What century is it, again?
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According to this Huffington Post article, a woman who just got married and kept her name was unable to deposit wedding gift checks that were made out to Mr. and Mrs. HisName.
In his story, “Pete vs. Bank of America,” Iorizzo explains that most of the checks he and his wife received from wedding guests were addressed to “Mr. and Mrs. Iorizzo.” Because his wife chose to not to change her surname, he endorsed the checks himself and designated them “for deposit only” so she could drop by Bank of America and deposit them in the joint account they held there.
But bank tellers refused to deposit the checks due to his wife’s different last name, even though she offered to present a copy of their marriage license, Iorizzo said.
Um, seriously? I mean, I understand preventing identity theft and all that, but… seriously?! After she presented her marriage license? They couldn’t cut her some slack and at least just assume that she hadn’t gotten to the Social Security Office to change her name yet?? For real??
Honestly, I don’t think this is just a problem because she kept her name. Imagine all of the women out there who, like I just mentioned, don’t get around to legally changing their names right away, and therefore have an ID that doesn’t match the name on the check. Or, what if someone did change her name and the check was written out to her previous name, like in the case of an employer who hadn’t changed their records yet? Would that be OK, or, since that person doesn’t exist, would she have to bring in proof that she was, in fact, called by her maiden name at one point?
Personally, I think there’s more to this story than meets the eye. I didn’t change my name, but since both Tim and my full names are on the joint account we have, if it says his name, we’re fine and if it says my name, we’re fine, too. I’m thinking maybe she was trying to deposit the checks into an account that was solely under his name. But that could also just be my misguided optimism.
When you think about it, though, this problem is almost entirely a woman’s problem, and one that goes along with name changes. Unless they are the ones changing their names, men certainly don’t have to worry about anything like this. If I get a check made out to Ashley R___ (his name), he can go ahead and cash it because the teller will probably just assume I’m his wife. If I did more of our banking, I suppose I might encounter a problem from time to time, especially since people seem to keep making things out to Mr. and Mrs. Timothy R___ even though they know I kept my name. I’m honestly willing to relinquish my feminist card and let Tim just deposit that stuff because I don’t really want to blow a gasket just by trying to go to the bank. I have enough stress in my life.
Though, if banks can refuse to accept checks based on the fact that “Mrs. Pete Irorizzo doesn’t exist,” I feel I should also be well within my bounds if I sent back every card sent to Mr. and Mrs. Timothy R____.
Return to sender. Mrs. Timothy R___ does not exist.
This is ridiculous! Yet another reason for me to hate Bank of America, haha.
Seriously though. I did change my name when I got married. But, we had a joint checking account before we got married and so all of our checks say Rachel Kelson & “insert husbands name here.” I only write 2-3 checks a month, but they insisted on giving us like 200 when we opened the account. Luckily, there hasn’t been a problem in the last year. I hope it continues to not be a problem because we’ll be using those check for a long time.
We had a similar problem, but we opened the account the August before we got married, told them that we were getting married in October, and the checks we got said “Timothy and Ashley R___” on them. Which is weird, because we signed up with the account with our separate names. I didn’t change my name, either, but they actually gave us checks with a person’s name that didn’t exist on them. We went back to get them changed, because I felt that was just presumptuous and rude!
That is really strange! It seems weird to me that they would put a name on when that name didn’t exist (sp?). At least, it didn’t exist for you.
At this point, I’m glad that our checks still say Rachel Kelson on them because the only other reminder of my maiden name (before a get a glorious tattoo, haha) is my student loans. The Federal Government won’t let you change your name on those loans.
I think this speaks more to the individual teller. I didn’t change my name and we got checks made out to all sorts of people that didn’t exist “Stephanie and Adam D__”, “Mr. and Mrs. Adam D__”. The bank didn’t care so long as the person depositing it had the same last name as was on the check. Luckily the same number of people knew us well enough and cared that I did not change my last name as those who adhered to arcane conventions so we were able to deposit similar amounts in our still separate (*gasp!*) accounts.