Sunday, March 28, 2010

ePass Canada … yet another tiresome web site …

I’m not impressed by the programmers at the Canada Revenue Agency. I’ve struggled with this web site in the past and it is no better today than it has ever been.

In order to file your taxes electronically, you need a 4 digit code. They used to mail this to me each year, and for the first time, this year they have not. Which means that I need to go onto my government account to fetch my code.

Sounds simple enough, but this account is one of those I almost never access, so I forget the password … it must have one upper case, one lower case and one digit. Mediocre security at best, but certainly good enough to keep me from guessing my own password.

Now, they have a simple 3-question recovery process, which did not work for me. I tried every combination of answers I could think of, then went through and tried creating a new ePass (they do not have a password reset process, so you must pollute the system with a new ePass whenever you get stuck – what idiot thought that one up?)

I got frustrated and closed the browser window, only to sign back in and try something else. After a moment, it started complaining that I had pressed a button twice or opened multiple windows, which is not supported. What bozo thought that one up? It’s the fricken Web … who cares where it is accessed from so long as it is the same host and the appropriate security questions are answered correctly?

And suddenly, it arbitrarily decides that I have had too many attempts at something (it does not actually define whether it was the failed creation of new accounts, which started happening because it said I had two browsers opened, which I did not at that time) so it says I am now suspended for 24 hours.

So let me get this straight … the programmers'’ incompetence at creating a usable web site has now blocked me from filing my taxes for 24 hours. Duh …

No comments: