WorldRemit is a total joke

On September 23 I sent 500,000 PHP and 550,000 PHP to my own bank account (UnionBank) to pay hospital bills. The 500K arrived the next day, but the 550K didn’t. The whole reason I didn’t send 1 million pesos in one go was exactly this — I was afraid the remittance wouldn’t go through.

I’ve been following up since September 27. Every agent gives a different answer. It’s on the way, it’s with the local partner bank, “give it some time” with no clear guidance, it needs extra checks and verification, and so on. At one point I was told the local partner bank was asking for additional documents. Fine, I’m ready to comply. But no email ever came. I asked WorldRemit again. They said they’d follow up. Still nothing. Another follow-up. This morning, September 29, a pop-up appeared in the WorldRemit app asking for more information and documents. I filled it out and submitted. Got another notification asking for documents (again). I complied. Got yet another notification asking for documents (third time). Then suddenly my transaction was cancelled. The agent said I didn’t submit the documents in time. Mind you, it hadn’t even been 12 hours since they asked.

That was it. After 6 days of waiting, the transaction got cancelled. The agent said the refund will take 7-10 days. Just like that, my money is floating somewhere in the air. Call me dramatic, but 550,000 PHP is not spare change.

Safe to say I will never use WorldRemit again. Bye