Someone Needs to Sue Neteller for Fraud
This whole Neteller thing is starting to get ridiculous. They no longer answer calls from the US, and keep referring US customers to a FAQ page that has no explanation on why they are not allowing withdrawals for US customers. I think they realize that they will never get the US business back, and don't care how much they are pissing us off. But, they are committing fraud which can be rectified in a court of law. At a minimum, if someone sues Neteller for their money back, Neteller will be required to explain why they can't disperse the funds to US citizens through something like a check by mail.
This is what I believe to be true, but who knows.
1) The US is waiving there stick at Neteller claiming bad things will happen to them if they disperse the funds to the US customers.
2) The US has blocked the banking system from making electronic transactions with Neteller.
Item (2) does not block mailed checks or peer to peer transfers which Neteller currently will not allow for US customers. So, item (1) must be the reason that Neteller is not dispersing funds.
So lets take a look at item (1). The US is threatening Neteller in some way to not disperse US funds (I believe this amount is well over 1 Billion Dollars). So the US is effectively freezing its own US citizens funds, when said citizens have not broken a single law. What ever happened to innocent until proven guilty? You should at a minimum be charged with some type of crime before your funds can be frozen/siezed. I know that the US is no where near today, what the founding fathers had in mind, but this is a bunch of BS.
Playing poker online is NOT illegal. You could make a case that this is covered by the wire act, but it would be hard to argue that the wire act applies to Internet connections that are not dial-up and never use a "wire" (phone line). Also, there is no precedent for using the wire act to go after online poker players. The US may believe that Neteller has committed crimes, but what did the users of their service do that was illegal? Nothing is the answer. My guess is that the US wants records of our transactions to see if they can get taxes out of us. This is no reason to tie up our funds. Again, in this country we are innocent until proven guilty, right? Where is the proof that we are guilty of anything? Where is the due process that is constitutionally required.
This is why someone needs to sue Neteller for Fraud. It is fraud BTW. They are holding our money and not dispersing it which is against the policies that were in effect at the time of the deposits. This is fraud on a huge level. The only case they can make is the US will not let them disperse the funds. But the US can't stop them from mailing us checks or doing peer to peer transfers. So they are doing this on their own to cover their asses. CYA all you want, but I want my Fawking money right now. If someone sues them this will all come out, and get resolved. My guess is after Neteller uses their excuse, the Judge will demand that the US let all US customers not accused of a crime to get their money out by check or other method. The US will be hard pressed to say all the funds are from tax evaders and needs to be frozen. Where is the proof, or preponderance of evidence that they can make that claim with. 90% of poker players lose money, and should not be required to pay any taxes. So possibly 10% are winners, but the Neteller records will not prove this one way or another. Bringing this case will force both the US and Neteller to come clean and will be the fastest way to get our money out.
So who is going to do it?
Labels: Fraud, Neteller, Sue the Bastards