Bank's antifraud tactics stun security expert: How much do they know?

By Ellen Messmer
Network World
12/14/2009

Checking out of a Hilton hotel in London, security expert Roger Thompson
was told his Visa card had been declined due to suspicions it was
stolen, a situation that only got more disconcerting when he learned the
bank that issued the card had more personal information on him and his
family members than he ever imagined.

In a tale he relates in his blog, Thompson, chief research officer at
AVG, said he was compelled to answer questions on the phone from a
Wachovia Bank representative in its fraud-prevention division to prove
he was really Roger Thompson and not a credit-card thief checking out of
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It turns out Thompson's Visa card was flagged and suspended because he
hadn't told the bank he was travelling overseas, a requirement he didn't
know the bank had. But the "scary bit" about it all, he says, is that
the bank fraud-prevention representative didn't just ask him to give the
correct answers to questions such as his mother's maiden name, which he
had provided to the bank for fraud detection purposes, but also a host
of other questions about his daughter-in-law that he had no idea it
knew.

"I was in shock," Thompson says about what he found out that Wachovia
Bank had stored "at their fingertips" related to his daughter-in-law --
information Thompson thinks the bank may have found out through
Facebook.