Transferwise was great, at first. I was an early adopter of Transferwise. Some years ago, my brother (and I, sort of) started filming documentaries and I handled a lot of the money and payments to some of the people involved in his documentaries overseas. At one point without warning, Transferwise left my brother stranded in Europe without a way to get money. Transferwise held onto a few thousand dollars for a few weeks without any contact or update or anything. Every time I would email or call, I would get some customer support who would ignore my replies or transfer me around with increasing wait times between transfers until they hung up, sort of typical phone hell. When we finally got a hold of someone at Transferwise, it turns out they decided that what we were doing was a cover for illicit activities (which is pretty bizarre, if you knew the people involved, and despite his published documentaries, footage, and even the receipts we kept for tax purposes).

Having family stranded overseas by this billion-dollar unicorn left a really bad taste in my mouth. The worst part was being left with absolutely zero recourse for the thousands of dollars that they were just holding on to for weeks without any contact with us. If you don't want to serve us because of some bizarre, hallucinatory conspiracy, fine, but don't hold onto the money for weeks in the interim without an explanation.