Wise refuses to let us access our $60k AUD
hey.paris
hey.paris
I run a SaaS platform where I sell plugins for WordPress. Recently, my PayPal account was suspended, and a balance of €80,000 was frozen. The stated reason is a violation of the Terms of Service. However, no specific explanation has been provided — neither what rule I allegedly violated, nor how I violated it.
I’ve searched through the lengthy documentation, but without clear guidance, this is an impossible task. My support tickets are no longer being answered, and your phone support refers me back to written communication — which, again, receives no response.
This lack of transparency and accountability is extremely concerning.
Due to repeated experiences like this, I now use fintech platforms only as proxy banks. All funds are immediately transferred to a traditional bank account, and only daily operational expenses remain within the fintech environment.
(Also, TIL the word "agentic" is real.)
Is it, really?
It would not matter to the local court where PayPal's HQ is.
PayPal needs to be licensed in your country to handle money transfers. They can lose the right to operate in your state if they aren't compliant with the laws.
In the US, the licenses are required even on the state level: e.g., here are the requirements for California Money Transmitter License:
https://www.jwsuretybonds.com/states/california/money-transm...
Fraud and theft are one fun way to lose such a license.
Really?
I doubt you have tried checking all countries' regulations. Or any, for that matter.
Because there isn't a country where money transfers aren't regulated. Go prove me wrong.
To save you some effort: in the US, you need to have a money transmitter license issued by your state, e.g. in California'
https://dfpi.ca.gov/regulated-industries/money-transmitters/
>Filing a lawsuit against a foreign company and getting anything out of it is even more of a gamble.
Are speaking from experience, or hypothetically?
In any case, filing a lawsuit and raising a complaint with the regulator is an action that can cause the foreign company in question to lose the license to operate in your state.
And unlike your local bank, they don't have direct ties to politicians.
I checked it for my country before writing anything. They don't have a license, nor does Revolut for that matter. I'm not pulling this out of my ass, go check it yourself: https://www.bsi.si/sl/nadzor-bancnega-sistema/izdana-dovolje... (Hint: look in the 4th column where the 2nd column says "Dovoljenja za opravljanje storitev bank in hranilnic")
They definitely do business here, just like Revolut, which has the authorization to do banking in the UK, but not here.
> To save you some effort: in the US, you need to have a money transmitter license issued by your state, e.g. in California'
That's the US, not the entire world.
> In any case, filing a lawsuit and raising a complaint with the regulator is an action that can cause the foreign company in question to lose the license to operate in your state.
They _don't_ have it in the first place, there's nothing to lose for them, only for you as their customer. Furthermore, there's no legal entity of theirs in my country which the court could liquidate to pay me back in such a case. Please consider the fact that not every country has the same legal system as the US before you start lecturing me on how the legal system of my own country, which I dare assume you don't live in, works.
> And unlike your local bank, they don't have direct ties to politicians.
But they have ties to international politicians, which is no better.
I'm not a lawyer, but theft under pretenses of "protecting your account" (from being accessed by you, that is) is still theft.
In cases where the victim just gives up, which seems incredibly common, they get to steal the money and they avoid the cost of having to review most cases, so it's obviously still a winning strategy.
These days I'd only use Paypal if they didn't offer any better options and then only as a proxy to debit/credit card (which has purchase protection so no need to deal with Paypal itself ever).
Paypal even has a banking license where I live. A paypal transfer may or may not be a bank transfer, I don't know, but it has a banking license so I can understand it if people assume that they can trust it like a bank.
I'm not saying victims are dumb; they're ignorant, and the solution is self-education. Hopefully before you start leaving 5+ digits in their care...
Banks have particular protection in the modern financial system. When states grant that, they should IMO protect banks against impersonation.
Bunch of customers were screwed by the bankruptcy of the upper layer. Maybe there is some hope for at least the FDIC cracking down on this deceptive fintech trick in the future.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2025/04...
I had to create a paypal account because an online shop used it as the only method for payment, first time I could pay without registering but the second time they forced the use of an account so I registered.
I still used my card to pay, I didn't add any funds to the paypal account or did any other transactions or anything else really but after some time they froze my account for violating ToS. No actual reason, nothing. And it's next to impossible to find any support contacts, just redirects to useless FAQs everwhere.
Oh how I dream of paypal going bankrupt. The world would be a better place.
The thing is, noone can be told of this freeze/hold, that would be mean tipping off the party that made the suspicious transaction - from what I gather, it’s actually illegal to reveal it’s frozen, so they invent all kinds of meaningless/dumb reasons why the transaction (or the account) can’t be used right now.
So, lack of transparency and accountability IS the purpose of the system in that case.
Great article on how the US does that: https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/debanking-and-debunki...
No, the bank cannot explain why SARs triggered a debanking, because disclosing the existence of a SAR is illegal. Yes, it is the law in the United States that a private non-court, in possession of a memo written by a non-intelligence analyst, cannot describe the nature of the non-accusation the memo makes. Nor can it confirm or deny the existence of the memo.
It’s not just illegal to disclose a SAR to the customer. It is extremely discouraged, by Compliance, to allow there to be an information flow within the bank itself that would allow most employees who interact directly with customers, like call center reps or their branch banker, to learn the existence of SAR. This is out of the concern that they would provide a customer with a responsive answer to the question “Why are you closing my account?!” And so this is one case where in [Seeing like a Bank] the institution intentionally blinds itself. Very soon after making the decision to close your account the bank does not know specifically why it chose to close your account.For all the things people want the. To do, the most important one to me is the "not your keys, not your coin".
I don't trust banks as neither. One time a bank i use to get paid decided to "block" my accounts for 'suspicious avtivity" (i made a transfer to an account number they deemed high-risk). I ended up having to go to a specific physical branch, and literally BEG the clerk to activate the account where they had MY FREAKING MONEY.
I've learned since that, once you give it (lend it actually) to banks, it is not your money.
Internet anonymity might be a temporary defence, until AI doxing analysis improves or one's government decides to change their rules (good luck securing against that).
I don't have any crypto: firstly because I lack the opsec skills. Also because I travel to other countries, and the best defense is to actually not have anything worth being stolen (or limited financial exposure e.g. my physical wallet was stolen last time I was in Brazil).
People immensely more skilled than I will ever be, still have security failures (e.g. Troy Hunt fell for a phishing attack recently).
The service they offer is amazing when it works, but it'll be a long time before I use them for anything my business depends on.
Did they end up doing something about it because of that post?
As a result, it's easy to get in, but you may later become a victim of limited resources for proper fraud handling and manual checks
Maybe that was still the case in 2015. In 2025, a traditional bank will ask for a ton of documentation, run it through the same (probably outsourced) automated fraud prevention system and tell you that unfortunately an account cannot be opened for you. At least that is a common situation for businesses that are too small to be important to the bank, but carry some compliance risk (international consulting, app developers, digital services, etc.). And then you are back to neo-banks...
This has been a trend everywhere, recently, but the severity of the situation differs country by country, so YMMV.
However, this doesn't change the fact that mostly neo-banks exploit regulatory gaps for growth, which ultimately leads to issues like the one described above.
However, I'm not aware of large banks using such online fraud prevention services. For example, in France, there's one major vendor that powers most of the banks. If we look at their client area, there's no indication of fingerprinting.
Since device fingerprinting is included in most online fraud prevention systems, I can assume that traditional banks in France are not using these kinds of tools to screen accounts. But perhaps you have another source of information.
"Computer says no". They'll give you the exact same runaround.
Do people feel that complying with the law is unreasonable, or do they feel like banks do other shady stuff in the name of compliance?
While it may be illegal to close an account without providing proof, it seems possible to soft-block or suspend an account for 'security reasons' without disclosing whether it's related to fraud prevention or other issues.
First, having access to banking and payment services are necessary is many places so much it should be considered a basic (human) right on itself.
Freezing someone's money or access to banking services could cause much more issues or more harm to some individual than some of the criminal charges yet it is done automatically without any proof, reason, any way to appeal, by the sole discretion of one of the stakeholder (without any independent third party). Which in spirit is going against the innocent until proven guilty (and probably even the right of fair trial and right to property human rights).
From people's perspective banks have more power and can easier "take" (freeze for months/years) your money than courts and have way less responsibility or oversight doing it.
Second, banking services is one of few which is nearly entirely depends on trust. If a bank (from my perspective) "can not" (not allowed) to account for every penny and every transaction then my trust in that bank (or even in the whole banking industry) is lost.
That is bad for the bank (they will loose customers), bad for me (because I must use more cash), bad for the society (because more cash would increase tax evasion and black markets, and because it lowers the trust in public institutions), just because some stupid algorithm thought that paying half the dinner to a friend would significantly help the finances of a terrorist group.
Of course, if they don't react to that, then is the time to contact a lawyer.
I'm sure you're right in some countries. In countries with a working small claims system, you should be able to do that without a lawyer in simple enough cases. In some other countries, you might be out more than $500 temporarily but in the end the company pays the lawyer and all other costs.
Often, once it reaches the escalation point where their legal department and not their customer-service-denial department is handling the case, they'll cut a check.
If you are talking about shaming: Your shaming might not have the same reach, but you can still leave negative reviews and tell your friends. I have a policy that if a company pisses me off or wastes my time, I will spend at least the equivalent amount of time leaving negative reviews or telling people about my experience, for reasons a) and c).
If you are still facing an issue, can you reply to my comment - and I'll give you a call back on the number you provided our support team with. Thanks and my apologies again.
See e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43981863 and the linked GIF showing the customer being sent into an infinite loop, the original report, and my own experience (being asked for nonexistent address components - I'm not looking for a one-off solution as exposing my money to Wise until the company has actually cleaned up its act would be... unWise).
the point anyway is not this but the fact that customer service should work regardless of whether a mishap ends up on HN
To this day I still get emails about my remaining balance roughly every quarter. During this time (7 years!), I had multiple exchanges with support guys and one of them escalated. The back office guy explained that in order to access/transfer my balance, I need to do as much KYC as if I was opening a new fresh account. He also made me understand that there is a 2 Euro fee to move my 0.27 Euro balance.
So there we have it. Apparently, they can't close the account because it has a balance in it. And also they can't transfer the balance without going through KYC. As if all of that matter, it makes no financial sense for me to claim the remaining balance. Regulatory dystopia at full display.
Too much time is wasted discussing with various bots and call centre-based "customer support" these days. Normal procedure is/was to send a letter instructing them to close the account and to let them deal with it.
So there’s no impediment here to closing accounts after a few years of inactivity, whatever the balance (if it’s positive) it just has to be sent there.
Yes, absolutely. True in any industry, and especially in ones like this.
Luckily, this happened while they didn't have any money so I just found an alternative way of getting my transfer done, but I second the title: Avoid Wise!
Ironically, despite being a fintech and not known for great customer support, Revolut seems to be among the better options for international transfers, both in terms of fees and in terms of actually letting you make the transfers. (There likely will be a bit of KYC on the first transfer, but unlike with Wise, it actually worked. And from my experience, their customer support actually works and doesn't hallucinate answers!)
If my bank pulls any kind of stuff like that, dropping the magic "I will have to report this to the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority" gets any and all gears unstuck right quick. Because this is absolutely unacceptable, and my local financial regulator agrees (and levies substantial fines accordingly).
Might be an EU thing, though.
Wise is a "payment processor" so it isn't regulated to the same standard.
Which standard?
In the US, the standard in question is "money transmitter", regulated on the state level.
In California, both Revolut and Wise are licensed by DFPI: Wise has MTL (Money Transmitter License) in California, Revolut has a broker license:
Revolut: https://dfpi.ca.gov/search-result-detail/?id=304600
Wise: https://dfpi.ca.gov/regulated_entity/wise-us-inc/
FinCen guidance on the distinction between the to two is not the easiest read, but my takeaway is that both of these companies would be registered FinCen too as MSB's (money service but businesses to
https://www.fincen.gov/resources/statutes-regulations/guidan...
And indeed, here's Wise's MSB registration: https://www.revolut.com/en-US/blog/post/changes-for-revolut-...
Revolut doesn't have on the... because they outsource money handling to an actual bank, FDIC insured and all:
https://www.revolut.com/en-US/blog/post/changes-for-revolut-...
So, doesn't appear like Wise is any less regulated.
In the US, they need to be licensed on a state level.
E.g.: they'd need to have an MTL (Money Transmittance License) in California, regulated by DFPI:
https://dfpi.ca.gov/regulated-industries/money-transmitters/
So, yes, they are.
So is Wise:
> All investment services are provided by Wise Assets Europe AS, incorporated in Estonia under registration number 16267372. Wise Assets Europe AS is authorised and regulated as an investment firm by the Estonian Financial Supervision and Resolution Authority under licence number 4.1-1/174. The registered address is Veerenni 24, 10135 Tallinn, Estonia.
I put the blame on excessive regulation. Businesses are scared of crossing the regulator for fear of revocation of licence or high fines. Also the regulations themselves impose lengthy delay requirements on doing business.
What I've also found is the large incumbents largely skirt the regulations (HSBC for instance let's payments through whilst revolut spent weeks investigating them). Revolut spends the money, which they don't have, whilst HSBC knows they can pay any fine required. Regulation working precisely as designed.
- they need to provide KYC documents, except the documents they're being asked for are the same they already provided
- everything is fine and no documents are required
That's not "excessive regulation", that's incompetence and insufficient regulation.
Some businesses simply follow the regulation more closely then others. It's just a fact. Businesses are always making the trade off calculation as to fines Vs costs. For revolut a fine could be existential, for HSBC it is not. Therefore they behave differently. Fines are a cost of business and incumbent firms have helped design regulations with regulators in part to defend their market position. Of course, there is always what they say the regulations are for (e.g. money laundering prevention etc), but there is often a further motivation. This concept is not new and you can see it all around us in the multitude of state capture that exists in many places.
In what you describe the difference would be that HSBC doesn't get fined and neither HSBC or Revolut does any check. How does that help?
It would mean HSBC and Revolut would compete on a level playing field, and so would their customers, and ordinary businesspeople like OP wouldn't get randomly screwed.
(And sure, maybe a little more "money laundering" would also happen. But at this point the anti-money-laundering-financial-industrial complex has done far more harm to society than money laundering ever did)
I, like many in my corner of Europe double-bank, with salaries, loans and mortgages sitting at a brick&mortar bank, and we only send our monthly spending money to revolut, exactly because if revolut decides to close my account for whatever reason, I might have max €2k frozen.
The only thing you will get by "raising hell" in the branch is to get arrested haha
10/10, would escalate again.
I'm also a Stripe user, but I never had a problem there.
Hopefully I don't get locked out as well!
EDIT: Oh, I actually know who you are, Paris. I don't really have any industry connections these days, but I remember you from various conferences back when I was doing iOS development, maybe 2011-2015. "Hey, Wise! I can vouch for this guy!" Haha, doubt that's gonna hold up.
1. They reserve the right to reject, refund, or limit transactions "at our sole and absolute discretion."
2. They can impose and change limits without telling you.
3. When you "add" money to your Wise account, you’re technically sending money to Wise, and they then decide when to credit your Wise balance.
4. Even though you are the legal owner of the funds, Wise retains practical control over withdrawals, with several escape hatches allowing them to delay, limit, or reject transfers practically forever.
5. They are not reliable for anything, any errors, attacks or bugs, "unforeseeable" stuff. They can even close tomorrow and just say "goodbye" to all the clients and not be liable – there is a specific clause in agreement for that.
If you read agreement closely — Wise (and similar fintech services) often use legal language that gives them almost total control on your money, as well as reinvesting and getting interest on it while it is blocked from withdrawal on your account for, well, reasons...
I don't understand one thing; how can a Business accept such a risk? For what reward? Is there really no better solution to accept payments online? Why people keep using this middleman stuff?
Our regular transaction account with our real bank can receive USD just fine, but it will convert into AUD upon receipt, and spent as AUD with the attached debit card.
It's more effective to be able to spend USD directly, as needed.
Wise's offering (and others like it: OFX, Airwallex, Revolut) offer ACH, FedWire, Wire transfer, and a Debit card.
I don't understand why people nowadays allow to be patronized by private companies like this.
No, wise, it's none of your freaking business why I want to transfer 100 bucks. It's MY money.
They've said they'll provide a final response/compensation offer, but that hasn't come, and they've locked down the account again.
Don't use Wise.
It's a shame that it's too good to be true, until you get blocked and then it takes weeks/months to get the account back
Certainty can't trust one single institution to hold all your funds
They temporarily blocked a transfer to my personal account, a small amount of money from my sister for my daughter's birthday.
They were asking who this person was that this money was being sent to. And what the reason was for this money being sent to my account.
Eventually they released the money, but it makes Wise feel unsafe. Why make me jump through hoops for an insignificant amount of money?
If you're offering financial services for business, you really need customer service that lives up to the name and, when a problem occurs, tells the customer the specific steps to take to fix it.
Maybe they did the math (cost of offering this vs. possible gains) and it didn't check out. Maybe it's a gap for a newcomer. But maybe people just don't buy financial transactions based on the quality of service in a 0.1% case.
As a business you need the support of the legal system to lessen risk, no sensible business owner is going to depend solely on crypto wallets for making payroll, paying suppliers, or keeping cash flow for expenditures...
Maybe it’s the way I was raised and socialized to the world, but I’ve never really trusted these fintech and money transfer services that aren’t regulated as banks. I read the Terms for anything that touches either my money or my business, and there’s so much ambiguity that it’s never sat right with me.
I do use PayPal personally, but only as a money transfer service. I also tend to use a credit card with PayPal rather than a debit card, and I won’t link my bank account to anything that doesn’t support micro deposit verification.
I’m in the fortunate position of not being un(der)banked.
All my personal and business money lives exclusively at actual banks that have to adhere to actual regulations with actual teeth, and who I can sue in court or file complaints about with state and federal regulators, with some realistic hope of resolution. Functionally, I can also walk into a branch and do business with a human. I don’t have to deal with ridiculous chat bots and unempowered “support” reps. I can speak face to face with someone who can actually solve an issue or give me information that’s actionable.
In another life I was a nonprofit administrator. We had an annual event which was ticketed (and brought in the vast majority of income). The organization’s founder LOVED PayPal, and didn’t really care about keeping money there. As someone who had daily responsibility for financials, that terrified me. I could never get them to understand the risk that storing half the organization’s working capital at PayPal represented. They just willfully ignored that PayPal was not a bank, because it was “easier” than credit cards or checks.
It seems like a false positive from fraud prevention systems, combined with limited resources for manual review on Wise's side.
It would explain a lot of things. It's also an absolute dick move and should be illegal (but likely isn't yet).
Yah, HN doesn't like it, but we will get there eventually.
The wordings and formatting is identical.
If they complain, put them against an AI that doesn’t help. Whatever, we still have millions or billions of customers.
... forgetting that it breaks the trust, companies and whole lives of real people that decided to depend on them. Especially a bank CAN NOT spontaneously stop working and especially not with no recourse.
But is there even a way to make companies care about their users? Somehow the economics/management focus would have to shift (maybe legal recourse for spontaneous/unreasonable denial of service?).