I have a few thousand AUD in my bank account in Australia from a Working Holiday visa I did 10 years ago. The bank recently asked me to send by email a certified copy of my passport, verified by a notary office in Taiwan, to avoid having my account suspended.
I went to get it done last week, but the bank requires the certifier to use a government email address. Even though the notary office is on the list of Taiwan’s Judicial Yuan official government website (司法院全球資訊網-查詢服務-民間公證人名冊), this is not enough for the bank because the notary uses a Gmail address (which seems to be common in the list above).
Has anyone encountered this issue before? Do you know who I can contact to have my passport certified by a notary office that uses a government email address? (I’m based in Taichung).
Tell the bank off. Remind them that notaries in Taiwan (AND AUSTRALIA) are private professionals appointed by the courts, not public servants with government emails. If they want to verify the stamp it is their job to make a simple phone call and tell them you are sure they have plenty of Chinese speaking staff.
Which bank is it by the way?
Oh also tell them that if they do shut it down after wasting an hour of your time and whatever $$$ it was to notarise your passport… you will complain to the Australian Financial Complains Authority https://www.afca.org.au/
Thanks a lot for your suggestions. I’m also angry with them. I was also considering sending a more direct email to them to move forward, but I wanted to check with the community first for advice. I called the bank for the first time last week and now I’m going back and forth via email (with different people each time in the bank). They keep repeating that Gmail addresses are not acceptable.
I also don’t understand how notary offices can use government email addresses. On the other hand, I don’t understand how notary offices, and many companies in Taiwan, are using Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc. for their work. This is not professional.
I’m currently the intermediate between the notary office and the bank. They need to contact each other directly. When I contacted the notary office yesterday, due to the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) in Taiwan, they mentioned that they are not allowed to provide personal data on their clients without prior contact from the bank.
I paid 750 NTD to the notary office for a stamp on the copy of my passport.
Last thing, the notary office wrote in the certified copy: “…this is a true and complete copy of its original” but the bank wants: "This is to certify that this is a true copy of the original which I have sighted.”…
Just go straight to the Australian Financial Complains Authority explaining the situation and explaining that notaries don’t have government email addresses. https://www.afca.org.au/
Many small micro businesses do (in both Australia and Taiwan) which is what notaries are.
It’s the same thing but someone in compliance is being nitpicky.
Another thing you probably could do is take the notarised copy and passport to the local BOCA and see if they will add their authentication to it. That might help.
I sent an email to the bank this morning, a last chance for them to see whether they are willing to progress with the case before I contact the Australian Financial Complaints Authority.
One hour later, I received this email:
"Thank you, the NAB Identity Protect Team has successfully verified your details.
There’s nothing further for you to do.
If any of your details change in the future, please let us know so that we can keep your information accurate and up to date. "
For context, I’m French, and this bank account belongs to my TW wife. We met in Australia while on a working holiday visa and we saved money together on this account. In French, we use the expression “Ils se sont couchés,” similar to how someone “folds” in poker.
Thanks for the huge help, comfy123, and to the community in general. Without your help, this situation will not be resolved yet and my wife and I will be still searching to contact other notary offices in Taichung.
The bank didn’t even ask to amend the sentence to: “This is to certify that this is a true copy of the original which I have sighted”. I couldn’t really blame them for that, as it was the wording they used in their original email. But I felt they could find any reason for not accepting the certified copy of the passport.
Now, we really need to find time to plan a trip to Australia in the coming years to spend the money we have saved in this account, and at the same time, showing our kids the beautiful country we met