Bank account has wrong date of birth - how to change

Pat1971

For a rather silly reason over 20 years ago, I opened a bank account with an incorrect date of birth. Some years later, when asked for the date of birth on my account, I could not remember and they changed it to another date which I do now remember, but which is also not my real date of birth.

Fast forward to today and I would like to change the date of birth on my account to the correct one.

I am not too worried about the original form having the incorrect date f birth nor the verbal change twenty years ago but I am a little concerned that I had to put the known wrong date of birth on another form around 4 years ago to open a secondary account.

None of the accounts have been used for any illegal purposes.

The thing is that I do not fully understand how they would change this date of birth today. Twenty years ago, they simply did it on a computer but today, I am not so sure.

I would rather they don't close the accounts but I'm not sure what rational excuse I could give for the silly deception all those years ago.

grumbler

Pat1971 wrote: »

....they changed it to another date which I do now remember, but which is also not my real date of birth.

.... I had to put the known wrong date of birth on another form around 4 years ago to open a secondary account.
....
I would rather they don't close the accounts but I'm not sure what rational excuse I could give for the silly deception all those years ago.

I don't think that there can be any rational excuse for this. And why on earth did you need a different DOB for opening a secondary account?
I guess your credit file is a mess now.

Willing2Learn

Contact the ALL banks and let them know of the mistake.

Do not use words such as 'deceive' in your conversation. Stick to 'error of judgement' or 'honest mistake'. They will want to see evidence of your date of birth from official documents. Every account that appears on your any of your three CRA reports will need to be informed.

I think you may potentially end up with a fraud marker against your name with CRAs as, technically and legally, what you have done four years ago was knowingly make an application using fraudulent data.

p00hsticks

Which bank ? If, Nat West there's an extra layer of compexity in that your birth date makes up part of the user number you use for online banking - so trying to change it could be pretty funamental. I'm not aware of whether any other banks use similar methods.

bengal-stripe

Pat1971 wrote: »

For a rather silly reason over 20 years ago, I opened a bank account with an incorrect date of birth. Some years later, when asked for the date of birth on my account, I could not remember and they changed it to another date which I do now remember, but which is also not my real date of birth.

Did you make yourself older or younger, or was it your star-sign that you disliked?

Inquisitive minds want to know!

Lansdowne

It depends on whether the bank treats the DOB just as an identifier, like mother's maiden name or favourite animal, or whether they treat it as really vital information about who you are. I would think there is no problem in just telling the bank that your date of birth was wrongly recorded at the time, and the correct detail is xx/yy/zz. It could just as easily be the bank's error as yours. They may just tell you there is no procedure for correcting the error and you need to keep the date you gave for the purpose of that account.

stclair

How much out is your DOB?

I changed mine easily enough a while back they had my DOB as 01/01/75 when is should have been 01/01/76.

It depends on how the accounts was opened was they done online or within branch etc.

stclair

re-

p00hsticks wrote: »

Which bank ? If, Nat West there's an extra layer of compexity in that your birth date makes up part of the user number you use for online banking - so trying to change it could be pretty funamental. I'm not aware of whether any other banks use similar methods.

In this instance they would have to re-register to get a new customer number.

Pat1971

Spoke to them on the phone in a general manner without revealing my identity (it is Nationwide) and they didn't seem at all concerned. I didn't elaborate but rather just said I noticed my DOB was wrong.

The daft thing is that my ID was verified by them around 2009 because that is when I saw on their terminal what the DOB was. The clueless staff member looking at my passport simply looked at the name and photo, never checking whether the DOB was correct.

My argument would be that upon seeing that DOB then, I didn't know what to do for the best.

I agree about the fraud thing but I don't see that as a long term problem as it is me being me, not someone else being me or me trying to be someone else.