Accepted forms of ID

Context

In order to comply with Know Your Customer best practices, we require ID when a certain level of trades have been processed. Additionally, your spending limits are increased significantly when ID is validated because the account becomes more trusted.

If you will never have the need to do credit/debit card purchases (e.g. bank transfers are fine) then the requirements are a little more flexible. Please see the #I do not care about credit card payments section below.

For the validation to be completed we need as a minimum one proof of name AND one proof of address document from the list below. Until both are uploaded the documents will be listed as Pending since they are processed together, and just uploading one will not increase your limits.

For technical information on how we store your identity documents, see How are my uploaded documents stored?

Proof of name

Acceptable

All ID must have not expired at the time of upload and they must not be black and white scans. If using a scanner please turn off any OCR functionality as this interferes with our ability to validate the ID. This is required even if your account is for a company's use. Please do not merge the front and back of any ID cards onto the same page, upload them as separate photos or scans.

• Passport (full photo page).
• Full driving licence (photocard, front and back).
• Provisional driving licence (photocard, front and back). You must still be over 18 to use most card payment providers.
• National ID card (photocard, front and back).
• PASS card (front and back, with photograph and date of birth)

Not acceptable

• Student/NUS card
• Locally issued cards, e.g. local authority bus pass with photo
• Handwritten documents

Notices

• Residential permits are not usually sufficient, and are always rejected for people born outside of the EEA (e.g. Russia) and living in Europe.

Proof of address

Note: Online / downloadable documents are usually just fine. See below.

Acceptable

All proofs of address must have an issue date within the last 3 months. These can be digital versions in pdf format, i.e. downloaded from your account with the appropriate provider, but screenshots cannot be accepted nor can any edited documents, photos of printouts of the pdf etc. We need the originals.

In all cases we need the entire document. For paper documents this means the entire page rather than just the part with your address on. For PDFs this needs to be the entire original version of the PDF with all subsequent pages.

We can't accept documents which have been 'printed' to another PDF, we'd need the original documents. In the cases of banks such as TSB where the bank does not produce a direct pdf version of a statement sadly we cannot accept printed to pdf versions of statements from these banks. Halifax and Lloyds user can now download PDF versions of statements via online banking, however we can't accept the older style printer friendly printouts.

If you are validating an account for company use, please ensure this is a bill addressed to the company, and ensure your company's name is filled in on the profile page. The address should ideally be your company's registered office.

The following documents are usually acceptable for all payment methods, including card payments.

• Fixed phone line bill.
• Council tax bill (only accepted for 3 months after the issue date)
• TV licence (only accepted for 3 months after the issue date, so if the expiry date is February 2019, it would have been issued in February 2018 so is only valid until May 2018)
• TV provider bill (e.g. Sky, BT).
• Internet services bill (e.g. broadband).
• Utility bill (e.g. gas, electricity, water).
• Mortgage statement.
• Mobile phone bill (must match the verified phone number on the account).
• Bank statement (posted statement or online original PDF; print outs and transactions lists not permitted).
• Accommodation rental bill, including
  • Rent statements from your landlord.
  • Rent statements from student accommodation.

Semi-acceptable

These documents are only accepted for bank transfers (and equivalents).

• Credit card statement.

Not acceptable

• Any ID you have used as the Proof of name.
• Driving licence.
• Screenshots of web pages, e.g. screenshots of online banking transactions. If you are uploading an online bill we need the original pdf file, not a screenshot of the first page, photograph of the screen or split PDF just showing some pages.
• Anything in the "Other" category on the upload page unless we have specifically said it is ok for your account. This category cannot allow access to card purchases

If you are not intending on making credit card purchases, please see the #I do not care about credit card payments section below as our own validation is more lenient.

If you have no bills in your name

If you live with parents or a partner and all bills are in their name, please attach the following in one document (e.g. by printing out and taking a picture):

• A brief letter from your parent/partner stating that you live with them, signed by the parent/partner.
• The parent/partner's proof of ID as per the Proof of name section.
• The parent/partner's proof of address, i.e. a suitable, recent bill in their name.

Proof of bank account

This should be a statement, and also issued within the last three months.

We a bank statement which should show your account number, sort code (or BIC/SWIFT and IBAN), your name, address and overall account information like balances. For a paper statement we would need a scan or a photo of the first page of the statement, or an online copy of your statement downloaded from your online banking site. If you send us an online downloaded PDF, it must be totally unaltered. This means you must include the entire file and you cannot send just certain pages, for instance. We also cannot accept screenshots of your online banking pages.

Why so strict?

We have arrangements with payment providers that have strict requirements. These are the requirements that they are legally bound to.

I do not have suitable documents

Please get in touch with us at support@bittylicious.com and let us know what you have. In any case, some form of governmental issued photo ID is a must.

I do not care about credit card payments

If you are not intending on using Bittylicious to make purchases with a credit/debit card, we can be more lenient with the types of ID we accept (contact us first though as otherwise the documents may well just be rejected). Bittylicious ID validation differs from the above when it comes to proof of address validation in the following ways:

• If you have made a bank transfer with us first, documentation is valid if it is less than six (as opposed to three) months old.

Name Changes

If you've changed your name either through marriage or by deed poll then we will need to see a copy of the certificate or document. This needs to be emailed to support@bittylicious.com when you submit the name change request through your profile. For deed poll name changes, we can only accept changes which have been officially enrolled on The Gazette