My ePassporte experience

[This Player]

A couple of weeks ago I recently opened a second account there, using a different bank account and CC from the first account that I had previously opened. Going by the terms and conditions on the website, I expected to be able to raise the limits on this account to $600 daily withdrawal, as I did with my first account, by registering two load methods and paying the $5 fee. However, when I tried to do this, I received a message saying that I didn't have enough load methods, even though I already had two.

When I called the customer service line, I was told that their terms had changed and that now it was necessary to wait 3 months to raise limits, but that their website "had not been updated with the current policy" yet. The policy had already been changed for over a week by then. When I asked them to either honor the policy on their website and allow me to raise my limits or else refund the money I had loaded into my account (and the fees paid), they refused. The CSR supervisor I spoke to even implied that I should have called the customer service line prior to signing up to verify that the policy stated on the website actually still is the current policy.

Since I already had an account with higher limits, he then suggested that I could transfer money from my new account to my old one (for a low fee) and then withdraw it. I did this for a couple of weeks and then all of sudden they blocked access to both of my accounts, with a combined four-figure balance in them. Other than my initial $25 loads, all of this money was transferred from a business account. When I called CS again, they told me that their risk assessment department needed more information to "feel comfortable" with my account, and they will send me some documents to fill out and once they get them they will reopen my account in 7-10 days. I did not receive these documents until I called back 48 hours later and asked them to resend them. When I asked specifically why they needed this information, I was told that only the verification department could answer that, and that the only way I could contact them was via email. I sent them an email last week, but never received a reply.

The documents they sent me requested that I send sensitive financial information, including photographs of the front and back of actual credit cards, via email or fax. I have this information ready to send, but there is no way I would send it unencrypted over email, and the fact that they even asked me do so indicates that they have little understanding of computer security, which is ironic since they are blocking my account for security purposes. I sent them a private message, an email, and then later called to explain this to them and was told that they will not provide me with a secure way of sending this information via email, and if I send it via fax it might not come out clear enough for them so I would have to keep resending it until it does.

At that point I then told them that I did not feel comfortable providing this information to them or continuing to do business with them, and asked that they simply close my account and give me whatever money is currently in there. They refused, telling me that if I did not give them this verification information they would simply keep my money. When I asked to speak with a supervisor, I was told that one was not available and but that I could leave a call back number and one would call me back in 24 to 48 hours.

They are holding a good amount of my money, transferred from a business account that I'm sure does tons of volume on their site, and they don't feel comfortable letting me access my own money! I'm the one who doesn't feel comfortable trusting them with it, or with my financial information, and based on their actions and the quality of the interactions I have had with their customer service department I think I have far better grounds for my concern then they could possibly have for theirs. The fact that they are simply going to steal my money if I don't give them the verification information when they have absolutely no reason to suspect my account is mind-boggling, but it seems par for the course given how this company does business.