7 ms·

Similar experience: Citibank Retirement. I had about $80,000 in IRA/CD's. I'd created & contributed to them over a period of 35 years. Last year, it's time to

Similar experience: Citibank Retirement. I had about $80,000 in IRA/CD's. I'd created & contributed to them over a period of 35 years. Last year, it's time to retire, and Citibank won't give me half the money. It seems that some CD's are for "Cliff Stoll" and some for "Clifford Stoll". Citibank Retirement demanded a "Marriage Certificate, Divorce Decree, or Court Order" to demonstrate that "Cliff Stoll" is the same person as "Clifford Stoll". Took more than 8 months, dozens of emails, five visits to Citibank offices, and a letter to the Citibank president, to shake loose money that I'd deposited across three decades.

codetrotter 2y ago
Infuriating. That kind of thing is what makes me wish I could not have to ever deal with a bank ever again.
- otteromkram 2y ago
  Who said you have to deal with a bank? That's not written into law, is it? Try a credit union if you want to avoid banks.
  - Djdjur7373bb 2y ago
    Is the experience that different? I've never tried one, but I assumed the level of bureaucracy must be similar in order to defend against fraud and fulfill regulatory requirements.
    - ceejayoz 2y ago
      It is absolutely different. I can walk into my credit union's offices - they have just two branches - and talk to someone with decision making power. An actual human being picks up the phone if I call. Their customer service has been impeccable despite some complex asks. I am unlikely to be able to do this if someone steals my crypto. (My security question when calling in was once "you sent an email last week that made my boss very happy, what was it about?")
      - ethbr1 2y ago
        Pros of a credit union: many processes are still manually-controlled Cons of a credit union: many processes are still manually-controlled There's a lot of scenarios where that's the lesser of two evils, though. And god it's nice to be able to walk into a branch, explain the situation to someone, and get "Let me see what I can do. There, all fixed" in reply. Instead of "Oh, the system won't let me do that."
    - piperswe 2y ago
      At my previous credit union (before moving), the local branch manager knew me and my family (mom, husband, etc) by name. And she either (1) had actual power to make things happen or (2) could just call the person that did in any given circumstance. This is a medium sized credit union, with a dozen or so branches.
    - unanimous 2y ago
      Banks are for-profit and credit unions are not-for-profit. Banks will do whatever they think they can get away with to increase their profits, which affects every interaction you have with them. I've had accounts at Citibank and now multiple credit unions, and I regret ever having had accounts at Citibank. They were constantly making things difficult in new ways. I don't know how the bureaucracy compares, but how they treat customers is definitely different.
    - gopher_space 2y ago
      The main difference is that a credit union actually wants clients at your income level. They're not necessarily more competent.
    - toast0 2y ago
      The main difference is size. I have an account at the #4 biggest credit union by assets. It would be about 80th if banks and credit unions were ranked together. I previously had an account with what's currently the 4th largest bank, and it was a totally different experience that I won't repeat. At that level of assets, you're usually not thousands of branches, it's probably just tens, and the organization is small enough to be based on empowering people to use their brains as opposed to strict script following and zero thinking. Credit unions are a bit more flexible than a small bank though, because of shared branching. It's not as good as they say it is, but you can go to selected other credit union branches and get limited teller services.
- Djdjur7373bb 2y ago
  It's this exact sentiment that drives many to crypto, despite the challenges in spending it at this point.
- EvanAnderson 2y ago
  Doubly infuriating because it's Cliff Stoll they fucked-with. At least I know never to do business with Citi.
ghaff 2y ago
I've had some weird experiences related to my address although none were really a serious problem. My street name changed (probably when an interstate spur was put in about 40 years ago) and I still have issues now and then with geolocation.
- ProllyInfamous 2y ago
  >My street name changed and I still have issues now and then with geolocation. This happened at my previous house, except with an additional twist: the street name was changed to an identical streetname, less than a mile away, but within a different city. Adding to the confusion, my address was duplicated on that other street with a commercial brokerage which often gets sued. How do I know about these lawsuits? — because several process servers showed up (over about eight years living there) to sue the other address. They never believed my factual explanation: the numbers repeat on the same road, so closely ("yeah, ok buddy").
  - jxnlco 2y ago
    what... what did you doo...
    - ProllyInfamous 2y ago
      Usually just accepted the documents/lawsuit, then drove up the mountain to give it to the intended recipient. The first time this happened, business was closed... so I just taped it to the door (and then the owner came out LIVID, thinking I was the process server...). Only once did the process server actually look on his phone to see that there were in fact two same-addressed properties (and obviously mine was residential).
      - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago
        Of course, what you did was the kind and polite thing but would the process server have any recourse to, "You would be failing to serve that notice if you leave it with me"?
dmoy 2y ago
Congrats on the retiring! Are you still doing the hats & bottles or did you retire from that too?
- CliffStoll 2y ago
  Thanks D'moy! I'm still having fun with Klein bottles and other topological manifolds. Toying with immersions of the projective plane and several knot embeddings. At the moment, retirement mainly means "start taking out required minimum distributions". All the same, I wonder: How do you retire from a marginally profitable nano-business built upon glass mathematical shapes? How'd I ever reach 74 years old?
  - pjmorris 2y ago
    The Acme Klein bottle and its packaging materials are among my prize possessions. And 'The Cuckoo's Egg' was a great read. Thank you for being you.
    - CliffStoll 2y ago
      // blush //
    - apocadam 2y ago
      Aside from those I also loved the photos I got with the bottle and him in his garden. Thanks Cliff (:
  - rolandr 2y ago
    Find someone interested in continuing that business under a long term (royalty or such) or short term (lump sum) financial arrangement that is acceptable to you? I think there will be interested people, maybe even within this community (not suggesting I’m one of them, though).
    - ethbr1 2y ago
      Or he could go full Japanese and adopt the business heir into his family. ... actually, that might be safer so as to not raise any red flags with Citibank. /s
ProllyInfamous 2y ago
I'm having the same issue due to changing my surname (male). So far I've mentioned that millions of women experience name changes during marriage... to deaf ears. The good news for this is that my primary stock has gone up 80% (since this issue became apparent, just two years ago), and it has encouraged me to live more frugally. Eventually? Unrelated: thanks for the awesome Klein Mug, Cliff!
- ok_dad 2y ago
  Millions of people experience name changes… and have to file paperwork. I don’t know how many copies of my marriage cert I’ve had to send out now. I had to send one to a multiplayer video game company to change an account name, for example. It’s not just a given that you can change your name on certain records!
dextrous 2y ago
Off-topic: I loved “The Cuckoo’s Egg”, was part of what influenced me to get a CS degree. Fantastic read.
- Bluestein 2y ago
  Read it. Word. Great book.-
cbm-vic-20 2y ago
Cliff, you've probably got the contacts necessary who could get their way in there and change the records for you. :)
jmvoodoo 2y ago
Unrelated, but I read your book in the 90s as a teenager and it had a huge impact on my life. Still one of my favorite books. Thank you.
- CliffStoll 2y ago
  Thanks JM. Long time back, and lotsa changes. Cleaning out my attic last month, I just found a stash of punch cards left over from the 1980's. Some paper-tape that has my phd dissertation. And a fortran manual from my high school's IBM-1620. Oh my...
  - sizzle 2y ago
    What are you up to these days? Were you able to predict or see the advent of modern AI and LLMs coming from earlier in your career? Thoughts on the future of computing? Thank you.
    - navigate8310 2y ago
      https://youtu.be/Gj8IA6xOpSk?t=140 https://youtu.be/Gj8IA6xOpSk?t=140
      - js2 2y ago
        Thank you for this. I had never seen it before. All truth is one. In this light may science and religion labor here together for the steady evolution of mankind from darkness to light; from prejudice to tolerance; from narrowness to broadmindedness. https://library2.buffalo.edu/archives/campuses/detail.html?ID=25 https://library2.buffalo.edu/archives/campuses/detail.html?I...
  - imdsm 2y ago
    I read your book for the first time a few months ago after someone here recommended it. I was hooked. It took me back to my beginnings (99/00) when the internet was different, when we had dial up and there was still discovery. I appreciate the time you put into writing it — and the nostalgic enjoyment it brought me.
calmbonsai 2y ago
Ah, Citi. Related to an earlier comment I posted on a different thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41316889 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41316889 , I didn't name the "national bank", but I now feel perfectly comfortable outing "Citibank" as the national bank that I will no longer (personally) do business with. Corporate stuff is a different matter. As a matter of policy, they do not empower their front-line (personal) banking CSR reps, and even 1st-level escalation folks. They're basically nothing more than stenographers. After 20 days of back-and-forth with non-answers, I finally sent them a certified letter giving them 30 days to "take action" or "explain non-action" on a specific dispute amounting to ~$5k. The responded with a non-reponse bizarre marketing letter in 10 days. I called to verify the prior letter was "on-record" in my account. Given the nature of the postage, it was already verified delivered. Moving forward, that 15 year+ line-of-credit is just going sit on their books until they close the account. There is no longer a fundamental basis of forthright communication, confidence in competence, and trust to move forward.
- arcanemachiner 2y ago
  Couldn't hurt to keep an eye on the account to make sure those dummies don't start tacking on some "account dormancy fee" or other nonsense like that.
  - 77pt77 2y ago
    Or just go down the Wells Fargo road and start opening accounts on his behalf.
    - calmbonsai 2y ago
      LOL!
- ethbr1 2y ago
  > As a matter of policy, they do not empower their front-line (personal) banking CSR reps This appears to be the original sin in most of these scenarios. Eventually, automation and predictive analytics will break. If you do not have a customer service org empowered and staffed to (a) investigate what went wrong & (b) make it right, then you will lose customers. And maybe you're fine with that trickle, but know that the Kafkaesque burning of a relationship means they will never do business with you again. For all its faults, Amazon is an example of a company that still remembers this and seems to empower its support folks. As a counterexample, I severed a 20 year relationship with Bank of America because they disempowered their retail staff to the point of uselessness.
immibis 2y ago
Seems like court order would have been the easier option, but courts intimidate people.
ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
Did you show them your TV interview? :) Glad you got things straightened out. Yesterday's SMBC made me think of you: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/outside https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/outside
burnte 2y ago
Early this year they messed around with a credit card account I had with them. I immediately said fix it or I cancel today, they refused, I cancelled the account and they've been nagging me to come back for 6 months. Fuck no!
Balgair 2y ago
Aside: Hey Cliff, love your work and efforts, glad to hear you're retiring too. Yeah, we had another issue with Chase like yours and the article's. Finally got around to letting Chase know that a family member had died, took a little while, because, duh. We were all on the accounts together. So, Chase then goes and makes us all down as dead. Freezes everything, then started up the process to put up the money for probate to our various estates (?!). Luckily, we get daily emails about this and were able to go and start everything back up again. It's still no where near finished up, after about 5 months of weekly visits. They managed to make us undead in their system, but then a week later it would revert. No one ever knew what was going on and still don't. Eventually managed to get a check of all the cash in the checking and savings accounts and have gone and put it all with a local credit union. However, about $120k of retirement savings from my dead family member are still locked up in Chase. No amount of records from the county or newspaper obits or hospice forms can convince Chase that the deceased is actually dead. They, and I am not joking here, said that my family member has to sign off on declaring their death to Chase. Chase, never again. I want to be clear to the other readers here: This is your warning that 'something is rotten in Denmark'. When another large fiscal crisis starts up again in ~3 years, you'll now know it's because these banks have become too big to operate, not just fail. Cleaning out that mess is going to be a lot harder than 2008, as all their internal records stink.
luizfzs 2y ago
Sorry to hijack. Cliff Stoll the astronomer? I loved your book! I loved the way it reads. So fluid and interesting.
77pt77 2y ago
Many decades ago I transfered my money from the USA to Europe. Nothinf much but I didn't want to cross borders with wads of cash even though it's perfectly legal. I had to give my origin bank everything imaginable, including address, phone, fax of both the destination bank as well as the branch. All of my ID obviously and the destination account number. Weeks later I get a message from my destination branch saying they got some money in USD for someone that had a subset of my name but no account information whatsoever. I said it was for me and thankfully that was it. What happened? Eventually I got something that looked like a traceroute of the transfer. The origin bank used Citibank as an intermediary and at that step everything but the amount, name of the destination bank and my first and last name was lost. Completely obliterated. Never trusted them ever since.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ciupicri 2y ago
How was it possible for both "Cliff Stoll" and "Clifford Stoll" to exist? Shouldn't your legal name be used as it is (i.e. no nicknames) on all papers? Or did you change your legal name?
- jpollock 2y ago
  Names are fuzzy things, and what you write on a piece of paper can change. What's on your ID can change over time too. I've known people who couldn't get their name into the system (no last name), couldn't fit their names into the system (two last names, no hyphen), changed family name (spouses), change first name, put in a different first name (sometimes Timothy, sometimes Tim), their name didn't _fit_ in the field (too many characters, unexpected character encoding), trans people. This should be expected by computer systems, and expected by staff.

codetrotter 2y ago

Infuriating. That kind of thing is what makes me wish I could not have to ever deal with a bank ever again.

otteromkram 2y ago
Who said you have to deal with a bank? That's not written into law, is it? Try a credit union if you want to avoid banks.
- Djdjur7373bb 2y ago
  Is the experience that different? I've never tried one, but I assumed the level of bureaucracy must be similar in order to defend against fraud and fulfill regulatory requirements.
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    It is absolutely different. I can walk into my credit union's offices - they have just two branches - and talk to someone with decision making power. An actual human being picks up the phone if I call. Their customer service has been impeccable despite some complex asks. I am unlikely to be able to do this if someone steals my crypto. (My security question when calling in was once "you sent an email last week that made my boss very happy, what was it about?")
    - ethbr1 2y ago
      Pros of a credit union: many processes are still manually-controlled Cons of a credit union: many processes are still manually-controlled There's a lot of scenarios where that's the lesser of two evils, though. And god it's nice to be able to walk into a branch, explain the situation to someone, and get "Let me see what I can do. There, all fixed" in reply. Instead of "Oh, the system won't let me do that."
  - piperswe 2y ago
    At my previous credit union (before moving), the local branch manager knew me and my family (mom, husband, etc) by name. And she either (1) had actual power to make things happen or (2) could just call the person that did in any given circumstance. This is a medium sized credit union, with a dozen or so branches.
  - unanimous 2y ago
    Banks are for-profit and credit unions are not-for-profit. Banks will do whatever they think they can get away with to increase their profits, which affects every interaction you have with them. I've had accounts at Citibank and now multiple credit unions, and I regret ever having had accounts at Citibank. They were constantly making things difficult in new ways. I don't know how the bureaucracy compares, but how they treat customers is definitely different.
  - gopher_space 2y ago
    The main difference is that a credit union actually wants clients at your income level. They're not necessarily more competent.
  - toast0 2y ago
    The main difference is size. I have an account at the #4 biggest credit union by assets. It would be about 80th if banks and credit unions were ranked together. I previously had an account with what's currently the 4th largest bank, and it was a totally different experience that I won't repeat. At that level of assets, you're usually not thousands of branches, it's probably just tens, and the organization is small enough to be based on empowering people to use their brains as opposed to strict script following and zero thinking. Credit unions are a bit more flexible than a small bank though, because of shared branching. It's not as good as they say it is, but you can go to selected other credit union branches and get limited teller services.
Djdjur7373bb 2y ago
It's this exact sentiment that drives many to crypto, despite the challenges in spending it at this point.
EvanAnderson 2y ago
Doubly infuriating because it's Cliff Stoll they fucked-with. At least I know never to do business with Citi.

ghaff 2y ago

I've had some weird experiences related to my address although none were really a serious problem. My street name changed (probably when an interstate spur was put in about 40 years ago) and I still have issues now and then with geolocation.

ProllyInfamous 2y ago
>My street name changed and I still have issues now and then with geolocation. This happened at my previous house, except with an additional twist: the street name was changed to an identical streetname, less than a mile away, but within a different city. Adding to the confusion, my address was duplicated on that other street with a commercial brokerage which often gets sued. How do I know about these lawsuits? — because several process servers showed up (over about eight years living there) to sue the other address. They never believed my factual explanation: the numbers repeat on the same road, so closely ("yeah, ok buddy").
- jxnlco 2y ago
  what... what did you doo...
  - ProllyInfamous 2y ago
    Usually just accepted the documents/lawsuit, then drove up the mountain to give it to the intended recipient. The first time this happened, business was closed... so I just taped it to the door (and then the owner came out LIVID, thinking I was the process server...). Only once did the process server actually look on his phone to see that there were in fact two same-addressed properties (and obviously mine was residential).
    - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago
      Of course, what you did was the kind and polite thing but would the process server have any recourse to, "You would be failing to serve that notice if you leave it with me"?

dmoy 2y ago

Congrats on the retiring! Are you still doing the hats & bottles or did you retire from that too?

CliffStoll 2y ago
Thanks D'moy! I'm still having fun with Klein bottles and other topological manifolds. Toying with immersions of the projective plane and several knot embeddings. At the moment, retirement mainly means "start taking out required minimum distributions". All the same, I wonder: How do you retire from a marginally profitable nano-business built upon glass mathematical shapes? How'd I ever reach 74 years old?
- pjmorris 2y ago
  The Acme Klein bottle and its packaging materials are among my prize possessions. And 'The Cuckoo's Egg' was a great read. Thank you for being you.
  - CliffStoll 2y ago
    // blush //
  - apocadam 2y ago
    Aside from those I also loved the photos I got with the bottle and him in his garden. Thanks Cliff (:
- rolandr 2y ago
  Find someone interested in continuing that business under a long term (royalty or such) or short term (lump sum) financial arrangement that is acceptable to you? I think there will be interested people, maybe even within this community (not suggesting I’m one of them, though).
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    Or he could go full Japanese and adopt the business heir into his family. ... actually, that might be safer so as to not raise any red flags with Citibank. /s

ProllyInfamous 2y ago

I'm having the same issue due to changing my surname (male). So far I've mentioned that millions of women experience name changes during marriage... to deaf ears. The good news for this is that my primary stock has gone up 80% (since this issue became apparent, just two years ago), and it has encouraged me to live more frugally. Eventually? Unrelated: thanks for the awesome Klein Mug, Cliff!

ok_dad 2y ago
Millions of people experience name changes… and have to file paperwork. I don’t know how many copies of my marriage cert I’ve had to send out now. I had to send one to a multiplayer video game company to change an account name, for example. It’s not just a given that you can change your name on certain records!

dextrous 2y ago

Off-topic: I loved “The Cuckoo’s Egg”, was part of what influenced me to get a CS degree. Fantastic read.

Bluestein 2y ago
Read it. Word. Great book.-

cbm-vic-20 2y ago

Cliff, you've probably got the contacts necessary who could get their way in there and change the records for you. :)

jmvoodoo 2y ago

Unrelated, but I read your book in the 90s as a teenager and it had a huge impact on my life. Still one of my favorite books. Thank you.

CliffStoll 2y ago
Thanks JM. Long time back, and lotsa changes. Cleaning out my attic last month, I just found a stash of punch cards left over from the 1980's. Some paper-tape that has my phd dissertation. And a fortran manual from my high school's IBM-1620. Oh my...
- sizzle 2y ago
  What are you up to these days? Were you able to predict or see the advent of modern AI and LLMs coming from earlier in your career? Thoughts on the future of computing? Thank you.
  - navigate8310 2y ago
    https://youtu.be/Gj8IA6xOpSk?t=140 https://youtu.be/Gj8IA6xOpSk?t=140
    - js2 2y ago
      Thank you for this. I had never seen it before. All truth is one. In this light may science and religion labor here together for the steady evolution of mankind from darkness to light; from prejudice to tolerance; from narrowness to broadmindedness. https://library2.buffalo.edu/archives/campuses/detail.html?ID=25 https://library2.buffalo.edu/archives/campuses/detail.html?I...
- imdsm 2y ago
  I read your book for the first time a few months ago after someone here recommended it. I was hooked. It took me back to my beginnings (99/00) when the internet was different, when we had dial up and there was still discovery. I appreciate the time you put into writing it — and the nostalgic enjoyment it brought me.

calmbonsai 2y ago

Ah, Citi. Related to an earlier comment I posted on a different thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41316889 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41316889 , I didn't name the "national bank", but I now feel perfectly comfortable outing "Citibank" as the national bank that I will no longer (personally) do business with. Corporate stuff is a different matter. As a matter of policy, they do not empower their front-line (personal) banking CSR reps, and even 1st-level escalation folks. They're basically nothing more than stenographers. After 20 days of back-and-forth with non-answers, I finally sent them a certified letter giving them 30 days to "take action" or "explain non-action" on a specific dispute amounting to ~$5k. The responded with a non-reponse bizarre marketing letter in 10 days. I called to verify the prior letter was "on-record" in my account. Given the nature of the postage, it was already verified delivered. Moving forward, that 15 year+ line-of-credit is just going sit on their books until they close the account. There is no longer a fundamental basis of forthright communication, confidence in competence, and trust to move forward.

arcanemachiner 2y ago
Couldn't hurt to keep an eye on the account to make sure those dummies don't start tacking on some "account dormancy fee" or other nonsense like that.
- 77pt77 2y ago
  Or just go down the Wells Fargo road and start opening accounts on his behalf.
  - calmbonsai 2y ago
    LOL!
ethbr1 2y ago
> As a matter of policy, they do not empower their front-line (personal) banking CSR reps This appears to be the original sin in most of these scenarios. Eventually, automation and predictive analytics will break. If you do not have a customer service org empowered and staffed to (a) investigate what went wrong & (b) make it right, then you will lose customers. And maybe you're fine with that trickle, but know that the Kafkaesque burning of a relationship means they will never do business with you again. For all its faults, Amazon is an example of a company that still remembers this and seems to empower its support folks. As a counterexample, I severed a 20 year relationship with Bank of America because they disempowered their retail staff to the point of uselessness.

immibis 2y ago

Seems like court order would have been the easier option, but courts intimidate people.

ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago

Did you show them your TV interview? :) Glad you got things straightened out. Yesterday's SMBC made me think of you: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/outside https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/outside

burnte 2y ago

Early this year they messed around with a credit card account I had with them. I immediately said fix it or I cancel today, they refused, I cancelled the account and they've been nagging me to come back for 6 months. Fuck no!

Balgair 2y ago

Aside: Hey Cliff, love your work and efforts, glad to hear you're retiring too. Yeah, we had another issue with Chase like yours and the article's. Finally got around to letting Chase know that a family member had died, took a little while, because, duh. We were all on the accounts together. So, Chase then goes and makes us all down as dead. Freezes everything, then started up the process to put up the money for probate to our various estates (?!). Luckily, we get daily emails about this and were able to go and start everything back up again. It's still no where near finished up, after about 5 months of weekly visits. They managed to make us undead in their system, but then a week later it would revert. No one ever knew what was going on and still don't. Eventually managed to get a check of all the cash in the checking and savings accounts and have gone and put it all with a local credit union. However, about $120k of retirement savings from my dead family member are still locked up in Chase. No amount of records from the county or newspaper obits or hospice forms can convince Chase that the deceased is actually dead. They, and I am not joking here, said that my family member has to sign off on declaring their death to Chase. Chase, never again. I want to be clear to the other readers here: This is your warning that 'something is rotten in Denmark'. When another large fiscal crisis starts up again in ~3 years, you'll now know it's because these banks have become too big to operate, not just fail. Cleaning out that mess is going to be a lot harder than 2008, as all their internal records stink.

luizfzs 2y ago

Sorry to hijack. Cliff Stoll the astronomer? I loved your book! I loved the way it reads. So fluid and interesting.

77pt77 2y ago

Many decades ago I transfered my money from the USA to Europe. Nothinf much but I didn't want to cross borders with wads of cash even though it's perfectly legal. I had to give my origin bank everything imaginable, including address, phone, fax of both the destination bank as well as the branch. All of my ID obviously and the destination account number. Weeks later I get a message from my destination branch saying they got some money in USD for someone that had a subset of my name but no account information whatsoever. I said it was for me and thankfully that was it. What happened? Eventually I got something that looked like a traceroute of the transfer. The origin bank used Citibank as an intermediary and at that step everything but the amount, name of the destination bank and my first and last name was lost. Completely obliterated. Never trusted them ever since.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

ciupicri 2y ago

How was it possible for both "Cliff Stoll" and "Clifford Stoll" to exist? Shouldn't your legal name be used as it is (i.e. no nicknames) on all papers? Or did you change your legal name?

jpollock 2y ago
Names are fuzzy things, and what you write on a piece of paper can change. What's on your ID can change over time too. I've known people who couldn't get their name into the system (no last name), couldn't fit their names into the system (two last names, no hyphen), changed family name (spouses), change first name, put in a different first name (sometimes Timothy, sometimes Tim), their name didn't _fit_ in the field (too many characters, unexpected character encoding), trans people. This should be expected by computer systems, and expected by staff.