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Wise refuses to let us access our $60k AUD

hey.paris

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Re: Wise refuses to let us access our $60k AUD

#61

Post by vsl »

pbmonster wrote: post #27

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.

> Might be an EU thing, though.

So is Wise:

> All investment services are provided by Wise Assets Europe AS, incorporated in Estonia under registration number 16267372. Wise Assets Europe AS is authorised and regulated as an investment firm by the Estonian Financial Supervision and Resolution Authority under licence number 4.1-1/174. The registered address is Veerenni 24, 10135 Tallinn, Estonia.

Re: Wise refuses to let us access our $60k AUD

#62

Post by lang_agnostic »

m101 wrote: post #13

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 wh…

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?

Re: Wise refuses to let us access our $60k AUD

#63

Post by genewitch »

Anumbia wrote: post #31
kome wrote: post #24

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

Will she agree with your assessment of her as a "random employee?"

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?

Re: Wise refuses to let us access our $60k AUD

#65

Post by fto_wise »

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.

Re: Wise refuses to let us access our $60k AUD

#66

Post by jjani »

csomar wrote: post #51
jjani wrote: post #12

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

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.

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.

Re: Wise refuses to let us access our $60k AUD

#67

Post by reconnecting »

mppm wrote: post #52

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.

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

Re: Wise refuses to let us access our $60k AUD

#68

Post by alterom »

trinix912 wrote: post #49
alterom wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

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.

>I doubt they have a license to operate in all countries where the service is accessible/used.

Really?

I doubt you have tried checking all countries' regulations. Or any, for that matter.

Because there isn't a country where money transfers aren't regulated. Go prove me wrong.

To save you some effort: in the US, you need to have a money transmitter license issued by your state, e.g. in California'

https://dfpi.ca.gov/regulated-industries/money-transmitters/

>Filing a lawsuit against a foreign company and getting anything out of it is even more of a gamble.

Are speaking from experience, or hypothetically?

In any case, filing a lawsuit and raising a complaint with the regulator is an action that can cause the foreign company in question to lose the license to operate in your state.

And unlike your local bank, they don't have direct ties to politicians.

Re: Wise refuses to let us access our $60k AUD

#69

Post by hogliux »

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!

Re: Wise refuses to let us access our $60k AUD

#70

Post by beAbU »

m101 wrote: post #13

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 wh…

Retail banks have branches. If something happens to my account and I'm locked out I can literally walk from my home to the branch and raise hell.

I, like many in my corner of Europe double-bank, with salaries, loans and mortgages sitting at a brick&mortar bank, and we only send our monthly spending money to revolut, exactly because if revolut decides to close my account for whatever reason, I might have max €2k frozen.

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