ePassporte Closes to Online Poker Sites

CCAdmin · Apr 12, 2008

combuboom said:
um, i was obviously asking nick

I was told by US players that ePassporte was not available to them. It could be *all* players, but I'm sensing if they made the move, it would be a similar move to Neteller and US players.

garhawkeye · Apr 12, 2008

I only have $7 on my epassporte account currently thank goodness. What makes me mad is all the money I spent on their services/products over last 2 months just getting everything set up so that I can withdraw easily to go to the wsop in June and now I am trying to figure out how to get my $ off of Cake so that I can go.

Cake told me they were working on new deposity/withdraw options. Anybody else here anything from Cake?

garhawkeye · Apr 12, 2008

here is a message i received from Cake.

Hello
Thank you for your email. As you may be aware the movement of checks has not always been ideal since the signing of the UIEGA. CakePoker employs a number of processors to help us move checks out to our players. While we have continued to deliver checks to our US resident players, checks in excess of $2500 US$ have been handled by a specific group of processors that has proven to be less effective over time. In an effort to compensate we are introducing a few new processors this week that we expect to bring check processing and delivery times down significantly. With these new processors we are required to formally confirm the identification of the individual before a check can be dispatched. As a result you will be required to provide picture identification in the form of a driverâ€™s license or a passport. Although you may have provided this or similar ID is past we do not keep these documents on file so unfortunately you will have to forward it along again to our support team. Once you have provided this identification you will not be required to provide it again on subsequent check requests.
Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.

Kind Regards,
Sean
CakePoker Support

roundcat · Apr 12, 2008

I just received this email from Full Tilt:

Dear roundcat,

You received this email because you have made a deposit using ePassporte.[FONT=Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]

We have recently been notified by ePassporte that they are no longer able to facilitate deposits or withdrawals between ePassporte and Full Tilt Poker player accounts. We apologize for this inconvenience which is unfortunately outside of our control.[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
As an alternative to ePassporte, we are pleased to offer you Ultra Prepaid.[/FONT]

...

Boo.

AlexeiVronsky · Apr 12, 2008

They could've at least given a bit of warning that they were changing their policy to give people time to move their money around as they wished. Or since I believe they're based out of Curacoa they could've just flipped the US gov't the bird you'd think.

premierplayer · Apr 12, 2008

Can anyone tell me why you would use Epassporte with their lame fees? Echeck is completely safe and so easy with no fees. Zach why not use that?

gtycoon · Apr 12, 2008

You would think that ePassporte would send a notice out to let people know what their changes are. It will be an inconvenience for some but there are many other options so it shouldn't hurt poker much.

Fermion5 · Apr 12, 2008

i have no experience with echecks, but one of the advantages of epass is that its easy to transfer money from site to site. read that echecks are the best option now though.

zachvac · Apr 13, 2008

premierplayer said:
Can anyone tell me why you would use Epassporte with their lame fees? Echeck is completely safe and so easy with no fees. Zach why not use that?

Pretty unique situation, won't have the cash until a week after the bonus and with epassporte I can use a credit card to deposit, echecks requires having the cash in the bank. I'm actually probably going to go into the bank Monday and ask about an option for a line of credit. I have one at my bank at home and although the interest rate is outrageous, the fee for just a few days probably would be less than the $30 charged by epassporte, so that should work out better anyway.

AlexeiVronsky · Apr 13, 2008

I don't have a bank account or credit cards, just the debit card from epassporte as then I can conveniently spend money from poker.

premierplayer · Apr 13, 2008

Ah zach that explains it.. using CC to play poker is bad news tho..

roland cote · Apr 13, 2008

Well, it looks like the whole online poker wrld is concerned about this! I have been trying to get hold of epassporte customer care for over an hour and its been busy the whole time. Gave my little bit. If anyone else wishes to try them their number is 954-426-3566. Nothing is better than the word from the horses mouth!

wickedlovely · Apr 13, 2008

Don't know if this article has been linked here yet or not, I found it at least somewhat informative:

ePassporte Discontinues US Poker Deposit Services

roland cote · Apr 13, 2008

Been trying to get hold of their customer care all morning to get the low down on this. Aparrentey the whole online poker world is trying to do the same thing. If you want to get the word from the horses mouth their phone number at customer care is: 954-426-3566

GabryRox · Apr 13, 2008

Let me tell you, this is a complete crock of $hit! I just deposited $200+ into my ePassporte account on Friday in order to take advantage of PS's BOP 20% bonus. Of course, I had to pay $10 in fees to load from my CC, but I figured I'd still be $30 ahead in the long-run after earning my $40 PS bonus. I actually checked the Cashier page at PS before loading to make sure ePassporte was still an option. Unfortunately, I didn't think that clicking on it to see if it was actually working would be necessary so I didn't. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that if it's listed there with no apparent disclaimer that it is still a viable funding option.

So, assuming that ePass will no longer be able to be used to fund PS accounts, I wonder if PS will credit me the $$$ I lost trying to take advantage of their special? I mean, I'm already out $10 and I'm sure it's going to cost me something to withdraw my money from ePass. While I agree that this situation was caused by ePassporte's change in policy, I beleive that PS should be liable for situations such as mine since they did not proactively warn their customers that ePass would apparently not be an option throughout their BOP reload special period. Guess I better start drafting my e-mail to PS support

MrMuckets · Apr 13, 2008

GabryRox said:
Let me tell you, this is a complete crock of $hit! I just deposited $200+ into my ePassporte account on Friday in order to take advantage of PS's BOP 20% bonus. Of course, I had to pay $10 in fees to load from my CC, but I figured I'd still be $30 ahead in the long-run after earning my $40 PS bonus. I actually checked the Cashier page at PS before loading to make sure ePassporte was still an option. Unfortunately, I didn't think that clicking on it to see if it was actually working would be necessary so I didn't. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that if it's listed there with no apparent disclaimer that it is still a viable funding option.

So, assuming that ePass will no longer be able to be used to fund PS accounts, I wonder if PS will credit me the $$$ I lost trying to take advantage of their special? I mean, I'm already out $10 and I'm sure it's going to cost me something to withdraw my money from ePass. While I agree that this situation was caused by ePassporte's change in policy, I beleive that PS should be liable for situations such as mine since they did not proactively warn their customers that ePass would apparently not be an option throughout their BOP reload special period. Guess I better start drafting my e-mail to PS support

I believe all the poker sites were blind sided in this , they were not at fault.

GabryRox · Apr 13, 2008

Uhhh... I guess that depends on your perspective. I funded my ePass account specifically due to PS's promotion. So, PS had to know that they were going to get a ton of people reloading... including a good many of them using ePass. I'm not sure when exactly ePass become unavailable for funding PS, but I do know that if PS would have either sent a notice to users, or at the very least, take off or make an obvious mark on the funding page warning users about the ePass situation. That's great that they put up the stupid vague message once you actually try to fund, but who's going to click on that unless they actually have money in their ePass account ready to load into PS? No, they may not have had a huge warning, but PS totally mis-managed this thing and I imagine that I am not the only one in this situation. We'll see how friendly they are in working with me on a solution.

icemonkey9 · Apr 13, 2008

I'm beginning to think that there just might be a day where we can't load up on a site since we're seeing method after method slowly die to us USA players. I never used ePassporte but this sucks, it's a bad sign and hopefully the new political regime will get this figured out.

zachvac · Apr 13, 2008

icemonkey9 said:
I'm beginning to think that there just might be a day where we can't load up on a site since we're seeing method after method slowly die to us USA players. I never used ePassporte but this sucks, it's a bad sign and hopefully the new political regime will get this figured out.

Well you can and always have been able to use cashier's checks I think. Or Western Union. They're just both slightly inconvenient.

odinscott · Apr 14, 2008

GabryRox said:
Uhhh... I guess that depends on your perspective. I funded my ePass account specifically due to PS's promotion. So, PS had to know that they were going to get a ton of people reloading... including a good many of them using ePass. I'm not sure when exactly ePass become unavailable for funding PS, but I do know that if PS would have either sent a notice to users, or at the very least, take off or make an obvious mark on the funding page warning users about the ePass situation. That's great that they put up the stupid vague message once you actually try to fund, but who's going to click on that unless they actually have money in their ePass account ready to load into PS? No, they may not have had a huge warning, but PS totally mis-managed this thing and I imagine that I am not the only one in this situation. We'll see how friendly they are in working with me on a solution.

Wasn't that the day that the news broke? Seems to me that you just got unlucky and put it there at the wrong time. Wasn't their fault in any way shape or form...

Ark Traveler · Apr 14, 2008

Check this thread for more information

https://www.cardschat.com/forum/pok...king-news-about-epassporte-110836/#post771732

GabryRox · Apr 15, 2008

Well, I have to give PS some credit. I contacted their payment team and they suggested I use MoneyGram Express payment method. It worked great and cost a $9.95 flat fee. I could have used the cash transfer for free, but that would have limited me to $100 and I wanted to take advantage of the BOP reload bonus. The best part of it... PS agreed to credit my account for the $9.95 fee! I had asked them if they could cover the $15 it cost me to fund my ePass account. They couldn't do that, but taking care of the $9.95 was much appreciated. Their repsonses were also very quick, which is nice since I'm sure they've been inundated with these types of issues this week.

And, maybe as a reward from the poker gods, I had my best day ever yesterday playing Mars-level SnG's! Was $40 up... winning 3 and cashing in 3-4 more. Not enough to retire on to be sure, but pretty decent for my level

bobbyfk · Apr 16, 2008

zachvac said:
Hello Zachary,

I can confirm that ePassporte is not available at this time, however, we
have not received any information that states whether this will be a
permanent measure or not.

I am very sorry that we cannot provide any more details, since I know how
unsettling this can appear.

Please check back with us tomorrow, hopefully some more light will be shed
on this by then. You may want to consider our Instant eCheck option in
the meantime, since I see you have used it in the past.

If there's anything else we can assist you with, just let us know. You
may request telephone assistance for your deposit issues 24/7 at
[email protected]

Best regards,

Robert
PokerStars Deposit Assistance Department

anyone know their number? i used e. check for the first time today, so theres $100 limit in the first 24 hours I always used Epass but i want to deposit $400 or so before the end of tonight so i can get the bonus

OpenTheCan · Apr 17, 2008

yeah, I think that it horrible that this is going on. I have all my winnings since 2006 in my epassporte account. I do have a visa card from them, so I can use it anytime I need to. Now when i withdraw from cake, I have to wait forever for a check to be mailed to me.

ePassporte Closes to Online Poker Sites

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