I recently applied for online banking facilities to monitor my credit card usage (in hope to reduce paper usage and hence environmentally friendly). I went to the bank, told them I wanted internet banking facilities. A bank employee asked me to go to the ATM and use the credit card to apply for a initial pin code to register for facilities online. I don't know about you, but I can only remember the pin number to my ATM debit card and not for the myriad of credit cards that I have. So I told the bank staff I do not have pin for my credit card and she told me I will then have to wait for someone to attend to me.
I think I waited for almost 45 minutes before finally a staff who has been busy attending to her business on her desk, decided it was my turn (no one was at her desk prior to that and I only wanted to get a pin code for online registration). I was then asked to fill in a form before I got the pin code (which was less than 10 minutes). All in all, I spent almost an hour just trying to get a PIN for online registration of online banking facilities.
When I was back in front of my computer I quickly used the pin on the bank online portal. Then I was presented with an option to choose my own login name and password for the online facilities. Now I could see how much I owe them on my credit card facilities and any other savings account balances I have with them. Pretty common stuff these days. I didn't try any other functions available on the website as I only wanted to be able to check what I owe them and when my credit card debts were due.
Now the drama starts one week later. I tried recalling the username I used to register for the online bank facilities and also the password. I couldn't remember. But I have a username which I used commonly on online sites and so I tried but I couldn't login after attempting a few thousand times with different password combinations (again some are commonly used passwords). I suppose now my username would have been locked out from being attempted again. Well, my fault for not remembering it or WRITING IT DOWN! (Which we are advice against doing in fear of someone getting it and having access to our bank accounts).
So I finally gave up and clicked on the "Forgotten Password" link. It came up with a page that tells me "GO TO NEAREST ATM TO APPLY FOR NEW PIN"! WTF?! There is another link "Forgotten User ID". So I tried it and it goes back to the same page as "Forgotten Password" link! Why use two different links if they show the same thing?! By this time I was quite annoyed so I called their customer service hotline and ask if I could get a password reset link sent to the email I registered the online banking with. The person on the other side said the only way I could get it reset was to go to an ATM or nearest branch to get it done! (which she says it for our security) Now whats the point of getting my email address and all that information I submitted with while applying for the services??
Not to divert the blame of mistake for not remembering my login userid or password, but I thought online banking was suppose to be a convenience tool for customers/patrons and not to hassle them with time wasting visits to the bank (which will only make me wait for 60 MINUTES just to get a pin)!
Are we the only country (MALAYSIA) doing this kind of practice?
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