Verizon’s slow road to password recovery

Gripe Line reader David writes in with what he calls “a minor gripe,” but one that exposes a hole in the typical corporate IT thought process: paying attention to how customers use their products.

David has been a longtime customer of Verizon Wireless’ mobile data services. “Originally I used a PC card, then a USB modem, and now a MiFi wireless device. I have no complaints about the service. The problem is with accessing my account online,” he says.

When David upgraded recently from a USB modem to the MiFi device, Verizon sent him an email asking him to log in to his account and check that all the details were correct.

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“To the best of my knowledge,” says David, “I’ve never successfully logged in to my Verizon account. I have no record of any passwords. So I enter my ‘mobile’ number. The site asks for a password, which I don’t know. So I click the link that says ‘Forgot Password?’ It tells me I haven’t set up a ‘secret question.’ (Of course, I haven’t. I’ve never been here before.) It then takes me to another page and asks me to verify the last four digits of my Social Security number. No problem, I think — I’ll enter it, they’ll validate it, and send me the password to the email address that they sent the original request to.”

Makes sense, right? But no. And this is where matters turn toward Kafkaesque bureaucracy.

“They tell me that they’ll be happy to send me the password as a text message to my cell phone,” he reports — but David’s MiFi device isn’t a cell phone.

In fact, that’s the only option Verizon offers for password recovery. This would probably be no problem if his account were for a mobile phone, but as Verizon must certainly know, it is not. “Apparently Verizon Wireless is unaware that their own customers are using things such as USB modems and MiFi devices that don’t offer text messaging,” quips David.

This should have been simple and quick, but David now has to undertake the annoying process of locating a service phone number, calling it, negotiating the phone menu, waiting on hold, and explaining his situation to customer service. Fortunately, David connected with someone helpful. Unfortunately, she had only one option.

“She offered to mail me a letter via the postal service that contained my password,” explains David. Email is not secure enough for Verizon, apparently. But printing out a letter and sending it through the mail is.

He adds, “The customer service representative also offered to verify all of the account information for me on the phone, so ultimately my questions were answered and my concerns resolved, but this still begs the question: Does anyone in Verizon’s customer service/IT arena have a clue?”

I sent David’s letter to Verizon to find out. Rather quickly, I heard back and learned that the company is well aware of this situation.

“Historically, most buyers of our data products were Verizon Wireless customers who added mobile PC cards and other wireless data devices onto existing accounts,” explains Tom Pica of Verizon Corporate Communications. “These had text messaging capabilities on the primary device. However, we are seeing more customers turn to our data devices, including our popular MiFi, thanks to the coverage and quality of our 3G network. I guess this is a good problem to have except for the issue you raise — and one that we are taking a look at remedying. For now, though, the solution is, yes — for important security reasons– that a customer who has a device that is not text-capable will instead receive a letter with the forgotten password information.”

It strikes me as rather funny that, because David is using a fast mobile solution, he has to do password recovery by snail mail. But David is losing his sense of humor on the matter. He urges the company to look a bit more quickly for a remedy.

“This is not a new issue,” David says. “I purchased my first data modem from Verizon in February 2004. I had no other accounts with Verizon Wireless at that time.”

Nor is writing to the Gripe Line his first attempt at calling the company’s attention to this admittedly minor irritation. He says, “I’ve complained to Verizon’s customer service folks about this problem, on average, once a year.”

He has his password now, and you can be certain he’ll be storing that somewhere safe so that he can access his account again, without waiting for a letter.

Got gripes? Send them to christina_tynan-wood@infoworld.com.

This story, “Verizon’s slow road to password recovery,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Christina Tynan-Wood’s Gripe Line blog at InfoWorld.com.