In an earlier thread, comments were made about financial institutions "losing the plot" in their new policies of address verification in response to the government's anti-laundering legislation. I mentioned that my own bank Abbey, had refused to accept my notification of a change of address and continued to send my bank statements to my old address.
Today I received a letter from Abbey reporting changes in "Terms and Conditions". New Clause 10.1 "Address and Identification" states that "The address that you give us, or in the case of a joint account, either of you gives us, will be the one to which all communications will be sent. You must notify us of any change of address immediately and confirm it in writing. We may charge you for any reasonable expenses incurred in tracing you".
I applaud this return to sanity but the wording of this new clause makes one wonder what the old clause was? If they were not sending communications to the addresses that customers gave them then where were they sending them? Perhaps a better question would be Why? Some one at Abbey has obviously had a "Eureka" moment and realized that customers actually know where they live. Excellent. But why introduce the financial bit at the end. "We may charge you etc....They always want a kickback. But hang on a mo...when did banks ever try tracing customers who disappeared leaving assets in dormant accounts? They must surely be referring to the ones who have disappeared leaving overdrafts.
Ellis