Which Mr M Wilson?

Which Mr M Wilson? Why is Barclaycard sending me a PIN for a credit card I don’t recognise? That was the slightly alarming question I found myself asking recently. The envelope was addressed to “Mr M Wilson” at my home address. That’s me, so I opened it. Inside was correspondence about a PIN for a credit card. I do have a Barclaycard, but I don’t often use it. After attempting to use this information to change the PIN on my card, and then spending rather more time than I would have liked navigating Barclaycard’s automated telephone system, I eventually worked out what had happened. The letter wasn’t for me at all. It was for my son. Similar, but not identical, names I’m Mark. And one of my adult sons, Matthew, lives at the same address. So we’re both Mr M Wilson. We both have middle names too, so even using our full initials would distinguish between us. Yet Barclaycard, along with several other organisations, insists on addressing correspondence using only our title, first initial…