Remitly issue

I think the current issue is possibly volume.  There is a ridiculous amount of money sent into the country in the month of December.

Wise is also having issues this month,  they just cannot get it all done on time!

@wondering9

I use Remitly every month to send money to my wife and our nanny. One goes to Banco Popular and the other to Asociacion Cibao.  I always send using my checking acct so it takes typically 5 days but I have never had any issues.

@planner

I think that must be the explanation. I was on my eighth or ninth try when the bank deposit finally went through.

In contrast, sending the same amount for cash pickup went through on the first try and was almost instantaneous.

It's weird that Remitly's error messages were themselves erroneous and inconsistent and in some cases contradicted by the help desk. I can't see losing sleep over that, but it does make me want to be extra cautious. We are soooooooo dependent on the internet anymore...

@wondering9

Same exact problem here including many, many efforts. We gave up and think it had something to do with BSC. We say this as when we opened our account with BSC they input the wrong phone number by missing a digit. 5-6 times we spoke with people in person, lost count on # of phone calls to them. All said, that it was getting fixed yada yada and that never happened.

Fast forward , we gave up on BSC and opened Scotia Bank account and Remitly goes through in 30 minutes.  Bottom line, SB got it all done and smooth sailing now.

@karynllanders I have to admit that was a suspicion of mine (since they had gotten my email wrong earlier). In fact, the only reason I even input that last Remitly request was to have an up-to-date paper trail to take with me to BSC tomorrow to ask them to double-check everything at their end. Instead, yay! ninth time lucky.

Since the transfer finally went through, I assume "BSC error" wasn't the explanation this time. I'm relieved not to have to go in, as it's a long haul for me to get there. But I have to say my childlike faith in the reliability of banking processes has been given a jolt.

I'm sorry you had that experience and glad you found a bank that works for you!

I've transferred with Remitly to BSC at least once a month for well over 5 years now. I only had an issue once. BHD Leon is the intermediary, and they (BHD Leon) had a system issue that was causing account numbers to be truncated. My deposit showed up at BSC with just the first 6 digits. Someone at BSC was able to find the transfer and show me the evidence, but, unfortunately, without a full account number, they had to return it to Leon. That incident took about 2 weeks to resolve, with the transfer eventually returned to my US bank.

@karynllanders

Deplorable customer service. I lost my patience.

The disorganization was extremely frustrating.

Live calls and emails resulted in a different story. Initially, I gave them a pass because I am a new customer.

The invasive, insulting, inconsequential questions went on for days, often going over it again and again, depending on the associate involved.

Mortgage originators and bank loan officers don't ask that many questions.

One would think I was trying to purchase a shopping mall.

Just when I was about to tell them where to put their business, the transaction was completed.

Banco Santa Cruz is supposed to be one of the most expat-friendly banks, isn't it?

Banking paperwork, and questioning, can seem overwhelming, even when done by a friendly and gracious employee. I read somewhere that one of the reasons for all the fuss is to try to prevent money-laundering, which apparently is a big issue here.

I started to try to open an account at a bank closer to where I live (in Samana), then got discouraged at the paperwork and decided to just use my existing BSC account and visit the Las Terrenas branch when necessary. But of course the question "what could possibly go wrong?" has a whole different set of answers now.😅

I gave up on transferring with Remitly to  BSC. The first few went smoothly but after that , they started requiring source of funds documention. All of this was provided and it still didn’t go through. Calls, more documentation and then finally! Next transfer same issues, requesting same documention. These were not large sums of money either. Each institution blaming the other.

Turns out the Remitly problem that was supposedly solved 8 days ago, wasn't, so I will have to go in to BSC again. I gather that today (Dec 31) is a half-holiday and next week things will be shut for one?two? days for Epiphany... is Friday (Jan 2) a safe day to try to do business, or would it be better to put this off until mid-to-late next week?

Thanks for any clues and happy holidays.

@Mmr986

I use Sendwave

So Jan 2 is not a holiday so you can try it! Monday is the holiday, which was moved from Tuesday to make a long weekend

Well yay, it worked at last! Yes January 2 seemed like a pretty normal business day. I got someone very efficient and pleasant at the bank. It turned out that on the previous visit they had not entered my cédula number at all, but it's in now and a deposit went through quickly and without further hassle.

To stray off topic, this ^^ required the better part of a day because I had to get by guagua from Samaná to Las Terrenas and back. Which was actually quite fun. The interior of Samaná peninsula is **gorgeous**. There's a stretch of road where you can see all the way across the bay to Hato Mayor province and Los Haitises. And you can stop for lunch halfway at Santi Limón. Guaguas may be an acquired taste with a learning curve, but in the end they're pretty fun.