Stuck International Remittance – No Response from a US Bank (a NYSE listed company)

[MABinPengChau]

Oh, damn, Crypto from CHINA!! The fraud alarm bells are going off!! No, I am not joking, this is totally being investigated.

In another thread, I told the tragically stupid tale of my attempt to send $32,000 (USD) to the US Patent Office to pay a fee to institute reexamination of a patent. In the memo field, I put the name of the client and the patent owner- both Taiwan companies who compete with each other in a very tame auto parts field.

I sent the money from my US investment account (a very well known bank) to the NEW YORK FEDERAL RESERVE BANK who collects the money on behalf of the US Patent Office.

What could POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

Well, some rocket scientist at my US investment bank (with whom I have had an account for at least 20 fraud-free years) decided the name of one of the companies in the memo field (who is NOT THE PAYEE, they are just the ones challenging a patent, a totally legal thing to do) is on a restricted entity list (it's not, a lot of companies have similar names in Asia) and stopped the whole thing. And even AFTER clearing it up, it happened again, (this time, without the memo field).

That is how messed up US money laundering laws are. HOW I AM LAUNDERING MONEY THROUGH THE US TREASURY, I DO NOT KNOW. Sorry, I am still angry, was over 6 months ago.

And you and your bank and the recipient- all evil money launderers, so when they finish their investigation, MAYBE they release the money or send it back.

I love my country... And this was BEFORE Trump, now, yeah, it's probably worse, probably all the regulators got fired and no one now knows what to do with it.

That said, I do not believe it's been stolen or misappropriated (unless they keep it as an illegal transaction).

I am so, so sorry this is happening to you. They probably don't even tell you why when they finally route the payment or send it back but I guarantee it's something along these lines.

REAL money launderers are more...smooth. They just catch innocent people trying to send money the legal way, rather than stuffed in their pockets on the airplane.

[vickysgong]

sounds good! During the month waiting, what did you do with the sending back? did you file a complaint to the regulator and ask for compensation?

[pin]

Sorry to hear this. Had a few times this has happened including complaints to HKMA.

Do keep at it, the money should end up back to you but you unfortunately will have to do the hard work and keep on escalating.

[hullexile]

sounds good! During the month waiting, what did you do with the sending back? did you file a complaint to the regulator and ask for compensation?

No I called, I messaged them on facebook (the bank has a facebook page), I used their online help system (and found how to immediately bypass the AI bot). Basically just made a total pain of myself. In the end I was in direct contact with the Customer Services Manager who would call me and who was the one who sorted it out.

[MABinPengChau]

Sorry to hear this. Had a few times this has happened including complaints to HKMA.

Do keep at it, the money should end up back to you but you unfortunately will have to do the hard work and keep on escalating.

I am glad (not glad but you know what I mean) to hear about other people these bizarre things happen to...it's just crazy and, as a result, some banks won't even open new accounts for Americans and I can't blame them...

[hullexile]

No I called, I messaged them on facebook (the bank has a facebook page), I used their online help system (and found how to immediately bypass the AI bot). Basically just made a total pain of myself. In the end I was in direct contact with the Customer Services Manager who would call me and who was the one who sorted it out.

Don't know if it works on other sites but it was the bank facebook people who told me when the AI bot asks you to type your question enter "agent" to get a human. Worked every time.

[paddylast]

I don't think I've ever done an overseas transaction more than €5,000. I'd prefer to pay the fees for multiple transactions and wait until one is complete before doing the next one.

Isn't there some rule that more than $10,000 has to be examined more rigorously?

[newhkpr]

And I've made $200,000 transactions go abroad. It's not like everyone wants to keep all their savings in HK. Also HK is ideal for this as neither Citi nor HSBC are charging any fees for SWIFT transfers (nor Citi-Citi or HSBC-HSBC instant transfers). My Schwab transfers e.g. go via a bank account of Citi US in NYC and those take about a day or so to show up at Schwab.

[PLamHK]

It was the grief I got from HSBC Expat over transferring maybe GBP50,000 to IBKR's UK bank (recounted here earlier, but which failed on one occasion because when asked as a "security question" what my country of birth is I answered "England"; the only acceptable answer, I learned later, was "United Kingdom") that finally caused me to give up using them as anything other than a simple pipeline for getting my UK pensions to me.

Sadly, common sense is not a feature of the rather moronic KYC scrutiny that some banks now adopt.

Personally I would very much prefer it if banks stuck to banking, but sadly that boat sailed long ago.

[MABinPengChau]

It was the grief I got from HSBC Expat over transferring maybe GBP50,000 to IBKR's UK bank (recounted here earlier, but which failed on one occasion because when asked as a "security question" what my country of birth is I answered "England"; the only acceptable answer, I learned later, was "United Kingdom") that finally caused me to give up using them as anything other than a simple pipeline for getting my UK pensions to me.

Sadly, common sense is not a feature of the rather moronic KYC scrutiny that some banks now adopt.

Personally I would very much prefer it if banks stuck to banking, but sadly that boat sailed long ago.

First visit to the UK, 1983, immigration asked how long I am staying. I asked, do you mean England or my whole trip? He yelled at me, "It's the United KINGDOM, we are a KINGDOM you know!"

Yay. My first trip outside the USA at age 19, my very first stop at any immigration point in my life. I was tired from the long flight and it was a genuine question...