It could be that a lot of this stuff is outsourced, and the shopping site doesn’t actually make decisions about its security architecture. Making a male account could be revealing.
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Definitely some cut and paste going on:
https://www.reeds.com/pandora/Safe-Shopping-and-Security.html
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If it were being delivered in person; or by somebody who isn’t a helldesk slave for some impersonal corporate entity, I’d be inclined to read the condescension, failure to actually answer your question in order to focus on bloviating about what they find interesting, and general unpleasantness to suggest mansplaining; but in this context it seems less likely.
Unless you have particularly good luck; a support contract where “Escalate this to engineering” actually means something; or similar miracles, helpdesk responses tend to be cut and paste canned company line assembled with all the care of a fairly naive keyword search.
You sent in a comment that triggered keyword ‘security’, Tony’s eyes glazed over and he cut-and-pasted some of the things filed under ‘security’ in the handbook; following the time-honored unhelpful-help pattern:
Notice how paragraph one is boastful puffery about how cutting edge and with it FooCorp is: ‘encrypt’, ‘SSL’, ‘very latest standards’ ‘audit procedures’; and then ‘your information is scrambled’(restated in drool-proof terms because the audience isn’t expected to understand the puffery, just get the sense that it’s real serious and professional).
Paragraph two is the mostly-meaningless-rituals-you-can-engage-in-for-reassurance; hence giving you advice that has nothing whatsoever to do with password security and would make much more sense if this were a phishing problem; but provides some steps you can do to feel as though you are in some way in control of the rampant insecurity online.
Paragraph three is the moral thrust, where FooCorp emphasizes that in addition to the virtue-ethics excellence they demonstrated in paragraph one; they also possess goodness; and have, along with (a majority, therefore clearly trustworthy) of their counterparts; have a sincere and heartwarming interest in your security; never mind the fact that the DMA is a house of thieves; and no privacy policy has anything to do with password security whatsoever.
It’s an atrociously unhelpful response; but it hews so closely to the template for BSing the customer (brag about company, provide customer with some way to feel a sense of control over whatever they are bothering you about, assure customer that your caring is equal to your competence for primate warm-and-fuzzies) that I find it hard to suspect it of being mansplaining.
(That said, the template for BSing the customer is essentially a template for dealing with someone whose concerns aren’t really worth your time or attention; who is certainly less knowledgeable than you; and who really just needs their silly emotions soothed so they can stop being hysterical about whatever it is they are worked up about. So it’s about as mansplainy as you could possibly be; except for the fact that male and indeterminate customers get the same treatment.)
So, yes and no. I strongly doubt that Tony was allowed enough personal latitude(and time, gotta close those tickets and make those numbers!) to actually mansplain to you of his own volition and based on his masculine wisdom in the ways of the intertubes; but the psychological model of ‘the consumer’ typically employed in “customer service” is pretty similar to the imagined ignorant, emotional, and generally in need of a good talking to from someone sensible, woman to whom the mansplainer forever imagines he is mainsplaining to.
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Good use of the Manly Man Name Generator!
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I have Chikara to thank for those two.
Thought about starting a “What is your wrestler name?” thread, but then thought it would just be me posting to it, or worse, could end up with an e-fed. 
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Not mansplained. Just 'splained. Unless you think that Bass Pro Shop wouldn’t send that same text. I think they would … But. Who knows maybe you are on to something.
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Good catch! I do note that the site I’m basing this one is indeed on the list of “Family Brands” for the second site. One of my partners pays a lot more attention to the interconnectedness of these companies. I wonder if they could link Reeds into the connection diagram.
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Lots of possibilities. Plagerism, maybe. Or verbiage from an e-commerce provider or other vendor in common.
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Is that Paul Ryan with a duck’s head?
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Ya, you bet’cha.
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It suits him. He should keep it.
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I gotta say, it’s a huge improvement…
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Brock’s a caterer.
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It’s an expression meaning:
“Anticipating that things will be thrown at me, I’ve already ducked behind some cover.”
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To me, it’s always so frustrating that those standard boilerplate answers are never QUITE relevant to your question. I was playing online poker when my browser suddenly was hijacked to another site. So I sent a message to the developer and got back a standard response about “not clicking on suspicious ads”. I’d folded my hand and wasn’t even touching my computer when it happened, which I’d made clear.
Then they have the gall to send a “how did we do?” survey. To which I replied “Your site is insecure and no one there gives a flying fuck.”
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OK, so I sent in a reply to the reply …
Hello,
I previously contacted your site regarding your amazingly poor password policy. I explained how this policy leads your users to create pathetically weak passwords, due to built in restrictions. Upon receiving the boilerplate “Customer concerned about security” email, I almost canceled both my existing order and my membership. I will hold off on that option for now, but I do feel that your reply was condescending and did not even remotely address my concern. (I pondered rather or not it was mansplaining, but decided it was simply a canned response, so it’s just talking down to the customer, regardless of their gender.)
To be clear: I’m not concerned about the technologies you have in place with your site. I am a web developer, and while security is not my specialty, I can tell you far more about security procedures than you’d ever want to know. My concern is with your LIMITATIONS on secure passwords for accounts. These things are NOT the same. Encryption standards and “cutting edge technology” doesn’t mean a thing when you’re forcing your customers to have weak passwords.
Please do give serious consideration to changing your policy to allow customers to use better passwords, with more than 10 characters, and allowing special characters.
Thank you,
XXXXX XXXXXXXXX
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Huh.
“Duck head” isn’t quite how I’d describe him, but very close.
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Same. Doesn’t require sexism. It just looks like the person on the other end assumes you the ser are a moron. Not helped by the fact there are TON of morons and as a commerce site they kinda have to default to baby stepping their customers.
That was magical to read. Thanks for sharing.
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