I don’t want to be too repetitive in these 100 days of blogging, but only so much goes on in my life. I’m giving you all I’ve got!
The main thing going on in my life these days is getting my name changed on my utilities, credit cards, etc. Now that I have my new driver’s license, I can finally move forward with these things, but it’s not been easy or straightforward.
Let’s play a game. How many places do you think you’d have to change your name?
Sorry, your answer (no matter what it is) is incorrect!
Double your estimate.
It’s unbelievable how spread out across the world our names are. Taking care of the major changes (Social Security, banking) turns out to be the easy part.
Speaking of banking, I mentioned that my bank (Chase) was very accommodating regarding my name change, and they were. My new ATM card arrived with my new name (yay!), but a few other Chase cards I use arrived bearing my old name (boo!).
Every other credit card or service I use has a different procedure for name changes. A surprising number of them require you to mail documents to them. Not email, USPS. Gross! Luckily I found some stamps at the back of a junk drawer. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, sorry. But they were in a rarely opened drawer.
It really bothers me that I have to send copies of my name change court order and driver’s license to so many places, both on paper and electronically. I feel like I’m ignoring rule #1 of personal online security. But there’s no way around it.
