Consumer complaint received 2021-09-23
Company: TransferWise Ltd
State: SC
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: International money transfer
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
I administer an estate with XXXX heirs in the US. For that purpose I have a notarized and registered Power of Attorney from the Court Appointed executor who also resides in XXXX. I liquidated the estate and am trying to distribute the amount to the heirs in XXXX. For that purpose I contacted Wise US Inc. d/b/a Wise.com ( formerly Transferwise.com ) were I had a personal account. after some back and forth with some openly incompetent persons I was told I could not transfer money on behalf of the estate using my personal account but would need to open an account for my law firm. I opened an account for my law firm and went through a lengthy verification process submitting probably 20 documents being. At the end I was told I can not open a account for the law firm as I intend to use it to transfer funds for third parties ( which by the way is absolute legal as long as such transfers are related to my representation as attorney ) which was obviously known to them from the beginning when they recommend to open an account for the law firm for the very specific transfer on behalf of the estate. Meanwhile I had lost a week. I was told That I would need to open an account on behalf of the estate. I did so, and the accounts immediately cleared and a transfer was allowed to be set up locking in an exchange rate on XX/XX/2021. I immediately wired the funds ( {$130000.00} ) to Wise on XX/XX/2021. The funds arrived on XX/XX/2021 at Wise. However they were not credited but the adding of the funds was " paused '' and the Transfer of the Funds was " paused '' as well with the comment " We're verifying you We'll check your documents as quickly as we can, but it will take at least 1-2 working days. Please keep an eye on your email inbox we may need to get in touch... I received an e-mail from Wise on XX/XX/2021 after the transfer requesting additional documents which had nothing to do with an estate but were geared towards a US Corporation. I immediately responded, cleared up the mistake and provided all equivalent documentation equivalent to an estate. In turn I received an e-mail from Wise which said they would need 2-3 days to verify. A day later I received another e-mail from WISE saying it would take and additional 5 business days to verify. For the additional 5 days i heard zero from Wise. on day 6 I followed up by e-mail ( that according tot heir webpage will be answered in 1 day asking what is preventing them from verification and completion of the transfer. No response. Today i used the " online chat option to contact WISE. I received not satisfactory answer except that they are opening a ticket and I will get a response in 1-3 business days. then i was thrown out of the Chat and all the chat trail was deleted before I could save it. Additional chat contact attempts remained unanswered. I conclude either on purpose ( to get an interest free unsecured loan ) or by complete incompetence Wise enticed me to send the fund to them and are now holding then under false pretenses and stopped communicating with me. This is a very cavalier treatment of other people 's money akin to embezzlement and request that Wise US Inc. 's business practices to be investigated and proper steps to be taken to protect future customers from them.

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief