I am starting to lose faith in the UK banking system and particularly telephone/online banking, even the cashiers in branch with the current total lack of customer care. My wife uses her maiden name, has done since we married back in '87, its an old Yorkshire name with links going back to King John when the family were first ennobled. She is the only one left in the family that uses it in full, being a double barrelled name her father living in Ireland since the late 50's dropped the Atkinson and just used the Jowett, as English names were not always helpful when doing business back then. Her siblings just use the Jowett part of the name.
So our joint bank accounts are in name J Harris and S Atkinson-Jowett , set up in the 80's so she could also pay in cheques in her married name of S Harris. So Sue receives a very nice Xmas box Euro cheque from her Dad in her married name. We check online and then with a service call will this be a problem to pay it into the account, reassured it is absolutely not a problem, but take marriage certificate and passport along to the branch when paying it in.
Go to pay it in this morning to be told quite coldly and off hand that the Cashiers are too busy to go back thru the online records and she can either get her father to sent a cheque in her maiden name, or we have to change all our accounts to S Harris as they would be linked (which she doesn't want) or open an account in another bank in the name S Harris. This was from a bank I have been with since 1971 and we have substantial funds deposited with.
Needless to say we are just back from opening a new account with another bank, no problems whatsoever and now considering transferring all our accounts. After 50 years of loyalty to that bank, we were just staggered by the cashiers approach and attitude this morning.
