Is Neteller screwing their European customers?

[Jonathan]

Hi,

I recently took my first withdrawl from a European cash machine using a Neteller debit card and was shocked at the effective rate. First, you must "load" your debit card from your Neteller account. There is a $2 US fee for this. But the debit card is loaded in Canadian dollars so you pay for the exchange from US to Canadian dollars when the debit card is loaded. Then when you withdraw from a European cash machine you pay for the exchange from Canadian dollars to euros.

In my first experience, the "effective" US$/euro rate that I paid (including all fees) was 1.37, on a day when the bulk rate quoted on FOREX was 1.31. So the effective markup for the end-to-end transaction was 0.06. When I use my (US) Citibank bank card to withdraw euros from a cash machine the markup is 1.5% over the bulk rate, or in this instance a 0.02 markup.

The bottom line is that Neteller is charging their clients THREE TIMES as much as standard banking practice! I was shocked!

Does anyone else find this as unconscienable as I do?

PokerStars now offers the option of check withdrawls in euros, and the exchange rate they use is excellent. But in correspondence with them, they told me that the majority of their european clients use Neteller rather than request checks. I wonder why?

I'd like some advice please from others in europe on how best to get cash from PokerStars.

Thanks,
Jonathan