Statement by email - Rant

[surveyor]

If I've given an organization my email address to provide statement why the fk do they then send me an email to tell me to log in to view the statement.

This means of course that I've got to remember which email address, or worse username that I've used and also the password which was probably changed due to some perverse password rule which is inversely proportional to how much risk there is if that password is compromised.

Why not just attach the bloody statement to the email as a pdf... grrr.

[carreauchompeur]

Yes yes a thousand times yes.

[Ari]

To ensure that it is you that is reading it, not whoever happens to be at your PC when the email comes in.

[surveyor]

Ari said:

To ensure that it is you that is reading it, not whoever happens to be at your PC when the email comes in.

I don't give a flying fk is some saddo wants to read my statement showing the history of my dartford crossing account. It's not like it's my banking information......

[krisdelta]

+ alot. Yup - we're looking at you Vodafone. Password reset: Every. Single. Month. Because it has to have letters, numbers AND a special character to protect me from people seeing I have to phone india on a regular basis when I should be relaxing at home during the evenings, weekends and sometimes if I'm really lucky in the middle of the night. No, I can't upgrade or cancel online - only view a graph and do 5 clicks to see a PDF of my bill. Via a UI designed by, I can only presume someone who hates people intensely.

[jonamv8]

Funny a client of ours wanted logins from a mail to view nonsensitive monthly reports. We directed them away from this and told them to just attached the bloody PDF

[droopsnoot]

And on a similar matter, certain forum software that sends me an email to tell me I've got a new private message, but doesn't include the text of the message, forces me to connect to the forum to see what it is. There's no point using it to create traffic to the forum, as I'm already a member of it, which is how I get PMs in the first place. All it does it make it inconvenient.

[PurpleMoonlight]

You think that's bad.

I run 35 different payrolls. When HMRC send an email stating there is a message to read they don't say which payroll it relates to. So I have to log on to all in turn until I find it.

Would it be that difficult for them to put the last three digits of the PAYE reference or something?

[droopsnoot]

PurpleMoonlight said:

Would it be that difficult for them to put the last three digits of the PAYE reference or something?

Suggest it. I would wager their answer will include "for security reasons". In fact this is worse than mine, it occurred to me that even though I am a member of these forum sites, they're trying to get me to the site to serve yet more adverts to me in the hope of a fraction of a penny click-through. You'd like to think HMRC aren't doing that yet.

[P-Jay]

It's more than likely to ensure they conform to the DPA - Yes it's a bit of a faf sometimes, and it seems as if they're being overly protective of your seemingly worthless information but legislation doesn't allow for judgement calls and whilst OP doesn't care who knows when he used the Dartford Crossing, we live in a world where some people shred their gas bills to try to ensure 'they' don't find out they use NPower.

[wiggy001]

P-Jay said:

It's more than likely to ensure they conform to the DPA - Yes it's a bit of a faf sometimes, and it seems as if they're being overly protective of your seemingly worthless information but legislation doesn't allow for judgement calls and whilst OP doesn't care who knows when he used the Dartford Crossing, we live in a world where some people shred their gas bills to try to ensure 'they' don't find out they use NPower.

It's quite obvious really. As is the use of a password vault for those struggling with remembering passwords.

[sanguinary]

PurpleMoonlight said:

You think that's bad.

I run 35 different payrolls. When HMRC send an email stating there is a message to read they don't say which payroll it relates to. So I have to log on to all in turn until I find it.

This. I feel your pain.

There is a way around it though if you've got your own domain. I set an email address up for each client and use that as point of contact for HMRC. Something like this format: [e-mail] . That way, I know immediately who they are referring to.

Also, some payroll software (I use Moneysoft) has the ability of downloading notices from HMRC, so you could just rely on that.

(If you take my advice; that'll be £50 please)