Current Events > My Bank Refused to Put in Writing

(+) Yeah! (+)

I live in Chicago and sent a money wire to a cafe in Ontario province, across the lakes from me. The wire receipt said recipient would get it no later than last Wednesday. So Thursday I had to call the Wire Transfer Team and I was told it would get there before the end of the banking day.

I chatted on line after midnight and the customer rep told me the wire transfer was declined. Who declined it I asked and why does status say pending?

No answer to who declined. I was told notes on my account, which I may not see, said it was declined. I wanted to get my money back and was told maybe I could. Just call the wire team

Friday the wire team transfer me to the compliance team.

I was asked whether my recipient had affiliations with Cuba. (As if an underground organization is going to have Cuba in its name! )

Then I was told - verbally - that if I ever wanted to see my money again I would have to send them the owner's name, birth certificate, a utility bill and government id.

So I pointed out that Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce would have obtained all that info before opening the account and could I just have CIBC send a letter of confirmation?

Here is the really sketchy part.

I wrote down the email address but on the long reference code I asked for an email copy to be sure I got it correct. ... Refusal.

CobraGT posted...

Then I was told - verbally - that if I ever wanted to see my money again I would have to send them the owner's name, birth certificate, a utility bill and government id.

Yeah, I've never wired money internally, but this is an immediate red flag imo.

Sounds like you got scammed.

For future references, use Venmo or cashapp.

International wire transfers are safe, so long as you get the correct wire instructions. How did you receive them? If it was just through a traditional email, thats a very common way for wire fraud to occur.

With every wire transfer you ever do, call the recipient on a known phone number and confirm the wire instructions with them. If they dont know them, then do a conference call with their bank to confirm the wire instructions.

The_Popo posted...

International wire transfers are safe, so long as you get the correct wire instructions. How did you receive them? If it was just through a traditional email, thats a very common way for wire fraud to occur.

With every wire transfer you ever do, call the recipient on a known phone number and confirm the wire instructions with them. If they dont know them, then do a conference call with their bank to confirm the wire instructions.

TY. Nothing is wrong with the bank codes

As one tells the customer service bot. "It is something else"

How much did you send out of curiousity?

Just a bit over 200 USD. In addition I paid 10 CAD for my bank to convert the currency.

Yeah I didn't get the funds, could you resend? They'll refund you for the first transaction

Wire transfering to a cafe sounds sketchy.

Shoulda used bitcoin

Cause Ontario is closer to Chicago than 1/2 of the United States. Good enough?

454 miles

It is like Texans shopping in Mexico. Oh wait. That is no longer a thing.

That doesn't explain shit. Why am I posting in a bait topic

Because your posts are so good?

I learned the backstory.

My bank sent 1 billion USD to a money launderer scammer (which they lost) and on top of it was fined 400 million USD.

Citigroup is fined $400 million over longstanding internal problems.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/07/business/citigroup-fine-risk-management.html

This is why.

I work in a big US bank and if you try to send money to any of the prohibited countries (North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Russia, Donetsk, Luhansk) we stop it, if its found out that there is some connection with the business/individual it gets held for AML reasoning.

And in regard to getting something in writing - there is a bunch of protections built-in for the bank to not be held liable for a lawsuit so they prevent alot of things in writing. I had a woman close a business credit card and demand that we give her something in writing and signed by a manager for her lawyer and we, and customer service, could not provide her anything that said her card was closed - even tho we literally just closed it for her.

Being as you work for a bank do you think they are going to approve my wire to Canada now that the cafe owner scanned in all of his documents and emailed the doc to them?

Also will contacting my branch bank for help be a good move?

CobraGT posted...

Being as you work for a bank do you think they are going to approve my wire to Canada now that the cafe owner scanned in all of his documents and emailed the doc to them?

Also will contacting my branch bank for help be a good move?

Maybe - I can't really predict, they have a team that investigates it and makes a decision.

Local branch can't help at all, they basically can only help if they had issues authenticating you over the phone and needed to have someone prove your identity in-person. But that isn't your issue, essentially it completely comes down to the wire department making the decision after reviewing the information.

It's annoying I know.

CobraGT posted...

I learned the backstory.

My bank sent 1 billion USD to a money launderer scammer (which they lost) and on top of it was fined 400 million USD.

Citigroup is fined $400 million over longstanding internal problems.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/07/business/citigroup-fine-risk-management.html

This is why.

You should have just said it was Shitibank in the first place, lol. Worst, most incompetent of the large banks I have ever dealt with.

Still pending.

CobraGT posted...

Still pending.

Wires dont go through over the weekend, and I dont believe theyd go through on Juneteenth either. The wire was going to stay as pending until Tuesday at the earliest.