Yesterday I identified as Male...

[Davros]

DH and I have a joint credit card. He is the main cardholder so they won't engage with me although I'm sure they'd come after me if the bills didn't get paid. I realise it could be the other way round but it isn't. I phoned them to request they revert to paper statements and said I'd do the preliminary bit and then hand the phone to him.
"Full name and date of birth?", easy, I know this
"Mother's maiden name?" As above
"Am I speaking to Barry X?" The divilment got into me so I said "yes, I am Barry X" in my very female voice.
We completed a straightforward, helpful phone call. I thought, they can't really suggest that I'm not him any more however I sound heh heh. I was tempted to request they change my/his account to F but thought I can just carry on saying I'm him from now on.
Maybe they just have to prove they asked the question

It used to be the case - and may still be - that if you are the second named person on a joint credit card, your persnal credit rating is not being built, even though you may be the min user and payer on the account. Best to have your own and build your own rating. I was a main breadwinner and unknowingky spent years building H's excellent credit rating. Mine was rubbish.

It is still the case I think.

So it's rubbish both when finding proof of address and for building credit record.

These things do have tangible detrimental impact for some.

I am a financial professional and still pissing myself laughing at this thread. Well done Op and the many others who are now using the trans mythologies for at last good purposes.

I used to bank with M&S. Their banking service (run by HSBC) was spectacularly bad. I did the same as OP one day, although I put on a ridiculously simpering voice, and they refused to speak to me. I complained, telling them that they were transphobic. I got profuse apologies and £50 compensation. They stopped offering a banking service shortly afterwards. Hopefully, I helped them with their decision 👍🏻

@PrettyVacancy

I used to bank with M&S. Their banking service (run by HSBC) was spectacularly bad. I did the same as OP one day, although I put on a ridiculously simpering voice, and they refused to speak to me. I complained, telling them that they were transphobic. I got profuse apologies and £50 compensation. They stopped offering a banking service shortly afterwards. Hopefully, I helped them with their decision 👍🏻

Mwahhh!!! 😂🤣

Free Money Fridays!! 😂

For all of those people moaning about the OP being naughty, take the plank out of your eye.
This shows how easy it has become to commit a fraud. Because these companies have all given their call centre staff diversity training to accept incongruous voices/names they aren't allowed to challenge it anymore.
Whilst this is no doubt much nicer for trans people the scammers must be laughing up their sleeves.
My first thought was what if you were estranged from an abusive ex who might well know or be able to guess your security details. They could take advantage of this weakness in the system to access bank accounts, utility suppliers, mobile phone information etc.

@NiceGerbil

Me too inebriati!

OMG! An anonymous woman on a sub board on a site predominantly for UK women to talk about all sorts of stuff

Has revealed this about an unnamed company!

She essentially conned her way into her own household's account to discuss her gas bill (internet, whatever).

This is INTERNATIONAL CRIME!

call Interpol! Call in the feds! Where's 007???

🤣

"The point isn’t that OP lied, but that people now aren’t allowed to question a lie."

Exactly.

@spongedog

I am a financial professional and still pissing myself laughing at this thread. Well done Op and the many others who are now using the trans mythologies for at last good purposes.

Seconded this thread is so brilliant. I've phoned up as my mother for her.

Once when I was wondering about an item on my husband's credit card bill I phoned the bank and they wanted to speak to him. As he'd no clue, doesn't even look at his bills ever, I was seated beside him, to coach him on the right answers, including his pins and stuff, the bank got mad at me for telling him the correct ones, we were on speaker phone, they told him they couldn't talk to him while I was there ! So we took off the speaker phone, he spoke their questions out loud and I whispered into his ear the correct response.

@FlyPassed

I wondered about this. I worked in a financial services call centre years ago and wives and PAs regularly used to try to access their husbands/bosses.

I'm pretty sure I would have been disciplined if I had discussed an account with someone who was obviously not the customer. I guess it would be the reverse now, but I can't fathom how that works in terms of fraud prevention and customer complaints.

I used to work somewhere, where due to money laundering etc, we had to be careful as to who we were dealing with. As far as I know, company policy used to be that you couldn’t accept a card in an obvious female name (Mrs etc) if a man gave it to you (and vice versa). I didn’t leave that long ago either. I guess if someone insisted that it was indeed them and insisted I take it to higher management, things might have changed etc but I never encountered that.

Luckily DHs name isn’t obviously male or female to some people.

My next husband needs to be Phil or Jo(e)

In the UK there are no joint credit card accounts. The credits cards we have are in my name because I earn more than DW and get a higher credit limit (even though they're paid from a joint bank account!). Not all companies will do it but where I can I authorise her to talk to them as well,

This is not a trans gender issue it has always been this way. I have worked in call centres for many many years. When I first started you could smoke at your desk! We have never been allowed to question anyone who said they were Mr or Mrs X when their voice quite clearly indicated that they weren't.

@ittakes2

You do realise its illegal to pretend to be your husband to access your accounts? I don't think you should be boasting about it on an international website.

Wtf? You ever read what you post and wonder why you bothered.

That medics are so far down the rabbit hole that they'll risk looking like delusional prats in front of patients rather than ask a straightforward question. It really highlights some warped ethical standards.

It's not just that. It really makes me worry about the culture of the NHS. There is a very paternalistic culture where you are not allowed to question superiors, whistle-blowing exists in theory but in practice anyone who does it is frozen out and the reason people like Shipman and the other doctors involved in scandals such as raping patients in the last few years, can operate, is because of this awful culture.

The addition of the transnonsense has merely added an extra layer of danger for patients.

@MrsFin given that she's 90, it might be an idea for the two of you to set you up with a Lasting Power of Attorney for her.

I work in a call centre and believe me we know when it's not the person on the phone that they say they should be but we continue the call because if fraud was ever chased it was not fraud on our part.

The case in point here is that it's ridiculous to assume that someone is who they say they are over the phone. It's not to do with gender ideology - there have always been male customers who sound female and vice versa. It's a bit startling when a seemingly male voice says they're Jemima, or vice versa, but you just have to get on with it. 'YOU'RE NOT JEMIMA!! YOU'RE A MAN!!' has never been an option.

Voice recognition software doesn’t play ball though does it? There was a case where a trans woman had problems accessing their account because it didn’t match the voice with the profile.

@KittenKong

Voice recognition software doesn’t play ball though does it? There was a case where a trans woman had problems accessing their account because it didn’t match the voice with the profile.

It's recognition, not judgment, so this is odd. Unless the person had hormone therapy and their voice had changed?

I’m not sure if their voice had changed or it can recognise a male or female voice as an additional check on accounts. Facial recognition software can also be problematic.

@Couchbettato

I work in a call centre and believe me we know when it's not the person on the phone that they say they should be but we continue the call because if fraud was ever chased it was not fraud on our part.

25 years ago I worked in a call centre and we did challenge people - there would be copious notes on the few accounts of ‘women’ (we presumed transwomen) with very deep male voices to alert the call handler to accept a deep voiced response. If we had any concerns we could put them through additional security checks to establish the caller’s identity.

Back then telephone banking was pretty new, and the onus was on reassuring customers their money was secure and no rando could phone up and rob them.

This isn’t a new thing, I used to work in a call centre about 15 years ago and once had a female voice insist they were “Barry”, I asked outright if they we’re definitely “Barry” I even said you sound like a female, no, I’m definitely Barry, I flagged it up with a manager who listened in and said that’s definitely a woman but if they say they’re Barry and they’ve answered the security questions then just go ahead with the call, at the end of the call “Barry” said Thanks, I’ll let Barry know, I said I thought you were Barry and she said no, I’m just calling on his behalf.

Very frustrating because you can tell a female voice from a male voice 100% of the time (I’ve worked in a lot of call centres and never once got it wrong!)

Very frustrating because you can tell a female voice from a male voice 100% of the time

This is not the case. It may be that some people haven't got it wrong yet, but that doesn't mean you can ever be 100% certain. Some voices are very neutral.