Wise.com lost my money

doozeon

I am moving to Ireland from the UK and had an offer accepted on a property. I changed my sterling into euros with Wise.com and then sent 10,000 euros to the property agent as a deposit, (that is the process over there). The agent didn't receive the money, his bank (Permanent TSB)have informed him that they know nothing about the transfer. Wise have told me it has definitely gone there, they want proof from the agent that it is not in his account- a copy of his bank statement.

The problem is the account is a client account with details of deposits from other individuals, he cannot supply me with a copy without permission from his licensing authority. This all occurred two weeks ago. A few days ago I sent a 1 euro test transfer to the same account and it arrived within 24 hrs.

My problem is that without the deposit the house stays on the market, Wise wants proof the agent hasn't received the funds before they investigate, but the agent can't supply the proof and obviously I am 10,000 euros out of pocket. I stupidly assumed that if I filled in all the details correctly (which I have) that everything would be fine. I cannot understand why Wise cannot just check the pathway of the transaction, I know they use local banks to expedite the transfer, but they will not move.

Voyager2002

Well, if the agent wanted to help he could redact confidential details.

Brie

The only issue I can think of with a redacted copy would be if there were a number of deposits on the same day for the same amount.  but there likely would be the transfer number and a small portion of that might be left visible.

Unless of course there is legally something that actually prevents the agent from supplying anything.  Or is it just that he can't get the permission to do so?

doozeon

The agent has sent two partial documents, but Wise won't accept them as evidence, they want to see a whole statement with all the details on it covering a  time period of two weeks. I have now transferred the deposit through another provider ( I don't trust Wise and will not be using them again). 

Pollycat

What are you doing about recovering the original 10,000 euros?

doozeon

I have asked the recipient for a full page statement with all the details on it. I have e-mailed the recipients bank with a copy of the transfer statement, asking if they can trace it. I have complained by email to Wise.com asking for details of their complaints policy. Everything has been slowed down by the fact that the UK had bank holidays Thurs/Fri and Ireland has one today. I don't know what else I can do, except complain to the financial ombudsman if I don't have this problem resolved within 15 working days. Unfortunately no one at Wise.com is answering the phone.

Caz3121

doozeon said:

The problem is the account is a client account with details of deposits from other individuals, 

This may be part of the problem, they could have matched your payment to a different client in error.
Have you checked the reference details? what does the property agent do with transactions that are missing a reference if there are multiple clients in same account?

Sandtree

Caz3121 said:

doozeon said:

The problem is the account is a client account with details of deposits from other individuals, 

This may be part of the problem, they could have matched your payment to a different client in error.
Have you checked the reference details? what does the property agent do with transactions that are missing a reference if there are multiple clients in same account?

With some countries Wise note that the reference will not be shown because they use intermediary banks... have the agents received funds on the date without a reference and so are unallocated or incorrectly allocated?

doozeon

The only deposit in the account in the last 3 weeks is mine for 1 euro. The 10,000 euro transfer has not been received. I need acceptable evidence from the estate agents client account. I passed on  a partial bank statement from him that showed a deposit from someone else 3 weeks ago, then my test transfer of 1 euro and then nothing. But staff at Wise say it doesn't meet their criteria, I have passed this back to the agent. I rang Wise but was given a wait time of 1 hour and 20 mins so hung up. All correspondence so far has been by email.

Withbellson

doozeon said:

The only deposit in the account in the last 3 weeks is mine for 1 euro. The 10,000 euro transfer has not been received. I need acceptable evidence from the estate agents client account. I passed on  a partial bank statement from him that showed a deposit from someone else 3 weeks ago, then my test transfer of 1 euro and then nothing. But staff at Wise say it doesn't meet their criteria, I have passed this back to the agent. I rang Wise but was given a wait time of 1 hour and 20 mins so hung up. All correspondence so far has been by email.

It seems to me that it is WISE who have to prove that they have sent it. Totally ridiculous that they expect you to quiz the recipient.
Have WISE presented the evidence of them having sent it to the correct account?
How can the onus be on you to get the details from the recipient? Your only responsibility is to your contract with the property agent. It's WISE's job to get it to the agent and confirm to you that has been done.... with proof.
I would make them pay dearly for any additional costs incurred by their inaction.

nyermen

Not knowing how WISE's banking arrangements are setup, but it sounds like there could be an intermediary bank in between WISE's banks and PTSB, depending on the payment method used (SEPA more likely than SWIFT). 

If an intermediary is used, and WISE have sent money, then it may be stuck in the middle for some reason.  And its up to WISE to track it as you can't.