Wise has stolen more than $60,000 AUD from us, and refuses to let us access it.
We’ve had a Wise account for around 5 years (since they were called TransferWise). It’s been a really useful way to transact in foreign currencies, and pay for things when we’re travelling for work.
In early-April 2025, Wise asked us to provide some additional information on our Ultimate Beneficial Owners (UBOs) by uploading a statement of shareholders, and the ID of the owners. Perfectly reasonable stuff for an entity that pretends to be a bank to ask for.
In response, in early-April 2025, we uploaded a paid ASIC Extract for the business, and scans of the passports of the two UBOs. The message requesting additional information on UBOs went away, and the account continued ticking along.
On 6 May 2025, with no notice, and with no out of the ordinary or large transactions happening, Wise started declining our card on all transactions, and blocking any ACH/wire transfers out of the account.
There is a link on each declined transaction that says offers a way to fix it:
Alas, it does not, and has never worked:
Every time a transaction declines, we also get an email from Wise:
But again, alas, the “Unblock your account” button in this email also goes to an unhelpful page:
Lodging a support ticket yields an unhelpful response:
And replying makes them more confusing:
And then, more confusing still, when they ask for the same documents they already had, again:
Calling results in someone in their call centre telling us it’s a “bug” and will be “fixed soon”, or that I need to upload more documents. And when asked what documents, they list the same document we already uploaded (an ASIC Extract). And round and round we go.
So, we’re out $60,000+ AUD, and Wise refuses to help.