Got ALL of my Security Questions wrong , like, HOW??!

[GirlRaisedInTheSouth]

So I have this lovely Apple Watch that I treated myself to with my redundancy money. Unfortunately I’ve forgotten the password and I no longer work at the place that the email address relates to.

I went into the Apple Store today and saw someone at the Genius Bar. They asked me 3 Security Questions:

1. First plane ride.
2. First boss.
3. First car.

I got them ALL wrong!!! The thing is, these are not subjective, like “what’s your favourite holiday destination?”, these are facts. Facts that I am very sure about.

I even checked the answers with my family so I’m not losing my marbles.

Has this happened to anyone else? I loved my Apple Watch, I’m gutted ☹️.

It happened to my husband with a bank. They were absolutely adamant that he had got his own middle name and birthday wrong. He hadn't. There was clearly something wrong with their system but they weren't having it.

Yup, been there, done that.

I was on the phone to my energy provider and could not remember my password. He took me through a q&a session and i failed every question.

In a kindly, quiet voice he just said 'okay, just give me your landline phone number ' i did and he told me I was wrong. I was very 'young man' in my response, 'i think i would know my own phone number fgs'.

I had. It was a phone number from our last house, 200 miles and 16 years away.

He just gave up and let me do what I needed to do anyway. He obvioisly decided he was dealing with an absolute numpty........and he was🙄

Security questions are ridiculous. There has to be a better way. I do not have favourite anythings so can never answer those with anything I can remember without writing them down.

I've been told that my own last name, and DMs maiden name are too short to use as an answer when asked those questions. Neither of my parents have middle names, and I don't know my maternal grandfather's first name as he died a long time before I was born.

I cannot remember where my first plane ride was or the name of my first boss. I'm sure they won't take 'it was either the Isle of Man or Malta, but I can't remember which' and I'll never remember which one I decided it was on the day I set up any particular set of security questions.

I was told I didn’t know my own date of birth wrong once. It was wrong on their system 😂

I hate security questions like this. They are better than the ‘what’s your favourite colour?’ Ones. But apart from the plane ride, none of these would be difficult to find for a determined fraudster. And I am rubbish with dates, so my answer to the plane ride one would be something like ‘erm, maybe when I went skiing with school when I was 14 or 15 I think’ 😂😂

Recently I failed security questions on my Very account because my date of birth was wrong on their system!

You don’t have to give truthful answers, as long as you can remember them (which of course is the point op made). For example, if the question is favourite food, give the one that makes you heave.

I set up telephone banking at 18 but then never used it. Funnily enough, over a decade later when I did try to use it, I had no idea what 18 year old me had thought was a good code...

Mother's maiden name is getting a bit silly as a security question these days - my mother's maiden name is my name so not very secure... And I'm sure I'm not the only one!

I've had this issue a couple of times when my landline number was 'incorrect' in the system. I eventually worked out its because I still have a five digit phone number and many systems won't accept this as they think it's too short. So the employee gives up and types any old random number instead to get it accepted.

I once had an HMRC form where I had to input a my date of birth in a box. No matter what I typed in, I got a big red error message stating, 'You have entered an invalid vehicle registration number. Please check the vehicle details and reenter' . The guy in the helpline was just as baffled as me about that one, they had to send a paper form to me in the end!

I remember a housemate having an argument with Barclays on the phone, as he couldn't tell her his mother's maiden name. She had never been married, and he had no idea what name he'd given years ago on opening the account. The woman ended up having to give hints to him - 'It begins with a W...' before he finally realised he'd used his then best friend's surname in lieu of a maiden name.

I did a cash transfer from a credit card to my bank account and they transferred it's twice so I had a few grand sat in my account that shouldn't have been there and it wasn't showing as leaving my credit card twice, I failed the security questions ringing the credit card company and even though I told them all I wanted to do was give them their money back they wouldn't let me speak to anyone about it

This, added to when its for a thing that requires no fucking security at all.

I bought a sofa and it needed some new feet. They wrote and said to "please call this number to arrange delivery". I called, wanting to arrange the feet they had written to me about, to come to the same person and place they sofa had just been sent to.

First question: "For data security please confirm..."

And then it's the most fucking stupid "security" ever, like your postcode!

Pure rage.

Capital letters vs non caps is usually the issue. If you typed the answer out with a capital at the start and are now using non caps, or vice versa, it will state that it is wrong usually. Some systems are different, but usually it will be wrong.

The problem is with subjective questions. One security question I was meant to fill when signing up to a new system was "who was your best friend at school?". I don't know, I went to school for 13 years and had many different friends. And I left school 25 years ago.

Even ones like first car or place you were born can screw up. Do I put "Nissan Almera", "Nissan" only or "Almera" only? Do I put the hospital of birth, or the town, or the city that the town is in?

My daughter failed the security check with O2 as they had her title as Mr rather than Miss
She has a very girly name and no way would her name be given to any male

One of dh's security question places insists that all those answers include a number and a symbol. As he pointed out: how many people have a pet called Marmaduke1%.

All it means is he has to reset his security questions each time he goes in.