Lame-ass rant but I have to rant it lest I go mad. I am fucking sick to goddamn death of one half of married couples thinking that just because they’re married I should break the rules for them. I work with debit cards. Part of the regulations that I have to deal with is that I can’t give out account information to anyone but the authorized card holder, meaning the person whose name is printed on the card. All day long I get calls from horrible bitch after horrible bitch who call in with their husband’s cards and expect me to roll over and give out information that I can’t because they have a marriage license. “But I’m his wife. We’re married. He’s my husband.” I don’t give a flying fuck, I’m not going to break regulations and risk my job. If you can’t get your lazy-ass husband to make the phone call, then that’s too damn bad but it’s also not my fucking problem. Your $25 rebate card isn’t worth my unemployment. And then because they can’t get their privileged little way, they get nasty with me about it. Because it’s appropriate to deal with a temporary frustration in cashing in your little card by heaping verbal abuse on another person.
Husbands call in sometimes too and they’re prickish at times, but for the most part it’s the wives who are the total cunts about it. Boo hoo, ladies, go without your rebate for another couple of hours until your man comes home and in the meantime shut the fuck up.
I deal with the same thing in health insurance. Sorry lady, if your name is not listed on the policy as a contact for the business I can TELL YOU NOTHING.
I don’t think your rant is lame Otto. I dealt with that when I was in banking and found it similarly frustrating, particuarly when the persons involved refused to see that the rule was for THEIR BENEFIT. I mean, ye gods, anyway can SAY they’re married to the card holder.
I’ll admit to having bent the rule maybe twice, but only in situations when both parties and the state of their union were known very well to me. Even then, I pointed out that they needed to change the authorized users on their account, because the next CSR they got might not be me, and that person would, correctly, follow the rule I was violating.
I’m confused. In most cases, there are two cards, one in each name, but only one name on the account. Does that mean the wife can’t do anything for her card because her husband’s name is on the account.
I understand that you can’t just assume she’s married to him. But I suppose you must just assume that John Smith calling about a card is John Smith, right? Is the wife not calling from the right phone number, with the card number and the last four digits of the SSN?
I agree with matters of money and such like that. But I’ve had the fuckin’ cable company give me a hard time when I call asking questions about the bill because it’s in Mr. K’s name. WTF is with that? If they need the account holder to do the calling, why can’t they list more than one person?
It doesn’t help that our names are different. Sheesh.
It depends on the type of account. In this particular rant the cards are pre-paid debit cards issued as rebates for purchases. One name gets printed on them and only one card is issued. For those cards, only the authorized cardholder can access account information.
For credit cards, yes, if they are joint accounts or one spouse is an authorized user of the account, either spouse can get information. But if the spouse is not on the account, she can’t have account information.
That would have to be your US congressperson or senator since it relates to federal privacy laws.
I know you were being a smartass but that is the real answer.
Probably because the moron you were replying too was unclear.
That’s not quite what I mean. I was referring to, for instance, bank accounts which were styled in only one name. By styled, by the way, I mean the name on the account, the signing authority designation, and the ownership/inheritance details. For instance, once upon a time I had two bank accounts, styled as follows:
Acct #: 31415926
Owner: Skald the Rhymer
Type of Ownership: Sole tenant
Power of Attorney: Sister the Rhymer
Payable on Death: Son the Rhymer
Acct#: 27128333
Owner: Skald the Rhymer, Once & Future Lesbian
Type of Ownership: Joint Tenants with Right Survivorship
Power of Attorney: None
Payable on Death: Son the Rhymer, OFL’s Brother
That meant that the first account was my responsibility alone, but my sister was empowered to write checks on it (so she could pay my bills if I were hit by a car and unconscious in the ICU for a month) but was not liable for overdrafts or such. If I died, the money would automatically go to my son, and my sister would no longer have the authority to touch the money. The second account belonged equally to me and my live-in girlfriend; we had equivalent authority over and liability for the account; no one other than the two of could access information ont the account without court order. If either us died the money became the sole property of the other, and if we both died it would be split between son and niece.
Now if, say, the OFL accidentally grabbed one of my deposit slips and put money into my account, the bank could not easily give her access to that money or any informatiion; she was not mentioned in the styling at all, and if she has a problem she has to take it up with me or the courts. If both I and OFL are lying unconscious in the hospital and my sister wants access to the second account, she’s out of luck without talking to the court system, as her power of attorney is specified to cover only my sole account. OFL’s brother and my son can’t access the money in the second account while either I or OFL are alive; OFL’s brother can’t touch the money in the first account without using a handgun.
People would often complain about not being able to access money beloning to a spouse when they were not styled on an account. Sometimes I felt bad about having to deny funds or information; sometimes when the person was being bitchy I took gleeful pleasure in following the law.
While I would NEVER fuss or yell at a customer service rep, in our family I am the one who takes care of anything regarding credit cards, insurance glitches…pretty much anything requiring interaction with customer service over the telephone. If I have to wait on my husband to straighten out anything involving a phone call and being put on hold…it just wouldn’t happen. I don’t think our family is a bit unique.
We once had one of those VISA rebate cards issued on behalf of our phone company account. Since our phone account is a joint account, I would never have expected the card to be “only” his or “only” mine (I never noticed that his name wasn’t on the card). Luckily, we never had any problems with it and I never had to call–but if we had, it would have been ME calling and I wouldn’t have understood why both of us wouldn’t have had access to account information. So maybe what you’re dealing with are similar situations?
That’s exactly the situation. The people buy new phones, and both spouses’ names may be on the phone account. But, the phone company is still going to maintain one person as the primary name and one (or more) as secondary names. For whatever reason, tradition mostly, most of the time it’s the husband who gets put down in the N1 spot and the wife who gets put in N2. When it comes time to fill out the rebate forms, the N1 is the name that gets listed so that’s the name that goes on the card. So N2 has complete access to the PHONE account but the phone account and the card account are two completely separate things.
And believe me, I understand that it’s irritating for customers not to be able to get the answers they want when tey call me. But there’s nothing I can do about VISA regulations and federal privacy laws, and screaming at me and threatening me and swearing are not only hopelessly unprofessional and immature but, worse, won’t get you what you want. Other people, like say a child who got a phone under the parent’s account, seem to grasp that a little better but the wives especially are way too often total bitches about it.
You and me both – and this even AFTER we put him on the phone to tell them, Yes, she can have whatever information she wants, make changes, etc.
When it really cranks me is when (as in most cases with our bills) the PAYMENTS are made automatically from an account with my name (and ONLY my name) on it. Yes, I know the CSR probably doesn’t have that on their screen, but sheesh, you’d think they could fix the system so that them what pays the bill has a right to access the account information.
Happens in college all the time too. Parents shell out $20,000 a year for Johnny to get an education and the university can’t tell them how he’s doing in school due to privacy laws.
Had a smiler situation in college too, that some Alumni wanted to make their contact info public so they could receive Alumni mailings and contact ex-college buddies and such. However the university requires proof of identity to change your privacy status. Not a problem if you’re still in the area, but when you live on the other side of the country and they require you to change your status in person, there were some pretty pissed off people.
But if the account holder dies, or just doesn’t want to deal with it, I’m betting the company will want to deal with the spouse immediately- if it involves money owed to the company. In my experience, they don’t really care if the spouse is on the account or not, at that point.
I heard a good suggestion on this area from another parent. They tell their kids that if they want the tuition paid, they will either give them access to the online area that gives them the grades or they will provide a screen print of them. Seems to work.
Let me tell you a looooong story about the mother who DEMANDED to know why johnny flunked (plagarism), and said I HAD to tell her because she paid the tuition.
