A Pindrop on Identity Theft, Compliments of Sprint

In what has to be the lamest excuse for a security system, Sprint has it. I hope that their legal team has the $$ backing for a possible legal suit. But this is crazy –

I’m a former Sprint rep, I worked with this “3 questions” system numerous times.

I was shocked at the number of times I was able to access an account by simply guessing the answers. Fortunately I am an ethical person, but if I wasn’t I could’ve done a LOT of damage very easily.

In every question pertaining to cars, it was always three Luxury models plus one typical one (Peugeot, Porsche, Ferrari and Ford for example) which made them stupidly easy to guess.

In addition the “none of the above” answer for “which properties have you owned?” was correct 99% of the time.

On top of that, one thing the article does not mention is that you are only required to answer TWO of the three questions correctly to gain access to an account. The system won’t tell you which ones were right and wrong, but you need only answer TWO of three to get access.

This new process is more trouble than it’s worth if you ask me and I’d like to find the person who came up with it and give him a good punch to the head.

But don’t blame Sprint for all of this, some people truly don’t give a crap about the security on their accounts. When asking customers to setup a 6-digit pin number most just wanted to set it to 111111 or 123456. Pretty secure huh?

The Consumerist has had full coverage here and here. We recommend you read both articles.

Now if you are in the market for cellular deals we would recommend that you forego Sprint for the foreseeable future. Not that their services are bad, but you as a consumer cannot afford the risk of identity theft that the Sprint security system could open you up for. A cheap cell rate can never offset the damage that can be done to your credit history.