I also opened a Charles Schwab account, online from Buenos Aires, and everything seemed to be going great (I had a friend visiting me bring me all of my documents and debit card). However, today, the German company that I am working for tried to deposit into the account and was unable to do so.
I called, to find out the problem, and was very surprised to find out that my account had been closed! After a long conversation with a helpful, yet somewhat defensive brokerage customer service agent (with a slight southern twang), I was told that the bank closed the account because they do to failure of verification. He was unsure of how the bank had tried to contact me to let me know that a verification was necessary, and not knowing this, is where he was a bit defensive.
Asking more, I found out that my account had been flagged because they detected the foreign IP address (I applied while in Buenos Aires) from where I applied. This causes a flag and from here they require to verification that you are actually residing in the United States, which is not really the case for me at the moment.
To resolve this, I now have two options:
1) Reactivate the account by visiting a Schwab customer service center in person with valid ID and proof of residency in the area of the address associated with my account.
2) Re-apply online from within the United States.
I won't be in the States again until the summer, unfortunately, but will need this account very soon. I think I will wait a few days, hop on a proxy server and reapply online (with the idea that I don't set off a flag again) and have my family ship the materials to me after they arrive at my home in the States. But I write all this to give other people considering this option a heads up (I will let you know how my application with at , and also to ask if anyone else experienced something like this? If so, how did you resolve it?