not really absconded , more like "borrowed"
Heres the situaion in a nutshell.
I dont know if they are still doing this but it was being done before epassporte split.
When a surfer signed up for a site lets call it "surferporn.com" he also got a cross-sale for "crosssaleporn.com" but it wasnt your traditional "cross-sale" what it was was they would create an epassporte account for you and deposit money from your credit card into the epassporte account then take it back out of the epassporte account for you ( leaving you with some remaining funds in the account ) .
But in all reality the surfer prob never see's anything from epassporte ( as it was buried in the terms and conditions ) so they have no idea they have an epassporte account. all they know is they signed up for a porn site and mony gets taken from their account every month until they cancel.. no harm no foul. but now theres thousand of epassporte accounts that the owners likely dont even know they own, with small change like $5 in each account. so epassporte understand this and wants all that cash of course.. or at least access to it..
And this isnt such a "terrible" practise , other than they have no reason to "safeguard " the funds.
When you deposit money in a "traditional" banking facility, the bank uses your money to lend to others right.. they never have everyones cash inside the vault..
in a nutshell this is what epassporte is doing , but under the guise of "safeguarding" the cash.. i see no reason why they cant just borrow on these funds instead of seizing them.