Bodog's announcement

TLD · 01-17-07, 05:24 PM

So many conflicting messages, rumors, errors, etc. floating around it’s hard to know what to believe.

When I received this e-mail, I immediately called Bodog customer service. “Neteller has blocked all deposits to us,” she told me. I said, “As of when? I know when I called late last night only some deposits were being blocked, and most or all of those were Instacash, which Neteller cut off for all the books, not just Bodog. Has something changed since then?”

“Neteller has pulled out of the American market. Americans can no longer use Neteller with sportsbooks.”

“Really? Did this just happen in the last five minutes? I know this is expected to happen fairly soon, but I haven’t seen it reported anywhere that they’ve already done that.”

“As of yesterday, Neteller is no longer servicing the American market.”

“Well, I know that’s untrue because I’ve done Neteller transactions today.”

“Two of their executives were arrested last night. Americans can no longer use Neteller.”

“OK, I’m confident you’re mistaken about at least the timing of that. But in any case, are you certain that it is Neteller and not Bodog that has decided to block deposits?”

“Yes. We aren’t blocking them. It’s all Neteller, starting yesterday.”

So at that point I immediately called the Neteller VIP line. I said to the representative:

“OK, I just want to clarify. It’s my understanding that Neteller has stopped Instacash transactions for Americans, but not the standard transactions to and from the sportsbooks. There is a good chance you will be leaving the American market in the future, but as of this moment, we can still deposit and withdraw to sportsbooks with Neteller. Is that correct?”

“That’s 100% accurate.”

“So you’re still up and running and serving the American market. Any changes, other than Instacash, will be in the future.”

“Exactly. Obviously I can’t promise it’ll remain that way with all that is going on, but nothing has changed for now. You can still go to and from the merchants.”

“OK, because you should know Bodog is informing their customers that you’ve already left the American market. I don’t know if you can issue a statement or at least inform your merchants or something.”

“I had heard that Bodog was blocking our deposits, but that’s the only one.”

“You’re saying Bodog, and not Neteller, is blocking deposits?”

“We’re definitely not blocking them. But I had heard from some customers that called that some of their deposits to Bodog didn’t go through, so I figured something was happening at their end. That’s the only book I heard about any problems like that. It was probably temporary; if you want to try a deposit right now, I’m sure they’ll accept it.”

OK, so I called Bodog back, spoke to a different clerk, told him: here’s what you guys told me when I just called and here’s what Neteller told me, can you explain the discrepancy?

“Well, I’m not entirely clear on it myself, but my understanding is that Bodog management has decided to suspend Neteller deposits until we see how things play out. You can still withdraw to Neteller though.”

“So now you say it is indeed Bodog that’s stopped those deposits.”

“Yes, I believe so.”

“Is that just as of today, because what I was told last night is not consistent with that, and what I was told a few minutes ago is even farther off.”

“I really don’t know the timing of it. What you were told last night may have been accurate at the time or it may have been mistaken, because I’m really not sure of the timing.”

“So you’re sure it’s all Neteller deposits now, and not just the Instacash, which Neteller had already cut off.”

“Yes. I think it might have been related though. After Neteller stopped the Instacash, I think management might have decided Neteller doesn’t have much value to our customers without the Instacash capability, so we might as well step back from it and assess the situation. Our goal at all times is to make sure our customers always have only the safest and most efficient ways of transferring funds to and from us. So I’m sure management is just assessing what happens with Neteller moving forward.”

So anyway, believe who you want to believe, but I just thought it was interesting how no one seems to know what is going on, and in fact people from the same operation are blithely contradicting each other.