When a company does something silly, I sometimes try to avoid naming names, but not this time. Qwest, the phone company. Friday I was paying my bill online and it took a really long time because I had forgotten the password for my online Qwest account, and they don’t have the option many organizations have where they will just email you your password or reset it and send you a new one. When you don’t know your password, Qwest needs more information to verify you are who you say you are. At first, I was thinking Qwest was really looking out for me in terms of security and privacy and going to great lengths to protect me.
Then it hit me.
All I wanted to do was give them my credit card number to pay my bill.
If someone else wants to pay my bill for me, I don’t want anything to stop them – leave the door open and unlocked, as it were.
It struck me that there is so much noise about internet security and privacy, that it seems some people assume that the more secure something is ,the better, no matter what the situation. Not so.
Somewhat along the lines of the notion that the punishment should fit the crime, people need to take a step back and look at what is going on and then assess the level of security or authentication that is required for the action the person wants to perform. An example I often use (that has nothing to do with the internet in this case) is restaurant reservations. The goal of the restaurant reservation is to secure a table for you at the time you want. In reality, the restaurant doesn’t care what your name is, but that turns out to be a decent placeholder for attaching reservations to different people. In my case, my last name is Merrifield, and 100% of the time when I reserve by phone, I have to spell my name even though I realize the restaurant doesn’t really care who I am. It’s not like they are going to check for ID when I arrive. So I started to make reservations under a simpler name, one that everyone knows how to spell – French. That’s right, I make my reservations under the name Ric French It works for everyone and saves time, and if they put a “k” on Ric, I don’t know or care.
In the case of Qwest, I love that they protect some of my information, but if all I want to do is pay for something, there shouldn’t be any resistance. Accessing any information about my account is a very different story. Companies really need to look at “what” they are doing before they throw the kitchen sink at “how” they authenticate people and enforce security.
-Ric
Hello Ric, this is Steph at Qwest,
I am sorry it was such a frustrating experience using the MyAccount access and security situation. If you do need additional assistance with getting back to your MyAccount access, please feel free to email me at talktous@qwest.com with your billing phone number, billing address and best contact number and I will have a specialist call you to help. In the meantime, should you want to pay your bill online, or even let a friend, neighbor or stranger pay it for you (I know I wouldn’t mind if someone paid a few of my bills: ), try this: https://www.qwest.com/MasterWebPortal/freeRange/QuickPay.action
they will need your phone number and zip code though.
thank you
Steph Lake
Manager, Talk To Qwest Team
“At Qwest your account information is confidential and protected by law, so I need your permission to access the account.”