[markdown]

> fairness to customers is non-negotiable.

Nice try, TransferWise CEO.

I know someone who had their money frozen because they made the mistake of mentioning that the money being sent was for kava. You simply can't trust TransferWise to put their customers first.

[eckesicle]

So what you're saying is that their compliance and risk teams are on top of their game?

Kava is illegal/regulated in Europe and the UK and therefore the money and account would obviously be frozen pending an investigation.

[dzhiurgis]

Kava also means coffee in one of the European languages (Lithuanian).

On top of that it is legal in a lot of pacific islands.

[markdown]

Neither the sender or receiver had ever stepped foot in Europe or the UK and had anything to do with those jurisdictions.

Go read the Acceptable Usage Policy... nowhere in it will you find anything about every customer being subject to UK law. In fact they go out of their way to make you think the opposite is true... by showing you different AUP's depending on which country you're in.

[Symbiote]

You have something to do with the jurisdiction of the UK when you use a service based in the UK. Illegal drugs are clearly forbidden in the acceptable use policy, and the terms of use states English law is used.

UK law on kava (and many other drugs) is stupid, but that's not TransferWise's fault.

[mschuster91]

US/EU banking / antiterrorism regulations apply to any entity worldwide which wants to do business in the respective markets.

Assuming that there are two parties interested in doing a hawala exchange in two countries where this is legal, they still cannot (openly) use a bank that does business in US/EU because if the bank knowingly executes that transaction they could be facing serious fines.

[markdown]

Sure, but this is merely UK food safety regulation we're talking about. It is illegal in the UK to trade in kava for consumption (based on a German court decision that's since been thrown out). Kava is legal almost everywhere else in the world.

The grandparent comment is about how the CEO of TransferWise is obsessed with customer satisfaction. If X is banned on TransferWise, then TransferWise should say so in their AUP.

To simply lock accounts out of the blue is ridiculous.

[JshWright]

You probably don't realize it, but you're making the case for using them even stronger.

Keeping a close eye on compliance/risk is going to help keep their transaction costs down, which keeps the cost of their service down for everyone else.

[sho]

So what exactly do you want? The law might be stupid, I agree it's stupid, but it's the bloody law. You wanted TW to break the law just to help our your friend? Then guess what happens? No more TW.

It is literally the first item in the AUP that you're not allowed to use the service for anything unlawful. Of course they monitor that. They did everything right. And I'm sure your "friend" got their money back reasonably promptly after TW completed their review.

Criticism is fine, but taking a company to task for refusing to break the law for you is just silly. They didn't make the rules, and they'd be risking their own existence by breaking them.

[markdown]

> It is literally the first item in the AUP that you're not allowed to use the service for anything unlawful.

Again, kava isn't unlawful. It's a food product. The UK law says it is illegal to import kava for consumption, and illegal to trade in it in the UK.

TransferWise is neither trading in kava, nor importing it into the UK.

All they're doing is moving money from one person to another, neither of whom is in the UK or importing kava into the UK.