ePassporte...

Talking Poker · #1 08-02-07, 02:24 PM

Post-post Edit: This started as a simple question, which I was able to answer myself, and then turned into an informative post and then led to another couple of questions. So bear with me, but I think this could be a useful thread...

Fortunately, I haven't had to deposit money on any poker sites for a very long time. Back in the Neteller days, it was easy - I'd use that to quickly transfer money from one site to another when I needed to. Things have changed now though, and I'm wondering what most people use to deposit. I just opened a account and need to fund it.

Frankly, I haven't paid close attention to any of the depositing options threads, since they didn't concern me until now. I did a little research, and it seems like ePassporte is a good (the best?) option for U.S. citizens, anyway. I set up my account yesterday or maybe the day before, and just verified my bank account today. So far - quick and painless.

So now it's time to load it, and I see that there is an annoying $5 fee associated with a bank account transfer. This seems to be the case whether you are depositing $50, $500, or $5000, so I figured I should deposit a bunch of money all at once, rather than making multiple small deposits. But before I do, I want to make sure I'm not going to screw myself with hidden fees (like for withdrawing) that I'm not seeing right now.

Also, if I deposit today, it says the money won't be available for me to use until TWO Mondays from now, which is uberlame. And like I said, I'm not sure of all of their fees. I see the $5 load fee, but what about withdrawing? Or using the virtual visa (depositing at a poker site)? Are there charges for that?

It looks like for $35, they will send you a physical Visa debit card that you can use for B&M purchases or even withdraw funds at any ATM. That's pretty cool, but again, I wonder what kinds of fees we are talking about...

OK, just found some good info (I had to log off of their site to find this stuff - strange).

Load fees:

That's actually reasonable if you do it from your bank. This is annoying though, so I'll need to get this fixed:

P2P transfers are only 25 cents each, up to 5 per day. Receiving money is free of charge.

Ah, here is what I've been looking for, finally:

Again, I think those are very reasonable numbers.

So, all in all, I think epassporte looks like a very good option for those of us looking for a Neteller alternative. If that's true though, I can't help but wonder why people are always looking for money transfers and talking about prepaid gift cards and all that jazz. Am I missing something? Is there a good reason to deposit with some other method besides ePassporte?

Most importantly - for those of you who have been using ePassporte for a while, what are your experiences like? Would you recommend it?

Talking Poker · #2 08-02-07, 02:36 PM

Yikes.

I just called their customer service to have my deposit maximum increased. The girl I talked to told me that the limit (when loading from a bank account) is $300 per day. After 4 MONTHS, you can pay them $5 to increase that to $600 for you.

And remember, you get hit with a fee for every load - $5 for the first one, and $2 for each additional one.

That's pretty lame. I mean, say I wanted to put $3000 into my account.... that would take me TEN DAYS (plus 10 more business days) to do, and would cost $23. The $23 isn't that bad, but the month long wait sure sucks.

Now I'm really mad at myself for forgetting to verify my bank account when I first opened an ePassporte account back in February. After 90 days, it went inactive, and I had to start all over again.

Lame.

Kurn · #3 08-02-07, 03:15 PM

One of the problems is when you're the only game in town you don't have to worry about competition so you can make rules that suit you.

I've got the Virtual Visa, which I've used once (to pay my cable/internet/phone bill) and the debit card, which I have not used yet.

Reel Deal · #4 08-02-07, 03:37 PM

I've had zero problems, I loaded it once for a small amount (~$100), paid the $5 load and now only use it to move $ around from one poker site to another. I can move the $ around fairly quickly (not quite as quick as Neteller) and there have been no additional fees.

Talking Poker · #5 08-02-07, 04:17 PM

See, that's nice. I wonder if once I get SOME money on there, if I can then use THAT money to deposit small amounts to my regular poker sites, and then that will allow me to withdraw larger amounts from those sites back to ePassporte.

If that's the case, that's even better, and will be cheaper for me in the end.

Reel Deal · #6 08-02-07, 04:59 PM

The answer is yes.

Ando05 · #7 08-02-07, 05:58 PM

I've been using epassporte for 4-5 months now and its awesome I think the only bad thing is the wait, you have to wait 7 or 9 business days for your money to be ready, and the 2$ charge for additional deposits after the first one I don't think its a big deal. Overall I have not had any problems w/ epassporte and to this day I use it. If you have questions about it just ask most likely I can help you since I've been using it for a while

bdawg31 · #8 08-05-07, 12:45 AM

so, in reading this:

Quote:

Loading from a Checking Account: US$5.00 per US$100.00 load or portion thereof for the initial load., then US$2.00 per reload regardless of amount reloaded.

If I am reading this right, it is saying that for the first load, it is going to cost you $5/$100 and then $2/load after that. So, if my first load was $400 - it would cost me $20. Then any load after that would cost me $2. But, i could load $100 the first time for $5 and then load my second load of $300 - thus costing me a total of $7, right?

I know this seems like a pain in the arse to save $13, especially given the waits for the money to be available, but the reason i ask is that i am not ready to dive full-blast back into online poker right now. But, i could deposit an initial $100 into epassporte to get the ball rolling and get it all set up. Then, if/when i am ready to get back into it more seriously - then i could deposit the next $300 or whatever.

Is my understanding of the deposits and fees correct?

Talking Poker · #9 08-05-07, 02:34 AM

I think that's actually a typo on their site - I noticed it too. When I deposited the maximum ($300) from my bank, it cost me $5. All future loads should only cost $2. They hit you with the "per $100" thing for credit cards, but for bank deposits, it seems to be one set fee, regardless of deposit amount.

Maybe I should have posted this in this thread instead of the other one, but you can read my ePassporte plan of action here:

I'd definitely recommend you start going through the motions and get everything all set up now, because it's going to take a good two weeks from time time you start until you have money online, ready to be deposited to a poker site.

Talking Poker · #10 08-16-07, 05:57 PM

Here is an update on this, for anyone interested:

Create ePassporte account - Done (Instant).
Verify Bank Account - Done (~2 days).
Deposit $300 to ePAssporte from bank - Done, finally (this took 10 business days, I believe).
Deposit $100 from ePassporte to Full Tilt - Done (Instant).
Withdraw $1000 from Full Tilt to ePassporte - Done (~2 days).

That's where I'm at now, right about exactly two weeks after I started this whole process. I also threw $100 at Stars along the way, so I can withdraw from there to ePassporte as well now.

My current EP balance is $1095. If you've followed the math (300-100-100+1000-fees), you'll see that that means I was hit with a $5 deposit on that initial $300 load, and that's it. Everything else has been free.

, here I come!