Bank changes "pants" password without consent

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 28 Aug 2008 at 11:11

A man who changed the password on his Lloyds TSB account to "Lloyds is pants" discovered it had been changed by a staff member to "no it's not" without his permission.

Steve Jetley discovered the alteration when he next tried to access his account, but was subsequently told it was "inappropriate" to change the password back to "Lloyds is pants", or to his second choice, "Barclays is better".

Jetley changed the password after a dispute with his bank over travel insurance, but while that issue was resolved he claims he is still trying to find a password that meets the bank's criteria.

"The rules seemed to change, and they told me it had to be one word, so I tried 'censorship', but they didn't like that, and then said it had to be no more than six letters long," Jetley tells the BBC.

Jetley says the bank has now apologised and informed him the member of staff responsible no longer works there, though it's not clear if the change of password is responsible.