U.S. Customers to Receive Neteller Funds

Neteller, the immensely popular e-wallet for online poker players until it closed its doors to both Americans and Canadians earlier this year, announced Monday that it has a plan in place to return funds to U.S. customers.

As any U.S. poker player with a Neteller account well knows, U.S. customer funds on deposit were seized by the United States Attorney’s Office (USAO) back in January, so that the USAO may use them as evidence against company founders Stephen Lawrence and John Lefebvre.  The two men were arrested in the U.S. a few days earlier.  Since the seizure, Americans have not been able to access their funds.  Only a fortunate few were able to get their money out between the arrests and the funds seizure.

Neteller has been working along with the USAO and consulting firm, Navigant, on a plan to return the money into the appropriate owners’ hands since March.  The plan is fairly simple.  U.S. customers will be able to login to their accounts and request a cash out.  The funds will find their way back to the customers via check or electronic funds transfer, whichever is preferred (the EFT will need to be to whatever bank was already attached the customer’s Neteller account).  Withdrawals must be made for the entire balance and no other transactions, such as peer-to-peer, will be allowed. 

Neteller is still working on its own legal issues with the U.S. DoJ, but hopes to have them wrapped up by July 13, at which point it will issue further information as to the dates when U.S. customers will be able to access their accounts.