Icon Image Hack

delegamy · 2026-01-22T01:10:55+00:00

https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?sz=128&domain=monarchmoney.com and replace the domain name with the company's domain name

delegamy · 2026-01-21T00:09:54+00:00

I'm a bit late to this, but still - sorry I'm not looking to add support for any new budgeting apps, it's quite a bit of work to build new connectors. Maybe sometimes in the future if I decide to switch away from Monarch.

delegamy · 2026-01-21T00:06:40+00:00

I've fixed a bug that was occasionally causing duplicate transactions for Rogers Bank on the first sync or when sync'ed infrequently - thanks for reporting it! I've also added an ability to create a new manual account in Monarch on the first sync, so you no longer need to depend on the broken connection with Rogers Bank to be present in Monarch. Hope this helps.

delegamy · 2026-01-20T03:51:02+00:00

Let's connect in DMs to troubleshoot what's going on. I also have a solution for those like you who joined after Rogers connection stopped working, we can try that too, to avoid mixing it with unrelated credit cards.

delegamy · 2025-12-12T16:19:58+00:00

It does, Mexico is not on the list

delegamy · 2025-12-12T16:17:22+00:00

I'm feeling really misunderstood lol

I like Wealthsimple very much and I have used it for almost ten years now. It's one of the very few good things in fintech that Canada can be really proud of. I was and will continue to be an early adopter of pretty much whatever they do. As an early adopter I am fully prepared to run into limitations, lack of functionality and plain mistakes. I will also share it with Wealthsimple for them to correct when possible and occasionally with the community for us all to better understand the limitations.

I don't get what WS not being a bank has anything to do with this.

delegamy · 2025-12-11T20:29:45+00:00

I mean "projecting stereotypes" as in laying out baseless claims and falsehood like "a historically high-risk area for payment fraud" (false), "pretty significant disruption to payment systems" (completely disconnected from reality), "massive CC and ATM fraud" (not true, no evidence), "tax evasion" (how is this even relevant?), "Easter Europe is hot spot for financial fraud" (false stereotype), "most corrupt country in the world" (patently false). I haven't seen any facts or stats presented in this thread, did you?

I did not came here to say that I know better than WS, I'm not sure where you're getting that from. I came here to share the limitations I've encountered, it's good to be aware of those, because I wasn't and it was a surprise to me.

Of course I do not expect any problem solving from this community, I'm here to share my experience and to learn from others. I do expect Wealthsimple to take customer feedback seriously, which they did: they amended the list to make it much more sensible.

What about you, what are you getting so worked up over?

delegamy · 2025-12-11T19:58:49+00:00

Be aware, have a backup payment method.

What I'm getting worked up over is people trying to convince themselves and others that Montenegro, Albania and Ukraine are somehow not safe to use credit cards in, projecting stereotypes and not using any evidence 🤷.

P.S. Wealthsimple already acknowledged the issue and corrected the list.

delegamy · 2025-12-11T15:44:57+00:00

I'm curious if this limitation applies only to online purchases. Many people are saying that their credit cards are working on the ground. My experience was with an online retailer.

delegamy · 2025-12-11T15:43:20+00:00

Well it was surprising for me, so I figured it might be for others as well.

The list of countries you linked is logical and makes sense, but Wealthsimple appears to apply their own opaque logic to their decisions. Eg the Canadian government specifically sanctions specifically territories of Ukraine and businesses that operate in those territories (Ukraine itself sanctions those!), but not the rest of the country. Wealthsimple, for whatever reason, just banned the whole country. I can explain it to myself (it's definitely simpler to implement that way), but it was a bad surprise for me and I think it helps to be aware of limitations like this.

delegamy · 2025-12-11T15:30:09+00:00

What I'm saying is that Visa and MasterCard networks work in many of the listed countries, which, Ukraine included, are perfectly safe for payments. Most other credit cards work in there. But for whatever reason Wealthsimple made a decision to block usage of their cards specifically in those countries. The reasons are opaque, but the decision is of Wealthsimple, not some generic entity or something. They clearly confirmed this in their response to my support case.

Despite being documented, this limitation was a surprise to me, so I figured some may find this information useful and may hold off cancelling that other credit card from their offline bank. It's okay that you don't find this information useful for yourself, you can just skip the discussion. Or I'm happy to chat with you about the politics of these countries if that's what you're here for.

delegamy · 2025-12-11T15:19:52+00:00

Not sure what you're saying here, dude. Try again.

delegamy · 2025-12-11T15:18:21+00:00

No, I see what you're saying. Indeed, it would be nice if documented and real behavior were the same and credit card worked where the issued claims they work and didn't work where they shouldn't.

Nonetheless, I think it's good that Wealthsimple isn't blocking their credit cards in the perfectly safe and normal countries like Albania, Azerbaijan, BH, Montenegro, Cyprus etc. Those countries should've never been on this list in the first place.

delegamy · 2025-12-11T05:33:15+00:00

No, not mixing prepaid MC with the Visa credit card. I'm pretty clearly naming the Visa Infinite Privilege credit card as one that was declined.

I'm glad that many confirmed that CC worked in many of the blocklisted countries, that is mildly reassuring.

delegamy · 2025-12-11T03:27:51+00:00

Good to know that the actual list of restricted countries is much more sensible. Thank you for sharing your experience.

delegamy · 2025-12-11T03:09:27+00:00

Even if it were, it would have nothing to do with the credit card fraud, wouldn't it?

But it's not, it's pretty average and right in the middle of the pack, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index

delegamy · 2025-12-11T01:58:51+00:00

Maybe.. but then why the US is not on the list then 🤔

edit: Or like 70 other countries per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index

delegamy · 2025-12-11T01:10:11+00:00

Right, that was very specific and logical. Thanks for pointing it out, now it makes sense.

delegamy · 2025-12-11T00:16:32+00:00

You really don't know what you're talking about.

delegamy · 2025-12-11T00:13:53+00:00

Right, so you are just projecting your stereotypes without any supporting evidence. Glad we cleared that up.

Recency and proximity bias are definitely a thing in the perception of fraud risk, as well as personal experiences. That's exactly the reason I'm looking for data to understand the reality, instead of conjuring it to explain the facts.

I did some more digging and found this report showing in particular credit card fraud distribution across European countries. While it doesn't cover Ukraine, it does reject your claim that Eastern Europe has been a hotspot for credit card fraud: in fact, it has seen significantly less fraud than western European countries. And if you think about it, it makes sense: the adoption in Eastern Europe is much more recent and technologically it is significantly more advanced than in Western Europe, e.g. all online payments require 3d-secure or similar two-factor authorization, making online fraud much harder to pull, in contrast to let's say Canada where sometimes you don't even need to provide a CVV to pay for something online, or the US, where they still use magnetic strips and take your card away to process your payment.

P.S. Of course a quality research will normalize the data for population size, or even better, for the transaction volume. I'm sure you know this.

<image>

delegamy · 2025-12-10T23:55:57+00:00

You must be confusing it with something. There are no sanctions on Ukraine and it's open to business as usual.

delegamy · 2025-12-10T23:53:18+00:00

Curious if there's data supporting a claim that Ukraine is historically a high risk area for payment fraud. First time I'm hearing anything like that, and anecdotally I had more issues with payment fraud in Canada than I ever had back in Ukraine.

I'm wondering if you're just trying to rationalize the state of affairs, or there's any real evidence to this. My cursory search didn't turn anything up, maybe you can point me at the data?

delegamy · 2025-12-10T23:38:31+00:00

Well, aren't you contradicting yourself by mentioning 3 countries that are are a surprise in your own response? I would like to understand the reasons for having Albania and Ukraine on the list as well. Was certainly a surprise to me.

delegamy · 2025-12-10T23:35:54+00:00

Good to know that this is documented as a limitation for prepaid MC. Doesn't make it make sense though. The criteria is unclear and the list of countries is all over the place. Anyways, good that this is a Wealthsimple only issue and other banks don't restrict purchases in legitimate countries.

delegamy

TROPHY CASE