Howard
Sounds like your getting tired of answering questions? ( grin )
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NEW BROKERAGE I.D.VERIFICATION QUESTIONS REQUIREMENTS.
In the meantime as an addendum of a sort; I tried to open my cash account in Thinkorswim, but they said due to requirements of FINRA and SEC and so forth, they needed all kinds of answers to questions. I had to send my deposit cheque off to some place called Penson Services a place that I never heard of. That kind of flipped a couple of warning signs off to me. But I ignored them. Looked up Penson Services and it was a CLEARING HOUSE, so I thought, it might be legitimate? But it seemed awfully queer that I was trying to deal with Thinkorswim and somebody else, a middleman got in the picture.
So far so good. Wrote a cheque for $10,000 starters and started the mailing process, sent it down to my office for re-mailing. Then I get a notice from what seems to be an I.D. Verification department, with more intrusive questions. Made me very nervous. The notice for I.D. Verification seemed more like a Nigerian SCAM LETTER. Caught the office and put a HOLD on the cheque letter for deposit. Especially the questions requested. One of my problems, as retirees, we are only home in the USA about 3 months a year. The warm months, July, August and September. My daughter owns the house so we have no title, or utility bills, or anything like that. Grandkids drive us around when home, so our drivers licenses have long expired. In the UK and France, we use trains, in Central America and Mexico we use buses, or taxis. The rest of the year we are people with NO FIXED ADDRESS. In the sense I have a large extended family, with cousins, Aunts and Uncles still alive, children and grandchildren scattered in five different countries. We have all kinds of guest houses, guest rooms, spare condo´s, apartments around France from life long friends, or family, couple of yachts to live aboard, which we use more often, as I like sleeping in boats on water. They are either at anchor someplace or parked at a marina dock. Guatemala, or Belize normally. Also in Nice, but we find there expensive for our budget. We spend a lot of our time in Central America. There are some favorite places and at these we stay in HOSPEJDAS, which are family owned, usually 3 to 4 rental rooms and we eat in the central markets with the campesinos. Room rents run about $8 usa for a couple like us and big meals run about $2 each. Places like Lake Atitlan,Guatemala ( the most beautiful lake in the world is my favorite ) and we stay here and have for years at the Good Samaratin, Hospedaje. That is a regular spot every year. We also favor a 68 ft yacht in one of the many marinas in the Rio Dulce, Guatemala. Belongs to a USA life long friend, who is also retired and lives aboard. Belize of course is a great favorite and have several places to stay in Belize. France also, in Bairitz, Paris, Nice and Montpelier. UK is too cold most of the time. I like Chamonix also but only in the warmest weather. Haven´t visited my 34 year old granddaughter in Melbourne, Australia yet, but one of these years.
To cut to the chase, trading options is touted as the perfect entertainment and private business, because you can travel any where in the world and trade at home in Chicago. So in trying to satisfy the questions by Thinkorswim, alleged I.D. Verification department, they already have our SSB numbers, our birth dates, home address, telephone number, and other pertinent information. Enough to establish Identity Fraud and take out credit cards and run up big bills. I couldn´t make up my mind about the I.D. Verification website, that wanted my Miami Credit Union Statements, it looked exactly like one of those Nigerian fraud websites you get about 4 times a week. I started with them and it got really intrusive for personal things. So I cut it out. Wasn´t going anywhere and I wasnt going to give any more personal information. None of their damned business I thought. With all that stuff they could clean out our total savings, which event you hear so much about on the internet. Went to OPTION HOUSE but they never answered at all. So went to OPTIONSXPRESS and opened a Virtual account, talked about I.D. verification with them and they were satisfied with our passports and the photo I.D. part and the regular documents you sign for trading a CASH only option account. They then sent me a nice follow up letter confirming I was welcome there at OptionsXpress. So now I´m learning the platform for Options Express and after probably a month´s delay, shall duly mail them a cheque for a cash account. I was really sorry to lose THINKORSWIM as in paper money I had become very familiar with their platform and liked it a lot. My whole trading system was built around their platform and my experience with it. However, I have no idea what the deal is with answering strange websites like Penson Services, or I.D.Verification web pages, when all this time for the past year I have been dealing with ThinkorSwim brokerage.
Lest you think I am filled with paranoia, about a decade or more ago in Florida I was the subject of identity theft. Somebody issued credit cards in my name and all kinds of charges and bills started coming down to me. I wrote the Florida State Attorney and answer all the dunning letters asking for my signed consent application and eventually it died off. There were bills coming from different states.
At any rate, to my regret I have switched from Thinkorswim to OptionsXpress for my cash account trading. Their intrusiveness if it really was genuinely them, was the reason why.
