They hate us, cuzz they ain’t us!
We had a heck of 2022 as far as problems go. From being banned by Wise, and PayPal, to being labeled as scammers by Binance and CoinBase. Venturing into 2023, we thought that perhaps things would turn around, especially since PayPal recently unbanned our company account (we didn’t even ask to be unbanned). However, it doesn’t seem like it will be smooth sailing for us this year. First, it appears that, yet again, Wise.com has blacklisted our bank accounts. For a short period of time, Wise allowed wires into our accounts, but they have recently changed their mind. For the time being, you will no longer be able to send us payments from your Wise account. Random online wallets like CoinMama.com also suspend users when they try to send us crypto, which is baffling since we hardly get any payments from them. We understand why perhaps Binance and CoinBase would worry about our accounts, but CoinMama? This leads us to believe crypto exchanges started sharing information on blacklisted crypto addresses.
Wise and major crypto exchanges are out. What else?
We’ve recently had our main company bank account frozen (Santander), with no explanation why and no ability to get it unfrozen. Countless trips to the bank and multiple phone calls to lawyers did not help. Banks are above the law, and they have their own set of rules that we must abide by. We’ve been locked out for almost a week now, covering payouts with external funds just so our wonderful users don’t have to wait. We’ve been told to file a complaint and wait 15 business days to receive a response. That’s all we can do for now, and we cannot stress enough how hopeless one can feel under that type of treatment. To combat service interruptions, we’ve switched to our old bank account that we’ve used in the past. We suspect our accounts were frozen for one of three reasons:
- We’ve been paid with stolen funds
- We buy/sell crypto
- AML laws
In 2023, many banks in Europe are tightening the screw around crypto. Banks such as Santander even started actively blocking wires to/from major exchanges such as Binance or CoinBase.
We live in a crazy world!
The following text is copied from another topic, but it’s relevant to this article. It describes, in short, how moving money across the globe is becoming increasingly difficult.
- CoinBase.com and Binance will freeze your money if you send crypto to the wrong crypto address under the pretext that the receiving address is malicious. Their logic is, “YOU’RE SENDING MONEY TO SCAMMERS, SO YOU MUST BE A SCAMMER TOO. WE’RE TAKING YOUR MONEY.” This goes against everything that crypto was designed for. Never, ever, ever use exchanges for personal deals. If you need to really use them, only use them to fund your separate cold wallet.
- PayPal will take your money and never return it to you. They will not explain or even give you an answer if you run into problems. There is no way to talk to anyone who will give you answers, and most of the time, your only option is to sue.
- Even bank wires aren’t 100% safe. We have to write countless documents each month for SWAPD members so they can withdraw their SWAPD earnings. Banks will literally say, “WHERE DID YOU GET THIS MONEY FROM, GIVE US DOCUMENTS OR ELSE YOU’RE NOT GETTING IT.”
- Wise.com isn’t safe, also. For the first time ever, we had a bank wire totally disappear. @ytwizard will confirm this. We sent him a payment in July 2022, our bank says it was sent, but Wise.com says no payment on their end. Our bank says here is proof (SWIFT confirmation), but Wise says that’s not proof. In addition, Wise can/may/will terminate your account anytime and give you a three-day window to withdraw your funds. If you miss that window, the money is gone. We’ve been through that, and we were lucky enough to save almost 83K USD. However, what would happen if we missed that window?
- Sham companies like PaxFull.com will freeze 100 000 USD of your funds like nothing, all because you’ve sent a 200 USD payment to Iran. No warning, no option to unfreeze your balance. You have to fight to get it back. Otherwise, it’s a lost cause.
Moving money isn’t safe, but considering all things, we believe crypto is the lesser of all evils.
- No oversight
- No one controls your account (if you go about it the correct way)
- Nearly instant
- Low fees
However, the above statement only applies if you genuinely hold and manage your own crypto and don’t rely on popular exchanges. We recommend that all users switch to cold wallets like, for example, Ledger.com. It gives you full control, anonymity, and power over your digital currency. Use exchanges only to buy/cash out, and use cold wallets to move money around the web. On the bright side of things, with all the crypto exchanges labeling us as scammers, we can promise you that the SWAPD-crypto-problem will soon be over. We’re developing a crypto-payment system that will generate a new and unique address for each ticket. The address will be only used one time, and the payment confirmations will be automatic. No longer will you have to wait for an admin. Yay! So, in the not-so-distant future, it will be impossible for large exchanges to ban our addresses, and you will be able to use them again to pay for your checkout tickets. And since over 75% of all transactions on SWAPD happen in crypto, this will be a good thing for the community.
We would like to apologize…
… for all the inconvenience our users endured during these constant battles with financial institutions. We’re doing our best to keep our services interruption-free. But to be honest, we are getting tired of this battle caused by constant new regulations dished out by the European Union. This prompted us to seriously consider moving our company out to a country that has fewer regulations and is more crypto-friendly. We would like to hear your opinion on this matter. If you were the owners of SWAPD, what country would be best fitted for this type of business?
Thank you for reading.
