Measurements of the quantum yields of photoinduced charge escape for trans-stilbene and fumaronitrile solutions in solvents of different polarity reveal unexpectedly large yields upon direct excitation of the groundstate charge-transfer (CT) complex. Our current explanation, which proposes relaxation of at least a portion of the excited, Franck-Condon, CT pairs into remote ion pairs with thermalized initial separations of up to 10-15 Angstrom, is speculative but emphasizes the need for a substantial revision of the usual picture of ionic charge separation and recombination.