Grrr sexist letter from well known car servicing centre

[Trygowithflow]

I got super angry about this, possibly overreacting?

I'm sole driver in our house. My name is on all paperwork. Every year I take car for service and mot on my own, no dh present. Why then has my dh just received a letter reminding him of annual mot from a place he's never been in? Can little wives not be trusted to do such Mans Work? Seriously what century are we? Livid.
Would take bat home and never use again but they've given husband a discount so probably will. Any scathing comment suggestions welcomed when I do take MY car in?

I pay all the virgin bills from my account but as the account is in my dh name they will never talk to me, I now claim I am Mr Kevin hairmumscaremum whenever I call they always ask me to confirm who I am, but as I am adamant my name's Kevin and I have all the account info they have to talk to me

I wouldn’t get worked up about this if it was a one off. DS keeps getting letters addressed to “Mrs Malename Surname” from the DVLA so admin errors do happen.

I pay all the virgin bills from my account but as the account is in my dh name they will never talk to me

🙄

That’s not the same at all. You’re not the account holder, that’s why they can’t speak with you. They usually do though if they get permission from the account holder. This is also true when the account holder is a woman and her male partner tries to deal with the account.

Nothing sexist about it at all.

Perhaps bookies do have female names or titles as part of their algorithms to raise account scores towards a restriction threshold

Actually thinking about this a bit more, if this does exist then it is likely to be illegal, under the same legislation that stopped insurance companies offering cheaper car insurance to female drivers. I wouldn't be using you as the test case to mount a legal challenge against sex profiling accounts.

I ordered something from AO last month. DH has ordered from there before but this was my order in my name on my card and with my mobile number as contact.
AO Called DH a few days later to try and sell him extended warranty.

I would assume it was a typo and tell them.

I must be alone in that I’ve never had this with letters.
Well except Waitrose vouchers. DH always gets the vouchers and I don’t.

Plenty in real life. One of my favourites was when we were upgrading DH’s phone contract. The guy talked us through the price and DH turned to me and asked me what I thought. The guy said ‘what do you need to ask your wife for?’ We walked out.

@Hairmumscaremum ??? That's really not the same thing. They have to speak to the account holder. They don't care if that person has a willy or a fanny. Just get your name added to the account.

@Ariela maybe they just want to speak to your husband?

I think the solution is ready-made and waiting for us. Whatever name they address us by - Mr Adam/Barry/Carl... Zack Surname, like PP 'Kevin', we're it.

Any questions, 'I identify as male, my pronouns are he, him and his and I answer to Mr. Will you talk to me about my car/bank account/gas bill/new windows, or are you transphobic?! '

If they don’t care about being sexist, why would they suddenly care about being transphobic?

Happened to me with British Gas. I pay the bills, all the online login details are in my name, I’m the lead name on the account and all bills come to my name only.
When we were due a refund for something the letter arrived in my husbands name and made out to him. I tweeted them but got no response. It’s infuriating.

Data person here - most of these sorts of letters/emails are automated and work on contact details given on an account. Does your husband's name appear on your customer account at all? For example have you given him as a secondary contact or has he picked up the car ever? If that's true then it might be just that their system auto-picks one contact name if your addresses match and if his name is for example before yours alphabetically or was the most recent one used then the system will likely just dedupe the addresses and go with that one contact name. This might not be correct in your case though if the company is particularly small or they dont have a data management system in which case yes it is bloodey sexist, but it might not be as sinister as you think. A quick call to their data/marketing/CRM person can sort it out for you.

Yeah I see your point I'm a bit off at a tangent, my annoyance is that when my account was set up for virgin and my water both companies took my dh as being the account holder, both accounts are paid by me and the house they relate to is solely owned by me her. But i do see once set up it's a data thing for who they will speak to in my example.

Buddyelf

How did they even know your husband's name if everything was in your name?

We are selling our house and all the correspondence from estate agent is addresses to Mr and Mrs DH name Surname.
No idea why, in fact I am the one who does EVERYTHING relating to finance, all admin, bills etc and it really pisses me off!

Wait till you buy a new car! I bought one a few years ago, and DH drove me to the garage to collect it. The salesman didn't know who to give the new car 'wife' flowers to! They do, however, write to me not him.

Still, it's better than the 1970s when DH had to sign MY tax return.

@MonsteraDeliciosa he’s second name on the account. It was annoying because if a bill gets sent it’s in my name, direct debit etc is in my name but the refund was sent only to him.

They probably just haven't changed the dropdown menu from Mr to Ms, as someone above said. Mr is the first thing that comes up and will stay as Mr unless they automatically change it. No big deal but if its bothering you that much, politely ask them to change it.

@bigburdd when we were buying our house I filled out all the details. There was person one and person two. I put myself as person one.
The solicitor asked me what my relations was to DH. They thought we were siblings as they couldn’t understand why the husband’s details wouldn’t be first.

I set car accounts up and I always ask which name it should be in. Some men will say well it's my wife's car or vice versa and I put it in whatever name/title they want. Sometimes it's already been set up by sales (I work in aftersales) and we check then
It's fairly male heavy at the place I work but there are a fair few women in sales, aftersales etc