Bank switched account to husbands name

[GreenFootstool]

We have a joint account for household stuff. I opened the account five years ago, set up all the direct debits etc and put myself as primary contact because DH is very dyslexic and so I do 100% of the household paperwork.

He also deploys for months of the year, so I am primary contact for every bill and account we have.

We don't have debit cards, just use it as a billing and savings account with a packaged deal for phone cover, travel insurance etc.

All our statements are online, so I've never really looked at the names before but I've just had to claim on the insurance and it's all been switched to his bloody name!!

FWIW my name is also the earlier letter of the alphabet so it's not about that.

I'm really cross. I've contacted them to ask for an explanation and said it needs to be changed back. It's clearly sexism at play with the Mr name taking priority when I'm the only bloody person that manages it.

I thought we were past this nonsense in 2026 but clearly not.

That is ridiculous. I'll be interested to hear how they respond.

How fucking infuriating!! Banks are notoriously sexist i find. Have they got back to you yet?

That is very irritating. It just seems ingrained in many institutions to put the man first even if the woman has made all the effort.

Latest one I experienced was paying for my car insurance. My husband is a named driver so I had to also include his details but it's ny car, registered to me, paid for by me, policy paid for by me as main driver. Was told all docs available on an app. Downloaded app so I could log in and get the certificate. Lo and behold the authentication code was sent to my husband's mobile phone! It's sorted now but still ...

See also booking flights. Paid for with my card, listed self as main passenger/contact. Confirmation sent to my email address "Dear Mr Husband" and with lead passenger changed to him.

Before we married I owned a flat in my sole name, deposit and mortgage paid by me. After we got married I applied to add him to the title and the Land Registry put his name BEFORE mine.

There are more ... but I'm ranting so I shall stop.

See also booking flights. Paid for with my card, listed self as main passenger/contact. Confirmation sent to my email address "Dear Mr Husband" and with lead passenger changed to him.

Ha! This happened to me, too. Me Dr MyName, flight booked with my credit card, I'm PX1. DH, Mr HisName, PX 2. DC Master BothNames, PX3. Checked the booking which had defaulted to 'Mr' as PX1.

<Glares over top of spectacles at United Airlines>.

Edited to say I believe casual sexism is actually getting worse these days instead of better. I'm sick of being addressed as 'Mrs', or a name I've never used, and confronting faux naivete and sometimes barely-disguised prickliness when I correct it.

Edited to say I believe casual sexism is actually getting worse these days instead of better. I'm sick of being addressed as 'Mrs', or a name I've never used, and confronting faux naivete and sometimes barely-disguised prickliness when I correct it.

@SerafinasGoose

There's a thread currently on in AIBU where the OP had her dentist's office switch her data to record "Mrs", and the "proud to be Mrs" crowd is all over her (one of them is even "proud to he [his first name/his last name]"). They're busy claiming that's the overwhelming social norm, apparently not realizing there's literally no statistics on this and the census doesnt even collect titles. Even worse, the polling itself is also skewed two thirds their direction. I know threads can go any which way, with early commenter leaning one way or the other and subsequent ones piling on, but that one threw me for a loop.

I put it through on the online chat nearly two hours ago, and no reply.... Chat function, my arse.

Santander - I will be following up with this!

Before we married I owned a flat in my sole name, deposit and mortgage paid by me. After we got married I applied to add him to the title and the Land Registry put his name BEFORE mine.

That one's bad, shades of history, back to the days when, if a woman married all her property automatically became the man's. 😡

I am not on that thread, @GrumpyPanda. I am happy to be a Mrs - but there is no way that I’d think that meant everyone has to be happy with it - that would be ridiculous. I support anyone’s right to use the title that they are most comfortable with.

I have had so many issues with this and the bank also keep switching my surname to no longer be double barrelled which due to money laundering regularise a huge issue.

Similar happened to me. It was my account I had held since I was a child. I added my husband to it and he seemed to automatically become the first name.

I’ve had exactly this with Santander. I was with them when they were alliance and Leicester bs. Years it was . I put it into joint names just after we married. All stuff came to him as first account holder. Changed it back eventually after a complaint.
Then they are taken over by Santander and same crap happens.
We moved.

Is it Halifax by any chance?

I still occasionally get "is it Miss or Mrs?" and when I say "Ms" (just what I prefer) they act like they've never heard of such a thing before.

Ugh.

The chat finally sent an answer after four hours but it was useless. Apparently it was a human on the other end, but it might as well have been the bot.
They said that it's ok, it's a joint account so I still have access 🙄.

Totally missing the damn point. I'll make a formal complaint about the entire thing, it's just not good enough.

Know your place woman!
I'd die on this hill OP.
Santander are pretty dreadful in a variety of ways.

Oh Santander, what a surprise, I’ve wanted to change from then for years now, too much hassle to go to another that’s probably as bad!

When I opened a joint account with DH at Santander, I was asked if I'd like to be the first name on the account. The woman we dealt with seemed to put the woman first by default. She mentioned that on one occasion a man had come storming into the bank wanting to know why his wife was the first name on their account. She seemed to find this quite amusing.

So it probably depends on the branch and who you deal with.

I think my joint bank account was the same way, with DH as first person named. We have the same first initial but the second letter of his name was higher up the alphabet than mine. It has never bothered me even though I did all the transactions and used cards etc and he did not.
Afaik 'Mr' letters are higher up the alphabet (nearer to 'a') than 'Mrs', 'Ms' (but not 'Miss') - which might be another reason in my case.

All done online, by me. Never been into a branch!

I had this with my Tesco credit card. I added ex DH (when we were still married!) as a second card holder, and they started sending letters in his name!

I just checked my Santander account that was all mine before I added DH to it. Happy to report I’m the first named still 😃

A lot of the databases that underpin these outfits are still based on code and schemas devised in the 60s (possibly earlier). Back in those days, the "primary" contact entry was hardcoded to be male at every turn. A lot of early code relied on assumptions like that to cram as much data into as little storage as possible.

I admit that understanding something doesn't excuse it. However take if from me, it's a damn sight less effort than trying to understand why it's still a thing.

I had similar where last year our bank decided to only issue a new card in husband's name for our joint account. When I called up they said I could also "have one if you want"

I had similar problems with Irish banking for the first decade of having a joint account with my DH - resulting in lots of phone calls from me to customer service who wanted to speak to him to okay the transaction or standing order that I was trying to set up, letters addressed to him rather than me, correspondence using his surname for me rather than my surname. Plus the limited options of either Miss or Mrs but not Ms on my bank cards.

Husband was displeased and complained but it took years to stop happening. To this day, I'm not even sure why it actually stopped happening because our complaining never seemed to achieve anything at the time🤷‍♀️

All down to sexist computer programmers then. Definitely worth a complaint.