NETELLER: resolved

[thesmiler]

caruso --- A bit of a bad question:
Are you sure that the previous balance was right?!? Perhaps this one was wrong and it wouldn't have added up?

Couldn't it be the problem that somehow the balance was calculated $500 up before and some internal check changed this and triggered it back to the "correct" amount.

This still wouldn't be too great as they should always show you the correct balance...

[caruso]

Lanidar - thanks for the offer. I had you in mind anyway, yesterday - and a mutual friend also pointed you out as having a useful contact. Fortunately, there'll be no need of further intervention.

Smiler - that occured to me also, that my balance could have been being "adjusted" down from an incorrect level when I came to make a withdrawal. This wouldn't be possible. I have a clear idea at all times of where my balance should be. If it were $500 too high, I would know.

After a phone conversation with the Chief Financial Officer - an excellent fellow - this was put to bed swiftly and amicably. He wasn't so much concerned about the money as that a unique error was being reported by a long standing customer who clearly wasn't one of the fraudsters they encounter on a regular basis. They're going to investigate as thoroughly as possible and hopefully find what could have caused the "ghost" reduction in my balance between midday and 9 pm GMT yesterday. Additionally - and importantly from my end - he immediately credited my account with the disputed $500. Client satisfaction is clearly a high priority here.

I'd like to thank the Neteller CFO for his professionalism, efficiency and extreme courtesy in the handling this matter, and Bryan for escalating the matter to the top of the chain so quickly this morning.

Bryan - feel free to mark this "resolved".

Thanks all round!

[Macgyver]

Out of simple and mere curiousity, caruso, are you still going to abdicate using NETeller or have you changed your mind about keeping your money with them?

[lanidar]

CARUSO...
I JUST received this reply from Colin:

John.

We have the CFO involved as well as his top guy who are going through the entire transaction history. If Caruso is a friend, maybe mention how fast this was elevated. Bryan Bailey also emailed Executives in the UK who immediately emailed myself to help sort.

We are all over this. It is too bad he thinks we would intentionally do this.

Cheers John. Have a great weekend.

__________________________________

Colin Francis
VP of Security, Compliance and
Customer Service, North America

Toll Free: 1.888.258.5859 ext. 3600

Fax: 888.678.2128

[spearmaster]

There's no doubt in my mind that Neteller are 100% honest - but they are prone to stupid mistakes, which I guess are inevitable for any fast-growing company depending on automated scripts to do all the work.

Just how old is your account, Caruso? I ask because I have in the past been subjected to bugs which only affected older accounts... and my account dates back to when they were using card readers for security.

Colin, in my experience, reacts pretty quickly... LOL... his title is a bit misleading though so I tend to not copy him until support messes it up. He was Head of Security last I knew... now look at his title!

VP of Security, Compliance and
Customer Service, North America

[caruso]

It's over three years old now, which must make it one of the older ones. I signed up when most people were still using Paypal.

As to whether or not I'll hold my decision to stop using Neteller: not sure. This certainly freaked me out, and although it could never happen again in "unproveable" format, since I would now always take regular screenshots, I couldn't be doing with the hassle and, to some extent, the embarrassment. I might call it quits. Maybe this was a little "nudge" from fate.

[caruso]

The error that occured has been established:

Out of a bunch of $500 debits from my account occuring in early November there was one that apparently failed to register - putting my account $500 to the good. When the error was noted it was not communicated to me, nor was my account "corrected", because somehow it found itself getting sidelined to the wrong people via an email mix up. Nor, for that matter, did I notice the discrepancy myself, which is very odd. However, there were six identical transactions in total that day, so I figure I must have just taken a cursory glance and left it at that.

My balance was left untouched until I made a withdrawal request a few days ago. This triggered the error being corrected and my account debited - the initial withdrawal was refused, and the reason given was "our system did not read your debits and credits correctly, therefore putting your balance off.". I had no idea what this meant at the time, but it now makes sense - a debit was misread, ie. ignored.

One remaining odd aspect is that when the cheque amount was recredited it was NOT for the corrected amount - the balance was only adjusted later that day, creating that "ghost" debit.

Anyway, in the final analysis, I benefitted from an extra $500 - they are quite happy for me to hang on to it since it was an internal Neteller communication glitch that led to it, along with my adherent anxiety and general inconvenience - and Neteller are pleased to have had the opportunity to tighten up a process that had the potential for error. Apparently this has never occured before, a coincidence of 1) an error occuring and 2) the customer being unaware that his balance was off, allowing the error to stay for some days undetected.

So, we're all happy again.