Judging from the highlighted security question, Sovereign Bank’s customers must be doing quite well. Maybe next they will ask, “What’s the name of your third-largest yacht?” Or “In what room of your mansion do you keep your Fabergé eggs?”
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Judging from the highlighted security question, Sovereign Bank’s customers must be doing quite well. Maybe next they will ask, “What’s the name of your third-largest yacht?” Or “In what room of your mansion do you keep your Fabergé eggs?”
GWGuest
on 14 Apr 11I actually choose that question for where I WISH I had a vacation home.
Joe
on 14 Apr 11What do you call your largest island?
Guest
on 14 Apr 11What is the first name of your captain and of your first officer?
In what city does your favorite mistress live? (Enter full name of city only)
Robert
on 14 Apr 11What if my vacation home is the same as my primary home?
Geordie Romer
on 14 Apr 11As someone who makes a living selling vacation homes, I think you would be surprised how many middle managers and engineers at places like Microsoft own vacation homes.
Dave M
on 14 Apr 11The questions also assume you have had a meaningful relationship/marriage, went to high school, or had a job, or know who your father is.
@Geordie, um, no, I really wouldn’t be surprised. :-)
Phil McTimoney
on 14 Apr 11You’ve got me thinking now. Maybe the best security questions are those that have absolutely no paper trail.
You could tweak the question to be “Where would you LIKE to have a vacation home?”, and the chance of someone guessing that is much reduced. (After all, you probably tell dozens of people where your REAL vacation home is).
Other questions:
What did you want to be when you grew up?
What pop star was your biggest crush as a child?
If you won a bu-billion dollars, which company would you buy?
There are some obvious drawbacks – like changing your answer over time – but it’s a fun thought exercise.
Alex Humphrey
on 14 Apr 11Absolutely hilarious!
I understand for people who can afford such a thing it is no big deal to ask that question. And for the majority of people who can’t the question isn’t a bother.
But what about the small percentage of people who were truly hurt by the recession and the idea of having a vacation home doesn’t enter the realm of possibility? That really cuts those people out!
for a bank, that seems like a big mistake to make…
GWGuest
on 14 Apr 11The thing that this list does right is keep it to factual items. If you start asking security questions such as “What is your favorite…” you risk people changing favorites, or picking something that they can’t actually remember. Facts are good for this purpose, imaginary or dynamic items are not.
GregT
on 14 Apr 11Sons of * also assume you have a father. If this was Canada, that would be grounds for a human rights lawsuit and eventually, you’d never have to work again.
Josh
on 14 Apr 11What if my vacation home is attached to the back of my El Camino? Should I just fill in where my vacation home is located today?
Berserk
on 14 Apr 11@GWGuest: You can also have gone to two high schools, re-married, or sell your vacation home (or get one more – yay).. Facts changes too.
Henri Bergius
on 14 Apr 11Depends on the culture. Here in Finland almost everybody has a vacation home. A nice small cabin with a sauna by the lake…
Bruno Miranda
on 14 Apr 11You don’t have a vacation home?
Rip Greamer
on 14 Apr 11As someone who makes a living selling vacation homes, I think you would be surprised how many middle managers and engineers at places like Microsoft own vacation homes.
Richard Hewitt
on 14 Apr 11Who else hates security questions that ask: “What’s your favorite… ?”
Well, if it’s “movie” then that is changing all the time. Most favorites change over time.
I once ran into a list of security questions where every single option was “What’s your favorite…?” Man, that just kills me on the inside.
Nicole
on 14 Apr 11I actually love having security questions like that. Someone can find out my mother’s maiden name, but it’s much harder to know the location of the vacation home I don’t own or the best man at the wedding I’ve never had.
Deltaplan
on 14 Apr 11Yes, it really depends on the country.
Here in France, you have many people who buy vacation homes because they are much cheaper than homes in the place where they have to live (due to their work). That way, they have a “free” place to go on vacation, sometimes they can earn a bit of money the rest of the year by renting it (or go there on weekends if it’s not too far away), and they usually plan on living there full time the day they will retire.
Someone earning the minimal wage can afford a small home in some parts of the seashore (Normandy, Vendee…), while at the same time he would never be able to buy an home in a big city like Paris, not even in a distant suburb.
So it’s really not rare at all to own a vacation home, even for people who can even be considered as “poor”. Especially older people who were able to buy these vacation homes 20 or 30 years ago, when they were costing much less than today, and could easily repay the mortgage with inflation rates at about 10% per year… After a few years, the monthly pay for the mortgage (almost all were at fixed interest rates) was not much than the price of a pair of shoes…
Richie Rich
on 14 Apr 11My third-largest yacht is actually named Fabergé. The eggs are kept on the yacht in the music room next to the Stradivarius and custom Steinway with real ivory and onyx keys. Yes, ivory yellows faster than polymer keys, but my full time ivory bleacher ensures they stay white.
Jesper
on 14 Apr 11Agree with Deltaplan and Henri. You may reserve the phrase “vacation home” to mean the same range of luxury as yacht, but many people have countryside cottages in Sweden.
Additionally, it’s a personal banking service. I’d call this knowing your customer, and I’d call that a good thing.
asdf jr.
on 14 Apr 11What are the last 4 digits of your congressman’s phone number?
Ly Sham
on 14 Apr 11I’d call a security question that I write myself something that actually approaches being secure.
EH
on 14 Apr 11So many “security questions” read like so much data-mining and “additional personal info that will never be used for anything else (we swear).”
Dan Jaffe
on 14 Apr 11Marketing ploy?... make their average customer question their life and whether there really are where they should be since they lack a vacation home.
If I was their customer, I might be thinking “maybe I should talk to them about one of their loans that they splash across their home page in red.
Jon
on 15 Apr 11In which pocket do you keep your congressman?
Benjy
on 15 Apr 11I’ve seen that on one of my accounts, though I cannot remember which one at the moment. Bank of America, maybe?
I actually used it, putting in the place where my parents & family friends have timeshares that go to each winter for a couple weeks. When I buy my oceanfront villa or private island, I’ll clearly have to update the answer however.
jeff
on 16 Apr 11I think these security questions double as fact-gathering questions for marketing purposes.
Or maybe I’m just paranoid…
BJ
on 16 Apr 11I don’t see a problem with that question, would you prefer they went with “In what city do you keep your custom hand made super car (Enter full name of city only)”?
Luke Jones
on 18 Apr 11What’s your butler’s surname?
This discussion is closed.