Bank Changes Man's Password
Posted by admin on August 27, 2008 · 9 Comments
Here’s an absurd little story from our friends across the pond.
BBC News reported that a man chose the password “Lloyds is pants” as his banking password. Apparently that’s some kind of British insult. Americans, don’t even try to figure out what it is supposed to mean. They are twisted over there. 
Anyway, the bank changed his password for him. He found out later that it had been changed to “no it’s not.”
The man was apparently irritated with Lloyds TSB over some type of free travel insurance product offered with his account. The password change didn’t do much to soothe him.
He then changed his password to “Barclays is better” and was banned from using the telephone system by a bank employee.
The bank later apologized for the password change and told the guy that the employee who changed his password no longer worked there. However, they told him that his password had to six characters or less.
He is reportedly still trying to come up with a password. I have a few suggestions that he might try:
- He could just go with “pants” – since it seems to be such a clever insult.
- Or he could go with “bullsh” – while that’s not actually a word, it might still be used to express his sentiments.
- Maybe “eatme” would also be something for him to consider. It’s five characters, but they just said it had to be six or under, so it should work.
- “Suckit” is precisely six characters.
There are plenty of six character options and I’m sure he’ll come up with something soon.
I vote for “suckit” but it won’t be much of a secret password if he uses that one, since we all know it
There’s the old reliable, unguessable “fungus” …
fungus is a great one Tim! Love it! You should become a password manager for sure.
I sure am thirsty.. I need to get over to the redneck bar and grill and have a round on the house. haha
What the heck does pants mean? I’m going to have to ask my British friend what it mean. I’ll come back tell ya when I find out.
haha Tammy: Let me know! I have a British friend that I would have asked, but he was asleep by the time I was writing this so I couldn’t call him. I mean I could have, but he might have been annoyed and called me pants or something. That’s why I feel entitled to call the British a twisted bunch, because I have a British friend. He thinks all Americans have fat asses and wear checky shorts (and he’s not wrong), and so I reserve the right to think all British people are toothless and peculiar. It’s all in good fun, just like when I talk about the crazy-ass Canadians!!!!
Good to see you again girl! I’ve missed you.
Oh, and I thought of another password possibility, although it is nowhere near as good as fungus.
solame is exactly six characters.
Ahhhh ha! I looked on http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pants
and found this:
(h) Adjective. British. Rubbish
(h) Your opinion is pants.
2. pants
rubbish, no good, bag of shite
you are pants
adjective. British slang. Not good; total crap; nonsense; rubbish; bad
I really love shit with an e on the end.
Story, as shown above is not ‘Absolutely true’ – My password was ‘Lloyds is Pants’ and got changed by an employee to ‘No its not’ – which I thought was quite funny. However I then wanted to change it back to ‘Lloyds is Pants’ and they said it wasn’t appropriate. So I tried ‘lloyds is Rubbish’ – again ‘No’. Next I suggested ‘Barclays is better’ but they didn’t like that much either – and told me it had to be one word. So I tried ‘censorship’. The rules then changed to it having to be six letters and ‘faeces’ was the only thing i could think of. At no time was i banned from using the telephone system – I just couldn’t access it with my chosen password. Seems someone from Australia has seen the story and made a film about it and put it on youtube. The representation is spookily close to what actually happened! Go to you tube and search for ‘lloyds is pants’ to see it!
Steve Jetley
Shropshire
Hey Steve, thanks for the real story! BBC apparently either didn’t know the whole thing or failed to report it as it exactly happened. I’ll look for the video. I still think fungus would be a great password.
Six characters or less? Really secure! Another bank would be a better choice, it seems – one that values the security of long passwords! :p
Mr. Corey: I agree. Six characters seems like it would make it quite vulnerable, especially if the word is in the dictionary. However, I see that this was a phone password, so Internet dictionary password crackers wouldn’t be able to be used. I guess you couldn’t call up and just start guessing every six letter word in the dictionary or they’d know something was up… or maybe not, since we are talking Lloyds here.