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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

#121

Post by xtracto »

robocat wrote: post #106
chexum wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tippi…

> noone can be told Great article on how the US does that: 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 m…

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.

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

#122

Post by IAmBroom »

Arnt wrote: post #82
scripturial wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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.

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...

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

#123

Post by IAmBroom »

ImHereToVote wrote: post #4
justinde wrote: post #2

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, t…

You violated the doctrine of low agency. You are too agentic.

Aren't they too under-agentic?

(Also, TIL the word "agentic" is real.)

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

#125

Post by xtracto »

parisidau wrote: post #112
gloosx wrote: post #109

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…

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.

Usdc + paywithmoon.

I don't understand why people nowadays allow to be patronized by private companies like this.

No, wise, it's none of your freaking business why I want to transfer 100 bucks. It's MY money.

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

#126

Post by TheNewsIsHere »

Edit: I meant to reply to 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.

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

#127

Post by xtracto »

fto_wise wrote: post #65

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.

Another "sorry we got caught" case... companies will never change.

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

#128

Post by raron »

danielbarla wrote: post #72
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.

Well, if we're talking about the same thing, there are laws that the banks and fintechs are bound by. These carry hefty fines for the bank and potential jail terms for their employees if not followed to the letter, including things like providing zero context or information about why your account was blocked when suspicion of fraud or money laundering is raised. The failure to report suspicion is likewise punishable.…

The (AML and some KYC) laws themselves are unreasonable for two reasons.

First, having access to banking and payment services are necessary is many places so much it should be considered a basic (human) right on itself.

Freezing someone's money or access to banking services could cause much more issues or more harm to some individual than some of the criminal charges yet it is done automatically without any proof, reason, any way to appeal, by the sole discretion of one of the stakeholder (without any independent third party). Which in spirit is going against the innocent until proven guilty (and probably even the right of fair trial and right to property human rights).

From people's perspective banks have more power and can easier "take" (freeze for months/years) your money than courts and have way less responsibility or oversight doing it.

Second, banking services is one of few which is nearly entirely depends on trust. If a bank (from my perspective) "can not" (not allowed) to account for every penny and every transaction then my trust in that bank (or even in the whole banking industry) is lost.

That is bad for the bank (they will loose customers), bad for me (because I must use more cash), bad for the society (because more cash would increase tax evasion and black markets, and because it lowers the trust in public institutions), just because some stupid algorithm thought that paying half the dinner to a friend would significantly help the finances of a terrorist group.

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

#129

Post by xtracto »

beAbU wrote: post #70
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 froze…

This reminded me the video of the guy who went to his bank's branch to withdraw some of his money but they won't give it to him .

The only thing you will get by "raising hell" in the branch is to get arrested haha

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