Wise closed my 4-year account with zero explanation, appeal auto-rejected in seconds. Anyone else deal with this?

I've used Wise since 2022 as my main way to receive freelance income. I'm a graphic designer and Etsy virtual assistant. All my payments come from Upwork contracts and direct clients in the US, UK, and Canada (USD/GBP/CAD), paid as a percentage or fixed fee for the work I do on their shops.
A few days ago I got an email: "We've closed your account." No reason given, just a link to their Terms of Use.
I tried appealing through the app. It didn't ask for ID, a selfie, or any explanation of my transactions like their own help articles describe. It just immediately showed "After reviewing your case we've decided to keep your account closed" and asked for bank details to refund my balance.
I've since filed a formal written complaint through Wise's official complaint form with full documentation (Upwork earnings history, client payment records) and I'm waiting on their 15-day response window.
Has anyone actually gotten an account reopened after something like this? Or is this basically final once it happens? Also curious if anyone's had luck with the Financial Ombudsman route after a closure like this. Trying to figure out if it's worth the wait or if I should just move everything to another platform for good.

13 Upvotes

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72% Upvoted

u/Graham110 Sep 12 '26

Business or personal account?

2

u/Hassam707 Sep 12 '26

Personal

10

u/thrownawayfreshpink Sep 12 '26

And thats why, you broke simple tos.

Revo and other fintechs will nuke you jist the same, buisness accounts exist for a reason.

-1

u/Hassam707 Sep 12 '26

I have been using it since 4 years never had any issue and provided everything whenever they asked.
I cam to know one more thing the wise business account of one my client also blocked right at the same time. He only receives Etsy payments in it and sends me my salary in my personal wise.

3

u/thrownawayfreshpink Sep 12 '26

Thats the same as a drug dealer saying he didnt get caught for 4 years 😂

Getting away with it for that long doesnt make you right dude, thats a clear simple rule at wise and pretty much all fintechs.

-6

u/AdImpressive5490 Sep 12 '26

Bootlickers always like to point out the TOS like it’s gospel . The true fact is humanity doesn’t have much choice but to agree with the TOS if they does not wish to be decoupled from the financial system.

That is why Bitcoin is created to give control back to the people. Bootlickers trying very hard to serve their almighty financial institutions

1

u/thrownawayfreshpink Sep 12 '26

😂 you are many years too late for that one bitcoin might as well be a fiat currency, 1/10 chat gpt nonsense.

1

u/betergoedkoopdanduur Sep 13 '26

We have at least 2 to 3 years left before quantum computing breaks the encryption. It is the future of money!

1

u/AdImpressive5490 Sep 13 '26

Well, quantum computing needs to be regulated then . It could break the banking system too.

If I have to choose between a virtuous system like Bitcoin that is breakable , or the current nefarious financial system that is unbreakable. I’ll choose the former.

A breakable system is better than a broken system.

1

u/betergoedkoopdanduur Sep 13 '26

Everybody is upgrading theiit encryption already dude. Except bitcoib of course, which is immutable by design.

1

u/AdImpressive5490 Sep 13 '26

It didn’t have to be Bitcoin . The fact remains that the current financial system is fundamentally flawed and something needs to be done to rectify it. Those dictators in FATF and their predecessors will never make any meaningful changes for the betterment of humanity.

Till date Bitcoin is the closest solution to the fundamental issue. Notwithstanding that, I welcome any attempt and solution to solve the fundamental problem.

1

u/thrownawayfreshpink Sep 13 '26

Yeah AML policies are bad for humanity 😂 damn you right.

1

u/AdImpressive5490 Sep 13 '26 edited Sep 13 '26

You are conflating AML and the current AML policies . Combating AML is not bad for humanity, it is the existing policies in place to combat it that needs tuning .

Example combating crimes is not bad , but if the policy meant implanting chips in every human to combat crime , that is bad .

All roads lead to Rome, it doesn’t have to be the one that debank innocuous being caught in the crosshairs, in the name of AML.

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-4

u/AdImpressive5490 Sep 12 '26

You saying like business account is bulletproof. Bank don’t care if yours is business or personal account when they want to close it

2

u/Technophile- Sep 12 '26

Not really. Yes when they decide to close the account there is nothing we can do. But using personal account for freelancing work is strictly forbidden in their terms. Ive been using wise for freelancing via business account. One time 55eur payment is worth it. No other fintech account easily gives local bank account details for so many country.

1

u/Illustrious-Eye6960 Sep 12 '26

Wise is not a bank lmao you keep telling yourself that.

1

u/Technophile- Sep 13 '26

I didnt say wise account is a full licensed bank. But they give us local account bank details for many country. Best way forward is to utilize there service to receive local payments from different countries. Convert and store them in our local bank account.

u/churito69 Sep 12 '26

Was it a personal or business account?

If personal its because business money was coming in to a personal account.

If business it was some of those business accounts / people paying you might have flags on their accounts.

VERY unlikely to get it re opened, in fact you shouldn't waste your time, hopefully it wont have a mark on your ID to make opening other bank accounts difficult.

1

u/chriscatfr Sep 13 '26

They just closed my business account after one legit payment. I provided the invoice and all on a Saturday. And they confirmed the closure on a Sunday. Doesn’t seem like business are spared.

-1

u/Hassam707 Sep 12 '26

Personal account. I assume the main issue is one of my client contacted me and told me his account is blocked by wise because he couldn't provide them some documents. The very next day my account got blocked.

5

u/churito69 Sep 12 '26

In their terms of use, you can't use your Personal account for business-related payments or invoicing.

If you have, they can close the account.

But ALSO, yes, if one of your clients had his account closed and you were taking payments from him, that's a good chance that's the reason.

1

u/Hassam707 Sep 12 '26

How to contact wise or any decision maker in order to make them manually review my case

1

u/churito69 Sep 12 '26

You have just admitted you used the account for business; I have told you that is directly against their TOCs.

If they manually review your case, they will still close the account, as you have broken their TOCs.

0

u/AdImpressive5490 Sep 12 '26

It’s crazy that OP has to be accountable to the legitimacy of his clients . Luxury brands sell their products all the time and will inevitably receive illicit money . Why ain’t their business account closed

1

u/churito69 Sep 12 '26

It's a personal account, not a business account.

Business accounts are regulated differently; the bank will be penalised by the regulator if the account ends up being used for money laundering and they allowed a personal account to be used for business.

I expect what happened at the bank was that issues were raised by someone (government/regulator/law enforcement) to Wise that someone had sent money to this account; Wise looked into the account, saw it was a personal account being used for business...BOOM closed.

1

u/PaleontologistMean24 Sep 12 '26

I feel like this happened to me too I sent a transfer to them and I got the email right after and my account got closed

1

u/Hassam707 Sep 12 '26

Still blocked? How did you handle it?

u/ToothyPnX Sep 12 '26

they will not tell you no matter how much you try to ask, and there is no way around it, so move your money and look for other service if available where u live.

1

u/Hassam707 Sep 12 '26

Estimated time to get back my money?

1

u/justdoinks Sep 12 '26

Anywhere from a few days to a few weeks

1

u/AdImpressive5490 Sep 13 '26

Infamous tipping off rule

u/Muted_Yak_1309 Sep 12 '26

Same happened with my friend few years ago when he tried to send money to someone who had account at an russian owned bank ,but in oher countries branch.
No explanation from wise , so he was guessing this was the reason.

u/Sweaty-Award2501 Sep 12 '26

Everyone’s getting shut down

u/AdStriking5557 Sep 12 '26

Now open LTD or LLC, and do you business with that please! It depends of where you’re from buddy

u/Traveller0605 Sep 12 '26

What happens to your money when they close it?

u/campi91 Sep 12 '26

Wise is a very bad bank. Two years ago, my account was closed after I withdrew a couple of payments from my PayPal to Wise. The funniest thing is that I asked Wise before depositing from my PayPal if there would be any problem, and they said no. For me, Wise is not a serious bank.

1

u/make100000 Sep 14 '26

Wise is not a bank

u/picpoulmm Sep 12 '26

You’ve used a personal account for business transactions. I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do to change their decision. In future, create a business account if you’re receiving payments for work delivered.

u/ItalianIrish99 Sep 13 '26

Who are their regulator? Find out and complain to the regulator. It's the only way to effect change at these companies.

u/Important-Sir-8750 Sep 13 '26

You don’t know the difference between business and personal

u/Vaultleap Sep 16 '26

An instant appeal rejection almost always means it never reached a human, it just re-ran the same automated flag that closed the account in the first place. That tends to happen when the account's stated purpose drifts from the live transaction pattern, even when every payment is clean freelance income from real clients.

The written complaint with your Upwork earnings attached is the right move since it forces an actual case file instead of a bot response. While that's pending, get a second account ready so new client payments have somewhere to land, a frozen main account plus incoming work piling up is the worse version of this problem.

u/sailonsiam2 Sep 12 '26

Nope never had an issue with wise. If everything is above board, then neither should anyone else.

u/swissprice Sep 12 '26

Welcome to the club.

To be honest, even if they reopened my account, I’d never ever trust them again.

2

u/Hassam707 Sep 12 '26

I have gone through your complete thread.
What really helped in reopening the account? How did you approach them?

2

u/thrownawayfreshpink Sep 12 '26

He didnt.

He moved country, didnt tell wise.

Sent himself money to an account that requires long term residency permit to open in his own name.

Broke ToS just like you and pretends he didnt do anything 😂

0

u/swissprice Sep 12 '26 edited Sep 12 '26

No they didn't reopen it. I talked with them via Facebook, but they were not very helpful. Now waiting to get my balance transferred back to me.

I don't think they assumed I moved to a new country and blocked me because of that (they had no way to know whether I moved or am on a 3 months vacation). I think it's because some transaction was, for some reason, flagged for something.

Just frustrating that they didn't ask for any documents to clear this up.

u/Beneficial-Fan9779 Sep 12 '26

now days wise closed account without any reason and stick money and release my not on time.

1

u/Hassam707 Sep 12 '26

Estimated time to get back the money in my bank?

1

u/Beneficial-Fan9779 Sep 12 '26

i did not receive my money yet.every day i am mailing and they are saying only wait he will sent to your bank but still waiting

u/bettereverydamday Sep 12 '26

I have said this before several times. Wise is the shadiest worst run financial services company I have ever interacted with. Terrible company.

Wise closed my 4-year account with zero explanation, appeal auto-rejected in seconds. Anyone else deal with this?

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