3 weeks of anxiety – Binance.com returns SWIFT deposit through Silvergate but never arrives

Hi all, just trying to share my story and hope my experience can help on anyone who is waiting for their money back.

I am a Hong Kong user and I deposited USD 10K to Binance.com on April 21, been pending in “Processing” status for 2 days then I asked CS’s help on Live Chat. They replied my account name not matched with their KYC, so they refunded me already and provided me the outgoing reference number. Then the status showed “failed”. Binance CS advised it takes 4 to 5 business days but it never arrives. In the meantime I keep contacting Binance’s CS. Same as everyone else, it was long and slow and keep switching to different CS who gave me same answer all the time. Luckily the last CS I got was a good one and I guess he is from “Fiat Team”, he never closed the case nor transferred me to other agents anymore.

After 2 weeks of waiting I decided to “Cancel/Recall” the original deposit from my local bank (my bank charged me USD 30). I did provide my bank the RETURN POP provided by Binance as well. What I found out is the money has been returned to the USA branch (which is the intermediary bank who handles the wire transfer) long time ago, but they were holding it for no fxxking reason! Finally I got my money back after 3 entire weeks. Here are the key things you need to know:

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1. When Binance returned the money to you, it is not like a regular SWIFT transfer that only takes 1 day. The money has to go through same route and sitting with intermediary bank for some days before sending back to your local bank
2. When Binance said they refunded you, always ask for the RETURN POP with all the reference number on it. Once they provided, it actually means they did refunded you. (don't think they'd lie) You may need this RETURN POP when talking to your local bank later
3. You can try to ask Binance if the returned fund has been bounced back to Silvergate too, but it is not likely
4. If Binance refunded you but you cannot wait any longer, just go to you bank to recall. Even your local bank and its intermediary bank in USA are under same company, they have totally no communicating channel like emails or phone calls (yes this is crazy and so old-school). What they can do is to send instructions to intermediary bank like “Recall/Cancel”, then the intermediary bank would finally need to follow up on your missing money (your local bank would not talk to Silvergate directly, only the intermediary bank in USA would do)
5. If your money is sitting with the intermediary bank, most likely they are just holding it because” they don’t know what to do with it”, which requires you to actively “recall” it to send back to your local bank. Yes I know it sounds funny and absurd, but at the end of the day you have to understand that it is not their money and you are not their customer, so they don’t give a shit on your urgency
6. If you are tired of being switched to other agents on Live Chat support, try to ask them not to switch or ask them to switch you to fiat team. I think they know better

Just trying to help. Good luck everyone!