We love it when we receive first hand experience from our readers who have acted on one of our articles.

So thank you to Lyn for sharing her experience of dealing with the issue of identity checks with Finansbank.

Lyn said:

“Being back in the UK for a few months we were concerned about the www.fethiyetimes.com item on money laundering and the possibility of our account being frozen.

So, we emailed our bank Finansbank and this was the response:
 
"Dear Sir,
 
You have an automatic payment for your [electric] bill so we don’t need [any] more documents.
 
Best Regards,
 
Finansbank
Customercare"

So it would seem that anyone who is paying their electric bills - or any other ‘government’ bill - by direct debit need not worry as they would have seen a copy of the utility bill when setting up the direct debit.

We suggest you don’t assume anything though and you should check with your bank to make sure if this applies to you. Why?

We have also heard from another reader who said that when they contacted their bank as a result of our article they were met with blank expressions from the branch staff.

Apparently the staff in their bank had never heard of the requirement to check account holder identities! Time to change banks maybe? Possibly but also another reason not to assume anything especially when it comes to your money.