Vanguard problem

Surfmaster

Hello,

I'm managing a Vanguard account as executor of a will.

Vanguard are insisting that I am obliged to tell them my income and employment, or they will stop me making withdrawals from the account.

They are saying they are collecting this information for regulatory purposes, to detect fraudulent activity.

I don't see how my income and employment will help them detect fraudulent activity.

But I can see how fraudsters could use this information.

Is this legitimate, or a scam?

Thanks

mebu60

Employment status or employment details? Tell them income or send proof?

If it's just employment status (employed / self-employed / f/t / p/t / retired etc) and telling them an annual amount of income I would probably just do it to keep them happy. Not sure what great insight they will gain from that information. 

dunstonh

I don't see how my income and employment will help them detect fraudulent activity.

Its quite normal and it is a regulatory requirement.  "know your client" for anti-money laundering purposes.  It ties in with a lot of other data they can obtain electronically, and your activity with the investments.  So, the questions are not just in isolation.

eg, you give your occupation and salary.    However, over the next two years, you make contributions that exceed that.      It can then lead to enhanced checks.   Checks you may never be aware of.

Uriziel

This is a very basic KYC legal requirement for money laundering checks. They want to know how much money you make so that if you suddenly have too much money it triggers an alert causing them to investigate where the newfound money came from.

Eco_Miser

Uriziel said:

This is a very basic KYC legal requirement for money laundering checks. They want to know how much money you make so that if you suddenly have too much money it triggers an alert causing them to investigate where the newfound money came from.

However since the OP is acting as executor of a will, their personal income is completely irrelevant, and I doubt that they would be making ANY new investments, just disposing of the existing ones.

dunstonh

Eco_Miser said:

Uriziel said:

This is a very basic KYC legal requirement for money laundering checks. They want to know how much money you make so that if you suddenly have too much money it triggers an alert causing them to investigate where the newfound money came from.

However since the OP is acting as executor of a will, their personal income is completely irrelevant, and I doubt that they would be making ANY new investments, just disposing of the existing ones.

If the account was just going to close to pay the estate or transferred to a beneficiary, then there is no requirement to do KYC on the executor unless the executor has taken it upon themselves to request trading rights/functionality on the account or retain it longer