Patriot act and on-line savings- where are my rights???

[Texas Proud]

A few intersting comments- thanks.

Firstly, whomever mentioned that having a savings account is not a "right" is absolutely correct. I agree. I may have mis-named the thread.

However, why should such an arbitrary test, which in no way suggests I have or will do anything wrong, prevent me from transacting business? It seems that in their attempt to interpret the patriot act the banks may have established some policies that have a negative imact on folks that simply dont deserve to be impacted. This seems inconsistent with the intent/spirit of the law.
Jeez -They have my SS# and all my rock solid history.

In our world of creeping legislation it seems that unintended conssequences are becoming more significant. Oftentimes it seems unintended consequences = legislative stupidity/ a failure to simply thinik things through. HIPA is another fine example of this.

Of course I could make my moms adress my permanent address by estabishing some accounts at this address. Interestingly, the bank doesn't tell me exactly what is required to satisfy them in this way. I was surprised to hear that they had looked for utility account in my name.

However, interest on savings is just one consideration. Car insurance, health insurance impacts are also in play. We intend to be gypsies for a while- renting for a while in FLA and then in SC and then. So, I was hoping to avoid multiple address changes over a relatively short period. I also wanted to avoid maintaining multiple addresses for different purposes. For the next several monthas the USPS forward to my mom was intended to keep us organized. Then we could change our address once only- to a final permanent address. Now i will have to re-optimize my approach.

This just seems so silly.

What state is on your drivers license... and how long do you have to change it

Most states require you to change your address on your license when you move... keeping it at your old address would present a problem... once you sold your house, you abandoned that address and should establish another... right now it seems that mom's is the best choice... and you can keep that one as you move around a bit...

When you do your tax return, what address are you going to use Seems that this would be the one you consider your official address...

 

[calmloki]

Heads up regarding mail forwarding: we are doing a snowbird thing out of our home state and didn't get a bank statement. Discovered that our hometown bank had "do not forward" instructions on their envelopes. They also claimed that 1099 forms are not to be forwarded.

Being as it's tax time we put in change of address requests with all financial entities that might send us tax documents. Major pain, as in a few months we'll be changing them back again... Not really happy with our solution, but the mail forwarding I thought would work failed at critical point - and I wouldn't have known had I not been keeping tabs on what should be arriving.

 

[audreyh1]

Heads up regarding mail forwarding: we are doing a snowbird thing out of our home state and didn't get a bank statement. Discovered that our hometown bank had "do not forward" instructions on their envelopes. They also claimed that 1099 forms are not to be forwarded.

Being as it's tax time we put in change of address requests with all financial entities that might send us tax documents. Major pain, as in a few months we'll be changing them back again... Not really happy with our solution, but the mail forwarding I thought would work failed at critical point - and I wouldn't have known had I not been keeping tabs on what should be arriving.

That's why I use a mail service as our billing address for all financial/insurance mail. It sure made this move easy too. Other mail can be forwarded to the service from our street address when we are traveling.

Audrey

 

[Texas Proud]

That's because you've got all these guys (politicians) whose whole job is to pass more laws. Every time they get together (in session), they make a bunch more things illegal. They rarely ever repeal any existing laws. The vast majority of their work is passing new ones. The more laws they pass, the more they're able to brag to their constituents about how "effective" they are.

It's inevitable that as more time passes, society is only going to get more and more bogged down in bureaucratic red tape and regulatory nonsense.

I don't have a solution, I was just pointing out that your observation is quite accurate, in my opinion.

The banks have been given a lot of laws they must follow... this is just one of the many... there is the 'know your customer' (which I bet this is part of).. it basically means that if the account is used by some drug kingpin, terrorist, dictator etc. etc... you can not say 'I did not know where this money came from... I was just sending it around the world and collecting my fee' as a defense... this used to happen...

 

[calmloki]

That's why I use a mail service as our billing address for all financial/insurance mail. It sure made this move easy too. Other mail can be forwarded to the service from our street address when we are traveling.

Audrey

Think I went to a South Dakota mail forwarding site you mentioned a week or so ago. Just a couple working out of a residence in a small town and with under 2000 accounts as I recall. $8-$18 or so/month plus postage?

Think this is a different site than you mentioned, but similar: Mail Rates

Could be a consideration down the road.

 

[Nords]

I solved my issue.
However, why should US citizens living abroad or homeless or wandering people that ARE OTHERWISE BENIGN be denied such an account?
I generally consider Legislative creep and related unintended consequences to be a growing issue. It seems to only go in one direction- it all gets more cumbersome and intrusive.

Are you asking a question in a "FIRE & Money" thread or in a "FIRE Related Political Topics" thread?

 

[Tractor guy]

I ran into this sort of bumpf when I was working in Japan 3 years ago. I got around it by changing one of my credit card addresses to be my father in laws. This (with a passport & some other ID) was sufficient to get a drivers license at that address and I had no problem opening bank accounts and investment accounts with that as the home address.

After I opened the accounts, I signed up for electronic statement notification so my father in law didn't have to deal with the credit card statement.

(Although he does have to throw away the offers for a new credit card that come in the mail every few days).

IMOP, this is another example of a rule that allows the regulators claim they are doing something but is falling off a log simple to get around if you need to. Just makes it more difficult for the average person to do what they want to without slowing down any illegal activity.

Lorne

 

[meierlde]

Actually now that I think about it UPS store mail boxes are not P.O. Boxes either. Addresses look like 123 ups street #256. So how a bank could tell other than googling the address that it was not an apartment is not clear. Note in addition that in contrast to a PO Box the UPS store will also accept UPS and Fed Ex shipments.

 

[Westernskies]

Are you asking a question in a "FIRE & Money" thread or in a "FIRE Related Political Topics" thread?

The title of the thread does reference "The Patriot Act"... not that it has anything to do with the topic being discussed, a common occurence here.

 

[Ken11]

Heads up regarding mail forwarding: we are doing a snowbird thing out of our home state and didn't get a bank statement. Discovered that our hometown bank had "do not forward" instructions on their envelopes. They also claimed that 1099 forms are not to be forwarded.

Being as it's tax time we put in change of address requests with all financial entities that might send us tax documents. Major pain, as in a few months we'll be changing them back again... Not really happy with our solution, but the mail forwarding I thought would work failed at critical point - and I wouldn't have known had I not been keeping tabs on what should be arriving.

Thanks for the heads up.
Fortunately, I've already made those changes.

TO Nords,
Sorry if i may have gotten a bit political.
It seemed to naturaly flow from the financial topic.
In any case, Im neither red nor blue.

 

[45th Birthday]

Check out USPS Premium Forwarding

Heads up regarding mail forwarding: we are doing a snowbird thing out of our home state and didn't get a bank statement. Discovered that our hometown bank had "do not forward" instructions on their envelopes. They also claimed that 1099 forms are not to be forwarded.

Being as it's tax time we put in change of address requests with all financial entities that might send us tax documents. Major pain, as in a few months we'll be changing them back again... Not really happy with our solution, but the mail forwarding I thought would work failed at critical point - and I wouldn't have known had I not been keeping tabs on what should be arriving.

The USPS has a service called Premium Forwarding:

USPS - Premium Forwarding Service

We use it when we move to our summer house for ten weeks a year. Essentially, they save all your mail for a week (including the junk!) and put it in a Priority Mail box and send it to you. No changes to your address and no sender knows where you are. It isn't cheap, but is actually something the USPS does that works well.

 

[SkisALot]

I had this same issue with an online bank. I live in an extremely rural mountain area where we can only get mail at a post office 8 miles away and the bank wouldn't accept the PO Box. My utility bills list the nearest town - 15 miles away - as a residential address and the PO address (although they wouldn't accept it) is in a different zip code, therefore a different town even though this "town" consists only of the tiney outhouse sized building used as a post office! The worst part though was that in the telephone verification process the bank wanted questions answered about my husband's ex-wife, a woman he was married to over 35 years ago, whom I have never met and he had not seen since then (they didn't have children.) Because we couldn't answer the questions about her (we don't even know where in the world she is) they wouldn't let us open the account. I say good riddance. I'll take my money elsewhere.

 

[Red_y]

Actually now that I think about it UPS store mail boxes are not P.O. Boxes either. Addresses look like 123 ups street #256. So how a bank could tell other than googling the address that it was not an apartment is not clear.

I can clear this up. When you open a brokerage account in the US, or attempt to change the address on an existing account, the firm will cross-match your designated home address with a database of known commercial addresses. This is to ferret out any attempts to use UPS or other private mailbox providers as a 'home' or 'residential' address.

I know from experience. As a US citizen living in Canada, I have my retirement assets with Fidelity. All is good as far as transacting in the account as a Canadian resident, but I was frustrated that I couldn't purchase new issue CDs from them online, since their computer system requires a valid US Zipcode for this particular transaction.

My initial solution was to change the address on my account from my Canadian residential address to my UPS box in a small town just over the border in Montana. No dice...it was immediately flagged as a commercial address and they would not change the residential address on my account to the UPS 'apartment' number.

Some financial firms are not so particular, e.g. I have a VISA card from PenFed w/ the MT address and it's no problem. But the brokerage firms for sure will not permit any such subterfuge.

 

[Ken11]

A freind of mine, who works in the industry, followed up on this situation.
He found that the Patriot act requires all banks to "Know their customers".
The law then explicitly states that its up to each bank to determine what is required to accomplish this.
Sooo...every bank may set different criteria for verifying your identity.
Interestingly, these details ared not generally communicated to prosepective customers.
My guess is that this section of the law was written by a bank lobbiest.

 

[obrigado]

If you can change your Mom's address registered at your current bank, that would be the easiest. Then the statement can be used to establish your address needed for your online account.

Of course, if your bank up north was a small, local bank, you would be in trouble (maybe this is your situation?), as you would have to show up in person usually to change these personal information -- it's hard to do over the phone or postal mail. It's easier if your bank was a big one with branches near your current residence - then you can just walk into the branch office and do what you need to do.

You might want to try giving a call to the local bank, and see what they're willing to accept as proof of identity so that they would let you change address over postal mail (maybe they'll ask you for your driver's license copy & bank statement copies, whatever).

Anyways, good luck!