FNBO 2nd Request Due Diligence
Posted by Best Bank Rates under [ CD Rates ] on August 12, 2007I haven’t received this email personally, but some readers have reported receiving an email from FNBO Direct requesting a “due dilligence.” Here is the text of the email:
Re: FNBO Direct account number ending in ****
Dear ,
As part of your initial application, we did not receive information regarding your current employer, occupation or position. In many cases, this is because you have a status of retired, unemployed or self-employed. We are updating our records as part of our on-going due diligence to be compliant with our standards to support the USA Patriot Act.
Due to the importance of the USA Patriot Act, we have placed a hold on your account(s) until we can document this information for our records. No deposits or withdrawals can be made through your account(s) until we receive this information. We will release the hold upon receipt of this information.
Please provide us with your previous employer, occupation and position by sending an email with this information to [ email address removed ]. If this information is not received within 30 days, the account(s) may be closed. Your immediate attention to this matter is appreciated.
If you wish to discuss this further, please send an email to [ email address removed ] or call 877-370-3707. Please reference your FNBO Direct account number displayed at the top of this page when you contact us.
Thank you for choosing FNBO Direct for your Online Savings Account.
FNBO Direct Customer Service
This letter, legal or not, seems to have a threatening tone to it, stating that a hold has been placed on the account. It turns out that this email was actually a mistake, as this message is currently posted on their website:
Our Apologies: Regarding Email Subject: Due Diligence 2nd Request
Please disregard the email sent on August 10, 2007, with the subject line: Due Diligence 2nd Request. This email was sent in error and we apologize for the confusion it has caused. If Due Diligence information is required, you will receive a follow-up email. Again we apologize for this inconvenience.
Mistake or not, this hardly seems like a decent way to treat your customers and I suspect that this will cause FNBO to lose a number of customers onces the 6% savings promotion is over.
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3 Comments on “FNBO 2nd Request Due Diligence”
This is my experience with FNBO, so far I have not had any trouble with them (opened account mid May) I did recieve 2 interest payments and no harrasing emails or messsed up transfers. On Friday I have received this email and when I did it tried to call the customer service number but the electronic phone tree kept bouncing me off or the number would ring with no answer. I started a transfer of my funds out of FNBODirect all except $1.00 to keep the account open. I called later in the evening and was able to get through to a CS, they informed me that it was by mistake that the email was sent out and that my funds where not frozen but still in transfer status (3 day length). I loged on this morning to see the status of the transfer and when I click on the Transfer tab I get the message that
“Transfer funds is not available at this time. Please try again later.”. If the email was sent out in error then FNBODirect may be tring to slow the run on their bank from customers who are tring to get their funds out via transfer. My account at FNBO shows $1 but my target account still does not have the funds, it has been 1 day since I started the transfer process.
I have had many bank accounts but this is the only bank account keep saying this “due dilligence” thing. Are there any legal authority? What are the requirement that cause due dilligence?
In addition to the test transfers FNBO does, I did a couple of my own. I was notified then that I needed to send a voided check. I did that and all was fine. I then transfered a large amount to them and got a letter that said I needed to send a voided check to them! Until I did that (for a second time) I could not get my money out.
Then I got the ‘due dillignece’ letter. I called 5 times over two days and got disconnected each time.
I wrote a letter to the bank president about this in early August; as yet, no reply.
If their rate drops anywhere near other on-line banks, I’m out of there.