Stupid.

So, I'm all for feminism, or internet-age privacy concerns, or whatever it is at work here... but I'm pretty sure, way back in the day, if a wife called up the phone company and wanted to talk specifics about her phone service, except the account was in her husband's name, nobody would have thought twice about helping her.

So, we needed to get D's Retirement Account from his last job, rolled over, or should I say, Rolled Out Of, where it was - so I called up a financial services company, talked on the phone with this nice woman, she connected through to my computer, in some cool and kinda weird way, and we went through the set-up process together, where I could enter info, but she could also enter info on the same screen... it was good times. When I called I was a little unsure if they'd work with me or not, since I made it quite clear that it was my husband's account, in my husband's name.

No problem. We got everything established.

So, I got my computer back the other day and tried to log onto his account, and since it was a new computer they wanted me to answer some of the security questions before they let me through... I really hate security questions. For most of our financial stuff, we have both our names on our accounts, but I'm the one who's usually logging onto them... but some of them are just in D's name, and I want him to be able to log onto them too, so I never know, when the security question is "What was the name of your first pet?" - if I answered the question with D's first pet or My first pet or the first pet that jumped into my head (and there's a good half dozen between the two of us)... we won't even get started on This particular financial services company, who's security question was "What was the name of your first boy/girlfriend?" Freakin' brilliant!

So, I answered it, and it told me I was wrong, and gave me a new question, which was the date of our wedding. I answered that correctly (I'm pretty sure), and it kept telling me I was answering it wrong. So, then I figured I must have typo-ed when I set it up, so I made D give me back his computer, so I could log on with the computer I used to use. It let me log in, I re-answered the security questions to make sure I they were what I thought, and I went back to my computer, but it still wouldn't let me through. So I gave up for the day.

Today - three days later, I try again. Still won't let me through, when I KNOW I'm answering the questions correctly. So I called the company, to see if they'd unfreeze the account, and the snotty ass brat on the phone says he can tell me what the security measures are, and why I can't log in, but he can't fix the problem for me, since I'm not my husband.

So I can set up an account for my husband, but I can't access it once it's set up???


This happened a long time ago with our mobile phone company, and I just about yelled at the guy that since I was the one who paid the bill I damn well better be able to talk to a customer service rep about it, but I refrained (instead, I called them back three minutes later and said my name was D and I wanted to change my account :). This time I was really tempted to ask to speak with his supervisor... but whatever.

Anyway - I'm just missing the days when people didn't get divorced, and companies weren't afraid to give access to a person's spouse for fear that they were up to something malevolent...


details.