Barclaycard UK’s Registration Process – a User’s Nightmare

Barclaycard kindly sent me a new credit card today. After jumping through hoops to get it activated – I won’t get diverted by that farce but do they really have to try and upsell at every opportunity? – I then went to register with their online banking.

Ok, this doesn’t look too bad to start with. The text is a bit small, and maybe there’s a bit too much, but we’re ok so far. Next up, entering my card details.

I guess they have to be super-sure it’s really me who is registering, but credit limit? Is that bit necessary? Now some contact details.

You’ll notice that email has little blue marks, whereas mobile doesn’t. I didn’t notice this at first and ended up supplying my mobile number just in case, but it turns out that mobile is the only optional field in a form of 16 fields. May as well have just made it required, Barclaycard.

Ok, so far, we’ve only seen minor issues. Now comes the really bad bit, entitled “Security Details”. And these are *really* secure. Super secure. Machiavellian in their security, in fact.

At first glance this doesn’t look too bad. Username, fine. Passcode, well that’s like a password right? Memorable word? Par for the course on banking sites. But…

Noooo! I have to include some random numbers!

Whyyyyyy?! So I have to come up with a totally arbitrary number that can’t be mixed with symbols or letters? So it was like a password, just utterly rubbish.

Grrrrr! My memorable word has some random restrictions on it to make it even harder to find a really good one! And then, as a final “screw you”:

A logic puzzle to work out whether you should or shouldn’t tick the boxes.

I’m not gonna get this time back, Barclaycard! I’ll remember this!