Wha...??? (short and painful)

[Cloudy Sky]

Me: ...and may I have your account number?
SC: Account number? Wha' s that?
Me: The number that identifies your account....
SC: Huh?
ME: Account number - the x digit number on your bill that shows us which account is yours...
SC: Wha I need that for?
Me: So I can pull up your account and answer your questions....
SC: OMG!! YOU'RE MAKING THIS TOO F***ING HARD!! *click*

[TelephoneAngel]

I feel your pain.

Where I work, we keep seperate accounts for spouses so if husband and wife have, for example, had accounts with us seperately then got married, they keep their seperate accounts.Also this is done in case people get divorced, and for data protection reasons it would then be impossible for us to accidently give a spouse their spouses information.Also it is just possible that a spouse would order a service they don't want their spouse to know about, so we must not say anything unless we are speaking to the actual customer of the ccount.


me - can i have your account number?
customer - its xxxx
me - thats not your account number it belongs to a man, and you are female.
customer - its my husbands account number, I can't remember mine
me - I can't tell you anything which is written on your husband's account for data protection reasons.
customer - but he's my husband *starts shouting*

[UncleImpy]

The other side of this is dealing with the IRS. Long story short, before the wifey and I got married, she had Some Problems with the IRS and ended up with a lien on her paycheck. I helped her get it fixed, but while that was going on, I needed to know if the IRS was going to sieze our refund if we filed jointly.

The agent refused to talk to me about the situation because my wife was the one with the lien (she was at work at the time and would not be off until after the call center stopped taking calls). Even though I was asking about whether or not it would affect the return /I/ was a part of.

2 hours on the phone, to the point where I finally lost my cool and started yelling at people, until they finally put some specialist on the phone who explained that yes, if we filed jointly and had a refund, it would be pre-empted to pay off her lien.

[Magpie]

The flip side of someone trying to give a spouse's account number when they have separate accounts, is my husband's credit union. Instead of giving account numbers they just give people member numbers, and then you can specify which account once they use your member number to look you up. However, after we got married and added me to his accounts, I was never given a number. I mean, it makes sense since I'm only using joint accounts, but I was really worried the first time I went in that they'd give me grief.

[AccountingDrone]

I feel your pain.

Where I work, we keep seperate accounts for spouses so if husband and wife have, for example, had accounts with us seperately then got married, they keep their seperate accounts.Also this is done in case people get divorced, and for data protection reasons it would then be impossible for us to accidently give a spouse their spouses information.Also it is just possible that a spouse would order a service they don't want their spouse to know about, so we must not say anything unless we are speaking to the actual customer of the ccount.


me - can i have your account number?
customer - its xxxx
me - thats not your account number it belongs to a man, and you are female.
customer - its my husbands account number, I can't remember mine
me - I can't tell you anything which is written on your husband's account for data protection reasons.
customer - but he's my husband *starts shouting*

Wouldn't have worked on me and hubby ... I have his power of atty ... actually I looked at the wording of the PoA, and back when he was still in the Navy, I could have actually reenlisted him without his actually being there talk about trusting! I could literally have sold the house, everything in it, both cars, emptied out the bank accounts and filed for divorce and gotten away with it.

I regularly did all the household business and financial business for both of us. I was the one that had the time to hang out on the phone, or go to businesses and deal with details.

[TelephoneAngel]

Wouldn't have worked on me and hubby ... I have his power of atty ... actually I looked at the wording of the PoA, and back when he was still in the Navy, I could have actually reenlisted him without his actually being there talk about trusting! I could literally have sold the house, everything in it, both cars, emptied out the bank accounts and filed for divorce and gotten away with it.

I regularly did all the household business and financial business for both of us. I was the one that had the time to hang out on the phone, or go to businesses and deal with details.

If we have a note on the system that a spouse or other person has Power of Attorney for another person then we can give details of their ccount, to my knowledge I have only seen it twice in ten years.

[Andara Bledin]

Wouldn't have worked on me and hubby ... I have his power of atty ... actually I looked at the wording of the PoA, and back when he was still in the Navy, I could have actually reenlisted him without his actually being there talk about trusting!

And that is why PoA is not something to be given lightly. It basically says, "This person is entitled to make decisions that affect my life as if they were me."

I could literally have sold the house, everything in it, both cars, emptied out the bank accounts and filed for divorce and gotten away with it.

California is a joint property state, and if you were evil enough, you could have done something not too dissimilar.

^-.-^

[seigus]

When we were in the process of moving to a new state, my wife and I both exchanged Power of Attorney since we'de be in two different states for a while. Man, ya gotta be able to trust that person implicitly and explicitly. Someone could really mess you up...

[baileysinmycoffee]

My brain hurts.

I'm with ya, Cloudy Sky. A good portion of my calls start out like that.

Me: Your account # please?
SC: I dunno
Me: Your phone# please?
SC: Well we don't have phone through you
Me: That's fine, but we always ask for a phone# when you first get services, regardless of whether or not the phone service is through us
SC: I changed my phone#
Me: OK what's the address where you have our service?
SC: (yells to his wife) what's our address?!?!?!

*headdesk*

So let me get this straight, just to make sure that I understand.

Not having your account# is one thing, unless you have a copy of the statement in front of you, you won't have the account#. That's ok, we get it! That's why I can also access your account by looking up your phone# or address...

If you don't know your own phone# or address...then you, sir, clearly have much, much larger problems than "my internet is slow" or "I ordered the Playboy channel by accident and I want a refund"

*facepalm*

Thank *random deity* that today is my day off!!!

[Magpie]

My husband still occasionally has to ask me for help with our address. Although he realised recently that his driver's license gives him less trouble. He can never remember the postal code (and doesn't seem to care to try, but that's a different story).

[AtDIelement]

me - I can't tell you anything which is written on your husband's account for data protection reasons.
customer - but he's my husband *starts shouting*

I can completely relate to this.

We hear at the bank here all the time:

SC: But he's my son! I demand to know what's going on with his account!
Me: I'm sorry, but for privacy reasons, I can't tell you. And unfortunately, since you are asking sensitive questions on the account, I'm going to have to ask you to leave the bank.

Because in my parts, a 28 year old man can't fight his own battles with the bank so he sends his mother to come in and do it for him.

Ugh... I think it's finally starting to get to me after 5 and a half years. I need a nice office job methinks.

[Primer]

The other side of this is dealing with the IRS. Long story short, before the wifey and I got married, she had Some Problems with the IRS and ended up with a lien on her paycheck. I helped her get it fixed, but while that was going on, I needed to know if the IRS was going to sieze our refund if we filed jointly.

they finally put some specialist on the phone who explained that yes, if we filed jointly and had a refund, it would be pre-empted to pay off her lien.

That's when you file the "Injured Spouse" form. Then they keep only HER portion of the refund, but you get yours. I went through this when DH found out he had a son (from before we were married) and was in the process of paying off back child support.

[Pagan]

Me: ...and may I have your account number?
SC: Account number? Wha' s that?
Me: The number that identifies your account....
SC: Huh?
ME: Account number - the x digit number on your bill that shows us which account is yours...
SC: Wha I need that for?
Me: So I can pull up your account and answer your questions....
SC: OMG!! YOU'RE MAKING THIS TOO F***ING HARD!! *click*

Call Gravekeeper. One of his escaped.

That's when you file the "Injured Spouse" form. Then they keep only HER portion of the refund, but you get yours. I went through this when DH found out he had a son (from before we were married) and was in the process of paying off back child support.

Wait a second. He was being made to pay back child support for a kid he didn't know he had? I'm all for deadbeat dads being made to pay, but if you don't know about the kid? That's not fair.