That was troubling
Jan. 21st, 2011 08:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhuI just went to transfer funds between two financial institutions, and the website decided that it needed to verify my identity. It did so by asking me three multiple-choice questions about my relatives --- where they live, what their ages are, etc. AFAIK, none of those relatives have accounts with that financial institution.
So first of all, how did it know who my relatives are? (Especially the one with a different last name.) And what would have happened if I'd been estranged from my family and didn't know where anyone lived? (Of if it had decided that I was related to a complete stranger.)
So first of all, how did it know who my relatives are? (Especially the one with a different last name.) And what would have happened if I'd been estranged from my family and didn't know where anyone lived? (Of if it had decided that I was related to a complete stranger.)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-21 01:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-21 02:07 pm (UTC)Here's one vendor of the service you encountered...
Date: 2011-01-21 02:10 pm (UTC)They've got pretty smart algorithms for putting together public records scattered all over the place to assemble extensive "dossiers" on people. For example, there are public records of you and your siblings being born to your parents, public records of you and your sister getting married, public records of name changes, etc.
They can keep asking you questions until you get enough right to cross the verification threshold. Or they can tell you that you've failed to successfully verify your identity and they can't help you over the phone. Yeah, that happens. Sort of sucks, but it does happen.