Did anyone else get this email from Motive? | Page 2 | Motive Financial | Discussion forum

OK.
Theyd probably hound you about it indefinitely if you didn't fill out their form.

As a Canadian with no foreign ties, I find this the least invasive of the various kinds of unjustified nosiness that occur these days!

But for Americans, in particular, who have not been filing US returns, this is going to become a major headache.

The real reason?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politic.....-1.4603064

They are just covering themselves?

August 2021 Update on this thread (WARNING: accounts frozen because of not filling in the form!)

I received a request in July 2021 via e-mail from Motive Financial to fill in the "Declaration of Residence for Individuals" (CRA form RC518 E 20). Admittedly, I also received an e-mail request a month after opening a Savvy Savings account in 2018, but I never filled it in because I figured they had all this information on file already. Also, at that time, in 2018 their e-mail indicated that they would provide a way to electronically sign the form so that it could be transmitted directly to them. Well, Motive never did provide a means for users to electronically sign and directly provide the document and a client support specialist confirmed they still do not have that capability (supposedly they are still working on it). So the bottom line is that one has to print out this form in order to sign it and then send it back to them (by snail mail, by fax, or a scanned copy via e-mail).

Well this time (July-August 2021), a few days after receiving their e-mail request to fill in the form, Motive actually froze all my four of accounts when I did not send them a completed form. Motive had allowed me to open all four of my accounts with them at various times without filling in this form (I guess it was not a requirement at the time of those account openings). I called them up, and they indicated I had to fill in the form and that it was not enough for me to simply indicate over the phone that I am a Canadian Tax resident only (i.e. I am not a tax resident of the US or any other country).

Meanwhile, all my Motive accounts remained frozen (for over two weeks) until I finally filled in, signed and faxed the form back to them. I did not trust sending it by e-mail given that e-mail is not always secure and the form contains a lot of sensitive personal information including a SIN and bank account number. Also, Motive sometimes takes several days to respond to e-mails (it has a single generic e-mail account for the entire FI), so I did not like the thought of my personal info floating around for days before someone processed it. Not that a fax is much better, but I was able to call to verify they received it (earlier today). I will check back later to see if they have unfrozen my accounts.

Anyways, I guess Motive has started taking drastic action to get compliance with filling in this form. Personally I think it is a little unfair to freeze the accounts of long time account holders, given that those accounts were opened before filling out this form was a requirement and also because they gave absolutely no warning that the account would be frozen. As a matter of fact, when logged online into Motive, I only discovered that my accounts were potentially frozen when I attempted a transfer between two of Motive my accounts and I received a generic online banking message (that there was an error with the transfer and it could not be completed). There was no information provided while logged into Motive online that the accounts were frozen, so I had to call Motive to find out what was going on. The bottom line is that no transactions were available (no internal or external transfers, no bill payments, etc.). I actually had written a cheque to someone prior to my accounts being frozen, which they still have not cashed yet (which was lucky). I am not sure what would have happened if they had tried to cash it during that 2 week freeze period. I would have been extremely upset if I was charged any fees for a bounced cheque because of the frozen accounts.

According to the client support person I was talking to, apparently, Motive now requires new account holders to fill in this form prior to the account opening - which makes sense - rather than chasing account holders down after they have opened an account. In any event, Motive certainly could have at least made an effort to communicate the drastic consequences for not filling in this form.

Has anyone else had a similar unfortunate experience?
Cheers,
Kyle

I guess I feel a little better knowing I was not the only unfortunate one.

My accounts are still frozen 3 hours after I confirmed with a Motive rep that they have received my fax with the completed form. Hopefully they will process it before the end of the day.

The message I still get when I try to transfer funds online between two of my Motive accounts was a little different than what I said earlier. It is still fairly generic though and simply indicates there is a problem processing the transfer and to contact the branch:

FYI, the transfer I attempted in the above snapshot did not involve a TFSA account, so the little blurb at the bottom is completely irrelevant. When I first encountered this a couple of weeks ago, with the same result no matter which accounts I used in the transfer process, I was wondering what the heck is going on. At first I thought it might have been a general temporary glitch with their online banking until I got the same result the next day. That is when I called Motive to find out what was up. The communication was definitely not handled well.

Will let you know when they eventually unfreeze my accounts
Cheers,
Kyle

I logged online into Motive and verified they have lifted the freeze on my accounts. Checked by making a few online transactions without any issues. So on the plus side, it only took about 3 to 5 hours for them to lift the freeze after they received the completed "Tax Residency" form, which is the main thing (i.e. processing it the same day).

On the downside, despite my request for them to call or e-mail me when they had lifted the freeze, they never did.

A little follow-up communication would have been a nice touch given my request and the drastic action they took, but not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things. Might change my mind on that if anything similar happens in the future.

Cheers,
Kyle