The Return of the Damn Dongle

HSBC Malaysia, in their undoubted wisdom, have decided we poor internet bankers must have a security generator of "one time use" passcodes. Great, another lumbering gadget to carry around. Those of you who remember dongles will understand my irritation, especially since we use a number of banks, and always use the net to transfer and service the accounts. Not only that, but HSBC did not send me the promised letter to permit collection, and only offered a delivery service to corporate bankers, not us poor personal bankers. No wonder I came across this picture on the net, and regret that I cannot attribute it properly since I have mislaid the link.

Anyway I emailed them, they replied please write or telephone. I telephoned, I was told to email. This was a bit confusing, so we talked longer, eventually I was told that the easiest way was to go into any HSBC bank in Malaysia, where they would happily give me device. Can I get it through my HSBC Singapore Bank, so close to my work. Oh, NO!

So, unwillingly and in spite of the bad weather, we drove over the causeway yesterday. Usually we use the second crossing and disappear up the Expressway to KL. But a new experience is always fun, right? I had heard of the jams but thought that on an non-holiday day it would be reasonably quiet. How wrong I was. But at least after the safety of Singapore we were pleased to be given a warning of what to expect in the multitudinous signs.

Then we had try and find the HSBC, well, in fact we quickly found this place but it was reasonable only for breakfast rather than banking.* So we had to return to the road and search; Alice was driving and in fact managed to spot it quite quickly although we then had to drive around a huge loop to get to it.

However I was surprised that it was relatively painless to actually get the damn thing, and indeed once home the activation was similarly simple, but why is it necessary, we have double passwords on the account, surely that is enough.

And of course there is still that painful queue to pass before we can get back to Singapore. So almost an entire day wasted to get something I do not really want, and the time taken prevented a decent walk round the bird park or similar. Life can be a nuisance, can it not?

*This is a lie, the real restaurant in actually in KL! I never promised total truth, did I?