In the News- "bank conman used family records"

[LesleyB]

As this news item features records we are all familiar with, it might be of interest to see what other folks, (who are not family historians) do with them:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8441859.stm

[paddyscar]

Unfortunately, Lesley, we saw it coming!

Although one of the common security questions is 'What is your mother's maiden name?', it is a contributor to this type and other related thefts.

With the increasing number of id.s we must supply, I have seen some sites that will allow you to write your own question as well as the answer.

It's getting harder to keep track of the id numbers/words that we need to go through our daily business. I've used the name of a doctor with changing numbers preceding or following. Another thing I use is a combination of event dates unrelated to one-another, or answer the questions using the information of a friend - her Mother's maiden name, her birthday, her school, etc.

Frances

[StewL]

Yes all it has come to this, personally I use a combination of unrelated dates and letters for my main p/word, and random generated ones for others that I use often like my work log in. But then it is a pain having to change some of them every month.

[Currie]

The restrictions imposed by GROS on internet users, especially in relation to marriages and deaths, is draconian compared to many other places, but especially compared to its open slather approach to people who just happen to wander into their office straight off the street and get the lot. They seem to believe that you only find criminals amongst foreigners who can’t afford to travel.

The incredible thing is that it took over seven years of forging and making up signatures before a bank clerk noticed that something was wrong. Did the con-man get the signatures he forged off GROS as well?

I’m sure that “mother’s maiden name” as a security measure was thought up somewhere where it actually was a secure option and that other countries and institutions just followed the leader without any regard to their local situation. It was probably back in the days before people started splattering their mother’s maiden name all over the internet.

Alan

[David Lang]

Having has the luck to work in a Bank in the past, i find it amazing it took over 7 years to get the guy.

The usual procedure if someone who turned up at a branch without card or id (passport/driving licence , birth certifcate not accepted), was to ask any member of staff if they recognised the person, if not then they were asked to confirm address, date of birth , and random question (something like when is direct debit to your mortgage).

After that a fax was sent for the persons signature from the records so we could compare and the a decision was made on whether to issue funds, and the funds issued were usually limited to smaller ammounts.

This was was in the late 1990s to mid 2000s so not so many moons ago and was a major bank in Glasgow city centre, cumbersome indeed but security conscius all the same