to think that one plus of same sex relationships must be to be able to deal with stupid phone security?

[AliceInSandwichLand]

Yes, I know identity security is important, and I know identity fraud is wrong and I am not really being serious with my thread title and I don't want to offend anyone, but....
I have just, for the umpteenth time in my life, spent twenty minutes trying to deal with a simple administrative problem (in this case, getting the car booked in for a brake fluid change before the lease purchase agreement runs out) which clearly does not involve sensitive private information. I have all the documentation in front of me, but because DH's name is on the account and mine isn't, they are refusing to deal with me because of 'his security', even though I am phoning from the home number and could give any information they asked for and it's mostly my car anyway. DH can't speak to them because he's overseas on business in a completely different time zone. DH is not a controlling abuser, but just happens to be the one who sorted out the car finance because he is interested in cars and I am not. I am sure that if anyone had asked him whether his spouse should be authorised on the account he would have said yes, but as it is, now it's suddenly come up as an issue, he can't even authorise me to speak to them via an email. Fortunately this particular problem has been resolved, as the finance people agreed to speak to the garage directly although not to me, but I am left thinking, as I have done many times before, that if I were in a lesbian relationship, while of course I would have to deal with prejudice etc, it would have the huge advantage that I would be able to pretend to be my partner on the phone for simple household matters like this without being outed by obviously having a voice of a different gender from my partner.
Disclaimer: as at start of post am absolutely not trying to be offensive in any way at all or advocate a life of crime, but surely I am not the only person who gets annoyed by unexpected security complicating simple household admin?

I'm afraid I don't even understand your title. And where does the same sex relationship come into anything?

Get your partner to authorise you to speak on his behalf. Job done.
Pretending to be someone else and doing stuff with their account is a criminal offence.

I know what you mean but it is really annoying to be rung all the time with 'Hello, is that Mrs Catsize?'. Erm, which one? .
And we have been mixed up on credit history reports, causing umpteen problems getting a mortgage etc.
To be honest, the biggest advantage is being able to go into the same changing room at a swimming pool.

I think this tbh. I have had sooo many times when I cannot do something simple because the account has DHs name on. When we moved last I shouted at all utility companies etc unt they put BOTH names on the account.

Well, YANBU for being annoyed by the irritating security thing, but it has honestly never occured to me that lesbians have it better in this regard!

I often thought about getting a male friend to play the part of my XH when trying to sort out my phone contract. They would never have know it wasn't him and XH wouldn't have cared. I was even authorised to make decisions on the contract anyway, just not transfer the number to my own name and account.

A lot of the problem is down to companies misunderstanding the Data Protection legislation. I wanted to pay a bill for DH as he was abroad and it was going to be overdue. I phoned up the company and the member of staff kept saying I can't give you any information etc. ( I don't blame them I am sure this is what they have been told to say). I pointed out that I didn't need any information as I had the bill in front of me and was going to supply them with my card details to pay it. She finally accepted payment from me.

However, if DH and I had split up and I was ringing to do some digging about his financial position pre-divorce I could understand why he would go ballistic with the Company if they told me anything. So I can understand why they err on the side of caution.

Yeah, in theory they would eliminate almost everything that has ever bothered me about relationships. It's the practical test I'd fail.

If you do business with companies that have web chat I suppose you could abuse this facility as you can answer the security questions and an obviously male/female voice isn't an impediment to getting things sorted. Obviously DW and I do not do this all the time, that would be terrible.

I really don't understand why they can't have accounts with two names on. Thames water are pretty good, the water account does happen to be in my husband's name but I'm down as a secondary account holder so they happily talk to me. But other places... Computer says no. Pain in the bum. The Thames water example shows it is possible but for most places it really isn't as simple as "getting your partner to authorise you" they just won't do it, or your partner has to authorise you every time you call which is obviously ridiculous, there's no system for "always allow Mr / Mrs Blueberry to talk on my behalf".

Yabu because the company needs to know they're dealing with the leaseholder. But I've been in that situation myself so I know how annoying it is.

But you would be annoyed if they gave your dh details to anybody so I think yabu we have just moved and dh accidentally set the rent dd for his account rather than mine so because of a difference in paydays it resulted in his account going massively overdrawn I have just come back from withdrawing money out of mine to put into his to sort it out and they couldn't give me any details either other than the dd had been paid we share our finances by the way and both use both cards just we both pay different direct debits.

Oh I always just drag on the nearest male friend/relative to pretend to be DH.

Or just say "yes this is MR x" in a pissed off "are you saying I sound girlie??" tone.

I've had that when doing student call centre work really throws you

My Auntie just pretends to be her partner as she knows all his details. She says people are too embarrassed to ask why she sound like a women! (Only does this for things like Sky and British Gas, not important things like banks).

I did point out you can authorise someone else on most of these things (I pay for our phone and internet but have authorised DH to deal with stuff, and visa versa for British Gas) but she says she forgets until she needs to sort something out and then it's too late.

X post bet it was your auntie gun

You all know calls can be recorded, right

Feds don't worry me sparky dude! or something like that

Thank you to all supportive replies so far : )
Of course I know IABU really and I know (as I said) pretending to be someone else is illegal. But I still think the cumulative hours wasted by all those innocent householders dealing with all this is a shame. There ought to be a simple standard way of arranging authorisation at the time these accounts are set up. It's not an uncommon problem. Yes, I know that too would be a problem when relationships go bad, though..Thank you, Catsize, for the insight into what I'm missing. Of course if we were both Mrs AliceIn, then I wouldn't even be lying when they asked me if that was who I was!

I've done it when DH was away on business and something needed sorting urgently.
I lowered my voice a bit but it was bloody buoys they didn't believe me, I got transferred to someone else who asked lots of questions, some were very odd
" which football team do you support?" - I don't
" where to you do met of your food shopping " - my wife does it
Obviously meant to trip me up but I knew all the answers, probably better than DH would so I was able to sort it out. I know it was naughty but if added DH would say he made the call anyway.

I partly disagree OP - it sometimes has it's positive points when companies insist on talking to the person who is the named account holder.

I'm particularly thinking of Talktalk who we have our internet, landline and 2 mobiles (mine and DDs) from. Their call centre leaves me wanting to saw off my arm with a rusty spoon and then stick my head in the oven but as DP is the named person he has to deal with them! Result!

Oh, and I do have authorisation and a password for most things but we forgot this one thing and it really needed to be sorted
Still naughty I know

Good point, Norbert. Also useful when dealing with sexist garages (though in this instance garage were v helpful and not at all sexist, actually.)

Once I pretended to be DH. When they asked me if I was "DH's male name" I said yes. I could tell the guy didn't believe me but his only option was to call me a liar.
We had a crazy situation the other day. DH's name is on the credit card but I do all the paying, (and spending). I rang them up to make a payment. DH was with me and I handed the phone over for him to answer the security questions. One of the questions was "what is the CC limit" so he asked me and I told him and the guy on the phone said that he had failed the security questions because he had been prompted. We had to hang up, ring back and start all over again.

There is a way of sorting this out.

The main account holder asks for the other person (wife, husband, partner etc) to be added to the list of authorized people for talking about the account.

DP's done this with Virgin Media so I can contact them if there's a problem and he's not around, especially in relation to broadband as I know more about it anyway.

My DP has pretended to be me a few times and no one has even questioned it! There's no way they could think his voice is female but as he knows the security question answers there's nothing they can do.

British Gas have so far called three times to get 'feedback' on a phone call DH made to them. Except that he didn't make it, I did. But they have the number recorded as DH's, so they won't talk to me, nor apparently believe me when I tell them that they won't find him at home during the day...