To expand on what mrtksn means: in the UK, it is difficult to get a bank account without proof of address. It is also difficult to rent a flat without a UK bank account. There are a few ways around this:
- Have a friend put you on their water bill and use this as proof of address. I suspect this is illegal.
- Join a flatshare without getting on the lease, pay for your portion of the rent with Transferwise or something, and have your flatmate put you on the water bill. I sure hope this is legal.
- Find a bank which is a bit lax about proof of address and is willing to accept things like proof of employment. Lloyds used to do this, but I've heard they no longer do.
Later I got a job as an UI developer in the City, but the first few months were hard.
The rental side has become more tricky. The Immigration Act 2015 made it a criminal offence to rent a property to someone who does not have the legal right to live in the UK, with a maximum penalty of 5 years imprisonment and an unlimited fine. Unless you have an EEA passport, it can be very difficult to find somewhere to live. Some landlords are even more cautious/discriminatory and won't rent to anyone who seems foreign. It's another embarrassing symptom of Theresa May's illiberal and inhumane "hostile environment".
You can mail your debit card to any address you choose, no verification required.
“When you sign up through the Monzo app, we’ll ask you to take a picture of that ID and a short video of yourself. That’s it! You’ll need a UK address where we can send your debit card, and then you’re good to go.”
[0] https://monzo.com/blog/2018/05/29/getting-bank-account-immig... [1] https://monzo.com/blog/2016/09/19/building-a-modern-bank-bac...
If you are registered to a university, Barclay's will have something to sell you.
Eventually the employer strongarmed the bank to open an account for me.
This also applies to anti-money-laundering stuff: it's better to affect loads of people really badly who are most certainly not money laundering as long as it does not affect the people who are money laundering at scale.
That said, there are people who don't really understand that people on social media paying you for access to your bank account are probably money laundering.
This is in a country where it is perfectly permitted to open several stores of the same chain of gambling establishments in the same street with fixed-odds betting machines and no questions of where the large sums of cash being handed over come from.
Apparently in the past people with questionable sources of income used to open fake accounts to move money and the banks were happy to do it until the regulators slammed them with fines.
Also, when you have a bank account you can get things like a phone contract with a direct debit payment. Apparently, some people made it a habit to leave the UK without paying their bills after they are done with their seasonal work.
I'm sure some people run much more elaborate scams.
A passport is enough to prove your identity isn't fake. But since it's not enough to give you a credit line, banks simply refuse the service. There are way too many people with no access to banks.
They did https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girobank https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_Office_Money
A passport is enough to prove your identity isn't fake
Theoretically, perhaps, but in practice anyone who needs to validate identity will ask for multiple forms of ID.
AFAIK, it doesn't work for Santander (both in the US,UK and Spain, based on a colleagues account) as they treat each country and separate.
I never knew it was so hard for new arrivals in the UK - here in Spain it was pretty easy, the hardest thing was getting the appointment for the ID card.
I lived in Germany for a bit too and there it was also easy.
I really think we need some ID system like the NIE or Anmeldung in the UK as I can't drive and always had to use my passport as ID which is a massive pain - it'd make stuff like this easier too.
I had to make my agency write the employment letter multiple times because the banks always found something wrong. Finally, it was a week before Christmas and I had to beg the HSBC employee to accept the letter and open my account because I was running out of cash on Christmas.
The the "finest, the most iconic places in London" hire cheap sweatshop, bring your own tools, amateur labor.
It might be a good chance for a newcomer to the business, but it also kills the business long term (just hire newcomers and pay them shit forever), and cheapens their whole experience to Las Vegas level for me.
Why places that charge $20 for a drink (or way more) are so greedy to not properly pay wait staff and keep qualified teams longterm, is beyond me...
We were also called "candidate" as if we are permanent job candidates. That was actually true for some people who actually persued jobs in the hospitality industry and when someone gets a permanent job the employer pays the agency a fee.
Or they can outsource the contract to a 3rd party, let that company deal with coming up with hired guns, liability, etc, and just hope it all works out. And if it doesn't, it's a lot easier to fire a contract company and find a new one, than to fire actual employees.
What most people seems to think is happening is that as information (and related technologies like communication) has become abundant it also became really important. And that people working in the "gig economy" is adapting to this reality.
I don't think that is how things work. When something becomes abundant it is the other things that become important. As information has become abundant things like housing, education, security, recognition and contacts is what lets you leverage the abundance of information to create opportunities.
People working in the "gig economy" isn't adapting to a new reality, they are victims of the people who are now favored because of their access to housing, education and security.
This is of course counter to what should be happening. Any nation who want to take advantage of the abundance of information should make those other things readily available instead of letting them be captured by rent-seekers.
Unless it keeps changing and never settles.
HN has global community; please check your linguistic provincialism at the comment box.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wine%20waiter
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wine_waiter
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/jul/25/whatar...
Related: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rudimentary
There are also roles that require almost no interaction with the guest and these roles were filled with immigrants that barely speak any English. Roles like bringing the plates or collect the empty glasses and dishes.
Also, it's not like they had much choice, In these 4 months I haven't met a single British person as a colleague but Spanish, Italians, French, Bulgarians, Romanians, Iranians, Brazilians, South Africans, Kiwis and of course a lot of Australians.
The pay was just above the minimum wedge. Later I actually built an app to help these agencies organize their workforce but it turned out that they were happy with Excel, e-mails and Whatsapp.
Talking on the phone is a unique thing, and takes more skill than talking in person. Not only does sound get somewhat distorted on the phone, but you don't have as many cues to take from when speaking. You can't see their facial expressions, for example. These help you understand words you aren't as familiar with. Not only that, but most folks are less patient on the phone than in person. You can be at an intermediate level of language and still have problems on the phone.
Not only that, but he's talking job-interview skill level phone-talking. Speaking in a second language is much more difficult under stress. This is exactly why I tend to use English instead of Norwegian with doctors and dentists.
In person, folks are more relaxed. If you forget a word, people fill it in. And with his job, he could easily learn the lingo he needed to do the job. He would have a limited context of things he actually knew, small talk isn't so bad, and for everything else you can ask.
So for the first 3-4 months, I did some wine waiting as a gig(agency work, no fixed place or hours. Like with Uber, you provide your own gear - like uniforms, bottle openers etc.) at the finest, the most iconic places in London. I worked at the Shard, I worked at the Cafe Royal, I worked at Four Seasons in events where celebrities like Victoria Beckham or Prince Harry were guests. I did my jubilee at BAFTA's after party, I was the wine waiter for the award-winning team that made the Amy Winehouse documentary. That night I had a chance to meet with pretty much every single celebrity(900+ guests from the industry), I was a huge Breaking Bad fan and I had the chance to speak with Walter White.
How to get into this gig business without ever working in this industry? 1 day of training and boom, I'm a waiter at the fines restaurants in the world.
It was such an amazing experience but whoever imagines living like that forever should have poor judgement. I was there to make some money until I get a real job and open a bank account(really hard to do because of catch 22) and most people who worked with me were either new arrivals like me or Australians who came to the UK to experience Europe for a year or 2(They come just before or after college with 2 year work visa, work for few months and travel Europe).
The world is transforming, the employment contracts are not the driving force. They are a reaction to the new needs. I think it's alright, an equilibrium will be reached.