Neteller founders arrested

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More about PokerStars' Instant eChecks:

http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/real-money/echecks/

Full Tilt has something similar:

http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/payPopTier.php#hot

I tried to make a deposit at Neteller last night and was denied repeatedly

Hey Nick

I am concerned that the "echeck" method would not be sanctioned by my local bank. Would they not be at risk for the same Nazi tactics?

I think it is wonderful news for Americans that your law enforcement agencies have so much free time. Obviously, they can afford to give great attention to going after retired former managers of overseas organisations which may (possibly) have committed some trivial infraction.

I assume this means that crime has been eradicated in the United States, and there are no real criminals left to chase ?

Nope - still loads of other crimes they could be concentrating on. I guess this one is more fun and fulfilling because it involves control.

armador ed you can still directly tranfer to the sites just take a little longer to clear

Well thats a first

You know...with the new shift in Congress...now may be the time to contact your Congressman/Senator again, and let them know this nonsense should be repealed.

Already there but here we have biggers A-Holes in office than before. I've been watching the House thing on C-Span and there does seem to be a lot more debating on almost every issue than there was before.

Well its sad, we cant even do what we want in the USA,, were not children, we know what were doing,, i did make a deposit yesterday at Bodog from neteller, but it was early in the day,so i could play our Saturday buyin, in fact i registered for it already,, guess it was before all this started, just got to this post this morning and i can feel my heart beating fast, I Dont like Anyone to tell me what i can or cant do, and thats just what the US Government is doing, telling me i cant spend my money how i want, this whole thing just sickens me>>>> buck

This irkes we to no end

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. "

Well I don't know about the rest of you, but playing a game of skill with real money online makes ME HAPPY!!!!

"— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, "


Can you say "revolution"? Good. I knew ya could!

Nothing could be more revolting than enforcing this knee-jerk, JACK-"Abram"-OFF inspired piece of plactation to the "base" piece-o-crap legislation!!!

They WANT you to gamble...just at their "Approved places"...like State Lotteries, Horse Racing, and "legal" casinos (Nevada, New Jersey, Cruise Ships, Native American reservations, etc... ALL which have BEEN EXCLUDED from this peice-o-crap legilation. I believe you're even allowed to play online if you dial-in from a reservation)

Golden Rule: These places are making the gold and lined the pockets of the last congress and got the rules made.

There will be another way to deposit. They are just shutting down the main e-wallet known as neteller. I didn't hear them say they were closing click2pay or Moneybookers..or any other of the many e-wallets out there. There will be a way to get around this absoultley absurd law.

IMO it's a scare tactic... even if the charges don't stick, Neteller will take a stock hit....and so will the others....

New US Jusutice Dept Motto: Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges!

I'm sure everyone must know...but let me repeat one more time. This absurd law was attached to the Port Security Bill at midnight just before Congress went on break to get more right wingers elected.

You think they might not have wanted debate or the american people involved ??

Sure you can...just don't break the laws. lol
I don't know why we're complaining about this, in this thread...but isn't the reason the U.S. passed a law to ban b/c all of the companies were already outside the U.S., making it hard to tax them since other countries would have to pass similar tax laws or something? I don't know...I think I just made something up there to make me feel better. lol There has to be some logical explanation...I would hope.

Neteller just sent me this email........


Thank you for your email. From time to time, NETELLER revises the policies of our products and services. At the end of 2006, NETELLER began reviewing the instaCASH payment option, which resulted in the decision to retire this product from the US, effective January 16, 2007. As such, instaCASH is no longer available to US members.

If you have any further questions, please visit neteller

Please feel free to fund your NETELLER account with any of the other deposit methods listed in your account at under the blue "Deposit" tab.

Thank you for choosing NETELLER.

NETELLER Customer Service

They COULD have just taxed DEPOSITS made IN THE US to online gaming... I think a more telling point is the fact that "certain types" of gaming are EXCLUDED... (don't forget...foreign companies can't give a whole lot of $$$$ to US congress members.....but Native Americans, Horse Racing fans and the states that profit from OTB betting, and Holy-Roller Legislate-My-Morality-Onto-You type sure CAN...AND DO!!!!!!)

Ok, at the risk of insulting anyone I am going to post this. I don't see why this surprises anyone? The US government was not getting a cut of the online poker boom, simple as that. Online sports gambling, also they were not getting a cut. Therefore something must be done. Remember you live in the haven of capitolism where the rich get richer and do everything in thier power to make sure they are the only ones to get richer. The fight against online gambling in the US would end immediately if they could find a way to effectively tax the people playing it.

I could prattle on all day, but I remembered reading something a favorite author of mine wrote on his blog quite awhile ago ont he erosion of freedom in the US. He wrote it after going through an airport so it is more based on the enhanced security thing, but he brings up some points relevant to this topic, especially about the lack of CHOICE people have in thier own lives (The author is George R. R. Martin incidentally):

Sigh.

Can we really have turned into such a nation of compliant sheep? Or maybe it's a question of age. I have a feeling that the people who are most outraged by the TSA and its counterparts around the world are my age or older (I am 57, for a point of reference), because we're the only ones who still remember what it was like to live in a free country.

This erosion of freedom has been going on all my life. It did not happen all at once on a Tuesday, when some fascist government came to power; it happened in dribs and drabs, so gradually that we hardly noticed it, with a law here and a rule there and a little tightening of security over there, and always for our own good, to keep us safe, to protect us.

I am not just talking about air travel either, though airport "security" is perhaps the most egregious and in-you-face example. Our "protectors" have touched almost every facet of modern American life... and I get the feeling there are a lot of people in their twenties and thirties who think that things were always like this.

They weren't.

A few examples.

When I first started selling stories in the early 70s and went to New York City to see my editors, I would walk into the building, check what floor they were on, ride up in an elevator, and tell a receptionist I was there to see Mr. Smith. Now, when I visit my editors, I have to check in with uniformed security guards in the lobby, present a picture ID, clip a badge to my jacket. In some buildings I have to pass through a metal detector, just like in an airport.

When I first started staying at hotels, I would give my name to a desk clerk, who would check my reservation, and then present me with a card to fill out, or a register to sign. No one ever asked to see my identification. No one ever asked to take a credit card imprint. It was understood that you would settle your bill when you checked out, either by credit card, cash, or check. (Yes, I paid by check a lot back then, even in distant cities). You were assumed to be who you said you were... and if you wanted to give a fake name (I didn't, but there were those who did), that was your business too, so long as you paid your bill.

When I was a kid, we always felt free and superior watching World War II movies, where those evil Nazis were forever stopping the heroes and demanding to see "their papers." That would never happen to US, we knew. We were Americans. We did not have to carry "papers." Yet now there's talk of a national ID card, and the driver's license has become almost that by default. A driver's license was intended to prove that you were licensed to operate an automobile, yet now all sorts of people demand to see it for all sorts of things. At the bank, at the grocery store, in the airport, in a thousand other places, you have people refusing to allow you to do your business unless you first show your "papers." We have become the very thing that we once despised.

These are just a few instances. I could cite a hundred more, if I did not have a book to write. Security codes and security guards have become so ubiquitous in this society that we hardly notice them any longer (when I was kid, you only saw guards in banks). More and more jobs and professions require licenses and fees before we are allowed to practice them. Zoning laws and building regulations grow ever more complex and stringent all over the country, so our neighbors and local governments can tell us what we can and cannot do with our own property. And those friendly feds are always there, keeping track of what we read and who we email and listening in on our phone calls. The Bush administration has been the worst offender in this regard, but they are by no means the first.

And it is all to "protect" us.

From who, I wonder?

I don't feel safer than I did when I was twenty. Far from it. I do feel less free. We live in an atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust and fear, and when we dare to raise our voices in protest, there is always some yahoo ready to tell us to shut up and leave these matters to the proper authorities, that it is all to keep us safe. And it seems there will always be a large sheepish majority ready to accept whatever new rule or regulation is being promulgated. "Baaa, baaa, it's to keep us safe, baaa, baaa, it's for our own good, baaa, baaa, it's just a little thing, nothing important, only an inconvenience, why do you want privacy if you don't have something to hide, baaa, baaa, baaa."

These people have forgotten what it was like to be free. Maybe they never knew.

What is "freedom," anyway? We could debate that for hundreds of posts, I'm sure, and maybe we will. The way I see it, however, it has got to mean more than just being able to choose between a Republican and a Democrat every few years. I want all the rights and freedoms guaranteed me in the Bill of Rights, certainly... including the one protecting me against unreasonable searches and seizures that we have abrogated in the name of safety and airport "security." But the Bill of Rights should not be the end of it. The right to privacy may have been invented by the Supreme Court rather than the Founding Fathers, you can argue that as you will, but however it came about, it's a pretty nifty right and I'd like to hang on to it. I want the right to do stupid, hazardous, self-destructive stuff as well; to drink absinthe, smoke pot, smoke tobacco, drive my car without the seatbelt, bungee jump off bridges, watch porn, order my eggs sunny-side up and my hamburgers rare, have unprotected sex, drink unpasteurized milk. I have only done a few of those things, actually (I will leave it to you to figure out which ones), and most I would never consider -- but I SHOULD have the right to do all of them. The choice should be mine, not yours, and not the government's. Giving individuals a CHOICE in how we live is our lives is the essence of freedom, I think.

And shouldn't ordinary law-abiding people have the basic, fundamental right not to be treated like goddamned criminals everywhere they go?

The world is a hazardous place, certainly... but you know, the world has always been a hazardous place (in the cosmic scheme of things, it was not so long ago that we were building walls around our towns and cities), yet in the end, all men must die. The important thing is how we live while we're still here, and I would sooner live free, even if that means more risk. A police state is always safer than a free country, so long as you stay on the right side of those police, but I'd rather not live in one all the same.

Email from Bodog today:

As you may already be aware, we are no longer able to process transactions from US NETeller accounts. We know that you have used this method recently to fund your account and wanted to reassure you that payouts via NETeller can still be requested and will continue to be processed to your NETeller account at this time.

Not for long, I'm guessing....

I guess we all need to open accounts outside of the US. It's quites fristrating to me that we can be told what to do with our money that we earned. There are sooooo many worse things that our lovely Government could be focusing on. How about human trafficking, child abuse and neglect, poverty, domestic violence, murderers, rapists, drugs, etc...........

This needs to change somehow....
Any thoughts??????

In the state of West Virginia its up to 90 days in jail for not carrying a State Issued ID.

OMFG are you serious???????? That is the most foolish thing I have read in ..... actually that is the most foolish thing I have ever read.

Oh yes...there's all kinds of laws like that. A guy a couple of months back went to prison for 'Unwed Co-habitation'. Basically he was living with his girlfriend. Now he probably pissed off the wrong judge or something but still.

I stand corrected, this is now the stupidist thing I have ever read. "Unwed Co-habitation" HOLY @#$& that is insane. I have a question though.... how is it that the man went to jail for Unwed Co-habitation yet his grilfriend did not? No offense to where you live, but what a joke.

I think he had other prior or pending charges. Cant remember the details.

I just tried withdrawing money from Pokerstars to Neteller and it failed to do so. I now have $0 in my Pokerstars account and multiple denied deposit requests (from PS) in my Neteller account. I get an email from Pokerstars saying it was done successfully.

I already had some money sitting in my Neteller account and I withdrew it to my checking, as far as I know it worked. I will know for sure in a few days when I check my balance.

But I am worried about my PS money. I sent an email asking about it.

Just got this from Absolute.
Thanks for playing at Absolute Poker. As you prepare to hit the tables, we’d like to quickly inform you that you NETeller has discontinued offering its services to customers within the United States. As of today, you are no longer able to fund your Absolute Poker account using NETeller.


They did list other e-wallets that are still out there. I am going to try e-check next.

THis whole thing caused the republicans to lose favor with many Amerikans. Yet they persist. Where is the land of the free these days, Sweden?

I have thought that one way around this would be to set up an account in a foreign country, good for some near land based borders. Tiajuana would do it for me. I could go set it up in person. I could xfer (transfer) money from my local bank to that bank then to wherever I wanted. I'd hate to have to drive from L.A. to British Columbia just to exercise my 'FREEDOM " ????

OK, now that I got that off my chest, I have a delemna. I have about $30 at neteller, and need a place where I can open an account. Many sites have $50 minimum. I could add it to my FT account, but think diversifying might be smarter.

Fix me up here group, what site has small minimums for opening accounts?

dj

You can't open any account on any poker room using Neteller. They have cut off access for US players to use their Neteller funds for gambling sites.

Read this from our blog.

Hello all....I am sending the following letter to my senators and other government officials. I would urge everyone who loves poker to do the same. Let's get this thing repealed.

January 18, 2007

Senator Sherrod Brown
United States Senate
WashingtonDC20510


Dear Senator:

This letter is a very serious one about our freedoms being lost in the country I love. This is no longer about Republicans or Democrats. This is about America, the land of the free and about what is happening.

I enjoy wagering on football and even play a little poker as do millions or other Americans. I am sorry Mr. Senator, but I am not a criminal.

What happened recently is frightening and sad story for the American People. In October, 2006, Senator Frist attached the Online Gambling bill to the very important Port Security Bill in the midnight hour of the last session of Congress. This crossed the line of faith and trust of the American people, and is contrary to what our forefathers meant the legislative process to represent.

Certainly there are issues gambling. We all need to take any addiction seriously, and of course, we need to make sure that our children are safe. There are many ways to address both of these concerns that the American people would support.

This week American entrepreneurs were arrested and treated like terrorists. I think you would agree, Mr. Senator, that loyal Americans such as myself, are not terrorists and are prepared to help the government win the war on terrorism in any way possible. Lumping gamblers and poker players in with this group is degrading, insulting and just not right.

It is my understanding that the IRS allows illegal bookmakers (including those outside the United States) to file their tax returns imposing a flat 2% tax on the bookmaker’s handle (business volume) and guarantees that no information will be disclosed to other government agencies. Since the IRS is profiting from so-called illegal activities, will the DA file money laundering charges against the IRS?

When are the politicians going to stand up for freedom and the right of Americans to participate in a harmless hobby that could certainly be described as the pursuit of happiness?

I urge you and other political voices to take a stand and do what is right for the millions of law abiding Americans that chose to gamble online.

Obviously the government is not anti-gambling since they sanction gambling at horse race tracks, bingo halls, state lottery, riverboat and land-based casinos etc. The biggest gamble of all is the New York Stock Exchange.

Please speak up now. What freedom will be taken away next? Please do the right thing to stop the erosion of the very freedoms other proud Americans have fought and died for in the past.

Allow Federal police and judicial officials to spend their time in more productive ways chasing, catching and incarcerating real terrorists with the support and help of us loyal Americans that happen to enjoy playing poker online.

Mr. Senator, hear the voices… please help to repeal this ridiculous law now.

Respectfully,



Thomas R. Baker

Well put. I too will send a slightly modified version of this to my congressmen.