Complaints

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:12/01/2023

  Type:Customer Service Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  We are a small business that relies on receiving payments from our clients in an efficient and expedited manner in order for us to continue our own operations. We signed up with Wave to handle our invoicing and it has been a nightmare. They froze my account once before and asked us for documents that we provided when we first opened the account. The most recent nightmare was payment made into Wave by one of our clients on 12/30/22. On 1/10/23 we rec'd an email from Wave advising that our account was on hold (again) and requested copies of documents we had provided at least twice before. I sent in all the paperwork (again) and all I have gotten is the run-around. First, the original person who froze our account (Bruce) was off today so apparently no one was working on our account. I was assigned to another person (Emma) who asked for backup to what we invoiced our clients which was promptly sent to them and then they asked for other documents that are not part of our operations with clients. And by the way, this client of ours had paid us via Wave once before. I have rec'd no response back after numerous follow ups and chats and after asking for a supervisor at least 5 times. **** *** ********* ******* *** ******** *** *** ***** *******.

  Business Response

  Date: 18/01/2023

   Like all financial companies, every business that signs up for our Payments service undergoes a thorough risk review, and in some cases and for various reasons a manual assessment is required after transactions have occurred. When this is case, we hold the funds, contact the customer in an effort to gather more information, and try to resolve the issue. This process is for the protection of all parties involved and part of our financial obligation. As per our communication January 11, 2023, your funds have been paid out to you and were deposited into your account as per regular processing timelines. We apologize for any inconvenience.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:10/01/2023

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  Transaction date was 11/21/23
  
  I received an invoice from a general contractor. There was a "pay" button which I used to process a payment for $10,114.75 from my personal checking account. When I learned from the contractor that he did not have his banking connected and did not receive the funds I made attempts to contact Wave. He did not know that the invoice would contain the "Pay" button because he had not set up that feature, only invoicing. You cannot speak to a human. Not an option. I even set up the basic account so I could attempt to chat with someone regarding my money. At that time, I leaned that I was not eligible to "chat" because I had a free account. The contractor reached out from his side with multiple emails to Wave. He let the representative know that he would be reporting the company to the BBB and then was told he can no longer do business with them. I did more research today(01-09-23) trying to find a way to discuss getting my money refunded but it is not possible. On their website they share lots of pictures of staff and even have a phone number but no humans to talk to. Considering the sum of funds I sent almost 2 months ago, I'd like to speak with someone and I'd like to know where my money is being held and when to expect its return.

  Business Response

  Date: 18/01/2023

  Thank you for the opportunity to respond. Typically, banks give the cardholder the option to recall a payment if it was made using ACH and the payment was not deposited into the business owner's account. A refund has been issued to your account, please allow 2-5 days for the settlement to complete. Should you have any questions you can respond directly to our email communication.  

• Initial Complaint

  Date:03/01/2023

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  Wave seemingly makes it policy and standard operating procedure to allow businesses to sign up, issue invoices, collect on said invoices, and then freeze the receiver's account after asking for and rejecting business verification. Funds can't be refunded to the sender and are held for 65 days. Why doesn't Wave perform this verification process before allowing invoicing and payment to take place? Why isn't this made very clear upfront? This ** * **** ** needs to be investigated by the FTC.

  Business Response

  Date: 12/01/2023

  Like all financial companies, every business that signs up for our Payments service undergoes a thorough risk review. Unfortunately we are unable to proceed with processing payments on your Wave account due to higher risk of chargebacks. Typically, banks give the cardholder the option to recall a payment made using ACH and not yet deposited into the business owner's account.
  
  Bank Payments may take up to 7 business days to process. The transaction in question was processed on December 28 2022, on January 5 2023 the bank payment was returned by your customer's bank as  "Corporate customer advised not authorized" This can happen when a customer does not recognized a transactions. We recommend reaching out directly to your customer to resolve this issue. 
  If you have any further questions, or need any documentation for this returned transactions, please respond back via your open email and we will be able to assist you further. 

• Initial Complaint

  Date:03/01/2023

  Type:Customer Service Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  On December 22, 2022 I started utilizing Wave Payroll to process an owner's draw for my company. The amount for the payroll deposit was $43,200 with half going to my wife's personal and half going to my personal bank accounts. The deposit was supposed to occur on the 28th of December however Wave emailed on the 23rd saying they needed a picture of my statement with the payroll withdrawal on it. I provided this picture as there is nothing wrong with further verification. Afterwards they emailed me stating they are unable to support direct deposit for my business because I was high risk. How is an ACH payment from my own business high risk and if so why didn't they state this risk or possibility BEFORE I even started the direct deposit. It's utterly ridiculous. Fine you don't want to process my direct deposit however they then stated they are going to hold the withdrawal for 65 days. 65 days to return money via an ACH deposit. I have never heard of this "industry" standard return period. My bank has no idea about this return period either. I literally just want my ACH deposit returned to my bank account or processed in a timely manner.

  Business Response

  Date: 16/01/2023

  Thank you for the opportunity to respond, Like most financial companies, each payroll business undergoes a thorough risk review in order to accept direct deposit transactions. In some cases, our risk review does not allow us to process these EFT's with a business if it does not adhere to our regulations according to our Payroll Terms of Service. Typically, banks give the cardholder the option to recall a payment if it was made using ACH and the payment was not deposited into the business owner's account. In this case, our team recommended this option for you and your client. Please contact your client and ask them to reach out to their bank. They will be issued a "stop payment" on this payment which has not been processed or deposited into your account. This is the fasted and best method for your client to receive their refund. 

  We did send you an email January 16 2023, in order to be reconsidered please respond back to this email with the information requested. 

• Initial Complaint

  Date:22/12/2022

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  On Nov. 30, 2022, we received an email from Wave, which stated that a payment review was necessary and they were holding funds until it could be complete. As part of this payment review, they have requested that we reach out to clients for "proof" even though our general business doesn't require signed contracts for most of the work we do. We've accepted multiple payments through wave without issue before and have no idea where this has come from. Not only has this forced us to pay our employees out of pocked while Wave gets around to fixing this, we are also unable to process payments from the rest of our outstanding invoices. It's an embarrassing way to do business and the support team has been nothing short of truly useless. There has been no compassion or understanding for the situation, and they clearly do not care about providing any level of service to their customers.

  Business Response

  Date: 29/12/2022

  Like all financial companies, every business that signs up for our Payments service undergoes a thorough risk review, and in some cases and for various reasons a manual assessment is required after transactions have occurred. When this is case, we hold the funds, contact the customer in an effort to gather more information, and try to resolve the issue. This process is for the protection of all parties involved and part of our financial obligation. After conducting this further investigation, We released your payment on December 21 2022, our risk team has deemed your payments active and you are able to continue processing payments if you choose. We apologize for any inconvenience.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:01/12/2022

  Type:Customer Service Issues
  Status:

  ResolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  **** ********** ******* ** ******* ** **** ***** *** **** **** ****** ** *** **** Like many others, I joined the service to create and send invoices to collect payments clients. On 11/29 a client made a payment to me using Wave’s payment system. Wave appears to have collected. A 1 percent fee on that amount and cancelled my payments account and is now holding my client’s money for up to 65 days. Wave gets paid I don’t and my client does not. Wave’s automatic response on better business bureau to this issue is about a “thorough risk level review is done…” wave should do this before accepting payments, in addition this should be clearly outlined legally in the terms of service and binding agreements. Furthermore, holding funds for a certain period of time requires interest to be paid by law. A class action suit would do well here for anyone ever impacted. Release my client’s and all other client funds immediately and or pay the funds to the people the signed up for Wave then cancel. These deceptive practices of floating money for 65 days must stop.

  Business Response

  Date: 02/12/2022

  Thank you for the opportunity to review this. Like all financial companies, every business that signs up for our Payments service undergoes a thorough risk review. Unfortunately we are unable to proceed with processing payments on your Wave account due to higher risk of chargebacks. Our team will issue a refund on December 7th 2022. A bank payment or ACH refund can take 5-10 business days to appear in your client's account. For more information on your decision, please review our terms of service:
  
  https://www.***************************************************************

  Customer Answer

  Date: 06/12/2022

   
  
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
  
  
  
  
  Sincerely,
  
  
  
  ***** *******

• Initial Complaint

  Date:01/12/2022

  Type:Customer Service Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  10/ 28//2022 customer paid me through the wave app using her debit card and I have not yet received the money from wave financial. They have no phone number for me to call and I’ve tried to reach them via email. Please help me. The amount they owe me is $1920.

  Business Response

  Date: 16/12/2022

  Like all financial companies, every business that signs up for our Payments service undergoes a thorough risk review, and in some cases and for various reasons a manual assessment is required after transactions have occurred. Not all businesses pass the assessment and in these cases we have no choice but to decline the account which was unfortunately the case for you. The refund was issued on October 31 2022  and can take up to 7 business days to process back into your client's account. For more information on our Terms of Service: https:/********************************************************************

  We provided proof of the refund on November 21 2022 and again on December 14 2022. If your customer still does not see a refund on their statement we would advise them to open a dispute with their credit card company so that the refund can be investigated by their bank. I would also suggest forwarding a copy of their credit card statement from October to December, showing that no refund appears on the card in question. If you have any further questions, please respond back to any one of our email communications. 

• Initial Complaint

  Date:28/11/2022

  Type:Customer Service Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I made a payment using the Wave Apps for the amount of R 56,000.
  I did not request a refund. And the person I was sending the money to did not issue one.
  Instead, Wave decided to alter our contracts unilaterally without either of our permission by refunding some of my money even though no one requested that to happen.
  In the process, they only refunded me R 50,000 instead of R 56,000, leaving an outstanding balance of R 6,000.
  They have cost me a lot of money by doing something I didn't give them permission to do with my money.
  Further, someone in their office named Raf said he would reimburse me the additional R 6,000, but then someone else in the office named Pat said that they wouldn't, but also said that they already had. I know they haven't already, and now I'm concerned because Pat is saying they won't even though I have n writing from Raf that they would. Regardless, they stole R 6,000 from me, which amounts to $350.35 in USD.
  This is theft and that money needs to be returned. Especially considering I didn't even ask for this refund! They did not have my permission to move the money in the direction they did.

  Business Response

  Date: 02/12/2022

  Thank you for the opportunity to respond. Wave provides payment processing services subject 
  to our Terms of Service. Use of the Payment service is subject to both an initial and ongoing review to ensure a merchant continues to meet the requirements for use of the service.
  Currency conversion rates fluctuate, the rate at the time of the payment is often different from the rate at the time of the refund. If the currency needs to be converted for a refund, then the current currency rate, and not the currency rate at the time of purchase, is used. As discussed on November 30th via email, please open a dispute with your credit card company so that we may work directly with them to resolve this issue.

  Customer Answer

  Date: 07/12/2022

  
  
  Complaint: ********
  
  
  
  I am rejecting this response because: 

  The issue is that neither I, nor the company I did business with, ASKED for the refund. 

  Wave undertook the refund of their own volition WITHOUT my consent. It should be on them to ensure I receive the full amount of money back that I paid. It should NOT be on me to make that happen. I did NOT ask to be refunded. 
  
  
  
  Sincerely,
  
  
  
  **** ***

• Initial Complaint

  Date:23/11/2022

  Type:Customer Service Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  Wave payments seized over $16,000 from our company over 4 months ago and refuses to pay us our money back they said in an email that they would return the money in 2 months back to Our customers but still have not done so , it made no sense in the first place for them to seize our money and terminate our account this has caused a major impact on our business. They wouldn't even answer my second email. This company ** * **** *** should not be able to get away with this. I was told that they would refund Our Customers months ago but have not done so. This has placed Our Business in a bad light and that is unexceptable.

  Business Response

  Date: 23/11/2022

  Like all financial companies, every business that signs up for our Payments service undergoes a thorough risk review, and in some cases and for various reasons a manual assessment is required after transactions have occurred. Not all businesses pass the assessment and in these cases we have no choice but to decline the account which was unfortunately the case for you. The refund was issued on July 25th 2022 and can take up to 7 business days to process back into your client's account. For more information on our Terms of Service: https://www.***************************************************************

• Initial Complaint

  Date:11/11/2022

  Type:Customer Service Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  Company accepted my LLC for payment. After my clients did thousands of dollars of successful transactions they abruptly discontinued the ability for my clients to pay by credit card thus causing me miss a deadline which may cause me to lose a lucrative contract for my small business. See email sent below:
  
  Hi there, ****
  
  I feel incredibly insulted and frustrated with the harm already caused by Wave.
  
  Wave has processed money from my clients to my LLC which I have taken great care to separate from the financial problems that I have endured personally.
  
  Please do the right thing and if you’re going to refuse service based on my personal financial and class status, refund the money you have taken under clearly false pretense. Wave shouldn’t have initially approved us, then take several successful transactions, and then abruptly change course. These actions prove how out of touch Wave is with small business. To do so causes my business and my contractors (gig actors and singers) irrefutable harm. I came to your business in good faith, and you should care more about the harm you have caused.
  
  As an entrepreneur working hard to make a living and to create art in LA, please pass along my recommendation to the lawyers and to the administrators who are setting up the fine print, that they should not take advantage of the people who are trusting your platform and are the most harmed by this casual destruction to small business. Our voices are being heard louder and louder every day and these actions will be held to account.
  
  Sincerely
  
  ****** *******
  Founder and Owner of *********** LLC
  https://*****************.com

  Business Response

  Date: 21/11/2022

  Thank you for the opportunity to respond to this issue. Like all financial companies, every business that signs up for our Payments service undergoes a thorough risk review. Unfortunately we are unable to proceed with processing Credit Card payments on your Wave account due to higher risk of chargebacks. However you may still accept bank payments, this option was communicated to you on November 10th 2022, also with information provided on how to follow the Terms of Service and contact our help center for further clarification. Bank payments cannot be disputed like credit cards and are therefore lower risk. For reference, our Terms of Service can be found here https://www.***************************************************************. If you require additional assistance or further clarification, please reach out to our Help Center team and they will be glad to assist. Thank you again.