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TransferWise changes name to Wise

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Re: TransferWise changes name to Wise

#91

Post by emp_ »

Great Timing! USERS BEWARE, my story

I used the service for two years and just had the most surreal disastrous experience since the year flipped. I religiously send a the same (about 5k USD) to my home country every month so I can pay my mortgage and other bills I left when moved to NA.

2021 arrives, I start a transfer on January 27, days pass, nothing. I contact support 10 days later (of something that in the past 24 months took 3 days), they say I need to prove I’m the recipient so I ask them to cancel the transfer so I can start it from my personal account instead so both accounts match and no documentation is needed, another 10 days go by, still nothing.

I contact support again and found out that they withheld my deposit because they needed me to give, bear with me, POWER OF ATTORNEY among tons of other more resonable documentation to the destination country bank, so instead of signing my life away I cancel the transfer again: 26 days an counting TransferWise held my money which I will NEVER deal with again and tell this tale whenever I get a chance.

Re: TransferWise changes name to Wise

#92

Post by TheColorYellow »

simonklitj wrote: post #65
jsnell wrote: post #8

This feels like an incredibly ill-advised rebrand. Everyone I know of who uses TransferWise uses it rarely, like once per year. They won't be slowly eased into the new name. They'll try using the service again for the first time in a while, and everything will have changed to look like a phishing scam. And this is a service where that trust is critical, since the interaction model of the service is so odd. I'm transf…

Use it monthly. Have salary from foreign country, and simply keep a bank account there, then transfer it to US with (Transfer)Wise. Rebrand won't matter, as I guess I would always Google "Transfer Wise" either way, if nothing comes up for the query "Wise".

Newly in a similar situation myself.

Are there tax implications in the US for doing this type of transfer monthly?

Re: TransferWise changes name to Wise

#93

Post by riffraff »

colincooke wrote: post #12

I love transferwise, depend on it often. I don't get the rebrand, their old name was descriptive, easy to google, and from all perspectives really good. The rebrand won't change me using it, but I really can't see the positive in this.

my understanding is they want to move further into financial services and "transfer-" was unnecessarily limiting.

As you say yourself, the old name _waa_ "descriptive" but they have not been a simple transfer service for many years.

Re: TransferWise changes name to Wise

#94

Post by climb_stealth »

emp_ wrote: post #91

Great Timing! USERS BEWARE, my story I used the service for two years and just had the most surreal disastrous experience since the year flipped. I religiously send a the same (about 5k USD) to my home country every month so I can pay my mortgage and other bills I left when moved to NA. 2021 arrives, I start a transfer on January 27, days pass, nothing. I contact support 10 days later (of something that in the past 2…

Thanks for the warning! Have you decided on what you are going to use instead?

Re: TransferWise changes name to Wise

#95

Post by riffraff »

MaheshC wrote: post #58

I use transferwise as my main bank. The one thing I need from them now is the possibility to invest my borderless account funds in ETF or other guaranteed capital investment vehicles. I hope this rebrand means they are heading in that direction.

I've literally asked for this in every user satisfaction survey they've sent me for the last 5 years, and like you I hope this is a sign they're heading in this direction.

The competition in this space is large, but there are a ton of trade offs between various services and in many countries (hungary, for one) the local alternatives simply suck.

Re: TransferWise changes name to Wise

#96

Post by riffraff »

computator wrote: post #32

Would it be safe to use this if you're transferring a very large amount of money, for example to buy a house in a foreign country? Anyone have experiences (good or bad) with large transfers they'd like to share?

I would advice doing it in batches, you pay by percentage on doing multiple transfers doesn't affect you on the monetary level.

Concretely there should be no difference, but your spirit would be less impacted.

I did this when I first used TW many years ago, when I had no idea if the service was reliable and the transfers would take days.

Re: TransferWise changes name to Wise

#97

Post by esperent »

emp_ wrote: post #91

Great Timing! USERS BEWARE, my story I used the service for two years and just had the most surreal disastrous experience since the year flipped. I religiously send a the same (about 5k USD) to my home country every month so I can pay my mortgage and other bills I left when moved to NA. 2021 arrives, I start a transfer on January 27, days pass, nothing. I contact support 10 days later (of something that in the past 2…

Unfortunately I have come to believe there is no banking service that won't do things like this at some point. For example, I used to swear by N26 until I had a small issue (involving some tiny amount <€50). I told support very politely that I wasn't happy. Their response was full nuclear "pay everything immediately or we're sending your details to a collection agency". I was amazed, I had been a loyal customer for years and this was such a disproportionate response to something tiny. I had been intending to try and work things out,but from that response I simply withdrew all the money from my account and closed it. Now I use Transferwise, and have had no such problems, so far. But I'm under no illusions that I won't have problems in the future.

Re: TransferWise changes name to Wise

#98

Post by johnisgood »

The reason I am NOT USING TransferWise is that I encountered something strange.

To obtain their debit card, one of the requirements is that I add money to my account. So far so good. When I am on that page where I can enter the amount I want to add, there is always a minimum amount given. This is not in itself a problem. The problem is that - to my surprise - this varies by a LOT, and I have no clue why. Sometimes it is 5 USD, sometimes it is 20 USD. As in, sometimes I can add 5 USD or above, but not less, and sometimes I can only add 20 USD or above, but not less.

By now I went through[1]: 5 USD -> 20 USD -> 1 USD -> 5 USD. Why does this happen?

I do not know the actual values as I was using another currency, but you get the point.

[1] I kept checking only for 2 days, so those values were changing this way within those 48 hours max.

Re: TransferWise changes name to Wise

#99

Post by dazc »

emp_ wrote: post #91

Great Timing! USERS BEWARE, my story I used the service for two years and just had the most surreal disastrous experience since the year flipped. I religiously send a the same (about 5k USD) to my home country every month so I can pay my mortgage and other bills I left when moved to NA. 2021 arrives, I start a transfer on January 27, days pass, nothing. I contact support 10 days later (of something that in the past 2…

Not quite so severe but I had a problem logging in which resulted in my account being frozen until I could prove my identity. This was a simple matter of providing a selfie whilst holding a photo ID.

Every attempt resulted in a message that the image wasn't clear enough. The delays bewteen messages were also days and weeks apart. Eventually I gave up and I no longer have access to the account. Thankfully, there was no money it.

Re: TransferWise changes name to Wise

#100

Post by dazc »

esperent wrote: post #97
emp_ wrote: post #91

Great Timing! USERS BEWARE, my story I used the service for two years and just had the most surreal disastrous experience since the year flipped. I religiously send a the same (about 5k USD) to my home country every month so I can pay my mortgage and other bills I left when moved to NA. 2021 arrives, I start a transfer on January 27, days pass, nothing. I contact support 10 days later (of something that in the past 2…

Unfortunately I have come to believe there is no banking service that won't do things like this at some point. For example, I used to swear by N26 until I had a small issue (involving some tiny amount <€50). I told support very politely that I wasn't happy. Their response was full nuclear "pay everything immediately or we're sending your details to a collection agency". I was amazed, I had been a loyal customer for y…

In the UK we have the Financial Conduct Authority. For a registered financial institution you have protection of, I think, something like £80,000 in case the bank goes bust and you can also ask them to investigate any complaint.

I have done this once for my own account and a couple of times for others. They really do look into every detail and will award compensation if it's clear the bank was at fault.

Institutions that don't have this protection include Trasferwise and Revolut, both of which I have had issues with in the past.

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