[Chris in Makati]

Nick Pike wrote:

Returning to the OP, as I suspected it’s an anti money laundering issue- and not a regulatory requirement as such. Each financial institution takes its own view on what is appropriate-and for Amex it’s a tax return if you are self employed. Quite what they will elicit from that is hard to fathom, since any competent money launderer is hardly likely to file anything which will incriminate themselves and certainly not information which will enable Amex compliance people grounds to file a suspicious activity report.But I suspect they take the view that it gets the box ticked…

A tax return in itself might not indicate that you’re involved in anything illegal, but what Amex are probably looking for is evidence that your card spending does not significantly exceed your declared income.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Nick Pike

[Polly]

@CL2
The car hire companies try it on but they just cannot force you to accept their excess waiver insurance. It’s a huge Plat benefit we have used, and know many who have had to claim on it. Amex pays up without questions every time.

[JayLibove]

Polly wrote:

@CL2
The car hire companies try it on but they just cannot force you to accept their excess waiver insurance. It’s a huge Plat benefit we have used, and know many who have had to claim on it. Amex pays up without questions every time.

Sadly, the car hire companies can refuse to accept any outside insurance. It’s a rather stupid, market-limiting move, but it’s their business decision how they choose to handle risk. (Obviously, the “risk” that they’re really handling is that of below-market published prices which they make up for by trapping travelers in to buying their overpriced insurance).
I landed at Heathrow a few years ago with a reservation at some second brand car rental company, presented my AmEx Plat card, and they said they would only accept 3rd party insurance (vs. purchasing their own extremely over-priced product) if I presented a letter from my 3rd party insurer, to their company, confirming the coverage.
I called AmEx Plat travel services and got a new car rental reservation at the competition.

But, we’re getting rather off the original topic.

[JayLibove]

Casey_99 wrote:

KYC can be very difficult, with those doing the checks blindly following a set of instructions.
A bank (think of a city in Northern Spain) were a nightmare on a charity account of which I’m on the board.
Income largely comes from donations and membership fees, plus income from open days, sales of books etc.
They froze our account for a few months because we couldn’t satisfy their requirements. Certain people had to fund things personally hoping to get reimbursed when the accounts etc were unfrozen. It really helped when we made an official complaint which allowed non KYC people to get involved.
After several months they were wanting more (solicitors letter verifying our accounts, etc). We said we’ve given you everything we can (audited accounts, membership names and numbers, budgets, past spending invoices, receipts etc, details of contracts with local organisations like the County Council and a major Corporation) and said we can’t give you anymore. Either unfreeze our account or return our money so we can open an account elsewhere more accommodating of charities.
They relented. It caused our Honorary Treasurer a lot of stress and personal time.
Was laughable when they accepted we were unnecessarily caught up in their KYC bureaucracy …but still persisted on following every step as if we were money laundering organisation

I had a similar experience with a different Spanish bank some years earlier; they wanted something that was impossible to provide, would close the account if we didn’t provide it, but couldn’t close the account because the account was linked to a guaranty instrument on another contract. We moved all the money to a different bank, and waited … and eventually nothing happened. We still have this bank account and do again use it.

AmEx recently re-requested KYC (very basic documentation) from us. We have the ICC Euro card, and live in Spain. They wanted ID documents and utility or bank or telecom letterhead bills matching. I uploaded what they asked for .. and with no explanation of what they thought was wrong with it, they sent back that we hadn’t complied, and we’d better, or else. (Either their automated systems couldn’t read a non-OCR’d Catalan language water utility bill, or/and the human fallback to their automated system didn’t do an adequate job). Requests for explanation of what was wrong went unanswered. Telephone calls produced nothing. I re-submitted more documents, which were magically accepted.

Por quality service from a – literally – Platinum-plated product. No plan to change from it, as it’s very useful to us, but quite the nuisance at times.

[FaroFlyer]

One thing to remember, if your Amex Platinum Euro card is UK issued, is that to claim on the travel insurance your journey needs to have originated in the UK, and they will ask for a copy of your flight ticket to verify this.

The benefits of Priority Pass and car hire insurance are diminishing as PP is rarely accepted in UK regional airports, where I want to use it. Car hire insurance is also of little value as, again, the journey must have commenced in the UK.

Only real benefit is that I am billed in Euros, and have no limit.

[JayLibove]

Must the *journey* have originated in the UK? .. or must the expense be on a “qualifying trip” which must be at some distance away from/ some nights away from your “home” as the card understands it to be?
It sounds a bit odd that car hire cover on a credit card would only apply if the “trip” “originated” in one country or another.
If I read your posts right, FaroFlyer, your card is homed in the UK but you actually spend the majority of your time elsewhere, so perhaps the difficulty is that from the card’s perspective your “trip” is longer than the maximum length of a single trip/ the total amount of days away from “home” that are covered?

FaroFlyer wrote:

One thing to remember, if your Amex Platinum Euro card is UK issued, is that to claim on the travel insurance your journey needs to have originated in the UK, and they will ask for a copy of your flight ticket to verify this.

The benefits of Priority Pass and car hire insurance are diminishing as PP is rarely accepted in UK regional airports, where I want to use it. Car hire insurance is also of little value as, again, the journey must have commenced in the UK.

Only real benefit is that I am billed in Euros, and have no limit.

[FaroFlyer]

Hi Jay Libove,

I based my comment on a claim a little over 18 months ago which involved hospitalisation The phone call to initiate the claim, and the claim form, clearly asked us to prove the journey started in the UK.

I am assuming that car hire insurance will not be significantly different.

[Chris in Makati]

My Amex Platinum card is issued in the UK and I use a UK billing address, but I spend most of the year living in the Philippines. I was concerned about how this would affect my insurance situation and spoke to Amex to clarify this point. I was told that my travel insurance would be based on my place of residence. When I asked how that would be determined in the event of a claim they told me I might be asked to submit evidence of where I lived. I assume that things like electricity or other utility bills would be sufficient for that.

In the 12 years that I’ve held the card I have only needed to make one claim, which was for a theft that took place in Cambodia. I was asked to provide flight details, and my tickets from Manila were not questioned and the claim paid.

[LuganoPirate]

Unfortunately financial institutions are becoming more and more difficult, and the KYC rules are becoming more and more absurd. The problem is they are all scared of the USA (and increasingly so the EU) who look to level massive fines for any infractions.

I’ve been trying to open a bank account in Portugal and it has become a nightmare, and after 6 months still not open! In almost every case banks now want a copy of a tax return with detailed information on income and how your assets were obtained.

I was even asked by the bank to detail any inheritances I’d received and how the deceased earned and acquired those assets!

This has now become so serious that in my opinion it’s seriously hindering the setting up and operation of businesses.

[Travel Guide Ideas]

Following are the list of KYC documents to be furnished at the time of credit/charge card application:

a. PAN Card (copy to be submitted preferably for verification purposes). In case you are not eligible for PAN, please furnish a copy of Form 60.

b. One Recent Passport size Photograph.

c. Please submit any one of the following copy of an Officially Valid Document (OVD)1:

Passport First page and last page where address is mentioned.
Driving License front and back copy (Driving license issued after 2012 for Delhi & 2011 for Maharashtra is not acceptable).
Voter ID
Proof of possession of Aadhaar (Mask first 8 digits of the Aadhaar number)
Job Card issued by NREGA duly signed by an office of the state government.
Letter from the national population register, containing details of name and address.

[FaroFlyer]

LuganoPirate wrote:

Unfortunately financial institutions are becoming more and more difficult, and the KYC rules are becoming more and more absurd. The problem is they are all scared of the USA (and increasingly so the EU) who look to level massive fines for any infractions.

I’ve been trying to open a bank account in Portugal and it has become a nightmare, and after 6 months still not open! In almost every case banks now want a copy of a tax return with detailed information on income and how your assets were obtained.

I was even asked by the bank to detail any inheritances I’d received and how the deceased earned and acquired those assets!

This has now become so serious that in my opinion it’s seriously hindering the setting up and operation of businesses.

Yes, it can be interesting. About 10 years ago Portugal clamped down on offshore bank accounts. Yes, they will need proof of income.

An inheritance is taxable in Portugal except under special circumstances.

[ASK1945]

Travel Guide Ideas wrote:

Following are the list of KYC documents to be furnished at the time of credit/charge card application:

From what I can ascertain, all this applies to India (or is it Pakistan?), not the rest of the world.

[jsn55]

This is insanity. Why would AmEx torture their customers like this? There is no situation when I’d turn over a tax return, except for a mortgage application. To receive a threat to suspend your card when you’re mid-trip? Insane is the only word that applies here. There’s something going on in ‘your life’ that AmEx is misinterpreting or just doesn’t understand. I wish you good luck on this trip, and please come back to let us know what on earth AmEx is doing. I was a loyal AmEx person for 30 years, but their customer service started to go downhill. I remember my last conversation with CS when I carefully explained my very simple problem and the agent didn’t understand it. I switched to Chase when they introduced the Reserve card … and I’ve never been sorry. I suppose Chase doesn’t issue cards in the UK … who is AmEx’ competition?

[cwoodward]

Chase do very issue cards in the UK and are pushing hard.

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jsn55

[ASK1945]

Interesting that my wife last week received a letter from a bank in which she has a very small investment account, untouched for a while. She needed to undertake one or more transactions to continue the account or it would be put into abeyance.

The letter also listed the two very long lists of proof of identity from which she would need to submit one proof each, if she wished to resurrect the account. Out of the 8 choices on each list, a tax return is not listed.

She has cancelled the account and received the balance immediately.

[Author]

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