Patriot Act - Charles Schwab

[TenOC]

I full time thus have a mail address in Emery SD. For years I have use Fidelity as my brokerage investment firm and I am very happy with them. Now for good and valid reasons I want to move part of my portfolio to a different brokerage firm. I am thinking of Charles Schwab, but any number of other brokerage firm will do.

I am concerned with problems with the Patriot Act and opening up an account with what some would consider on permanent address. I know some banks/brokerage firms interpret the act different than others.

Questions: What has been your experience with Schwab and other brokerage firm?

[bobsallyh]

Go to http://www.rvnetwork.com/search/?q=charles%20schwab
This is the Escapees RV Forum. Over the past several years there has been some "See Chuck" related posts.

[ricklord2001]

When my wife and I were full timing we had our retirement money with several different financial companies that had been set up when we had our home. One if them sent us a letter saying we had to provide a permanent address. I provided them our mailing service St Brendan's Idle and copies of our drivers licenses, but that was denied. They froze the acct, citing the Patriots Act. At the time we we're just starting to have a house built, didn't need or plan on using the money si we waited until they finished and provided that time them and they released the money. We probably could of done a number of things to get around it but didn't bother as it was only a couple of months. I don't remember which it was but definitely was not Charles Swartz. This all happened after we'd been full timing for several years.
Had the same thing happen to a credit card I had, they canceled (again which was fine as I never used it) but the funny th ing was my wife had a card with them also, not same acct, and never had a problem. So definately a spot check and flagged mine.

[Optimistic_Para]

I've seen a number of posts in RV forums that Charles Schwab can be "problematical" for full timers.

I did a search on Charles Schwab here and nothing came up, but over on the Escapees forum, the same search turns up reports that Charles Schwab closed an EXISTING IRA that someone had had with them for 14 years because they now had only a mail service for an address. Do the search yourself.

Go ahead and try Charles Schwab if you really want to do business with them, but have a Plan B in mind if it goes south. And do let us know what happens.

[amxpress]

Thank you DutchmanSport!! Good info!

[ItsyRV]

So long as your permanent address matches a legal government issued ID, And is not a US Post Office box or other known Private Mail Service address or box, you should have no issues. You can use PO Boxes, PMB's or other mail service on the account, but they must still have a valid residence listed. If using a mail service that acts as a permanent address but really isn't a residential location, they will accept it but odds are their compliance department will send a suspicious activity report to the feds.

[DutchmenSport]

I work in the financial institution related industry and we are required to take specific "compliance" courses every year. Several of these courses deal with laundering money and such topics as that.

One thing I learned from all these courses over the years is "big brother" is really watching every penny and has a tracking and a reporting process that the common person (you and I) will never, ever see or know about.

In the end, if financial transactions are above the board and the money can be tracked via a paper trail, there really is never a problem, even large sums of money transactions. If transferring from one financial institution to another financial institution (for example 401K retirement accounts, IRA's, even Health Savings Accounts), those transactions are conducted between institution-to-institution, even across states, and even if you are using different addresses on the accounts. People move, people get different jobs, people are in a constant state of motion, more so today than ever before.

The thing "they" are looking for and truly are concerned about and gets "Big Brother" all upset are cash deposits and cash withdraws over specific limits, and those limits are accumulative. Cash is not so easily tracked. And that's where the real red flags are raised.

Starting or opening a new financial account is no problem at all. You will be asked a battery of questions (by law they have to have this information). You will probably do an interview, be it over the phone or in person, and you won't even realize the information they are collecting on you, because the conversation will be so informal. But what they are fishing for is to determine if you are legit or truly a criminal element. If you are above the board, you'll have absolutely no problem, and red flags will never be raised. They still do their reporting, and then things settle down.

Right now, even your current accounts are being tracked and monitored. If you were to make several deposits into once account today over a specified amount, and especially if it were cash, then you'd be red-flagged.

But really, I don't know what happens after that if you are "suspect" of criminal activity.

As long as you are truly accounting for your funds, have a solid financial trail where the money is coming and going to, you'll have absolutely no problems.

And .. you may consider Merrill Lynch also in addition to Fidelity. Seems the last 20 years of my life, the companies I've worked for like to flip-flop back and forth between these two. Both are good.

Good luck.

[ScottG]

Been very happy with Waterhouse but I don't know anything about how PA impacts new accts.