So apparently, to verify with Wex, you cannot reside or be a U.S. citizen. That means anyone who is in the U.S. will not be able to verify, and thus locked out of their accounts? =/
I am in the same situation since I am a US citizen. Wex has blocked my account which, originally was with BTCe. I requested Wex to return the funds in my account since I cannot maintain an account in the future under their new requirements for US citizens.
Wex made arrangements to take over the former BTCe client accounts.
Each client asset account has a corresponding custodial liability that they assumed along with the assets. From a legal standpoint, Wex is acting as a custodian for their clients funds. As such, they have a legal liability to return funds to the client upon request. If Wex refuses to return clients funds, I would deem it to be an act of fraud and theft. Wex is not the legal owner of said funds, and therefore, has no legal right to keep those funds for their own account.
They are using the excuse that the account is blocked if the client is a US citizen. If the account is blocked, then the client cannot access the account and process a withdrawal or any other type of transaction.
The reality is that it is not necessary for the client to actually process the withdrawal. All the client should need to do is make a request for withdrawal to the Wex exchange. The Wex administrators have the ability to access all accounts and process any clients withdrawal request, regardless if they are a US citizen or not. If necessary, Wex can get pre-approval from the appropriate regulators.
I believe there should be coordinated effort to submit complaints to a governmental/regulatory agency.
Does anyone have suggestions what agencies to submit complaints to?
I'm in no way endorsing WEX, and really sorry for what you are coming through, but you have to take some things into consideration.
From legal standpoint WEX is not BTC-e and even though they obtained BTC-e's digital assets (database and cold wallet) they did not took liabilities of BTC-e. Restoring btc associated with previous BTC-e accounts was done out of their good will (i.e. WEX wanted to continue being exchange, so they figured they will pay back to some of their users instead of just leaving with tons of BTC that will be really painful to cash). Basically this means that you are in a limbo - all obligations to store your property (afaik BTCs are considered a property, not funds in US) was taken by BTC-e and FBI siezed their assets (so legally speaking your property now is in FBI posession even though it is in form of encrypted and probably long time emptied cold wallet key). Meanwhile WEX denies (and probably will continue to deny) any responsibility even though they took over after BTC-e's demise.