Bank of America is coming under fire for refusing to deposit a newlywed's wedding gifts because, since the wife chose to keep her maiden name, she was not legally "Mrs. Peter Iorizzo."
Pete explained, "Most of the checks were made out to 'Mr. and Mrs. Peter Iorizzo.' I endorsed them, designated them “for deposit only” and gave them to my wife. She planned to deposit them into our joint account."
But when she reached the teller, the checks were refused, since her name did not match the name on the checks. "Bank of America told us there was no way around it: All the checks were void. We would have to go back to our guests and request new checks."
Obviously, this wasn't a practical solution. Even though the couple offered to present their marriage license, arrange a meeting with the bank involving both of them, or bring a witness, the bank still refused. The bank's advice? Alert your guests beforehand that you're not changing your name:
"The manager told me a member of her family also had chosen not to change her name, but she got ahead of the problem by requesting before the wedding that anyone wishing to give a gift make it out to 'Cash.'"
Yikes.
In the end, the solution was simple: "I suggested my wife simply drive to another Bank of America branch and see what would happen. So she did. And what happened? The teller took her checks and noticed they appeared to be for a wedding. “Congratulations,” he told her. He processed the checks and handed her a receipt."
After my own wedding, I was definitely concerned about this. Could I endorse a check if my legal name wasn't on it? We received checks made out to "Mr. and Mrs. Adam Klein," "Kristen and Adam Klein," and every possible variation, but I wasn't legally "Kristen Klein" (confession: 10 months later, I'm still not). Like the Iorizzos, we have a joint account with both of our names on it. We both signed our legal names on the back and, luckily, we didn't have any problems.
Has anyone you know dealt with this problem? Tell us in the comments.
—Kristen O'Gorman Klein
Photo Credit: Punchstock
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