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> Now they ask us to provide an explanation of the reference to “Alep”. WiseTransfer blocked my transfer because they didn't like my full name that they got fr

by agilob 4y ago

> Now they ask us to provide an explanation of the reference to “Alep”. WiseTransfer blocked my transfer because they didn't like my full name that they got from Monzo (Mozno has partnership with Wise). They blocked my transfer, hold it hostage until I contacted them, spent a few days hanging on phone, emailed them etc... they wanted to know what my surname means. I made an international transfer to buy a conference ticket. I don't remember the precise dates, but I spent full days on phone, emailing dozens of people and took me 3-4 weeks to revert the transfer. They. wanted. to know. what. my. surname. means. Edit: I filed a complaint to Monzo and Wise, and stopped using both.

hgsgm 4y ago
And? Did you tell them? Your surname may be the same word as something else that gives cause for concern.
- aidog 4y ago
  Too bad if you don't know what your surname means.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Or your surname is something like Al Qaeda (which is just "the base") or is "Ira" or any other combination of letters that could trigger very dumb 'watchlist' code.
    - uncletaco 4y ago
      I've lost jobs over getting flagged in automatic resume systems due to my last name seeming "fake".
      - bombcar 4y ago
        Reminds me of https://www.wired.com/2015/11/null/ https://www.wired.com/2015/11/null/
        bentcorner 4y ago
        Similarly, Fnu: https://uxdesign.cc/what-the-fnu-fa72cf4ad5bd https://uxdesign.cc/what-the-fnu-fa72cf4ad5bd
- foobarbecue 4y ago
  Correct answer: "My surname, Smith, is a string of characters that identifies people in my family. It designates a person or set of people."
  - HeavyFeather 4y ago
    A set of people you say? Sorry, our policy does not allow x-smiths to use this service.
    - tmtvl 4y ago
      My surname designates a bag of people.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - koolba 4y ago
    When you replace “Smith” with “ISIS” or “Bin Laden” that’s likely not enough of an explanation for them to lift the freeze.
    - DebtDeflation 4y ago
      Why is this included in the logic in the first place? Are terrorists sending payments via PayPal and including "ISIS membership fee, annual renewal" in the comments? It would seem to me that a keyword search like this is not an effective way to stop the flow of funds to sanctioned organizations. It's like scanning cancelled checks for the word "bribe" on the memo line.
      - orthecreedence 4y ago
        "Yes, hello, I'd like to renew my subscription to Terrorist Weekly. Oh, you take Venmo? Great!"
      - jimnotgym 4y ago
        On the other hand, if they did it would be very embarrassing for PayPal.
- DangitBobby 4y ago
  Surnames often don't mean anything. If mine means anything I don't know it. It's just a name.
  - Karellen 4y ago
    > Surnames often don't mean anything. That depends on where you're from. Often in the English-speaking world, they do. To take the another commenter's example, "Smith" comes from a word meaning, roughly, "craftsperson", as in "blacksmith". The ancestor that the surname comes from was likely either a blacksmith, or some other type of crafter whose profession can be described as "smithing". https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/smith https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/smith Likewise, the surname "Wright" comes from a word with a similar meaning, as in "playwright", "wheelwright" or "cartwright".
    - frumper 4y ago
      It's more fair to say those names meant something at some point. Now they just mean you are descended from someone with that surname.
      - JohnFen 4y ago
        They haven't lost those meanings at all. They may not have any special significance for you, but the meanings of the names remain nonetheless. When I meet a "Johnson", my mind immediately goes to "John's son" even though "John" is probably a distant ancestor of the person, not their father. The name's meaning has not changed.
        anonymouskimmer 4y ago
        "Johnson", and similar names in other languages, can also indicate connection with the early Christian church, not a literal connection with a person named John. "Johnson" in this sense means someone who is a 'son' of John the Baptist (aka, a Christian). Or so I've read.
- agilob 4y ago
  My surname doesn't have any modern meaning, it's a middle age Slavic surname. It's pretty unique and only a few 100s people in the world have it. It's so wild to me that it got flagged by some kind of a list.
- ryandrake 4y ago
  OP and the article OP's situations are relatively easy in that the company actually told them what triggered the ban, and that presumably an explanation is all that's needed. I don't understand making a big deal about it. Tell them you don't know what your surname means and that "ALEP" is just an acronym that means "A Less Evil Product" and be on your way. Why does everything have to be a fight? Sure, when the company says "We're banning you and not telling you why. Hahahaha!" it's infuriating, and probably worth even more than an angry Twitter rant. But "Can you explain what this specific thing means?" is not worth the rant IMO. Just explain and go on living your life.
  - thatguy0900 4y ago
    I think this is giving the companies involved a lot of credit. I'm assuming if it took multiple days to resolve it then they didn't find "it's a name, it has no meaning" as an acceptable answer. The companies have no real incentive to be reasonable.
pjc50 4y ago
One for "falsehoods programmers believe about names".
- notyourwork 4y ago
  s/programmers/product It is unlikely an engineer decided to introduce a block list of names and this likely came from a product manager driven by compliance and risk mitigation. Problems are rarely the cause of the implementer and usually that is the side effect of layers of poor decision making in corporations. Poor because of the aggregation, not poor because of any one specific decision maker in the chain.
sidewndr46 4y ago
Just curious, why would you spend days resolving this? What was the amount of money here? But yes anyone who has worked with the list of sanctioned persons circulated by the US government understands what a joke this is. Last time I looked Saddam Hussein was still on it, despite being dead for most of my life at this point. I've also been informed by at least one C-level exec that it was vitally important that we prohibit North Korean internet users from using our website.
- agilob 4y ago
  >Just curious, why would you spend days resolving this? Monzo couldn't reverse the transfer as the money wasn't in their hands. Wise Transfer customer support is just garbage. I spent 5 hours on a phone until > their side < ended my call during UK working hours. I called again and again, they never answered. I sent them emails, but each email I was getting was from another person who, like I said in another comment, didn't read previous email from Wise, so each time I had to explain the context and the whole situation. When I sent my response in a morning, they responded the next day afternoon. > What was the amount of money here? About £170 for the conference ticket. >But yes anyone who has worked with the list of sanctioned persons circulated by the US government understands what a joke this is. I already paid for hotel and plane tickets without issues. Best to my knowledge I'm not involved in any terrorist organisation, unless you account working for EU banking infrastructure company as such.
  - sidewndr46 4y ago
    OK, so it was more than the price of a ticket involved. I was thinking you went through all this over 170 quid
    - Teever 4y ago
      You're telling me that if I wanted to make an easy 170 quid all I need to do is scam you. You're not going to fight back. You don't stand up to a bully just for their initial transgression. You stand up to a bully because if you don't they'll come at you again, even harder, and the world will see that you're soft, that you're a mark. Gimme your lunch money, kid.
yieldcrv 4y ago
> I made an international transfer to pay for I’ve been using crypto and stablecoins for this for nearly 7 years now. Basically it skips international transfer scrutiny and for both the sender and the recipient we are using local banking on each side. The exposure time is like 5 minutes, which mitigates every theoretical issue with the confidence of a stablecoin, or even the volatility of any particular crypto. So what would have been an international transfer is converted to a scrutiny-free domestic transfer, which goes way faster too.
- firstSpeaker 4y ago
  And as usual a crypto plug into any thread.
  - yieldcrv 4y ago
    I forgot to mention that also of the above applies at unlimited amounts Instead of arbitrarily low amounts It solves the friction for the person I replied to, and anyone that wants to avoid that particular kind of friction
  - flotzam 4y ago
    mention a valid use case = "plugging crypto" never mention any = "there are no valid use cases for crypto" And this is a fairly common one. For example it's how GrapheneOS pays their developers, because TradFi (especially cross-border) is too capricious.
    - JohnFen 4y ago
      That's the one use case that I think almost everyone agrees is valid, so it may be that people react that way because it isn't really educating anyone. It just feels more like evangelism. Just speculating. I'll never downvote or argue against anyone pointing out that use case, personally.
  - nibbleshifter 4y ago
    To be fair here, they are handy if the bank wakes up one day and decides you are a wrong 'un for no good reason. Or if you are transacting with someone with a funny sounding name, or who lives in a developing country (especially in MENA). You can conduct your business without worrying about intermediary risk. Hell, I've had bizarre issues in the past trying to make transfers between some large American banks and a number of European banks, the transactions just get "stuck" for a couple weeks, then get refunded, because somewhere in the middle something goes tits up.
anigbrowl 4y ago
they wanted to know what my surname means In a case like that, threaten to contact a lawyer because they are engaging in discrimination against you on the basis of (I assume) national origin. Unless your name is something like 'John International-Jewel-Theft,' they have no case.

by agilob 4y ago

hgsgm 4y ago

And? Did you tell them? Your surname may be the same word as something else that gives cause for concern.

aidog 4y ago
Too bad if you don't know what your surname means.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Or your surname is something like Al Qaeda (which is just "the base") or is "Ira" or any other combination of letters that could trigger very dumb 'watchlist' code.
  - uncletaco 4y ago
    I've lost jobs over getting flagged in automatic resume systems due to my last name seeming "fake".
    - bombcar 4y ago
      Reminds me of https://www.wired.com/2015/11/null/ https://www.wired.com/2015/11/null/
      - bentcorner 4y ago
        Similarly, Fnu: https://uxdesign.cc/what-the-fnu-fa72cf4ad5bd https://uxdesign.cc/what-the-fnu-fa72cf4ad5bd
foobarbecue 4y ago
Correct answer: "My surname, Smith, is a string of characters that identifies people in my family. It designates a person or set of people."
- HeavyFeather 4y ago
  A set of people you say? Sorry, our policy does not allow x-smiths to use this service.
  - tmtvl 4y ago
    My surname designates a bag of people.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- koolba 4y ago
  When you replace “Smith” with “ISIS” or “Bin Laden” that’s likely not enough of an explanation for them to lift the freeze.
  - DebtDeflation 4y ago
    Why is this included in the logic in the first place? Are terrorists sending payments via PayPal and including "ISIS membership fee, annual renewal" in the comments? It would seem to me that a keyword search like this is not an effective way to stop the flow of funds to sanctioned organizations. It's like scanning cancelled checks for the word "bribe" on the memo line.
    - orthecreedence 4y ago
      "Yes, hello, I'd like to renew my subscription to Terrorist Weekly. Oh, you take Venmo? Great!"
    - jimnotgym 4y ago
      On the other hand, if they did it would be very embarrassing for PayPal.
DangitBobby 4y ago
Surnames often don't mean anything. If mine means anything I don't know it. It's just a name.
- Karellen 4y ago
  > Surnames often don't mean anything. That depends on where you're from. Often in the English-speaking world, they do. To take the another commenter's example, "Smith" comes from a word meaning, roughly, "craftsperson", as in "blacksmith". The ancestor that the surname comes from was likely either a blacksmith, or some other type of crafter whose profession can be described as "smithing". https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/smith https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/smith Likewise, the surname "Wright" comes from a word with a similar meaning, as in "playwright", "wheelwright" or "cartwright".
  - frumper 4y ago
    It's more fair to say those names meant something at some point. Now they just mean you are descended from someone with that surname.
    - JohnFen 4y ago
      They haven't lost those meanings at all. They may not have any special significance for you, but the meanings of the names remain nonetheless. When I meet a "Johnson", my mind immediately goes to "John's son" even though "John" is probably a distant ancestor of the person, not their father. The name's meaning has not changed.
      - anonymouskimmer 4y ago
        "Johnson", and similar names in other languages, can also indicate connection with the early Christian church, not a literal connection with a person named John. "Johnson" in this sense means someone who is a 'son' of John the Baptist (aka, a Christian). Or so I've read.
agilob 4y ago
My surname doesn't have any modern meaning, it's a middle age Slavic surname. It's pretty unique and only a few 100s people in the world have it. It's so wild to me that it got flagged by some kind of a list.
ryandrake 4y ago
OP and the article OP's situations are relatively easy in that the company actually told them what triggered the ban, and that presumably an explanation is all that's needed. I don't understand making a big deal about it. Tell them you don't know what your surname means and that "ALEP" is just an acronym that means "A Less Evil Product" and be on your way. Why does everything have to be a fight? Sure, when the company says "We're banning you and not telling you why. Hahahaha!" it's infuriating, and probably worth even more than an angry Twitter rant. But "Can you explain what this specific thing means?" is not worth the rant IMO. Just explain and go on living your life.
- thatguy0900 4y ago
  I think this is giving the companies involved a lot of credit. I'm assuming if it took multiple days to resolve it then they didn't find "it's a name, it has no meaning" as an acceptable answer. The companies have no real incentive to be reasonable.

pjc50 4y ago

One for "falsehoods programmers believe about names".

notyourwork 4y ago
s/programmers/product It is unlikely an engineer decided to introduce a block list of names and this likely came from a product manager driven by compliance and risk mitigation. Problems are rarely the cause of the implementer and usually that is the side effect of layers of poor decision making in corporations. Poor because of the aggregation, not poor because of any one specific decision maker in the chain.

sidewndr46 4y ago

Just curious, why would you spend days resolving this? What was the amount of money here? But yes anyone who has worked with the list of sanctioned persons circulated by the US government understands what a joke this is. Last time I looked Saddam Hussein was still on it, despite being dead for most of my life at this point. I've also been informed by at least one C-level exec that it was vitally important that we prohibit North Korean internet users from using our website.

agilob 4y ago
>Just curious, why would you spend days resolving this? Monzo couldn't reverse the transfer as the money wasn't in their hands. Wise Transfer customer support is just garbage. I spent 5 hours on a phone until > their side < ended my call during UK working hours. I called again and again, they never answered. I sent them emails, but each email I was getting was from another person who, like I said in another comment, didn't read previous email from Wise, so each time I had to explain the context and the whole situation. When I sent my response in a morning, they responded the next day afternoon. > What was the amount of money here? About £170 for the conference ticket. >But yes anyone who has worked with the list of sanctioned persons circulated by the US government understands what a joke this is. I already paid for hotel and plane tickets without issues. Best to my knowledge I'm not involved in any terrorist organisation, unless you account working for EU banking infrastructure company as such.
- sidewndr46 4y ago
  OK, so it was more than the price of a ticket involved. I was thinking you went through all this over 170 quid
  - Teever 4y ago
    You're telling me that if I wanted to make an easy 170 quid all I need to do is scam you. You're not going to fight back. You don't stand up to a bully just for their initial transgression. You stand up to a bully because if you don't they'll come at you again, even harder, and the world will see that you're soft, that you're a mark. Gimme your lunch money, kid.

yieldcrv 4y ago

> I made an international transfer to pay for I’ve been using crypto and stablecoins for this for nearly 7 years now. Basically it skips international transfer scrutiny and for both the sender and the recipient we are using local banking on each side. The exposure time is like 5 minutes, which mitigates every theoretical issue with the confidence of a stablecoin, or even the volatility of any particular crypto. So what would have been an international transfer is converted to a scrutiny-free domestic transfer, which goes way faster too.

firstSpeaker 4y ago
And as usual a crypto plug into any thread.
- yieldcrv 4y ago
  I forgot to mention that also of the above applies at unlimited amounts Instead of arbitrarily low amounts It solves the friction for the person I replied to, and anyone that wants to avoid that particular kind of friction
- flotzam 4y ago
  mention a valid use case = "plugging crypto" never mention any = "there are no valid use cases for crypto" And this is a fairly common one. For example it's how GrapheneOS pays their developers, because TradFi (especially cross-border) is too capricious.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    That's the one use case that I think almost everyone agrees is valid, so it may be that people react that way because it isn't really educating anyone. It just feels more like evangelism. Just speculating. I'll never downvote or argue against anyone pointing out that use case, personally.
- nibbleshifter 4y ago
  To be fair here, they are handy if the bank wakes up one day and decides you are a wrong 'un for no good reason. Or if you are transacting with someone with a funny sounding name, or who lives in a developing country (especially in MENA). You can conduct your business without worrying about intermediary risk. Hell, I've had bizarre issues in the past trying to make transfers between some large American banks and a number of European banks, the transactions just get "stuck" for a couple weeks, then get refunded, because somewhere in the middle something goes tits up.

anigbrowl 4y ago

they wanted to know what my surname means In a case like that, threaten to contact a lawyer because they are engaging in discrimination against you on the basis of (I assume) national origin. Unless your name is something like 'John International-Jewel-Theft,' they have no case.