NO2ID

I recently went to Bureau De Change to buy some Traveller's Cheques in US Dollars, to send to my son in the US, as a birthday present. The clerk insisted that I needed to present a valid passport in order to do so. I challenged her, and was luckily overheard by her colleague who stated that No, a passport was NOT required in order to purchase Traveller's Cheques. The clerk waiting on me again insisted that she was right, that her computer screen would ask for that info during the data entry process.
The computer screen did NOT ask for that info for processing. However, I was asked for all my contact details -as this is necessary in order to claim for lost or stolen T/C's.
I think that the clerk is another of the general population that has become just paranoid over all the government spin around the war(s) on "everything".....

In another incident, when getting American currency at Thomas Cook Travel Agency, I HAD to provide my name and address in order to buy foreign currency. I think that this is WAY over the top!!

I wonder if other people are experiencing the same reactions from Travel Agents and currency exchange personnel.... is everybody paranoid now, or just the people in the NW of the UK?

I will also add that I am American... and I did observe other customers who made transactions after me at both these businesses. The other customers were British with British accents... and none of them were asked for any ID or personal details for their transactions.

It is nothing to with suspiciousness on the poor old exchange bureau staff. Like anyone else in business they just want to serve their customers pleasantly when they are allowed to.

It is government paranoia, control freakery - and the general suspicion of tax evasion that goes along with high taxes. You'd find it anywhere in the UK, and in this case of fiscal paranoia, in other parts of Europe too. As with everything it is more rigorously and uniformly enforced in some places than others.

What you are facing is part of the so-called Money Laundering Regulations, which have been steadily extended to many different sorts of cash or large-scale transactions, on a crime/terrorism pretext. The same would apply if you were buying or selling something at auction, buying or selling a car, and so forth. The size of the transaction is also relevant, though not always.

The UK customers also should have been asked if they did currency exchange. But maybe they didn't.

I used frequently to pick up cash in the order of £100 to £200 at a time to top up a client's petty cash. Because their private bank did not have counter service or cash machines, it was done through and arrangement with a local bureau d'exchange. Despite being well known to the staff, I not only had to produce a driving licence on every occasion, but they had to take a photocopy of it.

If you take more than a few hundred pounds of your own money out of a British bank in cash, they will do time consuming checks on your ID and ask you what you want it for. An anodyne answer such as 'shopping' will do in practice. They do not want to know; it is just that they must ask and must report any suspicious transactions to the authorities. It is a criminal offence not to have reported anything they ought to have been suspicious of, and there are other regulatory authorities that may impose arbitrary penalties for failure to keep enough records (cf the Baroness Scotland case).

Where I live in central London I often encouter wealthy visitors in a bank queue, used to having a few thousand walking-around-money on them but suffering an interrogation to get hands on their own money, boiling with frustration and indignation about it.

We are of course promised that if we all have ID cards it will make life 'easier' because banks etc would have the confidence of a single source of ID information verified with the state. Which would have the side effect of recording the occasion and possibly the nature of the transaction in the Home Office's central database at the same time as the ID was verified by the bank... all for the individual's 'security' of course.

Money Laundering Regulations date back less than 10 years. The fatuous Know Your Customer rules are only a little older, no more than 20 (but have been tightened in the last few years to the point it takes weeks to open a bank account if the party is not a single individual or couple). The government is offering to make our lives 'easier' in producing official proof of identity that it is only the government and its regulatory agencies demanded in the first place.

I was incensed when I recently obtained a Post Office Visa card, for making online payments.I showed my passport over the PO counter, was given the card and told I could use it. Then I got a letter from them saying that I couldnt use it until I sent them a copy of my passport.I pointed out that they'd already seen my passport, but they wouldn't listen.
This sort of thing really compromises our privacy.

I am also amazed at the number of organisations who want to know our date of birth and have an insatiable thirst for personal data. . Mail order firms, holiday tour operators with their customer satisfaction questionnaires, police -even if it's just a tentative enquiry or reporting a crime, product guarantee forms, the list is endless. When I went on Broadband, BT wanted to know my date of birth.
It's appalling.

just ask the fuckers *why* they absolutely *have* to have this data. 9 times out of 10 the hapless clerk, manager, shop assistant school leaver with a GNVQ in "retail relations" wont know but will simply tell you that they're obliged to ask as part of their job.

Time to start a campaign of misinforming. Just give them any date, any postcode and unless its likely you will be back for something important, any name.
Why do museums need postcodes. Have one ready you like the look of and give it them.
TV Licensing when you buy a digibox or TV - make a postcode up or give them their own. Why help the database maintain its integrity.
When people demand e-mail details ( easy enough to create a new one and abandon it when you think you've used it enought)
Garbage in Garbage out - the only truth of computer based information services.
Anyone got any other good ideas. Nothing criminal, just for people making the point their information is their own and its distribution in their gift and not some faceless ones right to pry

I experienced all this shit recently when I went to buy a portable sat nav device from a brnach of Argos. The sales assistant was insistant that I had to provide this information but when asked why, she couldn't tell me - nor for that matter could the manage who I asked to speak to.

The real reason is of course obvious - bloody marketing and nothing whatsoever to do with regulations or existing laws.

I simply walked out and told them where to stuff their "policies" and "procedures."

Services like Mailexpire are particularly useful in this regard.

Ask them for the equivalent back and explain that you need it for your records.

I recently went in to my travel to exchange the massive sum of £40 into euros. I wanted some change to travel but intended using my cards once I arrived a broad.

I was told halfway through the transaction that I had to give my details and that it was the law, I stated it was not the law but the girl insisted it was but I refused anyway.

She then said that on this occasion she would wave the need for details (wave the law?) and I left with my money. A couple of months later I went to the co op to change some money and they did it without question.

On a similar note whilst buying a laptop for my son to go to uni at currys they refused to sell it to me unless I gave them my details. I refused sufficiently long to make my point before giving in. In future I will refuse and walk out of the shop so that they know they have lost a sale even if I then just go to another branch of Currys and buy the item there.

Isn't it strange. As a kid I remember one of the many reasons used to sell the EU to us was the fact we wouldn't need passports to travel in Europe. Now it seems I will need one to travel in England never mind Europe

If the laptop has a TV tuner card, they have to gather details for TV Licensing purposes. If it doesn't, there is no requirement for details. (Unless you bought an extended warranty and supplying details was a condition of cover.)

Who uses the post office to change money anyway? You get a much better rate at some Indian-run shops and you never get asked for anything. Look for the ones with long queues to know who has the best rate and is trustworthy

The excuse I was given when I picked up a tablet the other day was that should you have lost the receipt and need to return the item if it becomes defective, this is correlated to some variety of ID (not specified) that has your address on to confirm you did buy it there; i.e. you didn't nick it from someone and hope to scam the cash out of Curry's into the bargain.

Seeing as there is documentary proof (credit / debit card transactions for both holder and store) that your card was used to purchase said item I was a bit dubious about the whole thing...

It has become a habit of the larger retail operations to demand a post-code when either returning goods or, for a period lately, even when making a purchase. It is usually explained as being for "market-research" purposes, which it may well indeed be, although in one store the explanation was that "everybody's doing it now" (oh, well, that's all right then !). There is no attempt at verification, just harvesting.

ASDA must be right chuffed with how often HRH Bertha of Saxe-Coburg Gotha visits for her vodka supplies.

Too bad you had to go through these pains, but this happens to everyone around the world deemed an "outsider"

These regulations are a right old money spinner for those dubious organisations, credit reference agencies. The requirement to 'credit check' applicants for jobs in any walk of life is another one. CRAs try to justify their existence on the basis that they help prevent fraud. Well, fraud's simply a matter of legislation. The recent social housing fraud legislation of 2013, which has just come into force was preempted in actuality by the CRAs who have been actively developing and pushing 'solutions' to detect such fraud in the preceding 24 months. If you still think they have an acceptable social purpose then consider that one of them, Callcredit, is developing products for payday lenders, and aggressively expanding its business with them. In order to ensure that such loans are 'affordable' - are you laughing yet ? - they are processing, in secret, large amounts of current account information to make sure that only those capable of paying them back will be approved for loans. It's nice to know that no-one will be able to get into unmanageable difficulty when they try to manage their 'temporary' difficulties, least of all the sharks lending the money.

Who's worse, the CRAs or the payday lenders?