Halifax customers are closing their accounts en masse today after its social media team told them to leave if they don’t like their new pronoun badges for staff in what is being branded one of the biggest PR disasters in British business history. MailOnline has more.
One account holder told MailOnline they have already pulled out investments and savings worth £450,000 while many more said they are closing ISAs, cutting up credit cards or transferring balances to rivals after they accused the bank of “alienating” them with “pathetic virtue signalling”.
The row began this week when Halifax, which was propped up by the taxpayer to the tune of £30billion as part of a 2008 bailout, tweeted its 118,000 followers on Tuesday revealing that it would allow staff to display their pronouns on their name badges, in a post that read “pronouns matter”.
It showed a photo of a female staff member’s name badge, which featured “she/her/hers” in brackets under the name Gemma, and said the policy was to help avoid “accidental misgendering”.
One customer replied: “There’s no ambiguity about the name ‘Gemma’. It’s a female person’s name. In other words, it’s pathetic virtue signalling and is seen as such by almost everyone who has responded to the initial tweet. Why are you trying to alienate people?” Within 20 minutes a member of the Halifax social media team, calling himself Andy M, replied: “If you disagree with our values, you’re welcome to close your account.”
Andy M’s response has outraged customers, and seen hundreds claiming they will boycott the bank with many saying they have closed their accounts. Others have cut up their credit cards or getting rid of insurance policies and said the threat was the final straw after it cut 27 branches alone in 2022.
One told MailOnline: “My entire family have now transferred their accounts to Nationwide, cards etc. Loss to Halifax is in excess of 450K in investment accounts and savings.” Another said: “I closed my credit card account today, after 15 years of being a customer”, while an existing customer who is now changing ISAs said: “If they politely said try to use the pronouns on the badge — I would have done my best”, but left because he perceived their threat meant “there would be hell to pay if I got it wrong”.
One customer from the Midlands said he has transferred £1,100 from his credit card to another company today, and said: “I’ve closed my account…. sick to death of woke.”
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Howard Brown, the star of the famous Halifax ads, has branded the bank’s treatment of its customers “disgraceful”. MailOnline has more.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.