You can count on Trump to loosen these regulations real quick, let a few major scams through then pardon everyone on his way out. Tis Murika for fk sake!
The request is legit. But I don't understand what the selfie photo will achieve because I'm not going to visit an IB office in person. Maybe they are going overboard to comply with AML regulations. I actually got an iBot reply to my inquiry stating that they need to periodically verify identity and the verification process includes selfies.
Yeah my question exactly!! What are they trying to achieve by having you taking a selfie to send it to them? I know some financial institutions do have this selfie requirement but they require you to take a selfie using their designated online selfie app then I can understand a little that they are doing this for preventing identity fraud. But this just taking a selfie and upload it? Anybody can just take a selfie matching their fake id. And honestly even then I still question the validity of it. I mean if the ID that you submit is fraudulent, no matter how much authentication that they make you do, you are still a fraud. There is no way for them to prove that you are not a fraud so what's the point?
That sounds pretty weird indeed. The extraordinary and growing invasion of privacy rights on this increasingly Orwellian Planet is quite creepy to me. Reminds me way too much of the times I was crossing through East Germany by train, or travelling in the Soviet Union. The latest dystopian rollouts are the increasing numbers of TSA face scanners for airports. As I watch people walk around glued to their "smart" phones like zombies, with their permanently disfigured cervical spines, and almost getting run over by Teslas, it reminds me of some bizarre movie! I refuse to own one of those phones, and therefore I do not do selfies. And any broker that asks me to do so can forget about my business.
For the past few decades, I have tried > 15 trading accounts. IB tops in these areas : - most complex / most difficult to understand English - most user-unfriendly trading platform - most complex account opening - most complex account maintenance As a compliment, IB offers the widest range of products.
A couple of years ago I went through verification using a video call and instructions like "turn left", and "look up" to prove I was real.