Date: Tuesday, July 30, 2002 9:52 AM
From: Name Withheld
Subject: EarthLink's Passwords Are Naked
You guys are insane. Not to mention the fact that you are incredibly faroff the mark (EarthLink's Passwords Are Naked, June 17, 2002). I know – I am looking at one of those passwords right now.
What about the fact that we also have access to every other bit of yourpersonal information available to us as well? Phone number? Got it.
Address? Got it. Credit Card number? Got that too.
Having access to all of this information is absolutely imperative if ourrepresentatives – especially our Customer Service Reps – are going to be ableto provide more than adequate customer service to a five million member base.
As it is now, the number of customers that get upset and frustrated with oursecurity questions at the beginning of a call is immense. Usually this is asimple pin or secret word that they, themselves, have chosen in order toprevent "just anyone" from calling in and accessing their accountinformation. And they forget it. Just like they forget their password(that they chose as well) that they are now calling in to get.
What do you propose we do? Have just one person verifying security and/orpasswords for five million people? One at a time? Can you imagine the holdtimes? Not to mention the fact that approximately half of these peopleare of the "experience level" that don't even know that their password canbe changed.
God forbid if they ever have to get a new computer, or reformattheir hard drive. They will then pay their local "computer guru" (usuallysome zit-faced kid from down the block that ends up overcharging them 50
bucks or more an hour because they are too lazy to read and save theirwelcome kit) to recover the password that they entered into their machine threeyears ago during the original setup and have since completely forgotten.
Please, for the sake of our staff and of our stock, stop scaring people.
We don't care what your password is. We don't want to read the "cute funny"
that Auntie Jean forwarded to you and the other 30 people she feels the needto forward all of her spam to every single day just because she has nothingbetter to do with her computer at work. We don't want to know anything moreabout you than what is required to handle the call, resolve your issue, andmove on to the next call.
Please. Get a clue. We don't want your passwords.
