Barclays PIN sentry

This happened to a couple of friends of mine who are in Asia atm. They had two bank accounts, one with barclays. The other got taken over and so a new card was issued, the other bank was barclays and apparently was specifically chosen for a “pin-sentry” because of their “suspicious” activity, ie, taking money out in lots of different countries.

So anyway, my mate’s dad had to courier over the cards, only he wasn’t really allowed to because he’d activated them, so he had to print out some photos and hide the cards in among them and got them over to them that way.

It works, though still I do NOT want to carry this with me everytime I want bank on the Internet!

It asks for your PIN. I thought WTF PIN? Telephone banking PIN? Internet banking PIN? So I tried to PIN I use when I use my ATM card, and it works!

Still I didn’t get to use the:
* Respond
* Sign

Features. I wonder what they are all about!

Over and over I am in awe about the cluelessness of foreign banks compared to Finnish ones. You don’t need PIN hardware. You need a one-time pad of passwords on paper. Fits in the pocket. The weight is negligible. Works with any browser.

I’m with you on this one.

I think barclays will lose thousands of customers, I am certainly concidering moving. How can they expect us to take this device everywhere and to suggest that we use telephone banking when on the move.

I also had a replacement card sent to me, even though I recieved a replacement card 4 weeks ago.

So many other companies are concerned about their “carbon foot-print” yet barclays have wasted resources on:
1) the envelope (x2)
2) the paper used to send the letters (x2)
3) the plasic card (x1)
4) the card reader (x1)
5) the fuel used to deliver both the card reader, my pin number and the replacement card. (x3)

And all of this multiplied by 500,000 (the number of customers with online banking).

ONE VERY ANNOYED BARCLAYS CUSTOMER!!!

Grat….so the machine verifys my debit card PIN? Then that means it has stored in it my PIN numbers? that should be handy when a heif steals it then ?! How the heck is that an improvement to my security ?

Totally amazed.

Why on earth are Barclays doing this? What an almighty preamble. No longer can I just log-on to internet banking. Oh no, now I have to go get my wallet, get the card, put the card in the stupid plastic thing, write the last 5 digits of my card in the browser space, enter my PIN on the stupid plastic machine, then type in an 8 digit code the stupid machine gives me.

That’s just to log on and check my balance.

What a joke Barclays.

If I want to go and set up a payment to someone I have to repeat the above with a couple more steps.

There’s security and there’s p*ssing your customers off so badly they move accounts….

Which is exactly what I’m going to do. I have a business account too so I have to do this stupid plastic machine dance for each account.

Hope you go bust Barclays. The stupid tw*t that came up with this hairbraned scheme needs to be put out to grass.

Kudos for the blog post. I hope more diusgruntled Barclays customers post here and let them know what a farce this is.

Sam

@Dave: Your PIN is on your card.

@Sam: I don’t think you you need different PIN SENTRY devices for each card or account.

I THINK you should be able to use any Barclay Customer’s PIN SENTRY device to authenticate.

ALL I CAN SAY IS….. I AM NO LONGER THEIR CUSTOMER. If the people ‘looking after’ my money are this stupid, then i’d rather stuff it in my mattress!

You can still make online payments as long as its not to anybody new. So then I tried using the telephone passcode system and they told me that I could not pay anybody new that way either and that I should do that in the branch!!!!!! Totally useless.

Running this system out during Xmas with the usual postal issues and people travelling is totally stupid! They are lucky that the Northern Rock fiasco has been taking the headlines.

Furthermore, currently Barclays want you to notify them everytime you go abroad. They will let you withdraw money once, but then block your card until you call them. I travel lots and they have blocked my card about 12 times during 2007.

I would like to further compound this statement by saying I am actually a Barclays Premier client. Its as crap for everybody.

They will only realise how fed up the clients are when the share price starts to drop. With people looking elsewhere (I am closing my accounts too) this should prove inevitable

Oh my goodness this is the best possible method of reducing your client numbers I have ever seen! Good on you Barclays.

I live in Central Africa and no plans to go back to UK in the near future, have had NO warning of this ridiculous new policy I now cannot make payments having to ask a third party to do so on my behalf. Furthermore I have no idea how I would ever get a secure postage of card and reader let alone the following pin numbers here in time for Christmas. I wonder if Barclays will pay the DHL fees as well as any costs incurred whilst I go on holiday?! I doubt it.

Finally, I am now going to have to have a very harsh conversation with Barlcays over a bad international Skype line paid by ME to you asking WTF I am supposed to do…

So farewell Barclays at my earliest convenience I will be transfering all my cash elsewhere, I hope others will do too.

I did not know anything about this untill I tried to transfer money to my sons account I could not do it as I did not save details last time you cant tranfer to new accounts untill I get my pin sentry very annoying, then I received this pin sentry thing abit afraid of it at first but now its fine just sign on as normal (online )then it asks for last 4 numbers of debit card put card in machine enter your usual pin the one you would use in a shop press identify up comes numbers for you to enter ( online ) then just login, easy ha ha Im sure we will get used to it after all it suppose to be for better security we shall see

Oh I am so glad others are feeling this. I thought I was alone. ....

Why Why Why? I know it is sad but use my internet banking everyday, sometimes twice to make payments, keep track of current account and any rents coming in. For the past couple of weeks I have used it prehaps twice. I am calling customer services tomorrow to see if they will reverse it for me. If not I will change bank in an instant.

My dad has a business account & is part of Barclays Wealth and he does not need one? Why have some got it and not the others?

Ridiculous

I still don’t get what’s the big fuss about the PIN sentry.

If they have to send you your sheet of codes every so often, that’s little help when you’re not at your postal address.

This has been a nightmare for me – I have been living in Czech, and during the roll out of this fiasco I have moved to the czech republic. It has been an unmitigated disaster – In 20 years of having several personal and business accounts with Barclays, I have never known something as inconvenient as this. To have to use a cheap tacky block AND my card every time I want to do something with on-line banking is a serious inconvenience.

To top this off I have had My card stopped 2 times in the past month which is so annoying and really quite dangerous. However – when phoning them to rfesolve it via Skype (to uk and then forwarded ironically back to india) I have complained very strongly about how terrible it is and have said that if it is not reversed by middle of February I will move all accounts to another bank.

I would urge all other users to do the same. As Dasani was to coke, Pin sentry is to Barclays.

B,

I have complained to Barclays about this and have pointed out that where I agree with the priciple of improving security, this one is stupid.
I have informed them that this no longer fits in with my requirements and my account will be closed in 28 days.

I welcome the PinSentry and requested one be sent to me after seeing that my Dad had got one.

The reason is that this device makes internet banking very secure as it is two-factor authentication method meaning it requires something you own (the card/reader) and something you know (the pin) see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-factor_authentication

I would like to point out a couple of things.

1) The instructions were very clear and it was obvious that the PIN you use is your “Chip and Pin” code that you would use at the ATM and everywhere else for that matter.

2) The PIN is not stored on the reader, and therefore someone stealing your reader gains nothing. infact it is possible to use anyones PinSenty reader. The information is stored in the Chip of your “Chip and Pin” card and what is actually stored is most likely a one way hash of the PIN, so you could not easily get the PIN even if your card is stolen.

I have one of the latest Barclays Connet Visa Debit cards begining with numbers 4659, which was issued in October 2007 and it still refuses to let me in to Online banking with the PIN Sentry device.

I wish that Barclays would for a short time, go back to the old login system until they have sorted out their massive Technical Problems!!

Saturday 12th January 2008

I just cant believe the stupidity and irritation of the PIN sentry device causes to the all the customers online banking experience. “Truly inconvenience banking” that is Barclay style.
I have been bombarded with 3 of these devices in my house as somehow our another I have ammased 9 accounts with Barclays by accident over time. If you want to use your banking in different places all you need to do is carry this flat slim and easy to fit in you wallet device with you – Brilliant, genius.. Give the twit an award who cracked this one out!!

Whatever you do, DO NOT get one of these pin sentry card readers unless you’ve got a debit card. I’ve just phoned up to get the Authentication card the website tells me I can have. After half an hour of being put on hold, transferred three times to different departments, I finally reached someone who got the gist of what I was saying, who then told me I needed to be transferred to another department which closed 15 minutes ago.

I’m gonna go kick the cat….

Have had so many problems banking with Barclays – for 15 years – this Pin Sentry is the final straw for me. I have closed my account.

Hi,

I was trying to familiarize myself with this stupid machine and I suprisingly enough (I really don’t know why) my pin was blocked!!!!

Am I going to be able to withdraw money from an ATM or the card is useless now?
Is there anything i can do? (obviously go to a bank branch and ask information)

Thank you in advance
giorgos

Giorgos,

The easiest thing to do is change banks. I found the service at Natwest is exceptional.

Adam

What is everyone’s problem?! If you haven’t got your card ready on you then just click on the ‘not got card reader’ link and it still lets you into your online banking. You can’t transfer money out of your accounts but it means you don’t have to carry your card reader with you. I take mine to work every day and keep it in my pocket, it’s really not that big!

I have a joint account with my wife. She can use PIN Sentry as she has the new connect card (bright blue). I have the older (dark blue) card and cannot use PIN sentry. I use online banking with my business both at Lloyds and Natwest and both are easier to use. We have opened a new joint account with Lloyds, with a tracker savings account linked in and we are weaning ourselves off Barclays.

It is a cumbersome method of doing random key creation. Some French banks have an on-line version, which saves carrying yet another device, which can be lost or stolen and thereefore cloned or fraudulently used.