Resubmitting the same thing is the expensive mistake
Each failed attempt goes back into the queue, and repeated identical submissions push an account toward manual review, which is slower. The identity check itself exists because platforms are required to run one, FinCEN sets out what that obligation covers. Work out which category the failure belongs to before you upload anything again.
The error message rarely tells you what is wrong. "Information could not be verified" covers image quality, a typing mismatch, an unsupported document type and a liveness failure. Four unrelated problems with four different fixes. So the useful move is to reason backwards from the symptom.
Step one: which category is this
Almost every rejection is one of three kinds.
- The photograph. The document is fine; the image of it is not.
- The typed data. Something you entered disagrees with something printed.
- The liveness check. The selfie or video step did not produce a usable capture.
A fourth exists and behaves differently: the document type is not accepted for the region on your account. No amount of resubmitting fixes that one, because nothing about the submission is wrong.
Five problems with the document photo
This is the largest bucket by a distance, and the easiest to fix.
- Glare. A reflection across a hologram or laminate reads to an automated checker like something has been altered. Indirect light, no flash, tilt the document rather than the camera.
- A cropped corner. All four corners inside the frame, with a margin. Filling the frame edge to edge is a frequent auto-reject.
- Focus. If you cannot read the small print in your own photo, the reviewer cannot either.
- A photo of a screen, or a photocopy. Both are detected reliably. It has to be the physical document.
- Something covering the document. A finger over an edge, a plastic sleeve, a shadow across a data field.
One practical note that is not obvious: photograph it on a dark, matte, plain surface. A pale wooden table is one of the worst backgrounds, because the edge detection struggles to find where a light-coloured document ends.
Three problems with what you typed
Name order and spelling
Enter the name exactly as printed, in the order printed. Given names and surnames swapped is the single most common version of this, and it is especially frequent where the document's own convention differs from everyday usage in your language. Multiple surnames go in in full.
Characters that look alike in the document number
Zero against capital O. One against capital I against lowercase l. Enlarge the photo and read the characters off it rather than off memory — and where a document uses a checksum, one wrong character invalidates the whole string rather than being "close".
Date format
Day-month-year and month-day-year are both normal somewhere. Check which order the form expects and which the document prints, especially for a date where both readings are valid, such as 03/04.
Where the liveness step goes wrong
- Lighting. Facing a window backlights you into a silhouette. Light should come from in front, and it should be even.
- Obstruction. Hat, glasses, mask, hair across the face. Take them off, including glasses you wear constantly.
- Moving too fast. Genuinely counterintuitive, and common. Turning your head quickly means the capture never gets a clean frame. Follow the prompts at a deliberate, slightly slow pace.
What to do, and what not to
Do: work out the category, fix that one thing, resubmit once. Wait for a result before changing anything else, or you will not know which change was the one that worked.
Do not: submit repeatedly in the hope of catching a more lenient reviewer. Do not open a second account — one person holding multiple accounts generally breaches the terms and can get all of them restricted. Do not pay anyone who offers to "get you verified"; the ones who ask for your documents are collecting documents.
Before contacting support
Have four things ready: the account identifier, roughly when the attempt was made, the exact error text, and what you have already tried. A ticket with those gets a real answer. A ticket saying verification failed gets a template reply and another wait.
Common questions
Does a rejection damage my account?
A single rejection normally does not. Verification simply has not passed yet, so the features that depend on it stay unavailable. What does put an account at risk is submitting repeatedly in a short window, which trips risk controls, or being judged to have opened more than one account.
Should I change the background when I retake the photo?
The background matters less than the light. A dark, flat surface with daylight coming from the side is usually enough. Avoid shooting at night under a ceiling light: an overhead source puts a bright patch straight across the document.
It has been stuck on “under review”. How long should I wait?
A few minutes to a few hours when it goes smoothly, longer once it is escalated to a human. The live status in your account is the authoritative answer, and resubmitting does not move you up the queue.
Can a family member verify using their document?
No. Verification establishes who the account holder is, so using someone else's document is an identity mismatch. Accounts get restricted when it is found, and ownership of whatever is inside becomes genuinely difficult to untangle. This one is a matter of principle rather than a technical obstacle.