This is why you should never use Epassporte!!!!!
 

A little background, I tried to withdrawal my epassporte balance to my checking account on July 20. To this day I still dont have my money. Threw all of my communication with epassporte they've blamed the bank. They've told me numerous times the situation was resolved and I'd see my money in 1-5 days! I've requested numerous times for them to send me a check and they've rufused. When I called their support line I was shut down. As they blamed my bank.

This entire time my bank has explained that for an electronic transfer to go into the wrong account it would have to have the wrong numbers on it. The bank has continually said they're handcuffed and epassporte needs to recall the transfer and then resend.

After epassporte had been blaming my bank keyser finally admitted that the problem was with electracash on 8/24. Even though just 2 days earlier Maeghen Dennis was animated about it being wells fargos fault.

Keyser finally put the money back into my epass account obviously to shut me up because the money was never in my account. Or it was but it was frozen, except that I was able to withraw the money on 8/28 so Im not sure! But if you read keysers last response to me you'll understand.

If you read the responses by epassporte they contradict each other. I left out my replys because the post would be to long. Basically Im pissed and am calling them on all their bullshit. If you guys have any doubt I'll post them for you.

Some interesting points to note: If the bank made an error why would Electracash need to recover the money, wouldnt the bank be able to go threw the system and spot the mistake? After all its all numbers so if they were correct on the senders end it would be easy for the bank to see they screwed up.

Also, what is the point of Keyser putting the money in my epass account and then asking me not to touch it? Especially considering that it was the banks fault. And after I get the green light on 8/28 why did it once again fail? Could it be that the money was never in my account? That maybe keyser did that so I'd quit my bitching? You be the judge.
---------------------------------------------------------------

8/7

Dear Cardholder,

The funds should be posted to your account by the end of the day.

For further assistance, please call our Cardholder Services Center at any
of the phone numbers listed below.

I hope this is helpful and please let me know if I can be of further
assistance.

Regards,

Renae
ePassporte Cardholder Services

---------------------------------------------

Tuesday, August 08, 2006 2:02 PM

I have talked to our technical department and they said the transfer hit your account on August 2, 2006. They are going to check and see if maybe it got returned. Please let me know if there is anything else I can do for you.

Thank You,

Maeghen Dennis


----------------------------------------------
8/9

Dear Cardholder,

In regards to the transaction in question, please contact your bank for
further assistance. This is the tracking number for the transaction
###########. The transaction can be traced by this number. Thank you.


ePassporte Cardholder Services

---------------------------------------------
8/15

I just heard back from our technical department. The bank accidentally transferred the funds into someone else's account. They are currently recovering the funds and they should be loaded into your account in the next 3-5 business days. Unfortunately this was an issue with the bank.

Thanks!

Maeghen Dennis

-------------------------------------------
8/21

This usually never happens. We have a third party between us and the bank that helps process the transfer. That is who our technical department was dealing with. The money will be put into your bank account. Please let me know if you need anything else.

Thanks!

Maeghen Dennis

------------------------------------------
8/22

Our technical department is waiting on Electracash which is the third party. I will keep in touch.

Thanks!

Maeghen Dennis

------------------------------------------
8/22

It was Wells Fargo that screwed up and they put the money into someone else's account. Electra Cash is trying to recover the money from Wells Fargo. This is what is taking so long. Please be patient.

Thank You,

Maeghen Dennis

--------------------------------------------
8/24

We are looking into this and you should hopefully receive an answer about this Friday or Monday. I talked to Maeghen and I the problem lies with ElectraCash we are working hard to get them to send you your money and I expect something to happen within a day or two. I will follow up on it and let you know as soon as I know more.

Regards,
Michael Olsen

------------------------------------------------
8/25

The money is back in your account. We are still working on solving the problem so if you can please wait with withdrawing money to your bank account until this is solved. I will let you know when its cleared up.

Regards,
Michael

------------------------------------------------
8/28

Dear Cardholder,

We are happy to inform you that the funds have been returned to your account and are now available to you. We would like to convey our apologies for this ugly situation and thank you for your patience and forbearance

For further assistance, please call our Cardholder Services Center at any of the phone numbers listed below.

I hope this is helpful and please let me know if I can be of further assistance.

Regards,Shawn H.

-------------------------------------------------
9/6

The problem is still unsolved. We still haven't had the original amount returned to us from your bank. We are still working to solve this and the money from your transfer on August 28th can't be returned to you until we receive the money back from your bank. I asked on you August 25th to please hold on making new withdrawals until this problem were fixed.
Our Tech department is looking into this and as soon as I have more information I will email you again.

Regards,
Michael Olsen

-----------------------------------------

I responded this morning with another animated email but of course keyser hasnt responded but Im sure he'll have some kind of snappy answer for all the nuthuggers on this board!

And in case you havent figured it out yet, I STILL DONT HAVE MY MONEY!!!!

Scary! I still just get checks from all the little sponsors, and setup good old wire transfers for anything around $2,000/$3,000 per period

without your replies this is useless

Ok, I'll post them. Give me a few minutes.

Epassporte Rocks

This was a mistake on YOUR BANK'S END not ePassporte's. You missed the email where Michael told you not to try transferring funds again via ACH until your bank could fix the issue on their end.

cut/paste from your post:

I just heard back from our technical department. The bank accidentally transferred the funds into someone else's account. They are currently recovering the funds and they should be loaded into your account in the next 3-5 business days. Unfortunately this was an issue with the bank.

If it was my banks fault they'd have a record of it, would they not? On 8/25 keyser said the money was back in my account but not to do anything with it. On 8/28 I got an email saying "We are happy to inform you that the funds have been returned to your account and are now available to you". What the hell does that mean? Keywords being "available to you" what is that supposed to mean?

On 8/24 keyser said and I quote "I talked to Maeghen and I the problem lies with ElectraCash", so is it Electracash or Wells Fargo? Lets get this straight. And also tell me why my bank has no idea what the hell you're talking about please. If my bank made an error and the numbers were correct why wouldnt they just transfer it directly to my bank account, why would they need to transfer back to Electracash first?

and by the way your 3-5 days has expired!

8/15

I just heard back from our technical department. The bank accidentally transferred the funds into someone else's account. They are currently recovering the funds and they should be loaded into your account in the next 3-5 business days. Unfortunately this was an issue with the bank.


8/24

We are looking into this and you should hopefully receive an answer about this Friday or Monday. I talked to Maeghen and I the problem lies with ElectraCash we are working hard to get them to send you your money and I expect something to happen within a day or two. I will follow up on it and let you know as soon as I know more.


8/25

The money is back in your account. We are still working on solving the problem so if you can please wait with withdrawing money to your bank account until this is solved. I will let you know when its cleared up.


8/28

Dear Cardholder,

We are happy to inform you that the funds have been returned to your account and are now available to you. We would like to convey our apologies for this ugly situation and thank you for your patience and forbearance

For further assistance, please call our Cardholder Services Center at any of the phone numbers listed below.

I hope this is helpful and please let me know if I can be of further assistance.

Regards,Shawn H.

-------------------------------

What I cant figure out and you still havent answered is why does Electracash need to recover the money if the bank made the error? And why dosent the bank have a record of this error? And since you were so kind to highlight it was the banks fault once again and point out the 3-5 days can you please tell me if its been 5 days yet?

Just check the dates and look at todays date before you answer next time please.

uhmm scary. i have some money on my epass :( i hate something like this happened on epass.

I'll give you a million other reasons not to use that piece of shit service.

We use a 3rd party solution for ACH transactions so if an ACH transaction fails, we must contact the 3rd party. They communicate with the bank and after weeks of going back and forth your bank finally told us they put the funds into the wrong account.

So we were out the 200 or so bucks your bank was holding and as a courtesy to you, our customer, we put the funds back into your account not knowing if your bank would ever return the funds to us.

You have decided again to try and transfer funds via ACH and again, and this can take 7 business days to hit your account. Monday was a holiday but we will check with the 3rd party and see what the status is.

Shaliza

Shaliza

Do yourself a favour and do some homework on the situation before you post. You arent doing yourself any favours by posting nonsense. I've spoken to my bank and they dont know what you're talking about. They have no record of your claim. They actally had someone in the tech department return my call and they have aboslutely no record of what you're saying. 21 days ago you guys told me it was deposited into the wrong account. So what has happened in the last 21 days? Has my 3-5 days passed yet? Why would the bank send Electracash the money? And thanks for highlighting that I tried a second withdrawal after Keyser told me on 8/25 not to touch the money.

Please explain this email:

8/28

Dear Cardholder,

We are happy to inform you that the funds have been returned to your account and are now available to you. We would like to convey our apologies for this ugly situation and thank you for your patience and forbearance

For further assistance, please call our Cardholder Services Center at any of the phone numbers listed below.

I hope this is helpful and please let me know if I can be of further assistance.

Regards,Shawn H.

ANYONE READING THIS?????
"So we were out the 200 or so bucks your bank was holding and as a courtesy to you, our customer, we put the funds back into your account not knowing if your bank would ever return the funds to us."
LOVE my Epassporte:thumbsup :thumbsup

ohh back to those epass drama threads.. i really missed em...

And before you extend yourself some gratitude for putting my balance back into my epass account you should know that I had to raise hell for that to happen. I will make it motherfucking ugly for you guys if you continue to act the way you are.

Epassporte Rocks.

I'm using epass
I agree with KingNigel :) :)

All I know is I hate paying someone using ePassporte because I have to pay the load fees, not the vendor. If I pay someone using my credit card and they charge me $500, they pay the 2.5% to 3% fee directly to Visa and I only pay $500. If I pay someone $500 using ePassporte I have to pay a fee for each $50 I load into the account so I have to load more than $500 to make the payment and unless I negotiate with the vendor in advance to pay less to compensate me for the load fees, I end up paying more than he charged me.

As far as I'm concerned Epassporte's responses in this thread some up exactly what kind of company they are. For most of the kids that post here they are clueless so I'm not surprised at a lot of the positive reactions.

They are full of smoke screens. They always indirectly answer questions so they never attach themselves to any wrong doing. Anyone who knows how an electronic transfer works knows that what they are claiming isn't even possible. Its comprised of numbers and if its even off by one it will deposited into the wrong account. They have continually claimed everything was correct on their end. The problem is my bank has also been investigating this and they have no record of an incoming transfer being deposited into the wrong account. They have no record of anything Epassporte is claiming.

The other problem is I've been in contact with 4 or 5 different people at Epassporte and they all say something different. I'll talk to these people 5 minutes apart and they'll say something to contradict what I was just told.

For instance this morning Keyser emailed me telling me I didn't have permission to withdrawal my money to my checking account on 8/28. But if you read above you will clearly see an email I received from the on 8/28 saying the money was now available to me.

You guys can come to your own conclusions about Epassporte. I feel confident that if you read in-between the lines you'll understand where I'm coming from and might think twice about using these idiots.

I forgot to add just to point out how they contradict each other.

Here is theire response on 8/28

Dear Cardholder,

We are happy to inform you that the funds have been returned to your account and are now available to you. We would like to convey our apologies for this ugly situation and thank you for your patience and forbearance

For further assistance, please call our Cardholder Services Center at any of the phone numbers listed below.

I hope this is helpful and please let me know if I can be of further assistance.

Regards,Shawn H.


This was a response from keyser this morning "your transfer on August 28th can't be returned to you until we receive the money back from your bank".

And here is shaliza responding above "You have decided again to try and transfer funds via ACH and again, and this can take 7 business days to hit your account. Monday was a holiday but we will check with the 3rd party and see what the status is."

3 people 3 different answers!

so you got your money back & your still bitching?

If I had my money I'd walk away and say nothing. I dont have my money and at this point I doubt I ever will!

well, I heard another pretty ugly story this week, but if the affected person doesn't post, then I won't either. But it was a really shitty situation going up for more than a month

I'm not surprised at all Alan. Of course people reading this thread will never get a good handle on all the bs I've been threw with these idiots. But hopefully it will deter at least a few of you from doing business with them. This is the type of surreal situation that you can never understand or believe until it happens to you. Epassporte reminds me of Registerfly a few years ago and we all know how that turned out.

well i will give them one thing they gave what sounded like a sincere apology but they indeed contradict themselves.. they say to hold off on spending the money thne they say a few days later that everything ok and the funds are released to you then mr olson replies that your still supposed to have been waiting, but the other email says everything was ok.. ( and they blamed the bank when it was the transfer that failed from the intermediate not your bank , so you end up making a fool out of yourself telling the bank they put it in the wrong account )

Yes because your $200.00 is going to put my kids through college.

So your bank, which made the mistake, is claiming this never happened which means WE are making this up to cover for the fact that we are trying to steal $200 from you. And the bank would never be misinformed or simply not willing to admit they made an error.

This all makes perfect sense!

What really kills me is that you tried to transfer funds to your bank account again even after we told you not to try until we solved the issue. Michael specifically told you to wait until he informed you it was ok. See email below sent August 25th:

Hi Tim

The money is back in your account.
We are still working on solving the problem so if you can please wait with
withdrawing money to your bank account until this is solved. I will let
you know when its cleared up.
Regards,
Michael


So on the 28th, you get an email confirming the funds were put back into account from our cs department (simple follow up to ensure the issue was handled) and you think this says please try transferring via ACH again?

So really, it?s not me who didn?t do my homework, its you who didn?t bother to read the instructions.

Thank You Smokey, Im glad someone is paying attention!!!!!!!!!!!!

sorry mistake in my post it was the banks fault ( from what epassporte says , although im still confused as how that would happen )

why wouldnt he think that , thats EXACTLY what the email told him..
------------------------
"We are happy to inform you that the funds have been returned to your account and are now available to you. We would like to convey our apologies for this ugly situation and thank you for your patience and forbearance"
--------------------
hmm i dont know but that seems pretty clear to me that its a green light to trnasfer the funds..

If I got an email 3 days after being told to wait that said "Your shit is there now" I would withdraw it again too. Why even show a balance on his account if he can't withdraw it like he intended to do a month ago?

Yep, that's what it would mean to pretty much anyone.

What amazes me about you is that you continue to post nonsense! Not only is the amount not $200 but if you would even read the post or for that matter just look at the communication history between myself and your company you would understand the problem. But you insist to continually pick and choose your replies. Thats fine I find it difficult to argue with someone like you that isnt dialed into the situation. We havent had any communication since this ordeal first began but now you're an expert on the situation and Keyser doesnt have the sack to post so you will take his place.

Why dont you have the boss of your company contact me, he can pick up the phone and call collect if necesary. As I've requested numerous times before. Its hard for me to remain patient when dealing with minimum wage customer service reps that only know what they are told.

but i dont even think thats the issue , that part is just miscommunication on epassporte's part , you didnt explain that well enough, from what im reading it seems he was told to wait then told it was ok , now you acting like he is a retard for trying to use his funds when he got an email telling them they were available for him to use.

all that aside i think the politness and understanding of epassporte was very good in this situation , i would like to have seen a better outcome , but i think it was handled rather well by epassporte considering the circumstances..

That email says the funds are available however we had asked him not to transfer the funds until Michael contacted him. I think that was VERY clear.

It seems strange to me that they use a seperate company to move money around via ACH for them. I thought that moving money around via wires and ACH is actually their core business, just like PayPal? This would explain why withdrawls take 5-9 days if in fact they have actually added a third party, obviously one with different banking, to the process.

All ears!

Brad

This is where the customer service of a company can be determined. You say you ate the money although I don't see how that would ever be true. In any case this could have been solved quite easily as seen below.

Dear sleeves,

We are sincerely sorry for the problems you have been having in regards to withdrawing money to your bank account. We have yet to pinpoint the cause of this problem so please refrain from making another withdrawal until we can figure it out. In the meantime we would like to offer you a complimentary debit card so that you can withdraw your balance as cash and deposit into your bank account that way while the issue is being worked on. I will go ahead and refund the amount of the withdrawal and work with your bank to get the funds back on our end. If you attempt another withdrawal I won't be able to do this.

Thank you for using Epassporte and have a nice day.

the reason why these situations suck is beacuse once its out of epassporte's hands it requires manual legwork ( like picking up the phone and calling people ) so everyone waits on each other , the bank says we will call you back and etelegate says we will call you back and everyone adds there own few hours onto that figure and it takes days to get things solved.. sucks for the customer sucks for epassporte, cant really blame them much for that , but what you can do is say " stop jerking people around ".. if im told " on such and such day eveyrhting is okay " and its not im pissed , if its explained better " we anticipate release of funds on ____ if there is a problem please contact me aspa and we will resolve the issue " then if theres a problem nobody is left in the dark.. explain how the transfer works even semi scripted but explain explain explain.. regardless of how it went down your customer obviously misunderstood what you assumed he understood, so its your job to help him understand more clearly . and to do tht you have to explain yourself better..

I signed up for a epassporte account because quite a few people wanted to use them to pay me although I never did trust this place secuirty wise... Turns out it's the actual company you shouldnt trust. Been quite a few months now, I never got my card and no clue where my deposit funds are.

no it isnt many people are telling you that , im telling you ( read above ) , i thought epassporte handled the situation quite well for the circumstances , im not an epassporte hater , i like the service , but im telling you that part was very unclear , many aspects of epassporte are this way so people gripe on the boards when if you just explained yourself better people wouldnt be left in the dark.. if people are left in the dark they start assuming things instead of understanding them.. if i got the same messages i would have assumed that the email meant it was ok to transfer the funds or why send it.. i would have figured it was an automated message and that michael would be following it up shortly with a personal message.. but hey maybe we are all just crazy :winkwink:

he's pissed off, he don't have to be clear, quite frankly there's a 3 new epasseporte horror stories per day on this board alone.. That is sign enough..

Again this is why Keyser should be posting and not shaliza.

On 8/10 keyser said he'd look into it and follow up. After that communicatin I was handed off to Maeghen Dennis and had to send another email to Keyser on 8/25 to follow up because he never got back to me.

Now if you understand what Im saying above then how in the hell am I not supposed to take the email I received on 8/28 seriously when it says "the money is now available to you"? What the hell are you guys doing? Why send me that email??????????

By the way shaliza we are on day 7 or 8 depending on if you count Sat as a work day for the bank. You said you'd check on the transfer for me above. My bank closes in 4 hours, so whats your excuse going to be then?

Since I already know you are going to revert back to "I shouldnt have withdrew the money in the first place", why even tell me you'd check on the transfer?

How can you consider the funds to be available to him IF HE CAN'T DO JACK SHIT WITH THEM?!? Available means they're his to use as he sees fit, pick up a fucking dictionary if your comprehension of the English language is that limited.

As I said in my very first post they did that so I'd quit bitching for a few days. And by the way I really had to get into it with them for that money to be put into my epass account. But again what the hell is the point?

Here's my 2cents :)

Had I received the emails in the sequence he got them - and reading "your funds have been returned to your account and are now available to you" I TOO would have understood that it's all good and my money is there for me to use and do as I please. HOWEVER - my line of thinking is this - if they screwed it up (whomever it was that screwed it up) then I'd want ABSOLUTE confirmation from Epassporte that my next attempt would be done right and not require another month or so delay to get my money. I'd want to know WHAT the problem was EXACTLY and how it got RESOLVED and confirmation that the next transfer is going without a hitch and at no extra cost to me.

Also - there are very few ways a bank can make an error when receiving money - 99.999% of the time it's the issuer that makes an error in typing the account number/ABA/SWIFT or Branch number (or the third party entering it in their system thereafter) because the money would 'automatically' come in via electronic systems thereafter - UNLESS the receiving bank is small and still has people posting the entries which would account for the .001%

According to my bank and everyone else I've talked to about this it isnt possible. Electronic transfers are just that, electronic! They are comprised of nothing but numbers. So if it is even 1 digit off it will go to the wrong place.

And if you're reading between the lines you would wonder why Electracash has to recover the money before it can be deposited into my checking account. If it was on the bank they'd just deposit the funds directly, there wouldnt be any need to send the money back to Electracash.

You and I are on the same page, I also have tried to be compinsated for this disaster but I think you already know the answer I got! I've been asking for a check for weeks but keep getting declined, I didnt want to do the transfer again but they gave me no choice!