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TransferWise announces $280M investment

techcrunch.com

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Re: TransferWise announces $280M investment

#141

Post by Fizzer »

hkmurakami wrote: post #139
Fizzer wrote: post #132

I recently had a client ask me to pay them with Transferwise. It was a horrible experience. After weeks of trying to get it to work, even with the help of support, we eventually gave up and used bitcoin instead. The Transferwise website was horrible. It gave error messages and kept telling me to fill out some field that didn't exist. After sending screenshots to their support team, they just sent me back links that d…

I use transferwise and didn't give them my bank credentials. Question: which country are you in and which country were you sending to? I imagine this sorry of thing is both country specific and possibly bank specific. The pain was figuring out the exact recipient bank account name in Japan but that's mainly Japan's fault.

In the US, sending to Cyprus.

Re: TransferWise announces $280M investment

#142

Post by 2K17 »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #125
ddorian43 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paypal also has support (call,email) used them for refunds and changes on account.

Having had a recent experience with that, their "support" is utterly incompetent. Made a donation to a charitable organization (same one I've made in a previous year), PayPal reversed it without giving any reason, I contacted their support trying to find out why, and several hours later they could tell me nothing more than what the website said: that it was rejected and no reason was given, and I should try using som…

I think maybe payers are the product here not customers.

Re: TransferWise announces $280M investment

#143

Post by JoshTriplett »

2K17 wrote: post #142
JoshTriplett wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having had a recent experience with that, their "support" is utterly incompetent. Made a donation to a charitable organization (same one I've made in a previous year), PayPal reversed it without giving any reason, I contacted their support trying to find out why, and several hours later they could tell me nothing more than what the website said: that it was rejected and no reason was given, and I should try using som…

I think maybe payers are the product here not customers.

I used to think the horror stories about PayPal were mostly from sellers, and that they at least went out of their way to do well by buyers. This "support" experience demonstrated otherwise; now I just think they have awful support across the board.

Re: TransferWise announces $280M investment

#144

Post by chx »

Fizzer wrote: post #132

I recently had a client ask me to pay them with Transferwise. It was a horrible experience. After weeks of trying to get it to work, even with the help of support, we eventually gave up and used bitcoin instead. The Transferwise website was horrible. It gave error messages and kept telling me to fill out some field that didn't exist. After sending screenshots to their support team, they just sent me back links that d…

Surprising. I have been money between various EU countries and Canada without a problem.

Re: TransferWise announces $280M investment

#145

Post by yladiz »

phillc73 wrote: post #114
thenomad wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they'd have to talk users through allowing direct APK installs, complete with all the scary warnings. That's going to reduce the number of customers they get a lot more than a redirect to the Play Store.

How about a choice of Google Play Store or direct download, for "Advanced" users? That's all I'm asking, just a tiny little 8pt font link to directly download the APK.

Why would a business host a APK directly when they can just utilize Google's infrastructure for free? Likely you would have a lot of users mistakingly download the APK if they saw the link and get confused as to why it's not working like all their other apps, whereas downloading from Google Play Store works seamlessly.

Re: TransferWise announces $280M investment

#146

Post by yladiz »

fapjacks wrote: post #73

TransferWise held up a few thousand dollars I was sending to a friend in Europe who had been stranded. It wasn't like they just didn't send it for 24 hours, it took TransferWise three weeks to make whatever determination they were going to make, and cancel the transfer instead of sending it to my friend. They also made some incredibly bizarre accusation when canceling the transfer, that they believed the money was fo…

To be fair, if you were sending it within/from the US, they have to deal with a lot of AML/KYC laws (and it's similar in Europe), so their system probably flagged it automatically, especially if you were a new customer or had little interaction with the platform previously. It would likely happen at a bigger bank as well. It absolutely shouldn't have taken three weeks before getting it sent or not, but they likely wanted to cover their ass in the case it actually was for "contraband".

Re: TransferWise announces $280M investment

#147

Post by Androider »

Hopefully they can use some of that dough to improve their support.

I've been trying to do a business (US) to business (EU) transfer using TransferWise for the last few days and it's been a nightmare. First they can't accept an ACH payment, then they cannot match the wire transfer to my business account, support doesn't answer, their automated "Action Required" emails have links to help topics that don't exist and their phone support can't do anything and asks you to email them instead, with the emails never receiving any kind of acknowledgement.

Maybe it works fine for sending your friend a fiver, for business use it's a total fail so far.

Re: TransferWise announces $280M investment

#148

Post by acomms »

Fizzer wrote: post #132

I recently had a client ask me to pay them with Transferwise. It was a horrible experience. After weeks of trying to get it to work, even with the help of support, we eventually gave up and used bitcoin instead. The Transferwise website was horrible. It gave error messages and kept telling me to fill out some field that didn't exist. After sending screenshots to their support team, they just sent me back links that d…

That's really surprising. I've had only great experiences using it between Europe and North America. Maybe an issue with sending to Cyprus?

Re: TransferWise announces $280M investment

#149

Post by satanic_pope »

I generally goto remitrate to check best rates offered today : http://www.remitrate.com/best-exchange-rates/compare-USD-to-...

In my experience, Transferwise has been one of the most expensive ones if not the most expensive. Folks at remitly, ria almost always offer better rates compared to Transferwise (atleast on two occasions when I was sending it)

I would at some point want to give them a try though.

Re: TransferWise announces $280M investment

#150

Post by TulliusCicero »

thesimon wrote: post #26
TulliusCicero wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha, have you never been to Germany? Tons of places still don't take credit cards.

Maybe 2-3 years ago, but at least in the cities the card acceptance is quite good. Berlin in particular and cafes in general being the exception.

I live in Munich and it still feels pretty hit and miss to me.
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