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327 points beeburrt | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.411s | source
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casenmgreen ◴[] No.44002413[source]
From mid-2024.

I regard all FinTech-type companies as unreliable, after incredible (in the literal sense of the word) experiences with Revolut (seven years to get an account closed and the money in it returned, and that actually happened only after I made a GDPR request, and they got it done - seems its less work for them to close than meet the request) and Transferwise (who shortly after the UA war started, blocked donations to the UA State bank military support account - yes, really, if you didn't know).

By all means have an account with them, but never, ever, ever, rely on it, and plan on the basis that the next morning you wake up to find the account, and everything in it, has gone, and that customer support is a defensive shield the company uses to keep customers at arms length.

If you want almost no-cost currency conversion (2 USD minimum, but you have to convert like 100k USD I think it is to go above that), use Interactive Brokers LLC. They won't let you have an account purely for currency conversion, but as long as you do a few trades now and then, it seems fine.

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kmlx ◴[] No.44002597[source]
> Transferwise

what was the “incredible experience” with Transferwise?

> the next morning you wake up to find the account, and everything in it, has gone

they’re all protected by the FCA via the FSCS scheme: https://www.fscs.org.uk/what-we-cover/

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notpushkin ◴[] No.44002672[source]
> they’re all protected by the FCA via the FSCS scheme

Which would help if Revolut went insolvent, which is not the case here.

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kmlx ◴[] No.44002980[source]
so what's the case?
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1. notpushkin ◴[] No.44003116[source]
I’m actually not sure:

> seven years to get an account closed and the money in it returned

Maybe OP can shed some light on why they wanted it closed. My bet is, it was frozen, and transfers blocked for some reason. Happened to my Revolut (LT) account, too, but I could transfer my money out at least.

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2. casenmgreen ◴[] No.44005223[source]
Not frozen - nothing like that.

Both the email address and phone number I had with the account had gone.

It was impossible to recover the account.

It was also impossible to close the account - until I issued the GDPR request.