Interesting article posted yesterday in the St. Kitts Observer about the Epassporte situation
 

Forgive me if it's been posted, but there are so many pages related to this situation I said fuck it:

SKNANB Cleared of Wrongdoing in 3-way Bank Card Mixup
http://www.thestkittsnevisobserver.c...ntroversy.html
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A spokesperson for the St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla National Bank says the indigenous bank’s hands are clean in an escalating Visa/ePassporte prepaid debit card controversy.

The bank’s name surfaced on Internet blog sites last week after California-based ePassporte, a digital payment system, informed its customers that credit card giant VISA International had “suspended our banking partner’s (St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla National Bank) ePassporte Visa program”.

According to Krebsonsecurity.com, an Internet news and investigation blog, ePassporte owner Christopher Mallick notified customers via e-mail on September 2. In addition to informing of the suspension, the e-mail said, “At this time ePassporte can no longer issue Visa Cards, and the ability for our account holders to make point of sale purchases and withdraw funds from ATMs has also been suspended.”

The ePassporte e-mail asserted that the company had done successful business with Visa International for over seven years and that, “we do not know why this drastic action was taken by Visa”.

It then gave assurance to customers, stating: “As soon as we have more information we will be in contact with you. In the meantime please be assured that your funds are safe.”

Visa International issued a press release on September 7 stating that the suspension of the ePassporte Visa program had been at the request of SKNA National Bank, which issued the prepaid debit cards.

“At the request of St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla National Bank (SKNANB), on September 2, 2010, Visa blocked network access for prepaid cards issued by SKNANB and operated by ePassporte.com to address certain program deficiencies. ePassporte.com is a third-party agent that works with SKNANB. It is important to note that impacted SKNANB prepaid cardholders are still able to access their funds through SKNANB or SKNANB’s agent, ePassporte.com. For more information cardholders should contact SKNANB or ePassporte.com,” the press release said.

Various blog sites show a mounting number of posts from SKNANB ePassporte Visa cardholders claiming that they could not access their money to “pay my rent and my bills,” etc.

The Observer spoke exclusively with Patricia Wilkinson, SKNANB executive manager in marketing, who said the bank had been cleared of any wrongdoing as outlined in the Visa press statement.

“Visa sent out a press release and spoke on the matter. They posted a press release absolving National Bank of any wrong-doing. We have no issues with Visa because they clarified the issue,” she said.

Wilkinson declined to make any statements regarding ePassporte’s relationship with SKNA National Bank, referring The Observer to Visa’s statement.

“I’m not speaking to the relationship with ePassporte and National Bank. The claims made in the initial press release, Visa spoke to that on our behalf. I can’t speak to anything Visa has said about ePassporte. ePassporte put out the initial statement that started the controversy and Visa clarified essentially the Bank’s position. Anything else that Visa would have said about ePassporte that is between them, and you’d have to call ePassporte or Visa to get information from them. I am not speaking to anything else,” she asserted.

It's literally been posted over 100 times.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh My bad... well, make it 101 then :winkwink:

..and the funds are in motion.

Thing is maybe you should of said fuck it and not post it ;)

still all money is safe!

First I've read it. All the sig whore threads and replies get in the way of real information.

....and secure and.....IN MOTION .lol

the motion keeps them secure

lotion helps the motion

Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts.

The first part is called "The Pledge". The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course... it probably isn't.

The second act is called "The Turn". The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back.

That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call "The Prestige"



.

the statement sounds fishy now , when i spoke with an account manager at st kitts they said they were working to get the cards turned back on.

They sound now ike they are stepping back from it.

They turned off the cards not epassporte, so they should be posting a reason besides "defencies"

Romania? Interesting.

turn off turn on turn off turn on...

lol, goes to show how many americans really used it. why would you anyway with all the ACH.

Very interesting link!

Romania, the Philippines and Russia. Epassporte is full of scammers. :(

wonder how this ends?

yep smoke and mirrors... how much is VISA fining them for being out of compliance? bye bye money

same story, different company.

soooo glad I don't use it much these days and only lost a few hundred.

Hence the problems. :2 cents:

:1orglaugh