NETELLER CHARGEBACK MAKES WAVES IN ONLINE PLAYER COMMUNITY

1 June 2007

Without consulting the account holder, e-wallet allegedly debits account

Most online gamblers were shocked this week to discover that online casinos can apparently "chargeback" payments to accounts with the Isle of Man-based e-wallet Neteller with little trouble....and without either casino or Neteller informing the account holder in advance!

The issue originally surfaced as a dispute between the player and Prime Casino.com, where the casino allegedly made a payment to the player's Neteller account that it subsequently decided to reclaim. Astonishingly, it was apparently able to do this despite a two week interval between the payment and the "chargeback", which the player claims was executed without either Neteller or the casino first consulting him.

In the storm of indignation which subsequently erupted across several popular message boards, Prime Casino manager Joshua Cartu made the surprising revelation that such a reversal was neither unusual or complicated.

One poster spent some time combing through the Neteller terms of use to find:

"10.5. You acknowledge and agree that all electronic money purchases, transfers or withdrawals into or out of your Account are final and not reversible. NETELLER cannot arrange for your Account to be refunded where you believe the purchase, transfer or withdrawal was made in error."

This would seem to frown on the practice of reversing a payment to a client's account, and InfoPowa asked Neteller for a comment, but as at press time no response had been received.

Footnote: The original dispute between player and casino was resolved to the player's satisfaction, and the casino manager gave an assurance that in future he would insist on being consulted before any similar action was taken. Another positive to flow from the discussions was an undertaking by Cartu to make a click-thru' note on the index page of his site every time a change to the T&C's was made. Players were unanimous in applauding this initiative to avoid misunderstandings in the future.

Online Casino News courtesy of InfoPowa