wittix.com

Account closure // 15.3 of their terms of use

We're a U.S.-based company preparing to establish a foothold in Europe.The account opening process was smooth, though they requested numerous documents, with many certifications and notary stamps. After we provided everything, the onboarding process was completed swiftly, which was appreciated. Notably, once the onboarding was finished, Wittix even requested that we give them a 5-star review on Trustpilot.Unfortunately, that’s the extent of the positive aspects. The opening fee was €850, and since we had to delay our business activities due to internal restructuring, we started operations nine months later. During that time, they charged a monthly €99 maintenance fee. As we hadn’t yet started operations, the fee accumulated, and by the time we began, we had paid around €1,850 for essentially just the account maintenance.A few days ago, they requested our company’s bank statements from the last six months, which we promptly provided, and all transactions went through without issues. Then, on October 28, they requested additional supporting documents for specific individuals. As I was on a business trip that day, I couldn’t respond immediately. On the morning of October 29, I received a reminder email, giving me until the end of the business day to provide the documents or risk account restrictions. When I returned on October 29 at 11:30 AM, I found another email informing me that they had closed our account, citing a breach of their use policy, specifically clause 15.3:"Wittix shall be entitled to terminate this Agreement in writing with immediate effect from the date of delivery of termination notice to the other Party, if the relevant Customer repeatedly and grossly violates this Agreement and/or if this violation is related to Law on Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing and other related applicable legal acts."To clarify:We have not "repeatedly and grossly violated" this Agreement in any way.We have proper documentation for all transactions; it was simply due to my business trip that I couldn’t respond as quickly as they required.We do not engage in money laundering or terrorist financing; each transaction is documented with invoices.Here’s a quote from the email I received:"Dear Customer,This is to inform you that after a recent review of your profile, we made a decision to terminate our business relationship with you in accordance with clause 15.3 of our terms and conditions. Please note that the below-listed accounts, any cards, or any other services and banking products you are currently using will be terminated within 3 (three) business days from the date of this notification, with the effective date of termination being 2024-10-31.You may find the list of affected accounts as follows:xxx xxx xxx (Account)If any of your accounts have a credit balance, we would like to ask you to transfer such remaining funds to an account maintained under your name in another bank or electronic payment system before 2024-10-31. If you do not arrange to withdraw the remaining funds within 3 (three) business days from this notification, any remaining credit balance will be automatically transferred to a custody account of Wittix, UAB opened for this purpose. When you are ready to transfer funds from the custody account to another account, please contact us at helpdesk (at) wittix (dot) com."In short, I submitted three invoices from random clients and appealed the account closure. Regrettably, as others with negative experiences with Wittix have reported, they have not responded. Previously, they replied within 10 to 15 minutes, but now, hours have passed with no response. When I called yesterday, the woman on the phone assured me that the Compliance Team would review the case and get back to me. However, I haven’t received a follow-up call. Business owners will understand how critical time is.All in all, we invested €100,000 in advertising, nearly all of which is now lost! Due to the account restrictions (outgoing funds were still allowed, but incoming payments were blocked) and our inability to secure another payment partner offering an IBAN for individual payments, we had to cancel all active orders. This resulted in a loss of €100,000 in advertising expenses and approximately 2,700 orders (worth around €800,000), according to our CRM/ERP.During onboarding, I had informed them of our expected transaction volume and anticipated revenue. By the way, I comply with the regulations of the bank of Lithuania. I called them and asked what their compliance is. Wittix can definitely not say, that they comply with their rules, but me not.Thank you, Wittix, for driving a newly launched company to the brink of bankruptcy. My advice: avoid them, and look for a better alternative.

Date of experience: Oct 29, 2024