Hi,

My friend had just applied for a debenham prepaid card and was asked for prove of identity when he wanted to cancel his application within cool off period (14 days to be exact). It would be reasonable to ask for identification if we want the service but no to withdraw from it! The following is the snapshot of his email written to the customer service and their responses (which did not answer the question posed):

Dear sir,

For your information, those documentations are required only to proceed with the application but NOT to CANCEL it. Moreover, I have checked the information from your website regarding this matter at: http://www.debenhams.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?storeId=10001&catalogId=10001&langId=-1&userType=G&categoryId=65611. The following are the relavent information to prove that I am not required to proved my identification to process this application.

Will I require any ID to complete my card application?

No. When you apply for your card, we will ask for your name, and full address with a valid postcode. We need this to deliver your card. However we do reserve the right to decline your application if the details you provide do not match the details on our postal address database. We will also use external verification agencies to confirm your address as part of our commitment to fraud prevention.

AND THEIR RESPOND:

We will require identification documents before any refund is issued.

RECOMMENDATION TO THE CUSTOMER SERVICE:

At least they could inform us the reason for thier action ie the need for prove of identification which I could not see one, unless, they wanted to misuse our personal information for their personal gain!

Please THINK TWICE before enrolling into their service!

Wanted to share the experience with all of you and save you all the trouble of making the same mistake.

Thanks for your kind attention,

I see nothing suspicious about this. If you have money on the card and want a refund, they need to be sure it is the cardholder and not someone else trying to get hold of your money. Also, if you have no money on it and want to cancel, that could also be someone else acting maliciously.

Thank you for your useful insight. However, to me it is still very suspicious because (1) they could just bank-in the money to the account of the card holder to-be or (2) send a check under his name (3) or call him on his hand-phone to verify or (4) email him for verification. Either way, the both the card holder to-be or the company will not lose from any of this approach. But why need prove of identification? Is it for selling personal information for marketing purposes? I just cannot trust such company!

One thing I would say is that Debenhams is a very well established and trusted company - I think their request for ID to cancel the account is nothing suspicious at all - if anything it is protecting you. What is the latest situation with them? apart from this problem how did you find their service? I ask as I have just applied for another prepaid card and obviously want to check against others.