Upfront Summary: Is Payoneer (TransferWise) Safe?
Payoneer is a legit and safe financial services provider. It is most often used for business-to-business transactions, so you may know of and work closely with the other business, and trust is often already built. Payoneer has been around since 2005, working with many majors companies like Amazon, Airbnb, and Walmart, and over 4 million other customers who are sending and receiving payments daily. Payoneer is also a fully regulated US company with FinCEN. All of this should give you confidence in the safety of trusting Payoneer with your money.
However, if this is your first time working with a business that has suggested you use Payoneer, you may be hesitant to take payments or concerned that Payoneer will keep your hard-earned money. We’ve reviewed everything possible to get the information you need to decide if you will trust Payoneer to get your money to you.
Payoneer Company Information
| Official Website: | https://www.payoneer.com/ |
| Founded: | 2005 |
| Owner: | Public Company |
| Location: | Worldwide Service |
| Customer Service Contact: | Online Support: Payoneer Support |
| Social Media: | Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Youtube |
What is Payoneer?
Payoneer is a financial services provider based in the US; however, they operate internationally. They allow businesses to pay and be paid by other companies without needing a bank merchant account. Payoneer is more like a business Paypal, over something like Stripe that you would integrate with your website to accept payments from customers.
Payoneer makes it extremely easy to make payments between businesses without dealing with different banks, different countries, and different currencies. If you don’t specifically need to accept credit cards, then Payoneer is a much cheaper option. Everything is handled by Payoneer, which is also a huge benefit when dealing with multiple other businesses.
Payoneer is a prevalent option for businesses to pay out freelancers like on Upwork or when dealing with marketplaces like Airbnb as an owner.
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How does Payoneer work?
Payoneer operates as the clearinghouse for payments between businesses and is heavily used by companies to pay out freelancers or contractors without the need for taking on the financial or personal information of many and often changing freelancers. As a business, you only need to set up your Payoneer account with financial details once and then request or take payments via Payoneer, which is also a significant benefit for freelancers that work in multiple markets.
Payoneer handles all of the transactions between different banks. It operates in over 200 countries with 150 different currencies, which is often complex and time-consuming for businesses to have to deal with.
Is Payoneer safe and legit, or is it a scam?
When setting up your account with Payoneer, you will provide which country you are located in, and this will restrict any features or options available in your country and ensure everything is perfectly legal when making transactions.
You are extremely unlikely to be scammed on Payoneer. You will be dealing with businesses you may have already been working with or know. Those businesses would have registered and provided financial and personal information to Payoneer to verify themselves.
The site does not contain viruses or malware, and your sensitive information is very secure. Furthermore, Payoneer will not provide your private banking information to the other parties or anybody not involved in the transaction.
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Is Payoneer trustworthy and reliable?
Payoneer is a well-known and established company, and they work with many major businesses to assist in providing and accepting payments. They have been operating since 2005 and are very trustworthy and reliable.
Online reviews for Payoneer are highly positive, with an average rating of 4.4/5. The negative reviews for Payoneer are very vague, and they seem like the reviewers need to contact Payoneer customer service to assist with their problem, rather than there being a legitimate concern with Payoneer.
There is no buyer protection with Payoneer because they are simply sending/receiving money on your behalf. While Payoneer is validating all parties that create accounts, you should still ensure and check on the business you are working with if they are unknown to you.
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Payoneer Fees and Costs
Because Payoneer accepts, sends, and converts payments between 150 currencies in over 200 countries, the fee structure can be a bit complex and needs to be reviewed per transaction.
There is an annual fee of $29.95 if you have an open active with no transactions over the year.
To receive payment from another Payoneer account is free.
To withdraw money to your USD, EUR, or GBP bank account is 1.50 in your local currency. Otherwise, this should be free.
To withdraw money in a different currency, there is an up to 2% fee above the market rate. You may also be charged additional transfer/transaction fees on top of this.
You can set up an account that accepts bank transfers in specific countries as a local account, this may be free, or there could be fees associated.
You can request payment from your clients and accept credit or debit card transactions, and this is 3% on credit cards and 1% on debit cards.
Marketplaces like Fiverr and Upwork may have their own fees when you transfer money out, so you need to check on those sites to confirm when setting up that payment method.
You can find additional details on their fees here.
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Does Payoneer have good customer service?
Payoneer has excellent customer service, with most reviews indicating the support has been fast and reliable. Payoneer also offers a way to complain about the service or support directly to their customer service management team; details can be found here.
As with any service that deals with 4 million customers, it’s impossible to make everybody happy, and there are negative reviews online for their customer service. However, they’re relatively limited and vague in the issues faced. Some customers complain of slow responses, but my assessment from the reviews is that the overall support is fast.
Does Payoneer have a refund policy or buyer protection?
Payoneer is a payment processer, so there is no actual buyer protection or refund policy. If there are payment disputes, they should be handled with the marketplace or directly with the other business.
Payoneer does offer to review payment disputes, these must be lodged with Payoneer within 30 days of the transaction, and they can take up to 90 days to complete their review. However, there are no guarantees or details on what happens in this scenario.
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How to delete a Payoneer account?
- Sign in to Payoneer and in the top right corner, click on Help.
- Click on Support Center – Home
- Click on My Payoneer Account
- Click Close/Reopen Account
- Click “I wish to close my account.”
- Review the warnings and suggestions, then click on “Contact Us”
- Fill out the form and click Submit.
The pros and cons of Payoneer
Pros
- Easy to open and can deal with multiple currencies
- Free Mastercard is available to withdraw funds instead of depositing them into a bank account.
Cons:
- Account verification can be time-consuming to set up and slow to be verified.
- Complex fee structure with high exchange rates.
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Payoneer Careers
Is Payoneer a good company to work for?
Payoneer is a good company to work for, with interesting work, great culture, and colleagues. The salaries are the biggest complaint and are considered lower than average.
Is it difficult to get a job with Payoneer?
There are no significant obstacles in getting a job at Payoneer, and they have a large number of opportunities open in various parts of the world.
Best Payoneer Alternatives
Payoneer and its alternatives make online payments possible without dealing with multiple banks across multiple countries and currencies. Below is a list of alternatives to use Payoneer doesn’t match your needs:
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Additional FAQs
Is it safe to save money in Payoneer?
It’s perfectly safe to keep your money in Payoneer, and you have access to a physical card if you want to use the money that way. However, there are no major benefits in leaving large sums with Payoneer.
Does Payoneer report my earnings to the IRS?
Payoneer does not report your earnings to the IRS or your local tax authority. Therefore, you are responsible for reporting your earnings and paying taxes appropriately.
Is Payoneer or Paypal safer?
Payoneer and Paypal have similar safety levels, and both are incredibly safe and secure. The only big differences are in the features they offer; however, those are not related to safety.
Are Payoneer and Paypal the same thing?
Payoneer and Paypal are very similar service providers. However, Payoneer focuses on business-to-business transactions and is not an all-in-one payment provider. So you can’t set it up as a payment option on your website for customers buying products, and you won’t use it to send small amounts of money to friends and family.
Can I have 2 Payoneer accounts?
You can only have 1 Payoneer account active at any time. This account can be multiple banks and currencies available to it. You can also request 1 card per currency you have in your account.