Alder's Tone: Child prodigy (according to Nationwide)

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We have a child prodigy! It's official! According to Nationwide, at least.

According to them our 15 week old son can handle his finances on his own, can understand the function of the PIN and password scheme, and can actually read.

Nationwide have a very dubious policy of allowing customer information to leave their data centres on, worst of all, laptops. This is shocking enough, but when one of those laptops gets stolen and the company who loses it puts the onus on the customer to protect their personal details, well I no longer want to consider doing business with that company.

The theft happened months ago, and Nationwide failed to make the theft public for quite some time, "for security reasons". Well, "for security reasons" you shouldn't allow thieves into your data centres, which is exactly what happened when you allowed a customer database to leave the premises on a laptop. I can see why Nationwide kept it quiet. Imagine if it was made public immediately, every stolen laptop would be the focus of major hack attempts. The chances are this was scrubbed and resold without the thieves actually knowing the true hidden value of their swag.

Nationwide have written to their customers, not apologising, but as I say shifting the onus of security to the individuals. Even Junior got a letter this week, despite not (a) being a customer or (b) even being born at the time of the theft.

Reading at 15 weeks? Daddy's proud to have a different child!Nationwide know his date of birth, they have a copy of his birth certificate. They know he's too young to read, never mind know what a PIN or a password is. Yet they write to him telling him the importance of keeping them secret. So was this just a blanket letter to account holders with no regard to their age? No, if it was I could have understood it. In big bold letters acrosss the top was the message for him to read it carefully, then pass it to a parent or guardian for them to read too.

Nationwide did take into account he's a child, but did not take into account he was too young to read. So not only do they not care about customers personal details, they don't bother to look at them before writing either.

Needless to say the written response I will send them will be something suitably sarcastic, pointing out his new found "child prodigy" status.

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Comments

Finally got round to replying to Nationwide. And here's the sarcasm...

My son, Iain, received a letter from Nationwide late last year, a copy of which is attached. I have a few comments to make on this.
You have acknowledged he is a minor by the heading “THIS IS IMPORTANT – PLEASE READ CAREFULLY AND SHOW THIS LETTER TO YOUR PARENT OR GUARDIAN”. This shows you have extracted his date of birth from your database when compiling the mailshots.

With the fact derived from this that you have extracted his date of birth, why, then, was this not considered when:
• The laptop was stolen before he was born, and therefore before he was a customer
• How do you expect a three month old baby to “READ THIS CAREFULLY” before passing on to his parent or guardian?
• Why do you encourage a 3 month old baby to use a shredder?

While I appreciate that you will have had possibly two types of mailing, one for adult customers and one for parents of minors, I hope this illustrates the need for more careful consideration and opportunities for widening the groups you are targeting. I expect to be treated as an individual, as I expect my son to be. If we do not fit in with Nationwide’s “two sizes fits all” policy then perhaps we gave our business to the wrong organisation? At best we’ll ignore the information as irrelevant to us. At worst we’ll treat Nationwide as incompetent and unable to process data (or look after it) properly and look to move our business.

I would hope that in instructing Iain to read the letter himself then pass it on that you do not really expect him to use a shredder himself, despite the instruction contained therein. There will, of course, be people of lesser intelligence than I who will take this literally and have minors using sharp cutting devices.

My only request is that more thought is given in future. The release into the wild of the data that was contained on the stolen laptop damaged our perceptions of Nationwide, but this letter has probably done more damage in my opinion.

I look forward to receiving your grovelling apology and instructions to Iain to let his parents do his shredding for him.

I do, however, commend you for your faith in his ability to remember his own PINs and passwords at such a tender age, a prodigy in the making I am sure. This makes me proud.

Yours faithfully,

Posted by: Lee | February 4, 2007 12:44 PM

Sorry, comments are now closed for this topic, the topic may be an old one or I have closed them for another reason. If you have a burning desire to comment on this topic, please contact me.

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