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memo

Memo to the people from my (bank/pharmacy/insurance/meth lab):

When YOU call ME regarding a business transaction, don’t start the call this way:

Me: “Hello, this is Mark.”
You: “Hello, is this Mark?”
Me: “This is Mark.”
You: “Could you please verify your date of birth?”
Me: (pause)
Me: “Who is this again?”
You: “This is (bank/pharmacy/insurance/meth lab)”.
Me: “And what is this regarding?”
You: “Your (recent withdrawal/prescription order/renewal/crank)”.
Me: “Oh, okay. Now I have a reasonable certainty of who the hell you are, and understand why I should give you information which could easily be used to steal my indentity. See, when you called and asked for my date of birth, you could have been any halfway intelligent criminal who got my name and phone number from the Yellow Pages/Internet, and now you wanted to also have my date of birth to seal the impersonation deal. But now I realize in fact you’re just a (bank/pharmacy/insurance/meth lab) drone who’s been given a call script written by someone with no concern whatsoever for my security. As a matter of fact, that low-level functionary probably thinks that he/she/it is respecting my security by asking for ‘verification’ of ‘personal’ ‘data’ before completing the transaction. He/she/it has probably been told by a high-level functionary that HIPAA/GLB/MLSA* actually requires them to ask my date of birth right off the bat. But these functionaries are also borderline functional illiterates who have no business even trying to interpret security legislation. The law doesn’t require them to do that. They’ve been told that someone else thinks the law requires that, but actually it makes us all less safe.” Out loud: “Now how can I help you?”
You: …

Posted by mark beadles in Uncategorized | No Comments »