So my general impression is that Wise (the FinTech company/ previously TransferWise) generally has (had?) great reputation for excellent customer service and a good product. I certainly appreciated unparalleled service for them until they froze my account a few weeks ago and changed my incoming US bank details with 2 working days' notice (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37925678).<p>I thought this was a coincidence, but since then I've read or heard a bunch of reports and maybe it is not in fact a coincidence.<p>- Changed US bank details at short notice, caused operational chaos for anyone using them for incoming payments as all incoming payments to the "old" details bounced: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37936076<p>- Deactivated all US debit cards on 2 working days' notice, making a very fun weekend for anyone who had a wise card loaded into 100+ SaaS services I assume https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38046293<p>- Not limited to US as there are accounts of them blocking Europe-based businesses (mine above and also e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38047863)<p>- Reports on places like https://www.facebook.com/groups/transferwisevictims/ of people taking 3.5 months to get their funds returned<p>- I randomly mentioned Wise problems to a friend and she immediately said "Oh wow I closed my account in the US and used them to transfer all the funds to Europe. They just 'lost' the transfer as it's now gone from my US account and is not credited to my Europe account and they will not help me find it'<p>Maybe a coincidence as I am aware of frequency illusions etc, but I wondered if anyone knows of any wider potential liquidity or solvency issues that they might be having, (linked to having to move away from Community Federal Savings Bank at short notice maybe?) which means they are playing these games with delaying tactics?<p>I was just told that they need an extension for "reasons beyond their control" and will add 35 *working* days to the normal 14 <i>calendar</i> days response time for complaints.
Got burned by Wise doing an international transfer a few years back. Money was withdrawn but never reached the receiving bank. Wise wouldn't help at all, even after getting a statement from my sending bank that Wise had my money. Never again.<p>OFX is boring but has good spreads, always been able to reach a human and always worked for me for international transfers.
Longtime Wise user here, and recently I've been having an issue too, but one I haven't seen posted here as yet.<p>My account has been flagged several times for "speculative currency trading", even though that's not what I'm doing, and my usage patterns haven't really changed much since I started using the platform.<p>If you set up a transfer and don't fund it immediately, or you cancel it and set up another transfer within a narrow time window where the exchange rate has changed to your benefit, the system thinks you're speculating. This never happened to prior to the last 12 months or so, and recently it seems they're flagging transfers this way much more often. Seems like it's probably due to overall volatility in certain currencies being higher over the last year or so.<p>The "penalty" they apply is just that you can't "lock" an exchange rate for international transfers anymore. Usually, your exchange rate is locked at the market rate at the time the transfer is initiated, and then you have a time limit to fund the transfer at the rate you locked.<p>But now, when you initiate a transfer they add a 3% "buffer" on top of the funds required to fund the transfer, and they apply the market rate at the time they receive the funds, and then refund you whatever the difference is.
I've been with them since the beginning and have had my suggestions included in the UI (e.g. account nicknames) but as far as I can tell they're in some sort of freefall.<p>Something has gone badly wrong in there and the only answer is to close the accounts and move away asap. That's what I'm almost finished doing for my 4 companies and shortly my personal account.
<p><pre><code> I randomly mentioned Wise problems to a friend and she immediately said "Oh wow I closed my account in the US and used them to transfer all the funds to Europe. They just 'lost' the transfer as it's now gone from my US account and is not credited to my Europe account and they will not help me find it'
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They should report this to their local state attorney, or the state attorney where Wise is registered in the United States. Also, if the amount is small enough, she can sue them in small claims court.
Go onto a Facebook and search "Wise". You'll find a handful of group where people are selling/buying validated Wise accounts. They have really big issues with money laundering and fraud.<p>My guess is they either got a stern warning from regulators or are being proactive at try to eliminate the fraud. And not in a "this is our 2024 goal" but a "we better do this now or risk getting shut down". So massive changes to account validation are happening and customer service isn't prepared.
This makes me pretty nervous. I am having a go at being a "digital nomad" and use Wise as my primary "bank". I only have one customer, paying EU into a EU IBAN and then I am just using Apple Pay to pay for my daily needs. I have about 10k EUR in the account...I want to move it, but I also don't want to pay the conversion fees into my home currency, and then back again (I am mainly based in Europe and spending Euros).
Something indeed is mysterious. Previously, I could generate a virtual CreditCard on the fly for random* online purchases but today while checking for some things, I can suddenly no longer generate any new ones anymore.<p>Also, here in EU they were happily paying interest on current balance due to recent interest rate hike, but suddenly a while back this interest generation has to be claimed by moving money from current to "Jar" thing and accept some terms, which is a bit dramatic IMO.
I run two nonprofits using wise. With both I have experienced several sudden account suspensions pending further verification. Twice (once with each account) they have asked me to upload a recent statement from our bank as proof of funds. Only problem is that they are our only bank. Sounds straight forward enough but not to them. In one case, this sad state of affairs took over a month to resolve. For over a month an alternative elementary school I founded had to run without a bank account. No supplies, no salaries. In the other case it "only" took a week to resolve.<p>If anyone has a recommendation for a challenger bank in the EU which works with nonprofits I'd love to hear about it.
Lol. I logged in and it did even redirect to the correct url :o<p>It should have been <a href="https://wise.com/user/account" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://wise.com/user/account</a> but it redirected me to : <a href="https://wise.com/%2Fuser%2Faccount%2F" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://wise.com/%2Fuser%2Faccount%2F</a>
Did you try contacting Wise about this is unfortunate for Wise to do this, thankfully this is not the not the majority of people's experience with Wise.<p>If you're involved with crypto or any illicit activity this could be the trigger for this.<p>Wise is known not to be kind to those who are involved in crypto activity.
Do you have anything to do with crypto?<p>I've been hearing all sort of stories from crypto people having trouble recently (both banks and money transmitter, no one on wise though, actually someone I know started using wise after problems with revolut)
Are all these issues with Wise business accounts or with personal accounts as well? I have a personal account; should I just close it as I hardly use it?
> generally has (had?) great reputation for excellent customer service and a good product<p>They used to have great support - actual competent humans would respond and handle the issue. Since at least a year ago, their support is utter shit. Just boilerplate without reading the ticket, every single time.