One of the places I was looking at to order bitcoin has an identity validation service through Miicard. I haven't seen a lot of "mainstream" media examination of Miicard. A couple mainstream press mentions, but I didn't stumble across any indepth reporting that quotes people you'd trust vouching for them. I'm not the only one who finds it creepy that they want password access to your bank account, and see one bitcointalk report here that they "ping" accounts long after initial authorization (
http://tinyurl.com/kl4qyaz). I feel a little better that they have a business arrangement with another company (Yodlee) that itself has partnerships with banks and companies I've actually heard of, and I figure Yodlee would have checked them out. Thoughts about turning the password to your bank account over to Miicard?
