Would it work? Would it fuck. Ended up getting a warning letter for a penalty charge and having to pay by phone, at my expense of course. The bods at Dart were fucking useless. Nothing wrong with our web page mate. Yes there is. It don’t work. Try not to do any kind of financial transaction online because I don’t trust the security of the whole thing. And I’m computer and tech illiterate.
5
I always find that I get the pleasure of having to enter a password I set up some time ago and have long since forgotten, so I have to set up a new one, with all the fun that entails. And I have to do that every fucking time I get one of these verification boxes. It’s one reason I use a MasterCard, I don’t recall ever having to verify my card details to buy anything although one of the providers makes me enter a pin at random times to access the account.
7
Visa-verifying is indeed a bitch, especially abroad. I’m just curious, Dick. Were you the example in the desert or the one in Bangkok? Detailed, imaginative scenarios.
They ruv your visa card long time.
7
What’s equally annoying is not just the assumption that everyone has a mobile phone ( I have, but I hardly use it) – it’s when someone has both your landline and mobile number but will only try to contact you on your mobile. Then, when they do reach you, usually by email, they say something like ” I’ve not been able to contact you all day”. Of course not you stupid twat, I’ve been sitting here at home. Give mobile phones a good cunting I say.
9
My GP’s surgery always tries me on my mobile first and the letting agency does the same despite the 400 times I’ve told them to try the landline first. I almost never even HEAR the fucking mobile ring, no matter how loud it’s set and yet, funnily enough, I ALWAYS hear the landline. They always say, ‘well you could have been out’. Yes, but I almost never am, so just fucking listen to what I say to you.
6
If i travel to anywhere more exotic than Southend I inform Barclaycard and My Bank so there wont be blocking for ‘unusual transactions’
It seems to work, and touch wood, i havent had any issues.
The verified by Visa for me is a bit hit and miss, sometimes it flashes up but then goes through without any intervention from me, other times I have to enter three characters from my password.
The fraudsters are the real cunts, one in the news today using the ‘locked your computer scam’ …. he only got six years, they need to up these sentances to make it a real deterrent.
5
An extensive cunting, Mr Malone. Personally I’ve not yet experienced the problem you describe, but you depict your anguish and exasperation with aplomb. I especially relished the imagery of that highly plausible desert gang-bang.
Have you contacted the bank, to explore opting out of the new scheme? When I lived abroad (working in the “diplomatic sector” you mention), I always found my bank most helpful in setting up security measures, but that was a while ago.
I agree entirely with the broad brush analysis that banks are not “there to help”, and this nom brings to mind the changeover from signature to “chip and PIN” verification. The banks’ disingenuous marketing strapline was, memorably enough, “now only you can be you” [© Bellendski & Bellendski 2006]. The actual truth was, of course, somewhat the opposite. Had the banks wished to increase security, as they claimed, they could have required PIN entry as well as a signature.
That would have cost money, which they were trying to save. In fact, although the move did eradicate a relatively rare casual fraud¹ (whereby the miscreant happenchances across an –uncancelled– lost card and practices the signature… etc), it actually spawned a new type of more aggressive offender, who had seen the PIN at the checkout, and then mugged off the cardholder. Only you can be you? Not too hard entering a four digit number!
The unvarnished truth is, domestic banks are cunts, investment banks are übercunts, and Old Nick himself has a pied-à-terre in Poultry EC2R 8AJ.
¹The banks recently re-facilitated this casual fraud by introducing “contactless” payments. I had the Devil’s own job explaining I didn’t want it, and wished to opt out. If an EFTPOS can do contactless, then it can do PIN… there actually aren’t any benefits beyond saving 5 seconds.
6
Good morning CS. Plus opening of direct debits that no longer require your signature. Designed to make matters faster and more convenient for the banks at the expense of your security. As I experienced whilst in Malaysia. 16 fraudulent DDs opened against my UK account in one week. Not because of carelessness on my part. Had to phone HSBC in UK every day to cancel them. They weren’t interested in the security of my account or the inconvenience (Malaysia GMT +8) caused. Which is why I no longer bank with them. Yes they are cunts.
5
Sounds like you’ve had it bad, Fimb! I must just be lucky, having had much exposure to such malfeasance over the last twenty-five years.
2
Seconded.
They are tera-cunts for their globalist Ayoade advert.
It’s on virtually every break. Must be costing us HSBC mugs millions.
3
I’d say that the news in general shows that, if anything, anybody can be you. The banks have only themselves to blame when some poor bastard gets scammed by transferring to a ‘safe’ account. Funny how they struggle together somebody’s money back but have no trouble when it’s ‘the bank’s’.
3
Case well made, Dick; a worthy nom.
Over-complicated modern technology – especially when it doesn’t work – and gentlemen of a certain age with limited patience or tolerance of cat-shagging, cock-sucking ‘Fancy Dan’ bollocks gadgetry. A match made in heaven.
My own case in point; I had just landed about an hour late in NY and picked up a hire car at JFK airport. Tried to pay the bill with a visa card and then spent 30 minutes fucking about with passwords and secret txt msgs. Got there eventually.
Headed out of town, now very pushed for time, and got to the first toll booth. Little gadget on the sun visor wasn’t working and wouldn’t operate the barrier. Had a wallet full of cards of all shapes and sizes, and a pocket full of notes and coins from about a dozen countries. Nothing worked. Big queue of angry New Yorkers beeping their horns and shouting at me. Truck driver comes up and starts lecturing me (he would normally have qualified for a big ‘Fuck Right Off’, but I am always a bit more wary in the US and assume that every angry twat may just have a gun on him/her).
Now the supervisor – a very big angry black lady – comes up and starts bollocking me as well (and not in a jolly, bantery type of way; she had a captive audience and was taking revenge for every evil act ever committed by whitey against her grudge-harbouring race). Fair enough I say, “My bad, but I still need to get through the barrier”.
She agrees that I can fill in a form and promise to pay later on, but then, when see takes my Driving Licence and scans it into the system, she selects Ukraine instead of United Kingdom from the drop down menu and I am no longer eligible for the 80 cents credit (or whatever the fuck it was).
No way she can undo or edit the details she has entered, so she now calls her supervisor and starts relaying every detail to him. He doesn’t buy my sob story and tells me I will have to borrow the money, as New York City is having a clampdown on ‘toll dodgers’.
Eventually, the stony-faced lady in the car behind me offers to lend me the coins I need. However, presumably because she thinks I am a thieving Ukrainian fare-dodger, she will only lower her window a couple of inches and insists that the angry truck driver acts as her delivery boy so that he can give me one final bollocking, before sarcastically dropping the coins into the hopper for all to see.
Beautiful.
Missed the start of the meeting and, when I finally got a chance to demonstrate a fancy new interactive on-line piece of kit I was there to flog, nobody could find out the wi-fi password for the integrated presentation suite. Ended up trying to do a high-level, highly conceptual sales pitch through the medium of modern dance.
What a knob I am
10
Great story Gunner. Yanks puzzle me. Ordinary people generally very polite and helpful. Put them in any kind of uniform, rubbish collector to cop, and they become rude obnoxious cunts
4
Lived in Vienna for two years. Austrians said the same re their television license bods (thought it safer to avoid “tv” – one never knows, these days).
Local advice ? “Never ever open your door to them.”
I never saw any uniforms, but I wondered about jackboots and peaked caps…
1
Just today, I’m in PNG she’s probably Bangladeshi.
I’m calling because I want to pay my bill online and your website doesn’t seem to have that facility.
Oh you want to set up a customer portal account?
Sighhhhh No…I do not want another password.
Oh so you want to set up a direct debit?
Jeezus Christ No! I simply just want to type in my account number, the amount and my credit card details and hit ‘pay’.
Oh our website doesn’t offer that facility. But you can pay by card on the phone with me.
Ohh fuck here we go.
You have to complete three security checks.
Seriously? Of course it’s me. Who the frick else would want to pay my bill? And does it matter if someone else pays? It’s only $300 for insurance, I’m not buying plutonium for a Yemeni warlord
Etc etc.
Gave them plenty of recordings to review for their “quality and training”
4
Welcome to the future… In 10 years, if you haven’t had a Sim card surgically grafted to your brain, and a bluetooth dongle inserted up your jacksy, you won’t be ‘registered’ as a certified citizen. Cash and cashpoint’s will be a thing of the past.
Walking through an automated door to a store, your entire internet history, financial statements, driving license, voting patterns and TV channel preferences will be downloaded by a burst transmitter. A 16K digital screen will be the thrust in your face, by a Chinese Robot “we recommend these items for you!” You will resign to the innevitable and mutter ‘Confirm purchase’.
When you get home, the electronic code to open your front door will have been changed by your bank, denying entry to your house “I’m sorry, it appears your recent purchases will result in their being insufficient credits to pay this months mortgage charge. Failure to rectify this in 7 days will result in your home being auctioned on E-Bay.”
I plan to be living in an eco-forrest ‘off grid’ – either that, or my life support machine will have been turned off by the ‘National Bupa health service’ due to insufficient NI contributions.
God Bless you all…..
5