Dwolla offers a range of payment solutions focused on ACH transfers and bank transfers for businesses. This article will review the company's service offerings, pricing structure, contract terms, and customer feedback. We will assess the transparency of their fees, the quality of their customer support, and the overall satisfaction levels reported by their clients. By the end of this article, you will have a clear understanding of what Dwolla provides and whether it fits your business's payment processing requirements.
About Dwolla
Dwolla is a Des Moines, Iowa-based startup that was founded in 2008 on the premise of bypassing credit card interchange fees (a.k.a. swipe fees) and providing a low-cost payment service to businesses and consumers. Dwolla created a proprietary payment network similar to that of VISA and MasterCard, but Dwolla’s network does not charge a fee for each transaction like a traditional merchant account does. Instead, the company eliminated credit card use altogether by linking consumers’ Dwolla accounts with their checking accounts. The service may sound similar to PayPal, and in some ways it was, but Dwolla approached the concept from a very different angle.
Dwolla, while not the first to utilize ACH transfers, distinguished itself through a unique marketing and business strategy. Supported by banking and financial institution investors, Dwolla developed a payment network that eliminated common fees associated with card payments. The company also addressed transfer delays and fraud issues typically found in traditional ACH networks, creating a global system for free, instant cash transfers.
Real-Time Payments and Transfers
One of Dwolla's key offerings is real-time payments, significantly reducing the time taken for transfers compared to traditional ACH payments, which can take several days.
White-Label Solutions
Dwolla provides white-label solutions, allowing businesses to integrate its payment functionalities under their own brand. This approach helps companies offer seamless payment experiences without redirecting to third-party platforms.
Bank Verification Services
Dwolla offers a bank verification service that speeds up the process of linking bank accounts to the platform, minimizing delays in transaction processing.
Mass Payouts
The mass payout feature enables businesses to make multiple payments simultaneously, which is particularly useful for managing payroll or distributing funds to various vendors in one batch.
Security Measures
Dwolla emphasizes security, offering features such as multi-factor authentication and tokenization to protect transactions and sensitive data.
Developer-Friendly API
Dwolla provides a robust API, allowing developers to customize payment solutions. Comprehensive documentation supports businesses in integrating Dwolla into their existing systems.
Compliance Assistance
Dwolla helps businesses comply with regulations related to electronic payments, offering consultation services to ensure adherence to legal guidelines during transaction processing.
Subscription Billing
For subscription-based businesses, Dwolla offers recurring billing features that simplify customer subscription management and automate billing cycles.
Shift to B2B and Marketplace Platforms
Recently, Dwolla has focused on its mass payout API for marketplace and business-to-business payments, moving away from customer-facing payment products. As a result, consumers and businesses now encounter Dwolla primarily as an integrated payment processing platform within online services. Despite this shift, Dwolla remains a significant player in the digital payments sector.
Dwolla Connect
Dwolla Connect is a new API solution aimed at mid- to enterprise-level businesses, enabling simplified payment initiation from major U.S. banks like JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo. Expanding on the Dwolla Balance digital wallet product, Dwolla Connect facilitates account-to-account (A2A) payments, is bank-agnostic, and simplifies treasury management. This service caters to industries such as financial services, lending, and insurance.
Dwolla occupies a unique space in the payment processing industry
Dwolla Customer Reviews
Here's What Their Clients Say
Customer Reviews Summary
Total Online Complaints
50+
Live Customer Support
No
Most Common Complaint
Slow Transfers
Recent Lawsuits
Yes
Varied Complaints
There are over 50 negative Dwolla reviews across online forums like Ripoff Report and the comments section of this review. While many complaints seem isolated or stem from misunderstandings regarding Dwolla Instant’s $3.00 monthly fee, recent issues like technical glitches and slow fund transfers also surface. However, these don’t signal a consistent or severe problem with Dwolla’s services.
Legal History
In March 2016, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau acted against Dwolla for deceptive data security claims, resulting in a $100,000 fine for misrepresenting encryption standards.
Dwolla Customer Support
While Dwolla offers forum support to “Start” users, email, phone, Slack channel, and integration support are available to higher-tier clients. These exceed typical support offerings and rival those of the top-rated payment processors. However, live chat is reserved for non-customers, and other options are not publicly advertised.
Dwolla Online Ratings
Here's How They Rate Online
Online Ratings Summary
BBB Reports
6
Note: We have adjusted this company’s BBB rating according to our own standards. To better understand why we adjust BBB ratings, please see our Rating Criteria.
Under 5 Complaints
The BBB shows Dwolla as not “BBB Accredited” and assigns the company an “A+” rating based on 4 complaints filed in the last 36 months. 0 complaints were resolved to the customer’s satisfaction, with all complaints either resolved to the customer’s dissatisfaction or not receiving a final assessment from the customer.
What Merchants Say
Dwolla has also received 2 negative informal reviews to its BBB profile. The most recent review describes issues with a transaction:
Earnest money for purchase of home through Dwolla client Berkshire Hathaway submitted. Transactions was not consummated. Earnest money refunded in full. Multiple requests for completion of 1099 K. This is not income. Customer service unable to compute that $10,000 submitted, less $10,000 refunded equals zero.
A “B” Performance
In light of these figures, we have slightly adjusted the BBB’s grade to a “B.”
Dwolla Fees, Rates & Costs
A Closer Look at The Contract
Cost & Fees Summary
Cancellation Penalties
No
Monthly & Annual Fees
Depends on Plan
Processing Rates
0.5% Per Transaction
Equipment Leasing
No
Dwolla’s Historical Pricing Model
Before its strategic shift in June 2015, Dwolla’s pricing was notably appealing. Originally, the service charged just 25 cents per transaction for amounts over $10. At the last disclosure of its standard pricing, Dwolla enabled users to conduct transactions within its network without cost. This policy extended to the absence of any PCI Compliance fees or cancellation fees. For advanced needs, Dwolla offered tiered plans, including the Plus Plan starting at $25 monthly, the Premium Plan at $250, and the Custom Plan beginning at $1,500, each adding features like faster transfers, enhanced support, and increased transaction limits.
Dwolla’s Modern Pricing Structure
Currently, Dwolla caters to enterprise-level businesses and payment platforms with four pricing options. The Start Plan is a pay-as-you-go model with no monthly fee, charging 0.5% per transaction (minimum $0.05, maximum $5.00) but lacks payment facilitation tools and offers only forum support. The Scale Plan, priced at $2,000 monthly, includes necessary tools for operating a payments platform and enhanced customer support. The Launch Plan offers a middle ground between these two. Additionally, there’s a Custom Plan that encompasses Dwolla’s full range of features.
Alignment with Target Market
While Dwolla’s earlier pricing was highly competitive for a broad audience, its current model focuses more on payment platforms and large-scale businesses. There are some indications from standard clients feeling sidelined by the new business strategy, but within its targeted market, Dwolla maintains positive regard. Thus, the company is given an “A” rating for its alignment with its intended customer base.
The Dwolla Pricing Structure
Dwolla Employee Reviews & Sales Tacitcs
Should You Work For Them?
Jobs & Marketing Summary
Uses Independent Resellers
No
Telemarketing
No
Misleading Marketing
No
Discloses All Important Terms
No
In-House Sales Team
Dwolla primarily markets itself via its website and uses no deceptive advertising or marketing tactics that are apparent to this reviewer. There are also no negative Dwolla reviews regarding the company’s sales tactics to be found on this or other consumer protection websites, which indicates that there are no issues with hidden fees or rate increases. Dwolla has replaced its flat and free pricing options with a custom rate quote now that it focuses on platform-scale payments, but we have not found complaints about these custom pricing plans.
Solid Track Record
Given Dwolla’s history of transparency and the lack of sales-related complaints, we have assigned it an “A” rating in this category. If you suspect, however, that the company has misled you about its pricing, you can get a professional analysis with a third-party statement audit.
Our Dwolla Review Summary
Our Final Thoughts
Dwolla was once an established alternative payment processor in the credit card processing industry but has since shifted its focus. The company now provides an API-integrated ACH payment solution tailored for B2B transactions and marketplaces. As a supplement to traditional credit card processing services, Dwolla is particularly useful for business-to-business payments, mass payouts, and rent collections.
For enterprise-level businesses, it’s advisable to compare Dwolla’s payment options with those offered by the top enterprise-level merchant account providers. This comparison will ensure that businesses find a solution that aligns with their transaction needs while maximizing efficiency and cost-effectiveness in their financial operations.
I am not a direct customer of them but a merchant I used online and my card issuer both are. And get this. So used the merchants site purchased there service and everything was fine. Until my statement came and showed that I used the merchants services even after I no longer was day after day . I contacted my bank and they immidiatly seen the error and began process the dispute for me. Fast forward 103 days and countless tries to get a resolution. I get a email of no error found decision final made by Dwolla. Well I research poke around and find out that my bank uses the for payments and so did the merchant. And then when It came time for an unbiased investagation to be conducted. Guess who yup Dwolla. And miraculously they found no error at all. Isn’t this some kind of conflict of interest. And isn’t 102 day investigation to be told no error occured against Regulation E protocall. Shouldn’t I have got a appeal. Someone have any info on this. ?
Joe
Worst service ever. It’s been 4 days and the payment is still pending. I’m assuming the transfer to my bank will be equally as long. I am removing this payment option from my website. I will never use this again. It’s awful. I would rather pay a fee to be paid quickly. This has delayed me from starting a job by two weeks because the customer deposit is still in pending status. It would have cost me less to pay a fee to PayPal for an instant payment than to delay a job and lose money.
Shawn
Dwolla has removed all their pricing tiers to focus more on enterprise-level. The only pricing they have available is $2000 per month which is ridiculous for startups. Unfortunate what this service has become.
Ann Seligman
With zero notice, and in the middle of our busy season, they apparently stopped supporting our platform. So our customers can no longer use Dwolla. We only found this out when someone tried. Their A rating should be removed ASAP.
Sammy Hosseini
Dwolla charged 3 NSF fees to my bank even after my rent payment was posted successfully. If you call customer service no one is there to answer and the customer service voice box is always full. Do not use this service / payment method unless you want to get ripped off !
Lyndsey
Worst processing payment- takes at least a week to process your payment. No efficient at all.
Tea Palella
Absolutely horrible experience.
Singed up thru godaddy bookkeeping. I had business accounting thru them.
Couldn’t receive payments and the customer would get nothing but “an error occurred.”
Finally got to talk to them, they said i had to upgrade my account.
Many tries later, cancelled my account.
A horrible experience. Feels like a 14 year old in a basement decided to make a website with the cool new framework.
Steer clear.
Sam
I agree. It is absolutely junk. We have an established business with perfect relations with our merchant accounts and we have two merchant accounts and both are spotless. We are a multi million dollar company. We tried to diversity and offer what they promise on dwolla a cheap fees. So we went thru tons of personal and financial documents we submitted to Dwolla and they approved our account and our bank and verified us and so forth. Then we hired a programmer and did the API integration which sosted us a lot and time. Dwolla tested it and confirmed it is good and we went live. Luckily we convinced only one recurrent customer to use Dwolla. Dwolla promise immediate fund, easy signup, customer will have no hastle and so forth. That was a lie. Our customer is a well established business with excellent merchant account and is a large business. The customer went thru headache of faxing documents to Dwolla over two weeks. Finally the customer was approved and over 10 days made 7 transactions. Dwolla emailed us complete and transaction authorizations and we shipped the products. We never got the fund. We called Dwolla and they confirmed seeing the transactions but an issue with the API. Dwolla tested the API and all was good. Dwolla asked that we tell the customer to send payments using our email until they look into the API. The customer did use our email and sent from their Dwolla account directly payments. Finally we saw the payments under our Dwolla account but states takes 3 to 4 days to process the fund. Then we emailed Dwolla about our API what is going on. Dwolla emailed they need our Bank statement and faxed more documents. Strange and we did it again right away and even sent them the bank statement with the Dwolla verification deposits. Finally Dwolla emailed us stating the transactions cancelled. We phoned them and spoke with the so-called supervisor and asked what is this issue. The supervisor said since we have other merchant account, we did not lose anything just get paid by the other merchants. They are junk. They costed us time, money in programming cost, stole all our financial data and our one customer data and who knows what they do with them. We are closing our bank accounts because of this Dwolla shady problem. Luckily, our one customer is a recurrent customer and we are able to get the money from them. But if we went live and had so many customers that used them and we got their authorization and shipped the products, our losses would have been huge. The worst company we even dealt with. Our customer also agreed as had over two weeks of faxing documents and headache never encountered before.
Mindi Miller
Warning: Do not sign up for Dwolla. They want me to send all my personal information like bank statements, driver’s license number, etc. Sounds like a scam! Customer service is rude and not helpful.
Melanie Smith
Yes!!! I WOULD.NEVER RECOMMEND DWOLLA TO ANYONE FOR ANYTHING! I just had this same issue… set up an account. Did a couple Dwolla to Bank transfers… Then they withhold my transfer, later asked me to verify my bank account by sending bank statements, after asking for a copy of state ID day before… and then later why I get money from the sender. I comply then they close my account!!! Customer service was very unhelpful. Said our securities department has to process and approve… got several conflicting emails talked to several customer service people etc… experience was awful and they have delayed payment and my personal information that I provided is not retrievable and probably not protected. This is fraud.
Chris Chaplin
I would NOT recommend this service. I opened an account and immediately had a stranger access my account information by transferring money and emailing me. There is no way to contact the company other than by email. It took weeks just to receive an email that their security team will ‘No longer be able to service my account’. NO response as to what this means so far. Also, no customers want to go through the personal bank account information required to setup an account since this is such a new service.
Melanie Smith
They have a phone number:
1 888-289-8744
Please call, they treat their customers/clients like crap.
Jai
Let me tell you about this company. I wouldnt DO any business with this company. I had submitted my paperwork for my VAPE business 3 months ago. NEVER got an email, nothing. I go to login and its asking for more paperwortk. Submitted it. Then they asked me to SUBMIT my drivers license, which was BS as it has nothing to do with my business. I could have been an employee working on behalf of the company.
Anyways, lets get on with it. They told me they needed the paperwork and didnt say anything about my website. Nothing; well they told me after i uploaded PERSONAL information, IRS paperwork, they said we are going to look over account. The said they didnt want to approve me because I sold CBD products. WHAT? Ok then, what about Hemp iced tea? Do you block that? Or hemp backpacks? Hemp clothing or cotton? So I took it down and emailed them to tell them I removed it. I get an email saying my account status has changed. To my confusion and despair I logged in and im suspended??? I email them and they said basically we do not want to do business with you.
Shaun
Reading all of these reviews is very disconcerting.. I myself am in the Vape industry, waiting for a massive payment to come through, & all im getting is bull$h!t; every corner… You must upload ‘this’ for proof. NOW give us IRS paprwrk w/your EIN#. Wait, we don’t think that’s enough, we need your Drivrs licnce/Passport. Now the deed to ur house… It’s utter nonsense and frankly, it’s become a joke.. Our company has now been put in dire financial straits. We have spent a huge amount of $ on fulfilling a order; understanding payment of a even huger amount of $ was coming in, quickly & easily. Now i’ve spent 2 WEEKS, day2day, dealing with Dwolla’s merry go round from hell. All to obtain $ my coworkers & i worked tirelessly to get.. it’s become a frakken nightmare.
Jamie Henderson
We’re forced to use Dwolla to pay for bus tickets on Suburban Express, which my daughter takes to and from college for weekend trips. It’s the only form of payment they’ll accept.
My experience is that the funds transfer is extremely slow – the one I initiated today, 11/10 is estimated to complete on 11/17. Really? Seems like a pretty poor excuse for a payment processor if it takes them a week to get money out of my bank and into the Dwolla account. If I was a merchant and had to wait that long, I wouldn’t use them at all.
Sean
So why do they have 5 stars here with all of these negative reviews? Did they pay off this site?
Dwolla seems to be pretty much useless. You are better off just having your clients send you paper checks and dealing with sales that way or even getting an account like american express bluebird which is the same thing as Dwolla but faster. Someone can email you a photo of a check and you can deposit that right to your bluebird account and have the funds within 2 days. Dwolla purposely holds your funds for 5 days. even if they get your money from the sending bank the next day. They state this is to make sure they dont get any rejection codes after the transfer. Which isnt possible.
Dwolla will though all you to do everything in realtime (and not purposely make you wait for no reason) if you want to pay them $250 a month!! this makes them more expensive that ANY payment solution out there. I just seen they have a company who provides a debt card to pull from your dwolla balance immediately. I may decide to try that card and see how long it actually takes to be able to spend funds and post again. But for right now they do not sound like a good company. They claim they wont process credit cards because of the 1-3% transaction fees which are nothing. This is because if you use a debt or cc card the money is transferred instantly and they do not get to hold onto it and make more from their bank accounts balance.
The only good thing is they accept high risk transactions. But just like Paypal this is because they are new. As soon as they make enough im betting they ban them as Paypal did. Just using them to get going and then turning their backs.. Watch!
Sean
not being able to delete reviews isnt cool as some will leave a review before they are able to find the support phone for Dwolla which you can only find on Google it seems. I contacted them again and spoke to someone and i guess if i do get the card or send to my bank, even without paying for faster service it should be next day funding after it has reached the Dwolla balance. If that is true then it will take 5 days total to clear a payment.
I will actually continue to use Dwolla WITH another merchant account as well. Using Dwolla as the “pay by bank or check” option
They don’t charge a monthly or gateway fee which actually does make them cheaper. i shouldnt have posted until i found out more,
but again they do make reaching a live person a bit hard to do from their website so ill share the blame with them :)
Sean
OK im back, Dwolla today (5 days later) finally told me the payment to me didnt go through and could not tell me if it was NSF or what reason. They said they CANT tell me. SO DO NOT USE DWOLLA FOR ANY PROCESSING NEEDS! ITS NOT A REAL FUNDING SOURCE OR WAY OF DOING BUSINESS!!
Now if i wanted to, i could have the client remit payment again and wait 5 more days? For what reason? Sorry this company is horrible and shouldnt be trusted. Paypal tells me the reasons. This means this companies bank account isnt as secure. DONT TRUST THEM!
Due to the reasons above im now glad the review wasnt removed, they played me, and theyll play you too!
Jeri
I was asked to use Dwolla to send money in a transaction. I was fortunate to have a good agent because I would have lost the bid due to issues with Dwolla. It took 3 days and as many tries for them to resolve clerical errors that prevented me from funding my account. Then the transaction to fund would be another 3 days. And then ANOTHER 3 days to send funds! I eventually convinced the seller to use a different service and the transaction went off without a hitch. At Dwolla’s speeds, you might as well meet in a coffee shop, wearing a red rose, and hand over an envelope of cash! Better yet, get a money order and snail mail it. It will probably get there sooner!
W H
The problem started when i started to fund my account. After wasting my time with requesting driver license, bank statements and lots of time waiting security team suspended my account.
I have not done any transactions with the account yet.
The reason stated is that I tried to fund my account with large fund. I made their job easier and i cancel the transfer of fund since they could not come up with a legally acceptable way for their behavior.
My impression is : it is kids operation, they are not ready for doing real business unless for kids.
clumsy,small minded,useless and unreliable.
Ray Frankenberger
Dwolla has refused to give my money that was placed in there care by online poker winnings.
They received 3 winnings from the poker site that I play at. The first 2 disappeared and the 3rd they blatantly refused to send to me. At my request they sent the money back to the poker site ( that claims to be their partner )
for me to get it from them. They marked the returned money forfeited so that I cannot get my winnings now.
THEY GET AN F- FOR THEIR BUSINESS PRACTICES.
They have lied to me and stolen money from my account.
DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
greg
Been trying to open an account 4a week.finally did I think. Troubles with password and pin would not accept finally did.was told to verify e- mail I did was told they were sending verification and to click on link been waiting 4over 6 hours.never received.had cash winnings on lucktastic scratch game it was not much.but will not pay me my winnings.bunch of f-ing scam artists.
ED
Why is Dwolla asking for SS# to collect my online poker winnings? I believe people give out SS# when they won $600.
payam golriz
DO NOT USE DWOLLA TO SEND MONEY!
Here’s my nightmare story and their refusal to help:
I made a purchase online and the seller asked to use Dwolla. At first it looked like a reputable website but I’ve come to find out there’s no support behind it. Long story short, the seller has run away with $2000 of my money, and he’s used Dwolla to scam thousands from others as well. After their “investigation”, they concluded that they can’t get in contact with the seller so they can’t do anything about the claim. Meanwhile I have email correspondence from multiple people scammed by this crook. HOW CAN YOU CALL YOURSELF A REPUTABLE SERVICE? YOU ARE HELPING SCAM ARTISTS…..
Phillip CPO
Hi Payam,
Can you elaborate on the transaction you made? What did you purchase and how did you communicate with the seller?
Nathan
I also disagree about the $3 fee complaint, It clearly says their is a a $3 recurring fee and that your credit will be checked that’s why I did not activate it yet.
Matt
So far Very Slow to get money. I received a transfer to my Dwolla account on 4/19 and Dwolla said the funds would clear by 4/25. Well im still waiting for the funds. I called and the customer service rep said they needed information from the person that was sending me the money. This person is a friend whom never received a call or email stating they needed additional verification from Dwolla. I asked my friend to call which he did and Dwolla wanted him to fax his drivers license to them? Kinda odd but he did. Now they are saying it will take an additonal 4 days to clear and be in my Dwolla account. They indicated that I will have to just wait. There is not escalation or expedite that can be done. Then it will take another 4 days to transfer to my bank. WOW… This is going to be an over 2 week transaction… Still have flaws IMO.
Lisza
Paypal does this same thing now. When person to person is sending money the one sending has to verify they sent it before they will release funds, but my experience with paypal is that once it’s verified they release it quickly. I have had bad experiences with a lot of these so called merchants/processors it’s a nightmare dealing with them. They are bullies and do what they please.
Mike Lee
I’m thinking there is a security flaw in Dwolla. I have no account with Dwolla, and yet a party named Myron Peppers managed to get Dwolla to link my checking account to Myron and they hacked my account for $650.00. Thankfully, I spotted this activity before the funds transferred through Dwolla, and Dwolla stopped the transaction from going through. My bank also took action to stop the transaction.
If the service they provide is supposed to be for subscribers to their service only, and I am not a subscriber, how could Myron Peppers do his thing? I’m a bit disturbed with this incident.
M.Lee
E
Yes, I agree. Same thing happened to me and I knew nothing of them.
Jeff Smith
AVOID INSTANT TRANSFER SERVICE (HIDDEN FEES): I’ve been a DWOLLA customer for about a year, regularly making deposits of a substantial amount of money each time. The delay in deposit from my linked bank account got annoying and one day I noticed a message after making a deposit, encouraging me to enable DWOLLA INSTANT feature for instant bank transfers. Unfortunately, this is not exactly true. They actually open a line of credit for you starting at a low $100 limit. Also, they fail to ever mention a $3.00 recurring monthly fee associated with this feature (they hide any mention of this fee deep in the terms of service – never once explicitly informing the user of any fees). Once you enable DWOLLA INSTANT then you can’t disable it again without paying the fee. I contacted their customer support literally 5 minutes after I enabled the feature to basically be told “deal with it and pay the fee.” I’m sorry but I expect more from a financial institution who I regularly have done business with over the past year. If they’re so deadset on getting my $3.00 with deceitful tactics which are NOT STANDARD in their industry (usually businesses are upfront about any fees, especially recurring) then they can have it but they will not keep my business. My advice is find a financial instution who actually has a personable customer service abd appreciates customer loyalty. I feel like I’ve been scammed and can’t help wonder how many other customers they’ve pulled this over on to get $3.00? A few hundred thousand?
Kern
I feel the above negative comment regarding Dwolla’s Instant funding service is disingenuous, or perhaps simply poorly informed.
Dwolla discloses the reocurring $3 fee for Instant very plainly on – that’s just one click and a screen’s worth of reading off their main page.
Catrachos
The monthly fee is listed on their fee page, which can be clicked at the bottom of the page. Seems transparent. Could be a bargain, or not, depending on how you use the service. Similar level of service from other financial institutions may appear to be free, but aren’t, as they do cover their costs (and protect profits) making funds promptly available for clients in other ways than charging up front.
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Quinlan Richard Hensler
I am not a direct customer of them but a merchant I used online and my card issuer both are. And get this. So used the merchants site purchased there service and everything was fine. Until my statement came and showed that I used the merchants services even after I no longer was day after day . I contacted my bank and they immidiatly seen the error and began process the dispute for me. Fast forward 103 days and countless tries to get a resolution. I get a email of no error found decision final made by Dwolla. Well I research poke around and find out that my bank uses the for payments and so did the merchant. And then when It came time for an unbiased investagation to be conducted. Guess who yup Dwolla. And miraculously they found no error at all. Isn’t this some kind of conflict of interest. And isn’t 102 day investigation to be told no error occured against Regulation E protocall. Shouldn’t I have got a appeal. Someone have any info on this. ?
Joe
Worst service ever. It’s been 4 days and the payment is still pending. I’m assuming the transfer to my bank will be equally as long. I am removing this payment option from my website. I will never use this again. It’s awful. I would rather pay a fee to be paid quickly. This has delayed me from starting a job by two weeks because the customer deposit is still in pending status. It would have cost me less to pay a fee to PayPal for an instant payment than to delay a job and lose money.
Shawn
Dwolla has removed all their pricing tiers to focus more on enterprise-level. The only pricing they have available is $2000 per month which is ridiculous for startups. Unfortunate what this service has become.
Ann Seligman
With zero notice, and in the middle of our busy season, they apparently stopped supporting our platform. So our customers can no longer use Dwolla. We only found this out when someone tried. Their A rating should be removed ASAP.
Sammy Hosseini
Dwolla charged 3 NSF fees to my bank even after my rent payment was posted successfully. If you call customer service no one is there to answer and the customer service voice box is always full. Do not use this service / payment method unless you want to get ripped off !
Lyndsey
Worst processing payment- takes at least a week to process your payment. No efficient at all.
Tea Palella
Absolutely horrible experience.
Singed up thru godaddy bookkeeping. I had business accounting thru them.
Couldn’t receive payments and the customer would get nothing but “an error occurred.”
Finally got to talk to them, they said i had to upgrade my account.
Many tries later, cancelled my account.
A horrible experience. Feels like a 14 year old in a basement decided to make a website with the cool new framework.
Steer clear.
Sam
I agree. It is absolutely junk. We have an established business with perfect relations with our merchant accounts and we have two merchant accounts and both are spotless. We are a multi million dollar company. We tried to diversity and offer what they promise on dwolla a cheap fees. So we went thru tons of personal and financial documents we submitted to Dwolla and they approved our account and our bank and verified us and so forth. Then we hired a programmer and did the API integration which sosted us a lot and time. Dwolla tested it and confirmed it is good and we went live. Luckily we convinced only one recurrent customer to use Dwolla. Dwolla promise immediate fund, easy signup, customer will have no hastle and so forth. That was a lie. Our customer is a well established business with excellent merchant account and is a large business. The customer went thru headache of faxing documents to Dwolla over two weeks. Finally the customer was approved and over 10 days made 7 transactions. Dwolla emailed us complete and transaction authorizations and we shipped the products. We never got the fund. We called Dwolla and they confirmed seeing the transactions but an issue with the API. Dwolla tested the API and all was good. Dwolla asked that we tell the customer to send payments using our email until they look into the API. The customer did use our email and sent from their Dwolla account directly payments. Finally we saw the payments under our Dwolla account but states takes 3 to 4 days to process the fund. Then we emailed Dwolla about our API what is going on. Dwolla emailed they need our Bank statement and faxed more documents. Strange and we did it again right away and even sent them the bank statement with the Dwolla verification deposits. Finally Dwolla emailed us stating the transactions cancelled. We phoned them and spoke with the so-called supervisor and asked what is this issue. The supervisor said since we have other merchant account, we did not lose anything just get paid by the other merchants. They are junk. They costed us time, money in programming cost, stole all our financial data and our one customer data and who knows what they do with them. We are closing our bank accounts because of this Dwolla shady problem. Luckily, our one customer is a recurrent customer and we are able to get the money from them. But if we went live and had so many customers that used them and we got their authorization and shipped the products, our losses would have been huge. The worst company we even dealt with. Our customer also agreed as had over two weeks of faxing documents and headache never encountered before.
Mindi Miller
Warning: Do not sign up for Dwolla. They want me to send all my personal information like bank statements, driver’s license number, etc. Sounds like a scam! Customer service is rude and not helpful.
Melanie Smith
Yes!!! I WOULD.NEVER RECOMMEND DWOLLA TO ANYONE FOR ANYTHING! I just had this same issue… set up an account. Did a couple Dwolla to Bank transfers… Then they withhold my transfer, later asked me to verify my bank account by sending bank statements, after asking for a copy of state ID day before… and then later why I get money from the sender. I comply then they close my account!!! Customer service was very unhelpful. Said our securities department has to process and approve… got several conflicting emails talked to several customer service people etc… experience was awful and they have delayed payment and my personal information that I provided is not retrievable and probably not protected. This is fraud.
Chris Chaplin
I would NOT recommend this service. I opened an account and immediately had a stranger access my account information by transferring money and emailing me. There is no way to contact the company other than by email. It took weeks just to receive an email that their security team will ‘No longer be able to service my account’. NO response as to what this means so far. Also, no customers want to go through the personal bank account information required to setup an account since this is such a new service.
Melanie Smith
They have a phone number:
1 888-289-8744
Please call, they treat their customers/clients like crap.
Jai
Let me tell you about this company. I wouldnt DO any business with this company. I had submitted my paperwork for my VAPE business 3 months ago. NEVER got an email, nothing. I go to login and its asking for more paperwortk. Submitted it. Then they asked me to SUBMIT my drivers license, which was BS as it has nothing to do with my business. I could have been an employee working on behalf of the company.
Anyways, lets get on with it. They told me they needed the paperwork and didnt say anything about my website. Nothing; well they told me after i uploaded PERSONAL information, IRS paperwork, they said we are going to look over account. The said they didnt want to approve me because I sold CBD products. WHAT? Ok then, what about Hemp iced tea? Do you block that? Or hemp backpacks? Hemp clothing or cotton? So I took it down and emailed them to tell them I removed it. I get an email saying my account status has changed. To my confusion and despair I logged in and im suspended??? I email them and they said basically we do not want to do business with you.
Shaun
Reading all of these reviews is very disconcerting.. I myself am in the Vape industry, waiting for a massive payment to come through, & all im getting is bull$h!t; every corner… You must upload ‘this’ for proof. NOW give us IRS paprwrk w/your EIN#. Wait, we don’t think that’s enough, we need your Drivrs licnce/Passport. Now the deed to ur house… It’s utter nonsense and frankly, it’s become a joke.. Our company has now been put in dire financial straits. We have spent a huge amount of $ on fulfilling a order; understanding payment of a even huger amount of $ was coming in, quickly & easily. Now i’ve spent 2 WEEKS, day2day, dealing with Dwolla’s merry go round from hell. All to obtain $ my coworkers & i worked tirelessly to get.. it’s become a frakken nightmare.
Jamie Henderson
We’re forced to use Dwolla to pay for bus tickets on Suburban Express, which my daughter takes to and from college for weekend trips. It’s the only form of payment they’ll accept.
My experience is that the funds transfer is extremely slow – the one I initiated today, 11/10 is estimated to complete on 11/17. Really? Seems like a pretty poor excuse for a payment processor if it takes them a week to get money out of my bank and into the Dwolla account. If I was a merchant and had to wait that long, I wouldn’t use them at all.
Sean
So why do they have 5 stars here with all of these negative reviews? Did they pay off this site?
Dwolla seems to be pretty much useless. You are better off just having your clients send you paper checks and dealing with sales that way or even getting an account like american express bluebird which is the same thing as Dwolla but faster. Someone can email you a photo of a check and you can deposit that right to your bluebird account and have the funds within 2 days. Dwolla purposely holds your funds for 5 days. even if they get your money from the sending bank the next day. They state this is to make sure they dont get any rejection codes after the transfer. Which isnt possible.
Dwolla will though all you to do everything in realtime (and not purposely make you wait for no reason) if you want to pay them $250 a month!! this makes them more expensive that ANY payment solution out there. I just seen they have a company who provides a debt card to pull from your dwolla balance immediately. I may decide to try that card and see how long it actually takes to be able to spend funds and post again. But for right now they do not sound like a good company. They claim they wont process credit cards because of the 1-3% transaction fees which are nothing. This is because if you use a debt or cc card the money is transferred instantly and they do not get to hold onto it and make more from their bank accounts balance.
The only good thing is they accept high risk transactions. But just like Paypal this is because they are new. As soon as they make enough im betting they ban them as Paypal did. Just using them to get going and then turning their backs.. Watch!
Sean
not being able to delete reviews isnt cool as some will leave a review before they are able to find the support phone for Dwolla which you can only find on Google it seems. I contacted them again and spoke to someone and i guess if i do get the card or send to my bank, even without paying for faster service it should be next day funding after it has reached the Dwolla balance. If that is true then it will take 5 days total to clear a payment.
I will actually continue to use Dwolla WITH another merchant account as well. Using Dwolla as the “pay by bank or check” option
They don’t charge a monthly or gateway fee which actually does make them cheaper. i shouldnt have posted until i found out more,
but again they do make reaching a live person a bit hard to do from their website so ill share the blame with them :)
Sean
OK im back, Dwolla today (5 days later) finally told me the payment to me didnt go through and could not tell me if it was NSF or what reason. They said they CANT tell me. SO DO NOT USE DWOLLA FOR ANY PROCESSING NEEDS! ITS NOT A REAL FUNDING SOURCE OR WAY OF DOING BUSINESS!!
Now if i wanted to, i could have the client remit payment again and wait 5 more days? For what reason? Sorry this company is horrible and shouldnt be trusted. Paypal tells me the reasons. This means this companies bank account isnt as secure. DONT TRUST THEM!
Due to the reasons above im now glad the review wasnt removed, they played me, and theyll play you too!
Jeri
I was asked to use Dwolla to send money in a transaction. I was fortunate to have a good agent because I would have lost the bid due to issues with Dwolla. It took 3 days and as many tries for them to resolve clerical errors that prevented me from funding my account. Then the transaction to fund would be another 3 days. And then ANOTHER 3 days to send funds! I eventually convinced the seller to use a different service and the transaction went off without a hitch. At Dwolla’s speeds, you might as well meet in a coffee shop, wearing a red rose, and hand over an envelope of cash! Better yet, get a money order and snail mail it. It will probably get there sooner!
W H
The problem started when i started to fund my account. After wasting my time with requesting driver license, bank statements and lots of time waiting security team suspended my account.
I have not done any transactions with the account yet.
The reason stated is that I tried to fund my account with large fund. I made their job easier and i cancel the transfer of fund since they could not come up with a legally acceptable way for their behavior.
My impression is : it is kids operation, they are not ready for doing real business unless for kids.
clumsy,small minded,useless and unreliable.
Ray Frankenberger
Dwolla has refused to give my money that was placed in there care by online poker winnings.
They received 3 winnings from the poker site that I play at. The first 2 disappeared and the 3rd they blatantly refused to send to me. At my request they sent the money back to the poker site ( that claims to be their partner )
for me to get it from them. They marked the returned money forfeited so that I cannot get my winnings now.
THEY GET AN F- FOR THEIR BUSINESS PRACTICES.
They have lied to me and stolen money from my account.
DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
greg
Been trying to open an account 4a week.finally did I think. Troubles with password and pin would not accept finally did.was told to verify e- mail I did was told they were sending verification and to click on link been waiting 4over 6 hours.never received.had cash winnings on lucktastic scratch game it was not much.but will not pay me my winnings.bunch of f-ing scam artists.
ED
Why is Dwolla asking for SS# to collect my online poker winnings? I believe people give out SS# when they won $600.
payam golriz
DO NOT USE DWOLLA TO SEND MONEY!
Here’s my nightmare story and their refusal to help:
I made a purchase online and the seller asked to use Dwolla. At first it looked like a reputable website but I’ve come to find out there’s no support behind it. Long story short, the seller has run away with $2000 of my money, and he’s used Dwolla to scam thousands from others as well. After their “investigation”, they concluded that they can’t get in contact with the seller so they can’t do anything about the claim. Meanwhile I have email correspondence from multiple people scammed by this crook. HOW CAN YOU CALL YOURSELF A REPUTABLE SERVICE? YOU ARE HELPING SCAM ARTISTS…..
Phillip CPO
Hi Payam,
Can you elaborate on the transaction you made? What did you purchase and how did you communicate with the seller?
Nathan
I also disagree about the $3 fee complaint, It clearly says their is a a $3 recurring fee and that your credit will be checked that’s why I did not activate it yet.
Matt
So far Very Slow to get money. I received a transfer to my Dwolla account on 4/19 and Dwolla said the funds would clear by 4/25. Well im still waiting for the funds. I called and the customer service rep said they needed information from the person that was sending me the money. This person is a friend whom never received a call or email stating they needed additional verification from Dwolla. I asked my friend to call which he did and Dwolla wanted him to fax his drivers license to them? Kinda odd but he did. Now they are saying it will take an additonal 4 days to clear and be in my Dwolla account. They indicated that I will have to just wait. There is not escalation or expedite that can be done. Then it will take another 4 days to transfer to my bank. WOW… This is going to be an over 2 week transaction… Still have flaws IMO.
Lisza
Paypal does this same thing now. When person to person is sending money the one sending has to verify they sent it before they will release funds, but my experience with paypal is that once it’s verified they release it quickly. I have had bad experiences with a lot of these so called merchants/processors it’s a nightmare dealing with them. They are bullies and do what they please.
Mike Lee
I’m thinking there is a security flaw in Dwolla. I have no account with Dwolla, and yet a party named Myron Peppers managed to get Dwolla to link my checking account to Myron and they hacked my account for $650.00. Thankfully, I spotted this activity before the funds transferred through Dwolla, and Dwolla stopped the transaction from going through. My bank also took action to stop the transaction.
If the service they provide is supposed to be for subscribers to their service only, and I am not a subscriber, how could Myron Peppers do his thing? I’m a bit disturbed with this incident.
M.Lee
E
Yes, I agree. Same thing happened to me and I knew nothing of them.
Jeff Smith
AVOID INSTANT TRANSFER SERVICE (HIDDEN FEES): I’ve been a DWOLLA customer for about a year, regularly making deposits of a substantial amount of money each time. The delay in deposit from my linked bank account got annoying and one day I noticed a message after making a deposit, encouraging me to enable DWOLLA INSTANT feature for instant bank transfers. Unfortunately, this is not exactly true. They actually open a line of credit for you starting at a low $100 limit. Also, they fail to ever mention a $3.00 recurring monthly fee associated with this feature (they hide any mention of this fee deep in the terms of service – never once explicitly informing the user of any fees). Once you enable DWOLLA INSTANT then you can’t disable it again without paying the fee. I contacted their customer support literally 5 minutes after I enabled the feature to basically be told “deal with it and pay the fee.” I’m sorry but I expect more from a financial institution who I regularly have done business with over the past year. If they’re so deadset on getting my $3.00 with deceitful tactics which are NOT STANDARD in their industry (usually businesses are upfront about any fees, especially recurring) then they can have it but they will not keep my business. My advice is find a financial instution who actually has a personable customer service abd appreciates customer loyalty. I feel like I’ve been scammed and can’t help wonder how many other customers they’ve pulled this over on to get $3.00? A few hundred thousand?
Kern
I feel the above negative comment regarding Dwolla’s Instant funding service is disingenuous, or perhaps simply poorly informed.
Dwolla discloses the reocurring $3 fee for Instant very plainly on – that’s just one click and a screen’s worth of reading off their main page.
Catrachos
The monthly fee is listed on their fee page, which can be clicked at the bottom of the page. Seems transparent. Could be a bargain, or not, depending on how you use the service. Similar level of service from other financial institutions may appear to be free, but aren’t, as they do cover their costs (and protect profits) making funds promptly available for clients in other ways than charging up front.