1. No doubt, Rock, the situation itself is completely different -- one dealing with fraud and the other a result of U.S. anti-gaming legislation.

What I'm trying to say is the same, though -- and maybe I've done a poor job in my post of getting this across -- is the way that Neteller claims everyone is going to get their money back eventually, just like Dutch Boyd repeatedly claimed the cashouts were on their way on Pokerspot. When I read those early Pokerspot emails from Boyd, I have my doubts as to how believable most of his claims of returning the funds were. As I read Neteller's statements here, I have the same exact feeling.

Posted at 3:19PM on Jan 28th 2007 by Hoyazo aka The Hammer Player

2. There is another difference.Neteller is a corporation regulated in the Isle of Man [corporations there are very tightly regulated].It has been building up a huge cashpile since it started - and that is not including customers' funds,which are held in trust.They tried to get US customers to withdraw their money using the Neteller card while it did work.They are no doubt snowed under with requests for withdrawals from US customers,but they are working as hard as they can to pay those customers their money.
They haven't lied,not once.They have acted honourably throughout this mess.

Posted at 5:41PM on Jan 28th 2007 by Daniel Victor

3. Daniel, your comment is shocking to me. I can only assume you have some kind of purpose other than The Truth to be saying these things.

Let me ask you one thing -- if Neteller truly has customers' funds in segregated trust accounts, then why would it not be allowing everyone to withdraw their funds from these segregated trust accounts at each customer's own leisure and discretion?

Think about that one a bit before simply responding with how honorable and wonderful Neteller has been. Your company is flat refusing to return the money of thousands upon thousands of American customers to them. Anyone who trusts Neteller at this point is a damn fool.

Posted at 6:39PM on Jan 28th 2007 by Hoyazo aka The Hammer Player

4. They haven't flat refused.They are still allowing check withdrawals and EFT withdrawals.They have been totally honest about how long they expect these to take - which is what has so many people angry with them.
If the Police had been happy to simply wait until the law recently passed by Congress had come into force,none of this would have happenned.Instead they decided to arrest Netellers founders and panicked everyone.They are to blame for this mess,not Neteller.

Posted at 8:31PM on Jan 28th 2007 by Daniel Victor

5. Oops,I was wrong,they can't pay by EFT or check either for now.It really is all down to the US authorities,not Neteller - see the kick-ass poker blog.Then complain to your Congressman - your freedoms to gamble online are being restricted - by Congress,not Neteller ! And Congress won't let Neteller pay you the money in your acoounts.Yes,this really is true !

Posted at 8:57PM on Jan 28th 2007 by Daniel Victor

6. IF Neteller really has our money in a trust account, there is no reason they cannot pay us. The banking bill rules aren't even set yet so the US government cannot be responsible for Neteller not paying. How many millions are us Poker players going to lose? Will we be able to trust any other transfer system?? I hope someone will bring a class action suit against Neteller if they don't pay.

Posted at 9:31PM on Jan 28th 2007 by Vincent Sodaro

7. "Congress won't let Neteller pay us the money in our accounts"?

Huh?

Your true employer is showing, Daniel. Now stop spreading silliness and admit there is clearly a problem.

Posted at 10:26PM on Jan 28th 2007 by Hoyazo aka The Hammer Player

8. I wouldn't panic just yet. Neteller has said the customer funds are held in a trust account. They did NOT say it was a CASH account. It would be rather silly of them to simply dump those $billions in a bank account at simple savings/checking account interest rates. I would not be at all surprised if a good deal of the money they have on deposit is in some kind of investment that will take time to turn into cash.

They've been in business long enough to have a pretty good idea what their daily cash requirements are. Anything beyond that could be put into higher interest bearing investments. At least they had a good idea of daily cash requirements before they decided to pull out of their single largest market.

I'm sure the board of directors hit the panic button and decided to pull out now (as if that was going to stop the DoJ from arresting them during their next change of planes in Dallas), without giving a whole lot of thought to how they were going to process a few million withdrawal requests inside a week. Hopefully Neteller will turn their investments into cash and start mailing out those checks pretty soon.

I agree that the signs so far are not encouraging. I'm definitely wishing I'd submitted my request the day I read about the arrests like I originally thought of doing rather than delaying until they decided to pull out. But I'm not quite ready to talk about the sky falling.

Posted at 1:28AM on Jan 29th 2007 by Patch

9. The situation is completely different.

When the banking bill passed Neteller immediately warned US customers that they may have to exist the US market. I took that warning seriously.

The latest problems are entirely the result of pressure from the Neteller board who are reacting to the legislation as well as the arrest of two of their major shareholders/co-founders. I cannot fault them for a situation that came down on their hands due to the unconstitutional acts of Republican party legislators.

Posted at 5:51AM on Jan 29th 2007 by Rock Howard

10. I am a Neteller shareholder.I am not being paid by Neteller.They cannot currently get money in US residents' customers' accounts to those customers while they are in the USA.The methods which they were using to send those customers their money are no longer available to Neteller.This is effectively as a result of actions by Congress,and those methods are available to Neteller outside of the USA.I have asked Neteller to make things clearer on their website.
This is bad for Neteller's reputation.They cannot spend the money,and they would get it to their US customers if they could.Congress do not respect your freedoms,and they want to prevent you from betting on the Superbowl!

Posted at 7:23AM on Jan 29th 2007 by Daniel Victor

11. Super Bowl, yea. $1K on Da Bears FTW.

How many poker players there are in the US? Millions?

$5 from each (and SUBSTANTIALLY more from the pros), and you could buy a very nice Super Bowl ad spot. Obviously it's too late for this year, but you can bet your criminal (remember, all online poker players are criminals in the eyes of the US legislators) ass this thing is not going anywhere in a year. Come to think of it, a WSJ/Washington Post/New York Times ad would do just as well.

The ad would basically borrow the idea from Mozilla Foundation, who ran a community funded ad in New York Times.

Posted at 9:08AM on Jan 29th 2007 by tpp

12. Can U.S. Neteller account holders transfer to a Canadian friend's Neteller account? Then that Canadian friend can mail them a check?

Posted at 10:26AM on Jan 29th 2007 by FishyMcDonk

13. I kept looking for the funds so I could buy the Wii I wanted... and failed to check out the "pending" note on my withdrawl.

I wonder if it was a good thing I X-fer'd most of my Neteller cash to Stars and FT right before they shut down the pipeline.

Posted at 10:26PM on Jan 30th 2007 by Drizztdj

14. Mansion Poker has decided to kick out USA Players too and put a lock on all USA Player Accounts I will only play on Full-Tilt,PokerStars and AbsolutePoker.

Posted at 1:07PM on Jan 31st 2007 by Wendy

15. This may be of use to you if you have an e-gold account. There are some auctions of e-gold up on ebay that accept Neteller as payment.

Posted at 7:49AM on Feb 4th 2007 by Goldfish

16. I think we are screwed. Neteller confirms that US authorities have seized "no more than $55 million" of their funds or so. You can not make peer to peer transfers anymore if you are a US member. So don't blame it on the US (other than taking their/our money) for them not being able to get us our money. They don't have or are unwilling to give it to us.

Posted at 9:26PM on Feb 12th 2007 by Jeff76

17. I have tried to call Neteller they don't answer phones then I Emailed because my account balance reads zero and I never received the EFT in my bank account and again no reply its been 5 days since I Emailed This is looking more and more like bad news, we need to do Something?

Posted at 5:35PM on Feb 22nd 2007 by rick

18. Neteller on the way out... I think so..

For the second time in 3 months I have no access to my money.

This bit about it being "my money" Neteller dont really seem to get.

So, after the obligatory half hour hold, and some dippy call centre drone not being able to help at all I speak to a
supervisor.Who was equally useless, but at leat he did have the cajones to inform me that they consider a 30 minute phone hold
acceptable, and that thier technical support department had now managed to get its email
response turn around speed up to a week


wooohoooooo !

Gratz !

So, they have my money. I can't get to it. They're not gonna do anything
about that for at least a week.. If I'm lucky.


If this company aren't
bankrupt now, it surely can't be long.

Get your money out quick !

Posted at 10:07AM on Mar 6th 2007 by om

19. oh, I forgot the really funny part ::

I'm not US related at all !

Posted at 10:10AM on Mar 6th 2007 by om