Problem with Neteller

[DemonUK]

Other than the problem I had, which was security related, and I was happy to accept, I have had no problems whatsoever. I opened my account online and then waited for the phone call to confirm everything, no documents either as far as I can remember. Lots of my money has passed in and out of the account and not a problem.

[lots0]

I owe Neteller a debt of THANKS... Even if the lesson they taught me cost me several thousand $$$.

It was Neteller that taught me that using any web wallet was not a very smart thing to do.

You know, I transfered hundreds of thousands of dollars with Neteller with very few problems, before I got lied to and ripped off by them...

Not only did Neteller rip me off but they gave my(and every American that did business with them) personal and financial information to several US government agencies, like the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security and the IRS. Neteller did this even thought they are not a US company and no warrant or court order was ever issued by any US Court for that information.

So you can lay odds that, your money, your personal and financial info are about as safe with Neteller as the same money and information would be with a $20 crack whore.

[swestland]

Got a bit of the same problem here! Neteller locked down my VIP account with a balance of around 5.000 euro. I called them and they told me to send in documents, ok fair enough so I did. After that no reply, asking them by email why this is taking so long. No reply, called them again and they told me AGAIN to send in docs.
I did and now its again 2 weeks later with no reply or update. When I read this topic it doesn't give me a good feeling at all! If neteller is not giving my balance back I think I will try this issue with a lawyer because it is a EU company, isnt it?

[vinylweatherman]

I get the impression they are reviewing accounts. This means they want up to date documentation, but it seems their notoriously poor CS is the cause of the problems. If documents received were properly dealt with, most of these problems would not arise. It seems that these customers are getting their accounts locked, and THEN being asked for documents. It should work the other way, a request for documents within a timeframe, with the locked account being a consequence of non-compliance. I was able to get them moving through a few phone calls and an Email or three, but even MY experience was far from smooth. After stressing how "urgently" they wanted to deal with this, they took NINE DAYS to confirm receipt and satisfactory verification of my documents. During that 9 days, I HEARD NOTHING, and was close to chasing them up as the 14 days was nearly up, after which my "account priviliges would be restricted" (which is probably legaleze for a "locked account").
Even though I have passed this time, I have been "assured" that they CAN put me through this again, and again, just as they see fit to "review my account".

There is certainly scope to complain at how badly they have been handling this review process, including what looks like losing sensitive documents, as they seem to be asking for them again after they have already been sent - and they said to me "we are not an online casino" when I compared their "service" to the "games" that said online casinos play with ID documents when they want to stall payment.

[Agricola]

Here is my (weird) experience with Neteller:

So I opened an account for depositing money to my poker account. I didn't use it very often as I played quite seldom and not very seriously - always with small stakes.

So one day I log in and find out that somebody-definitely NOT me-had used an unknown credit card to transfer $260 on my account. Not once but several times. The amount came to my account and was always deposited to an online poker room (I don't remember which one).

I checked the itemization and found out that this procedure had been taken place for a some time already. The amount came always from the same credit card and was immediately forwarded-by a mysterious intruder-to the poker account.

So the intruder had acquired an access to my account and was using it as a shield for stealing money from somebody's credit card. I naturally informed Neteller and they started an investigation. I was pronounced innocent, which indeed was the case, and my account was closed.

Until now I have no idea, how it was possible for somebody to find out my Neteller user name, account number and secret code. In a worst case scenario I could have been blamed for stealing money or even money laundering.

Neteller offered me a possibility to start a new account but I have to say I just didn't feel safe with Neteller anymore after the episode.

[vinylweatherman]

Originally Posted by Agricola

Here is my (weird) experience with Neteller:

So I opened an account for depositing money to my poker account. I didn't use it very often as I played quite seldom and not very seriously - always with small stakes.

So one day I log in and find out that somebody-definitely NOT me-had used an unknown credit card to transfer $260 on my account. Not once but several times. The amount came to my account and was always deposited to an online poker room (I don't remember which one).

I checked the itemization and found out that this procedure had been taken place for a some time already. The amount came always from the same credit card and was immediately forwarded-by a mysterious intruder-to the poker account.

So the intruder had acquired an access to my account and was using it as a shield for stealing money from somebody's credit card. I naturally informed Neteller and they started an investigation. I was pronounced innocent, which indeed was the case, and my account was closed.

Until now I have no idea, how it was possible for somebody to find out my Neteller user name, account number and secret code. In a worst case scenario I could have been blamed for stealing money or even money laundering.

Neteller offered me a possibility to start a new account but I have to say I just didn't feel safe with Neteller anymore after the episode.

There have been many complaints about lack of security at Neteller, and one player even stated that a reply from their CS contained the words "we are not a secure service" as an excuse for what happened in their case.

Clearly, it was posible to use a THIRD PARTY credit card on your account to make deposits, and immediate transfers to the poker room. This should have rung alarm bells, but seemingly no-one heard them at Neteller HQ.

Neteller should have had something in place to prevent deposits coming from a card that does not bear the Neteller account holder's name.

The details could have been gained through a Trojan keylogger or screenscraper on a PC used to access the Neteller account, and this would have been enough to compromise it without you ever having any idea. The thief would probably then have changed the registered Email address to prevent you from being alerted by the credit card confirmations that are sent whenever Neteller receives a transfer in from a credit card.

The thief would have to be using another IP address to access Neteller, and normally this would trigger a security lockout and request to confirm that you are using the account on another PC. There is an extra secret question code needed when phoning Neteller, and this can NOT be stolen by a Trojan as it is not used for normal logins.
Perhaps because the account was rarely used, there was not enough information for the security systems to determine that the account had switched access IP addresses and PCs.

YOUR PC IS PROBABLY STILL COMPROMISED!!!!!

Checking this should be a top priority.

The only way to guarantee freedom from Trojans would be to reformat the hard drive and reinstall everything from scratch, including some security software, or even a hardware firewall, before using the PC online again.

[Agricola]

Originally Posted by vinylweatherman

There have been many complaints about lack of security at Neteller, and one player even stated that a reply from their CS contained the words "we are not a secure service" as an excuse for what happened in their case.

Clearly, it was posible to use a THIRD PARTY credit card on your account to make deposits, and immediate transfers to the poker room. This should have rung alarm bells, but seemingly no-one heard them at Neteller HQ.

Neteller should have had something in place to prevent deposits coming from a card that does not bear the Neteller account holder's name.

The details could have been gained through a Trojan keylogger or screenscraper on a PC used to access the Neteller account, and this would have been enough to compromise it without you ever having any idea. The thief would probably then have changed the registered Email address to prevent you from being alerted by the credit card confirmations that are sent whenever Neteller receives a transfer in from a credit card.

The thief would have to be using another IP address to access Neteller, and normally this would trigger a security lockout and request to confirm that you are using the account on another PC. There is an extra secret question code needed when phoning Neteller, and this can NOT be stolen by a Trojan as it is not used for normal logins.
Perhaps because the account was rarely used, there was not enough information for the security systems to determine that the account had switched access IP addresses and PCs.

YOUR PC IS PROBABLY STILL COMPROMISED!!!!!

Checking this should be a top priority.

The only way to guarantee freedom from Trojans would be to reformat the hard drive and reinstall everything from scratch, including some security software, or even a hardware firewall, before using the PC online again.

Thanks for the wise words, vinylweatherman. I as a matter of fact I reinstalled my operating system after the incident. But I still wonder how they got through to my system. I have a hardware firewall and a software one, trustworthy virus protection and a software to track system changes. I run Spybot and Adaware regularly, too.

But I guess one just can't be too careful with online security. Only other possibility I can think of was that they were able to hack into my Gmail account where my Neteller details were sent.

[vinylweatherman]

Originally Posted by Agricola

Thanks for the wise words, vinylweatherman. I as a matter of fact I reinstalled my operating system after the incident. But I still wonder how they got through to my system. I have a hardware firewall and a software one, trustworthy virus protection and a software to track system changes. I run Spybot and Adaware regularly, too.

But I guess one just can't be too careful with online security. Only other possibility I can think of was that they were able to hack into my Gmail account where my Neteller details were sent.

It seems your PC was pretty secure, it may be that another source was used to get the details, perhaps including some clever bluffing over the phone by someone with partial details.
Given that they knew what they were doing with the stolen credit card, they probably knew weaknesses in the system.
Gmail is a possibility, if they hacked Gmail, and you had left the details, even in "trash", they could have been retrieved.

Another possibility is someone gained access to your PC from "inside", such as being in your house as a guest and "going fishing" while you were out of the room with it logged on. Not knowing how it was done makes it hard to be sure you are safe from a repeat performance.

The deposits were probably made to a poker room so that the chips could be dumped to another player and withdrawn; this is the reason why poker rooms are so strict about such chip dumping.

(Await newbie post about confiscated winnings due to accusations of "chip dumping")