New problem using Wise.com-- did banking rules change?

[TIF]

I've used wise.com (formerly transferwise.com) for years.  After the initial setup, where I linked a US bank account, I've had no problems paying overseas invoices via ACH transfer.  I've paid coin invoices in EUR, GBP, and perhaps a few other currencies.

I've been trying to pay a Gorny & Mosch invoice for a week and have run into several problems with wise.  They've provided some help but they haven't answered my basic question:  WHY am I unable to just pay by ACH transfer this time?  I did this with success as recently as October.  Has something changed?

To pay this G&M invoice I now have to either just do a wire transfer from my bank ($50, which is ridiculous because the coin was only ~$200), or separately and MANUALLY transfer money in USD to my Wise account, and then through a separate transaction, pay G&M.  It is so cumbersome and I had to download the wise phone app, upload ID, etc.  Made me uncomfortable but I did it anyway...

If it's going to be like this from now on, it will make me even more reluctant to bid in non-US auctions (and those hold he vast majority of coins of interest).  😞  Paying European invoices in the past involved logging in, picking the recipient, entering the amount and currency and clicking send.  Done.  Now it's a very big pain in the ass.

Have any of you experienced changes or problems using Wise lately?

Edited November 27, 2024 by TIF

[Croatian Coin Collector]

Don't American banks have their own smartphone applications? I use the m-zaba smartphone application of Zagrebačka banka (which is owned by the Italian UniCredit banking group) and I do bank wire transfers through that without any issues, so I have no need to use Wise.com or PayPal or similar websites.

[TIF]

16 minutes ago, Croatian Coin Collector said:

Don't American banks have their own smartphone applications?

Yes, but the functions vary widely.  I am unable to do a transfer with conversion to a different currency.

[Heliodromus]

The banks have smartphone apps, but haven't traditionally supported free transfers between accounts, and certainly not free/cheap international transfers, which is why PayPal arose as a common way to pay. Nowadays there are options like Zelle and Venmo useful for paying friends (Zelle is part of my bank's smartphone app, Venmo is a 3rd party app), but for international transfer Wise.com, PayPal or credit card are best choices. Doing an international bank wire transfer from the US is very expensive and inconvenient!

 

[JAZ Numismatics]

Wise recently sent out an email outlining changes to their system. I didn't bother reading it because who wants to read all that fine print? I suspect it's a glitch in the matrix - an upgrade that came with a few bugs.

[jdmKY]

@TIF I used WISE for an ACH payment to Monaco last month with no problems. However, I have been having a lot of difficulty with Venmo lately - payments getting rejected with no satisfactory answer from them.

[TIF]

16 minutes ago, JAZ Numismatics said:

Wise recently sent out an email outlining changes to their system. I didn't bother reading it because who wants to read all that fine print? I suspect it's a glitch in the matrix - an upgrade that came with a few bugs.

I don't know... it didn't seem like a glitch.  I will keep pressing Wise to answer my questions and will let you know.

[Deinomenid]

1 hour ago, TIF said:

Have any of you experienced changes or problems using Wise lately?

From the US to Europe, yes. It's completely changed for me. For the worse. Way more complicated, with no explanation and every time (four times) I get through to the successfully sent stage  I get something  like "Whoops, this is going to take longer than expected!!". Oh so jolly. 

It then takes well over a week to arrive. My bank and account number/details are unchanged. Wise has changed. It used to be easy, cheap and almost instantaneous.  Now it is not easy, is  more expensive (they put up fees despite a good while ago proclaiming how they'd reduce fees as their total volumes went up) and is far from instantaneous.

[Sulla80]

2 hours ago, TIF said:

I've used wise.com (formerly transferwise.com) for years.  After the initial setup, where I linked a US bank account, I've had no problems paying overseas invoices via ACH transfer.  I've paid coin invoices in EUR, GBP, and perhaps a few other currencies.

I've been trying to pay a Gorny & Mosch invoice for a week and have run into several problems with wise.  They've provided some help but they haven't answered my basic question:  WHY am I unable to just pay by ACH transfer this time?  I did this with success as recently as October.  Has something changed?

To pay this G&M invoice I now have to either just do a wire transfer from my bank ($50, which is ridiculous because the coin was only ~$200), or separately and MANUALLY transfer money in USD to my Wise account, and then through a separate transaction, pay G&M.  It is so cumbersome and I had to download the wise phone app, upload ID, etc.  Made me uncomfortable but I did it anyway...

If it's going to be like this from now on, it will make me even more reluctant to bid in non-US auctions (and those hold he vast majority of coins of interest).  😞  Paying European invoices in the past involved logging in, picking the recipient, entering the amount and currency and clicking send.  Done.  Now it's a very big pain in the ass.

Have any of you experienced changes or problems using Wise lately?

Hi @TIF, Nomos in CHF was my last Wise transaction in Nov - didn't have to load money up to Wise, but I did encounter something similar - I think it may be choice of currency try sending in Euros instead of USD? don't remember exactly what I did to go the easier path.  On the ID requirement, I suspect you are running into EU regulations such as the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Directive and the Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2), which mandate strict customer identification and verification processes.  I try to maintain some data privacy, and don't like having any more information online available than I need to - not sure I want to start sending a digital copies of my passport and/or driver's license with every purchase I make.

Generally between customs being less and less coin-friendly in the US, high postage fees, and bank transactions fees - I've been finding EU auctions less attractive from the US.

Edited November 27, 2024 by Sulla80

[-monolith-]

1 hour ago, TIF said:

I've used wise.com (formerly transferwise.com) for years.  After the initial setup, where I linked a US bank account, I've had no problems paying overseas invoices via ACH transfer.  I've paid coin invoices in EUR, GBP, and perhaps a few other currencies.

I've been trying to pay a Gorny & Mosch invoice for a week and have run into several problems with wise.  They've provided some help but they haven't answered my basic question:  WHY am I unable to just pay by ACH transfer this time?  I did this with success as recently as October.  Has something changed?

To pay this G&M invoice I now have to either just do a wire transfer from my bank ($50, which is ridiculous because the coin was only ~$200), or separately and MANUALLY transfer money in USD to my Wise account, and then through a separate transaction, pay G&M.  It is so cumbersome and I had to download the wise phone app, upload ID, etc.  Made me uncomfortable but I did it anyway...

If it's going to be like this from now on, it will make me even more reluctant to bid in non-US auctions (and those hold he vast majority of coins of interest).  😞  Paying European invoices in the past involved logging in, picking the recipient, entering the amount and currency and clicking send.  Done.  Now it's a very big pain in the ass.

Have any of you experienced changes or problems using Wise lately?

Like @JAZ Numismatics stated WISE recently updated their policies, which mostly covered fee modifications, yet it could also have affected some existing functionality. If your using the sellers IBAN number contact them to make sure it's still current. I noticed that several saved auction houses in my WISE account had recently changed their IBAN numbers. I did have an issue about a year ago where I kept trying to wire money to a particular seller and it wouldn't go thru. I just contacted them to get a different IBAN number and then it worked. 

[Ryro]

Not just you. Same issue over here for the last couple of transactions. I had to cancel the transfer, go and make sure it was doing USD to euro just to get it to take it from ACH, and still now it takes 5 days for them to retrieve funds that they used to get within seconds.

[red_spork]

2 hours ago, Croatian Coin Collector said:

Don't American banks have their own smartphone applications? I use the m-zaba smartphone application of Zagrebačka banka (which is owned by the Italian UniCredit banking group) and I do bank wire transfers through that without any issues, so I have no need to use Wise.com or PayPal or similar websites.

No, most American banks can't transfer directly to a European bank. American bank accounts are all interconnected by the FEDWIRE system whereas European banks use SWIFT. Some banks do offer their own international wire transfer service but the fees are outrageous especially for smaller purchases. Wise is how a lot of us have been doing our transfers to foreign banks for years because the fees are way less and for me over the years have averaged out to about 1% which is perfectly palatable.

[Curtisimo]

I sent money to Gorney and Mosch a week or two ago and I used Wise. I used a debit card instead of an attached bank account. It sent immediately and the coin has already arrived. It’s a bit more expensive but perhaps you could try using a debit card?

I tried using Wise yesterday for a transfer and came up against spending caps I didn’t know existed. I think l’ll be sticking to auction houses that accept PayPal or credit card payments from now on.

[TIF]

1 hour ago, Curtisimo said:

I sent money to Gorney and Mosch a week or two ago and I used Wise. I used a debit card instead of an attached bank account. It sent immediately and the coin has already arrived. It’s a bit more expensive but perhaps you could try using a debit card?

I tried using Wise yesterday for a transfer and came up against spending caps I didn’t know existed. I think l’ll be sticking to auction houses that accept PayPal or credit card payments from now on.

That's what I ended up doing but I had to have them explain it to me, and it was still very cumbersome.  I guess it won't be as bad next time.  I canceled my pending transaction to G&M, downloaded the Wise app to my phone because they said it was easier to do the verification (picture of ID, facial recognition set-up).  Once that money was transferred to my Wise account in USD, then I created a new transaction to pay G&M in EUR.  Unless I missed a step, that involved separate calculating of the exchange rate, and erred slightly high in the amount transferred into Wise for fear of being short a few cents and messing up the whole thing again.  

PITA, but better than a $50 international wire fee.

[Original Skin Coins]

Not familiar with Wise, but I'd recommend a Chase checking account for US buyers. I can send both domestic and international wire transfers to any country via my online account, no bank trip required. It's a $5 fee for transfers of less than $5k, and no fee for transfers of $5k+. They do fluff the exchange rate by about 3%, but I just add that to the buyer's premium when determining my bid amounts. 

[John Conduitt]

I read somewhere that the problem is Wise. Their change from Transferwise was not purely cosmetic, they are trying to do more in the banking sector. This means they have more regulatory hurdles to jump and more bits of the business bolted on that need co-ordinating. This can result in problems they never had before and stretched customer service teams that don’t know what’s going on.

[savitale]

I have never used Wise but I feel your pain with US to EUR wire transfers. My bank charges a $25 fee plus about a 2.2% "currency conversion fee". To be fair the exchange rate seems to be about the market rate. The process is cumbersome, in part because I cannot send, say, 5000 EUR. I need to guess how much is needed in USD and iteratively change the amount until the "received by the Recipient" number is 5000 EUR.

Going the other way, getting paid in USD by a European Wire Transfer I have found to be essentially impossible. US banks don't use the same codes as the European banks and it seems they (the European banks) can't be bothered to enter anything else. 

Companies that do significant business in both places seem to keep bank accounts in both places denominated in the native currency, and somehow it is easier to transfer funds between accounts when they are both yours.

[panzerman]

I go to my bank and get a bank draft in US$/ EURO/ UK PD/ SF/ Aust.$

or send wire thru bank

 

Very painfull for Canadians such as the poor exchange rate.😗

 

 

[red_spork]

On 11/27/2024 at 9:52 AM, TIF said:

To pay this G&M invoice I now have to either just do a wire transfer from my bank ($50, which is ridiculous because the coin was only ~$200), or separately and MANUALLY transfer money in USD to my Wise account, and then through a separate transaction, pay G&M.  It is so cumbersome and I had to download the wise phone app, upload ID, etc.  Made me uncomfortable but I did it anyway...

Oddly I just tried to setup a wire to a Euro account I've paid before and it had no problem allowing me to choose bank transfer and the fees were pretty low(about 1.4%) as always. I didn't actually send it but it still seems to be offering me the option. I wonder if it's something specific to G&M?

[ela126]

i just used Wise yesterday, successfully. Sent USD to Euro to a bank in Netherlands. Sent 364usd, total fee was 1.96usd, exchange rate was 0.953. All good as always.

Also used it last month to Switzerland USD to CHF, fee was a little higher %, close to 2% in this case versus the 0.5% for the euro. Exchange rate also seemed less beneficial (i know the money is different).

In all though, painless as always and will be remain my primary method of transaction.

[TIF]

1 hour ago, red_spork said:

Oddly I just tried to setup a wire to a Euro account I've paid before and it had no problem allowing me to choose bank transfer and the fees were pretty low(about 1.4%) as always. I didn't actually send it but it still seems to be offering me the option. I wonder if it's something specific to G&M?

I also wondered if it was specific to G&M, their bank, or their country.  

[Ocatarinetabellatchitchix]

Here in Canada no problem at all. I used WISE last sunday to pay Timeline Auctions in GBP, and 6 minutes after the transaction the money was in their bank account !

[Heliodromus]

I just use Wise to pay for a Swiss auction (I'm in USA), and the process was simple as usual.

I did note (has it always been there?) there was a Wise fee of $2.12 added to a $60 xfer, i.e. 3.5% fee, so no cheaper than paying by credit card and getting cash back.