You know what really frosts my flakes?
Needing your phone for any type of tech support.
You call technical support because your cell phone isn’t working, but the very first thing they say is, “We’ll send a verification code to your phone.”
My phone? The one I just told you doesn’t work?
Who comes up with these support systems? Apparently somebody who’s never actually had a broken phone.
It’s like calling a tow truck because your car won’t start, and the dispatcher says, “No problem. Just drive it over here.”
This obsession with two-factor authentication has gotten completely out of hand.
I recently left my phone at an Airbnb. I remembered where it was, but I had forgotten the code to unlock the front door after I left.
No problem, I thought. I’ll head over to the public library, log into my email account and pull up the reservation confirmation. Except my email provider had a different idea.
“To protect your account, we’ve sent a verification code to your phone.” Really? The phone I just told you I couldn’t get in to?
I wasn’t trying to break into Fort Knox. I was trying to read my own email.
It seems every company has decided the only proof you’re really you is possession of one little electronic rectangle.
Lose your phone, break your phone or have it stolen, and suddenly you become a complete stranger to every company you’ve done business with for the past twenty years.
Security is important. I get that.
But if the only recovery method requires the very device that’s missing or broken, that’s not security. That’s bad planning.
Here’s a radical idea. Give customers a few backup options.
Let us verify with a recovery email, a security key, recovery codes, a phone call to a landline or even answer security questions if we choose to use them.
Because a backup plan that depends on the thing that just failed isn’t a backup plan. It’s a trap.
I am Grandpa Grumpy, and the next tech genius who wants to text my broken phone can explain it to me by fax.