Order of our names changed on joint bank account

[Maresmaid]

Many years ago my husband and I opened 2 joint bank accounts. One was set up in joint names with his name first and the other in joint names with my name first so that we could easily identify which account was which. The account with his name first received our salaries and transferred a regular amount to the account with my name first which then paid out all the various household dd’s. I recently needed to set up a new standing order to the account with my name first and discovered that the names have been switched round by the bank without our knowledge so both accounts now show my husbands name first.

I am fully aware that this makes no difference to my legal claim to the money in the account and it’s just really an admin issue, but it’s made me feel like making a fuss and insisting they change it back. I deal with the family finances, I use the mobile and banking app, when something needs paying husband asks me to log on and do it, so technically I am the primary user and i feel like making a stand about the sexism of automatically showing husbands name before wife’s.

Am I being unreasonable if I complain to the bank?

Ask them what else they have decided to change without your permission.

Make sure you do it through their formal complaints mechanism, so when they have decided they haven't done anything wrong it's ready made to pass on to the Ombudsman.

Maybe tell us who the bank is, so we can check our accounts and make an informed decision moving on ?

100% not true. I have always earned multiples of what DH earns and the bank has laways LOVED to put his name first on everything.

This riles me beyond words.
But I think I can top this…
Just moved house so did the change details for the council tax. CT has been in my name for over 15 years with Direct Debits coming out of my own individual account. I put the details of everyone moving in the house, which includes my now adult son. The award letter that came out was address to him first, and he name on the direct debit was also his, with mine following. It’s my fucking house and my fucking bank account. He is not named on either!! I am actually furious about this. Feel like I’m living in 1851.

HSBC

We once had a salesman come to our house to try to sell us some home security system. I was pregnant at the time. When he’d did all the salesspeak about how wonderful their system was and husband got a bit fed up of him avoiding giving a clear cost he asked him outright how much? The salesman responded by asking him what price he put on the safety of his wife and unborn child? Then he wrote down a figure on his clip board and showed it to my husband without saying it out load or letting me see. Husband took one look at my face and told him he’d just lost a sale and showed him the door.

This one wins ridiculous story of the month.

When DH and I did some work on our house a few years ago, I (needless to say) was the person dealing with it all. I did receive information addressed to Ms DiNozzo and MrDHName. But the invoice.... that was addressed to MrDHName and MsDiNozzo. Which mademe laugh roll my eyes aggressively as I am the breadwinner.

I get the sort of standard wording like "Mr and Mrs" on things so have some smpathy for that. But this sort of thing where it's different names and relationships is absolutely infuriating.

She clearly explains how this lessened her admin burden

That's her whole point!

My bank is the same (HSBC) and acted the same. My bank account for years, added husband to it (after my name) to make it a joint bank account and they put his name first. Although alphabetically his name is before mine so I've just left that.

They also insist on sending me a printed bank statement because 'legally they have to make sure both people have access to the information' and only one of us has an online log-in and logs in regularly. I have phoned up twice about that to point out that it is me that logs in (as I deal with our finances) and him that isn't accessing the information online. But no, apparently this can't be changed. So I assume the system presumes its me that needs safeguarding with a print statement 🙄

It could just be an unexpected change from a system update somewhere.

@DiNozzoComingBack

Nothing to add here, just loving the username 😂😂

Not always. My surname comes first alphabetically, I did all the finances, made more money and set up the account with my name first. ExP's name defaulted to first.

When DH and I set up our business a number of years ago, we had to go to Barclay's in person to set up the business account. The (female) bank employee questioned the fact that I was the CEO of the business a number of times - she couldn't believe that I and not the man would be in charge. We set up the account and also took out a business credit card. We decided that only I would need a credit card, so we set the whole thing up in my name. When the credit card arrived it was in DH's name, despite the fact that the credit card facility was under a separate part of the bank and he hadn't filled in a single form. I was straight onto the phone to them but no one could tell me why I had filled in the forms but didn't receive the card. The only conclusion I could come to was that as we'd only requested one card they defaulted to sending it out to the only 'real' person on the account - ie the man. I couldn't be anything but a secretary, could I?

Fucking idiots.

Just spoke to customer services. Took ages to get through, Eventually spoke to an advisor who just kept telling me that both account holders had the same rights and that when he looked at the account my name was first. I told him that’s not what it said on the bank statement, he didn’t explain why that was the case and just reiterated that both account holders had equal rights. I couldn’t seem to make him understand so in the end I politely thanked him for his help and closed the call. If I’ve got nothing better to do tomorrow I might write a letter, but it’s more of an annoyance than a big problem really.

That really is outrageous. It’d make me close the account immediately and go somewhere else.

That's annoying (although not surprising that the call centre person didn't know the ins and outs of why your data has been altered I suppose). If you write a letter - do please report back!

i don’t know. I did say it was a long while ago.

I've just checked my joint account and my name is still listed first. You are right to be annoyed.

I wouldn’t give a shit. In NatWest you can rename the accounts in the app anyway.

%%%%%% prompted by this post I’ve just had a look online at the joint current account that DH and I opened 30+ years ago in the names of AB & CD Cortex and it’s now labelled Mr CD and Mrs AB Cortex. I am incensed as like other posters I opened it and have always taken the lead in administering the account and (for what it’s worth) have always been the higher earner. How dare you First Direct.

I haven’t seen your previous post so I didn’t see you say that

Nonsense.

You should have asked him to escalate it. All you've done is bump up their "satisfied customer" count by one.

Could he have been a customer first with the bank? Could it be alphabetical? Could it be because historically banks used the males name first?

Well he kept saying that the account still showed my name first although I told him that I’d had to open a statement on the app to see what the name was, and that said husband first and when I tried to make a payment into the account yesterday and put the name I thought it should be in, I got a message saying it didn’t match. Following the call I checked the account that funds are moved over from and the transactions there do indicate the original name on the ‘budget’ account.

Are you sure it’s not just putting the Christian names alphabetically ?