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Wise froze account - what to do?

S

snowman

New member
May 7, 2025
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#1
Hello, wise froze a friends account. it is a legit business, but Wise still froze the account. long story short, its because of some techincall reasons but they are taking more then 2 weeks to find a solution and unblock the account. nothing more then standard replies "we are looking into it and let you know".

They also dont react on treatments of lawsuits.

what would you do?
 
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#3
snowman said:
long story short, its because of some techincall reasons
Click to expand...

What technical reasons?

snowman said:
what would you do?
Click to expand...

Contact regulators first if you have a legit case and try and resolve issue amicably. Don't be threatening them with lawyers and expect them to give you insightful answers that could later be used against them in court. Think logically and good luck.
 
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#4
Wise is abusing their monopole in the EMI World and still attracting new clients today with bare minimum KYC requirements and fast verification just to block your account and THEN start to look in your account in detail just to figure THEN out that you are outside their risk appetite.

They have basically students working in the compliance and terrible AI to randomly block funds - you should use Wise only with funding the account from real banks and not EMI to EMI their AI tends to block Accounts with EMI to EMI Transactions way more compared to Bank Account to Wise.

Bottom Line learning is spend a bit more money and time on opening a proper Bank Account and use Wise only what it was designed for - FX and spend in exotic local Currencies like HUF, RON and PLN etc.
 
#6
Fred said:
Wise is abusing their monopole in the EMI World and still attracting new clients today with bare minimum KYC requirements and fast verification just to block your account and THEN start to look in your account in detail just to figure THEN out that you are outside their risk appetite.

They have basically students working in the compliance and terrible AI to randomly block funds - you should use Wise only with funding the account from real banks and not EMI to EMI their AI tends to block Accounts with EMI to EMI Transactions way more compared to Bank Account to Wise.

Bottom Line learning is spend a bit more money and time on opening a proper Bank Account and use Wise only what it was designed for - FX and spend in exotic local Currencies like HUF, RON and PLN etc.
Click to expand...
you should use Wise only with funding the account from real banks and not EMI to EMI their AI tends to block Accounts with EMI to EM

I have funded Wise from my Revolut account for the past 5 years with no problem. To be honest, I have never thought about EMI to EMI. Then I use Wise to fund other EMIs. No problem.

In fact, I have a whole chart detailing transfers between my banks and EMIs. No, nothing underhand, illegal or suspicious. Simply that I like to spread funds around and don't want my main bank to know where the funds are going. None of their business.
 
#8
#9
JohnLocke said:
where do you know this from ?
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Screenshot
Screenshot_20250513-145033.webp
Screenshot_20250513-145240.webp
 
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#10
That’s fair, but how did you conclude that Wise has an issue with public exposure?

Have they actually responded to it directly, or is it something you’ve inferred? I’m genuinely curious, especially since this could help others who might end up in a similar situation.

Feel free to share any relevant links or sources if you have them.
 
#11
JohnLocke said:
That’s fair, but how did you conclude that Wise has an issue with public exposure?

Have they actually responded to it directly, or is it something you’ve inferred? I’m genuinely curious, especially since this could help others who might end up in a similar situation.

Feel free to share any relevant links or sources if you have them.
Click to expand...
I see recently that Wise fear the power of community and public manifestation, this can hurt badly their reputation.
The founder use this power and public everything in LinkedIn and finally restore their accounts it's almost 400k, the EU law block you first and after investigation they can release the funds if they don't find any issue with money cleaning
I share my proper experience.
 
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#12
CEOz said:
I see recently that Wise fear the power of community and public manifestation, this can hurt badly their reputation.
The founder use this power and public everything in LinkedIn and finally restore their accounts it's almost 400k, the EU law block you first and after investigation they can release the funds if they don't find any issue with money cleaning
I share my proper experience.
Click to expand...
You're talking about these guys?

2022 27 June The Financial Conduct Authority has opened an investigation into the chief executive of Wise almost a year after he was fined by HMRC for deliberately defaulting on his taxes. The Telegraph last year revealed that Kristo Kaarmann had been fined £365,651 for a deliberate default during the 2017/18 tax year on a £720,495 tax bill.

Wise EMI DUBAI, Aug 30 2022 (Reuters) - The regulator of Abu Dhabi's free zone financial centre said on Tuesday it had fined the local subsidiary of fintech firm Wise $360,000 for breaching anti-money laundering (AML) requirements.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/fintech-firm-wise-fined-360000-by-abu-dhabi-regulator-2022-08-30/
 
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#15
Humm I noticed OP never came back to explain the "technical reasons" for account freeze ns2

I genuine believe most people simply don't have a clue about what they have done wrong sometimes or how high risk they are due to passport they hold, activity or residency etc etc. I don't think it is their fault most times and maybe their is some way Wise can inform them beforehand about their risk category before freezing their account.

P.S I have walked through examples in other threads of people complaining about Wise freezing their accounts for no reason. Only later to find out they fall into high risk category and they didn't even realize it.
 
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#16
Martin Everson said:
Humm I noticed OP never came back to explain the "technical reasons" for account freeze ns2

I genuine believe most people simply don't have a clue about what they have done wrong sometimes or how high risk they are due to passport they hold, activity or residency etc etc. I don't think it is their fault most times and maybe their is some way Wise can inform them beforehand about their risk category before freezing their account.

P.S I have walked through examples in other threads of people complaining about Wise freezing their accounts for no reason. Only later to find out they fall into high risk category and they didn't even realize it.
Click to expand...
It may also be due to the people that Wise employ and the power (or lack of it) that they have.

I once had my Revolut account frozen when trying to send a small amount of money to our son who was a student.

Their web chat was a joke. A different person each time and their English was terrible. I speak 4 languages and asked them to communicate but it was like talking to our dog.

Finally I threatened to contact the police in Lithuania and the FCA in the UK.

Suddenly I had an apology and my account restored.

Remember that they are borrowing YOUR money!
 
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#17
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#18
Martin Everson said:
Humm I noticed OP never came back to explain the "technical reasons" for account freeze ns2

I genuine believe most people simply don't have a clue about what they have done wrong sometimes or how high risk they are due to passport they hold, activity or residency etc etc. I don't think it is their fault most times and maybe their is some way Wise can inform them beforehand about their risk category before freezing their account.

P.S I have walked through examples in other threads of people complaining about Wise freezing their accounts for no reason. Only later to find out they fall into high risk category and they didn't even realize it.
Click to expand...
I agree to a certain extent.

But their employees wield too much power, they have too much automation for their own good, and they flag things just for the fun of it. I have seen many European low-risk businesses frozen with Wise absolutely unnecessarily. For example, Revolut is also compliance heavy (and I wouldn't recommend it, but the Revolut Business managers (something that does not even exist on Wise) are able to assist with issues, you can send them a form about a higher incoming amount than usual (which helps prevent locks), and so on.

As @Fred stated, Wise likes to onboard with easy compliance and then scrutinize and freeze whenever you have a decent amount coming in. They also have extremely strange crypto policies.

I personally had an individual Wise account frozen for a few months for transferring a few thousand dollars to my own account in Puerto Rico (via ACH). Well, at least the payment went through right away and there was only a couple bucks left smi(&%

But I simply do not see a use case. Their risk tolerance for business is very low - if you can open with Wise, I am practically sure you can also with Amnis, Worldfirst, etc. which have practically the same services but won't lock you out like crazy.
 
#20
cuno said:
do you have good experience with them? Also for European company?
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Yes, of course. Amnis is licensed in Liechtenstein and Switzerland, its main target are EU and Swiss companies. It can onboard quite a lot of jurisdictions but it charges a compliance fee (TBMK, 1000 EUR) for higher risk countries. The offering of currencies and local details is very good and you get an active support person to talk to directly. They also have some features quite unique for EMIs - interest on some currencies, safeguarded funds at Erste Bank.

Worldfirst is part of the Chinese Ant Group, it has a strong reputation. Mainly focused on eCom but they serve a lot of other business areas. You also get a lot of local IBANs/accounts and the fees are little to none.

In general, I recommend European companies to use physical banks, because they are better a majority of the time. But, if you want to use an EMI, these are pretty good choices.
 
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