Monet Laundering Investigation

Monet laundering? You mean cleaning items of art? If so, can you polish my Picasso?

If they find no evidence of money laundering, likely just get a letter saying the investigation is closed and apologies for any inconvenience.

I'm suprised though - its not automatic that they will investigate all transfer of funds. Perhaps there is some trail for the money from somewhere (perhaps through several innocent parties that are investigated). Or perhaps its merely a random check.

Martin <

On an entirely different note, I tried to exchange 150 into Euros this morning and was required to provide a driving licence and passport before Thomas Cook would undertake the transaction.

No doubt the relevant information will find its way back to HMG.

Big Brother or what?

What happens if you don't have a driving licence & a passport. Many people manage to get through life perfectly well without either. Does that mean you are not allowed to purchase Euros? You might want to purchase them as a present or you might want them for travel to the Irish Republic where no passport is required.

Indeed. welcome to police state Britain.

The Irish Republic has always accepted Sterling as well as Punts.....In fact some establishments actually preferred sterling as they could fleece the unwary tourist by giving them their change in punts without taking the exchange rate into consideration......This was particularly common in pubs, where the slow thinking piss-head wouldn't be able to think fast enough to outwit the barman..... I'd imagine this practice still continues in the Free State, even though their punts have been replaced by euro's.....

True....I've been short changed in Burger King on O'Connell Street many's a time....LOL.....Being an Irishman myself, I should have known not to take Sterling down on the train with me to Dublin.....But as our trips across the border were always unplanned events, there was rarely time, and we'd head straight for the drinking houses as soon as we arrived, LOL.....

Not just pubs. I've never come across an establishment that took sterling but also gave change in sterling

Go to the post office.

I used to be happy to pay £1/punt FFS the person changing the money is doing you a service, and they would take the cash for small values which would be uneconomic to get changed at a bank. If it was a matter of several quid then I'd go to a bank, but the odd pint or a bottle of aspirin fair game.

So don't give them the satisfaction. Change the money when you are outside the UK.

These days, the odd pint *is* a matter of several quid.

Not where I drink.

They demanded both a driving license AND passport? Did they give a reason. No way is this anti-ML. For such a small amount, this is a stupid policy the company has decided upon themselves. I assume you were not using a credit card?

No, cash. There were plenty of signs up saying that if you wanted to pay by card you needed i.d which is probably fair enough seeing as they've no way of knowing whether the card was stolen. Plus card payments attracted a "handling fee".

As you say, 150's a relatively small amount.

Bizarrely, there were big signs up offering a special exchange rate for transferring 500+ into euros!!

Did you ask them their reason for requiring ID for small cash purchases.

I would expect it with a credit card, but not for cash.

And did you give one ID then they demanded more, or what exactly?

The big scam is when you get your change in euros at 1-1, is that in effect the whole amount is converted at 1-1.

There's nothing worse than ground-in dirt and grime on your classical artists......Have you tried Persil?.....

There are at least two possible reasons for this. One is that there's too much competitian. The other is that there isn't enough turnerver.