Post by moonraker on Mar 25, 2019 20:14:58 GMT
My two-year deposit with a challenger bank matures this Friday, so last week I posted them my instructions to re-invest in a new account. This evening I got a phone call on my landline, wanting to know my nationality and place of birth (though the latter was the answer to one of the security questions I'd just been asked).
Fair enough, but then they wanted to know my net worth. Dunno about you, but this is akin to a stranger expecting me to say what sexual practice turns me on the most. I told the agent that I was very unhappy about this and that none of his bank's competitors had ever asked me that. (I've re-invested matured funds with two other banks this year.)
Eventually I told him the amount. He said that a colleague would have to ring me back, and would I be available on the landline number they had on record. No, I said I was out for at least the next two days. (And tomorrow I'm working in woodland with notoriously bad mobile reception.) He replied that if his colleague couldn't talk to me by the maturity date then my funds would be placed in an easy-access account (and we all know what sort of interest rate that would pay). So what if I asked for my original deposit it back so that I could invest it elsewhere? That would be OK.
Then he offered to see if his colleague was still in the building (it was 1850). It turned out that she was - and didn't want to speak to me after all.
So why is it so important to know an investor's net worth?
(I did have something similar eight years or so ago when I tried to open in branch an account with Santander or whatever it was called then. I was asked all sorts of questions before I realised they were trying to build up a profile of me so I could be offered financial advice.)
