My first rant of the new year is only a semi one versus a major melt-down one. Still, this is one of those wastes-of-time that I may or may not have at this point in my life and does drive me a little crazier than I already am.
It concerns having to go thru all of the hoops and hurdles just to log into an account or website that I want to check out and/or do some business with. The whole process, which should be a simple thing to do, strikes me as being a little too demanding or nit picky.
WRT banks I understand why they are cautious. However, I have one bank that for some reason, whenever I try to sign in with them, I get this request:
When I called the bank’s support center for help on this, they told me that it had something to do with how my PC was set up. Not wanting to risk making a live-with situation a major problem, I just let it ride and now continue to get a code from them whenever I need to access their site.
Several other sites ask for a one-time code – every time. Maybe it should be called an Every-time Code.
A problem with the one-time code is that occasionally the one they send doesn’t work and you then need to request and re-enter a second one. Funny thing, the second code always takes. Leads me to wonder if it’s not a Two Time Code.
But the toughest site for me to log into occurs when doing business with the Maryland Comptroller folks. They force you to try and decipher and then enter their Captcha crap. Invariably, the Captcha contains a character that is tough to make out. (As an example, see the last character below and tell me if it’s an h or a n.) I finally figured out the trick here is to just use their audio button to tell me what the hell to enter.
As stated, I get the concern and the need for being careful about who is logging into what accounts. However, I just want to point out that Amazon doesn’t make it tough at all for you to sign into your account with them. Just sayin.
And speaking of being driven crazy, here is something from the 80’s group FYC who only put out two albums of material but had this Number 1 hit along the way.