Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A change of address led to our Wise accounts being shut down

shaun.nz

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 275 posts

Re: A change of address led to our Wise accounts being shut down

#211

Post by hkpack »

jesterson wrote: post #182
Max-Ganz-II wrote: post #68

Back in early 2022, a little after the war started, TransferWise blocked transfer (i.e. donation) to the account run by the National Bank of Ukraine for support of the Ukrainian military. I have and never will forgive them for this.

> I have and never will forgive them for this. Ukraine is well known money laundering machine. Before the conflict started it was a well known fact and many banks didn't want to work with transfers to Ukraine. I am sure TransferWise shared similar risk model.

> Ukraine is well known money laundering machine.

Can you provide any sources for this?

Ukraine had very strict banking rules for at least a decade. It had much more sense to launder through Cyprus for example or other EU countries like Latvia (when it was still possible) or Hungary if you’re politically connected.

Re: A change of address led to our Wise accounts being shut down

#212

Post by SomeUserName432 »

hpdigidrifter wrote: post #149
FateOfNations wrote: post #78

At some point customer service died. Businesses of seem to no longer be interested in dealing with customers. Good customers come in all shapes and sizes, and often don't exactly fit a cookie cutter. It's frustrating to see businesses just cut and run the moment something becomes a problem that needs more than a series of pre-scripted responses to be resolved.

Wise customer service is amazingly good though. I'd much prefer to use a company that spends 100% of the time on 80% of customers than one that spends 80% of it's time on 20% of the customers OP can't even provide proof from the tax office of being at that address, it's an angry rant rather than the whole picture. Would you go into business with him with nothing but a phone bill as proof?

Had a transfer frozen by the central bank earlier this year.

Wise was very helpful in getting it resolved, and made it clear that if anything else came up, just reply to the e-mail anytime.

Re: A change of address led to our Wise accounts being shut down

#213

Post by bfkwlfkjf »

cjs_ac wrote: post #196
bfkwlfkjf wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything you say might be technically true. But if you look at the bigger picture, Ukraine has been invaded and occupied by a bigger countries which buys western banks to do it's money laundering through. Now is not the time to be discipling. Justice is more than just following laws.

Yes, but that's a matter to be settled in a court. Banks and other financial institutions have no business deciding what's just; they just follow the regulations given to them by governments and the courts.

That's your opinion. Businesses make their own decisions. You'd be aware if you knew anything about history.

Re: A change of address led to our Wise accounts being shut down

#214

Post by monooso »

hn_acc1 wrote: post #73
monooso wrote: post #67

I had a very similar experience with Wise recently. I finally managed to find a document they deemed acceptable (at the fifth attempt) the day before the deadline. At no point did I receive a clear explanation as to why a document was rejected. After the second rejection I hastily transferred all of my business funds to other accounts, and have no intention of returning.

Any suggestions for alternatives? I set up an account and tested a transfer to an out-of-country account, just in case I need to leave the US.. It worked painlessly. But recently, I think they closed my account pending more documents. Also, any suggestions on reasonably secure bank accounts one can hold without citizenship / residency? Swiss?

The main reason I was using Wise is because they made it easy to set up a US bank account. Changing the payment procedure with my current client is untenable, so for now I just ensure that my money is held by Wise for as little time as possible.

For personal foreign currency transactions, usually whilst travelling, I've used Revolut for years without issue.

Re: A change of address led to our Wise accounts being shut down

#215

Post by jimmydddd »

atmavatar wrote: post #90
FateOfNations wrote: post #78

At some point customer service died. Businesses of seem to no longer be interested in dealing with customers. Good customers come in all shapes and sizes, and often don't exactly fit a cookie cutter. It's frustrating to see businesses just cut and run the moment something becomes a problem that needs more than a series of pre-scripted responses to be resolved.

There was a time when the general consensus was that treating customers well would result in greater retention, which, in turn, would ultimately prove to be net positive profit-wise over time. It seems like that changed somewhere around the turn of the century, whereby businesses started to decide that it was better to cut down on customer service, and in some cases, go so far as to ban customers. The first cases of…

A family member helped start up a call center for UPS back in the 90's, for their shipping software. The problem she was working on was that the average time for a call to be answered was 60 seconds, and they were trying to get it to 45 seconds. They also had formal tiers of agents that could quickly escalate a call to a technical expert if needed. The golden age of call centers I guess.

Re: A change of address led to our Wise accounts being shut down

#217

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

dustingetz wrote: post #92
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also very curious, as a former Wise user who stopped using them after they demanded impossible KYC requirements (proof of address with address components that simply don't exist for my address, luckily with no money in the account, but didn't budge even when I reached out to support) and then seem to have silently dropped this months later (still not using them - not going to risk that they come back with more bullsh…

what do you use now

Revolut. Despite an uneasy feeling with them since they're a fintech and those can be problematic, I've had nothing but excellent experiences with them. Including customer support in the few cases where I reached out.

Re: A change of address led to our Wise accounts being shut down

#218

Post by lxgr »

rtpg wrote: post #175
Etheryte wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In countries where you do have e.g. tax numbers associated with addresses no government agency is going to give it to a random private company. I've lived in many countries both in the EU and outside of it and I can think of only a few countries where you actually could do something better than a pdf — and they use digital signatures.

I don't know about the rest of the EU but France just has national ID cards with your address printed on the back! No need for anything fancy there. In both Australia and Japan there are tax numbers used for corporate identity verification (remember: here we're talking about a Wise account used for a business)

> France just has national ID cards with your address printed on the back! No need for anything fancy there.

Is a scan/photo of a government ID that much more reliable, though?

Physical IDs are designed to be validated in person because they're hard to replicate. That's not the case for a scan/photo of an ID.

Re: A change of address led to our Wise accounts being shut down

#219

Post by lxgr »

joshvm wrote: post #154
lxgr wrote: post #26

> a dropdown list of acceptable documents: a lease agreement, rates notice, tax document, utilities bill, or telecommunications bill. It’s baffling to me that these types of (usually unsigned in both the electronic and the ink way, not that the latter would prove anything in a scan) PDFs are still somehow the gold standard for “proofs” of address.

Though not any telco bill, it has to be a landline. Otherwise you could spin up a mobile contract and it would be easy. If you're a single person company/consultant they'll accept a personal bank statement (having just gone through this runaround myself).

That's even more absurd. What if I don't have a landline, or somebody else in my household is paying for it?

Re: A change of address led to our Wise accounts being shut down

#220

Post by lxgr »

hshdhdhehd wrote: post #112
lxgr wrote: post #26

> a dropdown list of acceptable documents: a lease agreement, rates notice, tax document, utilities bill, or telecommunications bill. It’s baffling to me that these types of (usually unsigned in both the electronic and the ink way, not that the latter would prove anything in a scan) PDFs are still somehow the gold standard for “proofs” of address.

For more serious stuff in AU there is Justice of the Peace (basically a qualified volunteer but not necessarily a lawyer) who can certify the copy. This can then be scanned and has the JP stamp and signature. Sort of handy as it is a distributed network, so you dont need to queue at a post office and get someone to eye up your docs and fill in a form.

> [...] who can certify the copy. This can then be scanned [...]

Seems like you're back to square one: Having to trust a scan of an authentic document.

Post reply on HN