Banks must tighten password security

As a victim of a scam myself, I believe banks could make systems more secure. In my case, I was convinced by the scammers to allow them into my accounts. All banks use a similar process to let customers access accounts. They ask you for a password, and then another one to access all your accounts. So if you have multiple accounts, and you reveal your passwords, every account becomes exposed to the scammers. Because of this, the scammer was able keep my attention focused on one account while stealing money from another.

Surely to make things more secure each account should have its own password. When I suggested this to my bank manager, she just said, “that’s the way it is”. It gives me the impression that banks are not interested in trying to prevent scammers from accessing your accounts. Perhaps the only solution is to divide your accounts between a number of different banks.

Your advice to readers is basically to be extremely careful. But the scammers are very clever and can convince you to let your guard down. An extra line of passwords could stop you being scammed – or at least limit it to one account. Thomas George Elliott