New Account Security Checks

Does your adult daughter drive a car? If so she has a driving licence. Has your adult daughter been abroad? If so she will have a passport. Is your adult daughter on the electoral roll? If so many institututions will be able to confirm her address when conducting a credit search. Does your adult daughter have a bank account in her own name? If so again a copy of a recent statement can be used to confirm address. Why would she want specifically a Cahoot credit card when say her own bank (if she has one) would almost certainly oblige if she is credit worthy?

"Eric Jones" wrote

Perhaps she wants the Webcard functionality?

Correct :-)))

Geoff Lane

Apparently, according to Cahoot (or at least the person I spoke to), the passport and driving licence are not acceptable.

I'm going to enquire further but wondered if there were any specific legal requirements on the banks now.

Geoff Lane

This has been discussed ad naseum here, consensus seems to be that the government rules specify id being needed but nothing specific, so each bank does its own thing, often with ridiculous consequences at some banks, as you have discovered, such as that utility bills (which could be run off from most home PC's) being OK, whereas passports and photo id driving licences arent.

What they will be after (or at least this is the normal score) is 1) some official type ID as proof of identity e.g. Passport, Driving Licence, (maybe Birth Certificate etc) and 2) proof of address which they will typically want a utility bill, bank statement, letter from a government department issued within the last 3 months to prove the current address - a driving licence has your address on (and strictly it should be your current address) but conceivably it could be year out of date so probably isn't acceptable for proof of address.

Bearing in mind that they are engaging in a faceless relationship they could well demand more than one document from each category and are likely to stick to the policy more closely, a high street bank would probably be less demanding as they get a chance to compare you against any the photo id you provide and typically have policies more regularly used in place to deal with people who don't have a passport or driving licence or who pay their utilities by prepayment card and don't receive utility bills etc.

I didn't actually think of that of that comparison.

Bearing in mind both my wife and I have accounts with Cahoot from the same address I would have thought that would have been the best reference of the lot.

Geoff Lane

I have known it where IIRC Safeway Bank (operated Abbey who are also Cahoot) accepted a recent bill in a parents name with a signed statement on confirming that the applicant lived there still AND extra ID from the other category i.e.. a passport and driving licence. I am guessing that you spoke to some jobsworth who was simply towing the party line and reciting the list of documents, I suspect if you could get it escalated through to the relevant people and explained the situation then there would probably a contingency policy in place.

To be honest having looked into the details further on the cahoot website I can see what the problem you are having, they appear to only be wanting to confirm the current address; to be honest I think quite a few people could be struggling if they don't personally pay the utility bills and have their current account with the same bank as their credit card and savings accounts! TBH from my experience lots of savings accounts only seem to generate annual statements and if you bank (or manage you utilities) online it is entirely conceivable you don't have any suitable documents from them either.

In all honestly I don't like sending things like an application form, passport, driving liecence and a utility bill through the post - ideal for someone to steal your identity!!!

"To process your application we need two forms of identification that must not be from the same company. We can accept: credit card (but not store card) statements, bank or building society statements and utility bills (such as gas, electricity). Your identification documents must show your name and current address, and can not be more than three months old. We can also accept mortgage statements, council tax bills or notice of inland revenue tax coding (excluding self assessment). These must be less than six months old. We cannot accept photocopies, mobile phone bills or store card statements. All documents must be originals and show your name and address"

Yes, I think I agree

I will go along that line.

Sometimes common sense is lacking with larger companies.

Geoff Lane