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sites. Players can also cash
out from most gambling sites
to their NETeller account.
It was not uncommon for most
online gamblers to hold a
large percentage of their
bankroll inside of NETeller.
When the news of the
NETeller arrests first
broke; many players in the
United States panicked and
requested a bank transfer
for their entire NETeller
balance. All USA residents
who requested NETeller cash
outs during through EFT
(electronic funds transfer)
are still waiting for them
to be processed.
On Tuesday January 16th
trading of NETeller shares
were halted.
Around 7PM EST on January 17th
all of NETeller’s merchants
were given less than 1 hours
notice that effective
immediately they would no
longer be allowing USA
residents to transfer funds
to or from merchants. About
an hour after notifying
merchants NETeller posted an
announcement of their new
policy
on their home page.
The initial announcement
informed members they could
continue to make members to
member transfers and
withdrawal funds via their
NETeller ATM card. USA
members were also warned
that EFT withdrawals might
take up to two weeks to be
processed.
Later it was made known
through many news sources
and across gambling related
forums that NETeller’s third
party processors were
refusing to process USA
based transactions. This
basically meant that
NETeller had no way to
transfer the pending
withdrawal requests to
client’s bank accounts.
Many USA residents who
already had a NETeller debit
card were able to get most
of their money out through
this method. Others who had
pending EFTs could not
transfer this portion of
their balance to their cards
because it was listed as a
pending withdrawal. Others
who did not have a debit
card were left with very few
options.
On January 27th
the ability for USA
residents to load their
NETeller debit card was
permanently suspended. A lot
of clients who had a large
balance at NETeller or those
who trusted that their money
remained safe now began to
panic. The NETeller card
only allowed $1,000 to be
loaded per day so many still
had a large balance now
held hostage with NETeller.
The one remaining option for
USA account holders to get
their cash out was member to
member transfer. For a 1.9%
fee members had the ability
to transfer funds to other
members.
It was the talk of most
forums and a huge exchange
market was created. Clients
would transfer their balance
to members out of the USA
who would then get them the
cash through Western Union
or a variety of other
transfer methods.
NETeller began to tell
clients that EFTs would take
6-8 more weeks and with
people having little faith
in this time frame most
began looking for a way to
get their funds at 80 cents
or so on the dollar through
member transfers.
The final NETeller Bad Beat
came today (February 3rd)
when NETeller announced it
was no longer able to allow
USA member to member
transfers to take place.
NETeller states on their
website that this move was
to ensure that members were
not using NETeller to
transfer funds for the
purpose of gambling.
At this point USA members
have no choice to do
anything other than wait and
hope that someday they can
again access their funds
which are now held hostage.
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