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.
k4rli 6 hours ago [-]
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).
decide1000 6 hours ago [-]
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.
alterom 6 hours ago [-]
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.
scripturial 6 hours ago [-]
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?
Arnt 5 hours ago [-]
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.
chexum 5 hours ago [-]
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.
Anumbia 6 hours ago [-]
Hope you're considering a lawsuit? €80k is no joke.
comboy 5 hours ago [-]
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.
tgsovlerkhgsel 5 hours ago [-]
The most likely reason they don't have trouble with it is that the only consequence if they do get sued is that they have to actually have someone look at the case and release the money. All it costs them is a few minutes of their lawyer's time.
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.
lmm 6 hours ago [-]
Good news, actual banks in many countries also do the same thing.
FirmwareBurner 6 hours ago [-]
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.
user32489318 6 hours ago [-]
I doubt. It seems that payment providers have god-like rights from the government and don’t feel stressed by a few lawsuits here and there.
I had a business account at a larger/largest Dutch bank, and have got the middle finger treatment all the way. From impossible to resolve typo in my company name (made by the bank), entirely wrong UBOs name on the payment card to the eventual account freeze for 4years while KYC was looking into this. Fun times
FirmwareBurner 4 hours ago [-]
Yeah, the anti money laundering laws can give financial institutions god like powers and appeals can take a long time.
alterom 6 hours ago [-]
>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.
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:
Fraud and theft are one fun way to lose such a license.
trinix912 5 hours ago [-]
I doubt they have a license to operate in all countries where the service is accessible/used. And yes, it is way easier to get justice from a local bank, a letter from a lawyer is usually enough if it ever gets to this point in first place, whereas for PayPal&co good luck with ever getting a response. Filing a lawsuit against a foreign company and getting anything out of it is even more of a gamble.
alterom 5 hours ago [-]
>I doubt they have a license to operate in all countries where the service is accessible/used.
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'
>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.
thrashwerk 5 hours ago [-]
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.
ImHereToVote 6 hours ago [-]
You violated the doctrine of low agency. You are too agentic.
jjani 6 hours ago [-]
Don't worry too much, luckily you've reached #1 on HN so they'll fix it for you within a day.
csomar 5 hours ago [-]
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.
jjani 5 hours ago [-]
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.
Agreed. Is there a term or phrase for getting things fixed by going viral while the problem persists for others.
elashri 4 hours ago [-]
Maybe "Schrödinger Fix". Not that it is used by anyone.
wsc981 14 minutes ago [-]
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.
boomskats 6 hours ago [-]
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 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?
reconnecting 5 hours ago [-]
It's not random KYC. Most likely, this is a fraud prevention system that spotted your account as suspicious.
otterley 6 hours ago [-]
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.
tgsovlerkhgsel 5 hours ago [-]
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.
poisonborz 2 hours ago [-]
Except you can't do that if your case is not big/interesting, like "they locked my account with $500"
vr46 6 hours ago [-]
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.
Michelangelo11 6 hours ago [-]
> Support is truly the thing that separates the wheat from the chaff.
Yes, absolutely. True in any industry, and especially in ones like this.
vsl 5 hours ago [-]
...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.
gloosx 2 hours ago [-]
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?
parisidau 2 hours ago [-]
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.
gloosx 1 hours ago [-]
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.
parisidau 1 hours ago [-]
Our main, regular, actual, regulated Australian bank does offer a "Foreign Currency Account" in USD (and many other useful currencies), but cannot link a debit card to it, and it can only wire transfer.
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.
mppm 5 hours ago [-]
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.
reconnecting 5 hours ago [-]
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
mppm 5 hours ago [-]
> 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.
reconnecting 4 hours ago [-]
Yes, I must clarify that my opinion is based on EU/Swiss regulatory practices.
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.
lmm 3 hours ago [-]
It doesn't lead to those issues, you get those issues with any bank or pseudobank, neo- or otherwise. It might be harder to get an account to start with with some more traditional banks, but that doesn't make you any less likely to get randomly screwed by them.
reconnecting 3 hours ago [-]
Levels of trust differ. Neo-banks, by default, have zero trust for their customer accounts, whereas traditional banks have at least some established trust. As a result, companies like Wise use fraud prevention systems that may flag your account simply because you logged in from an risky network.
lmm 2 hours ago [-]
Traditional banks can and do do exactly the same.
reconnecting 1 hours ago [-]
I'm speaking about Wise, as their logo is featured as a client of a fraud prevention platform. This makes it easy to imagine the kind of risk scoring they might use for their client accounts.
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.
danielbarla 5 hours ago [-]
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?
reconnecting 3 hours ago [-]
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.
mppm 2 hours ago [-]
It's not illegal. Even though having access to banking is absolutely essential to every imaginable business, bank accounts are still treated as a voluntary business relationship by regulators. Some protections exist in the EU for individuals, but for businesses, it is entirely at the discretion of the bank to open and maintain a relationship.
pbmonster 6 hours ago [-]
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.
csomar 5 hours ago [-]
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.
pbmonster 5 hours ago [-]
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.
vsl 5 hours ago [-]
> 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.
alterom 5 hours ago [-]
>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:
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.
alterom 5 hours ago [-]
>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:
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
So, doesn't appear like Wise is any less regulated.
fto_wise 5 hours ago [-]
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.
vb-8448 2 hours ago [-]
So you need someone on HN to get hit by your post to get a decent customer support?!?
omnimus 28 minutes ago [-]
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?
tgsovlerkhgsel 4 hours ago [-]
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).
5 hours ago [-]
tgsovlerkhgsel 6 hours ago [-]
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!)
m101 6 hours ago [-]
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.
tgsovlerkhgsel 5 hours ago [-]
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.
m101 4 hours ago [-]
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.
beAbU 5 hours ago [-]
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.
lang_agnostic 5 hours ago [-]
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?
lmm 3 hours ago [-]
> 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)
m101 3 hours ago [-]
yes. there exists a culture of "safetyism" that burdens society with excessive costs relative to the benefits achieved. This is, of course, starting from the (dubious) assumption that the stated objective of the regulation is the true purpose, rather than safety merely serving as a convenient, secondary goal.
m101 4 hours ago [-]
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.
Benjamin_Dobell 6 hours ago [-]
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.
csomar 5 hours ago [-]
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.
mytailorisrich 5 hours ago [-]
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.
hogliux 5 hours ago [-]
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!
PaywallBuster 6 hours ago [-]
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
Meekro 6 hours ago [-]
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.
hobo_mark 6 hours ago [-]
Are you confusing Wise with Stripe, where he used to work?
Meekro 6 hours ago [-]
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.
tormeh 6 hours ago [-]
Hope he got paid for this service...
genewitch 5 hours ago [-]
Think of the exposure, also they can put it in their portfolio.
OutOfHere 40 minutes ago [-]
This is why cryptocurrency will win.
tuga2099 4 hours ago [-]
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.
cachedthing0 6 hours ago [-]
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.
Michelangelo11 6 hours ago [-]
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.
rrr_oh_man 4 hours ago [-]
> 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.
olelele 39 minutes ago [-]
Is it just me or does some of the second to last reply look exactly like chatgpt?
The wordings and formatting is identical.
5 hours ago [-]
cherryteastain 5 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
voltagex_ 5 hours ago [-]
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)
cherryteastain 5 hours ago [-]
Valid point for bitcoin, but should be a non issue on other chains like Solana/Cardano or even to an extent Ethereum
piva00 5 hours ago [-]
While opening a whole other can of worms of issues. A normal established bank also solves this.
cherryteastain 5 hours ago [-]
There are many instances of traditional banks seizing the funds of legitimate customers citing KYC/AML reasons as well.
piva00 5 hours ago [-]
There are many instances of people losing their whole crypto wallets, without any recourse to reach an institution or through the legal system.
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...
reconnecting 5 hours ago [-]
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.
reconnecting 5 hours ago [-]
I don't want to disclose the fraud prevention system that Wise uses, but I'm familiar with how it works, hence my assumption.
tgsovlerkhgsel 5 hours ago [-]
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).
reconnecting 4 hours ago [-]
I'm not familiar with Wise's internal rules, but based on fraud prevention practices, it's highly likely that a financial institution would not disclose whether an account is soft-blocked/suspended. If they did, fraudsters could exploit that information to adjust their tactics.
matt3210 6 hours ago [-]
The customer service is obviously an AI agent
scripturial 6 hours ago [-]
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.
rdonovan2005 6 hours ago [-]
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
aktuel 6 hours ago [-]
What's the alternative?
Anumbia 6 hours ago [-]
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.
lmm 3 hours ago [-]
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.
hirako2000 6 hours ago [-]
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.
cherryteastain 5 hours ago [-]
The only alternarive where your funds can't be frozen arbitrarily by your counterparty is cryptocurrency.
shahzaibmushtaq 5 hours ago [-]
Never use a single fintech platform for everything, diversify and don't sleep for long with your hard-earned money in their hands.
csomar 5 hours ago [-]
3-4 accounts, some cash and a crypto wallet.
kome 6 hours ago [-]
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
Anumbia 6 hours ago [-]
Will she agree with your assessment of her as a "random employee?"
genewitch 5 hours ago [-]
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?
kome 5 hours ago [-]
well, she was a new hire in customer service - so kinda yes?
Hikikomori 6 hours ago [-]
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.
rdonovan2005 6 hours ago [-]
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
yieldcrv 6 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
EdwardDiego 6 hours ago [-]
What?
yieldcrv 6 hours ago [-]
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.
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.
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).
I'm not a lawyer, but theft under pretenses of "protecting your account" (from being accessed by you, that is) is still theft.
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.
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...
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.
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 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.
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.
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
Did they end up doing something about it because of that post?
Of course, if they don't react to that, then is the time to contact a lawyer.
Yes, absolutely. True in any industry, and especially in ones like this.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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!)
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.
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)
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.
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.
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
10/10, would escalate again.
I'm also a Stripe user, but I never had a problem there.
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.
The wordings and formatting is identical.
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...
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).
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.