HMRC Identity Verification

[Moneymatters]

For UK nationals.

As hard to believe as it might be, I have a friend. And that friend is a bit of a bind.

He's been trying to get create a HMRC loging to find out his UK State pension situation.
Currently he only has a UK Passport as identification.
No UK address available to him.
Apparently this isn't enough to get an account created.

The external third party verification service seems to require things he doesn't have and he's reached an impass.

For people that have set up an account, from scratch, from Japan how did you handle identity verification?

[adamu]

It's probably changed since I signed up, but it says here that you can do it by creating a Government gateway ID, as long as you have a national insurance number and a valid passport.

https://www.gov.uk/check-state-pension/ ... te-account

[Beaglehound]

I actually wrote to them to ascertain my contributions to that point a few years back (and it was only a few) because at that point NI past contributions could not be viewed online. Might still be an option?

[beanhead]

It's probably changed since I signed up, but it says here that you can do it by creating a Government gateway ID, as long as you have a national insurance number and a valid passport.

https://www.gov.uk/check-state-pension/ ... te-account

The problem is that there is a secondary verification which requires a UK address.
I have heard that if you have an old UK postcode which was once registered with HMRC it will get through this hurdle, but I cannot confirm it myself.

[beanhead]

For Moneymatters and anyone else interested, I have been attempting to get access to my records online via the UK Gateway. Can't do it.
To prove your identity, you now need 2 of :

UK passport
Northern Ireland driving license
Credit check by some credit agency

I have a passport and a British (not Northern Irish) license. I tried the credit check but seem to have no credit rating in the UK. Unsurprising, that one.
I have tried their online support, but in vain. They told me it is not a technical issue so they can't help. One guy on the support chat suggested another ID check they have called verify, but you have to be resident in the UK to use that, so that doesn't work.

So, in case anyone else has a relatively new Gateway account that they can't use to see their national pension record, don't bother trying to troubleshoot it. If you call one of the numbers on the gov website, they can verify who you are that way and then send your updated statement.
I won't need to do this every year, but perhaps every 3 years or 5 years or so. That's my plan.