..."since 911 banking laws have changed and they needed to see proof that we lived at 411 Walnut Street, wanted to see power bills, tax bills etc. Which since we don’t live there, we couldn’t prove."
I've been a full time RV'er for 17 years and the law has been a subject of lots of discussions on those
forums. The law quoted is CFR-2010-title31-vol1-sec103-121 and it's purpose is to require banks to establish a specific plan to "know your customers" in an attempt to cut down on
money laundering and the potential
funding of terrorism.
It requires the banks to have a valid "sticks and bricks" address for every one of their customers. It allows, but does not require, banks to accept a "next of kin" sticks and bricks address of their customers if the bank chooses to add that feature into their identity
documentation system. It's been our experience that some banks have set up those additional allowable documentation features and some banks apparently don't feel it's worth the effort.
Here is the applicable portion of the text of the law (CIP is "Customer Identification Plan", the thing that the
government is now requiring from the banks):
"(i) Customer information required—(A)
In general. The CIP must contain procedures
for opening an account that
specify the identifying information
that will be obtained from each customer.
Except as permitted by paragraphs
(b)(2)(i)(B) and (C) of this section,
the bank must obtain, at a minimum,
the following information from
the customer prior to opening an account:
(1) Name;
(2) Date of birth, for an individual;
(3) Address, which shall be:
(i) For an individual, a residential or
business street address;
(ii) For an individual who does not
have a residential or business street
address, an Army Post Office (APO) or
Fleet Post Office (FPO) box number, or
the residential or business street address
of next of kin or of another contact
individual.....