4 ms·

try to reverse a wire transfer

by mylons 4y ago

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago
Ah, but you can go an entire lifetime without doing a wire transfer, and even if you don't the risks are well known at this point.
- yonig 4y ago
  You’re right but I find it funny that before this thread I was reading this one https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31133963 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31133963
- gst 4y ago
  In Europe you have SEPA transfers where the reversibility after a transfer is comparable to a wire transfer. You can't really avoid them because they are the standard way of transferring money (if you don't pay by card or use direct debit).
- gpvos 4y ago
  In Europe you can't, wire transfers are the main way of transferring money.
skybrian 4y ago
Apparently, it's done by having professionals in the loop who will usually send the money back. (There are exceptions.) <https://bam.kalzumeus.com/archive/no-payments-are-final/ https://bam.kalzumeus.com/archive/no-payments-are-final/> > Of course wires are reversible. They were not designed by children, but by professionals who live in a society which has systemically important institutions, and in the event of malfeasance or mistakes society does not tolerate a bank failing or a state missing payroll simply because someone said “no takesies-backsies” fast enough. > Mistakes happen! By, conservatively, the hundreds of thousands daily across all payments systems, millions depending on your definition of mistake. Wire transfers, like almost all payment systems, explicitly contemplate them and have a sociolegal ritual to quickly reverse them. > The ritual is called “hold harmless” and comes from a soft guarantee about the wire transfer ecosystem, which is that transactions are largely between sophisticated counterparties acting in good faith, intermediated by institutions whose probity is almost sacrosanct. Importantly, wires are in expectation worth having a human in the loop for; that is very not true of most payments.
- SilasX 4y ago
  Correct, if you have two powerful participants, who can hold mutually assured destruction over each other, then — stars above! — they play nice. Now try the same scenario when you’re an ordinary Schmoe who wired money to an obvious scammer, and then tell me whether you still believe Patrick’s model of the banking system as a giant kumbaya circle run on gentlemen’s agreements to Do The Right Thing.
- tyrfing 4y ago
  This seems to be a description of how coordinating counterparties can reverse transactions made over any medium, with a bit of argument alchemy to shift the discussion from individuals to banks representing them. > It took the combined forces of several agencies of the federal government more than five years to reverse ~$4.5 billion in Bitcoin transaction Unlike the Bangladesh Bank hack, for example, which they were unable to reverse.
  - skybrian 4y ago
    Yes, I think it's pushing back on the overly binary idea that transactions are always/never reversible but it does it by being overly binary in the opposite direction. A better summary might be "transactions are reversible in more cases than you would expect." Also, transactions that aren't reversible at a low level are often reversible at a higher level in the stack.
  - tomc1985 4y ago
    The Bangladesh hack was unable to be reversed because the attackers exploited holidays in multiple countries to create a multi-day window where they could be reasonably sure that people wouldn't be auditing the transaction. And of that hack, I think something like 90% of the transactions for stolen money were reversed, but a significant portion got through because of the timing. edit- and IIRC the whole thing was caught because of a typo?
  - ineedasername 4y ago
    You're only illustrating the fact that given an honest error in crypto, reversibility tends to be the exception, not a rule. While in traditional finance it's the reverse. Taking any one scenario where it didn't work out that way is highly selective cherry picking. There is not functional equivalence between "almost always impossible" and "almost always possible".
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
esjeon 4y ago
Welp, at least, the wire transfer process itself delivered the money to the correct recipient. Now, imagine this: an error in a transfer contract locks away funds, not only from victims, but also from phishers. What a beautiful world to live in.
atchoo 4y ago
Linus from LTT recently reversed a $90k wire he was tricked into sending after a contractor was hacked. It's not like the destination of a fraudulent wire is an anonymous blackhole. In this case it was a wire to another Canadian bank. The money was frozen during an investigation and then returned a week or two later.
- politician 4y ago
  That only worked because the funds didn’t bounce somewhere else first. Wire transfers are final.
  - otterley 4y ago
    The wire transfer transaction may be final, but that’s not the end of the story. A court can subsequently compel the receiving bank or party to send the funds back to the sender.
    - politician 4y ago
      That’s true, but depending on the path, funds might end up in various jurisdictions, complicating the recovery story.
    - charcircuit 4y ago
      The same thing applies to crypto.
      - otterley 4y ago
        Do you always know who you’re trading with in crypto? How do you identify the counterparty to make the demand from? This isn’t a problem with ordinary transactions, where the two parties have regulated organizations making the trade on their respective behalf. Even in stock trades, where the counterparties are anonymous, there is a mechanism for reversing trades because the system was designed for it.
  - multjoy 4y ago
ineedasername 4y ago
That, vs this situation, is the difference between "difficult, maybe costly (legals bills) & time constrained" vs "impossible" I don't want the later for anything I consider a large financial transaction.

try to reverse a wire transfer

by mylons 4y ago

try to reverse a wire transfer

Ah, but you can go an entire lifetime without doing a wire transfer, and even if you don't the risks are well known at this point.

yonig 4y ago
You’re right but I find it funny that before this thread I was reading this one https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31133963 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31133963
gst 4y ago
In Europe you have SEPA transfers where the reversibility after a transfer is comparable to a wire transfer. You can't really avoid them because they are the standard way of transferring money (if you don't pay by card or use direct debit).
gpvos 4y ago
In Europe you can't, wire transfers are the main way of transferring money.

skybrian 4y ago

Apparently, it's done by having professionals in the loop who will usually send the money back. (There are exceptions.) <https://bam.kalzumeus.com/archive/no-payments-are-final/ https://bam.kalzumeus.com/archive/no-payments-are-final/> > Of course wires are reversible. They were not designed by children, but by professionals who live in a society which has systemically important institutions, and in the event of malfeasance or mistakes society does not tolerate a bank failing or a state missing payroll simply because someone said “no takesies-backsies” fast enough. > Mistakes happen! By, conservatively, the hundreds of thousands daily across all payments systems, millions depending on your definition of mistake. Wire transfers, like almost all payment systems, explicitly contemplate them and have a sociolegal ritual to quickly reverse them. > The ritual is called “hold harmless” and comes from a soft guarantee about the wire transfer ecosystem, which is that transactions are largely between sophisticated counterparties acting in good faith, intermediated by institutions whose probity is almost sacrosanct. Importantly, wires are in expectation worth having a human in the loop for; that is very not true of most payments.

SilasX 4y ago
Correct, if you have two powerful participants, who can hold mutually assured destruction over each other, then — stars above! — they play nice. Now try the same scenario when you’re an ordinary Schmoe who wired money to an obvious scammer, and then tell me whether you still believe Patrick’s model of the banking system as a giant kumbaya circle run on gentlemen’s agreements to Do The Right Thing.
tyrfing 4y ago
This seems to be a description of how coordinating counterparties can reverse transactions made over any medium, with a bit of argument alchemy to shift the discussion from individuals to banks representing them. > It took the combined forces of several agencies of the federal government more than five years to reverse ~$4.5 billion in Bitcoin transaction Unlike the Bangladesh Bank hack, for example, which they were unable to reverse.
- skybrian 4y ago
  Yes, I think it's pushing back on the overly binary idea that transactions are always/never reversible but it does it by being overly binary in the opposite direction. A better summary might be "transactions are reversible in more cases than you would expect." Also, transactions that aren't reversible at a low level are often reversible at a higher level in the stack.
- tomc1985 4y ago
  The Bangladesh hack was unable to be reversed because the attackers exploited holidays in multiple countries to create a multi-day window where they could be reasonably sure that people wouldn't be auditing the transaction. And of that hack, I think something like 90% of the transactions for stolen money were reversed, but a significant portion got through because of the timing. edit- and IIRC the whole thing was caught because of a typo?
- ineedasername 4y ago
  You're only illustrating the fact that given an honest error in crypto, reversibility tends to be the exception, not a rule. While in traditional finance it's the reverse. Taking any one scenario where it didn't work out that way is highly selective cherry picking. There is not functional equivalence between "almost always impossible" and "almost always possible".

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

esjeon 4y ago

Welp, at least, the wire transfer process itself delivered the money to the correct recipient. Now, imagine this: an error in a transfer contract locks away funds, not only from victims, but also from phishers. What a beautiful world to live in.

atchoo 4y ago

Linus from LTT recently reversed a $90k wire he was tricked into sending after a contractor was hacked. It's not like the destination of a fraudulent wire is an anonymous blackhole. In this case it was a wire to another Canadian bank. The money was frozen during an investigation and then returned a week or two later.

politician 4y ago
That only worked because the funds didn’t bounce somewhere else first. Wire transfers are final.
- otterley 4y ago
  The wire transfer transaction may be final, but that’s not the end of the story. A court can subsequently compel the receiving bank or party to send the funds back to the sender.
  - politician 4y ago
    That’s true, but depending on the path, funds might end up in various jurisdictions, complicating the recovery story.
  - charcircuit 4y ago
    The same thing applies to crypto.
    - otterley 4y ago
      Do you always know who you’re trading with in crypto? How do you identify the counterparty to make the demand from? This isn’t a problem with ordinary transactions, where the two parties have regulated organizations making the trade on their respective behalf. Even in stock trades, where the counterparties are anonymous, there is a mechanism for reversing trades because the system was designed for it.
- multjoy 4y ago

ineedasername 4y ago

That, vs this situation, is the difference between "difficult, maybe costly (legals bills) & time constrained" vs "impossible" I don't want the later for anything I consider a large financial transaction.