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?

Fry, that's the way to sort it out. All this pretending to be someone else to get access to their account is still a criminal offence. At your own peril if you keep doing it.

Of course ideally you'd pre-authorise access. But that doesn't help when you didn't know beforehand there would be a problem and they won't accept the only method of authorisation that the account holder is physically able to provide at the time, as in this instance - I don't think I was very clear above, but I specifically asked if he could send them an email, and they said no, he had to speak to them in person to authorise it.

Agreed Alice.
When the account holder in uncontactable or can't provide the info and its urgent the that's not the same as someone doing it regularly.
We have made sure we have me set up as authorised on everything now but we missed one which is why we both decided it was the best option and how could they prove fraud if DH insisted it was him that made the call?

My dad (blokeish bloke in his 50s) used to the speak to various people pretending to be my ill grandma in her 80s. She gave him permission, I hasten to add. He did a fantastic womanly voice.

I've put on a mans voice for this purpose before

Yanbu.

The problem lies with companies not being able to have TWO people holding an account. Bank can allow joint account holders. Two people can jointly own a car!

I've had that with broadband providers and they say it's not possible to have two account holders for security. I say if we can both hold the bank account that must be lazy piffle!

I'm not sure I'd describe this as a 'huge advantage' of same sex relationships. What a weird thing to say. It's a bit like saying it must be so much better to have your mum be widowed than your dad because it'd easier to sort out her affairs for her. I mean, yeah, it would be, for the two or three times a year you might need to fool someone in a call centre - but it's still a difficult place to be.

mackerel, I can't speak for the OP but my interpretation of her post was that it was lighthearted and she has said 'one plus' in her title, which suggests she acknowledges that life is usually more difficult for ss couples but not in this scenario - a bit like my changing room example.

That was my interpretation too.

I'd say it's more of a disadvantage.

One of my colleagues was in a same sex relationship, which ended acrimoniously after a number of years. Her former partner used her knowledge of my colleague's life to run up all sorts of debts in colleague's name. Colleague is still dealing with the fall out.

Yikes. Good point Paddy.

Recently I rang up my boyfriends phone company for him to sort out some payment confusion. I used my normal voice, and just said I was 'joe bloggs'... There was definite confusion from their end, but as I knew all his details and security questions they couldn't prove I wasn't who I said I was.... Just a really feminine version of my boyfriend!

I've done the impersonation thing before now, when needs must, with the ok of the account holder.

Someone's said it's a criminal offence to do this. I don't believe it is. If you were to do this with the purpose of theft or fraud, then of course theft or fraud is a criminal offence. I don't think just pretending to be someone else is. What law does that break?

And don't worry about the voice. You get a bit of a hesitation but no-one asks. I've actually got a married couple as clients and weirdly enough on the phone he sounds like a woman, and she sounds like a man. When they just say they are calling from X business your brain pings up their surname and you have to be awfully careful about saying Mr or Mrs inappropriately. I've had whole conversations with the man before now, thinking I'd been speaking to the woman.

It's one of the very few criminal breaches of the data protection act to blag information about somebody else.

DW is the primary account holder with our bank, but they have my mobile for text balances. So they ring me, ask to speak to her, refuse to speak to me, then refuse to speak to her if she's present because it's not her phone. Apparently I'm not allowed full internet access either, only to the current a/c. They can fuck right off on that one.

I could get away with it really, as most people assume I'm my husband anyway, he has a more traditionally female name. I don't generally, though, I leave him to deal with it. But I probably could if I had to.

Mackerel, I did say in both my opening and closing paragraphs that I had no wish to cause any offence to anyone, as well as specifically acknowledging prejudice, and Catsize is absolutely right in her interpretation of what I meant to convey. As it happens, my dad died less than a year ago and I have indeed been sorting my widowed mum's affairs out for her - without resorting to impersonating her at all, now I come to think of it. You're right, it is a difficult place to be. I apologise if I caused you offence by the use of the phrase 'huge advantage', which I used without much thought in the middle of my rant.

Disgrace, I love that their rules prevent them from speaking to either of you! That's ridiculous!