Fake positive review have been removed from this profile as they did not have the trust signals we would normally expect with genuine reviews. Several 5 star reviews were written on the same device.
“Read the recent reviews and run FAR, FAR away from this company. Their shady business practices and "Verification" process are nothing more than a way to hold onto your money and possibly never give it to you. We've been doing a school trip for 10+ YEARS now, always going to the same location. We made the mistake of setting up our trip with WeTravel thinking it would be easier to collect payments. We submitted all the required documents, then sent an e-mail explaining our situation and history. They asked for MORE documents, so we gave them those and more than they asked for. After three more e-mails they finally get back to us that their "legal" department has decided we can be "Partially Verified". But they were going to be "nice" to us and let us use their "WeTravel Virtual Card" service, but oh by the way you can only pay a few, select group of vendors with it (restaurants and theater shows, etc aren't in those categories either, what trip doesn't have one of those two?). If that doesn't work they offered to let us pay them $15 to "wire" money to a vendor, IF their legal department approves it. These clowns actually expect a trip like ours with a $50k budget to let them hold onto our money until 14 days AFTER our trip, or only "pay" the vendors they allow us to pay through them so they can collect interest on all the money during that time. We're exploring other options now to get out of this nightmare.”
I’m Zaky, CMO/co-founder of WeTravel. Thank you for taking the time to write your feedback. I’m sorry about your experience with WeTravel in organizing your school trip.
Before I respond to this feedback specifically, kindly allow me to provide context for the broader public who read the review.
WeTravel has three possible verification decisions: 1. Full approval (funds available any time) 2. Partial approval (funds available after the trip) 3. Denial of service. This is stated in our FAQ: https://help.wetravel.com/en/articles/1619345-how-to-get-verified-for-payouts
Many independent travel agents and individual organizers receive a “Partial Approval”, meaning their funds are available only after a trip has ended. Most companies with several employees and a verifiable, multi-year track record receive a “Full Approval”.
We are obliged to verify each user thoroughly due to the “future delivery risk” inherent in processing payments for travel companies.
We always encourage any new company or organizer to verify their account right away. We show all new users several pop-ups and notifications about the necessity to verify their account and describe the verification process in our help center.
I also want to add that providing limited service for smaller tour operators is the payment industry standard: all major payment providers that process payments for small travel agents or new tour operators either payout funds only after a trip/event has ended (e.g. Eventbrite) or force the user to keep minimal balances (e.g. PayPal). Many don’t provide payment services to tour operators at all.
Additionally, if organizers choose to refund their travelers, we fully refund our fees (which is not the case for typical payment platforms), even though we already incurred costs for processing and verification for your trip.
Most importantly, WeTravel never keeps user funds indefinitely. All funds collected by users are paid out or refunded to customers, regardless of the verification decision.
Having said the above, I agree that WeTravel can do better in onboarding our users and I’m again sorry that this process has not been a great user experience for you.
We regret that our verification decision has made WeTravel not a viable solution for your school trip. We will keep improving our onboarding process for new users. Thank you.
Zaky
To check our main page for independent user reviews, please check: https://www.capterra.com/p/163474/WeTravel/reviews/
“These people have no one available to talk you on the telephone. They promised me a teleconference at sign up and then sent a string of emails link stating they no longer do teleconferences. They started collecting money from my travelers and then told me that I may be partially verified, which meant I couldn't finance my tour because the funds aren't released until after the tour. I understand their steps to insure security, but verification decisions should have been made BEFORE collecting one dollar. I had them refund my travelers, and I got merchant services account and payment processing through Authorize.net. I had to build a website and get software installed QUICKLY. So essentially, I traded one stress for another. And I trust no company that cannot have a telephone conversation with it's customers. Esp. when they can hold travelers money hostage and potentially bruise my brand.”
I’m Zaky, CMO/co-founder of WeTravel. Thank you for taking the time to write your feedback.
Before I respond to this feedback specifically, kindly allow me to provide context for the broader public who read the review.
WeTravel has three possible verification decisions: 1. Full approval (funds available any time) 2. Partial approval (funds available after the trip) 3. Denial of service. This is stated in our FAQ: https://help.wetravel.com/en/articles/1619345-how-to-get-verified-for-payouts
Many independent travel agents and individual organizers receive a “Partial Approval”, meaning their funds are available only after a trip has ended. Most companies with several employees and a verifiable, multi-year track record receive a “Full Approval”.
We are obliged to verify each user thoroughly due to the “future delivery risk” inherent in processing payments for travel companies. The outcome of the verification partially depends on how long your business has been operating and the size of your company.
WeTravel never keeps user funds indefinitely. All funds collected by users are paid out or refunded to customers, regardless of the verification decision.
We always encourage any new company or organizer to verify their account right away. We show all new users several pop-ups and notifications about the necessity to verify their account and describe the verification process in our help center.
Specifically, to clarify the feedback above:
- "They started collecting money from my travelers". WeTravel doesn't collect the money ourselves. Travel organizers and companies collect the payments using WeTravel as a payment platform. Our users control when they start collecting payments, set up the payment plans, and also do refunds when necessary.
- "They promised me a teleconference at sign up and then sent a string of emails link stating they no longer do teleconferences". Indeed we are transitioning our inbound sales process from an in-person live demo to a self-learning demo supported by customer support via live chat and email. To respond to any demo request, we send a 17-minute demo video that explains how to use WeTravel from A to Z and a list of steps on how to use WeTravel. Also on that same email, we urge the organizers/companies to "..verify your account as early as possible so you can transfer the collected payments to your bank account or your vendors: https://help.wetravel.com/transferring-funds-to-your-bank-account-verify-and-pay-out/how-to-verify-your-account-for-payouts/how-to-get-verified-for-payouts"
Additionally, we fully refund our fees when organizers refund their travelers, even though we already incurred costs for processing and verification.
Our customer support team is available through the live chatbox on our website and email.
We regret that our verification decision has made WeTravel not a viable solution for you. We will keep improving our onboarding process for new users, especially for individual travel organizers. Thank you.
“You have to go through so much to get your account verified and then they hold all of the money your clients pay to you until after your trip is over.
When questions were asked general responses were given and every time there was a problem I was told that policies have recently changed.
As a small business owner I cannot afford to fund all of my trips until an undisclosed amount processed it reached.
I will be using Triplaunch.co from now on. No hassle and policies are straightforward.”
Dear Cherette,
I’m Zaky, CMO/co-founder of WeTravel. Thank you for taking the time to write your feedback. We regret that our verification decision has made WeTravel not a viable solution for you.
As mentioned in the emails from our verification team, we have three possible verification decisions: 1. Full approval (funds available any time) 2. Partial approval (funds available after the trip) 3. Denial of service.
Many independent travel agents and individual organizers receive a “Partial Approval”, meaning their funds are available only after a trip has ended.
However, most companies with several employees and a verifiable, multi-year track record receive a “Full Approval”.
We are obliged to verify each user thoroughly due to the “future delivery risk” inherent in processing payments for travel companies. The outcome of the verification partially depends on how long your business has been operating and the size of your company.
We always encourage any new company or organizer to verify their account right away. We show all new users several pop-ups and notifications about the necessity to verify their account and describe the verification process in our help center.
I also want to add that providing limited service for smaller tour operators is the payment industry standard: all major payment providers that process payments for small travel agents or new tour operators either payout funds only after a trip/event has ended (e.g. Eventbrite) or force the user to keep minimal balances (e.g. PayPal). Many don’t provide payment services to tour operators at all.
WeTravel can only provide our exceptionally low payment rates because we are able to guarantee that our users are low risk to our payment partners. This, unfortunately, requires a stringent and thorough verification process and is a step that is unavoidable to keeping our platform safe.
Regardless of the verification decision, WeTravel never keeps user funds indefinitely. All funds collected by users are paid out or refunded to customers.
Please feel free to contact us directly (info@wetravel.com) for additional information regarding our verification decisions. I again apologize that we were not able to serve you better.
Thank you.
Zaky
“I organize yoga retreats several times per year and used to manage everything myself. WeTravel has saved me a TON of time and hassle, it's super easy and user-friendly, and the customer support was awesome.”
