I was helping my mom open some account recently and got curious about the process of verifying someone. They all have to follow the Patriot Act, which requires a person to provide ID info such as name, date of birth, address, and ssn.
One bank attempted to run a credit report, but failed because her credit report was frozen, but it didn't work even after I unfroze the report, which may indicate other issues.
When I open an account at the brokerage instead online, they sent a link to get the person's drivers license or passport plus a selfie. Let's say she was unable to complete this request since I was unable to explain what a selfie is. I tried to call Fidelity to pull up her previous profile, but since she left Fidelity in the 90's, they no longer have her on record.
Instead we use a paper form which did not have any of these requirements. She just had to fill it out and sign her name.
This makes me wonder, does every institution have a different way to verify? Why would paper have less verification requirements? I suppose it's easier to do an online application volume-wise.
One bank attempted to run a credit report, but failed because her credit report was frozen, but it didn't work even after I unfroze the report, which may indicate other issues.
When I open an account at the brokerage instead online, they sent a link to get the person's drivers license or passport plus a selfie. Let's say she was unable to complete this request since I was unable to explain what a selfie is. I tried to call Fidelity to pull up her previous profile, but since she left Fidelity in the 90's, they no longer have her on record.
Instead we use a paper form which did not have any of these requirements. She just had to fill it out and sign her name.
This makes me wonder, does every institution have a different way to verify? Why would paper have less verification requirements? I suppose it's easier to do an online application volume-wise.
Statistics: Posted by gavinsiu — Fri Dec 15, 2023 9:14 am — Replies 0 — Views 37