I would edit that pic to remove your name and that dodgy UFO site

The worst side effect of tabs and screenshots.

I would but I'm mobile only until tomorrow night!

A quick Google suggests that is what they do if you get the security questions wrong. Basically, if you couldn't correctly answer the security questions then you need to convince a human being that you are who you say you are. Obviously they can't just say "Yeah, you don't know the password but it's OK we'll let you in anyway".

That's actually really good. I suspect if you messed up your Yahoo! email, you'd just be stuffed.

http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/ ... er=1752770

Security questions such as the top 5 email addresses you send to?
Which date you first set up the account?
If this is the type of security questions you need to answer then there should really be some sort of notification when you first open the account.
Expecting you to recall this stuff is ridiculous for the casual user, even more so for a 70 year old with memory issues and a son that's was praying the account user was paying attention.

Not just a seventy year old with memory problems, I would have no chance on any of those questions.

Those are not the standard security questions. You only get those if you've failed the normal recovery process. It's an additional step to try and help people who've not done things correctly.

If the recovery email address is registered against the account, then that is all you need to know.
You can register a mobile phone number too. Again, if you have then that is all you need.
There are additional "password reminder" questions you can set up on the link I gave earlier.

Only if you fail all of these do they go on to attempt to help you by asking various details about your usage, who you are etc. which is then passed to an actual human being to look at. This is the same sort of process you'd go through if you lost your credit card and didn't know your security questions.

I take it you'd be happier if they just said "F*ck off" if you failed the automatic recovery, rather than trying to help?

Seriously; what more do you want from them? Remember, this is a free service!

They were the questions I was presented with in the first instance.

I'm ranting because it's hugely frustrating.
So we've set up another account, which was mind numbingly simple. Just don't ask me when...

Which suggests none of the recovery options had been set.

Which is something that no mention is made of when you're setting up the account.

I'm nagged frequently to make sure it's up to date

+1. Both hotmail and gmail both want mobile phones and security questions setting each time. I don't bother.

Same here. I suspect their motives.

I haven't seen one in a long time.
As my father never uses the browser based log in, why would he? He just wants an email address, not the Google 'experience'.

I've never had an email from either inviting me to update these settings. The last time I saw one was on the hotmail web page months ago.

Presumably you've done it now anyway? Otherwise, you know what might happen...