prepaid atm

[bobbiep]

Hi,I wonder if anyone is having trouble with prepaid atm. For a long time they were fine and now they keep saying they are having trouble with their credit card processor and want me to fund my account with other methods. I always use my visa debit card and that will no longer work. Are they in some kind of trouble and don't want to say?

Thanks,

BobbieP

 

[Casinomeister]

This is something I am not presently using. Anyone else having this problem??

 

[threejaguar]

The federal gov. in the US is on the rampage against prepaid ATM cards.... They closed down the prepaid vending machines attached to the coin counters at local department stores here.

They now want a government ID number to attach to all ATM cards owned by US citizens, and funded by US banks or other US financial institutions.

Evil money launderers are the excuse for this action.

If you value anonimity, I would suggest going outside the US for a VISA/debit card for now, if you are a US citizen.

You may want to consider these folks:

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

Heh.


(Message edited by threejaguar on May 21, 2003)

 

[jetset]

That's interesting, three jaguar.

Can you say where these local stores have been having government hassles - which city?

 

[threejaguar]

No, I'd rather not say which city.

The notice blamed the "Patriot" act, and let cardholders know they could spend their current balances, but not recharge the card. You cannot issue an ATM card in the US to a US citizen now without getting an S.S. number from him.

 

[iataz]

That is very interesting threejaquar as I just funded my PPATM card and was able to withdraw money from it not only at a service station but also at my banks ATM machine

They now want a government ID number to attach to all ATM cards owned by US citizens, and funded by US banks or other US financial institutions

And I believe the above statement isn't exactly true until the bill against online gambling in the USA passes

However Bryan or anyone please correct me if I am wrong

 

[casino_surfer]

I believe this depends which state you're in.

 

[bobbiep]

Hi,
Perhaps when I posted my first inquiry I was not clear about the use of the prepaid atm account. This account acts exactly the same as firepay, debiting your checking account with a visa debit card, except now it doesn't work because they keep saying their credit card processor does not work. I believe after this long (more than a month), it will never be working, so unless you want to wire transfer funds to a casino through prepaid atm (their suggestion as an additional source of funding), they are deemed useless. Incidently I never actually used the prepaid atm card which they sent me when I opened my account.

To make matters worse, my bank (both california and nevada) will not allow a debit charge on my account from neteller. Why do you suppose that is?

BobbieP

 

[Antonia1953]

I have an account with PrepaidATM also. I think your right. It doesn't look like they will be accepting credit card charges anymore. I used Western Union Quick Pay method a couple of times, but apparently, a problem has arisen there also. It is my understanding, that PrepaidATM has increased their merchant fees and so all transactions with them have been suspended. Perhaps, the same issue has dry-docked the credit card end.

I had a rather disturbing experience with these folks recently.

One morning, a little after 6:00 AM, I received a call from a John Grey. He said he was in charge of PrepaidATM's Fraud Dept. and that I had one hour to make a money transfer good that had been returned from my bank. I was stunned, as I had not made any money transfers through them in a couple of months. I told him so and immediately expressed my concern that some sort of criminal activity might be taking place. He responded with, "Shut up! I'm not listening to any of your shit! Get a pen and write this down." He proceed to give me information on how to get money to them immediately. By then, I'd had enough and told him he must be out of his rabid-ass mind to be making such a call to me. I proceeded to blast him (wide-open, I might add). He hung up. I immediately called PrepaidATM and demanded to speak to a sane person. A gentleman came on the line and identified himself as the President. I told him what had happened and he put me on hold to check what might be the problem. Shortly, he came back on and said he didn't see any problem with my account. He apologized for this John Grey and then said, I had to understand that Mr. Grey worked with collections all day and that he wasn't paid to be a sweet guy. I told him the man needed a good, swift, ass kicking and no, I didn't have to understand him, but that the seriously silly jackass better never call me again. Needless to say, I haven't used their service since.

 

[iataz]

Antonia
I read your post with extreme interest, I had also gotten a call from John Grey and an email from him stating the same thing, however with my situation the funds had been returned to them one time.. he also threatened me saying I had one hour to wire them the funds or I would be expidited to NV to face criminal charges.. I tried to insure him that it was not done intentionally that I had received a bad check from somebody and to reprocess the transactions thru my checking account again.. He said that was not possible and I would be facing criminal charges for fraud if this was not taken care of within the hour.
Being scared ~~I immediatly did everything I could to come up with the funds he was requesting and wired them immediatly..
So a week later I notice funds missing from my checking account and I find out from my bank that it is PPATM, now get this.. They were reprocessing the same transactions that John Grey had originally called me about.. I promptly called Mr. Grey and asked him why they were reprocessing them when I had already wired him the funds.. He said " Our credit dept reserves the right to process them thru a second time" Now remember he had told me earlier that they couldn't do that. I retold him again ~ I have already sent you money for this.. He responded that I would have to give them 3-5 days to check this out.. I told him he had one hour to put the funds into my account or he would face criminal charges himself.
They did refund the amount they had taken out, however by them taking out the funds twice in the first place it caused me to have over drafts in my checking account which cost me close to $250.00 in overdraft fees, late fees etc etc that they refused to reimburse..
At first I thought it was something I was going to have to live with due to the fact that originally I had messed up my checking account and the funds didn't clear the first time, but after hearing what you went thru, I wonder how many other people this John Grey has done this to, that are actually intimidated by him and believe what he says.
I still use their services (call me dumb)although they no longer are allowed to withdraw funds from my accounts.
I haven't had a problem with them since, but I also think the little weasel knows not to fuck with me again, however I do think he needs to be reported, hell for all the president knows this man could be embezzling from them.

 

[Antonia1953]

Hey iataz,

The President of PrepaidATM supported this John Grey, even after he found no problem with my account, so I don't think it would do much good to complain to him. I have no doubt, that a lot of people have had similiar experiences. I think it's a good idea not to allow them into your account, but their agreement states they have access to your account to retrieve funds as they see fit. A lot of us turned to PrepaidATM because they were the only one you could get some credit card charges through, but that no longer is an option. For cash transactions, I use Neteller.

 

[jetset]

Sounds as if Mr Grey needs a moderating hand from his boss, as these sort of threats are not only ill-advised but are largely empty (extradition to the Netherlands Antilles? I don't think so!

But on a more serious note this sort of treatment is not good business practice whether Mr Grey is a nice guy or not, and we have asked PrePaid's CEO for comment on the matter.

 

[iataz]

I would like to know his comments also
As I said I will admit that I messed up my bank account and some of the funds got returned to them once, but I thought once I wired them the money that Mr. Grey requested it would be a done deal.. so therefore you can imagine my surprise when a week later I find the exact same dollar amounts missing from my bank account and than told by Mr. Grey that they had the right to process them twice,
True but not when you have already called up someone threatening them, threatening fraudulant charges against them, giving them an hour to come up with the money, collecting the money from them, and than trying to get it a second time.
That no matter how PPATM slices it is not only illegal on their end but also bad business practice.
It will be most interesting to see what they have to say

 

[Casinomeister]

I spoke to Allen Ross yesterday from Prepaid ATM and will be getting to the bottom of this.

He did mention that they have a very aggressive fraud department, but this seems a little extreme.

 

[iataz]

Bryan
If you need them I may still have the copies of the faxes that I had to fax to Mr. Grey of my bank account statements showing that they had retaken the funds out after I sent them the money for it thru onlinebillpayer.

I do not however have any more record of the amount that I sent thru onlinebillpayer.

Let me know if you need them and I will be more than happy to fax them to you somehow

 

[jetset]

This guy Allen Ross has been in contact but has so far said nothing in regard to the two complaints on this thread that I sent to him for comment, other than to ask for the identity of the posters so he could investigate.

I of course could not give him that, but presumably the aggressive Mr. Grey has a note of who he has contacted and about what.

Ross emailed to ask for our phone number. I gave it to him although we prefer to communicate via email so that everything said on both sides is upfront and on the record. He has yet to 'phone.

 

[Casinomeister]

If anyone would like to contact Allen Ross concerning this, this is his business phone:
1-303-699-2392

He is in OHIO.

 

[lovetogamble]

I understand what boopie meant in their first post about Prepaid not accepting credit card deposits. For over the last month you get a popup page saying they are having trouble with their credit card processor and hope to have it fixed soon. Here is the message:

We are currently experiencing problems with our credit card processor. We would like to aplologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
We hope to have this problem resolved shortly.

CLICK HERE to see our other funding options.

Close this window

This message has been coming up for over a month and I have called their support number and whoever I spoke to was very rude and said "They had no idea when it would be fixed!" It seems that if funding your Prepaid ATM with a credit card is no longer going to be available then why don't they just remove the popup about it and replace it and tell everyone that you can no longer fund Prepaid ATM with your credit card.

Now unless you give out your bank acccount information to Prepaid (and that is something I refuse to do) you have to deposit into ATM with billpayer through Western Union whos fee are outrageous. They charge $3.00 to use billpayer and Western Union charges $19 to send $50 to billpayer and then on top of that PrePaid ATM charges $1.50 for every transfer deposit you make to a gaming site. Plus you can only send money to billpayer once a week!

I also called Neteller and spoke to one of their representatives there who said that many credit card companies have now listed Neteller as a gaming site and they will no longer allow money to be transfered to Neteller by credit card.

The US Goverment is really trying hard to shut out US people from having any way to fund overseas gambling sites. Getting funds into an account now is almost like pulling teeth!

 

[jetset]

Ross called me a few moments ago and in a rather long and rambling conversation dominated by his insistence that these allegations were "exaggerated", he in essence said the following:

1) PPATM has a way lower rate of chargebacks than most online gambling operations (less than 1 percent) due to their determination not to be screwed by players. He claims that because their clientele are exclusively North American, defaulters can be successfully pursued for fraudulent behaviour and he does not hesitate to do that. Criminal fraud can be used as grounds to seek extradition from other US States to Nevada for trial, he claims and it was this to which Grey was referring and not "Netherlands Antilles"

2) He is emphatic that his Frauds manager John Grey does not use vulgar language and does not call players at 06h00 in the morning. He further does not make illegal threats and does not cross the line of acceptable behaviour for a financial institution employee. He is however "relentless" and "aggressive" in looking after the affairs of the company.

3) Effectively, Ross is denying the allegations, which he describes as "exaggerated".

Interestingly, Ross's name came up on another message board linking him to Unified Gaming, and we asked him about this connection.

He confirmed that he was one of the pioneers in the online gambling industry and started Island Casino in 1996, selling the operation in order to found Unified Gaming the turnkey provider in 1998. He says he has not been involved on the operator or provider side of the industry for over two years.

Ross's final comments concerned players with problems regarding PPATM. He strongly urges them to email or call him to sort issues out before they turn ugly and are handed over to the Fraud section and the attentions of Mr. Grey....

 

[iataz]

OMG This is such bullshit
Ross is in Ohio and PPATM is in Nevada.
How can he possibly know what John Grey is doing?

I sent them $790.00 via online billpayer per John Grey on April 30th for online deposits that did not clear my bank one time. Now to me you don't threaten charges of fraud against someone when your credit dept plans on reprocessing them anyway.

They then reprocessed them thru my bank starting on May 2nd and they cleared.
When I brought this to Mr. Grey's attention I had to fax him in documentation and my bank statement.

He than had the $485.00 (or close to that amount)they had taken out refunded to my PPATM account

So another question is if the uncleared checks only totalled $485.00 why than did I have to pay them $790.00??

To me those are pretty steep charges, and I have lost out close to $300.00 not including my bank fees.

My thoughts are it would be nice since they obviously made a mistake if they would also refund me the $300.00

I would never have posted anything on this as I thought since they didn't clear my bank the first time I was also partially to blame and would just cut my losses, but after reading
the other posts about John Grey and PPATM..I decided that this just isn't right.

If there is an email address for Mr. Ross personally I would like to have it.
I will show him documentation of everything that I have and than we will see how exaggerated these claims really are.

 

[jetset]

Allen Ross
E-mail Address(es):
allen@prepaidatm.com

 

[Antonia1953]

Well, this doesn't surprise me, as I have spoken to this gentleman before and his attitude was indifferent. He apologized for the error, but made excuses for John Grey. They have a very seedy approach to business, and I, for one, haven't processed any further transactions through them. I believe he is well aware of how Mr. Grey handles himself.

 

[Antonia1953]

One mind; one voice; two asses.

 

[jetset]

BRINGING IN THE HEAVIES

Players threatened by processor

Online gambling's unregulated status spawns many irregularities but this week an unpleasant processor practice surfaced that was both alarming and questionable.

At least two players were called by one John Grey of the Fraud Department at e-cash company PrePaidATM and allegedly subjected to unwarranted and abusive threats of extradition to Nevada and other threats if they did not pay up immediately on disputed charges.

One of the infuriated players contacted the company to protest and was put through to a member of management who, after checking the records confirmed that there was no problem with the account. The player reported that this manager apologized for the rough behaviour of John Grey and then said, astonishingly for a presumably respectable financial company manager that the player should understand that Grey worked with "collections all day and isn't paid to be a sweet guy."

This type of behaviour is not only guaranteed to deter players from using this financial vehicle as the story makes the rounds, but management's apparently indulgent attitude toward an employee who clearly requires supervision is shocking.

PrePaid ATM's top man Allen Ross was contacted for comment on the story, and in a rather long and rambling conversation insisted that these allegations were "exaggerated". In summary, this is the PrePaidATM response:

1) PPATM has a way lower rate of chargebacks than most online gambling operations (less than 1 percent) due mainly to their determination not to be screwed by players. He claims that because their clientele are exclusively North American, defaulters can be successfully pursued for fraudulent behaviour and he does not hesitate to do that. Criminal fraud can be used as grounds to seek extradition from other US States to Nevada for trial, he claims and it was this to which Grey was referring.

2) He is emphatic that his Frauds manager John Grey does not use vulgar language and does not call players at 06h00 in the morning. He further does not make illegal threats and does not cross the line of "acceptable behaviour for a financial institution employee". He is however "relentless" and "aggressive" in looking after the affairs of the company.

3) Effectively, Ross denies the allegations, which he describes as "exaggerated".

Interestingly, Ross's name came up on another message board linking him to Unified Gaming, and we asked him about this connection.

He confirmed that he was one of the pioneers in the online gambling industry and started Island Casino in 1996, selling the operation in order to found Unified Gaming the turnkey provider in 1998. He says he has not been involved on the operator or provider side of the industry for over two years.

Reliable sources inform InfoPowa that Ross was one of 19 operators indicted at the time of the 1998 Jay Cohen prosecution, and that he took the plea-bargain option and was on probation.

Ross's final comments concerned players with problems regarding PPATM. He strongly urges them to email or call him to sort issues out before they turn ugly and are handed over to the Fraud section and the attentions of Mr. Grey....

 

[slotchik]

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