Argh! Those Banking Apps

What a rigamarole! If I'd had any hair left  . . . well, you know . . . 

I have two credit cards and two banks. Oddly enough the two banks belong to the same company and even exist in the same building in out town, but they are treated separately, as if they were two different banks. I could go into the history that got them and me to this point, but that isn't relevant to the remainder of this post. 

It was a few months ago that I could no longer log into credit card A which is my main credit card. It is the one without an attached bank account although it used to be attached to account B, below. Back then, sometime last autumn, I phoned the Help Desk for assistance in logging in, and they said the solution was to delete my computer cache. I did. It worked, and I could log in — for awhile. 

Even though it worked — for awhile — it was a pain to have to find and type all of my passwords to all of all of my online sites again. Then, believe it or not, this same A credit card locked me out again. I knew what to do — delete my cache, type in my passwords — one more time! Once again, it worked for awhile — a very very short while.

I wasn't going to go through that business again if I could help it. So, I found the relevant app for my iPad. Nope. My old tablet would not support this app. However, I was able to add it to my phone, and it has worked ever since then.

I don't like or want to do banking in the small phone screen, and on a device that I carry around in public, but that is what I have had to do for months. Poor me. (Fortunately, I can now get the relevant apps on my new tablet.)

But wait there's more!

This week I could not log into into bank account B. There is no longer a credit card attached to B, but it is my main bank account. I would enter my bank number and password, and absolutely nothing would happen: no rejection, no anything, just me staring at nothingness spinning before me. The first few times, I thought the site must be down, but after multiple failures, and on the third day of this nothingness, I decided to make a new password. It worked but not completely. (Although I hadn't been able to log in, strangely enough, I could reset my password because I've have that 16-digit code memorized for decades, and they had my email and phone number for verification.)

Details are about to follow in this post that is already boring me, not to mention you, but there is more: so much more.

Anyway, I eventually got B  partially (key word) sorted and went onto bank C, where there is both a credit card and a bank account.

Wasn't it just the same %$&^ thing all over again‽ No message, just spinning nothingness. As with account B, I eventually prevailed — sort of. (I am trying to shorten the narrative here.)

Now we get to the extra silly part. For years, I have logged into C with the bank card number — years, I tell you. Once in, I could see both the credit card info and the bank account info. Life was easy. I knew those 16 digits backwards and forwards and inside out.

However, life was too easy for me, and we couldn't have that. So, naturally, they changed the bank card numbers. It took some time, but I had just about mastered those new 16 digits, when they threw me this new curve ball, perhaps more of a knuckle ball. Once I delved into it and revamped my password, I discovered that I  now, I must log in, not with my newly-remembered bank card but with the sixteen associated credit card digits. They don't like the bank card numbers any more. Sigh.

Just a note in passing. I don't mind having normal passwords stored in computer cache memory, like Blogger's password, for example, but I do not want my financial numbers to be stored anywhere. For security reasons, I want to enter them manually every single darn time, so now my poor, ancient brain must learn 16 new numbers for the second time in several months.

 But wait there's even more!

With my virus checker, I have an addon called Safe Play, in which I have long been able to log into financial sites in a very secure way where, supposedly, prying spyware would find it very difficult to follow. Nope! Can't use that app any darn more. I must now log in on my less secure regular web browser, or on my phone or tablet since I have had to download the app for C too.

I can't tell you how much backing and forthing and ining and outing I went through to get this all sorted. Well I could, but even writing this is driving me nuts, just as reading it (have you made it this far?) must just about causing your head to slump down onto your computer desk. I hope you didn't bang your head too hard or destroy your computer or whatever device that you are using.

Computers do not always make life easier, my friends, or at least they may make it very difficult in the short term in order to, perhaps, make it easier in the long term. Perhaps.