Send documentation - for what?

[dominique]

I didn't know that.

That's surprising.

 

[mitch]

I too don't like the "faff" of submitting id.

However, if casinos do insist they should take a leaf out of Harrods book.

The first time I made a large withdrawal from there they asked for id but offered me a 50 gift as compensation for the hassle.

Now that's what I call good customer service and if other casinos did the same there would not be the same level of complaint.

Mitch

 

[mary]

In a fair and rational world, you wouldn't have to provide redundant documentation of identity; your transaction processor (Neteller in this case) would handle it and your identity would be secure.

We're not in a fair and rational world here. There's a lot of entities involved, each with their own interests and goals.

*the online casino. Wants to make money. May or may not be licensed. Does not want to be defrauded. Wants to keep transaction costs down.
*the licensing jurisdiction regulators. Wants to prevent money laundering, children gambling, and their banking system from being blocked by other nations
*the transaction processor. May or may not be licensed. May have their own regulations in their country.
*the actual two banks involved: customer and casino. Does not want to be defrauded.
*sometimes VISA and Mastercard: they also have to meet regulations, not be defrauded and keep transaction costs down.
*banking regulators. Want to prevent money laundering, enforce thier national standards, keep the industry healthy.
*politicians everywhere.
*the online player. Could be anybody.

The online casinos have to make their regulators and their banking partners happy; if that means getting id, they'll do it. They may not even be legally permitted to give you your money back if you don't provide id.

 

[Simmo!]

Indeed Mary. I don't fully understand why Casinos and NETeller dont work together - after all, if you acccredit yourself with NETeller and use that account to deposit/withdraw, a simple collusion would alleviate the need for providing the casino with ID in these instances surely?

 

[jetset]

Indeed Mary. I don't fully understand why Casinos and NETeller dont work together - after all, if you acccredit yourself with NETeller and use that account to deposit/withdraw, a simple collusion would alleviate the need for providing the casino with ID in these instances surely?

I agree - there's a very nice little small-fee-large-volume niche business for Neteller here that could also improve their regular usage, especially with the big groups.

 

[dominique]

Indeed Mary. I don't fully understand why Casinos and NETeller dont work together - after all, if you acccredit yourself with NETeller and use that account to deposit/withdraw, a simple collusion would alleviate the need for providing the casino with ID in these instances surely?

That is precisely what I suggested to Andrew at eCOGRA.

Meanwhile I will be forfeiting my deposit and winnings.

 

[GrandMaster]

Indeed Mary. I don't fully understand why Casinos and NETeller dont work together - after all, if you acccredit yourself with NETeller and use that account to deposit/withdraw, a simple collusion would alleviate the need for providing the casino with ID in these instances surely?

The other side of the coin is that you would not want Neteller to provide confidential information to the casinos without your permission. With your permission it is OK.

 

[dominique]

I am not in the least bit suggesting that Neteller divulge any information whatsoever!

I would stop using neteller in that case.

I am talking about the casinos accepting Neteller's due diligence in the matter.

 

[Casinomeister]

...Meanwhile I will be forfeiting my deposit and winnings.

Why? What's the big deal?

 

[cheekymonkey]

we might as well come straight to the point -

the casinos obviously do not take NETeller or PayPal's word for it - and thats that

i dont blame them really...they are dealing in a risky business, and the least amount of risks they take - the better

no trust there, but thats the way it is

 

[dominique]

Why? What's the big deal?

Once you have been the victim of Identity theft, you won't ask that anymore.

Never again, I am taking no risks, especially if I can help it.

$500 is a small amount to pay if it eliminates a risk. What Identity theft costs is a whole lot more.

Better safe than sorry.

Burnt child shies the fire and all of that.

I know that lots of players do it every day - just doesn't make me feel any more comfortable.

I don't care if it makes me look silly or crazy.

I'll just continue to avoid bonuses and stick with casinos that won't ask me for my sensitive personal info.

 

[Casinomeister]

...I'll just continue to avoid bonuses and stick with casinos that won't ask me for my sensitive personal info.

I don't understand why you equate using a bonus to having to provide identification. As I mentioned earlier, some casinos are required by law to ensure they have done their due diligence in making sure that their player is a bonafide person. Some casinos (like Maple) are required by third parties to do this as well. I can understand being reluctant to provide some clip-joint out of Venezuela this information, but reputable businesses like Maple Casino, 32Red etc. blah blah blah, I don't see the problem.

If you are planning to not participate at casinos that require this information, that's your prerogative. If you feel unsafe with this, then you might as well stop promoting them too.

You could start up your own site IDFree- casinos.com

I'll bet that the casinos you'd be listing on the site would be slim pickins' though

Anyway, I don't mean to be raggin' on you. If you are concerned about identity theft, then maybe you should Fed-ed a copy of your ID to someone you can trust at the casino and then have them destroy this upon receipt. But then, I'm not sure if they are required to keep this on file.

If you are going to forfeit your deposit and winnings, at least ask the casino to donate it to charity, eh?

 

[Casinomeister]

Once you have been the victim of Identity theft, you won't ask that anymore...

And how do you know that no one has stolen my identity?

There could be many of me lurking....

 

[GrandMaster]

I am not in the least bit suggesting that Neteller divulge any information whatsoever!

I would stop using neteller in that case.

I am talking about the casinos accepting Neteller's due diligence in the matter.

I still don't understand what you want. Without Neteller giving the information to the casino or the other way around, how would the casino verify your address? All it would know that Neteller has a verified address for you, but it may not be the same as the address registered with the casino.

 

[mary]

Transaction processors such as PayPal and Neteller were not banks when they were founded and so did not adhere to banking regulatory standards. Any casino regulations that required adherence to banking standards would not apply to them--or be met by them.

I don't know what their status is now. I have no idea what standards they are obliged to meet with respect to protecting customer information.

The regulation and realities of moving money are amazing and bizarre.

UK based online casinos do require proof of player identity before accepting deposits, to keep out underage players.

I know that VISA has done a pretty poor job of protecting customer information in the last year--shipping data tapes that were intercepted such that they had to cancel thousands of credit cards (including mine).

 

[dominique]

You could start up your own site IDFree- casinos.com

This is a good idea - I will have to add a page to gamesandcasino for those who feel about it like I do.

I'll bet that the casinos you'd be listing on the site would be slim pickins' though

Maple is the second Casino in 5 years that has asked me for this. The other one was Yukon. Yukon paid me without the documentation when they realized I had been promoting Rewards and had been paid by them many times.

Maple has paid me many times also. Just not as player.

I can understand being reluctant to provide some clip-joint out of Venezuela this information, but reputable businesses like Maple Casino, 32Red etc. blah blah blah, I don't see the problem

No one can know what goes on in the heads of all their employees at all times, and the stuff gets stored forever. And even places like major credit cards lose data to hackers. I know Maple is a good casino, wouldn't play there if it wasn't. I am going to continue to promote them too - not everyone feels like I do and many happy players get paid there all the time.

If you are going to forfeit your deposit and winnings, at least ask the casino to donate it to charity, eh?

That is not going to happen because it implies consent to not being paid what I am owed.

I do not consent to that.

I say that everyone knows that I am not money laundering, Maple knows exactly who I am, and they have paid me many times into that very Neteller account. And surely they don't think I am about to do a chargeback and defraud them.

And how do you know that no one has stolen my identity?

There could be many of me lurking....

Ahh, that explains the occasional brain fart - not you there at all, just another bloke donning your identity.


If any of this is necessary at all, which I dispute, there should be one central place doing this and not 200 individual casinos.

Transaction processors such as PayPal and Neteller were not banks when they were founded and so did not adhere to banking regulatory standards. Any casino regulations that required adherence to banking standards would not apply to them--or be met by them.

Unfortunately Mary is right, as usual. :notworthy

Still, each casino asking for this and one's most sensitive documents being stored at offshore casinos all over the globe is a nuisance.

Get your act together and find a better, more efficient way to do this.

 

[greedygirl]

Dom--I'm a bit surprised by your position on this, particularly in filing a complaint with eCOGRA on this...

You're not new to this industry, so surely you've known that providing documentation is a common practice by many casinos (probably more require documentation than those who don't).

Im sure Bryan would agree that in many instances when a player has refused to provide documentation, red flags go straight up. My experience with players has shown me that more often than not, those who refuse documentation do so because theyre hiding something. In your situation, I doubt youre hiding anything, however, Im not the cash processor.

No one can know what goes on in the heads of all their employees at all times, and the stuff gets stored forever. And even places like major credit cards lose data to hackers.

This may be true, but then I have to ask, why would you have opened a Neteller account? In order to use Neteller, you have to provide highly sensitive information, including banking info, date of birth, etc. If you were willing to supply this information for Neteller, I don't understand why you wouldn't be willing to back it up for the casino either via fax or as Bryan suggested, Fed-Ex.

I've read what it is the casino is asking for, which I agree, is a bit much, but I've not seen any further correspondence between you and the casino. I'm guessing the email is a generic one which is sent to all players, regardless of what deposit vehicle has been used. In the case of Neteller, I'd imagine you could simply provide the casino with a photocopy of your drivers license, along with a copy of the first page of your most recent bank statement. Have you checked into this?

Maple has paid me many times also. Just not as player.

This is unfair, Dom. With your experience, you should realize that MG affiliate payments are made through marketing, which has nothing to do with the casino's cash processors. The processing department wouldn't know you from Joe-Average Player, and that's as it should be.

I say that everyone knows that I am not money laundering, Maple knows exactly who I am, and they have paid me many times into that very Neteller account. And surely they don't think I am about to do a chargeback and defraud them.

Again, this is a bit unfair. Because you're a webmaster, you are above others? C'mon, now. We've all seen people in this industry who've fallen apart at the seams--some who you just KNEW were the most honest people, who turned out to not be. I'm not in any way implying that you would fall into that category. What I AM saying is WHY should a casino's cash processor trust you above anyone else, particularly knowing they have nothing to do with the marketing side?

Just a bit of food for thought...

On the very few occasions when I've had issues with a casino's support (whether relating to a withdrawal or not), I've always made certain to withhold my association to the i-gaming industry. I don't want special treatment, for a couple reasons: First, I want to know how Joe-Average Player is treated. Second, I shouldn't have any special treatment. I'm not above anyone else and it always makes me a bit uncomfortable when people try to use their position as leverage.

If any of this is necessary at all, which I dispute, there should be one central place doing this and not 200 individual casinos.

Now THIS scenario would scare the hell out of me. Personally, I play at a half dozen or so casinos. I don't want my information shared across all casinos, many of which would have dubious histories. This is a bad idea all the way around. I still remember the days of casino blacklists--this idea would create a similar setting and I'd hate to see this ever happen again.

To wrap things up, if I can't trust a casino with my personal information, I won't play there--simple as that. I hope this doesnt seem like an attack, as this was not my intention. Instead, Im hoping you might look at things from another perspectiveand withdraw your moolah, happily.

 

[Casinomeister]

...I don't want special treatment, for a couple reasons: First, I want to know how Joe-Average Player is treated. Second, I shouldn't have any special treatment. I'm not above anyone else and it always makes me a bit uncomfortable when people try to use their position as leverage.

This is a reason why I like having to send my ID to the casino. Maple even called me on the phone and sheepishly asked for my docs. I suddenly felt human again

...To wrap things up, if I can't trust a casino with my personal information, I won't play there--simple as that.

'nough said.

And if I felt uneasy doing this, I'd be damned if I would endorse any of these organizations.

 

[dominique]

Well, I kinda knew everyone and his brother would disagree - everyone and his brother hasn't been through Identity theft. Let me tell you, it is so expensive and takes so long to fix and shakes you up so much - you learn to be more cautious than you can even imagine now. You can't know the anguish until you experience it. So, I expect little sympathy. And - the industry kind of rests on this gathering of personal info.

I am not trying to convince anyone here that they should not send in their info.

But I do think there could be and definitely should be a better way.

In order to use Neteller, you have to provide highly sensitive information, including banking info, date of birth, etc.

Precisely, it should be given out only once.

I don't want my information shared across all casinos, many of which would have dubious histories

Exactly! You should be able to submit this once to some sort of central agency. Then you could be assigned some kind of clearance number or pin or something, and from then on you do not have to divulge your personal info ever again. The casino collects this number and knows you are cleared. If in doubt, they can ask back - is this person really cleared? And the central registry can say - yep, she is.

Period.

This may not be feasible immediately across the board, but at the least all casinos in one group, or all eCOGRA casinos etc could have such an arrangement easily enough.

I bet many players would prefer them over others.

I am going to stop arguing my point now - I can't think of anything I haven't said already.

Oh, and I didn't file a formal complaint with eCOGRA, no rules were broken here. I did write to Andrew to discuss things.

 

[silkprint]

This is an excellent thread .

 

[Slotmachine]

Just wanted to say that Dominique I understand you point of view and I agree. It's a really scary thought having:
-a photocopy/color scan of your passport, driver's licence
-a photocopycolor scan of your credit card, including your signature
-a phot............ of an utility bill with your address

...in the possession of an online casino! Let your imagination run a little bit and you can think of many many very unpleasant things that could be done with all that info...not limited to trying to hack your Credit card...not at all.

...now think that >10 online casinos have those. Shit, one of these was rogued this year? And they're in Costa Sucka? And now they've gone bust? CEO murdered? Offices broken into? Documents lost/sold?

OK I'm only (half) joking but really there should be another way to do this. The Casinos can ask for whatever they want, as long as the players are willing to comply. 7-day payment delays. Faxbacks. You name it. But the day the players stop doing the faxbacks and sending photocopies of their passports, and stop playing at the casinos that demand them, a miracle will happen and all of a sudden they will become not-so-much-necessary-any-more-thank-you-very-much

Besides, it is a very simple task to forge fax-quality ID documents. What is the juridical validity of such a faxed document anyway?

How is it that 32Red trusts I'm the real person I claim to be? They never asked me to fax anything. In fact when I did my first withdrawal of 2,200 they said nothing. I just pressed the withdrawal button and they just credited the whole sum back to my credit card where it appeared very quickly. I think they just looked at my credit card, yup, OK, Visa seems to be happy that this guy is who he says he is, and see here Neteller also has a match on his ID and address, I think maybe this guy is for real..

Anyway, in a way Bryan is right saying that if we can't trust a Casino with our ID's, we shouldn't be playin' there at all. That'll narrow it down to one or two for me, unfamiliar as I am with the deeper goings-on in the business.

Cheers,
SM

 

[mary]

This isn't just an online casino issue, it's a whole Internet commerce issue.

Several companies do what Dominique has described:

Paypal
Verified by VISA
Discover
Western Union

That is, they offer a transaction system whereby they make it a selling point that the merchant doesn't need to know your financial information to conclude a transaction. Citidel may be under that category; Neteller could be as well.

Readers will notice that many of these processors will not handle gambling transactions for US customers or offer this particular service for US customers: blame the Justice Department and Senator Kyle.

Since credit cards work in the UK for gambling, does VISA and Discover etc. offer their services to UK customers? What about PayPal?

Casinos could take Neteller and Citidel's word for a player's identity. Is that an additional service for an additional fee I wonder...or something Neteller doesn't offer? Both Neteller and Citidel have to be funded by a real bank account owned by an adult; both use PIN's for transactions online; kids can only get around this by using their parent's accounts and PINs.

If Neteller and Citidel (and other processors) could lobby to have gambling regulations (and eCOGRA standards) set up such that their identity checks satisfied licensing/seal requirements, then they could offer this as an additional service that benefited both casinos and players. After all, collecting and keeping customer verification information is an expense I'm sure the casinos would love to forgo.

Neteller and Citidel would have to be prohibited from using that information to create marketable blacklists to casinos; they would use that information internally. I'd also like to see them prohibited from creating aggregated data that casinos could buy and use to justify blanket prohibitions against regions.

 

[vinylweatherman]

Documents

I expect that, like Dominique, I would be scarred off if I had been a victim of identity fraud. It does not matter how reputable an organisation is, occasinonally they screw up and inadvertantly release information to unauthorised people. My Mother was sent the financial investment details of another woman's stock market investment by Lloyds registrars, who are part of the Lloyds TSB bank group in the UK, and are heavily regulated. The Inland Revenue website experienced a bug that allowed anyone to see the tax details of other people. Identity fraud can take place easliy with the scantest of details linked together so that an application can be made for a certified "replacement" for an original "lost" document such as birth certificate or a passport. The damage is in what the fraudster uses this ID for. This can make ID theft a minor nuisance, or life or death (or financial ruin) - as in the case of the pensioner held in jail in a third world country at the request of the FBI; who then took weeks to find out they had the wrong person simply because they dismissed the very idea that they could possibly have made a mistake. It turned out that the crime had been comitted using his identity, and the pensioner really was innocent. Often the damage is done by the time it takes to sort out the mess, by which time businesses are bankrupted, relationships are ruined, homes reposessed. Until recently, officialdom refused to accept that identity theft was possible because they believed their own checks would prevent it. Recently, a TV documentary pulled off some stunts here in the UK, and the government now take a different view. One stunt was to successfully obtain a driving licence for David Blunkett using information in the "public domain" , then home secretary keen on ID cards, - the point being - THE MAN IS BLIND!!!!!

Another way that would satisfy all parties, and safeguard personal information to the UK ideal (rather than practice ) standards, is needed.

Neteller UK has recently become regulated by the FSA here, and maybe this might lead the way for UK based casinos to accept Neteller verification of ID for account holders who exclusively use this vehicle for all transactions.