trying to open an account!

Prefade

I could not agree more with the sentiments expressed in this thread. It seems absolute madness that banks appear so happy to hide behind arcane and downright ridiculous regulations that prevent them taking on business from people who could well end up valued customers. However the experiences you have had are nothing compared to the one year struggle I have had attempting to open a bank account for my girlfriend.

She is from abroad you see, and arrived in this country in January last year to study. She got a part time job and needed a bank account. Proving who she is was no problem, showing proof of address was very tricky indeed. How on earth does someone who has only lived in the country five minutes come up with a bill or a driving licence? What we did have was a police registration certificate, issued by the Home Office when she arrived (for which we had to pay) which is a nice laminated document with a government seal and which features her picture and her name and address. This was the source of a stand up argument with a very rude lady in my local Barclays who was unable to tell me why a driving licence would be acceptable yet this official document was not, despite it being less easy to forge and containing exactly the same information. "But it is not on the list" she kept saying, referring to a tatty card on the counter. Needless to say I am no longer a Barclays customer, withdrawing from the long list of products that I bought from them.

So we shrugged our shoulders and went off and lied to the electricity company about who was paying the bills and had her name put on it. The problem was that this company only issues electronic bills, allowing you to print off a PDF copy of the bill should you require. Needless to say the next bank we tried turned their noses up at this "oh no, we need to see something that has actually come through the post." Back to the electricity company who are happy to send a printed copy - and that is literally what they did, sending me a printout of this electronic document. Back to the bank (NatWest) who say "no, this isn't a proper bill", despite being shown the envelope it came in. They then pointed out that two days beforehand they had changed their rules anyway and wanted to see two bills rather than one. I decided to punish them by forcing them to use security to remove me from the premises when I asked the queue in turn to agree with me that this was ludicrous and caused an onsite customer revolt in the process.

We tried again at HSBC who didn't seem to be that bothered about the printed bill but as the whole process had taken nine months up to that point and my girlfriend's visa was expiring within three they declined to proceed further.

Well now we are back, with a brand new visa. I have also discovered that if you don't pay the electronic bill they send you a red one in the post as normal. Today we are going off to open an account - or at least attempt to. My opinion of the UK banking system (which employs people who will tell foreign visitors to their face that they have no way of knowing they are not terrorists) is so low that I suspect the bank will come up with another excuse to turn us away.

Repeated complaints to the chief executives of the banks concerned have produced nothing more than excuses that the FSA makes them act that way. Sadly the FSA don't seem to want to accept complaints about themselves.

Prefade

...just to follow up my last whinge. Armed with our printed bill, my girlfriend and I visited a branch of Lloyds TSB. Although they did not have any of the forms for their cash account, the helpful lady at reception offered to double check the documents for us.

"Oh dear" she said, "this is a reminder bill".

Yes, apparently banks won't accept red bills as proof of address as they cast doubt on the financial competence of the applicant (although there is no trace of this in any of their literature).

I protested that we were trying to open a cardcash account with no credit facilities involved so financial competence should not be an issue. I also pointed out that had I presented a driving licence as proof of address this would have given no indications of ability to settle bills on time. No, this is the bank erecting cardboard forts for itself in a ridiculous display of pigheaded incompetence.

Needless to say another complaint has gone in. It beggars belief that an industry can be so reluctant to accept customers. If I ran my business in this manner I'd be on the streets within weeks.

littleangel

Surely you don't need to change the name on the utility bills, but instead just add your son's name to the bill? I've lived in loads of share houses and bills are often in everyone's names - which I think is acceptable.

Is your son on the electoral roll? He's now 18 so he's eligible to vote. You just need to get the form from your local council, get him to fill it in and then they should send him confirmation of his registration - at your address. Being on the electoral roll is proof of address? It may take a few weeks, but no longer than that.

Alternatively, can you set up a joint account in both your names that he can use (and then remove your name when they permit it)? If there's no overdraft, then you don't need to worry about debt issues.

I agree with all the previous posts, it's a complete nightmare opening bank accounts. I fail to understand why banks are so loathe to take people's money!!! There's no risk to them - any dodgy money-laundering-type transactions are easy to spot and your son paying in his salary is hardly a risk.

Good luck!

pug_in_a_bed

i'm with the co-op and i HATE them.

it took 11 weeks to open my account, due to the staff giving me incorrect and out of date info on what id i could use TWICE. then the id was 'lost' on its way to being faxed to the head office TWICE. then a member of staff called me a liar - i quote 'well perhaps its you thats lying' - why WHY would i lie about another member of staff telling me the stuff had been lost a third time??!! one member of staff said it had been lost, the advisor was told it had been recieved and then accused me of lying.

they were rude, UNco-operative and generally unpleasant in-branch, although the phone staff were ace.

call me paranoid but i always wonder if my status as a bankrupt had anything to do with the way i was treated....i have to declare this you see, the co op was recommended to me and as i also wanted a debit card thats why i went with them. Supposedly they give you £20 if they mess up, first you have to get them to accept they messed up, not so easy :<

grrr

Paul_Varjak

mariel:

Does your son have to provide two or four documents? Usually, two documents are sufficient - one to prove address and one to prove identity. However, some institutions require two proofs of each, other institutions require none - they do their checks via the credit reference agencies.

Your son may not appear on credit reference agency files, so the best forms of ID I think are a birth certificate plus an offical notice from the Inland Revenue or the Department of Work and Pensions.

The list you have from your bank on acceptable forms of ID is not comprehensive and they should accept other forms of ID if you ask them (I have used by disabled blue badge, for instance).

System

Hi, I had a similar problem opening up a joint account with the bos. They did in the end accept my medical card as proof of identity, as this does have my address on it.

Perhaps it was easier because of it being a joint account? Could you not open a joint account with your son? would that work?

jonesMUFCforever

Seven wrote:

Hi, I had a similar problem opening up a joint account with the bos. They did in the end accept my medical card as proof of identity, as this does have my address on it.

Perhaps it was easier because of it being a joint account? Could you not open a joint account with your son? would that work?

Steven
This would not work.
Each party to a joint account has to be identified and their address confirmed.
Eric

richiethekid

I used to work for a big financial institution and consequentally had to undergo training on money laundering regulations. Basically there is a list of documents which are deemed acceptable and if it ain't on the list (even if it's harder to forge) they won't accept it. Incidentally, the DVLA don't ask for proof of address when you change the address on your driving licence, I suppose that would create a vicious circle. It seems that the feeling is, if you prove your identity, you're obviously not a money launderer or a terrorist. To come back to the point about ID cards though, accordingly to Computer Weekly the biometric technology the government wants to use hasn't actually been invented yet, so they need to use two forms of biometric identification on the cards if they are to work properly. Several billion pounds of (our) taxpayer's money has already been spent on this project, and another few billion will be spent before it gets off the ground. And even if the cards are ever actually introduced, you'll need to produce a driving licence and utility bill to prove your address before you can get one.

Turning_into_scrooge

My son isnt working as he is a student but to solve this problem for him i put his mobile phone bill in his name which worked i'm very pleased to say but his phone is on contract not pay as you go.

jonesMUFCforever

Turning_into_scrooge wrote:

My son isnt working as he is a student but to solve this problem for him i put his mobile phone bill in his name which worked i'm very pleased to say but his phone is on contract not pay as you go.

I am suprised at this because my bank specifically excludes mobile phone bills from acceptable addres confirmation.
Eric