fused wrote:No way a brokerage firm or any wire house for that matter has PP to hard anyone. If they did this to me, I would nail them!
bt wrote:Many of those will be hard, regardless what they may tell you.
I'm just curious and I know that there is controversy over banks pulling hard inquiries on new accounts ... but if that ends up being truly justified (jury still out on that one?) ... how would brokerage accounts be any different ... especially if margin privileges are included?
I've been trying for the last hour to try to make sense out of the CIP requirements under the Patriot Act and trying to figure out for myself if hard inquiries are legally justified as means of verifying the legitimacy of the physical documents provided when opening a new account. I'm just not getting anywhere though. 
Margin is an application for credit, so yes there is PP. Simply opening an account with a brokerage firm no way. Here's my point on the PA. When I fly internationally, the airport screeners and airline front desks are NOT required to pull my credit for the purposes of properly identifying me, my passport does the trick. So why can't banks and brokerage firms do the same. Besides how much information taken from a credit report can be useful when trying to properly identify someone when some reports are already reporting inaccuarte personal info.
denbar2003 wrote:
fused wrote:
No way a brokerage firm or any wire house for that matter has PP to hard anyone. If they did this to me, I would nail them!
bt wrote:
Many of those will be hard, regardless what they may tell you.
I'm just curious and I know that there is controversy over banks pulling hard inquiries on new accounts ... but if that ends up being truly justified (jury still out on that one?) ... how would brokerage accounts be any different ... especially if margin privileges are included?I've been trying for the last hour to try to make sense out of the CIP requirements under the Patriot Act and trying to figure out for myself if hard inquiries are legally justified as means of verifying the legitimacy of the physical documents provided when opening a new account. I'm just not getting anywhere though.
fused wrote:Margin is an application for credit, so yes there is PP. Simply opening an account with a brokerage firm no way. Here's my point on the PA. When I fly internationally, the airport screeners and airline front desks are NOT required to pull my credit for the purposes of properly identifying me, my passport does the trick. So why can't banks and brokerage firms do the same. Besides how much information taken from a credit report can be useful when trying to properly identify someone when some reports are already reporting inaccuarte personal info.
At least in this case, we don't know yet what type of inquiry the brokerage firm is really going to do and if it is going to show up on the credit report. And ... trying to get an answer from an employee at a brokerage firm is probably as futile as others have found it when asking representatives at their banks when they open accounts. No one seems to know who is controlling the strings on the puppet ... and no one ever seems to be able to find the Wizard of Oz to get a "real" answer. 
I read somewhere in my internet travels today that the banks' justification for making a hard "credit" inquiry is that they lose money on checking accounts, so they want to make sure that you show signs of being a good credit risk before they commit to that relationship with you. I still don't know if that makes it PP or not ... the water seems to be rather murky.
However, if they are losing so much money ... why don't they just refuse to honor transactions that will throw a wrench in the works? You would think that with insufficient funds fees for $2 debit card purchases costing the customer $20-$30 ... the banks would have a good chance of making up their losses.