The right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing…

You know banks are always telling you not to give out your account numbers etc. to people over the phone for fear that they may gain access to your account and clear it out?

Well it now appears that Tesco Visa have started asking for just this information as part of their security procedures!!!

On Monday my girlfriend phoned up Tesco Visa to pay off her card. The operator asked her the standard security questions… Name, date of birth, address, bra size, mother’s maiden name, name of the 3rd earl of Brunswickshire… The usual stuff.

The operator then went on to ask for my girlfriends bank sort code and account number. She gave this information, but only after questioning it. The operator then put my girlfriend on hold for ages until she got cold feet and hung up.

She immediately called her bank and reported what had happened. The bank told her that Tesco Visa should not have asked her for that information and that they would investigate.

Obviously this meant that her cards etc. had to be cut up, causing us shed loads of aggravation.

When she rang Tesco Visa back again, she was informed that these were now standard security questions….

So it would appear that we now have the situation where the banks tell us not to give out certain information but the credit card companies (or rather Tesco Visa) routinely as for said information!

No wonder credit card fraud is on the up!!!

Pay as you go road taxation... The answer to all our ills or more government spying?

I see that the government are detailing their plan to monitor our movements whenever we get into our cars… This has been dressed up as ‘pay as you go’ road taxation.

I must admit that I am more than a little concerned at this turn of events. I am very uneasy at the idea of getting a bill once a month detailing ALL my journeys in my car. This is assuming that we are not going to be expected to trust the Government not to rip us off here.

Can you imagine how many relationships this will end…

Imagine the scenario… Mr and Mrs Smith’s marriage is going through a rough patch one day. Mrs Smith suspects something is up and wonders if Mr Smith is seeing someone else. On the mat drops Mr Smith’s monthly travel log. Mrs Smith takes a quick peak where she discovers that Mr Smith’s trip to Cambridge last week actually shows up as him going somewhere different. That’s it, she confronts him having had all her suspicions confirmed and the marriage is over. Pity really as Mr Smith was actually arranging a pamper day for his wife on the day in question as he thought she wasn’t very happy!

That’s not to mention all the mistakes that will be made. After all, we are talking about government departments who have been using IT databases regularly for decades yet they still regularly get it badly wrong. One recent example has them losing entitlements off of peoples licences when they are renewed (with the advice that they should retake their tests to get the entitlement back).

Oh and lest we forget, this will obviously be seen as a golden opportunity to raise the taxation paid by motorists via the back door. Just like water meters, I would bet good money that next to no one would be any better off under this new regime.

I hate to state the obvious here, but if the government REALLY want to tackle the problem of congestion of British roads, it will take more than another ‘quick fix’, if indeed this is the true intention here. We have had 20 years of social engineering to get us to this state of affairs and that can’t be undone by one small gesture overnight!

We have had 20 years of under investment in public transport, 20 years of more and more out of town shopping centres and superstores while town centres have been left to degrade into little more than clones of each other. 20 years of having to move further and further from our jobs in order to buy a house. 20 years of steadily increasing congestion that the government hopes to wipe away at a stroke!

I’m sorry Mr Darling, but it’s going to take more than another tax hike to undo all that. How about a change of direction first to give people an alternative before you penalise them?