Philip Butterfield’s “Mission Accomplished”

For the last twenty-four hours, I have been trying without success to log on to the Bank of Bermuda’s internet banking site.

Yesterday, I was invited to enter the first, second, last and last (sic) characters of my password in the three boxes provided. This was the same logon screen that I received the day after the upgrade, the one that kept rejecting my password details and eventually locked me out. So I decided to wait half an hour, then try again. This time, I was just greeted by a blank screen. A couple of hours later, I made another attempt. At first, after entering my user ID I got the message “A system error has occurred”. Then I got the “first, second, last and last” screen again. In a burst of optimism, I tried putting in the first, second and last characters of my password. “Please enter a valid Memorable Answer and Password” said the message that came back.

This morning, feeling sure that they would have fixed the problem, I went to log in again. No dice. I’m still getting the “first, second, last and last” screen.

It’s now been three weeks since the bank’s upgrade. The claim of Bank chief Philip Butterfield that it went smoothly apart for a few “day one challenges” is looking as hollow as George Bush’s declaration of “mission accomplished” in Iraq. On Thursday a bank spokeswoman finally admitted that those challenges had lasted longer than expected. However, she insisted that the bank would have done nothing differently.

Any change of this magnitude is bound to run into some unforeseen problems. However, some of the problems that have occurred should have been anticipated. If the bank knew that the acceptance of the new debit cards overseas was dependent on individual banks updating their networks, they might have guessed that some of those banks wouldn’t. If it was impossible for them to wait to throw the switch until they knew that the change had fully propagated, they should have warned customers accordingly.

Other problems could have been found with more comprehensive testing. These include that “first, second, last and last” logon screen that I keep getting, and the missing payee information from the Microsoft Money and CSV file downloads. This week a colleague told me that she can’t pay her US dollar credit card bill from her Bermuda dollar checking account. That’s a pretty fundamental problem. Why wasn’t that found in testing too?

Their customer support has also been dreadful. After three weeks, I’m still waiting for someone at the bank to acknowledge the existence of the problem with the missing payee information in the downloads. All I’ve had is an attempt to fob me off by claiming that I’m using an unsupported version of Money. Since I can see that there is no payee information in the file when I view it using a text editor, and since the CSV file is similarly affected, it’s clear that the bank did not bother to investigate my complaint properly.

And the bank has the nerve to claim that they would have done nothing differently?

» OK, I am officially a retard.

The banking system was actually asking for the first, second to last, and last characters from my password. The way the system works, it keeps prompting you for the same set of characters until you enter them successfully.

Thanks to Cheryl Simmons for working out my problem, and not laughing at me when she called me to tell me what was wrong.

Comments

[Canuck In Bermuda on 05.11.06 at 14:20]

The thing that I don't understand is the whole first, last, whatever thing in the first place!!

Is this not infinitely (okay, not THAT much) less secure than actually using the whole password or am I missing something here? I always get 3 boxes, and let's say there are 60 possible characters... so that's 216,000 possible combinations. My real password under the same assumption would be one of 60,466,176,000 combinations. Plus my fingers "know" that password and can probably type it in under a second - the "this letter that letter" thing takes much longer (still under 10 seconds sure)

So - less secure, and takes longer... what's the point of this? Combined with the "memorable question" thing, I'm sure that the answer + 3 characters theoretically provides a pretty secure combination... but again, why bother making it harder and less secure?

[Phil on 05.11.06 at 14:30]

Canuck

The same thing occurred to me. The only rationale I can come up with is that if you enter your entire password, and it is somehow intercepted, the interceptor will have immediate access to your account. By asking you for particular characters, and changing which characters they are every time you log in, you limit the amount of information that can be intercepted to an amount insufficient to gain access to your account (unless you are prompted to enter the same characters).

[newbie on 05.11.06 at 16:10]

I access my UK bank account on line by entering my numerical ID then I have a 'memorable word' which they ask me for but they ask me for letter 2 letter 4 letter 6 and letter 8 the letters asked for change everytime I log on.

[living in paradice on 05.11.06 at 17:04]

The Bank of Bermuda is a nice place. They offer tea and coffee while you wait, they have nice people to help you figure out what line to stand in and the tellers serve you.

Limey, why do you dislike them so?

You should use their in person service and your experience would be so much more pleasant and personal.

I was so please, I stayed in line for a whole hour. It was quite memorable. I even got to meet knew people and see old friends!

All banks should be so nice.

[32n64w on 05.11.06 at 17:10]

Hate to say it but I've had no problems logging in today or Friday and have actually received email replies within 48 hours to my 2 email questions.

What I find incomprehensible and a little (ok a lot) disingenuous is the bank's claim that they spent $30 million dollars on this upgrade. As a client for more than 35 years I would have preferred they were a little more honest about the actual costs considering this system is basically an "off the shelf" HSBC product. The only real headaches would presumably be related to the conversion issues from their existing systems.

Phil - as someone with a significantly greater understanding an appreciation for these IT issues than me; what's your take on the reasonableness of that $30m statement? Am I way off base here in thinking its more of a PR number than an actual cost?

[Phil on 05.11.06 at 17:49]

I just called the bank's customer service line about this (kudos to the bank for currently keeping the helpline open from 8.30am to 7.30pm seven days a week). The lady I spoke to was helpful, but ultimately couldn't work out what the problem was. In an echo of the blowoff given to me when I complained about the problem downloading transactions, she said that Firefox isn't a supported browser, however I pointed out that I have logged on successfully with Firefox before and that anyway, the problem also manifests itself with Internet Explorer.

I sent her a screenshot of the weird logon screen so she can investigate further. Hopefully they'll get back to me soon.

32n64w

Hate to say it but I've had no problems logging in today or Friday and have actually received email replies within 48 hours to my 2 email questions.

Lucky you! What browser and OS are you using?

Phil - as someone with a significantly greater understanding an appreciation for these IT issues than me; what's your take on the reasonableness of that $30m statement?

I honestly couldn't say.

[Phil on 05.11.06 at 18:33]

OK, I am officially a retard.

The banking system was asking for the first, second to last, and last characters from my password. The way the system works, it keeps prompting you for the same set of characters until you enter them successfully.

Thanks to Cheryl Simmons for working out my problem, and not laughing at me when she called me to tell me what was wrong.

[mysticman on 05.11.06 at 20:33]

We still haven't been able to sign on with our G5. We can sign on with the PC at work, but not with our iMac at home. The bank's website pulls up RealPlayer and then freezes! David Gibbons says he will get back to us. Been about a week so far...zzzzzzzzz

[Marly on 06.11.06 at 10:07]

I too have had my fair share of problems, not with the login procedure, that has been very smooth. I find that transferring money from my savings to my checking account is a problem.I keep getting these system messages, however I'm able to transfer from one savings account to another savings account with no problem, paying bills is smooth. I called the bank to explain to them, they tell me they have never heard of anyone having that particular problem and reported it to their IT person. I'm still waiting to get a reply.I ended up having to get the customer service rep on the phone to do the transfer for me. I've even tried the telephone banking, that didn't work either.I was informed that they are also having problems with their telephone banking system.

I also had a problem when i first used my debit card in the ATM machine. I was try to do a withdrawal, everything went smooth, it gave me my card back and the receipt BUT NO MONEY,and debited my account. Took me 3 days to get my account credited back, after speaking with 4 different people.

[StevieG on 06.11.06 at 10:14]

Haven't had any issues since signing up with Internet Explorer.

Only problem I had was I bookmarked a "bad" page somehow, and EVERY time I tried to sign, even though I KNEW I typed everything in correctly, it would just refresh the page and get me to sign in again.

Finally, I went back HSBC-BOB's home page, went to the "Log In" page, then bookmarked it again, and since then, the sign-in process has always worked first time.

[Pitts Bay on 15.01.07 at 19:21]

Does anyone know whether BOB/HSBC have resolved the download issue. As far as I can see, the payee information is still missing from .csv and others.

Can someone let me know whether I am being an IT idiot, or whether BOB/HSBC have simply not fixed the issue!

Pitts Bay

[The Limey on 15.01.07 at 22:29]

Pitts Bay

You're not being an idiot. I reconciled my Money file yesterday and the .qif download was still missing the payee information.

Clearly the bank could give a rat's ass about fixing this.

[Bob Masters on 15.01.07 at 23:41]

In the last 48 hours, I have had a check for $2,500 debited twice in error and a large Bank of Butterfield cheque not available for use. With the new 'enhaanced' HUB system, it takes 2 business days for a Bank of Butterfield check to clear, even though BOB and NTB use the same service provider (jointly owned) to clear its cheques. It used to be same day before October!!. Foreign cheques take 10 days to clear instead of next day value before HUB. Guess who is earning interest on YOUR money? Is this Progress??? It is retrograde and a turn-off.

Service has gone downhill and a simple wire payment between banks is impossible. Don't try to transfer money between HUB and the Privater Banking section IN THE SAME BANK. It has to be done manually as the two systems don't 'talk' to each other.

Since HSBC took over, service at the Bank of Bermuda has dived to the depths of the bottom of the Atlantic! It is no wonder that loyal customers are 'jumping ship' in droves as the service is abysmal.

I feel sorry for the staff who have had to put on a brave face and pretend that every thing is normal, knowing full well that the 'powers at be' don't have a clue how to fix the nightmare.

If customers suffered this in North America, there would be no recovery for the Bank involved. Unfortunately, we only have a few options in Bermuda and some people are tied to using the Bank of Bermuda, having loans.

Despite claims of things being 'back to normal', I have lost faith in our biggest Bank, who has forsaken its customers.