Why after decades of my custom can Barclays not acknowledge that I want to use a maiden name and a married name?

[Katisha]

I got married relatively late in life and kept maiden name for everything except joint account with DH. After about 8 years Barclays said I had to be one name or the other.

So I changed my own current account to married name but said I didn't want to have to change all my other financial arrangements. They said they'd put a note on my account.

But they haven't, and today refused to let me pay in a cheque in my maiden name. After literally decades of my custom they can't be bothered to look at my records and see that I am one person, and that sometimes cheques come in in my maiden name. It's because of money laundering blah blah.

I have now lost the plot about what to do so is it OK to move my current account to a different bank and use my maiden name, as it would be easier to do this than to spend an age sending certified copies of my marriage certificate to all and sundry trying to change the rest of my life to suit Barclays?

Or is that somehow illegal as well?

I had similar to this with the Abbey who would not let me use both my maiden name and married name (as that as what I like to be known as) because I had not chnaged my name by deed poll

If I had taken DH's name, sight of the marriage cert would have been enough for them to give me a bank acc in that name but yet after showing them my birth cert, marriage cert (which obv show both names and prove I'm not trying to pull a fast one) they still refused and said I had to be one or the other.

I resent being told what I can and cant do with my name!

They trotted out the money laudering thing too and I'm sure thats the reason but come on...why cant they use common sense in assessing these things?

I then went to the lloyds TSB and they opened one with my double barrell name without turning a hair so it just goes to show its not as set ikn stone as they make out.

(forgot to mention - Abbey had just given me a mortgage with my double barrell name then asked me if we wanted to open a joint account and it was THEN that the name became an issue

Thanks pinkmook - have been apoplectic with rage all morning and it's nice to know I am not alone! Made worse by the bank manager who I demanded to see being about a third of my age and very condescending!

I use both with first direct. No problem.

Interesting. I just changed my personal accounts at Barclays to be in my maiden name today, with the off-shore accounts still in my married name. They gave me no hassle at all, and I was out in 10 minutes.

Really? What's going on???

I said why can't they put a note on my account about the two names, but the manager told me that the people processing the cheques would reject them if the names didn't tally, and wouldn't be checking against any computer data. (As well as the "it's against the law because of money laundering" malarkey). Seems different banks, indeed different branches, have other interpretations...

would they let you have two accounts instead one in each? sounds useful if you have payments to come in either name, and they have the satisfaction of "selling" you an account- good for their branch figures.

Sadly not - all accounts have to be in the same name.

I have 2 different groups of accounts, one in my married name (joint with DH) and one group in my maiden name. Maybe they were able to do this because the ones in my maiden name are on shore, and the ones which are joint are off-shore. Don't see why that would make a difference though.