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Wise has recently made a big batch of account verifications which overwhelmed their verifications staff and support both and left a company we do in Austria una

by _ugfj 3y ago

Wise has recently made a big batch of account verifications which overwhelmed their verifications staff and support both and left a company we do in Austria unable to do payroll. That was fun. Of course we moved that company elsewhere (in this case xe) and my brother moved his personal to Starling in the UK. Then they changed the US accounts with three weeks notice and I am like, you can't do this on such a short notice, WTF, I have outstanding invoices now need to be wired elsewhere, this is a gigantic mess. I completely expect at least one partner to screw this up in November, can't wait. Perhaps I should've moved this company to xe as well but I am exhausted. Why can't we have nice things. (And please, do not recommend Revolut, look up their 2021 audit and the lack of 2022 accounts, so far. Not touching that. If and when they can convince the brits they are gucci I will take a look, not until.)

ritzaco 3y ago
3 weeks sounds great. I got 3 days for the same. Also spent most of this month scrambling to set up alternatives to make payroll. See [0]. They ore still holding $40k hostage and returned or blocked an entire months revenue. Definitely enough to kill many agencies and would have killed us in our earlier stages. I have now tried Revolut, Airwallex, Payoneer, Bunq, OFX, and a few other alternatives. I am planning on doing a massive writeup comparing then all sometime soon. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37925678 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37925678
- chx 3y ago
  Yeah it took them 16 days to unblock the Austrian company. As I said, that was fun. We had insane luck because my brother and I are operating an entire international network of small companies (mostly because you can't employ people otherwise and staffing agencies are too expensive) so we could pull money from another company to Austria temporarily but gosh.
  - jddj 3y ago
    Yikes. I've had nothing but good experiences, but this has been enough for me to reconsider our exposure.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- xtiansimon 3y ago
  Didn’t know there was a financial company named after the financial data exchange standard OFX. Weird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Financial_Exchange https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Financial_Exchange
onetimeuse92304 3y ago
"Move fast and break things". Kids... This is what happens when the company management does not care about clients. Nobody thought it is a problem. They just saw the immediate benefit for themselves in making the change quick and uncomplicated. Of course it will cost them more in lost trust but that is a lesson that takes time and self reflection to learn (people like that tend to ignore what other people including their clients say).
azalemeth 3y ago
My experience of wise as a personal customer was that my face completely and utterly failed the ai "selfie" verification. I had a series of emails with their support staff in which they: asked me to email a pdf of my passport and a photograph of me; demanded I used the link again; asked me to open dev tools to get debugging info about why I couldn't complete the verification (it produces a message saying "do not open Dev Tools for security reasons"...); told me that I needed to complete a selfie link from a different device; and then told me verification was complete (I never completed it). At points their support staff directly contradicted themselves and I never "spoke" to the same human twice. Revolut meanwhile updated one day and then instantly blocked my account for having a rooted Android device. I closed my account (on the phone to their support number), withdrew all my money, and left. At least wise has reasonably cheap exchange rates.
- vintagedave 3y ago
  Yes! This is happening to me _right now_! I’ve been a Wise customer for a decade. I went to make a transfer I’ve made before and was told I need to provide extra documents. These could only be provided using my mobile phone (I was on a laptop.) Their website requires you send a photo of your passport and a selfie, but it needs to be taken by their page. Naturally I got an error message, and contacted Support. I sent their support both a copy of my passport and a selfie I took a minute before, and asked why my account was flagged for authentication - had something happened? (I’d wondered if there had been unusual login attempts, for example.) You can imagine what happened next - a round of support requests where they didn’t answer why I’d suddenly needed to provide documentation, where they repeated using their site or app for the photos, where they roundly ignored that it didn’t work, where some replies seem just copy-pasted and inapplicable. The latest email I got did finally semi-answer the question: due to “regulations”, a non-answer. I live in Estonia, where they’re based, and have twice offered to visit their office with my ID so they can authenticate me. I didn’t expect them to say yes but it makes the failure of their online system clear. The payment I needed to make was to pay a bill in my home country. This took so long the bill was overdue. The company I owed luckily offered me a Web-1.0, antiquated credit card payment service that I didn’t know they had. No idea how insecure it is, but I got the bill paid. That’s more than Wise has achieved! My takeaway: Wise is absolutely unreliable. Your account can be prevented from making payments at any time for unknown reasons. Their support is unhelpful. It can drag on for weeks. If you have any time-sensitive payment (and most are, right?), you have no guarantees. I can no longer rely on Wise. It’s a shame for what used to be a wonderful startup and service.
refurb 3y ago
Wise is have massive issues with fraud and money laundering. Do a search on Facebook for Wise and you’ll see multiple groups where people sell their verified accounts and people looking to buy them. They played fast and loose with the rules at the start and are playing catch up. Likely to avoid be shutdown in a number of countries.
ThePowerOfFuet 3y ago
Bunq.
- chx 3y ago
  In Wise I can have a personal and business account with a single login, how does this work with Bunq? What documentation are they asking for business accounts?
swores 3y ago
Hey chx, in case you either have email notifications for replies to your comments or check the threads page to see them - FYI I just quoted the Revolut part of your comment to a Revolut person in a new Wise thread, and wondered if you had anything further to add to save those of us who haven't spent the time to learn about Revolut's financial situation? No worries if not :) You can find my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38075819 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38075819

by _ugfj 3y ago

ritzaco 3y ago

3 weeks sounds great. I got 3 days for the same. Also spent most of this month scrambling to set up alternatives to make payroll. See [0]. They ore still holding $40k hostage and returned or blocked an entire months revenue. Definitely enough to kill many agencies and would have killed us in our earlier stages. I have now tried Revolut, Airwallex, Payoneer, Bunq, OFX, and a few other alternatives. I am planning on doing a massive writeup comparing then all sometime soon. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37925678 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37925678

chx 3y ago
Yeah it took them 16 days to unblock the Austrian company. As I said, that was fun. We had insane luck because my brother and I are operating an entire international network of small companies (mostly because you can't employ people otherwise and staffing agencies are too expensive) so we could pull money from another company to Austria temporarily but gosh.
- jddj 3y ago
  Yikes. I've had nothing but good experiences, but this has been enough for me to reconsider our exposure.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
xtiansimon 3y ago
Didn’t know there was a financial company named after the financial data exchange standard OFX. Weird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Financial_Exchange https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Financial_Exchange

onetimeuse92304 3y ago

"Move fast and break things". Kids... This is what happens when the company management does not care about clients. Nobody thought it is a problem. They just saw the immediate benefit for themselves in making the change quick and uncomplicated. Of course it will cost them more in lost trust but that is a lesson that takes time and self reflection to learn (people like that tend to ignore what other people including their clients say).

azalemeth 3y ago

My experience of wise as a personal customer was that my face completely and utterly failed the ai "selfie" verification. I had a series of emails with their support staff in which they: asked me to email a pdf of my passport and a photograph of me; demanded I used the link again; asked me to open dev tools to get debugging info about why I couldn't complete the verification (it produces a message saying "do not open Dev Tools for security reasons"...); told me that I needed to complete a selfie link from a different device; and then told me verification was complete (I never completed it). At points their support staff directly contradicted themselves and I never "spoke" to the same human twice. Revolut meanwhile updated one day and then instantly blocked my account for having a rooted Android device. I closed my account (on the phone to their support number), withdrew all my money, and left. At least wise has reasonably cheap exchange rates.

vintagedave 3y ago
Yes! This is happening to me _right now_! I’ve been a Wise customer for a decade. I went to make a transfer I’ve made before and was told I need to provide extra documents. These could only be provided using my mobile phone (I was on a laptop.) Their website requires you send a photo of your passport and a selfie, but it needs to be taken by their page. Naturally I got an error message, and contacted Support. I sent their support both a copy of my passport and a selfie I took a minute before, and asked why my account was flagged for authentication - had something happened? (I’d wondered if there had been unusual login attempts, for example.) You can imagine what happened next - a round of support requests where they didn’t answer why I’d suddenly needed to provide documentation, where they repeated using their site or app for the photos, where they roundly ignored that it didn’t work, where some replies seem just copy-pasted and inapplicable. The latest email I got did finally semi-answer the question: due to “regulations”, a non-answer. I live in Estonia, where they’re based, and have twice offered to visit their office with my ID so they can authenticate me. I didn’t expect them to say yes but it makes the failure of their online system clear. The payment I needed to make was to pay a bill in my home country. This took so long the bill was overdue. The company I owed luckily offered me a Web-1.0, antiquated credit card payment service that I didn’t know they had. No idea how insecure it is, but I got the bill paid. That’s more than Wise has achieved! My takeaway: Wise is absolutely unreliable. Your account can be prevented from making payments at any time for unknown reasons. Their support is unhelpful. It can drag on for weeks. If you have any time-sensitive payment (and most are, right?), you have no guarantees. I can no longer rely on Wise. It’s a shame for what used to be a wonderful startup and service.

refurb 3y ago

Wise is have massive issues with fraud and money laundering. Do a search on Facebook for Wise and you’ll see multiple groups where people sell their verified accounts and people looking to buy them. They played fast and loose with the rules at the start and are playing catch up. Likely to avoid be shutdown in a number of countries.

ThePowerOfFuet 3y ago

Bunq.

chx 3y ago
In Wise I can have a personal and business account with a single login, how does this work with Bunq? What documentation are they asking for business accounts?

swores 3y ago

Hey chx, in case you either have email notifications for replies to your comments or check the threads page to see them - FYI I just quoted the Revolut part of your comment to a Revolut person in a new Wise thread, and wondered if you had anything further to add to save those of us who haven't spent the time to learn about Revolut's financial situation? No worries if not :) You can find my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38075819 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38075819