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

shaun.nz

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

#251

Post by jesterson »

Max-Ganz-II wrote: post #193
jesterson wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It was possible to make transfers to the military support account for about two weeks after war started; then it was blocked. Transfers to other accounts were still possible.

Amount of theft from “military” accounts in Ukraine is staggering, if anyone would ever be interested to figure out. Everyone know that except people blindfolded by the world “military” and deluded to think money there would be used on anything else but beneficiaries whims.

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

#252

Post by Max-Ganz-II »

jesterson wrote: post #243
Max-Ganz-II wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia invaded Ukraine, inflicting untold horror, and Russia is a threat to Europe. In the circumstances of early 2022, I would have expected a way to be found, in the knowledge that such an action - telescope held to blind eye - would be condoned.

> Russia invaded Ukraine, inflicting untold horror, and Russia is a threat to Europe. Realistically it is way more nuanced than that. Its a juvenile worldview to think in black and white. Not willing to start any discussion on the matter, but you may want to know about massacres ukraine did in it's eastern side. After all, the russian invasion wasnt that unprovoked at all (albeit as any force causing many to suffer,…

> Not willing to start any discussion on the matter, but you may want to know about massacres ukraine did in it's eastern side.

This is a Russian narrative.

> After all, the russian invasion wasnt that unprovoked at all

This also is a Russian narrative.

It seems to me you have been from some source been absorbing Russian material.

Putin is a dictator. A few years after he came to power in 2000, Russia was once again living in fear; you did not speak out. If you did, fines, prison, penal colonies with death and violence, or now and then being thrown out of windows.

It looks from material being produced by Putin, the State and the military Russia by about 2010 was looking to take Ukraine.

Putin had his man running Ukraine - into corruption and thuggery - until Euromaiden. He fled to Russia. Literally immediately after that, plan B - the small war began. Finally, 2022, the big war.

There is nothing here where we go "it was not that unprovoked".

Ukraine wanted, and wanted, freedom. To be itself, and not to live in a hell-hole dictatorship. Putin wants to possess Ukraine, because that's how he and it seems a good part of Russian State culture sees the world; in terms of power, conquest and territory.

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

#253

Post by hkpack »

jesterson wrote: post #241
hkpack wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Can you provide any sources for this? Thats common knowledge for everyone even tangentially related to finance industry and likely for anyone who ever did international business with cross border payments . Not sure what kind of "sources" you expect to see here. > Ukraine had very strict banking rules for at least a decade Perhaps for it's own populace, but not for it's rulers and those who they work with.

Okay, so basically you’ve read some “anonymous sources” and decided they are true.

Because for me, as a person who did international business from Ukraine it makes absolutely zero sense to launder through Ukraine as it is:

1) no part of any union, so you will be unable to spend or move money outside.

2) it has extreme bank regulation, and you cannot just send money outside without cause. Receiving and sending money for fake “services” will not work (compared to a lot of other places I know)

3) it has a lot of independent anti-corruption institutions. You can be sure that any government official fears the consequences of doing something illegal.

4) it is in a state of war and any suspicious money operation will trigger investigation from SBU as well, since Russia tries to pay for its agents.

If there is corruption and money laundering happening, it is well outside of any path available for regular people.

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

#254

Post by hkpack »

jesterson wrote: post #246
jlaternman wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean some Russians used Ukraine as a money laundering middleman, specifically through corruption of politicians and elites in the system there? Because it sounds like it. Before the "conflict" (invasion) happened.

I'll leave your imagination to judge who used ukraine as money laundering machine. To have some supplementary data for that, we can look where the money entering ukraine come from for say last 5 years. You can easily find how much was coming from russia and compare it with flow from say EU. You should be capable of drawing your own conclusions after.

You can imagine all sorts of things, including the ones which are not true.

The fact is that there are no proofs that any money donated by EU, US or other donors for Ukraine was misused.

I’ll leave your imagination to judge why the most powerful propaganda machine in the world tries to claim otherwise to stop such aid.

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

#255

Post by pshirshov »

I've opened a business account there back in 2018 and used it for a couple of years up to the moment when they asked me to "update details" or so in the middle of a routine transfer. I've sent them what they wanted and they made the transfer with a day of delay, but the experience was too humiliating and alerting.

Revolut might be a bit better but again, you don't owe your money, they may ask for random stuff (a selfie, a scan of your passport, a PoA) randomly at any time, they may arbitrarily block you from accessing your money when your passport expired and you haven't received a new one yet, or when you landed in a new country and their heuristic thinks it's not you, so you cant't even buy some food or get a taxi. Even if you pay their Ultra subscription (which I do) it's hard to speak with someone who may make decisions and I've experienced some comical situations like "we can't figure out which one of your cards was used for this attempted transaction, we can't find it in our database, we will reissue all your cards"

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

#256

Post by hartymagic »

I had Wise ask for my tax documents when I was in South America! I couldn’t access any documentation so I just ignored that account and used another one. That is the second time I have refused to use Wise. The first, they closed my account because I sent some money to my son and referenced a trust a/c. Ai carumba! Why do they make it so difficult when they only exist for overseas functions?

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

#257

Post by Cameri »

novok wrote: post #163

This was very obviously written with ChatGPT. The structure, emojis, emdashes and contrasting sentences. Surprised nobody is calling it out. IMO save us time and just give us the original short version you wrote to ChatGPT

As if shaming people for using ChatGPT to write articles will have any meaningful effect. It's also quite fatiguing having to read the same complaint over and over when the solution is so simple yet many fail to grasp it.

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

#258

Post by lxgr »

rtpg wrote: post #235
lxgr wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

So a couple of things: - I don’t know for France but for Japan one of the ID cards (My Number cards) have RFID chips in them. This means that KYC procedures can involve both scanning the card with your phone, and then doing some video “turn your head” verification stuff - even absent that, video-based KYC flows (which I see a lot of) just leave less margin of error for fraudsters. And for people being honest, a natio…

One big problem I see with that is that, while almost all passports and EU ID cards now support ICAO cryptographic document validation standards, there's usually no publicly accessible revocation list for these.

Combine that with the absence of any built-in user verification (some national schemes have a PIN code, but the track record of that isn't great), and it becomes clear why these documents don't fully solve the problem of strong identity verification.

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

#259

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

lmm wrote: post #236
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, he is correct though. The laws exist and financial institutions need to follow them, or else Binance happens.

Financial institutions are far from passive bystanders in the legal process that creates those laws, much less the regulatory process that applies them in practice. Binance is frankly probably the lesser evil at this point.

> Financial institutions are far from passive bystanders in the legal process that creates those laws, much less the regulatory process that applies them in practice. Binance is frankly probably the lesser evil at this point.

Ok, help me understand here. Like, the laws are passed by governments. The financial institutions complain but comply to some extent. How does this benefit said financial institutions? Or am I missing something here?

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

#260

Post by astrange »

usr1106 wrote: post #173
astrange wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US (for financial things) that's called a medallion guarantee and you can walk into a bank and get them to authenticate it. For other things there are notaries public.

Walk into a bank is no longer possible in Finland, regardless of the purpose. Most branch offices have been closed. The bigger part of the remaining ones are appointment only and getting an appointment can take weeks. Very few offer cash and similar day to day services without appointment, but only very short hours. People who cannot use cards or the internet will queue in the street. So like the modern challengers,…

Well obviously Finnish people wouldn't design a system where you talk to another human.
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