HALIFAX BANK, I WOULD APPRECIATE YOUR COMMENTS ON THIS

Oh Alison, you are just sounding quite silly, but I'm guessing that's what you mean to do. Ah, must not be much interesting on TV then . . .

Men could get offended by not being called Gentlemen though.

Often you have a Mens section ina shop or web site and a Ladies, not Gemtlmen.

There are many things that work the other way. Ladies swimming at local pools.

Lots of men prefer to be reffered to as Gentlemen but they seldom are but you look how many times women are reffered to as Ladies.

I think you are over reacting.

My bank account is in joint names but not once has the cheque book been sent to my husaband always comes to me even though he pays into it.

ALL of our banks and utilities do us as Mr X Sardine and Mrs Y Sardine. Some of them put me first - Mrs Y Sardine and Mr X Sardine. Which is because I do all of this stuff and they transfer my name first as it is written first . Good.

I have never received a letter to Mr and Mrs X Sardine and that would get a from me in a big way. It is the correct way of doing it if you are my Gran, the normal and standard way these days is to give each person their own initial.

So YAR boo sucks to the "suck it up" crew.

ALSO I find it bizarre that the Halifax have changed to this? So their old system did it normally and they have put in a new system with 1950s coding? Why on earth would they do that? Ludicrous.

Good for you for changing accounts, I would too.

Just change accounts and tell them why. It's ridiculous that financial institutions persist with this nonsense.

I am having problems with the National Trust, which insists on dealing with DH as he is the first named member. The subscription goes out of a joint account!

Halifax are crap - I agree you should take your business elsewhere and write to their head office to explain why, but I don't suppose they'll give a damn. We banked with them very briefly about four years ago (pre-takeover by Lloyds) and they managed to mess up everything about the account, so we moved away again sharpish. I complained (they were racist as well as sexist and I absolutely hit the roof) and didn't even get an acknowledgement.

I don't entirely understand the titles on bank cards thing. I'm Ms DogIncident for all purposes, and I did ask when I got my Nationwide account whether I could just be Initials DogIncident, but they said I had to have a title on the card.

I also bank with Halifax, but my bank correspondence has both our initials on it (I got a statement yesterday addressed to "Mr AB and Mrs CD Marriedname", so their excuse is clearly BS IMO.

I don't know. I am pretty feminist, but I just don't get wound up about titles. It is fairly low on my list of issues affecting women and it doesn't bother me to see Mr and Mrs on an envelope.

However, I do defend your right to be addressed as you wish.

I wonder why British banks even think the title should be on the bank card. I have credit cards from 3 different countries, none of them have any titles, just my name.

Can't believe the other posters saying you should suck it up because you took your dh's surname. I took mine too, for the simple reason that I have no relationship with my father and would rather hold the name of a man I chose rather than one whose sperm happened to be involved in my creation.

I had a related problem with HSBC, in that when I changed my name on my bank account, they changed my title to Mrs and told me it 'wasn't possible' to remain as Ms. Still fuming about that nearly ten years on. Although admittedly still with HSBC and still with Mrs on my bank card. Grr (at them and myself).

MrsClown, good for you (and MrClown), and thank you for your years of activism. I hope you're going to write a very angry letter to them explaining exactly why you're taking your custom elsewhere.

Katisha I find most people talk rubbish about 'married' women and not being able 'to do' things!

A prat at work told me that only divorced women can call themselves Ms.
Another prat told me only female barristers are allowed to retain their own name.

My father thought that even though I've kept mine/his surname 'legally' I was Mrs DH Surname and wrote me a cheque in that name. He then, a short while later put me on his car insurance as Mrs DH Surname because 'legally' that's my name! I explained both times, 'No Dad, my name is legally the name you gave me at birth!' I think he's trying to tell me he doesn't like me sharing his name anymore .

Quite frankly the whole business of banks and names is fraught. They just hide behind "The Computer".

When I was trying to change banks because Barclays were being difficult about me keeping a long-standing account in my original name alongside a joint account with DH in married name, I rang round quite a few.

One of them actually told me that married women "weren't allowed" to open accounts in their maiden names.

Ironically at that time, I got the most sense from Halifax and opened an account with them.

I hate it too! I got married 20 + years ago and was fairly young. Since I was still a student it made sense to go with the convention and do all adult paper work in my married name (my maiden name is also perpetually got wrong, even sometimes being given the wrong first letter! I got a bit tired of being told I didn't exist when I was standing there).
But I like my first name, it may be ordinary and not at all rare and everyone (except for university) can spell it, but it's mine.

We have a joint account with Halifax and letters are addressed to Mr D Surname and Mrs C Surname. The name on our account (on the chequebook etc) is D and Mrs C Surname. So the person you spoke to is clearly talking bollocks.

I think you were ill-advised by whomever told you that you couldn't revert back to your maiden name after your first divorce. It wouldn't have cost you a penny.

But back to your post - yes it does seem a bit silly that Halifax are unable to deal with the variances of modern marriage and the requests of a modern independent woman.

Initials that is - we have the same surname

We bank with Natwest and our joint account is Mrs T and Mr M.... My name is always first

That's 1 of the reasons I've stuck with them

I bank with Halifax and have a joint account with my DH. Our letters come Ms PM Piggy and Mr DH Hissurname.

I notified them of my marriage and my wish to change from miss to ms and they just changed my title and changed their records to say married. If the system wasn't confused by this then surely it can't be by addressing you by your initial in joint correspondence.

Natwest on the other hand really pissed me off and refused to change from miss to without seeing an official document to reflect ms. Thankfully when I applied for my driving licence at 17 I ticked the ms box!

I'm saddened that people are arguing that because you took your dh's surname you should have to accept such sexist treatment.

I won't bank with the Halifax while they have this policy. Are they part of the Bank of Scotland? I'll stike them off my list too.

I'm still Miss MyName on our joint account with RBS. Think I might even be listed first. I'm Ms MyName everywhere else.

for old fashioned read sexist. nothing 'correct' about it, just sexist.

When we set up a joint account, for various reasons my husband decided to move from his bank to mine (Abbey, now Santander). As a result we get our statements addressed to Mrs X sportsfanatic and Mr Y sportsfanatic. Our cheque books also have my name first. It has been this way for 38 years at least.
We didn't care how it was set up so they simply put the name of the first person to open the account first. We have another account which my husband opened first and I joined and that has Mr Y first and Mrs X second.

So this idea that banks are doing it the proper way is a load of old cobblers. It can be done any which way you want.

I hate been referred to by my husbands first name!!! It has never happened to me via Lloyds by the way. Only the Halifax have tried to pull this crap on me, especially when I was told "the woman has to be the second mortgage applicant". Oh yeah, when I'm the one paying for it????? . Good luck changing banks Op.

I'll need to dig out a letter to check. If it's just happened I'll bet the take-over by Lloyds has something to do with it, they've cocked-up so many other things to do with Halifax...

Go to Nationwide. I took my DH's surname but they address our Joint accounts as Mr X MarthasHarbour and Mrs Y MarthasHarbour. I really like it actually (and no i dont care that i am second!!)