Identity verification

Wixie99

With the need to keep moving our savings around to maintain a reasonable rate of interest, I have to open new accounts. Whilst my identify can be verified electronically, my husband has "failed" twice now. I rang the building society involved, and after much phoning around, discovered that as he has had no credit for the last three to five years (we are retired), he has creased to have verifiable identification. This seems totally illogical, as surely having debt is a peculiar qualification for a savings account?

dunstonh

he has creased to have verifiable identification. This seems totally illogical, as surely having debt is a peculiar qualification for a savings account?

The electronic money laundering verfication system looks up applications by your husband. This isnt just loans and credit cards but also mobile phones and other things where credit entries may exist (car insurance paid monthly for example). It also checks the electoral roll and BT telephone numbers.

The system will check back over 5 years but not everything was recorded in the past and older records may not be as reliable.

Problems tend to occur if you have recently moved (they can check the old address but it needs the person inputting the details to have that info) or you are not on the electoral roll or you have a peculiar address (house name, but no number is a common problem).

Its a score based system so it balances out problems with positives and if there are not enough positives then it will fail.

scotsbob

My partner is facing similar problems after returning from overseas.

It appears that nowadays you can only open a bank account if you buy gas and electricity here. How they manage to tie that one in goodness only knows.

It seems that it all has to do with some sort of money washing. Now overseas bank accounts are the only ones you can open if you don't want to vote, or buy gas or electricity here.

The upside of course is that overseas accounts pay higher interest rates.

dunstonh

It appears that nowadays you can only open a bank account if you buy gas and electricity here. How they manage to tie that one in goodness only knows.

It's any utility bill. Passport, driving licence and a load of other things. Someone with a passport and driving licence is really not going to have a problem.

Now overseas bank accounts are the only ones you can open if you don't want to vote, or buy gas or electricity here.

The money laundering guidelines are European. So, you should get fairly similar requests.

glider3560

Most places will accept an HMRC coding notice as proof of name and/or address. If you don't have one of these, call up your tax office and they'll pop one in the post to you.

Wixie99

Thanks for your replies. This confuses me even further. I pointed out to the building society that my husband is on the electoral roll, has a driving license, the utility bills are in joint names, and the TV licence is in his name only. He also has a driving licence. As we have lived at our present address two months short of the three years, we gave them our previous address. He doesn't have a credit card, but uses his debit card to pay for phone top-ups, purchases etc, so it sounds as though his identity should be easily verifiable. However, the building society would not refer back to their checking company to see why he had failed.

Bob_the_Saver

What happens if you were a lodger (so no household bills in your own name) didn't drive and 'enjoy' staycations so have no passport?

Elsewhere

I get this all the time, it's a real pain - I suspect a plot by the government to soften us up for Identity Cards :rolleyes:.

DH is OK, credit cards, utility bills are in his name - luckily I have both passport and driving license (usually they ask for the paper as well as the plastic bit!). I have used Council Tax bill and bank statements as proof of identity too.

Goodness knows how you manage if you don't have a driving license or passport (I believe under-18's can use birth certificate however)

Trouble is they have to physically SEE these things, or a certified copy. In general I only open savings accounts where there is a branch I can take my documents to - I am still waiting (after two weeks) for one provider to return some of my stuff that I was forced to post off.

dunstonh

Wixie99 wrote: »

Thanks for your replies. This confuses me even further. I pointed out to the building society that my husband is on the electoral roll, has a driving license, the utility bills are in joint names, and the TV licence is in his name only. He also has a driving licence. As we have lived at our present address two months short of the three years, we gave them our previous address. He doesn't have a credit card, but uses his debit card to pay for phone top-ups, purchases etc, so it sounds as though his identity should be easily verifiable. However, the building society would not refer back to their checking company to see why he had failed.

Sounds like he should have no problem passing the check. I have used the experian check for about 5 years now and in that time there have been some failures which were the error of experian. Although in each case they tried to blame me saying they didnt issue a score and that is was my own scoring system that had failed (their staff dont seem to know what services they offered!). The printouts you get from experian give a score in the top corner. Each of the "strange" failures scored 19 and that is not normal. The figures are always rounded in 10s. e..g 60, 70, 80. I suspect 19 means problem. Every one of these once I did get Experian to agree to look at them (that was hard work) found errors in the data stored by them and on a recheck they scored as you would expect them to.

Whilst an IFA may go to the effort of finding out the problem, I doubt a bank clerk will. So, you will have to find this out for yourselves. I doubt the bank will release the score data for your husband.

Wixie99

I found out the name of the checking agency from the building society's complaints department, and they gave me a phone number. However, it was an automated service with no "humans". I googled them, and have sent them an a-mail asking them to investigate. If I hear back from them, I will let you know what happens.

p00hsticks

Bob_the_Saver wrote: »

What happens if you were a lodger (so no household bills in your own name) didn't drive and 'enjoy' staycations so have no passport?

You could use things like tax coding notices, payslips, bank statements, driving licence, - they usually say that if you are unable to produce the items on their standard list they will consider your case individually.

(I have this problem all the time because I don't have a passport or driving licence. Top tips are to ensure that you are on the electoral register nad don't sign up for paperless billing / banking so that you have as much paperwork as possible - hypocritically the banks encourage you to stop paper statements, but generally won't accept prints of online statements when checking your id. )