What's In A Name?

Seeing as I got married last year I’ve had to go through the process of changing my name on pretty much every piece of paper in existence. Seriously you guys out there are lucky you don’t need to and I’m learning how smart women who keep their maiden name are!!! The list is endless and every time you think you’ve done everything yet another rears it’s ugly head.

My latest one has been my credit card. I realised when I got a recent statement that it was still addressed to my maiden name so I phoned them and requested the change to my married name. I was assured this had been processed without an issue and was now all sorted. So I decided, foolishly as it turns out, to assume that they’d actually done what they said.

Fast forward to my next statement which arrived a couple of days ago. Well they got the “Mrs” part right, and my first name was accurate, but then I suddenly had a “P” for a middle initial and my surname remained unchanged at my maiden name. Well done, a spectacular fail there then people…!

So I phoned them back to explain the situation and thought this would be easy to fix! First I explain what had happened and that my surname still needed changing and they needed to remove the P as a middle initial. The woman on the phone then asked me to confirm my full name. So I did. She said that wasn’t what they had on the system… I pointed out, still rather politely, that this was the reason for my call as they’d managed to get it wrong previously. So she asked me to confirm my previous name, so I told her my full name prior to marriage only to be told I’d got my middle name wrong. I pointed out that as my middle name starts with an “L” and they’d changed it to “P” that it was hardly surprising that this wasn’t what was on their system. She got very confused and put me on hold, no doubt to scurry off to her manager and ask them to deal with this “very awkward lady and her damnable name”!

I sat on hold for about five minutes and had just about started deliberating over whether or not I should hang up when she came back on the line. I was told that my name had been updated and saved on their system and that a new card had been ordered and would be sent out to me. Fantastic says I, can we just confirm the name on my card?

Mrs. Firstname L Maidenname Marriedname

I think I’m just going to cry now….