'Absolutely it was racially motivated' says RBC bank client after police called to investigate transaction
'Absolutely it was racially motivated' says RBC bank client after police called to investigate transaction
An Ottawa woman plans to file a human rights complaint against the Royal Bank of Canada after a routine trip to her branch to pick-up her credit card resulted in what she calls a dehumanizing and racist experience to prove her identity to police.
Barratou Barry, an RBC bank client of 15 years, says on Aug. 18, she went to her regular branch location on Bank Street to make a cash deposit in her account and to pick up her new credit card.
"The first transaction went well. I put money into my account, I gave them my debit card; everything was smooth. To pick up my credit card I needed identification," she says. "I did not have my driver's license handy with me at that time. I had my health card."
TL;DR: they called the police after noticing the name on her brand new passport didn’t match her other documents.
You make it sound like something completely reasonable due to a mismatch and not just a letter difference.
"The police said your passport had two R's on it, but your bank account and your bank statement, your name had one R," she says. "And remember I just put money into my bank account and that was fine … this was something that was so easily solved by asking me one more question, I even had my old passport."
I'm sure they always call the police for anyone of every race when their documentation is inconsistent and not disproportionately based on skin tone. I imagine they would call for a SWAT team if she had different last names after being married.
“Just a letter difference” in an official ID is reason enough, I think, to those suspicions. It’s not the job of the bank to figure out whether an ID is valid, it is however, their job to report any suspicious transactions under AML laws and to prevent fraudsters with fake IDs from accessing their bona fide customers’ accounts.
Calling the police is an entirely appropriate response in this case. Aside from taking a while to show up, it’s also not clear the police did anything wrong with the customer.
I’m sure they always call the police…
We’re dealing with a sample size of one.
Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. We have a sample size of one and you’re now
When I did my first passport ever, I was living in Ottawa. The lady that served me was this super christian lady. She asked me if I was ever baptized and who my godfather was. She put my godfather's name as my middle name. That name never shows up on any other documents and I've been stuck with this middle name ever since.
It's like that indigenous one in Vancouver where a grand father took his grand daughter to take funds out of her account and the bank called police and police arrested him on suspicion of child trafficking or something.
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