TransferWise

After my experience I can only say that these negative reviews may result from the incompetence of the principal bank, the receiving bank or the person operating the computer. I am 52 years old and have met a lot of “these” people and I sometimes wonder how in the world they were able to make money, never alone use a computer. You can tell by their use of the English language that goodness knows what they were typing in at the time of their transaction. (I sincerely apologize to the people who were genuinely ripped off). I’m not someone who shies away from “gilding the lily” (one who exaggerates), but I highly recommend this company. In my unsolicited opinion, it was a fantastic experience.

I started off with Transferwise on the wrong foot as one of my US Bank accounts could not be verified. This left me with a lot of bad taste, but I realized it was because of all the regulatory requirements that a service like this has to satisfy. To make sure my identification is 1st checked, I opened a Debit card account and put Euro 20 into it. This helped verify my ID. Then I realized that I was trying to set up the transfer from a Credit Union in the US and this could be the issue. Once I changed over to a normal commercial bank in the USA, things worked like a charm. Now I smoothly transfer money between my accounts in the USA and a few other countries, without a hitch. I love Transferwise for their exchange rate, speed and most importantly their transparency.

1. I have invited 5 people to the platform. I received multiple calls from them telling me that TW is holding their funds and halts their transfers with no reason. In a most recent case, a friend told me that she made a transfer from her TW account to her OWN bank account on 15th of December. She picked so called FAST TRANSFER because she was in an emergency. AFTER initiating the transfer, the app says they are holding the transfer for some security checks FOR 4 BUSINESS DAYS! Now is 29th of December and despite contacting them 3 times, the money is still in custody.

At this very special time of the year where everybody needs money, TransferWise HOLDS people's money. She just receives some corporate responses from their support and "we are sorry" stuff instead of her money. So, don't expect anything FAST anymore and be prepared for more surprises like this. Before initiating the transfer, they advertise super-fast transfer under 1 minute. When you initiate the transfer and the money is gone from your account, you will face this 4 business days which is in fact, WEEKS.

I think I know the reason for this shameful unlawful custody of clients' funds. Just recently, their buggy software or money transfer service sent out wrong transfers and extra money (double payouts) to lots of accounts. They are now emailing and asking people to refund those extra amounts. By holding other people's money who are completely unaware of this disaster, they are trying to keep the necessary liquidation inside their system and compensate their loss. This is what I can perceive based on the information I receive from my friends and other TW users online. This is miserable, horrible, and unacceptable from a financial institute.

2. Using TW you cannot send money to Cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance, Coinbase, etc. Apparently they don't want to accept that Crypto is the next generation of money and the very fact that it is replacing traditional banks and money transfer services like TW. Avoiding money transfer to such services is the most ridiculous feature of TW, in my opinion. It is odd, old-school, weird, and unacceptable in 2021 where Crypto eats the world. Till when they want to do this?

3. The interface of their app and web is beautiful but lacks most basic features of a modern online banking. If you work with a bank like Sparkasse (Erste) for example, TW seems like a student project compared with it. Even the search doesn't work properly and you have to manually look for lots of transfers. No summary, extremely basic reports... Filters are just too basic. It is good for 2000 to 2005 but not for 2020 and 2021.

4. They gradually increased their fees. At first everything was really cheap (and of course fast). Little by little they increased lots of fees and just recently I realized I'm actually paying more compared with my local bank. Their only advantage is their exchange fee (for instance form USD to GBP) which seems lower compared with banks. I presume soon, they will lose this feature too like they lost the others.

Now my friends and I are looking for an alternative. TransferWise is expired for us and we won't trust it again. I don't want my money to be lost in Christmas times.

So I reached out to them, they asked to show purpose. I asked what purpose do you need to send money to your mother???? Are you kidding me?? So then they sent the money in my mother's account and transferwise requested me to select proper purpose in the app when sending which should be family maintenance. Exactly that category I selected to send some more money to my mother.... same thing, email “The money is in her bank account “. Which they can’t say it when they are aware that the money is not sent!!! I can literally sue them for lying this clearly. I am changing to some other app, it’s not 2018 anymore, there are plenty others.