Why do I need to show my passport to buy foreign currency?

mcfisco

Yeah right, small white middle aged lady

Have you not seen Diamonds are Forever?
Mr. Wint & Mr. Kidd use the little old lady [Mrs Whistler] to courier their diamonds from South Africa to Amsterdam and you know what happened to her?

That's what they [probably] do in real life too **


** I could - of course - just have a vivid imagination

alleycat`

It is for money laundering and i thought the values were for over £500?

It is to stop people going around the high street changing money (supposedly).

Mostly it is just the Tax man having a nosey because they can.

usignuolo

So you think I could be conned into acting as a carrier for a terrorist? Bit offended there, not all middle aged ladies are daft pushovers you know, you shouldn't believe everything you see in films.

Talking of pc - in the wake of the long queues at Heathrow and Gatwick (no different in my experience at NYC or Chicago BTW), John Vine, Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, has just issued a report which is highly critical of the Borders Agency. Among other things it says ", "An examination of "search of person" records showed that in 67% of cases, the search was neither justified nor proportionate " and

A separate report on Gatwick found that detection officers who wanted to question a black passenger would also detain white people "purely to avoid potential race discrimination complaints".

Meanwhile OH was in central London yesterday. Called in at currency booth run by an Asian which he has used before in a "touristy" area. Changed £500 into dollars over the counter, no questions asked. That is who police should be targeting for money laundering, not POs.

Mojisola

usignuolo wrote: »

So you think I could be conned into acting as a carrier for a terrorist? Bit offended there, not all middle aged ladies are daft pushovers you know, you shouldn't believe everything you see in films.

As a middle aged woman, I don't think they are all daft pushovers but, if I was a terrorist who fitted the profile that the police would be looking for, I would try to find someone who didn't match the profile to move my illegal goods around - a young mother with children in tow, a harmless-looking older woman, etc.

Jennifer_Jane

I used to work in Brussels in the early 70's with a sweet little lady, not terribly old, but not quite as young as I was. Her 'hobby' was smuggling people out of East Germany into West Germany. Did it several times apparently. A very brave woman who would have been shot by the authorities had they known.

And I couriered some 'sensitive' documents in South Africa during the apartheid days of BOSS (Bureau of State Security), not nearly as dangerous the lady above, but just mentioning that some of us are not as quite as sweet as it may appear.

mynameistallulah

usignuolo wrote: »

Meanwhile OH was in central London yesterday. Called in at currency booth run by an Asian which he has used before in a "touristy" area. Changed £500 into dollars over the counter, no questions asked. That is who police should be targeting for money laundering, not POs.

Not stereotyping too much there?

mcfisco

So you think I could be conned into acting as a carrier for a terrorist? Bit offended there

I don't think anyone is at all
They're either suggesting you have the right profile to attempt to be conned, or it's a bit of 'tongue in cheek' banter

Besides, although it's a bit of a daft policy for that amount of money, you can't expect the girl at Thos Cook to make a decision on whether you look a bit dodgy or not.
Cook's will have their own policy and they're very unlikely to give discretionary powers on forex to staff

usignuolo

OK so that is Thomas Cook's rules but the local Post Office staff know me well, and have done for years and know where I live. I regularly send stuff to my son in New York, but they would still not order any currency for me even though I said I would bring in my passport to collect it. Guy said the application form he has to fill in requires your passport number regardless of amount or how you pay. Am I alone in finding all this a bit sinister?

Of course you can find justifications for any government action if you want to. It is interesting that the UK's Immigration Inspector said many of the searches at airports are simply done for political correctness and have no justification. I just get annoyed at layers of bureaucracy which only penalise the law abiding and ignore those who operate outside it.

When my son got mugged and his credit cards, driving licence etc stolen, he reported it at once. Had to order a replacement driving licence. A year later, when he was working in NY, he got a letter here which I opened, and found a summons from Essex police, saying he had been caught speeding on the Colchester by pass, in fact someone in a hire car hired using his stolen driving licence had. (Even though it had been reported stolen a year earlier.)

I rang up to explain he was in NY and stolen licence had been reported at the time and since replaced and got nowhere - Colchester police station kept saying they did not deal with traffic offences and I had to contact Sgt Whatever who seemed to be based in a shed outside Rainham. Only got an answerphone.

Then I got a phone call from City of London Police, tracing son's details on driving licence. They were chasing up use of a credit card stolen in the city ten days earlier which it turned out had been used by some Somali youths, at Enterprise RAC in Victoria coach station to hire a Mercedes!. Part of some larger gang of organised crime the police said - they had been given card and D/L as a reward for their activities. (Figures as it was Somalis who mugged my son, at knife point.) To hire the car they had used, wait for it, my son's photo driving licence (needless to say he is white english with an english name) and a stolen credit card, stolen AND reported in the City 10 days earlier (from someone also with an english name.)

I said my son had reported original theft of D/L to Met police station near where it happened and to the DVLC at the time. I had rung Essex police day two days before say he was currently in NY and could not have committed the traffic offence. The policeman said that there was no interconnection between CoL, Met and Essex police computer systems.

Also apparently no system for stolen credit cards and driving licences being alerted to car hire firms.

As I said, mostly it seems to be knee jerk lip service for pc-correctness. No one actually uses any of this information so officiously collected. Collecting it is an end in itself.

Sorry end of rant.

shaunskankdog

The country is mad. When I go to Thailand, Malaysia etc or even a few countries in Europe, I never get asked for ID, if I am changing money. Only UK so far. I just dont get this country.

However, I have changed Thai Baht into GBP, at a local travel agent, and no one questioned my ID there.

photome

Jennifer_Jane wrote: »

Well, I think it's standard that you have to have photo ID for foreign exchange, so unsure what the problem is. I've ordered £250 online from Thos Cook for collection on Saturday, and the website says photo ID. Can't see it's a problem to pop my passport in my bag.

Re the debit/credit card charges, I think it's standard that Thos Cook mention this too. And I'd be grateful they do. Having looked at Martin's info on his site about various cards and their charges, this has saved me hassle.

With credit cards, it's not just the 'cash advance' fee, but also the interest that seems to go on and on for months, even when the whole amount is paid off immediately after buying the currency.

If you have a Post Office credit card, you can buy from them without charges and they deliver the next day. They didn't have the best rate this time, and I wanted too small an amount though, so I withdrew the cash from my bank current account and will take it to Thos Cook.

But its not standard I have never been asked for ID when purchasing foreign currency with cash.