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Wise refuses to let us access our $60k AUD

184 points by parisidau 1y ago

justinde 1y ago
This is a familiar situation. I run a SaaS platform where I sell plugins for WordPress. Recently, my PayPal account was suspended, and a balance of €80,000 was frozen. The stated reason is a violation of the Terms of Service. However, no specific explanation has been provided — neither what rule I allegedly violated, nor how I violated it. I’ve searched through the lengthy documentation, but without clear guidance, this is an impossible task. My support tickets are no longer being answered, and your phone support refers me back to written communication — which, again, receives no response. This lack of transparency and accountability is extremely concerning. Due to repeated experiences like this, I now use fintech platforms only as proxy banks. All funds are immediately transferred to a traditional bank account, and only daily operational expenses remain within the fintech environment.
- ImHereToVote 1y ago
  You violated the doctrine of low agency. You are too agentic.
  - IAmBroom 1y ago
    Aren't they too under-agentic? (Also, TIL the word "agentic" is real.)
- lmm 1y ago
  Good news, actual banks in many countries also do the same thing.
  - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
    It's easier to get justice from a local bank in your country, or to at least talk to a real person face to face than from PayPal Luxemburg or wherever they're located.
    - user32489318 1y ago
      I doubt. It seems that payment providers have god-like rights from the government and don’t feel stressed by a few lawsuits here and there. I had a business account at a larger/largest Dutch bank, and have got the middle finger treatment all the way. From impossible to resolve typo in my company name (made by the bank), entirely wrong UBOs name on the payment card to the eventual account freeze for 4years while KYC was looking into this. Fun times
      - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
        Yeah, the anti money laundering laws can give financial institutions god like powers and appeals can take a long time.
    - alterom 1y ago
      >It's easier to get justice from a local bank in your country, or to at least talk to a real person face to face than from PayPal Luxemburg or wherever they're located. Is it, really? It would not matter to the local court where PayPal's HQ is. PayPal needs to be licensed in your country to handle money transfers. They can lose the right to operate in your state if they aren't compliant with the laws. In the US, the licenses are required even on the state level: e.g., here are the requirements for California Money Transmitter License: https://www.jwsuretybonds.com/states/california/money-transmitter-license https://www.jwsuretybonds.com/states/california/money-transm... Fraud and theft are one fun way to lose such a license.
      - trinix912 1y ago
        I doubt they have a license to operate in all countries where the service is accessible/used. And yes, it is way easier to get justice from a local bank, a letter from a lawyer is usually enough if it ever gets to this point in first place, whereas for PayPal&co good luck with ever getting a response. Filing a lawsuit against a foreign company and getting anything out of it is even more of a gamble.
        1y ago
- decide1000 1y ago
  Quite some years ago I sold a Wordpress plugin at a marketplace called Binpress. They paid to my business Paypal account. It had a $3500 balance and I didn't log in to Paypal for a while. After 2 years I tried to recover my account. It was blocked and there was no way for me to get access. I tried every possible way.
  - alterom 1y ago
    That sounds like a small claims court case, if not suing PayPal for outright theft. I'm not a lawyer, but theft under pretenses of "protecting your account" (from being accessed by you, that is) is still theft.
- Anumbia 1y ago
  Hope you're considering a lawsuit? €80k is no joke.
  - comboy 1y ago
    Paypal lawyers went over this situation thousands of times. If they would have any trouble with it, Paypal's behavior would already be different. AML/KYC and other bank regulations are so ridiculous and vague that it seems perfectly normal according to them to withhold somebody's money for a long time without even providing any explanation.
    - tgsovlerkhgsel 1y ago
      The most likely reason they don't have trouble with it is that the only consequence if they do get sued is that they have to actually have someone look at the case and release the money. All it costs them is a few minutes of their lawyer's time. In cases where the victim just gives up, which seems incredibly common, they get to steal the money and they avoid the cost of having to review most cases, so it's obviously still a winning strategy.
- k4rli 1y ago
  Keeping funds in Paypal seems nuts. I've also had experience with them just closing the account ~12yrs ago but fortunately only had 10EUR on it. These days I'd only use Paypal if they didn't offer any better options and then only as a proxy to debit/credit card (which has purchase protection so no need to deal with Paypal itself ever).
- scripturial 1y ago
  I am genuinely surprised to find out that some people leave large sums of money in these types of non-bank services. Why don’t people move the money out? Is it too much trust of the competence of these organisations?
  - TiredOfLife 1y ago
    Once the money moves to your bank it becomes official. You need to pay taxes etc.
  - Arnt 1y ago
    Perhaps because they try to look like banks to their customers. Paypal even has a banking license where I live. A paypal transfer may or may not be a bank transfer, I don't know, but it has a banking license so I can understand it if people assume that they can trust it like a bank.
    - IAmBroom 1y ago
      So, financial ignorance. They're being "soft-defrauded" by the marketing of "looking like a bank". I'm not saying victims are dumb; they're ignorant, and the solution is self-education. Hopefully before you start leaving 5+ digits in their care...
      - Arnt 1y ago
        I beg to differ. Banks have particular protection in the modern financial system. When states grant that, they should IMO protect banks against impersonation.
    - recursivecaveat 1y ago
      Reminds me of the crazy situation with that fintech "bank" that went under. They were basically a ledger over a real bank. The real bank was FDIC insured, but the protection for the underlying doesn't necessarily mean anything for your 'virtual' account in the ledger. FDIC would only help you if there was some insolvency in the under-layer. Bunch of customers were screwed by the bankruptcy of the upper layer. Maybe there is some hope for at least the FDIC cracking down on this deceptive fintech trick in the future. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2025/04/30/fintechs-fdic-lose-money/83326984007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2025/04...
- thrashwerk 1y ago
  Welcome to paypal. I had to create a paypal account because an online shop used it as the only method for payment, first time I could pay without registering but the second time they forced the use of an account so I registered. I still used my card to pay, I didn't add any funds to the paypal account or did any other transactions or anything else really but after some time they froze my account for violating ToS. No actual reason, nothing. And it's next to impossible to find any support contacts, just redirects to useless FAQs everwhere. Oh how I dream of paypal going bankrupt. The world would be a better place.
- chexum 1y ago
  In the UK, similar situations are common when “someone” flags any transaction to or from you as suspicious, at which point they need to freeze it, report it to an appropriate branch of an organisation, and… wait. That organisation most of the times doesn’t respond, so the hold expires in about two weeks, and then everything resumes working. The thing is, noone can be told of this freeze/hold, that would be mean tipping off the party that made the suspicious transaction - from what I gather, it’s actually illegal to reveal it’s frozen, so they invent all kinds of meaningless/dumb reasons why the transaction (or the account) can’t be used right now. So, lack of transparency and accountability IS the purpose of the system in that case.
  - robocat 1y ago
    > noone can be told Great article on how the US does that: https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/debanking-and-debunking/ https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/debanking-and-debunki... No, the bank cannot explain why SARs triggered a debanking, because disclosing the existence of a SAR is illegal. Yes, it is the law in the United States that a private non-court, in possession of a memo written by a non-intelligence analyst, cannot describe the nature of the non-accusation the memo makes. Nor can it confirm or deny the existence of the memo. It’s not just illegal to disclose a SAR to the customer. It is extremely discouraged, by Compliance, to allow there to be an information flow within the bank itself that would allow most employees who interact directly with customers, like call center reps or their branch banker, to learn the existence of SAR. This is out of the concern that they would provide a customer with a responsive answer to the question “Why are you closing my account?!” And so this is one case where in [Seeing like a Bank] the institution intentionally blinds itself. Very soon after making the decision to close your account the bank does not know specifically why it chose to close your account.
    - xtracto 1y ago
      Having worked in Fintech for several years, THIS is the main reason why I moved the majority of my liquid assets to cryptocurrencies. For all the things people want the. To do, the most important one to me is the "not your keys, not your coin". I don't trust banks as neither. One time a bank i use to get paid decided to "block" my accounts for 'suspicious avtivity" (i made a transfer to an account number they deemed high-risk). I ended up having to go to a specific physical branch, and literally BEG the clerk to activate the account where they had MY FREAKING MONEY. I've learned since that, once you give it (lend it actually) to banks, it is not your money.
yieldcrv 1y ago
[flagged]
- EdwardDiego 1y ago
  What?
  - yieldcrv 1y ago
    the permissionless aspect of using crypto allows consumers and businesses to transact without worrying about a payment processor shutting them down. some crypto is permissioned though many people say crypto is a solution looking for a problem, as they are comfortable with an alternative to every crypto use case someone might have. such as instant and fast cross border payments. and then the problem surfaces.
otterley 1y ago
In banking and money services, some things cannot be handled via the usual support channels. In these cases, it’s often more effective to have your lawyer contact their legal department.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 1y ago
  Flaming them publicly before doing that is a) cathartic, b) cheaper than the lawyer and might get them to address the issue, c) the right thing to do because it creates an incentive for companies to act right without the customer needing to hire a lawyer. Of course, if they don't react to that, then is the time to contact a lawyer.
  - poisonborz 1y ago
    Except you can't do that if your case is not big/interesting, like "they locked my account with $500"
    - tgsovlerkhgsel 1y ago
      Assuming you're talking about taking a lawyer: I'm sure you're right in some countries. In countries with a working small claims system, you should be able to do that without a lawyer in simple enough cases. In some other countries, you might be out more than $500 temporarily but in the end the company pays the lawyer and all other costs. Often, once it reaches the escalation point where their legal department and not their customer-service-denial department is handling the case, they'll cut a check. If you are talking about shaming: Your shaming might not have the same reach, but you can still leave negative reviews and tell your friends. I have a policy that if a company pisses me off or wastes my time, I will spend at least the equivalent amount of time leaving negative reviews or telling people about my experience, for reasons a) and c).
  - otterley 1y ago
    Sometimes it works, sometimes it backfires. Some companies will refuse to do business with you if you stir the pot. You might get your money back, but you'll have severed the relationship, and that can be a worse outcome for the long-term health of your business.
PaywallBuster 1y ago
You can find situation like this in twitter a lot It's a shame that it's too good to be true, until you get blocked and then it takes weeks/months to get the account back Certainty can't trust one single institution to hold all your funds
Michelangelo11 1y ago
In addition to the ridiculousness of the whole situation, it is unbelievably ridiculous that their customer service is the same incoherent, pro-forma slop that's now the norm for retail customer service everywhere. If you're offering financial services for business, you really need customer service that lives up to the name and, when a problem occurs, tells the customer the specific steps to take to fix it.
- rrr_oh_man 1y ago
  > If you're offering financial services for business, you really need customer service that lives up to the name and, when a problem occurs, tells the customer the specific steps to take to fix it. Maybe they did the math (cost of offering this vs. possible gains) and it didn't check out. Maybe it's a gap for a newcomer. But maybe people just don't buy financial transactions based on the quality of service in a 0.1% case.
vr46 1y ago
I’ve had all kinds of little annoying issues with Wise that cause me to be trapped in circles, but nothing this serious. Support is truly the thing that separates the wheat from the chaff. Everything is hunky-dory when it works, and the moment there’s a problem, you’re suddenly stuck in the Barbican at 3am with no signs, no lights and nobody to talk to.
- Michelangelo11 1y ago
  > Support is truly the thing that separates the wheat from the chaff. Yes, absolutely. True in any industry, and especially in ones like this.
- vsl 1y ago
  ...and Wise support became utterly terrible a few years back. I mean "failing basic reading comprehension" terrible, the level of incompetence shown in this article is par for the course.
jjani 1y ago
Don't worry too much, luckily you've reached #1 on HN so they'll fix it for you within a day.
- joseppu 1y ago
  Agreed. Is there a term or phrase for getting things fixed by going viral while the problem persists for others.
  - elashri 1y ago
    Maybe "Schrödinger Fix". Not that it is used by anyone.
    - IAmBroom 1y ago
      So, no.
- csomar 1y ago
  That was a thing 3-4 years ago. Now we have evolved and there is a very good chance that OP issue won't be solved because even the CEO doesn't have the kind of necessary access to move this through.
  - jjani 1y ago
    I think in this case Wise is A. Not quite big enough and B. Has too much overlap with HN users (especially for business/paid users, where the money may be at) to just ignore this. The CEO at the very least has the necessary access to start the process of this company getting their money back.
- jjani 1y ago
  Here we go: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43981981 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43981981
m101 1y ago
This is also a common experience in retail banking (not only wise) in the UK. I put the blame on excessive regulation. Businesses are scared of crossing the regulator for fear of revocation of licence or high fines. Also the regulations themselves impose lengthy delay requirements on doing business. What I've also found is the large incumbents largely skirt the regulations (HSBC for instance let's payments through whilst revolut spent weeks investigating them). Revolut spends the money, which they don't have, whilst HSBC knows they can pay any fine required. Regulation working precisely as designed.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 1y ago
  Asking for KYC is normal. Here, OP is reporting that they're being alternatingly told that: - they need to provide KYC documents, except the documents they're being asked for are the same they already provided - everything is fine and no documents are required That's not "excessive regulation", that's incompetence and insufficient regulation.
  - m101 1y ago
    I had one experience whereby I had to receive some payments from some foreign entity for both HSBC and revolut. I got stuck into weeks of wrangling with with revolut (similar to that of OP), and having been through that next time I used HSBC, who immediately allowed the payment. Some businesses simply follow the regulation more closely then others. It's just a fact. Businesses are always making the trade off calculation as to fines Vs costs. For revolut a fine could be existential, for HSBC it is not. Therefore they behave differently. Fines are a cost of business and incumbent firms have helped design regulations with regulators in part to defend their market position. Of course, there is always what they say the regulations are for (e.g. money laundering prevention etc), but there is often a further motivation. This concept is not new and you can see it all around us in the multitude of state capture that exists in many places.
- lang_agnostic 1y ago
  How does removing excessive regulation help this scenario? In what you describe the difference would be that HSBC doesn't get fined and neither HSBC or Revolut does any check. How does that help?
aktuel 1y ago
What's the alternative?
- Anumbia 1y ago
  OPay. Wish they're everywhere. All you need is your phone number as your bank account, with none of the thievery transfer fees, deposit fees, etc.
- hirako2000 1y ago
  There is no alternative, all financial businesses will freeze accounts under any suspicions. Way to have a degree of mind peace is to have a handful of accounts with funds split across them. If an account gets frozen then it's business as usual pretty much. Takes months for investigations to complete at times.
- cherryteastain 1y ago
  The only alternarive where your funds can't be frozen arbitrarily by your counterparty is cryptocurrency.
- shahzaibmushtaq 1y ago
  Never use a single fintech platform for everything, diversify and don't sleep for long with your hard-earned money in their hands.
- csomar 1y ago
  3-4 accounts, some cash and a crypto wallet.
- lmm 1y ago
  Moving to a country where banks have at least some legal service obligation, such as the UK, although even then those regulations often don't cover businesses.
- xtracto 1y ago
  Crypto. Yah, HN doesn't like it, but we will get there eventually.
Benjamin_Dobell 1y ago
I haven't been locked out (yet?). However, my account situation with Wise is similar i.e. I'm Australian and have been a customer since they were known as TransferWise. My documentation for UBOs is currently under review right now. Hopefully I don't get locked out as well! EDIT: Oh, I actually know who you are, Paris. I don't really have any industry connections these days, but I remember you from various conferences back when I was doing iOS development, maybe 2011-2015. "Hey, Wise! I can vouch for this guy!" Haha, doubt that's gonna hold up.
rdonovan2005 1y ago
Very happy wise customer, i have had to go through KYC and other verifications from time to time. I happens with nearly all banks as services
matt3210 1y ago
The customer service is obviously an AI agent
- scripturial 1y ago
  Whether it is a person or an AI bot, if the end result is indistinguishable from an AI chat bot, then it is effectively for all intents and purposes just an AI chat bot.
rdonovan2005 1y ago
very happy Wise customer, most banks face a constantly moving regulation and needs for KYC and have to put customers on hold and verify if for some reason it get flagged. I hope your problem is resolved soon
kome 1y ago
wise seems to be managed rather unprofessionally. An ex-girlfriend of mine used to work there and once joked about some of my transactions. It was all in good humor and nothing sensitive was involved, but it raised a serious concern for me: how can a random employee access anyone’s account, is that SO common? It feels like there's zero privacy
- Anumbia 1y ago
  Will she agree with your assessment of her as a "random employee?"
  - kome 1y ago
    well, she was a new hire in customer service - so kinda yes?
  - genewitch 1y ago
    A couple things. This has a name: LoveInt. Second, i don't have a girlfriend, I just know a girl that would be really mad if she heard me say that. And thirdly, is your implication it's OK for someone to access your financials merely because you're romantically involved?
- Hikikomori 1y ago
  Worked for a large payment provider (online checkout mainly), we logged all purchases including items, personal email and other details. All engineers could access this log, found out by searching for my email.
Meekro 1y ago
Honest tip: When I had a Wise-related problem, I reached out to @patio11 (famous HN user) for help and he connected me with a high-ranking employee at Wise. We had the problem resolved a day later. 10/10, would escalate again.
- hobo_mark 1y ago
  Are you confusing Wise with Stripe, where he used to work?
  - Meekro 1y ago
    No, I'm talking about Wise. I was falsely accused of some stuff, my account was locked, and they were ignoring all communications even as I tried to prove my innocence. @patio11 helped me escalate and we had it resolved really quickly. I'm also a Stripe user, but I never had a problem there.
    - tormeh 1y ago
      Hope he got paid for this service...
      - genewitch 1y ago
        Think of the exposure, also they can put it in their portfolio.
pbmonster 1y ago
Are those fintech companies under any financial regulatory authority? If my bank pulls any kind of stuff like that, dropping the magic "I will have to report this to the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority" gets any and all gears unstuck right quick. Because this is absolutely unacceptable, and my local financial regulator agrees (and levies substantial fines accordingly). Might be an EU thing, though.
- okanat 1y ago
  Some of them like Revolut and N26 are. German federal authority actually forced N26 to limit customer acquisition until they fixed their money laundering issues. Wise is a "payment processor" so it isn't regulated to the same standard.
  - alterom 1y ago
    >Wise is a "payment processor" so it isn't regulated to the same standard. Which standard? In the US, the standard in question is "money transmitter", regulated on the state level. In California, both Revolut and Wise are licensed by DFPI: Wise has MTL (Money Transmitter License) in California, Revolut has a broker license: Revolut: https://dfpi.ca.gov/search-result-detail/?id=304600 https://dfpi.ca.gov/search-result-detail/?id=304600 Wise: https://dfpi.ca.gov/regulated_entity/wise-us-inc/ https://dfpi.ca.gov/regulated_entity/wise-us-inc/ FinCen guidance on the distinction between the to two is not the easiest read, but my takeaway is that both of these companies would be registered FinCen too as MSB's (money service but businesses to https://www.fincen.gov/resources/statutes-regulations/guidance/application-definition-money-transmitter-brokers-and https://www.fincen.gov/resources/statutes-regulations/guidan... And indeed, here's Wise's MSB registration: https://www.revolut.com/en-US/blog/post/changes-for-revolut-us-what-you-need-to-know/ https://www.revolut.com/en-US/blog/post/changes-for-revolut-... Revolut doesn't have on the... because they outsource money handling to an actual bank, FDIC insured and all: https://www.revolut.com/en-US/blog/post/changes-for-revolut-us-what-you-need-to-know/ https://www.revolut.com/en-US/blog/post/changes-for-revolut-... So, doesn't appear like Wise is any less regulated.
- csomar 1y ago
boomskats 1y ago
Ahh, I have fond memories of this. Their random KYC 're-verification' process (the lack of humans/computer says no) was _dystopian_ levels of frustrating. In the end I made a gif[0] and called them out publicly in the hope that they'd do something about it. The service they offer is amazing when it works, but it'll be a long time before I use them for anything my business depends on. [0]: https://x.com/boomskats/status/1407019117555683332 https://x.com/boomskats/status/1407019117555683332
- reconnecting 1y ago
  It's not random KYC. Most likely, this is a fraud prevention system that spotted your account as suspicious.
- alterom 1y ago
  > In the end I made a gif[0] and called them out publicly in the hope that they'd do something about it. Did they end up doing something about it because of that post?
cachedthing0 1y ago
We had the same experience. So today, we are used to close our account ourselves before the 'neo' bank does it. No time to tell details now, have to drive to our bank to hand over a cheque.
tgsovlerkhgsel 1y ago
As a private customer, they asked for more KYC (annoying but normal), then insisted on me providing a proof of address with components that my address (and any other address from my country that I know) does not have. Luckily, this happened while they didn't have any money so I just found an alternative way of getting my transfer done, but I second the title: Avoid Wise! Ironically, despite being a fintech and not known for great customer support, Revolut seems to be among the better options for international transfers, both in terms of fees and in terms of actually letting you make the transfers. (There likely will be a bit of KYC on the first transfer, but unlike with Wise, it actually worked. And from my experience, their customer support actually works and doesn't hallucinate answers!)
reconnecting 1y ago
Is it possible that you used an unusual login pattern? Privacy IP proxy/TOR/VPN? It seems like a false positive from fraud prevention systems, combined with limited resources for manual review on Wise's side.
- reconnecting 1y ago
  I don't want to disclose the fraud prevention system that Wise uses, but I'm familiar with how it works, hence my assumption.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 1y ago
    Do they use intentionally broken processes designed to frustrate people as an alternative to telling people they're blocked? It would explain a lot of things. It's also an absolute dick move and should be illegal (but likely isn't yet).
    - reconnecting 1y ago
      I'm not familiar with Wise's internal rules, but based on fraud prevention practices, it's highly likely that a financial institution would not disclose whether an account is soft-blocked/suspended. If they did, fraudsters could exploit that information to adjust their tactics.
mppm 1y ago
Unfortunately, this is the reality of modern business banking, and Wise is not unique in this. You can find similar reports about most major EMIs and a fair number of banks. Banks have basically become an inefficient and unfair branch of law enforcement, without presumption of innocence and without due process. Every imaginable abuse is justifiable by Compliance nowadays.
- reconnecting 1y ago
  I disagree. Neo-banks like Wise choose to grow irresponsibly. Any traditional local bank will usually speak with you first before opening an account. In contrast, neo-banks open accounts quickly and then rely heavily on automated fraud prevention systems, since manual reviews are costly. As a result, it's easy to get in, but you may later become a victim of limited resources for proper fraud handling and manual checks
  - mppm 1y ago
    > Any traditional local bank will usually speak with you first before opening an account. In contrast, neo-banks open accounts quickly and then rely heavily on automated fraud prevention systems, since manual reviews are costly. Maybe that was still the case in 2015. In 2025, a traditional bank will ask for a ton of documentation, run it through the same (probably outsourced) automated fraud prevention system and tell you that unfortunately an account cannot be opened for you. At least that is a common situation for businesses that are too small to be important to the bank, but carry some compliance risk (international consulting, app developers, digital services, etc.). And then you are back to neo-banks... This has been a trend everywhere, recently, but the severity of the situation differs country by country, so YMMV.
    - reconnecting 1y ago
      Yes, I must clarify that my opinion is based on EU/Swiss regulatory practices. However, this doesn't change the fact that mostly neo-banks exploit regulatory gaps for growth, which ultimately leads to issues like the one described above.
cherryteastain 1y ago
[flagged]
- voltagex_ 1y ago
  Yeah just let me buy my coffee while travelling... waiting for confirmation... sorry still waiting. Shit, I missed my flight (who don't accept cryptocurrency)
  - cherryteastain 1y ago
    Valid point for bitcoin, but should be a non issue on other chains like Solana/Cardano or even to an extent Ethereum
- piva00 1y ago
  While opening a whole other can of worms of issues. A normal established bank also solves this.
  - cherryteastain 1y ago
    There are many instances of traditional banks seizing the funds of legitimate customers citing KYC/AML reasons as well.
    - piva00 1y ago
      There are many instances of people losing their whole crypto wallets, without any recourse to reach an institution or through the legal system. As a business you need the support of the legal system to lessen risk, no sensible business owner is going to depend solely on crypto wallets for making payroll, paying suppliers, or keeping cash flow for expenditures...
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
fto_wise 1y ago
Hey there, I work at Wise and saw this during my break. I'm really really sorry for the bad experience here. I just checked with my team internally and this has been fixed prior to this making front page. If you are still facing an issue, can you reply to my comment - and I'll give you a call back on the number you provided our support team with. Thanks and my apologies again.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- tgsovlerkhgsel 1y ago
  If you have a good escalation path, consider mentioning the other bad experiences people are reporting here, in particular contradictory claims made by customer service regarding the needed KYC information, lack of reading comprehension by customer service, or generally a kafkaesque, frustrating, broken KYC process. See e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43981863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43981863 and the linked GIF showing the customer being sent into an infinite loop, the original report, and my own experience (being asked for nonexistent address components - I'm not looking for a one-off solution as exposing my money to Wise until the company has actually cleaned up its act would be... unWise).
- vb-8448 1y ago
  So you need someone on HN to get hit by your post to get a decent customer support?!?
  - omnimus 1y ago
    Seems like they are saying this has been resolved before it was posted here so before someone had a chance to see it on HN?
    - vb-8448 1y ago
      maybe yes, maybe they are just trying to patch up bad publicity... the point anyway is not this but the fact that customer service should work regardless of whether a mishap ends up on HN
hogliux 1y ago
Long-time happy Wise business customer here (since before the name change). While generally great, their KYC flow needs serious attention. Received four document request emails simultaneously, mostly identical but with different links. In one flow, after uploading invoices, I couldn't upload other requested documents. The multiple, distinct forms asking for the same info were confusing. Got verified eventually, but the process was buggy and didn't inspire confidence. If anyone from Wise is reading this, please fix your KYC!
csomar 1y ago
I once had a fintech account with a company that is EU regulated. It was a long time ago and I used it for a couple transactions that resulted in a 0.27 Eur dust balance. I didn't use it after that and a couple years before Covid they decided they need more KYC to keep the account active and I just ignored them. To this day I still get emails about my remaining balance roughly every quarter. During this time (7 years!), I had multiple exchanges with support guys and one of them escalated. The back office guy explained that in order to access/transfer my balance, I need to do as much KYC as if I was opening a new fresh account. He also made me understand that there is a 2 Euro fee to move my 0.27 Euro balance. So there we have it. Apparently, they can't close the account because it has a balance in it. And also they can't transfer the balance without going through KYC. As if all of that matter, it makes no financial sense for me to claim the remaining balance. Regulatory dystopia at full display.
- mytailorisrich 1y ago
  They can close it, banks have no problem closing accounts with residual balances and they just keep the money if normal fees exceed the balance. Too much time is wasted discussing with various bots and call centre-based "customer support" these days. Normal procedure is/was to send a letter instructing them to close the account and to let them deal with it.
  - stephen_g 1y ago
    In my country (Australia) unclaimed money is surrendered to a department of the Federal Government and held in trust, and people can claim it back if they can prove it’s theirs (usually the bank has your name and tax file number so it’s not at all difficult). So there’s no impediment here to closing accounts after a few years of inactivity, whatever the balance (if it’s positive) it just has to be sent there.
tuga2099 1y ago
Stripe had about EUR150k for more than 2 years, until they decided to pay, without interest, which they probably earned on top of my funds. Treat these companies as public toilets: Leave the funds as less as possible.
gloosx 1y ago
Any adequate person would read their Service Agreement and stay back, because by accepting it, you accept that: 1. They reserve the right to reject, refund, or limit transactions "at our sole and absolute discretion." 2. They can impose and change limits without telling you. 3. When you "add" money to your Wise account, you’re technically sending money to Wise, and they then decide when to credit your Wise balance. 4. Even though you are the legal owner of the funds, Wise retains practical control over withdrawals, with several escape hatches allowing them to delay, limit, or reject transfers practically forever. 5. They are not reliable for anything, any errors, attacks or bugs, "unforeseeable" stuff. They can even close tomorrow and just say "goodbye" to all the clients and not be liable – there is a specific clause in agreement for that. If you read agreement closely — Wise (and similar fintech services) often use legal language that gives them almost total control on your money, as well as reinvesting and getting interest on it while it is blocked from withdrawal on your account for, well, reasons... I don't understand one thing; how can a Business accept such a risk? For what reward? Is there really no better solution to accept payments online? Why people keep using this middleman stuff?
- parisidau 1y ago
  I can answer in our case: as an Australian business that receives a lot of USD, precious few options for keeping that money in USD _and_ having it accessible via a debit card exist. This is one of them. Typically, we don't let much money sit in the Wise account, because as you rightly say, their terms are onerous as hell.
  - gloosx 1y ago
    Interesting, thanks for the explanation.. Here where I am located I can accept payments in any currency on my business account in bank institution and spend them right away, but maybe I'm just lucky with location.
    - parisidau 1y ago
      Our main, regular, actual, regulated Australian bank does offer a "Foreign Currency Account" in USD (and many other useful currencies), but cannot link a debit card to it, and it can only wire transfer. Our regular transaction account with our real bank can receive USD just fine, but it will convert into AUD upon receipt, and spent as AUD with the attached debit card. It's more effective to be able to spend USD directly, as needed. Wise's offering (and others like it: OFX, Airwallex, Revolut) offer ACH, FedWire, Wire transfer, and a Debit card.
OutOfHere 1y ago
This is why cryptocurrency will win.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
olelele 1y ago
Is it just me or does some of the second to last reply look exactly like chatgpt? The wordings and formatting is identical.
wsc981 1y ago
I've also had a bad experience with Wise. They temporarily blocked a transfer to my personal account, a small amount of money from my sister for my daughter's birthday. They were asking who this person was that this money was being sent to. And what the reason was for this money being sent to my account. Eventually they released the money, but it makes Wise feel unsafe. Why make me jump through hoops for an insignificant amount of money?
solarkraft 1y ago
Modern (fin) tech companies have 0 respect for their users. What‘s 0.1% of accounts being locked out, with a good chance they are scam/money laundering accounts anyway? Eh, whatever. If they complain, put them against an AI that doesn’t help. Whatever, we still have millions or billions of customers. ... forgetting that it breaks the trust, companies and whole lives of real people that decided to depend on them. Especially a bank CAN NOT spontaneously stop working and especially not with no recourse. But is there even a way to make companies care about their users? Somehow the economics/management focus would have to shift (maybe legal recourse for spontaneous/unreasonable denial of service?).
TheNewsIsHere 1y ago
Edit: I meant to reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43981648 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43981648 Maybe it’s the way I was raised and socialized to the world, but I’ve never really trusted these fintech and money transfer services that aren’t regulated as banks. I read the Terms for anything that touches either my money or my business, and there’s so much ambiguity that it’s never sat right with me. I do use PayPal personally, but only as a money transfer service. I also tend to use a credit card with PayPal rather than a debit card, and I won’t link my bank account to anything that doesn’t support micro deposit verification. I’m in the fortunate position of not being un(der)banked. All my personal and business money lives exclusively at actual banks that have to adhere to actual regulations with actual teeth, and who I can sue in court or file complaints about with state and federal regulators, with some realistic hope of resolution. Functionally, I can also walk into a branch and do business with a human. I don’t have to deal with ridiculous chat bots and unempowered “support” reps. I can speak face to face with someone who can actually solve an issue or give me information that’s actionable. In another life I was a nonprofit administrator. We had an annual event which was ticketed (and brought in the vast majority of income). The organization’s founder LOVED PayPal, and didn’t really care about keeping money there. As someone who had daily responsibility for financials, that terrified me. I could never get them to understand the risk that storing half the organization’s working capital at PayPal represented. They just willfully ignored that PayPal was not a bank, because it was “easier” than credit cards or checks.
shiftux 1y ago
I also had a terrible experience with Wise. They literally treated me like a criminal, demanding me to upload the same documents again and again. Luckily, I only kept small amounts there, from $50 to $1,000.
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parisidau 1y ago
As an update, they briefly unblocked our account (after admitting it was a bug/issue on their end), and we transferred our money to OFX. But then they locked the account again, and haven't usefully responded beyond sending us some tips on trying different browsers, or operating systems... (yes, this makes no sense). They've said they'll provide a final response/compensation offer, but that hasn't come, and they've locked down the account again. Don't use Wise.

184 points by parisidau 1y ago

This is a familiar situation. I run a SaaS platform where I sell plugins for WordPress. Recently, my PayPal account was suspended, and a balance of €80,000 was frozen. The stated reason is a violation of the Terms of Service. However, no specific explanation has been provided — neither what rule I allegedly violated, nor how I violated it. I’ve searched through the lengthy documentation, but without clear guidance, this is an impossible task. My support tickets are no longer being answered, and your phone support refers me back to written communication — which, again, receives no response. This lack of transparency and accountability is extremely concerning. Due to repeated experiences like this, I now use fintech platforms only as proxy banks. All funds are immediately transferred to a traditional bank account, and only daily operational expenses remain within the fintech environment.

ImHereToVote 1y ago
You violated the doctrine of low agency. You are too agentic.
- IAmBroom 1y ago
  Aren't they too under-agentic? (Also, TIL the word "agentic" is real.)
lmm 1y ago
Good news, actual banks in many countries also do the same thing.
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  It's easier to get justice from a local bank in your country, or to at least talk to a real person face to face than from PayPal Luxemburg or wherever they're located.
  - user32489318 1y ago
    I doubt. It seems that payment providers have god-like rights from the government and don’t feel stressed by a few lawsuits here and there. I had a business account at a larger/largest Dutch bank, and have got the middle finger treatment all the way. From impossible to resolve typo in my company name (made by the bank), entirely wrong UBOs name on the payment card to the eventual account freeze for 4years while KYC was looking into this. Fun times
    - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
      Yeah, the anti money laundering laws can give financial institutions god like powers and appeals can take a long time.
  - alterom 1y ago
    >It's easier to get justice from a local bank in your country, or to at least talk to a real person face to face than from PayPal Luxemburg or wherever they're located. Is it, really? It would not matter to the local court where PayPal's HQ is. PayPal needs to be licensed in your country to handle money transfers. They can lose the right to operate in your state if they aren't compliant with the laws. In the US, the licenses are required even on the state level: e.g., here are the requirements for California Money Transmitter License: https://www.jwsuretybonds.com/states/california/money-transmitter-license https://www.jwsuretybonds.com/states/california/money-transm... Fraud and theft are one fun way to lose such a license.
    - trinix912 1y ago
      I doubt they have a license to operate in all countries where the service is accessible/used. And yes, it is way easier to get justice from a local bank, a letter from a lawyer is usually enough if it ever gets to this point in first place, whereas for PayPal&co good luck with ever getting a response. Filing a lawsuit against a foreign company and getting anything out of it is even more of a gamble.
      - 1y ago
decide1000 1y ago
Quite some years ago I sold a Wordpress plugin at a marketplace called Binpress. They paid to my business Paypal account. It had a $3500 balance and I didn't log in to Paypal for a while. After 2 years I tried to recover my account. It was blocked and there was no way for me to get access. I tried every possible way.
- alterom 1y ago
  That sounds like a small claims court case, if not suing PayPal for outright theft. I'm not a lawyer, but theft under pretenses of "protecting your account" (from being accessed by you, that is) is still theft.
Anumbia 1y ago
Hope you're considering a lawsuit? €80k is no joke.
- comboy 1y ago
  Paypal lawyers went over this situation thousands of times. If they would have any trouble with it, Paypal's behavior would already be different. AML/KYC and other bank regulations are so ridiculous and vague that it seems perfectly normal according to them to withhold somebody's money for a long time without even providing any explanation.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 1y ago
    The most likely reason they don't have trouble with it is that the only consequence if they do get sued is that they have to actually have someone look at the case and release the money. All it costs them is a few minutes of their lawyer's time. In cases where the victim just gives up, which seems incredibly common, they get to steal the money and they avoid the cost of having to review most cases, so it's obviously still a winning strategy.
k4rli 1y ago
Keeping funds in Paypal seems nuts. I've also had experience with them just closing the account ~12yrs ago but fortunately only had 10EUR on it. These days I'd only use Paypal if they didn't offer any better options and then only as a proxy to debit/credit card (which has purchase protection so no need to deal with Paypal itself ever).
scripturial 1y ago
I am genuinely surprised to find out that some people leave large sums of money in these types of non-bank services. Why don’t people move the money out? Is it too much trust of the competence of these organisations?
- TiredOfLife 1y ago
  Once the money moves to your bank it becomes official. You need to pay taxes etc.
- Arnt 1y ago
  Perhaps because they try to look like banks to their customers. Paypal even has a banking license where I live. A paypal transfer may or may not be a bank transfer, I don't know, but it has a banking license so I can understand it if people assume that they can trust it like a bank.
  - IAmBroom 1y ago
    So, financial ignorance. They're being "soft-defrauded" by the marketing of "looking like a bank". I'm not saying victims are dumb; they're ignorant, and the solution is self-education. Hopefully before you start leaving 5+ digits in their care...
    - Arnt 1y ago
      I beg to differ. Banks have particular protection in the modern financial system. When states grant that, they should IMO protect banks against impersonation.
  - recursivecaveat 1y ago
    Reminds me of the crazy situation with that fintech "bank" that went under. They were basically a ledger over a real bank. The real bank was FDIC insured, but the protection for the underlying doesn't necessarily mean anything for your 'virtual' account in the ledger. FDIC would only help you if there was some insolvency in the under-layer. Bunch of customers were screwed by the bankruptcy of the upper layer. Maybe there is some hope for at least the FDIC cracking down on this deceptive fintech trick in the future. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2025/04/30/fintechs-fdic-lose-money/83326984007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2025/04...
thrashwerk 1y ago
Welcome to paypal. I had to create a paypal account because an online shop used it as the only method for payment, first time I could pay without registering but the second time they forced the use of an account so I registered. I still used my card to pay, I didn't add any funds to the paypal account or did any other transactions or anything else really but after some time they froze my account for violating ToS. No actual reason, nothing. And it's next to impossible to find any support contacts, just redirects to useless FAQs everwhere. Oh how I dream of paypal going bankrupt. The world would be a better place.
chexum 1y ago
In the UK, similar situations are common when “someone” flags any transaction to or from you as suspicious, at which point they need to freeze it, report it to an appropriate branch of an organisation, and… wait. That organisation most of the times doesn’t respond, so the hold expires in about two weeks, and then everything resumes working. The thing is, noone can be told of this freeze/hold, that would be mean tipping off the party that made the suspicious transaction - from what I gather, it’s actually illegal to reveal it’s frozen, so they invent all kinds of meaningless/dumb reasons why the transaction (or the account) can’t be used right now. So, lack of transparency and accountability IS the purpose of the system in that case.
- robocat 1y ago
  > noone can be told Great article on how the US does that: https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/debanking-and-debunking/ https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/debanking-and-debunki... No, the bank cannot explain why SARs triggered a debanking, because disclosing the existence of a SAR is illegal. Yes, it is the law in the United States that a private non-court, in possession of a memo written by a non-intelligence analyst, cannot describe the nature of the non-accusation the memo makes. Nor can it confirm or deny the existence of the memo. It’s not just illegal to disclose a SAR to the customer. It is extremely discouraged, by Compliance, to allow there to be an information flow within the bank itself that would allow most employees who interact directly with customers, like call center reps or their branch banker, to learn the existence of SAR. This is out of the concern that they would provide a customer with a responsive answer to the question “Why are you closing my account?!” And so this is one case where in [Seeing like a Bank] the institution intentionally blinds itself. Very soon after making the decision to close your account the bank does not know specifically why it chose to close your account.
  - xtracto 1y ago
    Having worked in Fintech for several years, THIS is the main reason why I moved the majority of my liquid assets to cryptocurrencies. For all the things people want the. To do, the most important one to me is the "not your keys, not your coin". I don't trust banks as neither. One time a bank i use to get paid decided to "block" my accounts for 'suspicious avtivity" (i made a transfer to an account number they deemed high-risk). I ended up having to go to a specific physical branch, and literally BEG the clerk to activate the account where they had MY FREAKING MONEY. I've learned since that, once you give it (lend it actually) to banks, it is not your money.

yieldcrv 1y ago

[flagged]

EdwardDiego 1y ago
What?
- yieldcrv 1y ago
  the permissionless aspect of using crypto allows consumers and businesses to transact without worrying about a payment processor shutting them down. some crypto is permissioned though many people say crypto is a solution looking for a problem, as they are comfortable with an alternative to every crypto use case someone might have. such as instant and fast cross border payments. and then the problem surfaces.

otterley 1y ago

In banking and money services, some things cannot be handled via the usual support channels. In these cases, it’s often more effective to have your lawyer contact their legal department.

tgsovlerkhgsel 1y ago
Flaming them publicly before doing that is a) cathartic, b) cheaper than the lawyer and might get them to address the issue, c) the right thing to do because it creates an incentive for companies to act right without the customer needing to hire a lawyer. Of course, if they don't react to that, then is the time to contact a lawyer.
- poisonborz 1y ago
  Except you can't do that if your case is not big/interesting, like "they locked my account with $500"
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 1y ago
    Assuming you're talking about taking a lawyer: I'm sure you're right in some countries. In countries with a working small claims system, you should be able to do that without a lawyer in simple enough cases. In some other countries, you might be out more than $500 temporarily but in the end the company pays the lawyer and all other costs. Often, once it reaches the escalation point where their legal department and not their customer-service-denial department is handling the case, they'll cut a check. If you are talking about shaming: Your shaming might not have the same reach, but you can still leave negative reviews and tell your friends. I have a policy that if a company pisses me off or wastes my time, I will spend at least the equivalent amount of time leaving negative reviews or telling people about my experience, for reasons a) and c).
- otterley 1y ago
  Sometimes it works, sometimes it backfires. Some companies will refuse to do business with you if you stir the pot. You might get your money back, but you'll have severed the relationship, and that can be a worse outcome for the long-term health of your business.

PaywallBuster 1y ago

You can find situation like this in twitter a lot It's a shame that it's too good to be true, until you get blocked and then it takes weeks/months to get the account back Certainty can't trust one single institution to hold all your funds

Michelangelo11 1y ago

In addition to the ridiculousness of the whole situation, it is unbelievably ridiculous that their customer service is the same incoherent, pro-forma slop that's now the norm for retail customer service everywhere. If you're offering financial services for business, you really need customer service that lives up to the name and, when a problem occurs, tells the customer the specific steps to take to fix it.

rrr_oh_man 1y ago
> If you're offering financial services for business, you really need customer service that lives up to the name and, when a problem occurs, tells the customer the specific steps to take to fix it. Maybe they did the math (cost of offering this vs. possible gains) and it didn't check out. Maybe it's a gap for a newcomer. But maybe people just don't buy financial transactions based on the quality of service in a 0.1% case.

vr46 1y ago

I’ve had all kinds of little annoying issues with Wise that cause me to be trapped in circles, but nothing this serious. Support is truly the thing that separates the wheat from the chaff. Everything is hunky-dory when it works, and the moment there’s a problem, you’re suddenly stuck in the Barbican at 3am with no signs, no lights and nobody to talk to.

Michelangelo11 1y ago
> Support is truly the thing that separates the wheat from the chaff. Yes, absolutely. True in any industry, and especially in ones like this.
vsl 1y ago
...and Wise support became utterly terrible a few years back. I mean "failing basic reading comprehension" terrible, the level of incompetence shown in this article is par for the course.

jjani 1y ago

Don't worry too much, luckily you've reached #1 on HN so they'll fix it for you within a day.

joseppu 1y ago
Agreed. Is there a term or phrase for getting things fixed by going viral while the problem persists for others.
- elashri 1y ago
  Maybe "Schrödinger Fix". Not that it is used by anyone.
  - IAmBroom 1y ago
    So, no.
csomar 1y ago
That was a thing 3-4 years ago. Now we have evolved and there is a very good chance that OP issue won't be solved because even the CEO doesn't have the kind of necessary access to move this through.
- jjani 1y ago
  I think in this case Wise is A. Not quite big enough and B. Has too much overlap with HN users (especially for business/paid users, where the money may be at) to just ignore this. The CEO at the very least has the necessary access to start the process of this company getting their money back.
jjani 1y ago
Here we go: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43981981 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43981981

m101 1y ago

This is also a common experience in retail banking (not only wise) in the UK. I put the blame on excessive regulation. Businesses are scared of crossing the regulator for fear of revocation of licence or high fines. Also the regulations themselves impose lengthy delay requirements on doing business. What I've also found is the large incumbents largely skirt the regulations (HSBC for instance let's payments through whilst revolut spent weeks investigating them). Revolut spends the money, which they don't have, whilst HSBC knows they can pay any fine required. Regulation working precisely as designed.

tgsovlerkhgsel 1y ago
Asking for KYC is normal. Here, OP is reporting that they're being alternatingly told that: - they need to provide KYC documents, except the documents they're being asked for are the same they already provided - everything is fine and no documents are required That's not "excessive regulation", that's incompetence and insufficient regulation.
- m101 1y ago
  I had one experience whereby I had to receive some payments from some foreign entity for both HSBC and revolut. I got stuck into weeks of wrangling with with revolut (similar to that of OP), and having been through that next time I used HSBC, who immediately allowed the payment. Some businesses simply follow the regulation more closely then others. It's just a fact. Businesses are always making the trade off calculation as to fines Vs costs. For revolut a fine could be existential, for HSBC it is not. Therefore they behave differently. Fines are a cost of business and incumbent firms have helped design regulations with regulators in part to defend their market position. Of course, there is always what they say the regulations are for (e.g. money laundering prevention etc), but there is often a further motivation. This concept is not new and you can see it all around us in the multitude of state capture that exists in many places.
lang_agnostic 1y ago
How does removing excessive regulation help this scenario? In what you describe the difference would be that HSBC doesn't get fined and neither HSBC or Revolut does any check. How does that help?

aktuel 1y ago

What's the alternative?

Anumbia 1y ago
OPay. Wish they're everywhere. All you need is your phone number as your bank account, with none of the thievery transfer fees, deposit fees, etc.
hirako2000 1y ago
There is no alternative, all financial businesses will freeze accounts under any suspicions. Way to have a degree of mind peace is to have a handful of accounts with funds split across them. If an account gets frozen then it's business as usual pretty much. Takes months for investigations to complete at times.
cherryteastain 1y ago
The only alternarive where your funds can't be frozen arbitrarily by your counterparty is cryptocurrency.
shahzaibmushtaq 1y ago
Never use a single fintech platform for everything, diversify and don't sleep for long with your hard-earned money in their hands.
csomar 1y ago
3-4 accounts, some cash and a crypto wallet.
lmm 1y ago
Moving to a country where banks have at least some legal service obligation, such as the UK, although even then those regulations often don't cover businesses.
xtracto 1y ago
Crypto. Yah, HN doesn't like it, but we will get there eventually.

Benjamin_Dobell 1y ago

I haven't been locked out (yet?). However, my account situation with Wise is similar i.e. I'm Australian and have been a customer since they were known as TransferWise. My documentation for UBOs is currently under review right now. Hopefully I don't get locked out as well! EDIT: Oh, I actually know who you are, Paris. I don't really have any industry connections these days, but I remember you from various conferences back when I was doing iOS development, maybe 2011-2015. "Hey, Wise! I can vouch for this guy!" Haha, doubt that's gonna hold up.

rdonovan2005 1y ago

Very happy wise customer, i have had to go through KYC and other verifications from time to time. I happens with nearly all banks as services

matt3210 1y ago

The customer service is obviously an AI agent

scripturial 1y ago
Whether it is a person or an AI bot, if the end result is indistinguishable from an AI chat bot, then it is effectively for all intents and purposes just an AI chat bot.

rdonovan2005 1y ago

very happy Wise customer, most banks face a constantly moving regulation and needs for KYC and have to put customers on hold and verify if for some reason it get flagged. I hope your problem is resolved soon

kome 1y ago

wise seems to be managed rather unprofessionally. An ex-girlfriend of mine used to work there and once joked about some of my transactions. It was all in good humor and nothing sensitive was involved, but it raised a serious concern for me: how can a random employee access anyone’s account, is that SO common? It feels like there's zero privacy

Anumbia 1y ago
Will she agree with your assessment of her as a "random employee?"
- kome 1y ago
  well, she was a new hire in customer service - so kinda yes?
- genewitch 1y ago
  A couple things. This has a name: LoveInt. Second, i don't have a girlfriend, I just know a girl that would be really mad if she heard me say that. And thirdly, is your implication it's OK for someone to access your financials merely because you're romantically involved?
Hikikomori 1y ago
Worked for a large payment provider (online checkout mainly), we logged all purchases including items, personal email and other details. All engineers could access this log, found out by searching for my email.

Meekro 1y ago

Honest tip: When I had a Wise-related problem, I reached out to @patio11 (famous HN user) for help and he connected me with a high-ranking employee at Wise. We had the problem resolved a day later. 10/10, would escalate again.

hobo_mark 1y ago
Are you confusing Wise with Stripe, where he used to work?
- Meekro 1y ago
  No, I'm talking about Wise. I was falsely accused of some stuff, my account was locked, and they were ignoring all communications even as I tried to prove my innocence. @patio11 helped me escalate and we had it resolved really quickly. I'm also a Stripe user, but I never had a problem there.
  - tormeh 1y ago
    Hope he got paid for this service...
    - genewitch 1y ago
      Think of the exposure, also they can put it in their portfolio.

pbmonster 1y ago

Are those fintech companies under any financial regulatory authority? If my bank pulls any kind of stuff like that, dropping the magic "I will have to report this to the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority" gets any and all gears unstuck right quick. Because this is absolutely unacceptable, and my local financial regulator agrees (and levies substantial fines accordingly). Might be an EU thing, though.

okanat 1y ago
Some of them like Revolut and N26 are. German federal authority actually forced N26 to limit customer acquisition until they fixed their money laundering issues. Wise is a "payment processor" so it isn't regulated to the same standard.
- alterom 1y ago
  >Wise is a "payment processor" so it isn't regulated to the same standard. Which standard? In the US, the standard in question is "money transmitter", regulated on the state level. In California, both Revolut and Wise are licensed by DFPI: Wise has MTL (Money Transmitter License) in California, Revolut has a broker license: Revolut: https://dfpi.ca.gov/search-result-detail/?id=304600 https://dfpi.ca.gov/search-result-detail/?id=304600 Wise: https://dfpi.ca.gov/regulated_entity/wise-us-inc/ https://dfpi.ca.gov/regulated_entity/wise-us-inc/ FinCen guidance on the distinction between the to two is not the easiest read, but my takeaway is that both of these companies would be registered FinCen too as MSB's (money service but businesses to https://www.fincen.gov/resources/statutes-regulations/guidance/application-definition-money-transmitter-brokers-and https://www.fincen.gov/resources/statutes-regulations/guidan... And indeed, here's Wise's MSB registration: https://www.revolut.com/en-US/blog/post/changes-for-revolut-us-what-you-need-to-know/ https://www.revolut.com/en-US/blog/post/changes-for-revolut-... Revolut doesn't have on the... because they outsource money handling to an actual bank, FDIC insured and all: https://www.revolut.com/en-US/blog/post/changes-for-revolut-us-what-you-need-to-know/ https://www.revolut.com/en-US/blog/post/changes-for-revolut-... So, doesn't appear like Wise is any less regulated.
csomar 1y ago

boomskats 1y ago

Ahh, I have fond memories of this. Their random KYC 're-verification' process (the lack of humans/computer says no) was _dystopian_ levels of frustrating. In the end I made a gif[0] and called them out publicly in the hope that they'd do something about it. The service they offer is amazing when it works, but it'll be a long time before I use them for anything my business depends on. [0]: https://x.com/boomskats/status/1407019117555683332 https://x.com/boomskats/status/1407019117555683332

reconnecting 1y ago
It's not random KYC. Most likely, this is a fraud prevention system that spotted your account as suspicious.
alterom 1y ago
> In the end I made a gif[0] and called them out publicly in the hope that they'd do something about it. Did they end up doing something about it because of that post?

cachedthing0 1y ago

We had the same experience. So today, we are used to close our account ourselves before the 'neo' bank does it. No time to tell details now, have to drive to our bank to hand over a cheque.

tgsovlerkhgsel 1y ago

As a private customer, they asked for more KYC (annoying but normal), then insisted on me providing a proof of address with components that my address (and any other address from my country that I know) does not have. Luckily, this happened while they didn't have any money so I just found an alternative way of getting my transfer done, but I second the title: Avoid Wise! Ironically, despite being a fintech and not known for great customer support, Revolut seems to be among the better options for international transfers, both in terms of fees and in terms of actually letting you make the transfers. (There likely will be a bit of KYC on the first transfer, but unlike with Wise, it actually worked. And from my experience, their customer support actually works and doesn't hallucinate answers!)

reconnecting 1y ago

Is it possible that you used an unusual login pattern? Privacy IP proxy/TOR/VPN? It seems like a false positive from fraud prevention systems, combined with limited resources for manual review on Wise's side.

reconnecting 1y ago
I don't want to disclose the fraud prevention system that Wise uses, but I'm familiar with how it works, hence my assumption.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 1y ago
  Do they use intentionally broken processes designed to frustrate people as an alternative to telling people they're blocked? It would explain a lot of things. It's also an absolute dick move and should be illegal (but likely isn't yet).
  - reconnecting 1y ago
    I'm not familiar with Wise's internal rules, but based on fraud prevention practices, it's highly likely that a financial institution would not disclose whether an account is soft-blocked/suspended. If they did, fraudsters could exploit that information to adjust their tactics.

mppm 1y ago

Unfortunately, this is the reality of modern business banking, and Wise is not unique in this. You can find similar reports about most major EMIs and a fair number of banks. Banks have basically become an inefficient and unfair branch of law enforcement, without presumption of innocence and without due process. Every imaginable abuse is justifiable by Compliance nowadays.

reconnecting 1y ago
I disagree. Neo-banks like Wise choose to grow irresponsibly. Any traditional local bank will usually speak with you first before opening an account. In contrast, neo-banks open accounts quickly and then rely heavily on automated fraud prevention systems, since manual reviews are costly. As a result, it's easy to get in, but you may later become a victim of limited resources for proper fraud handling and manual checks
- mppm 1y ago
  > Any traditional local bank will usually speak with you first before opening an account. In contrast, neo-banks open accounts quickly and then rely heavily on automated fraud prevention systems, since manual reviews are costly. Maybe that was still the case in 2015. In 2025, a traditional bank will ask for a ton of documentation, run it through the same (probably outsourced) automated fraud prevention system and tell you that unfortunately an account cannot be opened for you. At least that is a common situation for businesses that are too small to be important to the bank, but carry some compliance risk (international consulting, app developers, digital services, etc.). And then you are back to neo-banks... This has been a trend everywhere, recently, but the severity of the situation differs country by country, so YMMV.
  - reconnecting 1y ago
    Yes, I must clarify that my opinion is based on EU/Swiss regulatory practices. However, this doesn't change the fact that mostly neo-banks exploit regulatory gaps for growth, which ultimately leads to issues like the one described above.

cherryteastain 1y ago

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voltagex_ 1y ago
Yeah just let me buy my coffee while travelling... waiting for confirmation... sorry still waiting. Shit, I missed my flight (who don't accept cryptocurrency)
- cherryteastain 1y ago
  Valid point for bitcoin, but should be a non issue on other chains like Solana/Cardano or even to an extent Ethereum
piva00 1y ago
While opening a whole other can of worms of issues. A normal established bank also solves this.
- cherryteastain 1y ago
  There are many instances of traditional banks seizing the funds of legitimate customers citing KYC/AML reasons as well.
  - piva00 1y ago
    There are many instances of people losing their whole crypto wallets, without any recourse to reach an institution or through the legal system. As a business you need the support of the legal system to lessen risk, no sensible business owner is going to depend solely on crypto wallets for making payroll, paying suppliers, or keeping cash flow for expenditures...

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fto_wise 1y ago

Hey there, I work at Wise and saw this during my break. I'm really really sorry for the bad experience here. I just checked with my team internally and this has been fixed prior to this making front page. If you are still facing an issue, can you reply to my comment - and I'll give you a call back on the number you provided our support team with. Thanks and my apologies again.

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tgsovlerkhgsel 1y ago
If you have a good escalation path, consider mentioning the other bad experiences people are reporting here, in particular contradictory claims made by customer service regarding the needed KYC information, lack of reading comprehension by customer service, or generally a kafkaesque, frustrating, broken KYC process. See e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43981863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43981863 and the linked GIF showing the customer being sent into an infinite loop, the original report, and my own experience (being asked for nonexistent address components - I'm not looking for a one-off solution as exposing my money to Wise until the company has actually cleaned up its act would be... unWise).
vb-8448 1y ago
So you need someone on HN to get hit by your post to get a decent customer support?!?
- omnimus 1y ago
  Seems like they are saying this has been resolved before it was posted here so before someone had a chance to see it on HN?
  - vb-8448 1y ago
    maybe yes, maybe they are just trying to patch up bad publicity... the point anyway is not this but the fact that customer service should work regardless of whether a mishap ends up on HN

hogliux 1y ago

Long-time happy Wise business customer here (since before the name change). While generally great, their KYC flow needs serious attention. Received four document request emails simultaneously, mostly identical but with different links. In one flow, after uploading invoices, I couldn't upload other requested documents. The multiple, distinct forms asking for the same info were confusing. Got verified eventually, but the process was buggy and didn't inspire confidence. If anyone from Wise is reading this, please fix your KYC!

csomar 1y ago

I once had a fintech account with a company that is EU regulated. It was a long time ago and I used it for a couple transactions that resulted in a 0.27 Eur dust balance. I didn't use it after that and a couple years before Covid they decided they need more KYC to keep the account active and I just ignored them. To this day I still get emails about my remaining balance roughly every quarter. During this time (7 years!), I had multiple exchanges with support guys and one of them escalated. The back office guy explained that in order to access/transfer my balance, I need to do as much KYC as if I was opening a new fresh account. He also made me understand that there is a 2 Euro fee to move my 0.27 Euro balance. So there we have it. Apparently, they can't close the account because it has a balance in it. And also they can't transfer the balance without going through KYC. As if all of that matter, it makes no financial sense for me to claim the remaining balance. Regulatory dystopia at full display.

mytailorisrich 1y ago
They can close it, banks have no problem closing accounts with residual balances and they just keep the money if normal fees exceed the balance. Too much time is wasted discussing with various bots and call centre-based "customer support" these days. Normal procedure is/was to send a letter instructing them to close the account and to let them deal with it.
- stephen_g 1y ago
  In my country (Australia) unclaimed money is surrendered to a department of the Federal Government and held in trust, and people can claim it back if they can prove it’s theirs (usually the bank has your name and tax file number so it’s not at all difficult). So there’s no impediment here to closing accounts after a few years of inactivity, whatever the balance (if it’s positive) it just has to be sent there.

tuga2099 1y ago

Stripe had about EUR150k for more than 2 years, until they decided to pay, without interest, which they probably earned on top of my funds. Treat these companies as public toilets: Leave the funds as less as possible.

gloosx 1y ago

Any adequate person would read their Service Agreement and stay back, because by accepting it, you accept that: 1. They reserve the right to reject, refund, or limit transactions "at our sole and absolute discretion." 2. They can impose and change limits without telling you. 3. When you "add" money to your Wise account, you’re technically sending money to Wise, and they then decide when to credit your Wise balance. 4. Even though you are the legal owner of the funds, Wise retains practical control over withdrawals, with several escape hatches allowing them to delay, limit, or reject transfers practically forever. 5. They are not reliable for anything, any errors, attacks or bugs, "unforeseeable" stuff. They can even close tomorrow and just say "goodbye" to all the clients and not be liable – there is a specific clause in agreement for that. If you read agreement closely — Wise (and similar fintech services) often use legal language that gives them almost total control on your money, as well as reinvesting and getting interest on it while it is blocked from withdrawal on your account for, well, reasons... I don't understand one thing; how can a Business accept such a risk? For what reward? Is there really no better solution to accept payments online? Why people keep using this middleman stuff?

parisidau 1y ago
I can answer in our case: as an Australian business that receives a lot of USD, precious few options for keeping that money in USD _and_ having it accessible via a debit card exist. This is one of them. Typically, we don't let much money sit in the Wise account, because as you rightly say, their terms are onerous as hell.
- gloosx 1y ago
  Interesting, thanks for the explanation.. Here where I am located I can accept payments in any currency on my business account in bank institution and spend them right away, but maybe I'm just lucky with location.
  - parisidau 1y ago
    Our main, regular, actual, regulated Australian bank does offer a "Foreign Currency Account" in USD (and many other useful currencies), but cannot link a debit card to it, and it can only wire transfer. Our regular transaction account with our real bank can receive USD just fine, but it will convert into AUD upon receipt, and spent as AUD with the attached debit card. It's more effective to be able to spend USD directly, as needed. Wise's offering (and others like it: OFX, Airwallex, Revolut) offer ACH, FedWire, Wire transfer, and a Debit card.

OutOfHere 1y ago

This is why cryptocurrency will win.

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olelele 1y ago

Is it just me or does some of the second to last reply look exactly like chatgpt? The wordings and formatting is identical.

wsc981 1y ago

I've also had a bad experience with Wise. They temporarily blocked a transfer to my personal account, a small amount of money from my sister for my daughter's birthday. They were asking who this person was that this money was being sent to. And what the reason was for this money being sent to my account. Eventually they released the money, but it makes Wise feel unsafe. Why make me jump through hoops for an insignificant amount of money?

solarkraft 1y ago

Modern (fin) tech companies have 0 respect for their users. What‘s 0.1% of accounts being locked out, with a good chance they are scam/money laundering accounts anyway? Eh, whatever. If they complain, put them against an AI that doesn’t help. Whatever, we still have millions or billions of customers. ... forgetting that it breaks the trust, companies and whole lives of real people that decided to depend on them. Especially a bank CAN NOT spontaneously stop working and especially not with no recourse. But is there even a way to make companies care about their users? Somehow the economics/management focus would have to shift (maybe legal recourse for spontaneous/unreasonable denial of service?).

TheNewsIsHere 1y ago

Edit: I meant to reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43981648 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43981648 Maybe it’s the way I was raised and socialized to the world, but I’ve never really trusted these fintech and money transfer services that aren’t regulated as banks. I read the Terms for anything that touches either my money or my business, and there’s so much ambiguity that it’s never sat right with me. I do use PayPal personally, but only as a money transfer service. I also tend to use a credit card with PayPal rather than a debit card, and I won’t link my bank account to anything that doesn’t support micro deposit verification. I’m in the fortunate position of not being un(der)banked. All my personal and business money lives exclusively at actual banks that have to adhere to actual regulations with actual teeth, and who I can sue in court or file complaints about with state and federal regulators, with some realistic hope of resolution. Functionally, I can also walk into a branch and do business with a human. I don’t have to deal with ridiculous chat bots and unempowered “support” reps. I can speak face to face with someone who can actually solve an issue or give me information that’s actionable. In another life I was a nonprofit administrator. We had an annual event which was ticketed (and brought in the vast majority of income). The organization’s founder LOVED PayPal, and didn’t really care about keeping money there. As someone who had daily responsibility for financials, that terrified me. I could never get them to understand the risk that storing half the organization’s working capital at PayPal represented. They just willfully ignored that PayPal was not a bank, because it was “easier” than credit cards or checks.

shiftux 1y ago

I also had a terrible experience with Wise. They literally treated me like a criminal, demanding me to upload the same documents again and again. Luckily, I only kept small amounts there, from $50 to $1,000.

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parisidau 1y ago

As an update, they briefly unblocked our account (after admitting it was a bug/issue on their end), and we transferred our money to OFX. But then they locked the account again, and haven't usefully responded beyond sending us some tips on trying different browsers, or operating systems... (yes, this makes no sense). They've said they'll provide a final response/compensation offer, but that hasn't come, and they've locked down the account again. Don't use Wise.