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James Shaw

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American Express Are Dumb

I'm pissed off and I'm hoping that ranting here will help. When I rant like this I cling to the extremely remote hope that someone in charge will someday read this.

It could happen!

American Express sucks at security

My problem today is that American Express' web site was designed and/or implemented by dickheads. Here's one example that keeps trippng me up - you can enter a password of unlimited length on the front page, but if you sign into your account on the small business page you are only allowed 8 characters in your password.

My strong password* is 10 characters.

Now, all would be fine if they told me that initially. But instead they chopped off the last 2 characters when I registered, then did the same when I signed in. So for the first year everything worked even though I didn't realize I had an 8 character password.

But if I try and login on the front page it always fails, because it allows me to enter 10 characters.  And then my account gets blocked and I have to call them and get it unblocked again. This happens regularly now because I've had my password reset so many times that I've lost track of how many characters I can use on which page.

I know it's not just me; my wife has the same issues trying to login. Actually, that's a big comfort.

* Yes, I'm sorry, I use the same 'strong' password on all banking sites. Life is too short.


Posted: Wednesday, December 28, 2005 10:53 AM by James
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