Consumer complaint received 2020-11-04
Company: TransferWise Ltd
State: TX
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: International money transfer
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
On XXXX XX/XX/2020 I processed a transaction to purchase a vehicle on the XXXX website for {$9300.00} AUD ( $ XXXX ). I used TransferWise to transfer the money to vendor as I was using money from my XXXX Bank Account. I am an XXXX on an XXXX assignment in the USA so most of my funds reside in XXXX bank accounts. Ultimately the website is an elaborate scam which the XXXX has failed to shut down even thou it has been known to be a scam for a number of years. Key points are : The Bank the money was transferred to was CFSB. I reported the scam to CFSB however CFSB did little more than advise that the account was a Transferwise account, and I should follow up with the police. They did not appear to take any action to recover the money. 
I reported the incident to the FTC and IC3 but there was no response from either of these bodies and it is not possible to follow up on a complaint that is submitted. 
I followed up with Transferwise who confirmed that the money had been transferred to another Transferwise account and that this account had only just been set up and had no previous transactions. It is unclear what measure Transferwise took to recover these funds.

The vendor had advised there had been an issue with the transaction and the money had been returned to my account however it did not appear in my account. I advised Transferwise of this. Transferwise continued to delay taking any action saying that it could take a long time for this money to appear even the money transfer was between 2 of their own accounts. 
I requested Transferwise refund the funds as I believe that as a provider of money handling services, they do not have appropriate checks in place to alert customers of a possible fraudulent transaction. This is based on the following : o The transfer was from one Transferwise account to another Transferwise account. These accounts are specifically set up to move money around the world not operating bank accounts. This should have immediately raised a red flag especially as Transferwise would have had full visibility of this. At this point I would have expected Transferwise to alert me to the fact that the funds were going directly to another money transfer account and not an operating bank account. Basically, the transaction was looking suspect at the outset. 
o The account had only just been set up and there had been no transactions o Transferwise inferred the money exited in the XXXX. Again, I would have thought that this would raise a flag where someone is using Transferwise to pay someone in the US but the money does not going into a US bank account, instead being directly transferred to an off shore account. 
o Transferwise by their own admission have taken steps from this happening to others which appears to be admission that there were some gaps in their process. 
Transferwise have this in their standard terms and conditions - " 21.1 We are responsible to you for foreseeable loss and damage caused by us. If we do not reasonably meet our commitments to you, we are responsible for loss or damage you suffer that is a foreseeable result of our breaking this contract or our failing to use reasonable care and skill. We are not responsible for any loss or damage that is not foreseeable [ ... ] '' I believe in todays world where banks are expected to look for suspect patterns and alert their customers that this was a foreseeable event and that Transferwise should have alerted me to and are liable to compensating me for my loss. 
In todays world there is an expectation that banks have automatic checks running full time to look for patterns that look suspect. I know that my banks definitely do and I regularly get alerts from them of transactions that look way less suspect than this. In many cases they are fine but for me it is my expectation that my bank alerts me to anything that remotely looks suspect. Transferwise obviously do not feel that this a requirement of them even thou they are handling other peoples money. This company appears to have provided the perfect platform for criminals to fraudulently take peoples money and move it around the world in a relatively untraceable manner with limited or no checks and balances to alert people of potential fraudulent activities.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation