£714 - How much??

[threespires]

My building society want me to prove I am who I say I am.
They already have copies of my passport and other docs.
They ask me to go to a solicitor with my passport.
Why a solicitor & not my local building society branch is beyond me.
I go to solicitor with my passport and other docs to prove that I am me.
They write to the building society & confirm that they've seen my passport and I am me.
Cost £714..

[Tam1]

My building society want me to prove I am who I say I am.
They already have copies of my passport and other docs.
They ask me to go to a solicitor with my passport.
<SNIP>
I'd have found another building society / bank at that stage.....

[caiss4]

Sounds about right. My 99 year old aunt had to prove to her bank of 60 years who she was. They required either a passport, driving licence or even a bus pass.

She has none of these.

They threatened to withdraw her banking facilities and freeze her entire assets.

It cost me 3 return flights to the Channel Islands (where she is in a residential home), numerous meetings and calls with the bank concerned.

Eventually they accepted a letter from 'her' GP. It was a guy from the practice who had never met her. I could have faked said letter in 5 minutes.

All to do with money laundering apparently.

[Phil Dicky]

Tam1 said:

My building society want me to prove I am who I say I am.
They already have copies of my passport and other docs.
They ask me to go to a solicitor with my passport.
<SNIP>
I'd have found another building society / bank at that stage.....

And for £714 for a letter a new solicitor.

[Fore Left]

£714

Did you miss the decimal point out?

[anonymous-user]

This all sounds rather unbelievable.

[stewjohnst]

The worlds gone mad.

I was on the phone to the tax office last week as they're making me do self assessment forms again.

After 15 minutes of hold muzak I had a brain fade and couldn't remember my NI number correctly.

After two wrong guesses lass on the phone said if you get it wrong again you'll fail security and have to hang up and ring back and go through the queue again.

I pointed out I hadn't even given my name or anything to cross check security with, so couldn't she just use my dob and postcode to confirm me?

"Oh yeah, we can do that instead"

[The Mad Monk]

stewjohnst said:

The worlds gone mad.

I was on the phone to the tax office last week as they're making me do self assessment forms again.

Well.

That can't possibly be your own fault, can it?

[Gareth79]

I'd want clarifying why they insisted you went to a solicitor and whether there was a cheaper (or free) method of achieving the same result.
Did the solicitor break down the £714?

[threespires]

I was happy to prove my ID, it just seems a lot of money to write a letter.

[Vaud]

Did they provide their fees up front before you committed to paying?

[ging84]

let me guess
you are one of those with a crumpled 25 year old drivers licence that is more sellotape than paper because you don't want the government to have your photo.

[SVTRick]

All I can say is your some kind of MUG to part with that money to some crooked brief.

[gareth_r]

ging84 said:

Let me guess, you are one of those with a crumpled 25 year old driver's licence that is more sellotape than paper because you don't want the government to have your photo.

Some of us can remember, and miss, the good old, pre Blair/Cameron, days, when you were innocent until proven guilty.

[rainmakerraw]

ging84 said:

let me guess
you are one of those with a crumpled 25 year old drivers licence that is more sellotape than paper because you don't want the government to have your photo.

Given that 'the government' already issued him with a passport (of which his building society holds a copy) I'd say you guessed incorrectly - even with all the relevant information at hand.

[CraigyMc]

James_B said:

threespires said:

My building society want me to prove I am who I say I am.
They already have copies of my passport and other docs.
They ask me to go to a solicitor with my passport.
Why a solicitor & not my local building society branch is beyond me.
I go to solicitor with my passport and other docs to prove that I am me.
They write to the building society & confirm that they've seen my passport and I am me.
Cost £714..

You may have missed HSBC being fined $1,900,000,000 recently for not being diligent enough in their anti money laundering checks.

Financial institutions, not being staffed by morons, noticed this, and have responded.

HSBC were not trying to facilitate financial crime, they were trying quite hard to stop it, but they were found to be not quite diligent enough, he centre the nearly two billion dollar.

Two billion dollars. Two thousand million dollars.

That's the sort of penalty that makes everyone decide to just tighten things up a bit.

Yes, it's annoying to have to prove your identity, but not half as annoying as a fine with the word billion in it.

They were fined $1.92bn for failing to vet $670bn and you think the fine is big?

They could have had a fine ten times bigger and it'd still have been good business.

[...]

A great effort but a mere 3/10 for this one from me.
I much preferred your tale about the supermarket car park camera incident, that I gave a solid 7.5/10.

[Crackie]

Does the solicitor's other half work for a building society ?

[Alucidnation]

Can you post a picture of the invoice?

Would be interesting to see the cost breakdown.

[xyyman]

In our business we are often required, as part of due diligence procedures, to provide notarised copies of photo id and proof of address documents. Our local Notary Public, part of a law practice, charges £100 per session which can be several documents. Frankly £714 is just unbelievable.