I've done this for years via Bitfinex. Occasionally the wires are a couple days late but never any issues.

Were you redeeming at Tether, or were you redeeming at Bitfinex and they were selling the Tether on the open market to someone else and sending you the proceeds?

I think what the OP is saying is that there is not a reliable account of someone going to Tether with 100k USDT and having Tether give them $100k USD.

Isn’t redeeming at Bitfinix not the same as redeeming at Tether? I don’t think what you do is what GP is looking for

Not with tether directly but I think bitfinex lets you convert usdt to usd and withdraw to a bank account (until it doesn't)