Citibank
My first call was to Citibank. I started with my standard question: "How can I be assured that my online banking transactions are secure and private?" The call center rep said that Citibank uses 128-bit encryption, which "verifies that you have a maximum level of security." End of answer. Pause. I asked what kinds of protections Citibank had in place for making sure that it would really be me logging onto my account. "I'm sorry," he said, "but I don't understand your question."

We had a language barrier, he and I. The call-center rep, in India, was not a native English speaker. The call went poorly, and I have no way of knowing whether this was because of our communications barrier or simply because Citibank hadn't instructed him how to answer questions about security. I repeated my question a couple times, and he finally said, "Let me look into that, ma'am." I waited on hold more than a minute, and when he came back, he told me I could go online and read all about online banking. "All the information is there, ma'am," he said politely.

I kept prodding. I asked if Citibank offered tokens or did device recognition of some sort, and he told me I could log on with a user name and password.

"At any computer where I punch in my user name and password, I'll have full access to my account?" I asked.

"Yes, ma'am, anyplace you have Internet access," he answered. He finally did say that in certain situations I would be asked extra security questions, but he wouldn't or couldn't explain when that happened or why. I asked if it was unusual for him to field calls about security, and he said yes. I finally ended the call in frustration.