Banks, continued

[lnr]

Nationwide confirm it is policy not to accept cheques unless the name is an exact match to the account, because they have no mechanism for telling the clearing office it's OK. Although it's not actually anywhere in their terms and conditions. They accept this is inconvenient and will pass on my comments and perhaps such a mechanism may eventually exist, but I'm not holding out. The nice chap I spoke to on the phone was pretty apologetic about it and actually volunteered to pass it on and try get it fixed, so brownie points to him if not to Nationwide in general.

Double bonus points to them for understanding when I wanted them to confirm *their* identity too given they'd called me, and reading out part of my original secure mail to them in order to do so, since they apparently couldn't read out any of my details because I hadn't confirmed I was me.

HSBC confirm it's not normally possible, but *may* be possible at the discretion of a particular branch. And that if a branch won't help they suggest I get the sender to issue a new cheque.

New cheques it is then I guess. *sigh*

Comments

[perdita-fysh.livejournal.com]

Just setup one of your accounts (or rather, one of his) in your joint married name? That only needs you to present your marriage certificate at the branch and make up a signature for them; you don't then have to do anything further using that name but you will have it if you need it?
It's what I did. I only came to need it further 15 years later *&)

[simont]

Yes, I thought that. One account under the name "Mr & Mrs Foo" and one account under the name "Mr Foo & Mrs Bar", probably with different banks to avoid them nonconsensually amalgamating the two; then any cheque can be paid in somewhere, and you just need a bit of faffing afterwards.

Annoying to have to, of course, but probably still easier than getting all erroneous cheques reissued now and in future...

[lnr]

Well, it's Ms Bar, and a "Mr Foo and Ms Bar" account already exists (the one Nationwide won't let me pay the cheques into), and I certainly don't want to have *three* accounts two of which have the wrong name on.

I *could* lie to Lloyds and get them to add me as a second account holder on Mike's account with the wrong surname, and then we'd have to transfer the money to the right account after paying it in, but I still *hate* it.

[simont]

Sorry about the Mrs/Ms slip.

On the other hand, wait, what? They actually use the title as part of the check and will fault a cheque even if that's the only bit that doesn't match? Good grief.

[lnr]

On that front: probably not. I just wasn't sure if you were suggesting yet another account or just getting my title wrong :) They've coped with me paying in things addressed to Miss Blair I think, so should cope with Mrs. They can definitely cope with misspellings of Eleanor too.

[simont]

I was just getting your title wrong, though I have now lost all intuition for what kinds of cockup the bank might be believably capable of :-) Now I think about it, it was stupid to bring titles into it in the first place, since I'd expect the account to be in the name of 'Full Name One & Full Name Two'.

[lnr]

They're certainly aware of my title, because when I asked them to record my change of status even though I wasn't changing my name they had to be told not to change it to Mrs. I mean yes some people change their title even if they keep their surname, but usually we're Ms for a *reason* and they could have at least *asked* rather than just reaching for the dropdown box. Hopeless!

*ahem* :)

[hoiho.livejournal.com]

Can they do "AKA" accounts? So the account can be in your two names AKA'd, and Mike's?

[lnr]

They said it's absolutely not possible to have both names on the account.

[monkeyhands.livejournal.com]

Data point: HSBC have accepted cheques written to "Mr and Mrs barnacle even though he's Dr barnacle and I'm Ms monkeyhands. Most well-meaning relatives don't realise I've kept my name, and the ones that do think that I'll still get a thrill out of being called Mrs barnacle. So when we do get a cheque as a gift, it's usually in the Mr & Mrs format, and our local branch of HSBC have always been fine with that.

I've just switched accounts to Nationwide and I'm increasingly sorry that I did so.

[lnr]

In that case, given HSBC say it's up to the discretion of a branch, I shall go talk to my local branch. Though I will have to add Mike to my account :)

[monkeyhands.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think it's worth talking to the branch in this case.

[hsenag.livejournal.com]

Is this "clearing office" internal to Nationwide or part of the central clearing service? I wouldn't have expected the latter to care about the details of the recipient account.

[lnr]

Not clear. Though if Nationwide believe it will cause problems it doesn't really matter if it will actually cause problems or not because we can't actually test it to find out.

[rmc28]

Datapoint: the cheque to Miss Coleman got cleared into the account for Mrs Coleman Finch & Mr Finch, by Nationwide, last week.

But then I put it in via the cashpoint outside the branch.

[lnr]

Do you need an envelope and/or paying in slip for that, or does it take them on their own like the machines inside? I love the way those will print and image and confirm the amount on the cheque.

[rmc28]

No paying in slip. An envelope is given you by the machine to enclose your deposit in, after you've entered how much it is. You don't get a nice scan, but as I can't usually get to the city centre while the branch is open, I'm just glad to be able to deposit out-of-hours.

Yesterday deposits were disabled, which is annoying as I have a rent cheque to go in. Should have just asked for electronic transfer.

My cheque was small though; I don't know if they have a threshold value for cheques where more attention is paid.