way2roll wrote:
As someone who works at a bank managing compliance regulations, I deal with this all the time. Per the OCC and OFAC regulations banks are required to validate the customer's address is a physical address. This is not to be confused with a mailing address (account address) which can be a PO box. This is due to AML, antiterrorism, SDN, OFAC etc etc - compliance 8 ways of Sunday. So it's not the banks fault, it's the government - and rightfully so. In order to protect banks, their customers and the nation as a whole, every bank is required to "know your customer". This means validating where you live. If you have an older account and your physical address is listed a PO box, technically it's an OCC violation, but it's likely you are not deemed a high risk and thus fall lower on the priority list to update your profile and validate a physical address. Every bank is required to do this and it's a huge and costly initiative especially when dealing with older data when it wasn't required and now you have to back and backfill. Most banks like Cap 1 and the one I work have upwards to 30-50MM customers. It's a very large and expensive ordeal - not to mention bad customer experience. But in short, it's not the individual bank's fault.
X2, this is all correct. I'm in IT and worked for a bank for over 9 years until they got bought out. I really hate Capital One, had them for a long time until their customer service dept. allowed a PIN to be set on our card without proper verification. That said, don't blame the messenger (Capital One).