USD wire transfers from MtGox: please share your experience

[niko]

Please share your impressions if you've recently done a USD withdrawal from MtGox via international wire transfer.

MtGox estimates ~$20 fee on their bank's side, my bank is supposedly charging $10 for incoming wires. Any intermediate fees?

Also, how speedy was the whole process?

Thanks!

[BoardGameCoin]

My friend is in the middle of a horror story with MtGox international wire transfer withdrawal and their customer service has been abysmal. He withdrew $1k worth to his brokerage account, but it didn't make it there for some reason (apparently because the name on the account was the name of the brokerage, but I don't quite understand this). He was told at that time his only option was to cancel it and pay additional fees coming back. So far, net money movement for him is none, his money has been inaccessible to him for a month and a half, and he apparently is going to be charged at least $100 for the privilege.

I find this state of affairs unconscionable for an entity the size of MtGox. I believe they should pay the extra fees out of their own pocket and find a way to give him his money, e.g. in bitcoins so he can cash out in some sane way like coinbase.com, bitfloor.com, campbx.com, fastcashforbitcoins.com, bitcoin-otc, or basically anything else.

[moni3z]

My friend is in the middle of a horror story with MtGox international wire transfer withdrawal and their customer service has been abysmal. He withdrew $1k worth to his brokerage account, but it didn't make it there for some reason (apparently because the name on the account was the name of the brokerage, but I don't quite understand this). He was told at that time his only option was to cancel it and pay additional fees coming back. So far, net money movement for him is none, his money has been inaccessible to him for a month and a half, and he apparently is going to be charged at least $100 for the privilege.

I find this state of affairs unconscionable for an entity the size of MtGox. I believe they should pay the extra fees out of their own pocket and find a way to give him his money, e.g. in bitcoins so he can cash out in some sane way like coinbase.com, bitfloor.com, campbx.com, fastcashforbitcoins.com, bitcoin-otc, or basically anything else.

This sounds like typical bank errors with wires, nothing to do with gox. The names didn't match so didn't work.
It takes forever and costs a ton of money to have a bank employee manually trace a wire to find the problem.

Obviously what you do is

- become all dna/eye scanned/super verified whatever by gox to be set up to receive wires
- transfer the minimum amount as a test
- verify it worked
- now transfer real amounts

I usually just withraw to gox code and get a wire from somebody on bitcoin-otc or just sell coins in person on localbitcoins.  I haven't withdrawn any direct money from gox in a year or so

[BCB]

Mt Gox is subject to ever tightening anti-money laundering (AML) know your customer (KYC) laws (thank you 911/george bush/us partriot act) and regulation. The sole reason mt Gox operates in Japan is because France ruled against them in a court decision by determining that they were a money service business which would require them to be subject even more regulation and more importantly prohibitively higher costs. I don't read French so maybe someone can correct any misinterpretation.

The bottom line is that bitcoin is a decentralized, peer-to-peer,digital store of value/medium of exchange / payment and settlement scheme that requires absoluty no bank/central bank/or government to operate.

EXCEPT when it comes to moving fiat into and out of the system. This is one of the largest friction points and government and regulators are aware of that. So any effort to regulate or control starts here.

And Mt Gox is the largest bitcoin exchange moving millions monthly in fiat and coin so while I know no one at Mt Gox nor do I have any knowelege if their inner workings, compared to fly by night companies like mybitcoin, bitconica, BTCS&T, GLBSE and others I would guess it is a hurculean task to provide their service.

Your friend just needs to find ways with less friction in the future. There are threads here an on OTC for off-exchange transfers into and out of the system.

You have to understand the bitcoin is not any thing like the banking system we all know and that is the mistake new comers make when they run into this friction.

[paulie_w]

i have been waiting a week so far for a bank transfer from the US.

does it usually take this long?

[BCB]

I buy gox code. US based. Immediate transfers.

[mmortal03]

Obviously what you do is

- become all dna/eye scanned/super verified whatever by gox to be set up to receive wires
- transfer the minimum amount as a test
- verify it worked
- now transfer real amounts

I usually just withraw to gox code and get a wire from somebody on bitcoin-otc or just sell coins in person on localbitcoins.  I haven't withdrawn any direct money from gox in a year or so

Unfortunately, that means an extra 2000 Yen (~$20) plus whatever your bank charges for an incoming international wire (say $16), just to make sure that their service works. That's a ridiculous amount to pay just to verify that Mt. Gox works. Mt Gox should take it upon themselves to provide a small international wire amount to test for free, or be willing to pay whatever the resulting fees are if a problem happens, unless they can prove that you are the one who screwed up (say a typo that is your fault). They are in the business of charging a fee for simply transferring other people's funds, so they should be the ones taking the responsibility for making the process trustworthy, not us.

[joesmoe2012]

Obviously what you do is

- become all dna/eye scanned/super verified whatever by gox to be set up to receive wires
- transfer the minimum amount as a test
- verify it worked
- now transfer real amounts

I usually just withraw to gox code and get a wire from somebody on bitcoin-otc or just sell coins in person on localbitcoins.  I haven't withdrawn any direct money from gox in a year or so

Unfortunately, that means an extra 2000 Yen (~$20) plus whatever your bank charges for an incoming international wire (say $16), just to make sure that their service works. That's a ridiculous amount to pay just to verify that Mt. Gox works. Mt Gox should take it upon themselves to provide a small international wire amount to test for free, or be willing to pay whatever the resulting fees are if a problem happens, unless they can prove that you are the one who screwed up (say a typo that is your fault). They are in the business of charging a fee for simply transferring other people's funds, so they should be the ones taking the responsibility for making the process trustworthy, not us.

HA!

You're asking way too much.

How about this gox - I'll pay 10,000 Yen if you get my 6 figure wires moving sooner....

[mmortal03]

HA!

You're asking way too much.

How about this gox - I'll pay 10,000 Yen if you get my 6 figure wires moving sooner....

I guess with their track record I am, but they could always pleasantly surprise us for once.

[joesmoe2012]

HA!

You're asking way too much.

How about this gox - I'll pay 10,000 Yen if you get my 6 figure wires moving sooner....

I guess with their track record I am, but they could always pleasantly surprise us for once.

* joesmoe2012 crosses fingers.

[mmortal03]

I tried to set up the International Wire Transfer option to my U.S. bank about two weeks ago on Mt. Gox, and it still shows up as grayed out as a withdrawal method. I know they have a backlog of withdrawal requests that they are processing manually, with supposedly a two week or more time frame, but given that I can't even select the withdrawal method that I've tried to set up on there, I can't even initiate the withdrawal and get on the queue!

[Nagle]

I tried to set up the International Wire Transfer option to my U.S. bank about two weeks ago on Mt. Gox, and it still shows up as grayed out as a withdrawal method. I know they have a backlog of withdrawal requests that they are processing manually, with supposedly a two week or more time frame, but given that I can't even select the withdrawal method that I've tried to set up on there, I can't even initiate the withdrawal and get on the queue!

Read some of the other threads in Service Discussion. Mt. Gox has paid out little, if any, USD since June 20, 2013.  They may be broke.

[mmortal03]

I tried to set up the International Wire Transfer option to my U.S. bank about two weeks ago on Mt. Gox, and it still shows up as grayed out as a withdrawal method. I know they have a backlog of withdrawal requests that they are processing manually, with supposedly a two week or more time frame, but given that I can't even select the withdrawal method that I've tried to set up on there, I can't even initiate the withdrawal and get on the queue!

Read some of the other threads in Service Discussion. Mt. Gox has paid out little, if any, USD since June 20, 2013.  They may be broke.

Interesting. Well, it turns out that I just got an e-mail from them stating that even though I'm verified, that they have to downgrade my account, and I have to fill out the identity form again before I can setup the withdrawal to my bank. I wonder how common this is? I'll update this as the process goes through.

[joesmoe2012]

Evidently they are only sending out 10 total SWIFT Payments a day - worldwide.

If they have thousands of customers, it could take decades for each customer to make a couple withdraws.

[niko]

Evidently they are only sending out 10 total SWIFT Payments a day - worldwide.

If they have thousands of customers, it could take decades for each customer to make a couple withdraws.

Worry not. It will all come to a natural equilibrium when they end up with 50 customers. Things will go smoothly then.

[zeroblock]

Evidently they are only sending out 10 total SWIFT Payments a day - worldwide.

If they have thousands of customers, it could take decades for each customer to make a couple withdraws.

Worry not. It will all come to a natural equilibrium when they end up with 50 customers. Things will go smoothly then.

Lol yes.

[calian]

Evidently they are only sending out 10 total SWIFT Payments a day - worldwide.

If they have thousands of customers, it could take decades for each customer to make a couple withdraws.

They should just auction off these 10 slots daily. Some guy with a million bucks on there could pay $5000 to get his cash out and arbitrage the price back towards equilibrium pretty fast.

[zeroblock]

Evidently they are only sending out 10 total SWIFT Payments a day - worldwide.

If they have thousands of customers, it could take decades for each customer to make a couple withdraws.

They should just auction off these 10 slots daily. Some guy with a million bucks on there could pay $5000 to get his cash out and arbitrage the price back towards equilibrium pretty fast.

Precisely.  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=179586.msg2932780#msg2932780