Has anyone ever just called them 'Wise'? Every single mention is 'Wise (formerly TransferWise)' like it's part of their legal entity name. Their CEO probably introduces himself as 'CEO of Wise (formerly TransferWise)'.
It feels like particularly in finance, that startups who disrupt traditional players do so without a full understanding of all the corner cases and none of the regulatory accountability which is why those traditional finance players were so expensive in the first place.
> 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.
I'm not really sure what the author expected. If you're in KYC and ask to speak to a manager when your document gets rejected, you're going to have a bad time. The person processing your documents can't give you leeway even if they wanted to, they have legal requirements and a process they must follow.
Story as old as time. Fintechs may be cheaper or have a cooler app, but if you ever stray off the happy path, you can kiss your account and/or money goodbye.
Nowhere in this blog does it mention what the business actually does, which is always a red flag. I've seen plenty of stripe bashing posts on HN that end up with the business being in newsletter scams or adult content.
I feel as though the whole story isn't here, as there's one key detail that seems suspect from Wise's email: "Additionally, the reason behind our decision is because your activities exceed our risk tolerance."
It seems as though Wise had noticed payment patterns that seemed outside of what Wise is comfortable facilitating. I hope the author can get their funds, but this behaviour is consistent with all banking services.
Jesus Christ, what a nightmare. I've used Wise quite a bit and was blocked as well, though I'm not entirely sure what I did to get released. I was stuck in a place where I had to login to do something but it wouldn't let me log in. I told a friend of mine who managed to find me a page where I could finally get customer support without being logged in.
In my case, it was totally my fault because I foolishly used Wise on my work email. Why would I even do that? It did start this half-Kafkaesque nightmare but I managed to eventually get the account back. I'd compounded the problems by also trying to make a new account so I could get customer support and promptly ended up being banned for trying a duplicate account. Fantastic.
But at least you know there is some flow that can get you out of this temporarily restricted state - which seems far less severe than the flow they got stuck in. Being unable to actually get their money out seems crazy. I would have rented the damned WeWork and been done with it to be honest.
I've had good experiences with Wise but jesus this is a nightmare, it looks like their customer service is crooked. It's a shame that such a great company can be so inflexible and let this type of situations fly.
New Zealand banks are horrible. If they made it easy to hold USD and/or forex/fees on international card charges were reasonable, Wise wouldn't be needed in most cases.
NZ banks also have no depositor protection. No equivalent of the US FDIC. Note below from 'jemmyw depositor protection added the past couple months.
> If they made it easy to hold USD and/or forex/fees on international card charges were reasonable, Wise wouldn't be needed in most cases.
Yeah, if the banks could provide a service similar to Wise I'd happily use a bank.
My bank wanted ~$800/mo in foreign exchange fees for what I'm doing. Wise charges me ~$100/mo. That's, what, 700% more fees? I'm saving $8.5k/yr.
Even if Wise imploded tomorrow and I lost the cash I have in there I'm pretty sure after this long I'm still ahead versus having used my bank all along.
And there are a lot of value-adds on top.
I can get a Visa card that lets me pay directly in the foreign currency instead of paying the exchange fee twice. This was a whole separate expensive/specialty product from my bank.
I can send electronic transfers (through Canada's Interac e-Transfer service) that exceed what a local bank will provide even to my business account and completely avoid the need for additional services/hacks/fees/etc. This is, apparently, "impossible and not supported by Interac" according to multiple banks I've talked to, the business rep, etc.
Long story short... I agree. Wise only exists because banks are kinda terrible at this. If the banks sucked less, few people would bother with the friction of the additional account.
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.
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.
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[ 23.2 ms ] story [ 3583 ms ] threadIt’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.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YS8FLnSz2eP-nXp7FJR7Gsef...
And does this seem like AI automation gone mad?
It seems as though Wise had noticed payment patterns that seemed outside of what Wise is comfortable facilitating. I hope the author can get their funds, but this behaviour is consistent with all banking services.
In my case, it was totally my fault because I foolishly used Wise on my work email. Why would I even do that? It did start this half-Kafkaesque nightmare but I managed to eventually get the account back. I'd compounded the problems by also trying to make a new account so I could get customer support and promptly ended up being banned for trying a duplicate account. Fantastic.
But at least you know there is some flow that can get you out of this temporarily restricted state - which seems far less severe than the flow they got stuck in. Being unable to actually get their money out seems crazy. I would have rented the damned WeWork and been done with it to be honest.
I have an archived copy here if you want to see https://archive.roshangeorge.dev/archive/1761866967.0412/ind... (hopefully the Cloudflare cache isn't misconfigured)
EDIT: The Wayback Machine has a copy as well, so you don't need mine https://web.archive.org/web/20251030232647/https://shaun.nz/...
NZ banks also have no depositor protection. No equivalent of the US FDIC. Note below from 'jemmyw depositor protection added the past couple months.
Yeah, if the banks could provide a service similar to Wise I'd happily use a bank.
My bank wanted ~$800/mo in foreign exchange fees for what I'm doing. Wise charges me ~$100/mo. That's, what, 700% more fees? I'm saving $8.5k/yr.
Even if Wise imploded tomorrow and I lost the cash I have in there I'm pretty sure after this long I'm still ahead versus having used my bank all along.
And there are a lot of value-adds on top.
I can get a Visa card that lets me pay directly in the foreign currency instead of paying the exchange fee twice. This was a whole separate expensive/specialty product from my bank.
I can send electronic transfers (through Canada's Interac e-Transfer service) that exceed what a local bank will provide even to my business account and completely avoid the need for additional services/hacks/fees/etc. This is, apparently, "impossible and not supported by Interac" according to multiple banks I've talked to, the business rep, etc.
Long story short... I agree. Wise only exists because banks are kinda terrible at this. If the banks sucked less, few people would bother with the friction of the additional account.
After the second rejection I hastily transferred all of my business funds to other accounts, and have no intention of returning.
I have and never will forgive them for this.
Prior HN discussion about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42371476