Wise Account Closed, Refund Delayed — Advice Needed

[Damian2]

Hello everyone,
I have a UK Limited company with a nominee director, which I use for legitimate online activities. I opened a Wise business account under the director’s name and documents. A few months ago, Wise closed the account without warning, likely because other LTDs sharing the same director were flagged (unrelated to me).
I appealed, but the appeal was rejected. However, Wise allowed me to provide a different bank account (in someone else’s name) for the remaining funds. They keep saying due diligence checks are still in progress, but the delay is getting long, and I'm unsure when the refund will arrive.
Has anyone faced a similar issue with Wise? How long did it take to resolve? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

 

[hamza80]

Hi,

Yes, this is well known by Wise.

They will refund you to the bank account you provide.

They hold the funds for 30 or 60 days in case a dispute is requested on your account.

 

[JackofAllTrades]

If goes past 60 and it is a signifacant sum, have a lawyer tag them with a letter.

 

[Damian2]

At the moment, I’ve been waiting for about four months. Every time I reach out, they respond that the funds will be returned, but the due diligence checks are still ongoing.

 

[JackofAllTrades]

You need a lawyer to call their bluff. This usually achieves the desired result. I had a large sum of BTC stuck in bogus AML verfication and a few emails from the aggressive lawyer did the trick.

 

[aage]

How much money are we talking about ?

 

[Damian2]

15k GBP approx.

 

[W Fish]

If it is four months and you have reminded them and got responses (so they have not just "forgotten" it), then there is an investigation going on.
Not by Wise, buy the FIU or police.
Wise (or any other bank or emi) can not do anything about it. They are not allowed to tell you why or for how long the money is held.
Have they asked you about SOF? If not, then you are probably not the subject of the investigation.

No lawyer will help. People talking about banks being greedy and wanting to seal your funds shoud read the AML&CTF legistlation.

Post in thread 'USDT to Wise (Personal)'

Feb 23, 2025

What happens when Wise specifically decides to block your account? Do you get an appeal? If they outright terminate your account (or the appeal was not satisfactory) what do they do with your funds, be it in balance on Wise, or in transit?

Not only Wise, any bank or emi in EU.
First they will ask you for the reason of the transfer, then possibly the SOF.
If these are not satisfactory (if the dumba**s in the compliance department does not understand it) they will (have to) make SAR (suspicious activity report) to FIU (financial intelligence unit).
FIU can freeze the funds (tell the...

• W Fish

• 

 

[Damian2]

They have never asked me anything regarding the Source of Funds (SOF). My activity was just a simple e-commerce business.


From what I understand, the issue arose because a company—whose nominee director was the same person who opened my account—engaged in some improper activities. As a result, they closed all accounts where that person was listed.


So, I suppose all I can do is wait and occasionally send an email to check for updates? I just hope this won't take years...

 

[JohnnyDoe]

Wise remains the best crypto sponsor.
Remember: any amount of fiat money deposited in any bank is not safe. Only keep a balance that you can afford to lose.

 

[W Fish]

From what I understand, the issue arose because a company—whose nominee director was the same person who opened my account—engaged in some improper activities. As a result, they closed all accounts where that person was listed.

Very probable.
In other words you used a танкист to open your account. No wonder it ended like this.

So, I suppose all I can do is wait and occasionally send an email to check for updates? I just hope this won't take years...

yep.

 

[JackofAllTrades]

You have done nothing wrong, this is how EMIs steal money.

 

[JackofAllTrades]

You have done nothing wrong, this is how EMIs steal money.

What the EMI will do is eventually demand you account for every dollar to their satisfaction which will never be met. Remember, they have no proof your funds are tainted. They are the ones committing theft of funds. Coinbase, Changelly, and others in the crypto world play the same game. PayPal used to do this as well when they were first starting out and needed float. As for those singing Wise's praises, they are wrong, I closed my Wise account after they kept demanding DD every time I used the account.

 

[ShillGates]

They have never asked me anything regarding the Source of Funds (SOF). My activity was just a simple e-commerce business.


From what I understand, the issue arose because a company—whose nominee director was the same person who opened my account—engaged in some improper activities. As a result, they closed all accounts where that person was listed.


So, I suppose all I can do is wait and occasionally send an email to check for updates? I just hope this won't take years...

i thi8nk you have to choose your words somewhat differently. IT was not your activities it was the activities of the director and the company. If that director is in hot water in unrelated dealings, you can kiss your 15k gbp goodbye - you are not entitled to it. The only thing you can do is to have a contact with your real company and issue a demand for money to the company with the dead wise accounbt, then ask the court for a winding up order lol and you appoint a liquidator, but thatll all cost 10k gbp

so move on, dont think you will be seeing this unless the unrelated dealings are not severe, but ........

 

[JackofAllTrades]

i thi8nk you have to choose your words somewhat differently. IT was not your activities it was the activities of the director and the company. If that director is in hot water in unrelated dealings, you can kiss your 15k gbp goodbye - you are not entitled to it. The only thing you can do is to have a contact with your real company and issue a demand for money to the company with the dead wise accounbt, then ask the court for a winding up order lol and you appoint a liquidator, but thatll all cost 10k gbp

so move on, dont think you will be seeing this unless the unrelated dealings are not severe, but ........

Wise should close the account and return the funds - on what theory would they be able to retain funds with no third party hold on them?

 

[W Fish]

Wise remains the best crypto sponsor.
Remember: any amount of fiat money deposited in any bank is not safe. Only keep a balance that you can afford to lose.

While you are right is Wise just the messenger here. The real culprit is the EU legistlation.
It is going to get worse...

 

[ShillGates]

Wise should close the account and return the funds - on what theory would they be able to retain funds with no third party hold on them?

amld6. The account gets frozen for whatever reason. The the FIU will extend it indefinitely until one day they will just ask for a forfeiture order, ie collect the money

 

[JackofAllTrades]

amld6. The account gets frozen for whatever reason. The the FIU will extend it indefinitely until one day they will just ask for a forfeiture order, ie collect the money

There is no FIU here just the EMI as far as I can tell. The EMI seems to be freezing on its own initiative based on OP's description.

 

[ShillGates]

you would not know if there is the fiu involved at all. This is the whole purpose. Revolut aint moving because they either do not want to or can not. You dont know till you start issuing proceedings. Normally the wait time is 30 days from the fiu after revolut issued a sar to the fiu. No response means good to go and revolut is not liable. Unfortunately banks dont care and keep it for longer than that in case fiu changes their mind as without a response revolut would be liable if they do pay out money. However, wise closing an account will have 99.99% sureity of having raised a sar - since Wise wants the insurance policy to be NOT liable in case they hand the money back. (bank raises a sar - not liable for loss to government - if banks do not raise sar and government comes knocking , bank is on the hook - result is - raise sars for all customers as blanket procedure)

FIU sar report and forfeiture of monies is all a civil procedure and evidence burden is as such very low. Simply the government saying, that money is dirty is good enough without having proof, since most "criminals" will not defend (or anything under 25k will not be defended anyway as it will cost more in lawyers).

Once the money is seized, half goes to local enforcement ie local police, the other half to central overnment to hire more money laundering officers. And the original account holder is not a criminal as the whole money grabbing ecercise was civil.

Losing your money without being trialed as a criminal is a nice invention by the EU to raise more funds and actually make some money out of the sar reports, as before 99.99% went unanswered - now its a revenue game for the governments to reduce deficits......

The op mentioned it has been 4 months, therefore wise should give the money back to the account holder, if not by now the government should have contacted the account holder and served them with a notice to claim the money technically.

 

[JackofAllTrades]

you would not know if there is the fiu involved at all. This is the whole purpose. Revolut aint moving because they either do not want to or can not. You dont know till you start issuing proceedings. Normally the wait time is 30 days from the fiu after revolut issued a sar to the fiu. No response means good to go and revolut is not liable. Unfortunately banks dont care and keep it for longer than that in case fiu changes their mind as without a response revolut would be liable if they do pay out money. However, wise closing an account will have 99.99% sureity of having raised a sar - since Wise wants the insurance policy to be NOT liable in case they hand the money back. (bank raises a sar - not liable for loss to government - if banks do not raise sar and government comes knocking , bank is on the hook - result is - raise sars for all customers as blanket procedure)

FIU sar report and forfeiture of monies is all a civil procedure and evidence burden is as such very low. Simply the government saying, that money is dirty is good enough without having proof, since most "criminals" will not defend (or anything under 25k will not be defended anyway as it will cost more in lawyers).

Once the money is seized, half goes to local enforcement ie local police, the other half to central overnment to hire more money laundering officers. And the original account holder is not a criminal as the whole money grabbing ecercise was civil.

Losing your money without being trialed as a criminal is a nice invention by the EU to raise more funds and actually make some money out of the sar reports, as before 99.99% went unanswered - now its a revenue game for the governments to reduce deficits......

The op mentioned it has been 4 months, therefore wise should give the money back to the account holder, if not by now the government should have contacted the account holder and served them with a notice to claim the money technically.

Exactly correct, Wise is holding funds it is not entitled to as is almost always the case.