Firepay \"new policy\" with high withdrawal fees
 

For the last 6 months or so I have used my firepay account to recieve my monthly rakeback payments. Usually within a week after recieving my money, I have been withdrawing the money via EFT transfer to my bank account. To date, all of these transactions have been free. Today, however, I was about to make a withdrawal until I noticed that they have begun to ask me for a $10 withdrawal fee.

I contacted them and after a couple of emails have been told that this is a "new policy,"

"Withdrawals are FREE for active FirePay users. If you only use your FirePay account to make withdrawals back to your bank account you will not be able to take advantage of FREE withdrawals. In order to benefit from FREE withdrawals, you must fund your FirePay account and transfer funds to a merchant's site."

"To be an active FirePay member you must, frequently (every 7 days) fund your FirePay account through your bank, and make transfers to merchant sites."

As such, I have very little use for firepay. The only reason I set up an account there was so that I didn't have to pay the 1.9% Neteller fee. Even though $10 is less than the % fee, I don't want to pay it if I don't have to.

Can I just take the money from firepay, dump it into Party (or some other site) and then withdraw it from the site to Neteller or my IMG pay linked bank account? If I do this every month, is firepay going to make up some new policy? Does anyone else do anything similar? Or should I just stop using firepay altogher? I could just have my affilate make payments to my UB account. I don't use it much, so I don't really want it going there but would rather do it that way than pay a high fee.

Re: Firepay \"new policy\" with high withdrawal fees
 

"take the money from firepay, dump it into Party..."

Empire.

Re: Firepay \"new policy\" with high withdrawal fees
 

Marland residents unite...

This is all news to me and I'm going to have to look into it more as if affects me (and all MD residents) way more than OP. Not to marginalize your problem, but MD residents can't have a Neteller account.

Any ideas in how to get around this? I already use IGM exclusively for Party, but I still use Firepay a ton for other sites. Does anyone else who is not eligible for Netller have good experiences with any other services (Citadel comes to mind)?

Re: Firepay \"new policy\" with high withdrawal fees
 

I see on the FirePay site where they want to charge $10 for a withdrawal. I have contacted cs to clarify the situation.

[ QUOTE ]

"To be an active FirePay member you must, frequently (every 7 days) fund your FirePay account through your bank, and make transfers to merchant sites."


[/ QUOTE ]
I did not see that anywhere on the web site, though I admit that I could have missed it. Would you please share your source?

Re: Firepay \"new policy\" with high withdrawal fees
 

[ QUOTE ]
"To be an active FirePay member you must, frequently (every 7 days) fund your FirePay account through your bank, and make transfers to merchant sites."

[/ QUOTE ]

if this is true, it will cost u just over $200 to stay active for a yr and avoid withdrawl fees.

Re: Firepay \"new policy\" with high withdrawal fees
 

[ QUOTE ]
I have contacted cs to clarify the situation.


[/ QUOTE ]
I filled out a 'Contact Us' form on the FirePay website:
"I have a question about the Withdraw Funds Menu. FirePay says that withdrawals are free for active FirePay users. It then continues to state that an active user funds their FirePay account (from their bank account I presume) and transfers those funds to a merchant. I have done both of these things in the past, but I am wondering how often each of them needs to occur to be considered an 'active' user. Thank you for your time."

Here's the response I received:
"You must frequently fund your FirePay account by making deposits into it using your bank account.

Please contact us if you have further inquiries."

Well I guess that clears that up.
On the bright side, at least I got a response quickly.
In all seriousness...I have resubmitted my question, asking them to define 'frequently' explicitly.

Re: Firepay \"new policy\" with high withdrawal fees
 

I've funded my Firepay account a total of 2 times in the last 6 months. I just now (after reading this thread) made a withdrawal of $4000 with no fee.

Re: Firepay \"new policy\" with high withdrawal fees
 

[ QUOTE ]
I see on the FirePay site where they want to charge $10 for a withdrawal. I have contacted cs to clarify the situation.

[ QUOTE ]

"To be an active FirePay member you must, frequently (every 7 days) fund your FirePay account through your bank, and make transfers to merchant sites."


[/ QUOTE ]
I did not see that anywhere on the web site, though I admit that I could have missed it. Would you please share your source?

[/ QUOTE ]

My source is the email I recieved from Neal in their CS department.

Re: Firepay \"new policy\" with high withdrawal fees
 

[ QUOTE ]
My source is the email I recieved from Neal in their CS department.

[/ QUOTE ]
Thank you. Maybe I should ask to speak with him directly.

My latest email from them:
"You will have to fund your FirePay account frequently as on a regular basis. Every time you want to fund your account on a merchant site use FirePay to make the deposit then transfer the funds to the merchant site. Only then will you be able to get free withdrawals.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you require any additional assistance."

[insert joke comparing the cs to Party] [/joke]

Re: Firepay \"new policy\" with high withdrawal fees
 

Firepay makes its money 2 ways:

1. When you pay a fee to transfer money from your bank account to Firepay.

2. When a merchant pays a fee to accept payment from Firepay.

If you are using Firepay exclusively to recieve payments from your rakeback provider and then immediately transfer the money to your bank account, then they are making no money off of you. (Unless you keep the money with them for a while and they make some money off the float).

So basically, firepay got pissed at you because they weren't making money off of you, and decided to change their services to you. Not agreeing with what they did, but as a business it is certainly their right.

Your solution? If you use the money to fund your party poker account, I bet they wouldn't charge you any fees, because they'd be making money off of you (they charge Party fees for this). Of course, eventually Party Poker will get pissed off if you use them as a bank. So vary it up. Do some cover play occasionally. Ocassionally pay the fee, etc. Find the cheapest method.