A stunned mum was ordered to put her six-month-old BABY on the phone to speak to a telephone banking operator.
Jenny Nicholls, 31, had called the Halifax to talk to customer services about an error on her baby son's savings account.
But the operator insisted he could only deal with the account holder – in this case, six-month-old Harry.
"We waited in the queue and entered all the account security information then the man came on the line and said 'Is that Mr Harry Nicholls?'," Jenny told the Mirror. "I said no. He asked if he could talk to Harry but I said he's a baby, he can't talk."
The staggered mum said she was then told that the matter could not be discussed with her - only with Harry.
"I said I'm his mum but he just said he was sorry but he couldn't talk to me over the phone, only to the account holder," Jenny said. "I said 'are you being serious?' I thought it was a joke at first and then he would notice it was a child's account, but he was being serious."
Jenny and her 34-year-old husband Andrew opened the Kids Regular Saver account to provide a nest-egg for little Harry when he is older. She said the bank's stance on the phone was 'just daft'.
"They must have known he was a baby when we rang up because they had all his account details on the computer," she said. "He said all I could do was go in to the bank and they would have to deal with it. Surely if it's an under-16s account the parent and person who set it up should be able to deal with problems?"
Mrs Nicholls said it was 'hassle' to go into the branch because of having to queue with a pushchair, and as she could not use telephone banking, she would now close the account.
A spokesperson for the Halifax told the Mirror they were 'very sorry' for Jenny's experience, but confirmed that Kids Regular Saver accounts could not be managed over the phone. They added that Jenny 'should have been advised of this' as soon as she had called them.
HOW crazy?