$35 check fee @ Cake Poker?!?!!???

WOW!! I made a check withdrawal from Cake back in November and it took nearly 3 (three!) months for it to process, but at least it didn't cost me anything other than lots of nerves and time. Can't get any worse than that, right? WRONG! Today I went to request another check, only to find out that they now charge a $35 fee, which is equivalent to a 7% charge on a $500 check -- what a rip-off!

The only other option for US players is ePassporte, and the fees there are quite ridiculous, as well . . . I am extremely unhappy and would highly advise anyone considering a deposit at Cake to let their customer service know that you will not make a deposit there unless they get rid of that check fee and/or add other options that are less expensive or FREE, as they should be (and are, at most reputable sites).

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

solution: don't play at sites with stupid names

sounds like a Rip-Off to me,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, buck

rip off

Define "stupid", please, so I know not to play there next time, ok?!

they need the 35 bucks so they can send,Mmmmm is it Ian or JD a cake,, i always forget who our cake man is,lol,,,,, buck

Cake Poker is a rip off. Nothing but bad beat after bad beat.

i have account there yes 35 dollars rip off

i make 1000's dollars and i still say it rip off
they ship it 2 days and got it in mail within 5 days

Solution! (This is Brilliant!)

Contact these sites and offer to deposit for an equivalent 'check processing fee'. Don't let them sway you with that bonus deposit BS, we never clear those anyway. Upfront, in cash.

No site should ever charge more than a few dollars to cover posting and the cost of the check. $35 is crazy.

what a rip off

I find that far more worrying than the Bodog US check problems, and I play at both sites... don't think I'll be taking up any more Cake reload bonus offers at any point in the near future... even though I wouldn't withdraw by check, and the charge presumably wouldn't apply to Moneybookers withdrawals...

I like that . . . "Hi Cake, I'd like to make a $500 deposit, please, so I'll be sending you $465 tomorrow and I'm keeping $35 for a deposit processing fee. Thanks!"

As far as the deposit bonuses go, I actually did clear all of my $500 initial bonus at Cake (and I'm up quite a bit overall on the site), so I guess I'm not completely unhappy about playing there; however, the software is just not as good as most others, and I have bonuses to clear on other sites, so I don't see a reason to keep a lot of money in my Cake account anymore.

Btw, yes, Cake will process withdrawals to ePassporte, Moneybookers, and Netteller for free, but the latter two are not an option for US players, and the fees at ePassporte are almost as criminal as Cake's. . . .

use epassporte it lot better now i depoist visa and cash out with epassporte yes good thing to do

the max I've paid at another site is $8
and I found that to be too much

$35 is not right! not right!

Don't Cake and SportsBet poker both run on the same network?

Anyway, SportsBet has a $40 check fee, but under further investigation into their withdrawl terms and conditions I found that the first check in any month is free and additional checks in that month are $40. Haven't looked at Cake, but that might be worth checking into. And it was not on the page that said make a withdrawl, it was once you started the process but before you entered and amt or confirmed.

Is that $35 based on the percentage of your $500 withdrawal or is it just a standard $35 fee?
So if you withdraw $100 by check it's still $35, that can't be right :\

$35 on $100 is steep

i'm wondering if it's that high because they send it via courier??

with some sportbooks they charge that because they send it FedEx or one of the other courier service providers

but $35 is too steep on a $100...no doubt about that

Hmm . . . a little punctuation and spell check wouldn't hurt, buddy. I agree that ePassporte looks good compared to a $35 per check fee, but in any other context, ePassporte's fees are extremely high, as well, so I don't see it as a reasonable alternative.

Actually, the minimum amount you can withdraw from Cake by check is $500, and the $35 is a flat fee, so if you withdraw a larger amount the fee percentage goes down, but it's still ridiculous. There are other sites (like Bodog, for example) that have lower check minimums and charge a similar flat fee, but the fee is waived for the first check each month, which is perfectly reasonable, imo. I'll contact Cake to complain and suggest they do something like that instead of imposing their fee on every check; if enough other players do the same thing, they'll hopefully change their new policy. . . .

I just double checked this to make sure I was thinking correctly. You only get charged a check fee on Cake Poker if you make more than one withdrawal a month. The check fee shows up no matter what. I have not made a withdrawal this month and the check fee: $40 still shows up on my Sportsbook account.

I also remember when I made my first withdrawal the check fee showed up. I almost did not make my withdrawal because of this. I then talked to some people who had made withdrawals there and said that it just shows up and your first withdrawal each month is free.

Thank you for checking and confirming this. I was really wondering if it would be the same. I wonder if this is possibly something contractual regarding the skins they use over the same underlying network.

I dep/withdrew from cake earlier in the month.It was $5 to dep using epassporte and $3 to withdraw into my bank acc.so it was 8 bux all together when i was done.It took about a week.Since the USA dep/withdraw crap,thats the price ya pay,but $35bux to get a check is seriously crazy.Everyone playing at cake needs to tell them !support@cakepoker.com

For those complaining about the ePassporte fees, what don't you like about it? I paid them the $35 or whatever annual fee to have a physical card. I go to my ATM and pull out whatever I like up to my ePassporte for a whopping $2 per transaction. Don't mess with pulling money back to your checking account when the card is available.

Well, call me crazy, but I think paying $2 every time you go to the ATM is absolutely stupid, not to mention $35/yr for the "privilege" of having a debit card. Those are all things that are available for free from your local bank, which is exactly where I keep my poker bankroll; besides, I don't want to risk going through another Neteller-like fiasko where I had several hundred dollars tied up for almost a year, not really knowing if I was ever going to see them again. . . .

Sure, $8 is much better than $35, but I still don't think I should have to pay that much just to move a little money from one account to the next.

ePassporte's fees are high even compared to "full-service" brick & mortar banks, and they are astronomical compared to "online-only" banks -- not to mention that you don't receive any interest on your balances. For the record, here's a link to all the fees for a personal account, on ePassporte's website: https://www.epassporte.com/secure/js...s.jsp#Personal

Even though you seem to be contradicting yourself a bit there, I was hoping you were right and they actually would not charge the fee on the first withdrawal. To make sure, today I wrote to Cake support myself, specifically inquiring about when/if/whether this fee would apply to a first, second, etc. check, and here's what they said:

Hello Andy

Thank you for your email. Due to higher processing fees associated with the issuing of checks, we have found it necessary to charge a $35 processing fee to cover these costs. This fee is only high enough to cover the costs of issuing these checks. This fee applies to all checks requested.

Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.

Kind Regards,
Lance
CakePoker Support

I think that clears up any possible confusion, and apparently each skin is able to set it's own policies regarding this sort of stuff. In any case, I am definitely not done bitching at Cake yet. . . .

It's been a while of course, but I think even Neteller charged for an ATM transaction, and I also got dinged by my bank for a couple bucks each time I used their card. For some reason, the ATMs I've hit (a couple different banks at least) have not charged a fee on my ePassporte withdrawals, possible due to them being based overseas I think the speculation I once read.

As for the $35 charge, I would rather pay a once-a-year fee to get my money ASAP than the per-check fee that Cake and some other sites pay for checks that I may get in a week if I'm lucky (and hopefully can cash without issues, see recent Bodog problems). To each his own I suppose.

All depends on how you look at it, I guess . . . I just look at what sites like ePassporte really do, and it's all stuff that you can get for free from a regular bank (online or local). Believe me, paper checks aren't my first choice either , but I will put up with them rather than paying all sorts of fees. But when sites start charging fees for the paper checks, that really ticks me off. . . . (Btw, why can't everyone just do eChecks, like PokerStars? It's easiest, quickest, and cheapest for everyone involved. . . .)