Wise transfer

[bradiston]

Transferring $154 to an Indian SWIFT account, I got this. Is this now the norm for any international transfers?

 

 

[scubascuba3]

Becoming more common. I've never been asked, others reported being asked more than once. Just do it they are complying with money laundering regulations

[bradiston]

17 hours ago, scubascuba3 said:

Becoming more common. I've never been asked, others reported being asked more than once. Just do it they are complying with money laundering regulations

I understand but last year I moved a lot of £  from my UK bank to my Wise £ account and they never murmured. Now, I go to pay $151 from my $ Wise account abroad and all hell breaks loose. They want proof of income, when it's coming from my account with them!  Bonkers. And I uploaded a 3 month UK bank account bank statement, even though the money's not coming from there, and now they want proof of income. I'm thinking it's because it's a $ transaction.

Edited January 8, 2023 by bradiston

[KannikaP]

6 minutes ago, bradiston said:

I understand but last year I moved a lot of £  from my UK bank to my Wise £ account and they never murmured. Now, I go to pay $151 from my $ Wise account abroad and all hell breaks loose. They want proof of income, when it's coming from my account with them!  Bonkers. And I uploaded a 3 month UK bank account bank statement, even though the money's not coming from there, and now they want proof of income. I'm thinking it's because it's a $ transaction.

I have THB and AED accounts in my Wise Borderless Account and use them regularly with no problems or questions, so yes, it may be because it is USD.

[foreverlomsak]

Possibly because it's going an Indian account which presumably is not in your name.

[Chivas]

6 minutes ago, foreverlomsak said:

Possibly because it's going an Indian account which presumably is not in your name.

Not possibly but 100% definately

[bradiston]

3 hours ago, Chivas said:

Not possibly but 100% definately

Er, hello? You mean I can't transfer to an account that's not in my name? I've done many such transactions in the past. I've paid $ into a different Indian account too. This is something entirely new. Ok, it's a SWIFT payment because it's the only way to do this transfer. But so what? I don't know where you get the "100% definately (sic)" from.

 

Pretty sure it's the much quoted "$ hegemony". Control over everything. I might try cancelling it and transferring the $151 equivalent, in INR, or £, from my sterling account. Might work.

Edited January 8, 2023 by bradiston

[Chivas]

20 hours ago, bradiston said:

Er, hello? You mean I can't transfer to an account that's not in my name? I've done many such transactions in the past. I've paid $ into a different Indian account too. This is something entirely new. Ok, it's a SWIFT payment because it's the only way to do this transfer. But so what? I don't know where you get the "100% definately (sic)" from.

 

Pretty sure it's the much quoted "$ hegemony". Control over everything. I might try cancelling it and transferring the $151 equivalent, in INR, or £, from my sterling account. Might work.

lol you can err hello as many times as you want

You've been red flagged because its an Indian account. Simple as. Doesnt matter that you may have done it before

[bradiston]

19 hours ago, Chivas said:

lol you can err hello as many times as you want

You've been red flagged because its an Indian account. Simple as. Doesnt matter that you may have done it before

There's no evidence to support that. My UK account was recently locked by the bank when I tried to make a payment to another UK bank account. They completely misinterpreted the destination account holders, who were UK registered companies, and couldn't even be bothered to check with the destination UK bank. After a week they were profuse in their apologies, and unlocked my account. After I asked the financial ombudsman to investigate, my bank coughed up a miserable £300 compensation. This particular fraud department were complete idiots, and the biggest bank in the UK. I'm not saying Wise's is, but I find this ridiculous, and I've told them so. If they think there is something funny about the destination account, why are they asking ME for the source of MY income when the funds are sitting in MY $ account with THEM? They had no problems with me buying over 20k dollars with funds from the same UK account, so why flag an outgoing payment of $151? Surely it's a simple "computer says no"?

Edited January 10, 2023 by bradiston

[Carmine6]

On 1/8/2023 at 12:46 AM, bradiston said:

Er, hello? You mean I can't transfer to an account that's not in my name? I've done many such transactions in the past. I've paid $ into a different Indian account too. This is something entirely new. Ok, it's a SWIFT payment because it's the only way to do this transfer. But so what? I don't know where you get the "100% definately (sic)" from.

 

Pretty sure it's the much quoted "$ hegemony". Control over everything. I might try cancelling it and transferring the $151 equivalent, in INR, or £, from my sterling account. Might work.

I think you are right about the dollars being the trigger.  All US dollar SWIFT transfers go through NY.  So there is no way around the US' "know your customer" laws.

 

I have a US based crypto account and they just asked for my tax information all over again.  Literally had prefilled the fields on the website for me since they had the info and I checked the box certifying it was my info and submitted. 

 

All my bank accounts and brokerage are constantly asking me to update my income.  Started about 2 years ago.  So somewhere in those massive bills passed the last couple years had to have increased requirements.

[bradiston]

On 1/10/2023 at 9:08 AM, Carmine6 said:

I think you are right about the dollars being the trigger.  All US dollar SWIFT transfers go through NY.  So there is no way around the US' "know your customer" laws.

 

I have a US based crypto account and they just asked for my tax information all over again.  Literally had prefilled the fields on the website for me since they had the info and I checked the box certifying it was my info and submitted. 

 

All my bank accounts and brokerage are constantly asking me to update my income.  Started about 2 years ago.  So somewhere in those massive bills passed the last couple years had to have increased requirements.

Seems Wise is now engaged in a full on KYC drive, similar to coin trading platforms.  And it's retrospective, so they will most likely require evidence of where money you have in accounts with them came from.

 

Quote from email from Wise:

Thanks for getting back to us.

To clarify; verifying the source of funds is not exclusive to your GBP or USD accounts. 

It's associated with your Wise account in general. 

We refer to our Consumer agreement, that you agreed to upon signing up for your account initially.

 

9. Getting to know you

9.1 We are required by law to carry out all necessary security and customer due diligence checks on you (including any parties involved in your transaction for example, your recipient) in order to provide any Services to you. You agree to comply with any request from us for further information and provide such information in a format acceptable to us. In addition, you agree that we may make, directly or through any third party, any inquiries we consider necessary to validate the information you provided to us, including checking commercial databases or credit reports. You authorise us to obtain one or more of your credit reports, from time to time, to establish, update, or renew your Wise Account with us or in the event of a dispute relating to this Agreement and activity under your Wise Account.

 

As explained in my earlier email, we basically need to understand how did you earn the original funds on this bank statement. 

For that, we require specific types of evidences, a.k.a. documents. 

Please be aware that we can't skip the verification process; and you'd still need to provide the said document if you wish to continue using our services. 

I hope this clarified more. Let me know if you have any questions.

Best wishes

/End quote

So they're asking me to explain all the funds in my UK bank. Insane.

Edited January 11, 2023 by bradiston

[ningnong]

21 hours ago, bradiston said:

So they're asking me to explain all the funds in my UK bank. Insane.

I don't think they expect you to explain all the funds in your UK bank. Sounds like all they want you to show is the main source of your income.

 

"You'll need a document to prove your main source of income"
"how did you earn the original funds on this bank statement"

 

Did they specifically request the 3 month UK bank account bank statement you uploaded? Maybe a tax return would satisfy them.

[bradiston]

20 minutes ago, ningnong said:

I don't think they expect you to explain all the funds in your UK bank. Sounds like all they want you to show is the main source of your income.

 

"You'll need a document to prove your main source of income"
"how did you earn the original funds on this bank statement"

 

Did they specifically request the 3 month UK bank account bank statement you uploaded? Maybe a tax return would satisfy them.

 I uploaded the last 3 months' statements. They said it wasn't proof enough. I'm retired. My pension payments are my only income, apart from interest on the account. So I tried to upload 24 months, but their system is fxxxxx and the upload failed. We're talking here an outgoing payment of $131.24. I've moved thousands of £ across from my UK account into my Wise sterling account over the last 2 years, no questions asked, and bought $23,000 which is sitting in my $ account. I try to make a payment for online medical supplies, eye drops, from my $ account held with them, in $, and suddenly they're all over me asking me to account for the $131.24! It's completely idiotic. Now they're threatening to close my account altogether. I've asked them which financial regulator they are registered with. No answer yet. Of course they're entitled to request evidence of the source of funds, but the funds they're talking about they have already accepted without a murmur.

[ningnong]

10 hours ago, bradiston said:

They said it wasn't proof enough. I'm retired. My pension payments are my only income, apart from interest on the account.

Why not send them a document from whoever is paying you pension since that is the source of your income?

 

My guess is Wise couldn't care less where your money comes from but they must answer to regulators in many countries to stay in business. Your attempted transfer of USD via SWIFT either triggered or might trigger a flag for US regulators. Wise needs to cover their rear and be able to prove they did their due diligence to verify the source of your funds if US regulators were to contact them.

 

I'm guessing that you will never be told why you got flagged. The customer service rep probably doesn't know why, all they know is you're flagged to show source of your funds. Once you submit forms the rep is looking for they probably pass them on to the compliance department who have the power to clear the flag or not. The rep is just there to filter out all the noise. Arguing with the rep will not get you anywhere except maybe getting your account closed. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

[bradiston]

51 minutes ago, ningnong said:

Why not send them a document from whoever is paying you pension since that is the source of your income?

 

My guess is Wise couldn't care less where your money comes from but they must answer to regulators in many countries to stay in business. Your attempted transfer of USD via SWIFT either triggered or might trigger a flag for US regulators. Wise needs to cover their rear and be able to prove they did their due diligence to verify the source of your funds if US regulators were to contact them.

 

I'm guessing that you will never be told why you got flagged. The customer service rep probably doesn't know why, all they know is you're flagged to show source of your funds. Once you submit forms the rep is looking for they probably pass them on to the compliance department who have the power to clear the flag or not. The rep is just there to filter out all the noise. Arguing with the rep will not get you anywhere except maybe getting your account closed. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

Hmmm, very good comment. I sold a property a while back, which would account for the sizable amounts I've transferred since. The deposit from the proceeds was made by my solicitor. I downloaded statements from that date showing the deposit, but the pdf won't upload. And in any case, the online versions don't have all the information Wise require, as they've already pointed out. My bank charges £5 per month for emailed versions. No way am I going to stump up £100 for 20 months' worth. I'm not going to contact DWP for a pension statement, nor my other pension provider. Never had this amount of hassle before, even with Bitkub and co. Any documentation I obtain now will likely be out of date come the next KYC demand, and I'd have to do it all over again. Think I'll bring everything over and close my UK bank account. Wise don't seem to understand the concept of savings. I've plenty in my UK bank, all clean and legal. I might try a test run and transfer £1000 from the UK to my Wise account and see if they flag it.  I've tried making the Indian transfer in rupees from my £ Wise account. I get a popup saying cannot transfer into that account. ????

[Lee65]

A good 'heads-up' for many of us. 

Based upon what you've said, as I understand it, your first move is to check all money-transfer alternatives to Wise.

 

[bradiston]

5 hours ago, Lee65 said:

A good 'heads-up' for many of us. 

Based upon what you've said, as I understand it, your first move is to check all money-transfer alternatives to Wise.

 

It's occurred to me the whole thing could be a Phishing scam. Upload all your docs to a totally fictitious site. They've gone quiet since I asked them who their regulators are.

[fdsa]

They just want to have ANY paper to show to the regulators in case they are asked. A photoshopped scan would suffice too ????

[bradiston]

Transferred £300 as a test from UK bank to Wise £ account. No questions asked. Straight through. Same account for which they want to know all sources of income when there's a payment to India.

Edited January 13, 2023 by bradiston

[Lee65]

5 hours ago, bradiston said:

It's occurred to me the whole thing could be a Phishing scam. Upload all your docs to a totally fictitious site. They've gone quiet since I asked them who their regulators are.

Please elaborate ...

[bradiston]

6 hours ago, Lee65 said:

Please elaborate ...

No, there's nothing more to say on that front. Just they haven't got back to me as to why they refuse payment to the accounts I've tried in India, nor with details of where they are registered and by whom they are regulated. But a supplier has told me Wise is refusing payments to all Indian online pharmacies. I've tried revolut, xe and several others, but they all say cannot use in Thailand. Thailand never signed up to the CRS apparently, so I guess they are being penalised. So I think no matter what I upload as evidence of earnings etc, I'd never be able to do business with Indian pharmacies anyway.

Edited January 13, 2023 by bradiston

[fdsa]

12 hours ago, bradiston said:

No, there's nothing more to say on that front. Just they haven't got back to me as to why they refuse payment to the accounts I've tried in India, nor with details of where they are registered and by whom they are regulated. But a supplier has told me Wise is refusing payments to all Indian online pharmacies. I've tried revolut, xe and several others, but they all say cannot use in Thailand. Thailand never signed up to the CRS apparently, so I guess they are being penalised. So I think no matter what I upload as evidence of earnings etc, I'd never be able to do business with Indian pharmacies anyway.

what about paying with credit card?

[bradiston]

22 minutes ago, fdsa said:

what about paying with credit card?

I don't have one. I went to Western Union in Central. Set up the KYC ok. Got an account. Spent hours setting up the payment via my Thai bank using a debit card, only to be told it failed. Didn't say why but the girl in the WU shop said it was because I was trying to pay into a business account, and WU only do person to person from Thailand, which the supplier can't do. ???????????????????? I did a Victor Meldrew and hoisted the white flag. I surrender. You win. Nobody gets paid. My supplier showed me screen shots of payments she's received via WU from other countries, I think the US. Seemed to be no problem. Is Thailand really considered such a pariah state? No CRS, no deal? Anyway, I'm stumped for the time being.

[fdsa]

2 hours ago, bradiston said:

I don't have one. I went to Western Union in Central. Set up the KYC ok. Got an account. Spent hours setting up the payment via my Thai bank using a debit card, only to be told it failed. Didn't say why but the girl in the WU shop said it was because I was trying to pay into a business account, and WU only do person to person from Thailand, which the supplier can't do. ???????????????????? I did a Victor Meldrew and hoisted the white flag. I surrender. You win. Nobody gets paid. My supplier showed me screen shots of payments she's received via WU from other countries, I think the US. Seemed to be no problem. Is Thailand really considered such a pariah state? No CRS, no deal? Anyway, I'm stumped for the time being.

... what about paying with a debit card?

I mean to your supplier, not via unnecessary intermediaries such as WU.

Edited January 14, 2023 by fdsa

[bradiston]

3 hours ago, fdsa said:

... what about paying with a debit card?

I mean to your supplier, not via unnecessary intermediaries such as WU.

Yes, but how? I don't see any way of doing that. It's not like they have an online shopping trolley and checkout. I'm giving it a rest. This batch of meds is actually for a mate. I'm ok for a few months.

Edited January 14, 2023 by bradiston