We recently received a complaint from a customer regarding our inclusion of her new address on the negative confirmation letter that was sent out to her old address. Under our current process when we receive an address change request via mail, without the customers signature, we send out a negative confirmation letter to the old mailing address that states per your request we have changed your address to: 132 Main Street, Anytown, MA 12345.
I wanted to see what other banks do regarding address change letters that are sent to the old address. Do you include the new address that the mailing address was sent to or just that an address change was made? Thanks!

The practice of including both addresses on the notice is so commonplace that even the United States Post Office does it.

What exactly was your customer's concern? You didn't put the information on a postcard, did you? Of course not. It was in an envelope, theoretically at least secure from prying eyes.

Let's face it, the most secure way for handling mailing address updates is for the customer to visit the branch, provide a signed address change notification, providing ID. The address then gets updated, but only after verifying the signature against the deposit signature "card" document. But customers want a more convenient way to handle such mundane matters, so they ask for address changes by mail or over the telephone. They should be glad when the bank follows up with a verification, rather than put out.

Some customers just don't see things the same way we do, I guess.

We currently require a verified customer signature prior to completing a change of address, either in person or received in the mail. As I am sure we have all been told, this is not always very convenient to the customer and our upper management wants this changed.

In order to facilitate requests made over-the-phone or other methods, we're looking at sending notifications to the old and new addresses. Our system is not capable of automatically generating these notifications and will need to be produced manually.

Is there anyone that is willing to share a notification template? Feel free to PM me. Any other feedback is welcome also.

Thanks in advance.

End of a domestic relationship (including marriage) and one person doesn't want the other to know the new address? Under some circumstances, that's really not difficult to understand...

As suggested, if they come in, provide identification, and make the change in person it's better for all concerned. That eliminates any need to send a confirmation.

Brian mentioned the USPS procedures... My understanding is that if the request is not "in person," they put through a small charge on a credit card to verify that the request is coming from the right person. I haven't thought their logic through. Regardless, although they are not the model of a well managed organization, they handle more address changes than any bank ever will.

Another question along this line. We send a letter to the old and new address and do not include the new address in the letter just a comment that the address has changed. If we change the physical address but the customer also has a mailing address on file (PO Box), what address would you send the "old address" letter to? I'm thinking we send it to whatever address we changed. In this case we changed the physical address so we should send to the physical address. I think our operations department was concerned we were disclosing something confidential if we send to the old physical address instead of the current mailing address, but I feel better about this since we don't actually put the new address in the letter. Hopefully that makes sense.

Thanks!

I guess the one thing this would do is disclose the fact that they have an account with us if they were trying to keep that froma spouse, etc.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

I would only send notices to the MAILING address you have on file. In this case, I would prepare a special letter to indicate that the physical address was changed on your records (not the mailing address).

There are many valid reasons for why someone does not want mail delivered to a physical address. If a customer has instructed you to not send mail to their physical address, then I would not send mail there.

And there are many places where you can't get delivery at the physical address. There are at least three U.S. Post Offices in my county that don't have rural delivery -- you simply have to go to the post office to collect your mail. Exception -- some special delivery mail still gets delivered by postal truck.

I'd like to hear people's thoughts on sending an address change verification to the customer's email address on file, versus sending a letter to the old address. I'm not sure I like this idea for a number of reasons, one being we don't always have an email address on file and if we do, who knows if it's correct. Our returned mail process recently was change to the branch vs. centralized in operations (yet another think I didn't exactly think was a good idea - too many hands in the pot). Someone is now asking if there can be a more efficient way to manage the returned mail from the confirmations that go to the old address and are being returned undeliverable. Why waste the time and postage. I think there is truth to this being extra work but email is not the full answer.

Is the notion to send the address change confirmation to the old and new address a best practice or is there possibly some state law that comes into play - I don't see anything in our state statutes manual but wanted to see.

I think there should be some kind of notification to the old address when the request was not made in person. Just looking for feedback on the email idea.

Tell me you are not changing addresses based solely on a change of address notice from the post office on your returned mail.

You should check your Red Flags Policy and see what it says for change of addresses

no Randy, we are not! No way!!! We are sending a confirmation email to the old address every time an address change takes place. I would say if the address change was made in person and the bank verified the identity, then a confirmation letter to the old address is overkill. I don't think it adds any benefit and only causes more work since we already verified it was our customer making the request.

I would say if the change of address request was made online, email or some other way where we couldn't verify identity, a confirmation should be sent. My question then is, does it have to be via US mail or can an email be sent? I don't love the email route by the way for lots of reasons, one being not everyone has an email on file, and who knows if it's current. So this just puts us back to square one and sending a letter to the old address.

I am aware of the requirement under the Red Flags / ID Theft / FCRA provision that requires notification if there is a request for a new or replacement card within 30 days of an address change. In that case, yes we would send a letter. But in all other cases, I think it's a risk / best practices decision.

Well, if I am good, the first thing I do is hack your e-mail, then from there I figure out where your bank accounts might be and then from there...…..

So - I agree e-mail is not the way to go.

Thanks Randy. I'm in agreement but wanted to make sure I was thinking correctly.

Once the post office has a change of address, they don't deliver mail addressed to that party (or family depending on the type of address change filed) anymore - they forward to the new address. For that reason, we don't send to the old address anymore. We have come to the conclusion that it is all risky. We try to call as many as we can and put notations on accounts so tellers will catch them if they do in-person transactions.

Upon receipt of an address change, a generic letter is sent to both the "previous" and to the "new" addresses.

Dear Customer,

< Bank > has completed your address change request. If you did not authorize an address change request, please contact < Bank > at < Toll Free Number >, or call your local branch at < Direct Number >.