If I get this message from an agent after doing online work is it safe?
A “We need your bank account and ID to make payment.”
B “Why do you need my ID for a money transfer to my bank account.?”
A. "Just make sure the person is right. We don’t use it for other purpose. "
They don’t have an actual bricks and morter company. It’s all online. Is that sketchy ?
Where is the client/agent based?
From memory, I’ve never needed to supply ID to most of the clients I’ve done work for, just an invoice with my name and address and stuff. I think I’ve done it for Chinese companies though (it might be a rule there), and also online work/payment platforms.
Overall, I don’t think it’s inherently sketchy, and I’d probably do it if the company otherwise looked legit. It’s just your passport or A(P)RC, right?
I might be tempted to redact a couple of details from those if it felt necessary, and perhaps include text like “Submitted to xxx for the purposes of xxx only”.
A Taiwanese friend just told me to water mark it . Smart Taiwanese women huh.
What do you think about water marking?
Could I use very low definition instead ?
They are Taiwan based.
Also, watch out for scams. Some online jobs are not actual “jobs” but just a pretense to steal your data and money (by using your ID documents to take over your mobile phone number or bank account, for example. Or they use your ID to send to others to appear trustworthy…).
Luckily as a foreigner, though, the ARC card isn’t really that useful for scammers because many place don’t really accept it. Especially online 
With a Taiwan-ID, you should be even more careful.
Well, it depends what you’re worried about, doesn’t it — your ID getting passed around without your knowledge? Identity theft? I see watermarking as essentially the same as what I said about adding a text box to the photo. It doesn’t provide you with any massive protection against everything that could possibly happen, but just means that if the photo shows up somewhere it shouldn’t you’ll know who leaked it.
You would hope too that it gives some protection against people trying to use your ID to sign up for other stuff without your consent (at least with reputable companies).
Someone else would have to clarify this as I’ve never worked for a Taiwanese company, but it wouldn’t surprise me if this is normal for a Taiwanese employer/client, especially one correctly declaring taxes and wanting to make sure they didn’t employ someone illegally. I would find it more of a red flag if they didn’t care about your ID. Don’t employers normally need that?
Personally, from what you’ve written this isn’t something I’d be fighting over, assuming the company otherwise looks legit and they’re just trying to pay you. I’d just add a watermark/text box, possibly redact some info if necessary, and submit it. If you’ve lived in Taiwan a while, there must be copies of your passport and A(P)RC in quite a few places (banks, employers, online retailers, etc.).
Just make sure you’re actually talking to a real person belonging to that company (if that company exists in Taiwan) and not someone just pretending to be from that company (by using a similar email address or something)…
Ok I was probably being over paranoid. Thanks. I have done all those things now.
That’s a good point. I Google searched them. Thanks
Google search may not be sufficient. Anyone can create a fake company website.
Try looking them up here Get information about businesses Registration in Taiwan
It looks like an official government site
They don’t need your ID to make payment.
Simple as that. If they ask, it seems sketchy as fuck.
What they need is:
Bank name
Bank address
Bank phone
Bank branch code (some don’t even need that, eg Bank of taiwan)
Bank code
SWIFT
Account name
Account number
Sometimes (ie some European banks) also want the person’s address and phone number as well.
Never your ID. Never our passport number.
This is almost surely fraud.
I have a .jpeg file and a .pdf file with either company or personal data as above and send people.
Again, there is NO reason for your ID. The bank already has it so it’s pointless to give it to strangers.
In Taiwan, especially governemnt banks and for larger sums, they may require a phone call to release. Basically tax related, tell them what the money is for and where it’s from (eg. Export books). Because crime is such an issue in Taiwan, they are also now getting strict on wanting to see an invoice to avoid fraud and money laundering. We usually fax them a copy and they release money next working day
I really doubt that, honestly.
Doesn’t the (Taiwanese) employer also need the person’s details to report the income?
See also this thread:
Maybe for full-time employees. But is it needed for contractors?
I think they still need to file the income under the appropriate tax code, even for non-full-time employees (e.g., 9B or whatever).
And don’t they have some responsibility to check that the person has work rights? It seems they should, given they can be fined for hiring people who don’t. That would be hard to enforce if employers don’t need to keep proper records of who they’re paying.
Makes sense
Apologies. I read the OP as agent and online work. Which I just assumed means not an employee. More like contract work etc I. Which a simple transfer is done and the OP would be responsible for his or her own taxes, liabilities, insurance etc. If it’s just a transfer of payment as such, not an employee, it seems incredibly strange to need an ID to me. Meaning: I did a thing or sold a thing, and the other person just needs to pay for it.
If it’s proper employment, that’s indeed entirely different
Obviously I’m not a lawyer. But if the provider provides a proper receipt, I wouldn’t expect the ustomer can be held liable for any fraudulent activities by the supplier. I may be wrong, but with proper reciept/stamped invoice they should be in the clear unless they somehow incriminate hemselves (ie. Intent)
Article 7 of the Labor Standards Act says that records should be kept for all employees:
An employer shall prepare and maintain a worker record card indicating the name, sex/gender, birth date, place of ancestral origin, educational background, address, national identification card number, employment starting date, wage, labor insurance starting date, merits and demerits, injury and disease and other significant facts of each worker.
The worker record card referred to in the preceding paragraph shall be kept on file by the employer for at least five years after the date a particular worker ceases to be employed.
I’m not sure whether the LSA applies here actually, but Article 3 does say it applies to “all forms of employee-employer relationships”, and I’m not aware of a separate law for contract/one-off/freelance stuff.
In any case, even if it doesn’t apply, you know how things are in Taiwan — I wouldn’t be surprised if employers just routinely collect this for all “employees”, even one-off ones, just to pass to their accountant or whoever for handling the payment and to cover themselves. Of course, collecting the information above doesn’t necessarily mean collecting a copy of the person’s ID (they could just write down the details), but it’s certainly the easiest way to do that.
Come to think of it, I have in the past done a couple of one-off things here, mostly out of interest, for some nominal payment. One was some neuroscience study at a university and the other was testing some cholesterol sensor at a company. Both times I think they wanted a copy of my ARC to process the payment and for their records. Not a big deal. At least the first one of these automatically ended up on my tax return that year as salary/wages (tax code 50).
IIUC, that’s just how some companies process this kind of stuff. You’re viewing it as a provider/customer type thing, maybe based on your experience with more manual contractor-type work, but I think that’s not consistently how payments for this stuff are handled for online work — what I have in mind is more of a one-off translation job or something, where the person is treated more like an employee and the payment is processed as such under tax code 50 or 9B or whatever.
And I do think companies are responsible, at least in principle, for keeping records of who they employ, even for temporary stuff. Otherwise, what would there be to stop them employing people illegally just by transferring the money to the person’s account, not collecting proof of who they paid, and acting like it’s not their responsibility?
Overall, I think you’re seeing “almost surely fraud” here when it likely isn’t that.
No sender does not need ID to make payment. Or for taxes
I’ve put in big blue ink, “For Reference Only”, across the copy of ARC in a similar situation.
It works. Can write more words if you like.
I wrote the date across it all.
