So Long, Neteller :(

Last night I finally emptied my Neteller account, with less than 24 hours to go before the deadline. It's kind of sad saying goodbye to Neteller. It was such a great ewallet. It was universally accepted, it had practically no fees for users, and their support was excellent the couple times I had to use it. The only minor complaint I really had about it were their fees for peer-to-peer transfers and for currency exchange when cashing out to my Canadian bank account. These, however, were easy enough work around, by depositing into a poker site to do a free transfer, and by depositing into Party Poker to do an EFT with their better-than-market currency exchange rate (which, BTW, seems to have now changed to just market rate).

To replace Neteller now, I've had to sign up for two ewallets, ePassporte and Moneybookers. In combination, these two make a decent substitute for Neteller, though each come with their own quirks and inconveniences. ePassporte will give me access to the main North American sites where I play: Cake, FTP, AP, Stars, and UB. It can also be used for Bugsy's Club, Dobrosoft (Wingows), GamesGrid, and Poker4Ever (none of which I play). Moneybookers can also be used for Cake, AP, and UB, but will also give me access to Mansion, Party, iPoker, Microgaming, Ladbrokes, Ongame (except Hollywood), and WPEX, sites where I might play occasionally. It also works for b2b, Boss (some), Dobrosoft (Wingows), Everest, and Poker4Ever (none of which I play). The only sites where I might play, which currently aren't available through ePassporte or Moneybookers, are Cryptologic, Paradise, Pacific, and Poker.com. If I really want to play at these sites, I will have to deposit via credit card (I've applied for a TD Canada Trust US Dollar VISA) and withdraw via cheque.

Setting up the ePassporte account was pretty simple. You just have to create an account online, and then register a credit card. In order to verify your credit card, ePassporte will then authorize a pending charge on your card for a random amount between US$0.01 and US$2.00. I used my CIBC VISA card without any problems. I just called their customer service line, and asked what the value of the pending transaction was. At the same time, I verified with them that any charges that ePassporte puts through will be processed as a sale, and not as a cash advance. After finding out the value of the transaction (which will be given to you in CDN$ unless you use a US$ card), you then plug that value into the credit card verification page on ePassporte's site, tell them what currency it's in, and it will automatically convert it and verify it for you. To activate your account, though, you still need to load it with some money from your credit card. Loading is expensive, with a fee $5 per $100 or portion thereof, so I basically just loaded the minimum $100. After that, I was able to fund my ePassporte account by doing a withdrawal from Cake Poker.

Setting up my Moneybookers account was even easier. I simply opened up an account on their website, and was good-to-go. I was then able to fund my account by just doing a withdrawal from Cake Poker. However, to make your account more useable, you still need to do three verification steps. When you first set up your account, Moneybookers will place a ~$1300 limit on outgoing transactions over a 90 day period. Each verification step will increase this limit substantially, up to a maximum of ~$19,000. For address verification, they will send you a code by snail mail, which you then enter into their site. For credit card verification, you need to register a credit card, and they will debit a random amount between $1.01 and $2.99, which you then verify. For bank account verification, you need to wire transfer any amount from a bank account in your name to a Frankfurt bank where your Moneybookers account is held. I've initiated my address and credit card verifications, but haven't entered the codes in, yet, and my limit has already increased to over $5000.

For both ewallets, depositing to and withdrawing from poker sites will be free. The only catch here is with ePassporte, which has a limit of $500 per transaction, so you will need to move money in chunks of $500. This can potentially be a problem if you are trying to maximize a deposit bonus, or if you have a large bankroll to move around. The limit can be increased to $1000 if you upgrade your account to Select by verifying another load option. Unfortunately, the only load options available are credit card and US bank account. I'm currently trying to find out if I can verify a second credit card to qualify for upgrading to the Select account.

Fees will come into play if you want to cash out some of your bankroll from the ewallet. For ePassporte, you can only cash out by wire transfer ($50 fee) or ATM ($2 fee, but requires the ePassporte VISA card with annual fee of $35, and is subject to daily limit of $300, or $600 for Select). For Moneybookers, you can only cash out by mailed cheque ($4.68 fee) or wire transfer ($2.41 fee, but your bank will likely also charge a fee to receive it). So basically, when I plan to cash out, I will probably just request a cheque from a poker site, or maybe deposit into Party, do a little cover play, and then cash out via EFT.

One issue I was concerned about was trying to move money between ePassporte and Moneybookers. The problem with most poker sites is that they will only let you withdraw money back into your original method of deposit, up to the amount of the original deposit. You can only choose another withdrawal method for any money above the amount of the original deposit. This is apparently done for security reasons -- if someone hacked into your poker account, they won't be able to simply withdraw your money into their own ewallet account. However, Cake Poker, my primary poker site, handles withdrawals a little differently, by allowing you to select which method of withdrawal you want. Thus, I was able to deposit the majority of my bankroll into Cake via Neteller, and then I was able to withdraw some of it into both my ePassporte account and my Moneybookers account. This is very convenient, and in this particular case is worth the slight compromise in security.

Anyway, I hope this helps anyone who is trying to figure out the best way to handle the loss of Neteller. Coming up in my next post will be something a little different -- a review of my main poker site, Cake Poker.