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.
Keeping funds in Paypal seems nuts. I've also had experience with them just closing the account ~12yrs ago but fortunately only had 10EUR on it.
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).
Quite some years ago I sold a Wordpress plugin at a marketplace called Binpress. They paid to my business Paypal account. It had a $3500 balance and I didn't log in to Paypal for a while. After 2 years I tried to recover my account. It was blocked and there was no way for me to get access. I tried every possible way.
I am genuinely surprised to find out that some people leave large sums of money in these types of non-bank services. Why don’t people move the money out? Is it too much trust of the competence of these organisations?
Perhaps because they try to look like banks to their customers.
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.
In the UK, similar situations are common when “someone” flags any transaction to or from you as suspicious, at which point they need to freeze it, report it to an appropriate branch of an organisation, and… wait. That organisation most of the times doesn’t respond, so the hold expires in about two weeks, and then everything resumes working.
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.
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.
Paypal lawyers went over this situation thousands of times. If they would have any trouble with it, Paypal's behavior would already be different. AML/KYC and other bank regulations are so ridiculous and vague that it seems perfectly normal according to them to withhold somebody's money for a long time without even providing any explanation.
It's easier to get justice from a local bank in your country, or to at least talk to a real person face to face than from PayPal Luxemburg or wherever they're located.
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.
That was a thing 3-4 years ago. Now we have evolved and there is a very good chance that OP issue won't be solved because even the CEO doesn't have the kind of necessary access to move this through.
I think in this case Wise is A. Not quite big enough and B. Has too much overlap with HN users (especially for business/paid users, where the money may be at) to just ignore this. The CEO at the very least has the necessary access to start the process of this company getting their money back.
Ahh, I have fond memories of this. Their random KYC 're-verification' process (the lack of humans/computer says no) was _dystopian_ levels of frustrating. In the end I made a gif[0] and called them out publicly in the hope that they'd do something about it.
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.
In banking and money services, some things cannot be handled via the usual support channels. In these cases, it’s often more effective to have your lawyer contact their legal department.
Flaming them publicly before doing that is a) cathartic, b) cheaper than the lawyer and might get them to address the issue, c) the right thing to do because it creates an incentive for companies to act right without the customer needing to hire a lawyer.
Of course, if they don't react to that, then is the time to contact a lawyer.
I’ve had all kinds of little annoying issues with Wise that cause me to be trapped in circles, but nothing this serious. Support is truly the thing that separates the wheat from the chaff. Everything is hunky-dory when it works, and the moment there’s a problem, you’re suddenly stuck in the Barbican at 3am with no signs, no lights and nobody to talk to.
...and Wise support became utterly terrible a few years back. I mean "failing basic reading comprehension" terrible, the level of incompetence shown in this article is par for the course.
Any adequate person would read their Service Agreement and stay back, because by accepting it, you accept that:
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?
I can answer in our case: as an Australian business that receives a lot of USD, precious few options for keeping that money in USD _and_ having it accessible via a debit card exist. This is one of them. Typically, we don't let much money sit in the Wise account, because as you rightly say, their terms are onerous as hell.
Interesting, thanks for the explanation.. Here where I am located I can accept payments in any currency on my business account in bank institution and spend them right away, but maybe I'm just lucky with location.
Unfortunately, this is the reality of modern business banking, and Wise is not unique in this. You can find similar reports about most major EMIs and a fair number of banks. Banks have basically become an inefficient and unfair branch of law enforcement, without presumption of innocence and without due process. Every imaginable abuse is justifiable by Compliance nowadays.
I disagree. Neo-banks like Wise choose to grow irresponsibly. Any traditional local bank will usually speak with you first before opening an account. In contrast, neo-banks open accounts quickly and then rely heavily on automated fraud prevention systems, since manual reviews are costly.
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
> Any traditional local bank will usually speak with you first before opening an account. In contrast, neo-banks open accounts quickly and then rely heavily on automated fraud prevention systems, since manual reviews are costly.
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.
Well, if we're talking about the same thing, there are laws that the banks and fintechs are bound by. These carry hefty fines for the bank and potential jail terms for their employees if not followed to the letter, including things like providing zero context or information about why your account was blocked when suspicion of fraud or money laundering is raised. The failure to report suspicion is likewise punishable.
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?
I'm not familiar with the exact regulatory text for fintech, but it's highly likely that there is a difference between suspended and closed accounts.
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.
Are those fintech companies under any financial regulatory authority?
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).
They are and Wise certainly is given how big and integrated they are. The problem is that most of the time they are blocking your account because of regulation, so they have checked that box and covered their a*s.
Well, if they are repeatedly requesting paperwork you've already submitted, the fault is clearly with them - and they are not blocking because of regulations, but because they are incompetent. This won't get them out of being fined.
> 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.
Some of them like Revolut and N26 are. German federal authority actually forced N26 to limit customer acquisition until they fixed their money laundering issues.
Wise is a "payment processor" so it isn't regulated to the same standard.
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
Hey there, I work at Wise and saw this during my break. I'm really really sorry for the bad experience here. I just checked with my team internally and this has been fixed prior to this making front page.
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.
If you have a good escalation path, consider mentioning the other bad experiences people are reporting here, in particular contradictory claims made by customer service regarding the needed KYC information, lack of reading comprehension by customer service, or generally a kafkaesque, frustrating, broken KYC process.
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).
As a private customer, they asked for more KYC (annoying but normal), then insisted on me providing a proof of address with components that my address (and any other address from my country that I know) does not have.
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!)
This is also a common experience in retail banking (not only wise) in the UK.
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.
I had one experience whereby I had to receive some payments from some foreign entity for both HSBC and revolut. I got stuck into weeks of wrangling with with revolut (similar to that of OP), and having been through that next time I used HSBC, who immediately allowed the payment.
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.
Retail banks have branches. If something happens to my account and I'm locked out I can literally walk from my home to the branch and raise hell.
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.
> 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)
This scenario has happened because of the regulations that banks have to follow. They freeze accounts and check payments more frequently now given the extra scrutiny demanded of them.
I haven't been locked out (yet?). However, my account situation with Wise is similar i.e. I'm Australian and have been a customer since they were known as TransferWise. My documentation for UBOs is currently under review right now.
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.
I once had a fintech account with a company that is EU regulated. It was a long time ago and I used it for a couple transactions that resulted in a 0.27 Eur dust balance. I didn't use it after that and a couple years before Covid they decided they need more KYC to keep the account active and I just ignored them.
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.
They can close it, banks have no problem closing accounts with residual balances and they just keep the money if normal fees exceed the balance.
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.
Long-time happy Wise business customer here (since before the name change). While generally great, their KYC flow needs serious attention. Received four document request emails simultaneously, mostly identical but with different links. In one flow, after uploading invoices, I couldn't upload other requested documents. The multiple, distinct forms asking for the same info were confusing. Got verified eventually, but the process was buggy and didn't inspire confidence. If anyone from Wise is reading this, please fix your KYC!
Honest tip: When I had a Wise-related problem, I reached out to @patio11 (famous HN user) for help and he connected me with a high-ranking employee at Wise. We had the problem resolved a day later.
No, I'm talking about Wise. I was falsely accused of some stuff, my account was locked, and they were ignoring all communications even as I tried to prove my innocence. @patio11 helped me escalate and we had it resolved really quickly.
I'm also a Stripe user, but I never had a problem there.
Stripe had about EUR150k for more than 2 years, until they decided to pay, without interest, which they probably earned on top of my funds.
Treat these companies as public toilets: Leave the funds as less as possible.
We had the same experience. So today, we are used to close our account ourselves before the 'neo' bank does it. No time to tell details now, have to drive to our bank to hand over a cheque.
In addition to the ridiculousness of the whole situation, it is unbelievably ridiculous that their customer service is the same incoherent, pro-forma slop that's now the norm for retail customer service everywhere.
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.
> 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.
Yeah just let me buy my coffee while travelling... waiting for confirmation... sorry still waiting. Shit, I missed my flight (who don't accept cryptocurrency)
Whether it is a person or an AI bot, if the end result is indistinguishable from an AI chat bot, then it is effectively for all intents and purposes just an AI chat bot.
Moving to a country where banks have at least some legal service obligation, such as the UK, although even then those regulations often don't cover businesses.
There is no alternative, all financial businesses will freeze accounts under any suspicions. Way to have a degree of mind peace is to have a handful of accounts with funds split across them. If an account gets frozen then it's business as usual pretty much. Takes months for investigations to complete at times.
wise seems to be managed rather unprofessionally. An ex-girlfriend of mine used to work there and once joked about some of my transactions. It was all in good humor and nothing sensitive was involved, but it raised a serious concern for me: how can a random employee access anyone’s account, is that SO common? It feels like there's zero privacy
A couple things. This has a name: LoveInt. Second, i don't have a girlfriend, I just know a girl that would be really mad if she heard me say that. And thirdly, is your implication it's OK for someone to access your financials merely because you're romantically involved?
Worked for a large payment provider (online checkout mainly), we logged all purchases including items, personal email and other details. All engineers could access this log, found out by searching for my email.
very happy Wise customer, most banks face a constantly moving regulation and needs for KYC and have to put customers on hold and verify if for some reason it get flagged. I hope your problem is resolved soon
the permissionless aspect of using crypto allows consumers and businesses to transact without worrying about a payment processor shutting them down. some crypto is permissioned though
many people say crypto is a solution looking for a problem, as they are comfortable with an alternative to every crypto use case someone might have. such as instant and fast cross border payments. and then the problem surfaces.
This is a familiar situation.
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.
Keeping funds in Paypal seems nuts. I've also had experience with them just closing the account ~12yrs ago but fortunately only had 10EUR on it.
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).
Quite some years ago I sold a Wordpress plugin at a marketplace called Binpress. They paid to my business Paypal account. It had a $3500 balance and I didn't log in to Paypal for a while. After 2 years I tried to recover my account. It was blocked and there was no way for me to get access. I tried every possible way.
That sounds like a small claims court case, if not suing PayPal for outright theft.
I'm not a lawyer, but theft under pretenses of "protecting your account" (from being accessed by you, that is) is still theft.
I am genuinely surprised to find out that some people leave large sums of money in these types of non-bank services. Why don’t people move the money out? Is it too much trust of the competence of these organisations?
Perhaps because they try to look like banks to their customers.
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.
In the UK, similar situations are common when “someone” flags any transaction to or from you as suspicious, at which point they need to freeze it, report it to an appropriate branch of an organisation, and… wait. That organisation most of the times doesn’t respond, so the hold expires in about two weeks, and then everything resumes working.
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.
> noone can be told
Great article on how the US does that: https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/debanking-and-debunki...
Hope you're considering a lawsuit? €80k is no joke.
Paypal lawyers went over this situation thousands of times. If they would have any trouble with it, Paypal's behavior would already be different. AML/KYC and other bank regulations are so ridiculous and vague that it seems perfectly normal according to them to withhold somebody's money for a long time without even providing any explanation.
Good news, actual banks in many countries also do the same thing.
It's easier to get justice from a local bank in your country, or to at least talk to a real person face to face than from PayPal Luxemburg or wherever they're located.
Welcome to paypal.
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.
You violated the doctrine of low agency. You are too agentic.
I've also had a bad experience with Wise.
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.
Don't worry too much, luckily you've reached #1 on HN so they'll fix it for you within a day.
That was a thing 3-4 years ago. Now we have evolved and there is a very good chance that OP issue won't be solved because even the CEO doesn't have the kind of necessary access to move this through.
I think in this case Wise is A. Not quite big enough and B. Has too much overlap with HN users (especially for business/paid users, where the money may be at) to just ignore this. The CEO at the very least has the necessary access to start the process of this company getting their money back.
Here we go: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43981981
Agreed. Is there a term or phrase for getting things fixed by going viral while the problem persists for others.
Maybe "Schrödinger Fix". Not that it is used by anyone.
Ahh, I have fond memories of this. Their random KYC 're-verification' process (the lack of humans/computer says no) was _dystopian_ levels of frustrating. In the end I made a gif[0] and called them out publicly in the hope that they'd do something about it.
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.
[0]: https://x.com/boomskats/status/1407019117555683332
> In the end I made a gif[0] and called them out publicly in the hope that they'd do something about it.
Did they end up doing something about it because of that post?
It's not random KYC. Most likely, this is a fraud prevention system that spotted your account as suspicious.
In banking and money services, some things cannot be handled via the usual support channels. In these cases, it’s often more effective to have your lawyer contact their legal department.
Flaming them publicly before doing that is a) cathartic, b) cheaper than the lawyer and might get them to address the issue, c) the right thing to do because it creates an incentive for companies to act right without the customer needing to hire a lawyer.
Of course, if they don't react to that, then is the time to contact a lawyer.
Except you can't do that if your case is not big/interesting, like "they locked my account with $500"
I’ve had all kinds of little annoying issues with Wise that cause me to be trapped in circles, but nothing this serious. Support is truly the thing that separates the wheat from the chaff. Everything is hunky-dory when it works, and the moment there’s a problem, you’re suddenly stuck in the Barbican at 3am with no signs, no lights and nobody to talk to.
> Support is truly the thing that separates the wheat from the chaff.
Yes, absolutely. True in any industry, and especially in ones like this.
...and Wise support became utterly terrible a few years back. I mean "failing basic reading comprehension" terrible, the level of incompetence shown in this article is par for the course.
Any adequate person would read their Service Agreement and stay back, because by accepting it, you accept that:
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?
I can answer in our case: as an Australian business that receives a lot of USD, precious few options for keeping that money in USD _and_ having it accessible via a debit card exist. This is one of them. Typically, we don't let much money sit in the Wise account, because as you rightly say, their terms are onerous as hell.
Interesting, thanks for the explanation.. Here where I am located I can accept payments in any currency on my business account in bank institution and spend them right away, but maybe I'm just lucky with location.
Unfortunately, this is the reality of modern business banking, and Wise is not unique in this. You can find similar reports about most major EMIs and a fair number of banks. Banks have basically become an inefficient and unfair branch of law enforcement, without presumption of innocence and without due process. Every imaginable abuse is justifiable by Compliance nowadays.
I disagree. Neo-banks like Wise choose to grow irresponsibly. Any traditional local bank will usually speak with you first before opening an account. In contrast, neo-banks open accounts quickly and then rely heavily on automated fraud prevention systems, since manual reviews are costly.
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
> Any traditional local bank will usually speak with you first before opening an account. In contrast, neo-banks open accounts quickly and then rely heavily on automated fraud prevention systems, since manual reviews are costly.
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.
Well, if we're talking about the same thing, there are laws that the banks and fintechs are bound by. These carry hefty fines for the bank and potential jail terms for their employees if not followed to the letter, including things like providing zero context or information about why your account was blocked when suspicion of fraud or money laundering is raised. The failure to report suspicion is likewise punishable.
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?
I'm not familiar with the exact regulatory text for fintech, but it's highly likely that there is a difference between suspended and closed accounts.
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.
Are those fintech companies under any financial regulatory authority?
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.
They are and Wise certainly is given how big and integrated they are. The problem is that most of the time they are blocking your account because of regulation, so they have checked that box and covered their a*s.
Well, if they are repeatedly requesting paperwork you've already submitted, the fault is clearly with them - and they are not blocking because of regulations, but because they are incompetent. This won't get them out of being fined.
> Might be an EU thing, though.
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.
>Are those fintech companies under any financial regulatory authority?
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.
Some of them like Revolut and N26 are. German federal authority actually forced N26 to limit customer acquisition until they fixed their money laundering issues.
Wise is a "payment processor" so it isn't regulated to the same standard.
>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.
Hey there, I work at Wise and saw this during my break. I'm really really sorry for the bad experience here. I just checked with my team internally and this has been fixed prior to this making front page.
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.
So you need someone on HN to get hit by your post to get a decent customer support?!?
Seems like they are saying this has been resolved before it was posted here so before someone had a chance to see it on HN?
If you have a good escalation path, consider mentioning the other bad experiences people are reporting here, in particular contradictory claims made by customer service regarding the needed KYC information, lack of reading comprehension by customer service, or generally a kafkaesque, frustrating, broken KYC process.
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).
As a private customer, they asked for more KYC (annoying but normal), then insisted on me providing a proof of address with components that my address (and any other address from my country that I know) does not have.
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!)
This is also a common experience in retail banking (not only wise) in the UK.
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.
Asking for KYC is normal. Here, OP is reporting that they're being alternatingly told that:
- 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.
I had one experience whereby I had to receive some payments from some foreign entity for both HSBC and revolut. I got stuck into weeks of wrangling with with revolut (similar to that of OP), and having been through that next time I used HSBC, who immediately allowed the payment.
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.
Retail banks have branches. If something happens to my account and I'm locked out I can literally walk from my home to the branch and raise hell.
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.
How does removing excessive regulation help this scenario?
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?
> 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)
This scenario has happened because of the regulations that banks have to follow. They freeze accounts and check payments more frequently now given the extra scrutiny demanded of them.
I haven't been locked out (yet?). However, my account situation with Wise is similar i.e. I'm Australian and have been a customer since they were known as TransferWise. My documentation for UBOs is currently under review right now.
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.
I once had a fintech account with a company that is EU regulated. It was a long time ago and I used it for a couple transactions that resulted in a 0.27 Eur dust balance. I didn't use it after that and a couple years before Covid they decided they need more KYC to keep the account active and I just ignored them.
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.
They can close it, banks have no problem closing accounts with residual balances and they just keep the money if normal fees exceed the balance.
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.
This is why cryptocurrency will win.
Long-time happy Wise business customer here (since before the name change). While generally great, their KYC flow needs serious attention. Received four document request emails simultaneously, mostly identical but with different links. In one flow, after uploading invoices, I couldn't upload other requested documents. The multiple, distinct forms asking for the same info were confusing. Got verified eventually, but the process was buggy and didn't inspire confidence. If anyone from Wise is reading this, please fix your KYC!
You can find situation like this in twitter a lot
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
Honest tip: When I had a Wise-related problem, I reached out to @patio11 (famous HN user) for help and he connected me with a high-ranking employee at Wise. We had the problem resolved a day later.
10/10, would escalate again.
Are you confusing Wise with Stripe, where he used to work?
No, I'm talking about Wise. I was falsely accused of some stuff, my account was locked, and they were ignoring all communications even as I tried to prove my innocence. @patio11 helped me escalate and we had it resolved really quickly.
I'm also a Stripe user, but I never had a problem there.
Stripe had about EUR150k for more than 2 years, until they decided to pay, without interest, which they probably earned on top of my funds. Treat these companies as public toilets: Leave the funds as less as possible.
We had the same experience. So today, we are used to close our account ourselves before the 'neo' bank does it. No time to tell details now, have to drive to our bank to hand over a cheque.
Is it just me or does some of the second to last reply look exactly like chatgpt?
The wordings and formatting is identical.
In addition to the ridiculousness of the whole situation, it is unbelievably ridiculous that their customer service is the same incoherent, pro-forma slop that's now the norm for retail customer service everywhere.
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.
> 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.
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Yeah just let me buy my coffee while travelling... waiting for confirmation... sorry still waiting. Shit, I missed my flight (who don't accept cryptocurrency)
Valid point for bitcoin, but should be a non issue on other chains like Solana/Cardano or even to an extent Ethereum
While opening a whole other can of worms of issues. A normal established bank also solves this.
There are many instances of traditional banks seizing the funds of legitimate customers citing KYC/AML reasons as well.
Is it possible that you used an unusual login pattern? Privacy IP proxy/TOR/VPN?
It seems like a false positive from fraud prevention systems, combined with limited resources for manual review on Wise's side.
I don't want to disclose the fraud prevention system that Wise uses, but I'm familiar with how it works, hence my assumption.
Do they use intentionally broken processes designed to frustrate people as an alternative to telling people they're blocked?
It would explain a lot of things. It's also an absolute dick move and should be illegal (but likely isn't yet).
The customer service is obviously an AI agent
Whether it is a person or an AI bot, if the end result is indistinguishable from an AI chat bot, then it is effectively for all intents and purposes just an AI chat bot.
Very happy wise customer, i have had to go through KYC and other verifications from time to time. I happens with nearly all banks as services
What's the alternative?
OPay. Wish they're everywhere. All you need is your phone number as your bank account, with none of the thievery transfer fees, deposit fees, etc.
Moving to a country where banks have at least some legal service obligation, such as the UK, although even then those regulations often don't cover businesses.
There is no alternative, all financial businesses will freeze accounts under any suspicions. Way to have a degree of mind peace is to have a handful of accounts with funds split across them. If an account gets frozen then it's business as usual pretty much. Takes months for investigations to complete at times.
The only alternarive where your funds can't be frozen arbitrarily by your counterparty is cryptocurrency.
Never use a single fintech platform for everything, diversify and don't sleep for long with your hard-earned money in their hands.
3-4 accounts, some cash and a crypto wallet.
wise seems to be managed rather unprofessionally. An ex-girlfriend of mine used to work there and once joked about some of my transactions. It was all in good humor and nothing sensitive was involved, but it raised a serious concern for me: how can a random employee access anyone’s account, is that SO common? It feels like there's zero privacy
Will she agree with your assessment of her as a "random employee?"
A couple things. This has a name: LoveInt. Second, i don't have a girlfriend, I just know a girl that would be really mad if she heard me say that. And thirdly, is your implication it's OK for someone to access your financials merely because you're romantically involved?
well, she was a new hire in customer service - so kinda yes?
Worked for a large payment provider (online checkout mainly), we logged all purchases including items, personal email and other details. All engineers could access this log, found out by searching for my email.
very happy Wise customer, most banks face a constantly moving regulation and needs for KYC and have to put customers on hold and verify if for some reason it get flagged. I hope your problem is resolved soon
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What?
the permissionless aspect of using crypto allows consumers and businesses to transact without worrying about a payment processor shutting them down. some crypto is permissioned though
many people say crypto is a solution looking for a problem, as they are comfortable with an alternative to every crypto use case someone might have. such as instant and fast cross border payments. and then the problem surfaces.