Consumer complaint received 2020-07-25
Company: TransferWise Ltd
State: CA
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: International money transfer
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
On Friday XX/XX/XXXX I needed to wire {$25000.00} from my XXXX  XXXX XXXX account to XXXX. A few of my customers recommended in the past to use the service of a company - TransferWise Inc. so I  checked their website - they promote their fast, reliable service with a good exchange rate. I set up an account with them and wired the funds to their XXXX XXXX account. I received a confirmation email that same day that they received the funds and that it should be delivered to the recipient on Monday XX/XX/XXXX. However on Monday the recipient contacted me that he did not receive the money. I quickly tried to sign in to my TransfeWise account and track the payment, but to my surprise I couldn't - the information there stated - account was deactivated by TransferWise. Nobody informed me about this, I did not receive any email or phone call. So I quickly contacted their customer service at XXXX and also XXXX but the representative just said, that he can see the account was deactivated, but he doesn't have the access as to why and that he can not help me. I asked them for a phone number to a department that can help me and he said, that their Appeals Department doesn't have a phone number only email XXXX and that I should email them and should get a response in about 10 business days???!!! Also he added that he wishes me, ,Good luck '' as to getting my money back. At that point I got really scared and quite helpless. I'm emailing them every day to XXXX and also XXXX to get an information, when they will return the money to the originator 's account since they were not able to transfer them to the recipient in XXXX. They requested unnecessary detailed personal information from me - my bank details, bank statement, over the email! Why do they need it? They received the wire transfer from me, so they are able to return it to the originator 's bank account without this information! They keep repeating in their emails that they don't have access to my deactivated account information, refund should take 2-3 business days ( it's been over a week now ) and they advise me to talk to their appeals team ( they've never contacted me nor replied to my emails ). I did also a little research on them and found online many bad reviews and complaints of people with the same problem as mine- that they deactivated their account and some of them claimed they never received their money back. This is not normal! How can they be in the business - nonexistent customer service, it seems like a fraud. They are holding my money with no information whatsoever. It's been over a week now. This is the information I found on the California Department of Business Oversight website about this company and I also filed a complaint with DBO : License # : XXXX Institution Name : TransferWise Inc.Officer Name : XXXX XXXX XXXXAddress : XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, NY XXXX : XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX Office Key Consumer Links Consumer Alerts Consumer Advisories File a ...

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation