Quick NETeller Question

I decided recently to deposit money to play online at PokerStars, and I found that I had no choice but to use a service such as NETeller to transfer funds to and from the poker room. I have heard great things about NETeller so I decided to open up an account and give it a shot.

After I opened my account, I never received a phone call to confirm my account details, and when I tried to log in a few minutes later my account was labled as "Closed" (I assumed it was because they were unable to reach me to verify my account). Today I followed the instructions on the page and called up NETeller to try to verify my account, and I was connected with a support agent who ran through my account details such as Account ID #, Security Question, Date of Birth, and the last 4 digits of my Social Security Number. I answered all of those questions, but was transferred to a second agent who went over the same questions, which I answered a second time. After that, the agent asked me for my full Social Security Number, which threw me off considering I never had to give that information, only the last 4 digits.

I was wondering if anyone here has had the same trouble when opening up their account, and if they have been asked for their full SSN to open up their free account. I know that NETeller is highly recommended and trusted by many, am I just being super-paranoid?

Any input/suggestions/similar experiences would be awesome, thanks.

i have heard a lot of good things about netteller, never heard of anyone getting ripped off. maybe a bit slow someimes, but i to would be leary to give out my whole social security number

Many of us here at CC use Neteller. They are a British bank, quoted on the London Stock Exchange, and as virtuous as your maiden aunt.

I haven`t heard of anyone else having problems, but I do know that there is a big drive on at the moment by the UK government to stamp out identity theft and similar fraud. Maybe if Neteller couldn`t immediately reach you by phone, they may be concerned to be absolutely sure that you are who you say you are.

Most companies that I know of use third party poker company to verify new accounts. From what I hear Neteller is very secure but the third party poker verifier is probably even more secure. You can call Neteller back if you are unsure and see if asking for the full SS# is required by the agents and if not I'm sure you'll get forwarded to the fraud dept.

I've had no issues using my NeTeller acct and I don't ever recall getting a phone call from anyone there to verify anything. But I've had the account a while now and maybe that was back before they did that sort of thing.

I just opened a NetTeller account to start at PokerStars too.

I did it when I wasn't at home, so I missed the verification call, but they emailed me saying they hadn't been able to reach me. I called their number, gave the confirmation info, no SIN (Cdn equivalent of US SS number) and it was fine.

At that point, I hadn't even checked my bank for their test deposit. Later I remembered to confirm that as well.

Unless they had problems with the test deposit, I don't see much different from the way I approached it from the way you did, and it was fine for me.

Never have had any problems with neteller, been using them for 1+ years now. My aunts were an entirely different story. God bless em all.

Based on what you are saying you were still talking directly to Neteller - a third party poker would have asked different types of questions and they would have had to advise you of the transfer. With that said you should be at no risk releasing your ss# in full to them.

I ended up trying the Live Support Chat on the NETeller site and the support agent explained that it is common for them to need the full Social Security Number for people opening accounts who are under the age of 25 and do not have an extensive credit history. Considering I only have a couple of debit cards and have yet to apply for an actual credit card, I guess it makes sense that they are unable to verify my information and open my account.

I guess I'll just have to find another way to deposit money then.

Well, you can alway open an accout at bodog and have it set up to transfer straight from and to your bank account. I personally use this method and also because of paritcular rules that are in most banks. I personally did it with a savings account I opened up at a different bank than my normal checking & savings account. Also it's nice since there are no transaction fees by bodog and probably also none by your bank.

Just be aware that this is specifically what the recent US legislation is aimed at stopping. The new law forbids US financial institutions from sending money to and receiving money from online gambling, betting, poker sites. So once enforced, this option will disappear and a third party poker (like NeTeller or such) will be needed. Or a friend that you can send money to out of country that will transfer funds for you into your online acct.

I've never encountered any problems with neteller like this.

I did the "certified to receive" route with neteller...they deposit some random amount less than $1 in the account you have listed...when the amount is credited to your account, you log in and enter the amount they deposited....never got a call, but my account is listed as "certified" and received an email from them stating such.

But i've heard that neteller may also be in trouble in a couple months with the US Law or that they may voluntarily leave the US Market. Can anyone confirm?

There's no confirmation yet. Last word from Neteller was that they are "reviewing" the legislation... :/ Who knows what that can mean in the long run. We'll have to wait and see...