@Anonymous wrote:
The thing that gets me, is that as consumers we have to use information that was obviously never verified in the first place to verify ourselves. Or maybe I just don't know myself very well...hmm...
Exactly! Very frustrating 
Yeah. I once had them ask me if I ever lived at a certain address...answer NO, wrong. Turns out my ex husband lived there after we were divorced.
OP- the questions are unreasonable. They should go by CR and not some random public record search website information. Appears I'm joined at the hip with my ex husband for the rest of my life 
@Kidcat wrote:Yeah. I once had them ask me if I ever lived at a certain address...answer NO, wrong. Turns out my ex husband lived there after we were divorced.
OP- the questions are unreasonable. They should go by CR and not some random public record search website information. Appears I'm joined at the hip with my ex husband for the rest of my life
Even basing the questions on a credit report could have problems. For instance, what I thought at the time was a debit card is reported by at least 2 bureaus as a closed bank credit card that had a $7k limit. If someone had asked about the first credit card I got, I would assume they were talking about the Chase Amazon card and I could be marked "wrong" by that measure. Plus, my address is not correct in all my credit reports.
@Anonymous wrote:
The thing that gets me, is that as consumers we have to use information that was obviously never verified in the first place to verify ourselves. Or maybe I just don't know myself very well...hmm...
That's exactly how I feel. It's so frustrating.
Plus even for correct information, it doesn't mean the person is going to remember it. I pride myself on having an excellent memory, but there are some things that just don't stick because they were never interesting or important to me in the first place. Make, model, and year of past vehicles is a great example. I can barely remember the model of my current vehicle and never know the year without checking. I don't stand a chance at guessing the model and year of past vehicles. I know I'm a bit unusual in this regard, but cars just aren't very interesting to me and I seldom drive. I'm just not sitting around thinking about my car or its year and model. LOL, so if they ask that as a security question, it's actually more suspicious if I (or the person pretending to be me) answers correctly immediately.
@Anonymous wrote:
I know it's public data as I deal with lexis nexis almost daily but they don't use them. And most people's "street they grew up on" isn't in public data
That's a password request question. Want to know my first pet's name, as well?
Now I want to go check, I think my B&N MC might be the ONLY non-chip card I have at this point.
It could be a disaster if they asked me a question that they had the incorrect answer to. I'd be arguing that I should know, as it was MY first job, etc. 