Hi guys,
following a recommendation here and the fact that they offer a visa debit card, I trundled out to central today to open an account. I took $5000, my passport, Id card and two bank statements as address proof.
First, they would accept my hsbc offshore statement as it showed my initials and not my full name. Fortunately my boc statement did have it on there. They then decided that I needed a bank reference letter. No idea why and she couldn't tell me, but they insisted they couldn't d anything without one. I told her I'd never had any trouble before and showe her my account cards for various banks. She then wanted a copy of those to. Twenty minutes later, she's back and says she still needs a reference letter. This is after over an hour of waitng and filling in forms. She then says she will destroy my application and copies and I should come back when I have the reference letter...
So I walked a few shops down and went into citibank to ask for a reference letter. They said they could do one but it wouldn't be ready until Monday. I explained the situation and they did some calling around. Suffice it to say, I left with my custom reference letter 15 minutes later!
I'm still sat in fubon bank waitng for them to process the application. I don't know why all the hassle, but just be aware that if you go to open an account, you might get asked for this... If only citi had a debit card....
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