The Great Patriot Act Hard at Work!
Today, I ventured into the booming downtown Tampa Bay area to open up a checking account.
However, it turns out that my “three forms of I.D. were not sufficient enough to establish an account, PER THE PATRIOT ACT.”
Three hours of wasted time thanks to the Patriot Act.
But wait! There is more:
Now, I can only assume that The Patriot Act, in this element, is to help deter TERRORISTS from establishing an account. [give me a fucking break]
Okay, so you need all these forms to prove you are who you are to begin the process of opening an account, right? Okay, so I obviously wasn’t able to provide this to them, even though they’re looking at my pictures, looking at me, looking at my address and matching it to the others, this is not enough, and thus the Patriot Act is enforced. [thanks you fucking republicans!]
No! My HUGE plan of FUNNELLING money to terrorist organizations [ebay] online is foiled! [oh Allah, why?]
So, I figure, now I have to go get a passport or whatthefuckever else I need to give these people my money.
Too much of a hassle, so what do I do?
I go home and I call the 1-800 number and OPENED THE ACCOUNT OVER THE PHONE WITH JUST MY SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER. WTF?!
Does this make ANY sense to ANYBODY?
4 Comments, Comment or Ping
Banks and some covered financial institutions such as securities firms, mutual funds, and commodity futures traders must VERIFY four pieces of information (name, address, date of birth, and government identifiers such as social security numbers.
http://www.complianceheadquarters.com/AML/AML_Articles/section_326_final.html
Supposedly banks were “always” doing this so it wasn’t seen as a hardship. They probably ran you thru a quick background check when you did it over the phone. Why they didn’t do a background check in person is beyond me.
Nov 4th, 2004
Beyond me too
I just found it completely ridiculous that I was able to do it over the phone but it wasn’t possible in person. But her reasoning being “per the patriot act” was the real kicker.
I could have easily been anybody on the phone pretending to be me but it would be a little hard for anybody to be me in person.
The last time I opened up an account all I had was my photo ID. But that was years ago.
Nov 4th, 2004
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I actually would have suggested you just turn your paypal account into a bank account - then again, i guess you can’t cash checks with them yet. But they do have a pretty high return rate… I’m getting over 2%
Nov 5th, 2004
I thought you still needed a bank account to send money from paypal?
Nov 5th, 2004
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