Wise transfer paused since a day ago --- reasons to worry??

[newNomad]

A customer who uses Wise asked if anyone ever faced this email/message:

"Wise is a safe and regulated way to send money. And sometimes we need to double check some info about your recipient.

If the recipient is a person, please give us their full legal name, date of birth, and the country they live in.

And if they’re a business, please let us know their full registered name and address.

To do this and fix your transfer, click the button below."

The ougoing transfer is blocked and cannot be cancelled even by Wise support - they are saying they need 5 days and in the meantime nor the transfer can be cancelled nor ammended. The amount is 50 dollars, towards an eastern European country
WTF??
They just asked to confirm the legal name of the recepients and the residential country and nothing more

What further checks are they doing to need sooooo long time??
And why this got flagged for such a small amount?
Potential consequences i.e. can you get a stick for attempting sending to a "wrong" person?

The funny thing is the guy called to say that it makes no sense to do the transfer in 5 days and that after checks they can cancel it, instead Wise said that it cannot be cancelled and will be executed the same if it passes the mysterious CHECKS...I really wonde...what checks can Wise do with regards to some acc/card in some eatern European country?

 

[BoomBoom]

Unless your recipient is in some blacklist this is probably due to the country. Compliance questions is just part of dealing with financial institutions. don't get nervous just yet. answer the simple question they asked you and wait. No need to get nervous yet.

 

[newNomad]

Ok but even if the recipient is in the blacklist, i.e. maybe a scammer, how the one who initiated the payment can know that recipient is a scammer? So in theory this should not affect the owner of the source account at all..

 

[BoomBoom]

Ok but even if the recipient is in the blacklist, i.e. maybe a scammer, how the one who initiated the payment can know that recipient is a scammer? So in theory this should not affect the owner of the source account at all..

You know the recipient. so you can answer the question yourself if you suspect him. If you know this person/business is legit then this is probably due to country. really, just answer and wait. you are stressing too much. As I said before: Compliance questions is just part of dealing with financial institutions.
In any case, post an update once you have it

Compliance questions don't mean they suspect you of anything, It means the computer has flagged the transaction. each day they have thousands of transactions flagged, questions answered and transactions cleared.

 

[bastard]

Unless your recipient is in some blacklist this is probably due to the country. Compliance questions is just part of dealing with financial institutions. don't get nervous just yet. answer the simple question they asked you and wait. No need to get nervous yet.

Had similar issue with Mister Tango back in time. They decided to close my personal account. Anyway, as mentioned above, just answer the questions and you will be fine, I don't believe Wise is going to shut down your account.

 

[Tamarind]

There is more here than the poster is admitting, $50 is missing a few zeros?

 

[Martin Everson]

The amount is 50 dollars, towards an eastern European country
WTF??
They just asked to confirm the legal name of the recepients and the residential country and nothing more

They hit a match in the global database - World Check for name of either a sanctioned person, criminal, wanted person, terrorist, PEP (Politically Exposed Person) or PEP family member. Wise needs to confirm it is same person and not false positive i.e someone with same name. So they need date of birth etc.

What further checks are they doing to need sooooo long time??
And why this got flagged for such a small amount?
Potential consequences i.e. can you get a stick for attempting sending to a "wrong" person?

If with the data you give them they find it is same person in database then kiss goodbye to your Wise account. They will also file suspicious activity report with regulators and have to wait for a response over what action to take depending on severity of what is written about recipient in World Check. In worst case you could find yourself under arrest or investigation for relation to the person in question if match is positive. Wise cannot tell you anything it will just be an account closure. Then rest is down to what police want to do after regulator has informed them. The entire process is manual so takes time.

The funny thing is the guy called to say that it makes no sense to do the transfer in 5 days and that after checks they can cancel it, instead Wise said that it cannot be cancelled and will be executed the same if it passes the mysterious CHECKS...I really wonde...what checks can Wise do with regards to some acc/card in some eatern European country?

See my first comment.

See also my post below on subject. Your recipient can check below to see if they are accidentally in the system and how to remove themselves if its a mistake them being in there.

https://www.offshorecorptalk.com/threads/opening-a-simple-bank-account-quite-impossible.34899/#post-186354

P.S Fingers cross its just a false alert on the system

 

[ZeroEx]

Had similar issue with Mister Tango back in time. They decided to close my personal account. Anyway, as mentioned above, just answer the questions and you will be fine, I don't believe Wise is going to shut down your account.

I think they can, and they will eventually close the account. Happened with me twice and both accounts were blocked even after providing them with full details and data they asked for.

 

[Martin Everson]

If Wise has a positive match in the sanction database the senders account is 100% going to be closed. Wise won't allow people i.e to try and send money to ISIS and then allow them to keep the account open like nothing happened....lol.

 

[newNomad]

Btw someone asked if it is really 50$...lol it is, no zeroes missing. And it is for a digital download so infact I have no clue if the person exists at all and even less his birthdate. Thus I have filled no birthdate for the recipient and wait for Wise to see how they are going to find out who is the recipient.

Of course that I myself tried to do some DD on the given name and it returned hundreds of people with that name+surname in the target country, thus I could not deduce anything whether this is a 'criminal', PEP or anything.

BTW if this really works like that, it's the stupidiest system ever, but could be deployed to harass legit businesses. I.e. offer to a legit business some cheap online product/service as a freelancer and invoice under a blacklisted name just to get their account blocked
I guess everything has its uses.....
However the recipient clearly has access to his target account at some FI there, otherwise I doubt it would make sense to receive money to a restricted/blackilisted account or such. Then if he was trully a criminal or such how could FI in the target country provide him an account?
Now I start to appriciate annoying but flexible mechanism of crypto...

 

[erni]

Btw someone asked if it is really 50$...lol it is, no zeroes missing. And it is for a digital download so infact I have no clue if the person exists at all and even less his birthdate. Thus I have filled no birthdate for the recipient and wait for Wise to see how they are going to find out who is the recipient.

Sounds strange. Did you try to discuss the situation with them, to get an explanation ?

 

[newNomad]

Yeah, the amount is symbolic and from what I could see the recipient has an account with top tier insitution in the target country. Perhaps it's first time that particular source Wise account has been used to transact with anything outside the "Western" world...who knows
But for me there is no way to know, based on just reported name+surname, whether the seller is a criminal or such
Strange is that Wise chalked up full 5 business days for review and other EMIs generally handle compliance in max 24-48h.

Btw if a SAR is to be filled, with whom is it filled: @Martin Everson
-regulator in the EMI country
-regulator in the residence country of the acc. owner
-regulator in the country where target account/FI is based
-regulator of the country where the receiver has residence...

 

[Tamarind]

I think this $50 was a test from the sender in coop with receiver, to see if he will get caught, and he did !!

 

[newNomad]

Actually the receiver is one of service providers and the money was for a digital download (a research report basically) so nothing shady.
Another contact advised that it might be that this name+surname indeed is in some blacklist but just to the fact that it's the most common n+s combination in the target country, so without DoB compliance will be stuck. Since the receiver decliened to supply his id the only way for Wise to know it would be to ask destination bank. I doubt due to privacy laws destination bank can supply this, and even if it did a *true* criminal would never have accounts with real DoB on file so most likely the check returns nothing. Just my 2 cents...we will see

 

[Martin Everson]

However the recipient clearly has access to his target account at some FI there, otherwise I doubt it would make sense to receive money to a restricted/blackilisted account or such. Then if he was trully a criminal or such how could FI in the target country provide him an account?

He may have access due to poor sanction filtering (AML) with his bank possibly. That is if it is not a false alert i.e mistaken identify - which data of birth would have cleared up.

Btw even Revolut got fined at one point for switching off its sanction filter temporarily at one point. You must always have it on and all banks do it for every payment else they will lose correspondence banking relationships or get fined if something slips through period!!!

Revolut Faces Financial Conduct Authority Inquiry Into Sanctions Compliance Controls and Belatedly Acknowledges CFO Resignation

Within the past week, The Telegraph published several articles reporting on two issues involving compliance and governance at digital bank startup Revolut Ltd. First, on February 28, it reported t…

dippingthroughgeometries.blog

 

[newNomad]

In fact the above just confirms that the CEO is right and the miscalibrated systems should be switched off. Normal banks such as Masreq probably don't even have any of this western nonsense software implemented
You simply cannot block a 50 bucks transaction for any reason, it's ridiculous. But the truth is that while these low level EMIs lose time checking cents of their...let's say..not exactly HNWI customers...licensed banks assist calmly move Ms and Bs at whim of anyone paying high fees.
I really wonder what police would say to a 50$ SAR report...probably would consider it some millenium bug

 

[Martin Everson]

You simply cannot block a 50 bucks transaction for any reason, it's ridiculous.

So sending $50 to a known ISIS operative is ok? $50 still gets you a couple of good kitchen knives to attack people with . Remember terrorist groups can raise money via illicit activities even digital downloads .

But the truth is that while these low level EMIs lose time checking cents of their...let's say..not exactly HNWI customers...licensed banks assist calmly move Ms and Bs at whim of anyone paying high fees.

Well this is not always true. Big amounts get blocked also even for HNWI. They get it much worse.

I really wonder what police would say to a 50$ SAR report...probably would consider it some millenium bug

Regulators would be thankful. $50 goes a long way in some countries. The below man in UK was arrested for sending two payments i.e £100 and also £50 and to his son who was fighting with YPG in Syria. 7 armed police and 4 man search team burst into his home for this. So its no joke even for small amounts...lol.

Father arrested for sending £150 to his son who fought against jihadis

Paul Newey, 49, is accused of funding terrorism for sending his son Dan £150, even though his Kurdish-led military unit was backed by Britain and trained by the SAS.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[newNomad]

UPDATE: The owner of Wise acc just received yet another automatic email from Wise, as we here presumed the recipient is on "international sanctions list"
I run some backround checks through an agency who has access to Refinitiv and all major such databases
There are 3 'sanctioned' individuals with that n+s combination, seems some light stuff, only in 1 case it is kind a major political activist wanted in the target country
The recipent is not answering anymore since we tried to ask him to share his ID. Could be actually the freelancer/seller impersonated that personality on purpose trying to tacitly reroute his money to that factual destinatory (obscure donation)

What is the best course of action
1) declare to compliance that we do not have his DOB and other info (btw truth) and ask to cancel the transaction
2) try to persuade the receiver to at least disclose the DOB and pass it to compliance, hopefully it's actually not going to be one of the three listed match
3) try to find an id with same n+s combination but not blacklisted DOB and pass it to compliance which would most likely unblock the transaction
4) do nothing pretending not to have received any Wise mail and wait for alotted time to expire and let compliance decide how to act (tacit lack of info)

It is understandable to an average person is not expected to know all sanctioned individuals worldwide. Ads are full of people buying and selling stuff and transacting with different counterparties, no one asks extensive DD from everybody

I mean as @BoomBoom said maybe just us paranoic but I really never thought of like paying for some hunk's dirty underwear over ebay or something could lead you into having to answer complaince questions that you don't know the answers to...what are these AML deps smoking. Can't just they do all the investigative work if so concerning?

@Martin Everson @Gediminas What is the practice in EMIs in case of no follow up with recipients details on an attempted transfer?

 

[Martin Everson]

What is the best course of action
1) declare to compliance that we do not have his DOB and other info (btw truth) and ask to cancel the transaction
2) try to persuade the receiver to at least disclose the DOB and pass it to compliance, hopefully it's actually not going to be one of the three listed match
3) try to find an id with same n+s combination but not blacklisted DOB and pass it to compliance which would most likely unblock the transaction
4) do nothing pretending not to have received any Wise mail and wait for alotted time to expire and let compliance decide how to act (tacit lack of info)

Do option 1 and account is closed.
Do option 2 and you will be fine if false alert.
Do option 3 and this is fraud maybe nothing happens.
Do option 4 and account is closed.

It is understandable to an average person is not expected to know all sanctioned individuals worldwide. Ads are full of people buying and selling stuff and transacting with different counterparties, no one asks extensive DD from everybody

Wise does not care. They are a UK Exchange listed company so they will throw you under the bus whether its fair or unfair of them to do so.

I mean as @BoomBoom said maybe just us paranoic but I really never thought of like paying for some hunk's dirty underwear over ebay or something could lead you into having to answer complaince questions that you don't know the answers to...what are these AML deps smoking. Can't just they do all the investigative work if so concerning?

Sadly this is the world we live in now. It is today especially dangerous to do wires in USD. Wise and all banks guard USD wires like a hawk as the funds have to pass through a correspondence banks in NY making them subject to US jurisdiction. As you know Wise can b very heavily fined for sanctions violations.

P.S Stay away from USD wires period if you live outside the US. I have never done a USD wire in maybe 20 years. Some EMI's and even banks don't offer USD wires for this very reason.