Moneybookers Snags
I’ll start out by saying that in general Moneybookers has been roughly equivalent to Neteller. Here are two stories:
1) World Poker Exchange – took about 3 weeks, half a dozen emails, and a phone call to support to withdraw since Moneybookers wasn’t my “primary funding method”. Since I initially funded with Neteller, they were being stupid with me. I don’t know of any other sites that this is an issue for, so heads up. OK, that’s the quick one.
2) Here’s the longer story. My cashout method is make $3K, then withdraw $2K (via the direct bank link I set up with Party since I don’t like paying BMO $50 to cash a US cheque for me). When Neteller banished Canadians, I chose to skip a withdrawal while I waited for an equivalent ewallet. When Moneybookers took off a few months ago, everything was going fine. A few weeks ago I hit my second withdrawal target and loaded up funds on Party. I make the withdrawal and get an email telling me to call Party support. Apparently they don’t like it when you deposit via one method and withdraw via another (to prevent money laundering). They let me do it the first time because my withdrawal was approximately equal to my winnings. So I dump the money back out from Party into MB and plan to write a cheque and suck up the exchange fee. However, I am now $1401 away from reaching the 90 day MB “outgoing transaction limit”. If I want to reload for bonuses, I need to wait until I catch up to my deposit in about 3 months to withdraw (unless I increase the limit by making another credit card or bank draft deposit which I don’t want to do because of the fees). Emailed MB on Wednesday to see if they're going to increase my limit since I've already deposited with my credit card.
P.S. I gave Hobbes a MB referral for his ewallet investigations a few months ago. At least he’s getting the referral bonuses for all my transactions.
1) World Poker Exchange – took about 3 weeks, half a dozen emails, and a phone call to support to withdraw since Moneybookers wasn’t my “primary funding method”. Since I initially funded with Neteller, they were being stupid with me. I don’t know of any other sites that this is an issue for, so heads up. OK, that’s the quick one.
2) Here’s the longer story. My cashout method is make $3K, then withdraw $2K (via the direct bank link I set up with Party since I don’t like paying BMO $50 to cash a US cheque for me). When Neteller banished Canadians, I chose to skip a withdrawal while I waited for an equivalent ewallet. When Moneybookers took off a few months ago, everything was going fine. A few weeks ago I hit my second withdrawal target and loaded up funds on Party. I make the withdrawal and get an email telling me to call Party support. Apparently they don’t like it when you deposit via one method and withdraw via another (to prevent money laundering). They let me do it the first time because my withdrawal was approximately equal to my winnings. So I dump the money back out from Party into MB and plan to write a cheque and suck up the exchange fee. However, I am now $1401 away from reaching the 90 day MB “outgoing transaction limit”. If I want to reload for bonuses, I need to wait until I catch up to my deposit in about 3 months to withdraw (unless I increase the limit by making another credit card or bank draft deposit which I don’t want to do because of the fees). Emailed MB on Wednesday to see if they're going to increase my limit since I've already deposited with my credit card.
P.S. I gave Hobbes a MB referral for his ewallet investigations a few months ago. At least he’s getting the referral bonuses for all my transactions.
Comments
WTF? Just open a BMO US$ account. It's free. Why do they charge you $50?
At TD, I don't get charged anything for US$ cheques beyond the normal teller service charge and don't have a US acct either.
When I'm too lazy to go down to my BMO branch, I write myself a US$ cheque and go cash it at the TD round the corner.
0.02*2000 + $5 fee ~= $50
I do have an investorline account at BMO so I should be able to deposit while only paying MB the fees to send me the cheque (US $5 or so). That's the only thing I need a $US account for.
Oh, that. Yeah, the market rate will never jive with what you receive from any bank, so it's not a real rate. It's the exchange equivalent of paying retail only in this case, there are no wholesaler alternatives for amounts of that size.
Looks like you're doing the best thing. If ING had a chequing acct, I'd probably do the same, but as is I can't be bothered opening up yet another account and don't want Party linked to my main account.
They seem most friendly to online gaming, esp their visa cards.
Party won't let me do this unless I deposit straight from my bank account instead of using MB. Hassle.
He has it right Quimby. Currency exchanges aren't free. If you exchange 100 cdn$ in to US$ and immediately change your mind and convert back, you are going to lose 2% on each exchange. Doesn't matter how you get the money converted into Cdn$, you are going to pay about 2% on the exchange. Doesn't matter if you do it through the poker site, moneybookers or any bank. It is at least 2%. All credit cards do as well when you buy something in US$. If you read the fine print they all make an additional 2-3.5% on the exchange.
The only way you can do better than 2% is on a large transaction, through some banks and large currency traders on exchanges of $10k+.
Keep your money in US$ or if you need the money in cdn$, live with it.