Yesterday I decided to activate a credit card online rather than waste time dodging attempts to be "up-sold" via phone. Meep! I haven't been this creeped out since plugging my name into ZabaSearch five years ago.
The first two screens had me input the card number, security code, expiration date and standardized information for verification. In other words, the usual--no big deal there. But then I hit two rounds of multiple-choice questions that asked me to select the correct answer for items such as "What county did you reside in in 1994?" or "Which of these phone numbers did you previously have?" or "Which of these schools did you attend?" In all but two cases, at least one of the answers was bang-on...and the jury's out on one of those simply because I don't recall phone numbers from a decade ago.
On one hand, my parents picked a name weird enough to bring my odds of triggering a false positive on some post-9/11 watch list to statistical zero. But on the other, I can't help but feeling a little too much transparency in my personal history just now. If Big Brother is a real person and actually watching, I'm betting he's a corporate suit, not a G-Man.
