Shockingly enough In all my travels around the world I hadn't encountered the above. True I hadn't been to the US though, but Europe / Middle East / Africa /Asia has been trouble free for me for the past 3 decades... that's why I was so surprised by IB's attitude (not to mention the difference with TOS).
No need to be suspicious. IB have my complete address, my passport (that they can verify with the British Embassy), my banking and credit card details with everything I bought (hell even which restaurants I dined in). They have my driving licence and record and can see if I ever had any points or accidents or insurance claims and if they had requested any additional FINANCIAL information I would not have hesited to send them (I've dealt with financial institutions for many many years). I have accounts with OANDA (FX trading), DUKASCOPY (FX trading) and bank accounts in the UK / Finland / UAE and somehow I never had problems with ANY OF THEM.
Thank you for your constructive and polite reply. I haven't sent any money through to TOS either just in case my account is (subsequently) frozen by them. It seems that I'm stuck with the (more expensive) European based brokers for now.
Honestly, as I wrote in my first post, I had supplied them with ALL my personal information and financial information. Compliance (if they are doing their jobs) would have verified my information with the UK authorities, the UAE authorities, My bank, my landlord, the Roads and Transport Authority in the UAE. There's no way in hell they could possibly had thought I was a terrorist unless the "born in baghdad" = automatic presumption. They could check my name against the US wanted list, the UK and INTERPOL list etc... they could verify all of that information. The additional questions they asked are : a - unverifiable. b- irrelevant c- presumptuous PS. the snide (like many other commentators on this thread) are uncalled for. This is a trading site or the Stormfront forum?
So the patriot act doesn't apply to OANDA or ThinkorSwim? PS. There's a lovely golf club right next to my home http://www.dubaigolf.com/egc/
I checked out the OFAC list. The UK wasn;t there, and even Iraq is exempt, with the only "iraqis" on the list being members of the former regime (who are certainly NOT British citizens) http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/faq/answer.shtml#50 http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/programs/ascii/iraq.txt
Well, the posters here can be as rude as they want to me, I'm just an anonymous "lowlife", but to IB I was a potential customer with whom they would have made considerable amounts in commissions. As a customer I've never been treated like this by a supplier who stood to make so much money out of me. Surprising really.
Oh I agree with you. The only thing is, my "crime" was not being born in Iraq. It was being born in "Baghdad". Let me put it another way, my parents were born in "Samawah" (a small city in southern Iraq), yet my father has an account with bank of america (opened in 2002, after 9/11) and Citibank (opened 2007). Reason being, his "British Passport" had place of birth as "Samawah" which is UNKNOWN to the people looking at it, whereas everybody knows "Baghdad" so it gets red-flagged. This shows that had I been born in a small town in afghanistan (unknown to the masses) then the "compliance" dept would not have batted an eyelid at my application!
So from knowing one Iraqi (among 27 million) you came to this conclusion about me. Would you accept similar conclusions to be reached regarding the entire US population based on a sample of one?
Born in baghdad (see that's the whole problem that IB have with me). Raised in Europe. Had I been born in "nina" or "kufa" then IB would not have batted an eyelid since my passport DOES NOT state "born in Iraq". IF they hadn't recognised the town name they would have let my account pass through... so much for patriot act + compliance + blah blah blah...