[HN Gopher] No Fixed Address Bank Account
___________________________________________________________________
No Fixed Address Bank Account
Author : acqbu
Score : 204 points
Date : 2022-05-08 08:41 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.hsbc.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.hsbc.co.uk)
| version_five wrote:
| The need for an address is incredibly outdated imo. Not just for
| banking but for anything. It's the equivalent of when places used
| to want to to give a home landline number.
|
| I think there needs to be more discussion about how we move away
| from addresses to some other kind of basis for taxation,
| education, health, etc (not blockchain), a real answer that lets
| me declare my residency on the highest territorial level possible
| and transact electronically or to a physical location I pick
| syshum wrote:
| I want politics and taxation to be more local in the smallest
| division practical, with extreme limits being placed on the
| power and scope of larger political organizations. In short I
| fully support US Style Federalism and oppose the move to make
| the US Federal Government all powerful
|
| If I was in the EU I would support sovereignty of the nation
| states,and oppose efforts to make the EU Government all
| powerful
|
| the move to make governments larger and all encompassing
| including calls for a 1 world government, are IMO a threat to
| individual freedom and will not have the desired effect you
| seem to think
| sgjohnson wrote:
| Fun fact, US states have more freedom from the Federal
| government than EU member states have from the EU.
|
| US states can basically just ignore or refuse to enforce the
| federal law with little to no consequences (immigration
| sanctuary states/cities, Texas no longer treating suppressors
| as NFA items, etc.), but EU member states can't. EU law is
| binding to all of them and there's no escape from it.
| 323 wrote:
| > _EU law is binding to all of them and there 's no escape
| from it._
|
| Only in theory, in practice EU countries break EU law all
| the time, with minimal consequences. Some like Poland even
| openly, it recently said something like "we'll rather pay
| the fine than respect this particular EU law". EU states
| remain fully sovereign.
| orangepurple wrote:
| The EU projects power in the same way the Federal
| government projects the majority of its power: under the
| threat of withholding funding for large projects
| derriz wrote:
| That's quite a stretch.
|
| US states cannot just ignore federal law - unless the
| federal law is deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court
| - a federal institution.
|
| There are effectively no limits to US federal powers -
| while the treaties governing the EU enshrine the principle
| of subsidiarity[1] - and the powers granted to the EU are
| specified in treaties. A topical and obvious example is
| that the current Roe vs. Wade controversy just couldn't
| happen in the EU - as it's unrelated to trade or
| competition, the EU has no competence in this area. Or the
| idea of the EU imposing a health care system like the
| Affordable Care Act or deciding drug laws or gun control
| laws is unthinkable.
|
| An individual cannot be arrested, charged, convicted and
| imprisoned for breaking EU law the way the feds can do in
| the US, regardless of state law. There are no EU prisons.
|
| By any measure the US is far more centralized than the EU -
| money is power as they say and 64% of government receipts
| in the US are at the federal level while the EU budget
| represents only 2% of government spending in the block.
|
| [1] -
| https://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/7/the-
| pri...
| syshum wrote:
| >>US states cannot just ignore federal law
|
| They absolutely can and do. State government are under no
| compulsion to enforce federal law, nor do they have aid
| federal law enforcement. Sure the FBI can still arrest
| you but as a practical matter the federal government
| relies heavily on local law enforcement for support in
| their efforts and task forces.
|
| The state governments can neuter federal enforcement by
| refusing to supply personnel and equipment or other
| support to federal law enforcement task forces and
| actions
|
| Conversely the federal government also supplies (i.e
| bribes) local law enforcement with money, and gear to
| grease the wheel for that support.
|
| The supremacy you are referring to with the Supreme court
| is about when Federal Law and State law conflict then
| Federal law would win over State Law. Personally I think
| this is bad but until there is a constitutional amendment
| to change it that is the reality. However that supremacy
| does not mean state law enforcement or governments must
| enforce federal law, only that they can not
| overrule/supplant a federal law with their own
|
| >> A topical and obvious example is that the current Roe
| vs. Wade controversy just couldn't happen in the EU - as
| it's unrelated to trade or competition
|
| Well according to the Current Draft our federal
| government did not have the power either. It is funny you
| mention trade, you do know that ACA is a trade regulation
| the constitutional power that allows ACA to exist is the
| interstate commerce clause of the US Constitution, that
| was MASSIVELY expanded in power by the court in the
| abomination / disgraceful 1942 Wickard decision which
| effectively made every activity a commercial interstate
| activity that can be regulated by the federal government.
|
| Personally if the court is in the mood for over turning
| precedent someone should take a case to them aimed
| squarely at over turning that abomination, putting the
| federal government back into their proper scope and place
| B1FF_PSUVM wrote:
| On the other hand, I still remember how, back in the
| 1980s, U.S. states that were reluctant to raise beer-
| drinking age from 18 to 21 were brought to heel: no
| federal funds for highways, I think it was.
| syshum wrote:
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" A topical and obvious example is that the current Roe
| vs. Wade controversy just couldn't happen in the EU - as
| it's unrelated to trade or competition"_
|
| The US Federal government has been very crafty in
| associating just about anything to "interstate
| commerce"[1] and thereby expanding its power enormously.
|
| I'm sure the same thing could happen in the EU given some
| creative lawyering and a judiciary willing to swallow
| their arguments.
|
| It's the appointment/election of particular judges and
| their willingness to craft or go along with certain
| arguments and interpret laws in certain ways that is
| really at the crux of how nations are governed.
|
| Like the old saying goes: It's not votes that count, but
| those who count the votes. Likewise, it's not the laws
| that matter, but those who interpret the laws.
|
| [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce_Clause
| blibble wrote:
| EU budget is far craftier than that
|
| member state departments that are under its sole control
| are still funded by national budgets
|
| the 2% is just the head of the snake
| derriz wrote:
| The EU budget is tiny - under EUR150B euro per year[1].
| And what's more it has being falling in absolute terms in
| the last number of year.
|
| While the US federal government spends over $20 trillion
| a year. This isn't comparable at any level - regardless
| of any snake-anatomy analogy.
|
| I'm not sure what your definition of a "member state
| department" is? But knowing something of the political
| set-up in a number of EU countries, none are under the
| "sole control" of the EU (commission I guess you mean?).
|
| [1] https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/eu-budget/eu-
| budget-added...
| seoaeu wrote:
| Your point still stands, but US federal spending is more
| like $4-7 trillion depending on the year. I assume you
| went based on Google's answer box, which somehow confuses
| total GDP with government spending.
| syshum wrote:
| Doesnt the EU pass unfunded liabilities back onto the
| member states?
|
| Meaning the EU will pass a law or regulation or program
| that the member states then have to fund with domestic
| taxes?
|
| Generally speaking for the federal government, if they
| want to pass a program or requirement the federal
| government must also pay for that, for example the
| federal government could not require the state
| governments to put in bike lane on all road with out
| giving the states the money to do it.
|
| That is why the Federal government is so large..
|
| Also defense spending, We actually honor our NATO treaty
| by spending no less than 3% of our GDP on national
| defense, something the EU nations never do
| blibble wrote:
| that's because agencies used to implement federal policy
| (e.g. the FDA) are attributed to the federal government
| budget,
|
| whereas the EU member state equivalents that implement EU
| policy get attributed to national budgets
|
| the EU doesn't fund enforcement of the GDPR, the national
| information commissioners do
|
| not having to pay to implement its policies makes the EU
| look many, many times more efficient than it actually is
| sgjohnson wrote:
| > or deciding drug laws or gun control laws is
| unthinkable.
|
| They have.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_(EU)_2021/555
|
| This stupid thing almost caused Switzerland to leave the
| Schengen area, and it upset a lot of countries that
| didn't want anything to do with it.
|
| At least the complete ban on handguns (that the
| Netherlands wanted) didn't happen.
|
| As a firearms enthusiast in the EU, this actually upset
| me. Not that it affects me too much in the country where
| I live (I just can't have 30rd mags, which is stupid, but
| it could have been a lot worse).
|
| > There are effectively no limits to US federal powers
|
| There is. The 10th amendment. Of course, there's the
| commerce clause, that's been abused ad infinitum.
| pibechorro wrote:
| this is the only sane way forward.
| rmah wrote:
| The idea that more power in the hands of local governments
| _seems_ attractive. Even knowing better, it still seems
| attractive to me...
|
| You imagine people knowing the lawmakers better. You think
| that the lawmakers will be more connected to the community.
| That they'll be more likely to protect the freedoms that they
| also want to enjoy. At first blush, this all seems
| reasonable.
|
| However, if you look at history, the actual practice is the
| _opposite_ of that. When power is mostly exercised locally
| (at the town level), over time, laws are passed to regulate
| the minutia of daily life. When shops can be open. Laws about
| who can work in which trade. Laws about who can use "public"
| infrastructure and when. Laws about what you can do with your
| pets. Laws down to what colors and fabrics your cloths are
| made of. And, of course, laws to protect their hold on power.
|
| It turns out that people in power at local levels are nosy
| parkers who will try to _force_ everyone they can to live the
| way they think is best. And they become generationally
| powerful. Sad but it 's the historical reality.
|
| Personally, my speculation is that it's because most people
| try to exercise all the power they're given. And since those
| local lawmakers don't have to think about "big" issues in a
| broader sense, they just make laws about "small" issues and
| deal with big issues only when they are pushed in front of
| them.
| throwmeariver1 wrote:
| Tell that American school and public boards that get raided
| by crazy people. I think the opposite and would love to see
| power taken away from local entities.
| syshum wrote:
| That depends on the context, I have a feeling we differ
| widely on what we view as the "crazy people" that are
| taking over given the natural demographics of HN and that
| fact that I am generally politically unaligned with most
| people here given I am a individualist libertarian
| politically
|
| that is the beauty of local control, if School Board in
| another state does something you do not like, good news it
| does not effect you. If the Dept of Labor does something
| nationally you do not like well there is nothing you can do
| about it as your power is diluted due to national level,
| and you can not move...
| throwmeariver1 wrote:
| Not everyone can just relocate I can't believe that's the
| only argument people in this thread come up with.
| syshum wrote:
| It is not even close to the only argument, it is however
| the only one you have locked on to because in your mind
| you can easily refute it with "well not everyone can
| move" as if that practical matter changes anything in the
| equation. Hint it does not, it is pointless truism that
| does not even come close to defeating the argument
| sokoloff wrote:
| If you don't like the local government, in the extreme you
| can move. If you don't like the world government, where are
| you going to go?
|
| (Same argument applies today to the EU or US Federal
| government as well, for citizens who might be practically
| confined by the policy of those governments and unable to
| move outside their purview.)
| throwmeariver1 wrote:
| Ah... the entitlement is showing not all people can just
| move and not all people want their town to be run by a
| HOA Karen just because she had the most free time to
| print posters. It's way easier to influence councils in
| small towns and press your agenda without oversight than
| in the ,,world government".
| syshum wrote:
| That is until the world government becomes the HOA Karen
| which is how I view the current federal government of the
| USA
|
| I have a feeling you only support massive federal
| governments because your political worldview is the
| current worldview that has power, something tells me if
| that power were to shift you would be singing a different
| tune
|
| For someone like me, that believes in Individualism and
| local control I have no team so "my team" is never in
| power. I see both sides as evil authoritarians that want
| to restrict my freedom. I am more able to fight this
| authoritarianism at my local level than I am at a
| national or worse global level
| throwmeariver1 wrote:
| In a real democracy the government is voted by the
| majority and if the majority goes psychotic nothing will
| help us. People like you always argue against government
| because you are in the minority and you want to force the
| majority to your will. Disgusting.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Is it the No True Democracy argument that any problems we
| see with the federal government are a result of flaws in
| the too-low percent pure democracy that it is?
|
| I think the trick of democracy is to avoid the tyranny of
| the majority. We have some structures in place in the US
| intended to prevent the worst of them from occurring. I
| find it amusing (and if it happened more frequently,
| annoying and then scary) that these exact controls are
| seen by some as inconveniences or impediments.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority
| syshum wrote:
| >> Disgusting.
|
| Wow, opposing mob rule is "Disgusting." now
|
| >real democracy
|
| That is why I oppose "real democracy", I prefer a
| Constitutional Republic with powers widely distributed in
| a federalist model.
|
| >if the majority goes psychotic nothing will help us
|
| No, that is the exact thing a Constitution, Distributed
| Power, and Checks / Balances is designed to counter, to
| ensure the majority can not simply force their will over
| the minority.... and the smallest minority is the
| individual
|
| What is actually disgusting is your rejection of natural
| individual rights in favor of majoritarian rule
| sokoloff wrote:
| It's also way easier to press your agenda in your family
| or in your friend group. That's a feature, not a bug,
| IMO.
|
| A powerful and inescapable government seems way worse
| than deciding between living with, trying to change, or
| moving away from your local government.
| throwmeariver1 wrote:
| You seem to have absolutely no experience with the
| governance of rural America and the abuse of it. Just
| look how Scientology or the Mormon church are taking over
| cities. There is no way to fight back if a giant entity
| with money and questionable morality decides to get
| involved.
| andai wrote:
| Now imagine the same thing on a global scale.
| throwmeariver1 wrote:
| It's easier to put out one fire instead of thousands.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| Exactly, and at the local level you only need to put out
| 1 fire: the one affecting you.
| sokoloff wrote:
| California would like a word.
|
| (Read that literally or politically, however you choose,
| but I don't relish a "it's completely out of control; all
| we can do is pray for rain or the winds to shift and hope
| it burns itself out while sparing 90% of the people..."
| scenario on a world scale, whether in politics or wild-
| fires.)
| throwmeariver1 wrote:
| California has the exact same problem I described it's
| not that the overall governance is the problem it's
| usually on local levels like the San Francisco DA or the
| LA county labour board...
| sokoloff wrote:
| Have you considered the possibility that there are just a
| lot of people who want different things from each other
| and from you?
|
| By the time you get to a group of citizens the size of
| San Francisco or Los Angeles, are you really going to
| benefit from me weighing in from Massachusetts, Anna
| weighing in from Rotterdam, or Jiang from Shanghai on
| what crime or homeless problems the city is facing or how
| tall buildings should be allowed to be in some part of
| the city? That's not just a few wackos running for a
| local dog catcher position.
| beamatronic wrote:
| Voting out all elected government officials over age 30 would
| be a good start to a better tomorrow.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Because just letting people pick where they want to be
| taxed/sued/regulated doesnt work. Laws change from one place to
| another. Where you live matters to which laws apply to you.
| Where your bank account lives matters to which laws apply to
| it. Would you rent a london appartment to someone if you might
| have to sue them in Quebec should they fail to pay rent?
| Avamander wrote:
| I don't think OP necessarily meant what they said on an
| international scale.
|
| The first step would be to avoid the requirement when in the
| same city, state or country. To the extent possible, if there
| are legal reasons, maybe those should be reviewed. There are
| options for sure.
| asah wrote:
| Agree it shouldn't be a hard requirement, but fyi a secure
| physical address is pretty valuable for re-establishing
| relationships if electronic communication breaks down or is
| lost.
| Avamander wrote:
| > a real answer that lets me declare my residency on the
| highest territorial level possible and transact electronically
| or to a physical location I pick
|
| So a digital identity system needs to be implemented. Something
| akin to what quite a few countries have already implemented.
|
| I'm unsure why it would require more discussion at this point.
| It's not hypothetical science fiction without practical
| examples.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Well to start, the assholes using a South Dakota trust held
| by a Nevada LLC to run a Delaware corporation would have a
| harder time hiding their beneficial ownership and might have
| to pay taxes.
|
| Also the "mark of the beast" crowd is real, really loud and
| politically powerful.
| Avamander wrote:
| > Also the "mark of the beast" crowd is real, really loud
| and politically powerful.
|
| Can't that be bypassed by implementing the system but
| making it voluntary? That crowd is honestly quite
| unfathomable to me.
| bragr wrote:
| > It also forced all people, great and small, rich and
| poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right
| hands or on their foreheads, 17 so that they could not
| buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name
| of the beast or the number of its name.
|
| If it practically excludes people from transacting it
| kind of plays into the prophecy. That's how people go off
| on bank accounts and debit and credit cards as being the
| mark of the beast.
| throwmeariver1 wrote:
| Yes, you are living in le cyberspace.
| timthorn wrote:
| > It's the equivalent of when places used to want to to give a
| home landline number.
|
| Or today, when companies assume that everyone has a mobile
| phone - if not a smartphone?
| Hendrikto wrote:
| > (not blockchain)
|
| Why not?
| billpg wrote:
| Because blockchain solutions to anything are almost always
| awful. (And I'm unsure about needing the word "almost".)
| FateOfNations wrote:
| I always replace "blockchain" with "distributed ledger" and
| see if the idea still make any kind of sense (it rarely
| does).
| White_Wolf wrote:
| Awful? Ignoring the crypto coins, I'd love to see all
| spending/funds in for governments, ONG, non-profit orgs,
| (mass)media channels, public hospitals, all companies that
| have shareholders/sell shares, anything that runs on public
| funds and so on should be tracked via publicly available
| blockchains. You can probably see where I'm going with
| this.
|
| I have mixed feelings about banks, national banks, lenders,
| art trading, casinos, pawn shops and such though. I'm a bit
| worried about tracking private individuals at that extent
| because of these.
| alar44 wrote:
| I don't think there needs to be any discussion. The 10k
| programmers living as nomads can get a PO box.
|
| Problem solved. No need to reorganize society for the 0.001%.
| caymanjim wrote:
| Things you can't do with a PO box and no fixed residential
| address: get a driver's license; vote; prove to the last
| place you were resident that you're no longer resident and
| don't owe them taxes anymore; get insurance (vehicle, medical
| options severely limited); get a PO box in the first place.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| This is incorrect. I am a digital nomad w/ a PO box and it's
| not accepted by many financial institutions that do KYC. My
| credit union requires me to list a "real" address. My credit
| card company required me to list a permanent address as well.
| Any time there's a fraud alert on my of my accounts & I have
| to provide proof of residence, there's a good chance
| submitting a document w/ my PO box will not be accepted.
|
| I use my dad's address for my permanent residence. But since
| I'm not on the utility bills, it can be hard to provide true
| residence. In one case, I had to write up a lease agreement &
| buy renter's insurance to get one of my accounts unlocked.
| They wouldn't accept a bank statement, my driver's license,
| or voter registration card. It was a real pain in the ass,
| and resolving it took a good 2 weeks.
| ghaff wrote:
| At least in MA for a driver's license, there are a lot of
| documents that can be used for proof of residency including
| things like cell phone and auto insurance bills.
|
| Lots of people's names aren't on utility bills. They may be
| sharing a place with others or utilities may be included in
| the rent.
| rigrassm wrote:
| I do this exact same thing. Though, I have the benefit of
| sharing a name with my father so proof of residency had had
| never been an issue. It feels like cheating but it's so
| damn convenient lol.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| You have hacked the system. Bravo.
| bfz wrote:
| I'm not sure I have the faculties to address what bothers me
| about this comment, but there is so much tied to traditional
| society the comment seems to ignore.
|
| - Voting districts - obviously tied to physical land, with
| different styles of vote counting system per area, often
| according to local cultural needs. I come from a society where
| special voting considerations exist in order to achieve actual
| peace. Prior to that system being introduced, there was war.
| The right to vote and the manner in which the vote occurs is an
| essential and inalienable attribute of all democratic
| societies, often deeply saturated in historic customs taking
| centuries of diplomacy to achieve stability.
|
| - Public services - voting and taxation are directly related to
| policy in a local area. The tax that I pay my local council is
| accountable almost directly to me because I can schedule an
| appointment with the very people whom I elect to spend my taxes
| as I desire. My physical address in that locale entitles me to
| an opinion on the use of those taxes, and a stake in ensuring
| awareness of local policy, and that the policy works for myself
| and the people around me.
|
| - Land rights - a requirement for a physical address, or the
| alternative of no requirement for a physical address, (is/is
| not) an implicit endorsement of land ownership and encouraging
| long term placement of people within fixed communities.
| Community quality and composition varies greatly across every
| region of the world, and for folk spending most of their life
| inside cities, it is easy to forget the concept of a community
| exists. Establishing a physical local presence is essential for
| many kinds of growth, not least, starting a family and
| therefore the continued growth of a healthy society.
|
| So to summarize, I think what bothers me is that the only
| possible way to arrive at what the parent comment suggests
| would be to avoid participating or contributing to any of these
| essential traits of civil society, which is to say it is an
| opinion explicitly rooted in contributing to civic decay. It's
| not "incredibly outdated", a physical address comes with many
| essential implications that ought to be encouraged.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| I've always thought that voting, at the national level, might
| benefit from non-geographic constituencies.
|
| The representatives might be for 24 to 34 year olds,
| unmarried mothers, children, prisoners, or of course the
| homeless. People who need more representation than they are
| probably getting.
|
| The more categories you fall into, the more votes you get.
| Maybe that's not a bad thing when faced with the status quo
| of money based politics.
|
| It is a poorly thought out idea but your comment reminded me
| to give it some more time.
| jdasdf wrote:
| >Voting districts - obviously tied to physical land, with
| different styles of vote counting system per area, often
| according to local cultural needs. I come from a society
| where special voting considerations exist in order to achieve
| actual peace. Prior to that system being introduced, there
| was war. The right to vote and the manner in which the vote
| occurs is an essential and inalienable attribute of all
| democratic societies, often deeply saturated in historic
| customs taking centuries of diplomacy to achieve stability.
|
| People shouldn't be voting on local issues, land should.
|
| Voting on local issues should be 100% correlated with your
| investment in that locality.
| ahtihn wrote:
| So back to aristocracy?
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| There have always been travelers in the world. They have long
| had friction with settled peoples who feel a fixed address is
| essential.
|
| Even American military members have friction with the rest of
| America over this. It just gets mitigated by the fact that
| the federal government makes accommodations for them.
|
| Military members historically had trouble opening local bank
| accounts so there are military banks on military
| installations and when I was a military wife I could cash a
| check at the PX/BX because banks don't like cashing out of
| town checks.
|
| This is not just a homeless issue. This is problematic for
| all kinds of people with nomadic lives and this has long been
| true.
| Angostura wrote:
| Fundamentally it's an issue of how people in a settle
| community, with communal rules and support handle people
| who aren't part of that community.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| It's frequently outright abusive of the nomadic peoples.
| People want soldiers to lay down their lives for national
| security, natural disasters, etc but then want to treat
| them as unwelcome outsiders, don't want to hire their
| spouses, will happily gouge them for rent, etc.
| zabzonk wrote:
| Is this a USA thing? As a child of an RAF pilot who moved
| around a lot (here and overseas), I have never encountered
| this. My Dad had the same bank account all his life, at the
| bank in the town he was born in, in the UK, and never (as
| far as I know) had any problems cashing cheques etc. back
| when such were things.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| It was. The US has/had a distributed banking system with
| thousands of banks. It's archaic and stupid.
|
| Basically, you can tell from the routing number on a
| check where the bank is. Back in the day, if the bank
| wasn't from NYC or the same region they wouldn't honor
| the check. Checks were mailed between clearing systems
| and would take weeks to clear. My dad maintained a bank
| account at the Bank of New York specifically for business
| travel in the 80s.
|
| That's mostly gone now as ACH is automated and quick.
| nine_k wrote:
| The problem is that the US is rather larger than the UK,
| so a distributed system was (and maybe still is) a
| natural fit. For the same reason, all the citizens of the
| US can't just come to one place and vote for a President,
| like ancient Athenians could.
| ISL wrote:
| Not cashing out of town checks (especially in large
| amounts) is definitely a thing in the US.
|
| For larger transactions, it is also common to get a
| "cashier's check", drawn on the bank's own accounts to
| minimize the seller's counterparty risk.
|
| The rationale for the in-town restriction is also to
| limit counterparty risk: if the check is from an
| unfamiliar bank, it is more likely to be bogus and the
| seller won't be able to verify the account with a quick
| call to a known bank nor expect to be able to address
| fraud within the local law-enforcement framework.
| zabzonk wrote:
| I take your word for it, but I rember getting cash on my
| UK credit card several times when I've worked in the US.
| Of course, these were for small amounts, and the credit
| card company were the ones finally at risk.
|
| I have suddenly had a vision of Clint Eastwood, in High
| Plains Drifter mode, riding into town and attempting to
| cash a cheque :-)
| maccam94 wrote:
| Credit/debit cards and checks are totally different
| systems. Cards can be checked for available funds
| instantly. Checks need to be cleared through the ACH
| system (in the US at least), which is an asynchronous
| process that might take more than a day to complete. If
| you cash a check from a different bank at your own,
| usually it will actually draw funds from your account and
| the check will be deposited after it clears.
| zabzonk wrote:
| It's been a long time since I had a cheque book, but way
| back then the cheque at the bank (not for electricity
| payments and such) trying to get money needed to be
| backed up with a bank's card, and the risk was on the
| card issuing bank.
| couchand wrote:
| I'm not familiar with UK banking but this sounds like
| something lost in translation. The checks the ancestors
| are speaking of are personal checks, basically just an
| IOU -- I'm guessing this is more like your "for
| electricity payments and such". The cashier's check
| mentioned above sounds to be more like your "cheque at
| the bank", where the instrument carries value itself,
| rather than being a draft on the writer's account.
| s0rce wrote:
| I was paid by the Canadian government through a
| fellowship while I attended graduate school in the USA.
| They paid my entire years fellowship in a single check
| which clearly said Government of Canada, however, the
| check was denominated in US dollars and drawn on a US
| bank, yet I still got a lot of confusion and difficult
| when trying to cash it and had to convince them it was,
| in fact, possible.
| Angostura wrote:
| One of the advantages of Empire :)
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| I'm American, so, yes, I'm describing my experience with
| the USA.
| ghaff wrote:
| Of course, it's all tied up with state government too. You
| need to be a resident of some state to get a driver's
| license. And no high tax state wants, say, Nevada to offer
| state residency that puts your name on an office door in
| exchange for an annual fee. Then there's voting/jury
| duty/etc.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| This of course is a particular peculiarity with the US,
| having such varying state taxes.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| There's other weirdness too. CDLs are different between
| states. Oregon used to issue lots of shady licenses to
| undocumented and on the run type people.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Well heeled people already do pretty much as they please.
| Own a house in one state, travel as you see fit in your
| RV or whatever.
|
| It's only a serious hardship for poor people.
| yazaddaruvala wrote:
| Maybe it's better to think of local government as a Proof
| of Stake system. Where you Stake the value of land+house
| as collateral (using an address) to access trust based
| services like voting, banking, etc. such that everyone is
| clear that you can pay the annual fees or penalties (if
| ever applicable) for that local government / bank.
|
| Sadly that does mean poor people who can't stake capital
| or spend capital on rent in an area get left out of the
| system.
|
| What would a system look like that didn't use Proof of
| Stake as collateral to get people access to trust based
| systems?
| skybrian wrote:
| Or alternatively, have a relative who will let you use
| their address? That seems a lot cheaper.
|
| A hard case is combination of not having money and not
| having family.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Homeless people frequently are homeless in part because
| they don't have any relatives they are on good terms
| with. Most of the world blames the homeless person and
| chalks it up to their presumed bad behavior but it's not
| unusual for them to be fleeing an abusive situation.
| skybrian wrote:
| Yes, I should have said "not having family they're on
| good terms with."
| ghaff wrote:
| Even absent owning a house or otherwise having a
| permanent address in a given state, well heeled people
| probably have a stable/trusted relative or friend who can
| serve as a nominal permanent address and place to receive
| official mail. I did this for someone for a few years.
| mperham wrote:
| A PO Box costs ~$100/yr.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| You need a physical address for many things.
| leephillips wrote:
| Doesn't work. Usually banks, for example, won't accept a
| PO box as a residential address. They need to know where
| you actually live.
| 13of40 wrote:
| There are private services that make it look like a real
| street address. The top hit when I just googled it was
| $9.99 a month, so pretty affordable.
| leephillips wrote:
| Banks and some other entities have databases of these
| services. Some will not accept these addresses. They will
| let you use them for mail, but they will also require a
| physical address and proof that you live there. But
| others will not. It depends on which mailing service you
| use and which bank, etc. This is my personal experience.
| reidjs wrote:
| You are basing this on the premise only people with a fixed
| address can provide value to society. One of the best
| classical guitarists I have ever met is homeless, living on
| the street, but provides extreme value to everyone within
| earshot. Doesn't he deserve a bank account to safely store
| the few dollars he makes playing Mozart, Beethoven, and other
| works of art on the street? Would you rather he gets mugged
| by some criminals and loses everything he earned that day,
| week, month?
| yakubin wrote:
| Regarding voting, I think people who pay taxes should only be
| allowed to vote based on the place they pay their taxes in.
| It really annoys me that because I don't have a long-term
| address, I need to separately register where I live at a
| given time to vote in local elections, to have any say in
| what the money I pay in taxes is spent on, while there are
| many people who pay their taxes in one place and vote in
| another, where they haven't contributed a penny. Those things
| should be linked.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| I travel a lot, I spend 50% of time at home in city A, 25%
| in city B and 25% in city C. Often when I travel it's
| election time in some locality. Once in a while it's an
| issue I have a strong opinion on, and I spent a lot of time
| in that city so I understand the issue. I'd love to be able
| to split my voting power by where I spend my time and offer
| 25% of a vote to city B's impactful referendum. Instead I'm
| forced to pick only one city to call home even though I
| feel a sense of being at home in multiple places.
|
| I think voting should be about where you physically are and
| where you spend your time.
| dazc wrote:
| What about people who don't pay tax because they don't earn
| enough. Should they be allowed to vote?
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| They still owe taxes, it's just that some years their
| obligation is $0.
|
| Edit: also there are things like fuel and sales tax that
| almost everyone owes, even if they don't have to pay
| income tax.
| yardstick wrote:
| I don't think I should be eligible to vote in every city,
| state or country I've paid sales taxes in over a year.
| version_five wrote:
| I think your concerns are valid, but I think we can come up
| with ways to avoid them without forcing people to declare and
| be bound to a specific location.
|
| Just want to add that for example in France there is a "gens
| du voyage" status for nomadic people that allows then to
| access government services without a fixed address. I don't
| know enough about it to say if it's successful, just saying
| there are options.
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| This doesn't work at all for people who move around. I might
| have an assignment one year in Berlin then another for two
| years in Bangkok, then another three years in Singapore.
| sfriedr wrote:
| So how do you manage your banking and tax issues without
| going insane? Is your company providing you with high-
| quality tax advisors that help you deal with this issue?
| ghaff wrote:
| From my limited knowledge, companies do tend to handle
| the tax work for expats. In fact years ago when I was
| interviewing for an international position where I'd have
| been moving around a lot, as I recall, they told us
| something like they'd take some fixed percentage off our
| paychecks and handle the whole thing.
|
| If you're on your own, you presumably have to hire an
| appropriate accountant.
|
| This comes up even internally in the US if you're
| spending a lot of time in a number of states as a non-
| resident.
| jhugo wrote:
| It's not that complicated if you are just earning salary
| / self-employed income in places. GP's situation with
| those three countries -- given their fairly sane tax
| systems and streamlined reporting -- is probably about as
| complicated as an American's tax, especially if you have
| multiple states involved.
| [deleted]
| lmc wrote:
| I think this is a really interesting discussion. I'm a bit of
| a nomad myself and cautious of the things you bring up - if
| everyone behaved like this, there'd be no community
| development and things would decay. But, you already see this
| in more common situations, like the movement of young people
| to cities, e.g.:
|
| https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20191121-can-tiny-
| aband...
| bfz wrote:
| Just for some context, I was nomadic for well over a decade
| and consider that time an extravagant extension of youth,
| and a needless stunting of my growth into adulthood in
| absolute terms. By my late 30s I see no reason to encourage
| nomadism, or to celebrate or encourage others in the belief
| that it is a healthy way to live, it essentially amounts to
| the epitome of the dark side of individualism. When my
| children are of age, I would strongly discourage it for all
| the reasons in the original reply. Floaters don't grow - in
| the worst case they turn into "professional expats", and
| those (according to anecdotal experience) tend to develop
| into some of most fragmented and purposeless personalities
| on the planet by the time they reach middle age.
| jcims wrote:
| Holy moly just because you couldn't figure it out doesn't
| mean that nobody else can or will.
|
| I'd argue the opposite. Reducing friction with nomadism
| increases the likelihood of a pilgrimage and
| radicalization of hyper aligned internet communities into
| meat space.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" I was nomadic for well over a decade and consider that
| time an extravagant extension of youth, and a needless
| stunting of my growth into adulthood in absolute terms.
| By my late 30s I see no reason to encourage nomadism, or
| to celebrate or encourage others in the belief that it is
| a healthy way to live, it essentially amounts to the
| epitome of the dark side of individualism."_
|
| Way, way too many people never leave the area/country
| they were born in.
|
| By traveling to radically different places you can learn
| about different people, customs, and cultures. You can
| see how the norms you were brought up with aren't
| absolute and that good and bad people exist everywhere.
| Travel can really open your eyes to the humanity of every
| person everywhere.
|
| You can also learn what it's like to be the outsider, the
| one that's different, who can't speak the language and so
| is not treated like the first class citizen you're used
| to being back home, you might learn what it's like to go
| through the bureaucracy of a foreign land, and hopefully
| this will all help to to develop some empathy for people
| from other countries and who speak different languages
| when they come to yours.
|
| You can learn to engage with, survive, and thrive among
| people very different from you. Learning the customs and
| languages of other people and places can be very useful
| for both you and them, as you can act as an intermediary
| or unofficial ambassador between your own country/culture
| and theirs.
|
| That's not to mention your seeing and experiencing all
| sorts of wonderful things you might never have imagined
| were you to stay in one place all your life.
|
| There are so many great things about travel, though life
| as a permanent nomad or expat is not for everyone. At the
| very least, though, it can really open your eyes and your
| mind.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| Being nomadic post teenage years is natural among
| animals, particularly for males, before settling into a
| pack when mature.
|
| I'd encourage you to not suppress that instinct in others
| just because you're not currently in that phase of your
| life.
| ambrozk wrote:
| Both of you are correct.
| lmc wrote:
| Out of interest, where did you go, and what were your
| reasons for stopping?
|
| I think I can relate to a lot of what you say. I'm not
| saying I'm doing things the right way, but I've met
| people that you're describing that are basically on a
| very long holiday.
|
| It's a proper cliche, but travel has definitely broadened
| my horizons. I hope you don't discourage it too much -
| emphasize travelling with purpose, and when to stop.
| bfz wrote:
| Mostly Asia. I stopped for exactly the reason in the
| previous comment.. I realized that what initially seemed
| like a fun and academic idea about the people I was
| meeting absolutely did develop into a fundamental life
| choice, after the umpteenth drink shared with someone who
| might have initially seemed eccentric and interesting,
| but had very little depth and purpose almost immediately
| below the surface.
|
| The choice was to either seize the endless excitement of
| travel permanently, and further develop my own
| eccentricities at extraordinary risk of accomplishing
| little material, or swallowing my pride and acknowledging
| the dream of travel may have been a substantially emptier
| experience than originally promised.
|
| This is not to say I did not "develop" - I met numerous
| people, swap emails, send Christmas gifts, had amazing
| experiences, and so on, but the question is what
| permanence these actions and relationships have, and at
| what cost those experiences are gained. I still itch -
| regularly - to jump on a plane to a country I have never
| been before. It is so easy to indulge in that sense of
| adventure. But I notice this comes most often during
| times of stress, and nowadays I always weigh that
| adventure against the actual costs of what I am leaving
| behind. Due to this, adventure holds very little of the
| appeal it once did, and I often wonder how many of those
| life-loving expats I met who did not admit to running
| from their old lives were still on the run from
| something, perhaps while living with complete delusion
| that they were only having fun.
|
| On the other hand I did meet people who had found a real
| sense of belonging and purpose in their life through the
| foreign communities they interacted with, but even if I
| were one of those, over a long time horizon, I don't
| imagine the outcome to be so much different on every
| occasion. There are only so many children to educate and
| schools to build before the satisfaction gives way to the
| wariness of ones own ephemeral relationship to their
| environment, the only answer to which is yet more
| adventure, or the cold reality of going home and
| discovering what was missed in the meantime.
|
| As another reply suggested - travelling with purpose
| makes a lot of sense. Some of the most interesting people
| I met were NGO or higher education placements there
| temporarily to accomplish a specific task.
| iovrthoughtthis wrote:
| you sound fun
| lmc wrote:
| Thanks for sharing. Seriously.
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| Thanks for the judgement -- much appreciated!
|
| On the other hand I was basically non nomadic until about
| 40 and always discontent. Then for the last few years
| have been working in different countries and love it. I
| also try and at least understand and if possible
| contribute to each culture I encounter in a small way.
| I'm not sure how that counts as fragmented and
| purposeless.
| sausagefeet wrote:
| > So to summarize, I think what bothers me is that the only
| possible way to arrive at what the parent comment suggests
| would be to avoid participating or contributing to any of
| these essential traits of civil society
|
| I don't think this take is very realistic. Most people want
| to live in a home with a static address. They aren't doing it
| because they need an address to participate in society.
| However, there are people who are more nomadic and the
| physical address requirement for some things can be a
| challenge.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > Most people want to live in a home with a static address.
|
| Statistics can address what most people _do_ do, but how
| can one possibly speak to what most people _want_ to do?
| (Even if one could, I can believe that people 's
| preferences are much less absolute than they are shaped by
| existing affordances; maybe some people who currently want
| one thing would change their mind if obstacles to the
| alternative were removed.)
| Someone wrote:
| I concur that most people want to live in a home, but
| except for the fact that's it's engrained in the legal
| system, what do you really need a static address for
| nowadays? I could give suppliers lat/long coordinates of my
| front door or the route to my house, and my physical
| mailbox gets more spam than mail I really need, and the
| latter also could be delivered via email.
|
| A static email address is much more useful (or, actually, a
| static digital identity)
| nine_k wrote:
| How soon until we end up with government-mandated email
| addresses? Email is already a required field in many
| governmental forms in the US.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I don't see it until biometrics and sovereign identity are a
| thing. The only people who really benefit are really rich
| people and really poor people. It also creates a dozens of
| hundreds of truly difficult problems.
|
| In the US, people pitched a fit when the tax authority started
| requiring facial verification for sign in to access sensitive,
| vulnerable to fraud records, so it ain't happening here.
|
| The really rich people don't really care, and nobody really
| cares about the really poor. Nobody cares in the least about
| the elderly. Everyone else has a home and has more to lose to
| the rampant fraud that happens when you make things like this
| easier.
| Vladimof wrote:
| > It's the equivalent of when places used to want to to give a
| home landline number.
|
| Lots of places still require a phone number (many email
| services do for example).
| nivertech wrote:
| What about digital nomads? Not my situation, but still
| interesting.
| Normal_gaussian wrote:
| It seems froma banking perspective an address is more secure
| than most forms of identity. This makes sense as it is very
| hard (though not impossible) to pretend you live at an address
| that is not directly sympathetic to you for a long period of
| time.
|
| So here HSBC seem to be saying - if you are working with a
| charity (ie. have a case worker), and that charity vouches for
| you, then we've done the dance that makes it less of an issue
| for the charity to help you with an address. _but you still
| have an address; its just the charities ' address_.
|
| This is a good solution for homelessness. Its hacky, it will
| miss people, but it is quick.
|
| I expect the path to getting digital nomads a verifiable
| address via some kind of service will be a long one; and being
| able to bank without an address even longer.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > It seems from a banking perspective an address is more
| secure than most forms of identity.
|
| My Indentity card has chip and pin on it with my biometrix
| data. Some countries have cryptograpgic signatures in them.
|
| You think addresses are secure? They are not even real. They
| are not a spesific location like GPS coordinates.
|
| They are any written text that gets mailto you. An address of
| 'big yellow house' can be valid. The following 'address' was
| delivered:
|
| "Lives across the road from the Spar, his ma and da used to
| own it, his mother was Mary and da Joseph, moved to Waterfoot
| after he got married, plays guitar and used to run discos in
| the parochial hall and the hotel in the 80s. Friends with the
| fella who runs the butchers in Waterfoot too."'
|
| https://static.guim.co.uk/images/favicon-32x32.ico
|
| Postcards with 'England' can get delivered to the right
| person:
|
| https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/christmas-card-
| addr...
| Normal_gaussian wrote:
| As fun as those ways to address a postcard are, they are
| not addresses that the bank will accept. The bank checks
| against a database of valid addresses; this is a common
| problem for people that have just built a house - most
| companies used cached databases so refuse to accept your
| address until it has trickled down.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Firstly, they have no authority to refuse - if I have
| just moved to a new address, the bank had a legal
| obligation to deliver my monthly statements, letters,
| etc. Their database is their problem, I have lived at new
| addresses and every serious institution has a way to
| manually enter abtirary address. You might get some
| nonsence from the customer service person and might have
| to speak to a manager to get it sorted, but if you show
| up with contract of purchase for a new house that states
| your address, they can't turn you away.
|
| I have also been registered with several improtant
| institutions at an address that does not exist, because
| the telephone operator made a mistake - and the address
| was preposterous, they have put me in a house number
| 15000. So they don't check much.
|
| Thirdly, addresses are not real. They are a myth, like
| simultanous events in special relativity, they do not
| exist in the real world but people who never had to deal
| with them much don't realise it.
|
| What we call an address is a set of instructions to the
| postman, and if that set of instructions gets the post to
| your door, it is valid. Anyone paying attentions should
| have noticed that they often recieve post with slightly
| different permutations of their address. And ofcourse I
| have given a few silly examples. But there are genuene
| addresses that are unkowable. I lived in a building that
| spaned 3 streets, (one for each side, the last side was a
| house). It had 2 entances and 2 addresses.
|
| There are addresses that are not a {street}{housenumber},
| there are addresses that are a grid and no map software
| knows how to deal with them
|
| And lastly there are houses that have no 'official'
| address! A lone hamlet near the coast might have no name
| at all.
|
| So the only way to determine if an address is real, is to
| sent a letter, and to see if it arrives.
| ghaff wrote:
| >A lone hamlet near the coast might have no name at all.
|
| In the US, a lot of addressing was rationalized to
| support E911 service. So for example, a "camp" (i.e. a
| cabin without utilities) I would sometimes rent used to
| just have a name. But at some point it got an address on
| the dirt road it sits on. They also did things like
| change a road segment name if there was a gap between it
| and another segment with the same name.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| For political reasons the U.K. (and US) are opposed to
| having identity cards so that isn't really a workable
| solution. 8 think it's also inaccurate to say that your
| address _for the purposes of banking_ is 'anything one can
| write on a letter to have the Royal Mail deliver it to
| you'. For example, you probably can't give the address of a
| hotel where you're staying.
| ghaff wrote:
| It's probably more accurate to say that it's any
| residential address that, in the case of the US, is in
| the USPS address database. Though there are probably
| exceptions.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I don't understand the issue considering HMRC has a
| record of every taxpayer? Are these people who are
| against ID cards also not paying taxes?
| Symbiote wrote:
| They're also against having a population register.
|
| Denmark has a population register ("CPR") [1], but does
| _not_ have identity cards. It 's required that you update
| your address in the register if you move house or
| emigrate.
|
| Everyone also has a NemKonto ("EasyAccount"), which is a
| nominated bank account linked to the CPR (somehow) to
| receive payments from public institutions. That should
| make fraud of this type even more difficult.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Det_Centrale_Personregister
| Danieru wrote:
| Plus those accounts are going to be locked rather quick if
| large amounts start getting wired in.
|
| I imagine accounts setup to help the homeless would make poor
| money mules.
|
| Sort of the inverse situation making corporate accounts hard
| to get in Japan. Such an account can receive large volumes of
| cash without raising red flags.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Unless the rules have been tightened since then, fintechs
| such as Revolut and Monzo (back when it was a prepaid card)
| used to open accounts instantly with no KYC with low limits
| (which they get raised when you pass KYC), so I wonder why
| they wouldn't just do the same and skip the KYC step
| altogether.
| data_maan wrote:
| Is this still happening? I feel all fintechs use KYC now.
| Even other services, such as Airbnb, oddly have started
| to use KYC.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > It seems froma banking perspective an address is more
| secure than most forms of identity.
|
| I disagree, an address is trivially falsifiable compared to
| something like an ID or tax record (both of which the
| government can actually authenticate, and I'd expect/hope
| that financial institutions have a way to verify them that
| way).
|
| The concept of a useless, trivially-falsifiable "proof of
| address" became a standard in the country so what the bank is
| doing here is merely covering their ass. As long as the
| entire country believes that "proof of address" is secure
| then they're in the clear - whether that stops any financial
| crime doesn't actually matter, especially when the government
| would rather focus on internet filters or endless gossiping
| about lockdown parties.
| Normal_gaussian wrote:
| The bank needs an address because they verify the address
| themselves. They literally send your card and sensitive
| info to it.
|
| If you try and register 100s of cards to one address, they
| would notice. If you try and register to 100s of different
| addresses you can bet your backside that a majority of the
| residents would return to sender.
|
| Before your address is verified your account has much more
| stringent fraud flags.
| sgjohnson wrote:
| Have a P.O. Box for correspondence. Or a super low-rent place
| that you're "domiciled" in.
|
| Of course, it has to be in a tax haven. Otherwise there's no
| point in being a digital nomad in the first place.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| > _Have a P.O. Box for correspondence._
|
| In the US, the USPS required you to prove your address before
| they will rent you a PO Box.
| patio11 wrote:
| Most digital nomads of my acquaintance bank in either their
| country of origin or in a regional hub. Getting access to an
| address sufficient to open a bank account is not terrifically
| difficult for socially established people who e.g. have family
| members in the middle class, capability to rent an apartment
| for at least a month and get a lease issued, etc.
|
| There are a lot of people in the community who play a bit fast
| and loose with taxes but from a banking perspective they're low
| risk retail accounts and, even if not in technical compliance
| for KYC, not out of bounds for tens of percent of the retail
| portfolio of many banks.
|
| (Personal opinion disclaimer, yadda yadda, I would not identify
| as a digital nomad but have many acquaintances who do and am
| intimately personally and professionally acquainted with
| banking internationally.)
| sfriedr wrote:
| How can you skip (at least parts of) KYC requirements these
| days?
|
| To me it seems KYC gets ever more pervasive: I had opened a
| bank account 5 years ago in the EU/UK space and 4 years ago
| closed it again. Now I opened an account again at the same
| bank - and the process was significantly more involved, more
| documentations needed to be provided for the same service,
| even though I had been their customer before.
|
| The KYC requirement makes me feel uneasy from a privacy point
| of view: If it would be an eyes-only verification, I would be
| happy to provide a lot of data to prove I'm not a bad guy.
| But since the data gets stored and potentially forwarded to
| third parties, this significantly increases my risk for data
| and identity theft, as number of increasing data breaches
| show: https://www.securitymagazine.com/articles/96667-the-
| top-data...
|
| And there is also a long-term risk associated with excessive
| KYC data hoarding about individuals: The atrocities in Nazi
| Germany were in part possible because the government gathered
| data about the Jewish population (e.g. by enacting
| essentially KYC-like requirements for its citizens; though I
| guess through this lense the word should be "KYJ") and then
| subsequently used that data to round them up: https://encyclo
| pedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/locating-t...
|
| Also, what do you mean by "not out of bounds for tens of
| percent of the retail portfolio of many banks"
| [deleted]
| Terry_Roll wrote:
| So I know someone who decided to move to the Caribbean, the UK
| bank stopped them from using internet banking, they could only
| transact with the bank using the phone. Why is this, well in
| the UK new legislation appeared in 2000 or 2001 iirc which
| allowed banks to carry out their own "security" related affairs
| which includes data sharing under the guise of security. Fraud
| and financial crimes were handled and investigated by the banks
| instead of the Police and if the banks felt there was a case
| only then did it get handed over to the Police for prosecution.
| Perhaps a bit of Jeremy Bentham philosophy at play but also
| Maslow's hierarchy of needs considering the wide picture of
| house prices, home ownership and the wider changes seen in UK
| society.
|
| Its like GDPR creates the impression you have control over your
| data when you dont if its labelled as scientific or law
| enforcement data.
| sfriedr wrote:
| "Maslow's hierarchy of needs considering the wide picture of
| house prices, home ownership and the wider changes seen in UK
| society."
|
| What do you mean by that? I cannot immediately see how house
| prices and home ownership issues drive diminishing banking
| privacy .
| Terry_Roll wrote:
| You are more likely to stay out of trouble if you own your
| house and have a family to support, unlike housing
| association tenants.
|
| When it used to be the council providing the housing, some
| tenants learned they could get a new kitchen every two
| years, so right on the two year point, they simply smashed
| it up and the council fitted a new one. An example of the
| tenants gaming the system paid for by taxpayers. Although
| Margaret Thatcher is despised by many for doing things like
| selling off council houses to their tenants, it was a
| clever way to offload costs back onto the tenants as many
| bought their homes and started to get into "property"
| ownership.
|
| The Northern Island troubles with the IRA largely died down
| because they made more money "on paper" by becoming
| landlords and gave up drug dealing and knee capping. A
| surgeon I spoke to once said some hospital in Ireland was
| the best for knee surgery and those skills have been lost
| because the IRA werent doing knee capping's any more!
|
| So Maslow's hierarchy of needs is based on things like high
| priority need for food and shelter at the bottom of the
| pyramid and social media like facebook and instagram at the
| top to keep the ego happy with loads of bot followers. You
| see this everywhere now, even here on hacker news with the
| upvoting downvoting system, but Google's more recent
| removal of the dislike button is perhaps best known.
|
| Psychological population control without having to fire a
| bullet or bomb, deploy police and the food regulations
| helping to manage the hormonal fluctuations to keep people
| docile. Populations controlled with the push of a button,
| clever init! LOL
| LunaSea wrote:
| As far as I know there is no legal way to be a digital nomad.
|
| You have to live about 6months in the same country at the very
| least.
| Etheryte wrote:
| No you don't, where did you get this idea from? If you're
| referring to the EU tax residency logic, then that's based on
| where you spend the majority of your time, as well as where
| you have significant connections. Time alone isn't even the
| deciding factor. If we ignore the other factors for a moment,
| six months doesn't have any importance here either. You can
| live in 12 different countries in a year, a month at each if
| you'd like, for example. Your tax residency will be based on
| where you spent the most time between all those and then all
| the other additional factors.
| sgjohnson wrote:
| > Your tax residency will be based on where you spent the
| most time between all those and then all the other
| additional factors.
|
| Also false. Depends on the tax laws of the countries, but
| most likely you wouldn't be considered tax resident
| anywhere, absent of having a strong economic interests in
| one particular country (and tax havens wouldn't care about
| this, and the burden of proof would be on the tax
| authority).
| sfriedr wrote:
| This. Tax laws are very complicated and the 6 months rule
| is more a rule of thumb than a "hard" rule. In practice,
| the tax authorities have a set of tests they perform,
| where the time spend in a country is just one item among
| many - and these rules vary from country to country.
| refurb wrote:
| Indeed. Every country is different. Being a "tax non-
| resident" doesn't necessarily mean you own no taxes
| either.
|
| In Singapore, tax non-residents simply pay a different
| rate. To be exempt from income tax entirely, you need to
| work in Singapore for fewer than 60 days.
|
| https://www.iras.gov.sg/taxes/individual-income-
| tax/basics-o...
| sgjohnson wrote:
| It goes even deeper than that. There's also the question
| on where is the money being made.
|
| Say a hypothetical scenario, I'm self-employed contractor
| working through a corporation in, say, Panama, and I
| spend some 120 days a year in Singapore.
|
| Would Singapore even subject me to any taxes?
|
| But yes, ultimately one can be a digital nomad, not be a
| tax resident anywhere, and not be subject to any income
| or corporate taxes anywhere. You just have to be very
| particular about the countries you pick.
| refurb wrote:
| Yes they would tax you because the work was done in
| Singapore.
|
| Would they know? Probably not.
| sgjohnson wrote:
| But it's not you earning any money, it's an entity in
| Panama.
|
| Just outlining the complexity of this.
| refurb wrote:
| That's not how Singapore defines "Singapore earned
| income".
|
| They define it by "where the work was completed" not
| "where income come from" or "country where you were
| hired".
|
| Many countries do it that way.
|
| Edit: I misread. Well if your Corp doesn't pay you I see
| the point, but you're also the sole owner?
| yardstick wrote:
| You'd still have to pay the corporate tax rate in Panama
| I assume?
|
| How would you eventually obtain beneficial use of that
| money? Ie how and when would it reach your personal bank
| account? If it won't, how do you plan to use the money
| for your own gain? I assume (haven't done any research)
| that Panama wouldn't let you treat things like paying for
| Netflix, movie tickets, supermarket shops, clothes shops,
| etc as business expenses?
|
| At some point you'd need to transfer it from Panama to
| yourself and at that point it would be taxable (capital
| gains or income tax depending on how you transfer). If
| you time things right you could be resident in a country
| without income tax eg UAE. But you would have still paid
| Panama corporation tax I believe.
| sgjohnson wrote:
| Panama doesn't tax income on foreign gains, so the corpo
| tax there would be 0%.
| LunaSea wrote:
| That list of countries is usually pretty thin if you also
| remove countries which forbid you of working while on a
| tourist visa.
| sgjohnson wrote:
| Most countries actually don't care about you working on a
| tourist visa, as long as it's incidental to the travel
| and the work is online.
|
| The US is the exception here, not the norm.
| LunaSea wrote:
| > The US is the exception here, not the norm.
|
| That is incorrect. This is actually the norm in most
| countries in the world.
|
| > Most countries actually don't care about you working on
| a tourist visa, as long as it's incidental to the travel
|
| But it's not
|
| > and the work is online.
|
| The work being online just makes it better hidden and
| thus a more difficult fraud to detect but it has no
| incidence on the legality of the work.
| ghaff wrote:
| This comes up periodically.
|
| Generally speaking, events, meetings, etc. are fine in
| many countries with just a basic visitor's visa. (US, it
| needs to be a B-1 Business visa.)
|
| However, as you point out, remote online work is hard to
| police. That said, you shouldn't say that remote work is
| the reason for your visit. And you should be somewhat
| discrete--e.g. not renting a co-working space.
| PeterisP wrote:
| I wouldn't bet on "most likely you wouldn't be considered
| tax resident anywhere" - first, you have a default tax
| residency at your country of origin and the local law is
| likely to say that you lose it only if you can prove
| another tax residency.
|
| Second, countries are likely to err on the side of
| caution which benefits them, so if you have unusual
| arrangements, then it's quite plausible that you are a
| tax resident of multiple countries and owe taxes to all
| of them - many countries have bilateral treaties to avoid
| dual taxation (which is the default outcome in many
| cases), so a digital nomad in an unusual situation might
| owe taxes to two or more countries, but are very unlikely
| to owe tax to no country.
|
| "the burden of proof would be on the tax authority" - no,
| definitely not. The tax laws generally assert their claim
| on all income accrued in a certain country. The
| abovementioned 'non-dual-taxation' treaties have a
| process so that in reasonable scenarios the worker only
| pays tax in their home country, but if they don't apply
| (for example, because the 'home country' is a tax haven
| with whom there such a treaty isn't made), they owe tax
| where they earned the income. The mere fact that you are
| a tax resident somewhere else does not mean that you're
| exempt from local taxes, that requires fulfilling the
| criteria of those dual taxation treaties.
|
| The weak point there is _enforcement_ - there are all
| kinds of ways how a digital nomad can ensure that they
| won 't be hassled much to collect the taxes they owe and
| they often can avoid paying them - but legally, they
| still owe them and are at the mercy of the authorities
| not finding out or not caring.
| flower-giraffe wrote:
| Interesting that the selection of branches includes Belgravia and
| Notting Hill Gate, two of the most expensive areas in the UK
|
| The branch list does not include Camden Town where there are
| homeless people sleeping in the streets near HSBC.
|
| The underlying issue here is that Covid has accelerated the
| transition to cashless digital first transactions that are
| controlled by private entities that have their own agenda.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| The cost of living of an area of London don't really correlate
| (in the way you're suggesting) to if homeless people can exist
| there.
| petesergeant wrote:
| > Notting Hill Gate, two of the most expensive areas in the UK
|
| That's not really how London works though: less than a mile
| north of Notting Hill Gate you start to hit some areas of
| serious poverty:
| https://jamestrimble.github.io/imdmaps/eimd2015/ is a good tool
| for exploring.
| 1equalsequals1 wrote:
| This is somewhat inaccurate; Maybe if it's updated to account
| for recent years
| octoberfranklin wrote:
| > If you aren't receiving support from Shelter or one of our
| other partners, you won't be able to access the No Fixed Address
| programme.
|
| I mean basically this should be called "We Let You Use Our
| Partners' Address Bank Account".
| notahacker wrote:
| Sure, but since one of those partners is a homeless charity, it
| means "you can have a bank account whilst homeless" which is
| potentially a big deal to a homeless person trying to save some
| money.
|
| (It isn't particularly useful to me, who lives full time on a
| mobile boat, but that's more of a "first world problem")
| mdavis6890 wrote:
| I find it strange that we are okay with business requiring our
| physical address. Maybe with some rare exceptions, I can't think
| of a good reason why these businesses need to know where we live.
| Even banks. Usually the reason given is security, anti money-
| laundering, anti-terrorism or whatever. But I think the real
| reason is government control and surveillance. We should not be
| okay with this.
| MBCook wrote:
| I don't find it odd. It's "normal", in that it's basically
| always been that way. They needed your address to contact you
| in a formal/reliable method: through the mail.
|
| Yes we have other communication methods now but the requirement
| has stuck around.
|
| Maybe it's because it's always been like that but I really
| don't see the issue with it.
| mdavis6890 wrote:
| I'm the past I could provide whatever address I want. The
| bank wouldn't care or check it, because why?
|
| The new thing is that you have to prove you actually live at
| the address.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| It sounds like you can think of good reasons, you just prefer a
| conspiracy theory.
| ulzeraj wrote:
| This is basically saying "We are going to allow you to
| participate on society just a little as long as you follow the
| rules and is associated with these institutions we approve".
|
| How is this not considered a violation of human rights and
| dignity? Oh I forgot... gotta keep those unwashed 87% of the
| world population out of our pretty financial system.
| johnywalks wrote:
| > follow the rules and is associated with these institutions we
| approve
|
| Isn't that the definition of a society?
| mjburgess wrote:
| Depends on who "we" is -- here, a bank is saying it is their
| prerogative to decide your access to banking based on
| arbitrary private charities that they like
|
| As a matter of fact it is their prerogative. This indicates,
| i'd say, a failure of the state to provide access to what is
| now a basic need (banking).
| otterley wrote:
| I suspect that the bank is actually trying its best to
| supply services to the indigent without running afoul of a
| strict regulatory regime. You make it sound like they're
| being intentionally unreasonable out of some sense of
| cruelty.
| unreal37 wrote:
| Do people who are convicted of financial-related crimes
| (like money laundering) deserve access to banking too? Just
| curious how absolute this right to banking should be.
| PeterisP wrote:
| Yes, banking is a requirement for proper participation in
| society, and we definitely want convicted felons to be
| able to properly participate in society once they get out
| of prison (otherwise what's the point of letting them
| out?) so they should deserve access to banking, and in EU
| they do have that right.
|
| It might reasonable to deny a known fraudster access to
| _credit_ , but they should have access to a bank account,
| for example, to make electronic payments for their rent
| and utilities.
| pibechorro wrote:
| Most of the financial system is nothing more than money
| laundering for cartels and corrupt oligarchs. We need to walk
| away from the brick and mortar banking institutions.
| wildrhythms wrote:
| In America we call this a credit score: a black box system that
| nobody, not even the credit agencies, can describe or
| understand. Obligatory dhh/Apple Card Twitter thread on this
| subject - https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1192540900393705474
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| Yup, for the longest time I've maintained we entered a
| cyberpunk society when credit scores were introduced. An
| absolutely soulless abomination of a system designed to treat
| you as a number and not as a human.
| Andy_G11 wrote:
| Interesting - could really help some people who do not have a
| fixed address. Great to see that an employment services firm,
| Reed in Partnership, is one of the partners who will be used to
| validate the candidate's authenticity - it can be a struggle for
| someone without a fixed address to get a bank account and it is
| often easier to initially get part time employment than it is to
| get a bank account or a lease in your own name. Lessors want a
| bank account, and banks want proof of a place of residence.
| However, where does the employer deposit the salary? I know this
| is a problem - I was in this precise position twenty years ago.
| [deleted]
| shrumm wrote:
| Chile has a great system which guarantees a free bank account
| linked to your national ID called Cuenta RUT. It has some limits
| like only a debit card and a max value you can store there but I
| think it's a fantastic idea. You just need to walk in to any
| branch with your ID and you're all set with an account you can
| receive and send payments from. If you need something more from
| your bank account - it stands to reason you have the necessary
| documentation to apply for a 'regular' bank account which most
| do.
|
| Even foreigners with any kind of work permit get this ID called a
| RUT and are eligible.
| danlugo92 wrote:
| Venezuela just imemented something like this as well.
| lettergram wrote:
| > Chile has a great system which guarantees a free bank account
| linked to your national ID called Cuenta RUT.
|
| To me this reads as a dystopian nightmare. I want a bank
| account not associated with me in any way digitally or on
| paper; where I have total control.
|
| Otherwise the government can seize my assets at a whim.
|
| Funny story, in IL I have a bank account with chase. They
| decided to close the account because it wasn't active (making
| regular deposits) (I'd do yearly deposits and use it to pay
| static bills) AND give it to the state. So the state of IL took
| custody of my bank account, without warning. I then received
| something in the mail I had to respond to within 10 days to get
| it back. I filed the paperwork, but nothing. Money just gone.
| I'm currently fighting to get my money back.
|
| Anyway, the point is political actors can debank people they
| disagree with (see Wikileaks) and destroy them. Ideally, that
| wouldn't be possible. The government should answer to the
| people, not control their people.
| throwaway787544 wrote:
| There are a multitude of ways to claim unclaimed money that
| the government holds. I've used it to claim $15 before, it
| was easy. https://www.usa.gov/unclaimed-money
|
| This process is not dystopian in the least. It's functioning
| system put in place by the government to help people.
|
| Political actors can and do seize assets in private banks
| too. Private banks are also subject to laws.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| Sounds like you would consider the entire world dystopian
| then. I don't think there's any country, with the possible
| exception of a few failed states, that lets you have a bank
| account that isn't tied a real person.
| lettergram wrote:
| You can actually do it in the US to an extent. Basically
| create a LLC with owners masked. Enable an authorized user
| to be an attorney and register with bank. Then use bank and
| routing number.
|
| You can also use crypto and have a crypto wallet.
|
| Prior to 9/11 it was far easier and widespread among elites
| to have effectively anonymous bank accounts.
| kennydude wrote:
| It's weird seeing this all of a sudden, when Monzo has for a long
| time not required a fixed address. They require an address just
| to get your card sent to, but nothing else (so you could get it
| sent to a hotel, P.O box etc).
| janandonly wrote:
| So, HSBC is now trying to catch up with Bitcoin?
|
| Better late then never , I guess.
| dijit wrote:
| HSBC were the ones who blackholed my request to open a new
| account for monthly rent deposits (because I was going to be co-
| living).
|
| It was months of back and forth before they finally told me that
| I had offhandedly mentioned my salary and they wanted proof of
| that. Despite never needing proof before, and despite them being
| the bearer of my bank account so they could see this. I had to
| refuse to leave the HQ on Fleet Street for 4 hours before they
| even told me that.
|
| They wouldn't accept my payslip pdf as proof. So I walked across
| the street to Barclays and opened 3 accounts on the spot and
| never looked back.
|
| Ironically to this topic, I had to close that account when I left
| the UK because I didn't have a UK address. But HSBC handled my
| case really badly, I nearly lost my accommodation because of
| their opaque stalling (I need to prove direct debit before move-
| in). So I would never go back.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| Opening a bank account as a fresh immigrant before the age of
| neobanks was a nightmare. In my desperation I even called a
| private bank in Jersey only to be told a need a whopping 5M
| pounds deposit to open an account. After visiting 20+ branches
| in person in London, one manager took pity on me and opened a
| business account. I had all paperwork fully ready, they just
| weren't interested, or at least I wasn't aware of the 'dance'
| required to open an account. You couldn't just walk in an open
| one. You needed an appointment for another day.
| 323 wrote:
| The hard part opening a bank account in UK as a fresh
| immigrant is providing a proof of address. The easiest way is
| to show your NINo paper (SSN equivalent). It will take you
| about 3 months to get that paper, so you need to manage
| somehow without a UK bank account during this period.
|
| I had no problems, opening the account online and only
| showing up to the branch for the final papers, but I had that
| NINo paper. Maybe you chose the "wrong" banks? Some like
| Lloyds are much more accommodating to immigrants and have few
| requirements.
| r0snd0 wrote:
| vrdmn wrote:
| My experience was exactly the opposite. Being a new immigrant
| in UK, Barclays handed me a list of required documents and also
| made it clear I needed a NI number (UK tax number) before I
| could open an account. At this point I did not have an account
| I could get my salary paid in.
|
| Walked across the street to HSBC and all they needed was a
| letter from my employer and I had my account in a few hours.
| haspok wrote:
| I had the same problem with Barclays (a long time ago...)
| when moving to the UK, they wouldn't accept a letter from my
| employer and they wouldn't accept a rental agreement either
| as proof of address. Solution: the confirmation letter that I
| received from the NI people was finally good enough, so I
| could open an account only a month after I'd moved to the UK!
| Btw. the NI number is a must anyway, so it's just that it
| takes some time until you get it.
|
| This is a direct consequence of there being no official
| central registration of one's address in the UK, unlike in
| many other countries. You might call Austria bureaucratic for
| example, because you have to register within 3 days of moving
| (and another registration is necessary within 4 months), but
| then you get official papers that prove your address, so this
| never becomes an issue here, unlike in the UK.
| sfriedr wrote:
| Is the NI really a must in UK? I have heard of people
| working there that are working only for a few years in
| academia who don't have an NI - or at least so they claim.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| yes but you're taxed at some 'emergency tax' rate which
| is really high.
| throw748383818 wrote:
| I lived there just fine without one. I wasn't working,
| but rented a house and opened a bank account, I don't
| remember ever being asked for one.
| haspok wrote:
| Yes, of course, if you have the "money-honey", you don't
| work or expect maternity or jobseekers allowance, and you
| are not interested in state pension, you can get by
| without one :)
|
| I just checked, and for healthcare you don't actually
| need it in the UK. In other EU countries you usually have
| to pay health insurance for yourself if you are not
| working (sometimes a LOT of money), but not in the UK.
| cm2187 wrote:
| Same. Barclays gave me an error in their app at the end of
| their account opening process, telling me to take an
| appointment at the branch, but telling me I can't take an
| appointment, then sending me a welcome email. I tried calling
| them but I can't get beyond their voice recognition system
| that doesn't understand what I call about, and this is their
| premier banking experience. I must say that I have no idea
| whether I have an account with them or not right now.
|
| I also helped a friend who just arrived in the UK. The
| procedures are completely circular. You need a proof of
| address to open a bank account but you need to have a bank
| account to do anything that will give you a proof of address.
|
| As for natwest their account opening procedure involves
| printing a blank pdf form, filling it by hand and going to
| the branch with it. Welcome to 1999!
| ricardobayes wrote:
| You can exchange your drivers licence and a tenancy
| agreement and those take care of the proof of address.
| PeterisP wrote:
| Isn't that the whole circularity problem - in UK often
| you need a bank account before you can get a tenancy
| agreement.
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| When I opened an account with Barclays as an exchange
| student I was given a signed and stamped letter by the
| university and told to go to a specific Barclays branch
| nearby and ask for a specific person who would help me. I
| thought the whole circularity of the thing was just absurd,
| especially when on the other hand I could pay with
| contactless on the tube (very advanced at that time).
| dazc wrote:
| > Barclays gave me an error in their app at the end of
| their account opening process,
|
| Don't take this personally, every Barclays customer
| experiences random error messages as an everyday benefit of
| banking with Barclays. The only good thing I can say is
| that they still have physical branches where you can walk
| in and talk to a person who is usually nice and helpful.
| miohtama wrote:
| In the EU, you have a right to open a bank account:
|
| https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/financial-
| pr...
|
| Sadly, Boris fixed this for the UK.
| signal11 wrote:
| UK law requires its 9 largest banks to offer fee-free basic
| bank accounts[1]. While that's not the same as a legal
| right to an account, it ensures people with poor credit
| history have access to banking -- it's pretty inclusive but
| IIRC does require an address -- the 'no fixed address'
| approach fixes that.
|
| [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/basic-bank-
| account...
| Kwpolska wrote:
| This sounds good in theory, but the way it's implemented in
| Poland is a bit of a joke. The basic account must be your
| only bank account in Poland. You need to visit a bank
| branch to open it (for any other accounts, you can usually
| just take a selfie and a photo of your ID card), banks tend
| not to promote its existence and hide it in unguessable
| places on their websites, and there are some other random
| limitations (eg. no e-government access, no Google Pay).
| The basic account is free, has a free debit card, and has
| five free operations and five free ATM withdrawals. But
| normal accounts with cards cost nothing if you have some
| minimum usage, standard transfers done in online banking
| are free, and withdrawals in the bank's own ATMs are
| usually free too.
|
| The effect? Less than ten thousand basic accounts existed
| in 2020, two years after their introduction. (source in
| Polish: https://serwisy.gazetaprawna.pl/finanse-
| osobiste/artykuly/14...)
| blfr wrote:
| Banks routinely offering a better account than basic
| minimum is to their credit and expected in an even
| slightly competitive sector, not a joke at all. That in
| other countries it needs to be legislated is weird.
| rr808 wrote:
| Sure but this is for citizens where I'm guessing OP was on
| a working visa.
| the_svd_doctor wrote:
| The first line in the link says it's for anyone residing
| legally in the EU. Not just citizens.
| pards wrote:
| Same in Canada. The regulation is called "access to basic
| banking" [0]
|
| [0] https://cba.ca/newcomers-to-canada
| refurb wrote:
| _"....if they meet the identification requirements set
| out in the Bank Act. "_
|
| Not sure I see a difference?
| PeterisP wrote:
| Identification does not require a fixed address, and it's
| not like the UK "no fixed address bank account" discussed
| in the original article can be opened without a proper
| ID.
| donthellbanme wrote:
| In the USA, you don't have a right to a bank account.
|
| In most cases, unless you bounced a check (There is a
| separate system banks use on checks. It not tied to credit
| agencies.) you can get an account by walking in with any
| check, or money, though.
|
| Many of our poor are stuck with Payday, with their
| outrageous fees.
|
| Some homeless shelters offer p.o. boxes. Very few sadily.
|
| All the Covid fun money blown out of tee shirt bazokas to
| fraudsters, and big healthy businesses; none went to people
| without an address. None.
| toast0 wrote:
| > In most cases, unless you bounced a check (There is a
| separate system banks use on checks. It not tied to
| credit agencies.) you can get an account by walking in
| with any check, or money, though.
|
| ChexSystems _is_ a credit agency. They just specialize in
| one data point (as of now).
| dan-robertson wrote:
| It's easy to say that poor people make (or are forced to
| make) terrible financial decisions. But that may not
| entirely be the case and we may be missing some of the
| advantages of those decisions. See for example
| http://www.businessinsider.com/check-cashing-stores-good-
| dea...
| ricardobayes wrote:
| Cashing a check takes 6 weeks in the UK. Not many people
| can wait that long for their salaries to show up.
| uuyi wrote:
| HSBC are notorious bastards and I fired them ages ago.
|
| They transferred PS2000 out of my account randomly one day with
| no cause or explanation when there was PS118 available in it.
| The next day they froze the account and a specific contact at
| HSBC forced me to make a repayment arrangement for the money. I
| refused and opened a dispute and it took me 14 months to get it
| back and all fees incurred for entering an unarranged
| overdraft. It ruined my credit rating for 3 years. Every
| contact I made with them was handled by someone utterly
| incompetent or disinterested in solving the problem even when I
| involved a solicitor.
|
| Never an apology, never an explanation, never a true
| resolution.
|
| NEVER work with HSBC. ALWAYS keep your finances distributed
| between multiple accounts.
|
| With Santander mostly now who so far, touch wood, have
| succeeded in not fucking anything up. Halifax as a backup.
| PaywallBuster wrote:
| > ALWAYS keep your finances distributed between multiple
| accounts.
|
| always get biten in the hand, when the bank you trust with
| 90% of your savings decides to lock your account or wtv
|
| never again, keep it distributed as much as possible
| dazc wrote:
| I went through a bad mental and financial episode 15 years
| ago and was really struggling to keep my account in good
| order. All the advice I heard was call your bank, explain
| your position and they will help you sort it out.
|
| So I did that and the way HSBC helped me was to immediately
| cancel all my cards so I was left high and dry. Since my
| problems had only just begun I realised my credit record was
| still good and opened an account with Barclays the next day
| who were more than happy to issue me cards and a line of
| credit.
|
| The moral of this story is that if you have financial
| problems do not tell your bank.
| PeterisP wrote:
| The core business of banks is trading money-right-now for
| future-money and vice versa.
|
| So if you have the type of financial problems where you
| need money-right-now but have some good future-money to
| offer in exchange, they'll be glad to help you make a deal
| (and vice versa for investments), and you should absolutely
| talk with your bank about such problems.
|
| However, if you have the type of financial problems where
| both money-right-now and future-money are lacking, then
| yes, no bank is going to be helpful there.
| jhugo wrote:
| They'll only help you if you qualify for a product they can
| sell you.
| sfriedr wrote:
| Diversifying your banking lowers your risk or being locked
| out of an account, but increases the risk of data and
| identity theft somewhat, as various digital copies of your
| IDs and other data now reside on even more servers, creating
| a larger attack surface in case of a breach of one of the
| banks.
| thfuran wrote:
| It's fine. The credit agencies already leaked all of
| everyone's info so we don't have to worry anymore.
| uuyi wrote:
| Working in the sector it's everywhere already even if you
| have multiple bank accounts or not. The banks are by far
| the least of your worries.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| _If you aren't receiving support from Shelter or one of our other
| partners, you won't be able to access the No Fixed Address
| programme._
|
| Well, I hope it helps some people but color me unimpressed. It's
| hard to prove homelessness and some people don't qualify for
| services and etc.
|
| I wish some bank would pull its head out of its butt, accept an
| email address as adequate contact info and let people pick things
| up at the local branch (like a new debit card).
|
| Online banking is encouraged anytime you, say, try to call the
| bank these days. They have the capability to implement this.
|
| They could do it quietly and not make it "a homeless program."
| nightski wrote:
| Banks can't decide these things on a whim. They are heavily
| regulated.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| Regulators don't just invent rules randomly. Banks are in
| regular communication with regulators about what (they think)
| the right rules should be.
| andai wrote:
| >accept an email address as adequate contact info
|
| I wonder if the international anti terrorism / anti money
| laundering regulations are making that more difficult. For
| example N26 was under fire for not doing much to verify
| identities in this regard.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| _ID_ verification can be done with ID /driver's license or
| tax records though - the _address_ shouldn 't matter and as I
| explained in other comments the vast majority of documents
| requested as proofs of address are trivial to forge anyway.
| alar44 wrote:
| I'm sure they can't do that because it makes money laundering
| trivial. Makes it waaaaay to easy to invent fake people.
| PeterisP wrote:
| ID requirements would still apply (and be a serious obstacle
| to invent fake people), it's just about the address
| verification.
| vmception wrote:
| You don't need to invent fake people, just use the ID of a
| real one.
|
| If someone opened a bank account with your ID and name,
| would you ever know? A checking account doesn't gain
| interest so there will be no tax filing about paltry
| amounts, and if they don't frame you or overdraft the
| account then or never use an institution that you'll ever
| use then what? Its not like the statements will ever come
| to your address.
| PeterisP wrote:
| Unlike USA, most countries have a more stringent ID
| system so that this scenario simply does not happen.
| Like, it technically can happen but in practice does not
| - I spent a few years working in a bank on fraud, and we
| had zero cases of a forged ID. We had attempts with
| stolen IDs (there's an electronic database of IDs
| reported lost/stolen, but there's a time gap until people
| report that), we had gangs trying to use homeless people
| (with their real IDs) for money laundering, we had all
| kinds of interesting fraud schemes but zero cases of
| forged IDs used to open accounts.
|
| An ID is hard to forge (again, as far as I understand in
| USA it's different because USA doesn't have a proper ID
| system) - counterfeiting currency is simpler than
| passports, and has ways of remote verification (banks use
| it to e.g. verify when their customers have been declared
| dead which has all kinds of financial obligations to the
| institution) so you'd generally need to get someone in
| the actual government agency to issue a real fictitious
| ID; that's definitely possible but very rare, that's
| within the domain of sophisticated organized crime and
| costly/risky enough to make it not worth it for simple
| fraud - like, getting a real poor person with a real ID
| to do what you want is simpler and cheaper, so that's
| what criminals did.
|
| Also it's risky to use, as forging IDs is a felony by
| itself, and you'd risk immediate arrest by going to a
| bank and trying to use it; I believe we had one fraudster
| arrested in the branch when trying to use a stolen ID, it
| was more than a decade ago so I don't remember the
| details.
|
| So someone opening a bank account with my ID and name
| would require my passport being stolen without noticing
| it and, crucially, when I do notice it and report it (to
| get a replacement) the old ID is invalidated, that bank
| would get notified and the account would get blocked at
| that point as the fraudster can't provide the replacement
| ID. Of course, all of that isn't possible with a central
| registry of IDs which seems anathema to USA and UK, but
| is successfully used in many other countries.
| rosnd0 wrote:
| You can just go on forums like crimemarket.cn and find
| hundreds of people using fake IDs to open bank accounts
| in Germany. It's really not unusual at all in Europe.
| Banks don't do much to verify IDs, they almost never even
| check basic security features like OVI and OVD. Usually
| they don't even bother with UV.
|
| Anyone can print flawless Romanian ID cards with an
| inkjet printer and some teslin sheets at home, those are
| valid everywhere in Europe and you can even safely fly
| with them (outside of Romania, obviously) if you feel so
| inclined.
|
| Have you seen what Greek ID cards look like?
|
| Every day, thousands of bank accounts are opened around
| Europe with fake IDs.
| [deleted]
| imtringued wrote:
| I thought this was about generating a new bank account number for
| every invoice based on the headline.
| nraynaud wrote:
| In France it's integrated in the system, charities can be the
| address of the homeless people they follow, and that address can
| be used for almost any red tape.
| cmroanirgo wrote:
| > _To access the No Fixed Address programme, you must be
| experiencing housing or homelessness difficulties and receiving
| support from one of our partner charities.
|
| If you aren't receiving support from Shelter or one of our other
| partners, you won't be able to access the No Fixed Address
| programme. _
| fumblebee wrote:
| This is something that really resonates with me - this should be
| a norm adopted by all banks, not the exception. Kudos to HSBC.
|
| However, my interactions to date with the company have been
| riddled with signs that they are a dinosaur-corp, built on a
| foundation of inefficient and illogical processes, legacy tech,
| and Kafka-esque bureaucracy.
| smokey_circles wrote:
| I'm a pessimist but this probably has more to do with
| circumventing those pesky KYC and AML laws that HSBC keep getting
| fined over
| sonthonax wrote:
| I remember moving to the UK at 19. I was room sharing so had no
| bills in my name. I had no job yet, so no payslip. Only
| documentation was a British passport.
|
| I eventually gave up trying to find a bank that would do passport
| only bank accounts. And just forged a few utility bills. HSBC,
| despite being the most onerous bank in terms of demanding
| documentation was the most lax in actually doing any due
| diligence.
| rmccue wrote:
| Monzo will do this; I signed up for a bank account without a
| permanent address, and had one within 30 mins of arriving in
| the UK. They still require an address to mail you your card (so
| not the same target market as the OP), but it wasn't too
| onerous.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The problem is that there's ultimately no due diligence you can
| do on a utility bill that can't be defeated by a fraudster. No
| utility will answer a call to confirm/deny someone's details
| (as it can be abused), and even then, utilities that don't rely
| on a physical location (wireless telecoms/internet) themselves
| can't prove (and don't particularly care about) the address
| they have on file so even a legitimate utility account doesn't
| guarantee the account holder actually has access to that
| address.
|
| The banks are only requiring them to cover their ass because
| the country seems to have accepted the idea that a utility bill
| is somehow an authoritative document, so they can claim their
| due diligence was up to scratch (well they're not wrong, as you
| can't reasonably do any better) if things go wrong.
| Animats wrote:
| It's only for people who are "in the system" of poverty:
|
| _" If you aren't receiving support from Shelter or one of our
| other partners, you won't be able to access the No Fixed Address
| programme. View the list of supporting charities. To access the
| scheme, you'll need to call the charity, or visit their website
| and complete an online referral form."_
| m00dy wrote:
| now the time comes for poor man's money
| notatoad wrote:
| are there any charities or organizations out there that are
| simply providing fixed addresses? I get that providing housing
| has a lot of challenges, but it seems like providing addresses to
| people for the sake of receiving mail and having an address to
| put on forms shouldn't be that difficult.
|
| I'm not homeless, but I move relatively frequently and putting
| down my parents' address any time i need a more permanent address
| is a huge convenience for me
| hunter2_ wrote:
| I imagine there would be quite a lot of legwork involved
| whenever the address gets implicated in things like fraud,
| collections, warrants, etc. so while it does seem like a
| charity could get in this business, the expenses would probably
| put an enormous dent in the previous allocation of resources
| (food, clothing, etc).
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| I'm some places, yes. But I don't think it's common.
|
| I wish it were more common. Lack of a mailing address is a huge
| barrier to getting their lives back and this would be a
| seemingly low cost thing to do.
|
| Most charities focus on "feeding a man a fish" while doing
| little or nothing to help them get a fishing pole and learn to
| fish, so to speak.
| YuccaGloriosa wrote:
| A required next step, for the removal of cash from society.
| ghaff wrote:
| Although I don't do so often, I appreciate the ability to pay
| cash for many things if I want to. At least in the US, the
| continued availability of cash is likely to be very sticky.
| Although it's increasingly marginalized especially middle to
| upper class.
| anticristi wrote:
| Welcome to Sweden.
| sfriedr wrote:
| I happened to be in Austria, when this happened: https://orf-
| at.translate.goog/v2/stories/2204205/2204206/?_x...
|
| If you had a bank card from a certain big Austrian bank
| ("Erste Bank"), that day you could not pay by card, nor get
| money from the ATM; basically you were locked out. Safe to
| say, chaos ensued for a number of hours, as many people had
| too little or no cash with themselves. I remember being at a
| cantine where a long queue had formed with people with the
| trays wanting to pay and cantine staff running desperately
| around with "name lists" to register people in return for
| their promise to pay when service resumed, which it did in
| the afternoon.
|
| A cashless society is much more prone to black swan events.
|
| Surprisingly I was told by acquaintances that the incident
| didn't make headlines the next day, and was casually
| mentioned among other political scandals.
| davidmitchell2 wrote:
| You are correct but it is one in year or decade. Right...
| rest of the time all is good. people will opt for
| convenience.
| sfriedr wrote:
| One year (one day actually) in a decade comes close to
| the very definition of a black swan event. :)
|
| And yes, people will opt for convenience, not rational
| behavior:
|
| In some cases, that black swan event will cost more than
| the cost of inconvenience. For example in the US, it is
| "inconvenient" to retrofit buildings to make them
| earthquake-resilient, but when the earthquake black-swan
| hits -and it will hit for sure, the only question is
| when- damages will be huge, and costs as much as 4 times
| higher than investments in earthquake-resilience today:
| https://www.optimumseismic.com/earthquake-
| preparedness/what-...
|
| I'm sure Kahneman & friends have a name for this
| cognitive bias that somehow makes it hard for humans to
| correctly assess the risk and cost for black swan
| prevention (sometimes, because of the rarity, these
| computations in principle can't be made). This type of
| cognitive bias seems also connected with difficulties
| humans have in thinking on time scales that exceed their
| own life spans ...
| davidmitchell2 wrote:
| Lets be honest - not having cards working for a day is
| not the same as earthquake. Sure people will miss
| trains/rent etc. 1 or 2 business may go under but for 90
| % people all will be fine. Heck I am sure if many
| shops/metro will be free if some one like erste bank or
| Sparkasse does not work.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Reminds me I should add some cash back to my wallet...
| 127 wrote:
| Removal of cash is a great way to further remove the population
| of its personal power and enable authoritarian forms of state.
| cnxsoft wrote:
| tlb wrote:
| For context: UK businesses are more serious about requiring an
| official address than the US. In the US, you can just fill in any
| plausible address. Your parent's house or a friend's house is
| fine. It used to be important to be able to get mail sent there,
| but not really any more since you can get everything by email.
|
| In the UK, you frequently have to provide a current tax or
| utility bill with your name and the address you're claiming, to
| show that you're the official owner / renter of that address.
| It's a considerable hassle when moving there.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > In the UK, you frequently have to provide a current tax or
| utility bill with your name and the address you're claiming, to
| show that you're the official owner / renter of that address.
|
| This doesn't do anything to prevent fraud though - utility
| bills are trivial to forge and can't be validated in any way,
| though a lot of companies that don't deliver a physical product
| (wireless telecoms/internet) don't actually care about your
| address so bad guys can also obtain a "legitimate" fraudulent
| utility bill by opening a SIM-only contract in a phone shop
| with any address they desire.
|
| > It's a considerable hassle when moving there.
|
| Back when I was living in shared accommodation I had no utility
| bills in my name (everything was included in the rent) and I've
| had no issues with using a niche VoIP provider's invoices as
| proof of address - their invoices look like any other utility
| bill but obviously since it's VoIP it's not actually tied to an
| address and yet was accepted everywhere, proving once more the
| uselessness of this entire "proof of address" charade.
| tlb wrote:
| Yes, like many things it's a hassle for the rule-abiding
| without being much of an obstacle for fraudsters.
| 323 wrote:
| In UK a government letter addressed to you is accepted as proof
| of address. Like the NINo paper (SSN equivalent). And UK gov
| doesn't require ownership proof on the address you provide to
| them.
| mdavis6890 wrote:
| I find it strange that we are okay with business requiring our
| physical address. Maybe with some rare exceptions, I can't
| think of a good reason why these businesses need to know where
| we live. Even banks. Usually the reason given is security, anti
| money-laundering, anti-terrorism or whatever. But I think the
| real reason is government control and surveillance. We should
| not be okay with this.
| kevincox wrote:
| I wish I could bank without an address or phone number. Just
| email me all correspondence.
| meltedcapacitor wrote:
| How does account recovery work for those who lose access to
| their email?
| kevincox wrote:
| The bank still needs to KYC and have loads of ID. I actually
| don't want my bank using my phone or my address as a recovery
| mechanism, neither of these is particularly secure.
| Gigachad wrote:
| You call them and verify your identity like you normally do.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| You walk in a branch with a government-issued ID?
| m00dy wrote:
| It is possible but I don't want to get downvoted for no reason.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| Is being downvoted such a bad thing?
| napier wrote:
| Stay away from HSBC if you value your money and sanity. *unless
| you're a drug cartel; I hear they get great service.
| jstx1 wrote:
| Valuing your money has nothing to do with it, your money is
| just as safe with them as with any other major bank.
| Tarq0n wrote:
| Does the UK government really leave this to private institutions
| and their "partner charities"? In the Netherlands the government
| will just give you a PO box if you're homeless.
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| Good idea. Given that in many (most?) countries the post/mail
| system is a part of the state apparatus I think it's only right
| that every citizen automatically be given a P.O. box address as
| an enumerated positive right.
| unreal37 wrote:
| I keep hearing "In the Netherlands" as a reply to any social
| dilemma.
|
| Surely, not everything is paradise in the Netherlands...
| PeterisP wrote:
| Of course, Netherlands sucks in many aspects, so (tongue in
| cheek) if even a place like Netherlands has a working
| solution for some problem, then it can't be that high bar to
| pass for any _proper_ country, can it?
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| In the US, a PO Box is not a valid address for some things. I
| believe this includes voting and banking.
|
| This is an issue for some Native Americans who have a PO Box as
| their only address on the reservation and have difficulty
| exercising their right to vote because of it.
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