Mail Online

Grounded – by M&S red tape

I’M NOT sure I can be bothered to go abroad again. I had a wonderful time visiting 57 countries over the past half century, but the current bureaucracy is so tedious and annoying that I just don’t fancy it.

How I used to love collecting a crisp collection of foreign banknotes before setting off to some new place. But I note that Marks & Spencer’s foreign exchange desks are telling me that, to buy currency, I ‘need’ to produce a passport or some other document. I don’t. I have checked with HM Revenue & Customs, and such things are compulsory only for transactions of €15,000 and above. This is to prevent money-laundering.

M&S, which took ages to respond to my query about this, can’t really explain why they wish to make life difficult in this way. They say: ‘In our bureaux, we highlight that ID may be required so that customers can have this to hand if needed.’

But they don’t. They flatly say customers will ‘need’ documents. No if. Why?

News

en-gb

2021-11-28T08:00:00.0000000Z

2021-11-28T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://mailonline.pressreader.com/article/282084870076452

dmg media (UK)