MBNA security fails

Yesterday I received an email I firming me my statement was ready. Decided to leave it until today, and as usual used my tablet to sign in. Except I couldn’t.

Problem 1

Apparently existing passwords with punctuation will no longer work, and the site advised me to change my password.

Problem 2

The page would not load. Wonderful. Ok they have been pushing the use of their app of late I’ll try that, on my phone as it isn’t suitable for tablets. Install it, try to sign in, and it fails and sends me to the website…

Problem 3

This time though it takes me to a page for me to change my password. Without realising I actually enter a new password that is too long, BUT it accepts it!

Problem 4

Ask to reset your memorable word, what memorable word! Never used one before, so set one up, not one I can actually remember though, and included numbers in it.

Problem 5

New password did not work.

Problem 6

New password did not work

Problem 7

Calling support. Did not have my card ready, retrieved it before I get through to a human, at least I think she was human, didn’t catch her name.

Problem 8

Ask for me to do the process again, so I do.. same result.

Problem 9

Asks me to do it again but checks a few things along the way. I’ve been entering my password wrong, it’s too long. It’s been 17 characters for years, and now the max is 15. Were there any warnings or errors no of course not.

Problem 10

Apparently the password cannot contain Upper case characters. Yes they decided to add that restriction in without telling anyone. Not only that but it doesn’t appear in any error or indeed anywhere in the login process. So I had no chance getting passed this with my new password.

Conclusion

MBNA decided to change things without informing anyone, and didn’t create useful errors to help people resolve this. Passwords are now less secure, removing punctuation and upper case letters is just ridiculous. Memorable word, or phrase, or randomised letters and numbers (like mine) are now an extra hurdle. If I used an easy memorable phrase that yes it would be easier, but it would also be easy for others to figure it out as well.

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Early Attempts at Pyrography

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New year, new hobby. Over the Christmas period I found 2 old soldering irons in the loft. One did not work, the other was a soldering iron gun. I tried to use it for pyrography, and it got me hooked. … Continue reading

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Plugins removed from WordPress repository

I haven’t updated my plugins for WordPress in years, so this day was always going to come. However it was only after my recent contact with them that I decided that I am better off out of the whole debarcle that WordPress has now become.

Bye WordPress community, things were good for while, but that has been soured of late. I’m not going to miss you one bit.

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Work at Home

Despite my earlier posts I did manage to find a job working from home! It is tough going but I am slowly getting the hang of it. For various reasons I can’t mention who I work for on here, but it is still within the gaming industry.

Posts on here will continue, just not sure how often ATM.

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Job hunting.

The last 8 months have been spent looking for work. Technically I am still employed, but the business can’t continue to employ me forever, so I need to gain employment elsewhere.

It’s easy to see why people hate being unemployed and get dejected. You would think with modern technology that getting back to unsuccessful applicants would be a trivial thing to do, yet virtually no one does. Why? No idea.

Anyway my applications continue, so far I have had just the 2 interviews. I think I know what I got wrong with those, but my age won’t help sadly. I have widened the net to all sorts of jobs from mail room/filing clerk all the way up… well for those I think I stand a chance with.

I decided not to apply for the job at MI6, the commute to London just wouldn’t have worked out.

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Working from home.

For someone with an illness working from home can be a real life saver. But how to find real jobs out there, as there are many many scams. Staying clear of selling or business opportunities helps avoid them but you still have to sift through all the vacancies to find the real ones.

Also I am lucky in that I have a little buffer that can allow me some extra time to find a new work from home, telecommute or remote job. If I don’t find one in that time I will have to search for normal jobs again… I hope I don’t have to though.

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