Fascinating saga. I also recently signed up for a TreasuryDirect account and receive the dreaded email:
Thanks again for opening a TreasuryDirect account. We are having difficulty verifying the information you provided when opening your account. For your protection, please complete the Account Authorization form and mail it to Treasury Retail Securities Site, P.O. Box 7015, Minneapolis, MN 55480-7015
The bottom of the Account Authorization form states:
ACCEPTABLE CERTIFICATIONS: Financial institution’s official seal or stamp (such as corporate seal, signature guaranteed stamp, or medallion stamp). (Notary certification is NOT acceptable.)
Luckily I was traveling to New Hampshire and brought the form to a local bank with which I still had an account. Things did not go as smoothly as hoped. First, the bank notarized the form. Then I mentioned to the teller that the form says in bold "Certification by a notary public is NOT acceptable." So she sent me to another branch where she thought the bank would have its official seal. However, at the other branch location, I learned that only branch managers were able to perform signature guarantees and that the branch manager here was out sick (day after memorial day). So I was sent back to the original branch, where a manager had been in the back the entire time. Finally, I received the elusive signature guarantee and mailed the form. A few days later, I received an email from [email protected] stating:
We received your Savings Bonds/Treasury Marketable Securities materials.
So fingers crossed that I get approved. I guess my experience wasn't even that brutal... sounds like yours is already worse.
Odd that the government makes it so difficult to loan them money. Paging the experts, @dollarvigilante and @adamkokesh as to how this could be?
Perhaps in the end this will be for the best, as it will leave you no other choice than to invest in a certain asset class that is secured with cryptography rather than fiat (government decree).
I hope that you get approved.
Insane how reliant they still are on paper for verification. I understand that they don't want identity fraud, but they're protections and much beyond those of regular commercial online institutions. Most will be perfectly happy with a photo of a Driver's License. In the very least, they could come up with some way to do this without opening a new bank account. Perhaps going into your local government and getting a signature there? To your point, at least crypto is easy to get.