Make "My Account" accessible while overseas

[veteran]

This should be easy to fix.  For some reason users are blocked from "My Account" if they are trying to access it while out of Australia.  I spoke with AGL Help and the best they could offer was to suggest a VPN into Australia.  That is not practical.

I sometimes travel for months with my daughter house-sitting.  I cannot think why AGL would block "My Account" pages from overseas.  We may as well go back to paper bills.

[John-T]

Hello @veteran 

I would suggest that the problem that you are experiencing "may" be due to all the overseas scammers that are currently hitting Australians hard.

This is by no means a given but it is the only insight as an ex telco techie that I "can personally see" 

Regards

John 

[veteran]

Hi John-T,

As an ex telco techie and IT networks techie, I already thought it may
have been a feeble attempt to hinder scammers.  However, any scammer
worth her salt would have VPNs into Australia to work their wickedness.

Blocking overseas IP addresses may be a feel-good, "*Hey look, we are
doing security*".  However it only inconveniences customers and won't
hinder scammers.

Regards
Veteran

[John-T]

@veteran Hello again.

Like I said in my reply to you the cause "may"be  and by no means a given or aka granted.

There are many countries that do not care and are not cooperative with overseas law enforcement so a VPN would not be required in those countries.

I am basically going on a gut feel and a guess.

Anyway that is all if any help I can give you as I do not work for AGL so I can not answer definitively.

Just out of curiosity who did you work for as an IT network techie and were you based in the Sydney area shoot me a private message I may know you if you were

based in the Sydney area and worked for the same telco i was working for. I did a little on the network side in the early days and moved to being a field tech.

As for your general question that will need to be addressed by AGL.

Have a good day we are having a bit of rain in my area.

Regards

John

[David_AGL]

Hi @veteran 

Thanks for your question. Customer security is a core priority at AGL. We have recently introduced a number of security measures that may result in access being blocked under many circumstances. It's possible you've encountered a false positive that has resulted in your access being blocked in this instance.

If you'd like us to investigate this issue further, please send some details through to me via private message, including your account number and the location you were trying to access the site from (including the date, if possible) and I'll pass this along for our security team to look into.

[PQ]

It's some months later and this is still an issue: I can't log in to the app while overseas. The website works fine, but for the app I need to use a VPN to pretend to be in Australia. I'm not sure how this adds any security vs just being a hinderance, or worse (e.g., a customer might be forced to use a public computer instead of relying on their own device).

What is an overseas "hacker" going to do if they log into my account? Pay my bill?

[David_AGL · Accepted solution]

We've added a new Help page on how to Manage your account while overseas, including options  if you find yourself unable to access your My Account page. 

[veteran · Accepted solution]

David,

The last time we were in Europe about a month ago, we were able to easily log in to our account.  It seems to be working now.

Thank you very much.