Will Someone PLEASE Get Rid Of Verified By Visa
Passwords and PIN numbers, they’re everywhere. There is no getting away from them. Your computer, your social media accounts, your email, your banking PIN number, your house alarm, your membership to anything in the electronic and virtual worlds.
‘Never use the same password twice’, the experts advise us. ‘Use a combination of upper and lower-case letters, digits and symbols like &*£% and change them every two months or so. If you don’t your accounts could be hacked and your identity stolen!’
IDENTITY THEFT!!!! This causes my blood to turn to ice. Last time my identity was ‘stolen’, I received a bill in the post for supposedly calling an ambulance to attend on me when I had broken a leg. I looked at the bill with incredulity. Broken leg? Ambulance? I looked at both my legs. Apart from being a little on the chunky side, they appeared fine. After contacting the relevant hospital to advise that I had not in fact, called an ambulance and that I would not be paying the several hundred euro bill, it turned out that another lady with exactly the same name lived across the street and four doors down. Simple mistake, but in the couple of days it took to get sorted out I was genuinely worried that I would have to foot the bill or have my credit rating destroyed.
Since then, I have been wary but really the password carry on of these days is truly gone beyond the beyonds.
Due to paranoia, I don’t write passwords down. You would have to use thumbscrews to get information out of me with the result that I frequently forget passwords in my personal life. Himself has been tested to his limit with me as I shout about the ‘stupid laptop’ or ‘bloody phone’ as I get locked out of my laptop and App Store accounts at home. Of course, I never do anything by halves and keep putting in passwords that are incorrect, swearing that of course they are correct. Then after I give up and Himself patiently sits down and sorts my password out, I might remember that I changed the password last month…. No need to mention that.
Of all passwords protections, I reserve a carefully cultivated hatred for ‘Verified by Visa’. Really does ANYONE ever remember their Verified by Visa password? Annoyingly, it usually crops up in a situation when you need to make an online transaction — fast.
Imagine the scenario. I’m sitting at a table; laptop, tablet, and iPhone all open on Ticketmaster waiting for the selling of tickets for a big gig to commence. I’m poised, smug in the knowledge that surely, I will secure tickets on one of my devices. (Really, I should be more careful. Smug doesn’t suit me. Anytime I get smug, things go wrong). Ticket selling time starts. Heart pounding, I click through, watching the system, waiting to tell me if I can get tickets. Agonisingly slowly, a screen populates with the good news that I can buy some tickets, should I complete my transaction in a set period of time. All is good. In goes the visa number. I’m seeing myself at the concert with Himself, drinks in hands, loving the music, totally immersed in the experience.
Then, at the critical ‘BUY’ time, up pops the ‘Verified by Visa’ box. NOOOOOOOOOO! I can’t remember the password. The system helpfully asks questions like Where were you born? ‘Shit!’ I think. ‘Do I say county or town for my place of birth?’ A few sweat drenched minutes later, after resetting the password, I’m through the system but really it has been more trouble than it is worth.
I know passwords are put in place to look after our security in an increasingly online world. I just must grit my teeth and roll with it. However, it’s when passwords cross over into the real world, that I get most frustrated. Recently I went upstairs at home to check on the kids playing in one of the bedrooms. I knocked on the door. ‘Password please’ called Big Girl. ‘There’s no way I’m going to guess this one’. I thought.
I give up.
