The official EPASSPORTE thread. (#3 of 3.)

[Thremp]

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if i have a checking account set up with epassporte can i add the debit card attached to that account as a credit card for a second method so i can upgrade to select?

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I think I used my debit card for the account. Not 100% sure though. This is my standard MO though.

[BradleyT]

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<font color="green"> EDIT: Also, are withdrawals by ATM using ePassporte's Visa still working? </font>

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I withdrew $300 on tuesday and wednesday.

[ur54sold]

Epassporte blows, I takes 8 business days (Sat/Sun not included) to deposited via bank account. Even if the money has been taken out of your account Epassporte still holds it until 8 days have passed. WTF

[PMR]

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if i have a checking account set up with epassporte can i add the debit card attached to that account as a credit card for a second method so i can upgrade to select?

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In my experience, a debit card attached to a bank account is considered a separate load method from the bank account itself. However, I have recently been told by ePassporte representatives that having two load mechanisms is no longer sufficient to upgrade to select status.

In other words, the following information currently found on ePassporte's website here is incorrect:

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Requirements for Obtaining ePassporte Select Status

Personal Account Holders must have a minimum of 2 verified load mechanisms OR must have been ePassporte Account Holders for a minimum of 3 months and have loaded with a credit card or bank account at least 5 times since the account was opened.


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According to the ePassporte employees I have spoken to, ePassporte now requires <u>all</u> personal accounts to be at least 4 months old before becoming eligible for select status, regardless of other criteria that may be met.

However, it is still possible to have your limits increased without having a "select" account. For this you must contact the Account Holder Services Department, which will give you a ticket number in response to your limit increase request. You will eventually be e-mailed forms to fill out and instructions regarding additional documentation you need to provide.

Once you have sent everything they ask for, they decide on a case-by-case basis whether or not to give you the increase(s) you requested. In my case, I was told that my request was denied for now, but that my documents would remain on file and that my limits can be increased soon as I have made at least a total of 5 loads OR have a balance of at least $1000.

The only way I have been able to get any responses from ePassporte is to telephone them, so be prepared to spend a lot of time on hold if you need information or want to get something done with your account.

[carlgraham]

Not only does Epassporte take far too long to deposit from a checking account, but my initial $100 load, supposed to be available as of 5:30 p.m. PDT yesterday, is still pending.

This is crazy - I e-mailed them to find out what's up.

Assuming this load is eventually processed, are subsequent loads also limited to $100 each? If so, it'll take an awful long time to load the $600 onto Epassporte for the initial deposit onto TFP.

Cheers, Carl.

[BradleyT]

Nah I don't think subsequent loads are limited to $100.

[Luckysamee]

Every time I try to load with my Visa card it says "Transaction declined by your bank." I haven't used it in a few months but never had a problem. I called my credit card company and they said it shoudn't have been declined. Epassporte said there shouldn't of been a problem either. This was a week ago. I called 3 more times on different days and they said there should not be a problem Today I called and they said they have been having problems with their site in loading money with a credit card for a while now but you can use your bank account. What is up with this? Anyone else having this problem? Why didn't any of the other tellers tell me they were having problems?

[rbnn]

Like you, I have been unable to load to epassporte from a credit card, for about a week, with a message that the transaction had been declined by the credit card's bank. In fact, however, my credit card's bank stated they never declined any transactions. I called epassporte's phone support, but gave up after being on hold for about 45 minutes. I emailed epassporte's support, but received no reply.

True, many online businesses have technical problems and poor customer support. However, when the online business deals directly with financial transactions or when it asks for sensitive financial information like bank account numbers, a higher than normal standard of quality is required to earn the customers' trust. Because epassporte does not meet that standard of quality, it seems to me to be unwise to use them. When the business does not timely respond to emails or phone calls, I hesitate to give them money or account numbers.

I do not think epassporte is intentionally trying to steal money or scam customers. But their multiple technical glitches and their lack of responsiveness suggests to me they are not safe to use.

[rbnn]

Epassporte has refused to process Visa deposits for U.S. customers for about a week. It gives an error message "transaction was refused by your bank," even though the bank never received a transaction request. Epassporte did not respond to phone or email for about a week.

Today, I finally reached an epassporte representative regarding epassporte's inability to process U.S. Visa transactions. He stated that the problem was due to a technical issue by epassporte. He did not know when it would be fixed. He stated the reason phones were not being answered was because of the high volume of customers affected by this error.

This explanation, if correct, raises a number of questions.

(1) Each affected customer likely called his or her bank. Thus, thousands of hours of customer time and the time of the employees of the issuing banks was wasted dealing with this issue. Why is epassporte so unconcerned with the enormous drain on the time of its customers and the issuing banks?

(2) Instead of wasting so much of other people's time, epassporte could have easily simply changed the error message it provided to say that the fault was its own, rather than the fault of the issuing bank. Why didn't epassporte change the error message?

(3) Why didn't epassporte just send an email to the affected customers, rather than stonewalling them for a week?

(4) Why is such a simple technical problem taking so long to fix? The software once worked - why doesn't epassporte just revert to the last working version?

(5) Why is epassporte so unapologetic about its technical errors? For example, rather than informing customers, correcting its error message, or fixing the problem, it tells customers instead to give it their checking account numbers! Why would a reasonable person trust a company that cannot process a simple Visa transaction with sensitive bank account information?

I question epassport's viability in light of these unanswered questions.

[Luckysamee]

Well said!