I was recently asked to supply additional personal information to a company which I had held an account with for more than 5 years.
It was for an international betting company app which I used roughly once/twice a month for the occasional flutter, and I only ever bet $5 / $10 at most.
I would not consider myself to be a big spender or big user of the service - it was just a bit of fun which I had full control over. In fact I have been playing from an initial deposit of $100 for well over 18 months so maybe they thought I didn't spend enough!!
Anyway, the company requested photo id as part of their usual checks and put an automatic temporary block on my account until I complied with this request.
When I refused explaining that they were already in possession of my full name, DOB, Address, Phone Number, Email, and Bank Details and that I felt uncomfortable in providing photo id or anything else for that matter to a faceless individual over the telephone or to a generic corporate email address, they informed me that my account would remain blocked until I complied. There was no where to go - these were the terms take it or leave it.
In the end I thought this was just too much information, and this was my line, so I requested them to close my account and refund me my balance which they did. All remaining $110 of it.
This experience got me thinking with the level of personal information requested these days - even for the most basic of accounts - where should the line be drawn with personal ID that this is simply too much?
I guess those recently caught out by Optus and other similar institutions with the leaking of personal information will be much more wary having already being burnt and severely inconvenienced in the process. I also had a friend who had his identity stolen from a fellow lodger and the repercussions lasted for many years.
Does anyone in the world of OzBargain have an opinion on this and have you refused to open an account of any type purely because you disagreed with the level of personal details requested?
I thought about this the other day. We live in a world with increasingly more bureaucracy, more forms to fill in, more ID checks and evidence verification required.
When applying for a travel visa, you send them so much private information, even down to birth and marriage certificates to a third party 'processing' company and have no further traceability.
When applying for a child's passport, the post office worker takes photocopies of your passport, driver's license, kid's birth certificate and address evidence etc. Literally your info on pieces of paper on their desk and you walk out assuming they'll sort it all out.
When applying for mortgages from banks or brokers, you give them almost every private piece of information about you, even your bank statements.
In the US, it's common to hand over your credit/debit card to a waiter who takes it away, rings up your payment, then brings you a piece of paper to write down how much tip you want to add. Similarly in drive-throughs, you don't tap a machine, you hand over your card and they do it for you. It's a pretty big opportunity for someone to steal your card info.
Plenty more examples but it's getting to the point that it's challenging to draw a line between how much is too much vs what's required and you're forced to do so.
DHL ask me for passport copy verification for every package I get sent, because there's someone else with a similar (but not same) name that has a hold due to a 'denied party'. They claim they cannot flag my name and address as approved and have to send my information to a different customer service rep each time.
In your case, KYC is a common requirement and they may even be obligated to request that info. But that information is being sent to call center somewhere abroad. You chose to draw the line at a betting platform. Other requests are not so easy to deny.