MY RESPONSE TO LAME EXCUSE FOR SLOW PAYMENT

[footdr]

It has been five working days since I withdrew my money on 12/21(add your 24hrs.12/22 not 12/23 as your email states)

I made withdrawals at 4 casinos following my villento withdrawal. I made echeck deposits at all of them. All of them have already processed my withdrawal ACH. I cashedin on 12/28 at two of these casinos.

I think it is safe to say waiting 7 days for one $50.00 deposit to clear, even though you have already been paid by Citadel, is not consistant with the procedures established by these other casino groups.

The first time I cashed in at Villento, I made two Neteller deposits, totallying $100.00 and cashed in 1300.00. you could have potentially been out 1300.00 if my deposits did not clear. I was paid 3 days after making the withdrawal.

You have no additional risk on my echeck deposit of $50.00 and cashin of $500.00.

So your procedure does not make any sense from a risk standpoint. Even if neteller guarantees you the money deposited, they don't guarantee the entire payout. So you stood to lose more on my first withdrawal than on this one. Regardless of the method I deposit by, the risk is the same, because it all depends on me having the funds in my bank account. The company transmitting the transaction has nothing to do with whether or not I will have the funds to cover the transaction(deposit). Neteller, click2pay, citadel transactions all reach my bank account within 1-2 days(aside from weekends). They are all paid the following day by my bank.

If you have trouble getting paid by Citadel or other procedural issues, maybe you should not contract with them. Obviously there is some reason that you trust Neteller transactions, but not Citadel echeck transactions. That reason has nothing to do with me.

Thank you ,

From: "Villento Support" <help@villentosupport.com>
To:
Subject: RE: Villento Las Vegas - Confirmation of Withdrawal
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2006 11:51:11 +02


I’d like to introduce myself, my name is Gerard and I’m with Guest Relations at Villento Las Vegas.

Thank you for your valued feedback. I’m disheartened to hear of your concerns; however, please give me an opportunity to explain the reasoning for such measures.

Echeck purchases take 7 working days to clear into the casino bank account, notwithstanding that they are deducted from your account at the time of purchase; the casino only secures the purchase after 7 working days. The 7 day clearing period has become a necessity as we’ve had a number of cases where players have been paid in good faith, yet subsequently defaulted on deposits prior to their withdrawal – the casino will no longer bear this detrimental loss. Let me reiterate, while we have this clearing period, I can confidently assure you that your withdrawal will be paid, given that prior deposits have cleared.

I can confirm that your most recent echeck deposit was made on the 21st of December. The current status of this deposit is “Presented” which means that the transaction has been “presented for settlement”. As soon as I receive confirmation that this deposit has cleared, and I review these daily, your withdrawal will be processed.

I trust that this has assisted in understanding our motive for the clearing period.

Warm Regards,

Gerard

Villento Guest Relations.

[Pinababy69]

A seven day turnaround on ECheck deposits is pretty standard in this industry. Well, for most casinos anyway. You may get the odd casino will pay you out prior to the 7 days being up....but generally, no. Nothing odd here, just the casino covering its financial ass.

[aodat2]

Being someone who is in the Internet industry and have experience in accepting e-checks, 7 days hold is totally not very rare and not slow. Usually, it will take about 3 days for the money to clear to the other party's account and if it's an e-check, it will most probably take about 2 more days to hit account. 5 days total to be on the safe side of things so that you do not report foul play or chargeback, 2 days would be a good time to hold.

As for your Neteller thingy, well... it's not entirely a problem for them coz if you acutally did chargeback or do something crazy or if the money did not go through, then the problem would be with Neteller, not with the casino. As far as the casino is concerned, they already have the money once Neteller says OK on day 1 itself.

Hope this information helps a little.

[footdr]

ECHECKS ARE PROCESSED THROUGH CITADEL. ACCORDING TO CITADEL THE TRANSACTIONS ARE GUARANTEED. AT LEAST THAT IS WHAT THEIR WEBSITE SAYS. PER CITADEL SUPPORT MOST CASINOS RECEIVE THE MONEY IMMEDIATELY FROM CITADEL.

ADDITIONALLY, EVEN THOUGH NETELLER GUARANTEES THE DEPOSIT THEY DO NOT GUARANTEE THE ENTIRE PAYOUT.

IN THE EXAMPLES I PRESENTED, THE CASINO WAS CLEARLY AT A HIGHER RISK, MONETARILY, WHEN I WITHDREW $1300.00 AGAINST $100.00 NETELLER DEPOSIT.

MY POINT IS REGARDLESS OF THE METHOD USED TO DEPOSIT THE RISK IS THE SAME WHEN THE CASINO GETS THEIR MONEY UPFRONT FROM THE MIDDLEMAN.

[silcnlayc]

12/21 was a Thursday. That left only Friday (one day) for processing until the 27th of December (which was this Wednedsday) . So that leaves Wed-Fri of this week for processing which now makes it 4 WORKING days as of Fri the 29th when you posted.

Some casinos do not process payments on the weekends. Have you looked at the T&C's from the casino you are trying to withdraw from to see if the do?

This weekend and Monday everyone is off again for the New Year holiday so the actual NEXT working day (the 5th day of your withdrawal) will be on Tuesday. The holidays always make it seem longer and tougher on withdrawals. 5 WORKING days waiting isn't that long when you have 2 holidays back to back.

[footdr]

If you read the casinos email to me. They state there is a 7 day waiting period on echeck deposits. echeck is the same as a Citadel echeck except you bypass going to the Citadel site to enter the details.

They also claim it is due to players defaulting on their deposits when using echeck. My point is that the Risk to them is the same regardless whether I deposit via echeck(which citadel processes), click2pay, or Neteller.

So the point is they trust neteller deposits more than echeck deposits. Which is rediculous since both process the transaction in the same manner. If they dont trust the Citadel procedure than they should not use it. It is unfair to make the player wait for their winnings 5 days longer just because they went through Citadel versus Neteller given both methods pay the merchant before your deposit clears the ACH system.

if I deposit 500.00 in instacash and cash out only $500.00 I have to wait for 7 days to transfer that money to the bank. I don't like those terms given the fact the funds leave my bank usually two days after I make the instacash deposit. Also, per Neteller support. They wait 7 days only because they figure that if they have not been notified that the funds didn't clear within 7 days it must have went through. Per them they are not notified that it has cleared. They are only notified when it doesn't clear. Not a very good way to manage funds transfers in my opinion. In my case, they more than likely receive my funds within 4 business days. Per Citadel, it does not take 7 days under normal circumstances.

[Pinababy69]

Footdr, if you don't want to wait 7 business days...then you'd better find another deposit method, or another casino who won't make you wait seven days....but good luck with that, because it is the industry standard. You may come across the odd casino who will overlook it, but it would be the exception.

And I'm not missing the point...so please don't type all in caps. The point is that 7 days is normal, whether you think it's a lame excuse or not. The point is that it's not just this one casino that's trying to delay paying you....it's their policy, as it is with MOST ONLINE CASINOS.

Edited to add: it doesn't matter what the Citadel website says Footdr, transfers through ECheck take time to move electronically through cyberspace, and actually "hit" the recipients account. And until the money is in their account, you won't get paid. And it's not a lame excuse, it's the way they (and many others) do business. You should have looked into this prior to playing, or to depositing via ECheck. JMO. As Silc said, you've only got a couple more days and your withdrawal will go through. Well, unless the cheque you wrote doesn't, then you won't get paid. I'm not saying that's the case, just stating a scenario.

[BBKPoker]

If you read the casinos email to me. They state there is a 7 day waiting period on echeck deposits. echeck is the same as a Citadel echeck except you bypass going to the Citadel site to enter the details.

They also claim it is due to players defaulting on their deposits when using echeck. My point is that the Risk to them is the same regardless whether I deposit via echeck(which citadel processes), click2pay, or Neteller.

So the point is they trust neteller deposits more than echeck deposits. Which is rediculous since both process the transaction in the same manner. If they dont trust the Citadel procedure than they should not use it. It is unfair to make the player wait for their winnings 5 days longer just because they went through Citadel versus Neteller given both methods pay the merchant before your deposit clears the ACH system.

if I deposit 500.00 in instacash and cash out only $500.00 I have to wait for 7 days to transfer that money to the bank. I don't like those terms given the fact the funds leave my bank usually two days after I make the instacash deposit. Also, per Neteller support. They wait 7 days only because they figure that if they have not been notified that the funds didn't clear within 7 days it must have went through. Per them they are not notified that it has cleared. They are only notified when it doesn't clear. Not a very good way to manage funds transfers in my opinion. In my case, they more than likely receive my funds within 4 business days. Per Citadel, it does not take 7 days under normal circumstances.

I think you are being pretty unreasonable with your expectations. Four business days for a typical DOMESTIC EFT seems a reasonable expectation to me.

International transfers (which you certainly did by sending an EFT to a casino since they are owned and hosted outside of the U.S.) take longer in my experience, and I have a pretty good grasp considering I worked for an online retailer that processed many such transactions. Additionally since the check you sent through Citadel is still a check, and an international check, a casino's bank probably holds access to funds for 3 business days or longer which would easily account for a 7 business day hold in addition to the processing time.

Additionally, holding checks for a few days helps anti-fraud measures such as having your checkbook stolen. I could easily conceive of a situation in which someone might try and run depositing with a check, cashing out with Neteller or a different e-wallet. By holding checks a couple of days, casinos are far more likely to have had a victim of something along those lines cancelled his checks.

Finally, I'll leave you with this andecdote about how long check-cashing services for international transactions can take:

The online retailed I worked for stopped accepting checks for international orders after a check we accepted came back NSF six weeks after we had deposited it and five weeks after the funds had been credited to our account. The bank reversed the amount of the check out, and we also got stuck with $30-$40 fees from the four different banks the check was sent through to be processed.

In terms of not being a good way to manage funds, do you get a notice in the mail everytime a check you write clears? No, that would be tedious and cost the bank a fortune in mailing costs (and even more for businesses). You get a letter when you bounce a check and you get a monthly statement. What makes you think a casino's or any other businesses function any differently than yours?

The bank's timeframe for payouts is certainly within a very reasonable range given any of the above reasons, much less all of them.