Mirage

Since I went ahead and took the plunge and signed up for eWalletXpress, I thought I'd fill you guys in on my experience in case you were considering doing the same. This might be of particular interest to those who also have some money on the Merge network who would like to be able to move it around to other sites as needed, like myself. Their fees to withdraw from eWalletXpress to your bank account are ridiculously high, but if you only use it to move your funds from one site to another, it's effectively free. So, you can move your Walker Poker roll over to, say, Bodog or Carbon, take advantage of a deposit bonus, put in some hands, and request a check without ever having to pay a red cent in fees, assuming your new site of choice doesn't charge for sending paper checks.

https://www.ewalletxpress.com/

Signup was pretty standard as far as the information you have to put in, i.e. name, address etc. There was a minimum deposit of $50. The cool part was that they had Savings accounts as an option, which allowed me to deposit directly from my ING savings account. Within a few days, my withdrawal was showing on the ING ledger; a much faster signup time than ePassporte was. Overall, the website is very cleanly done, and I would go so far as to say I already prefer it over the old clunky ePass site.

Here's the part I got a bit hung up on, however: to validate your checking/savings account, they want you to put verify a test withdrawal amount, and they even say it is NOT the amount of your initial deposit. This leads you to believe that, like with many other ewallet or internet banking sites (epass, neteller, even ING) there will be a small deposit or two (or withdrawal of) a few pennies, upon which you enter the amount(s) in on the website for verification. What they DON'T tell you is that there IS no test deposit. They simply alter your initial deposit amount a bit; so, if you deposit $50, instead of taking $50 even out of your bank, they take $49.xx. I think my withdrawal wound up being $49.36. So, after sitting there like an idiot for a few days when I could have been up and running, I decided to plug in 49.36 for the verification amount (it says you get 3 tries) and it worked. D'oh!

I have a little over $1250 sitting on Walker that I have attempted to withdraw now to eWalletXpress. I could clearly see my deposit/withdraw limits on the eW site, but I have no idea if there are any limits for a merchant to transfer to a customer account. So, I'm going to go for it and find out the hard way. I'll post an update as soon as it is either accepted or rejected.

bigloser2448

Cool Mirage,
Thanks for the report. I signed up for an account on there but haven't taken the plunge of loading it yet. Maybe now I'll give it a go.

BTW, you mentioned withdrawing VIA Paper Check. How does that work? Is the check from outside the country and therefore not easy to cash. I don't know if I'd want to deposit a check like that into my every day bank account. I dunno.

I was kind of hoping to have some sort of Internet only account(s) setup so I never really have anything tied to my accounts that I use for "real life". Kinda like when I used to do eBay with PayPal. I'd sell stuff on eBay and I got a debit/master card through PayPal that I could use to buy stuff anywhere. Are there ANY options that are like that in the online poker world?

__________________
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Tysun

Mirage did you deposit onto Walker using eWalletXpress or did you just try to withdraw. If this works out for you I'll definitely follow suit. Also it would probably give me an excuse to set up an account at Bodog which I don't currently have. Supposely Bodog has something like eChecks which might be possible solution to get money off for free. Randy or anyone else got an information on Bodog.

Mirage

It depends on the site, really. From digging around a bit on 2p2, it looks like Bodog's checks are slow, like 1 month to arrive, but US drawn. Carbon seems to have mixed results, but better recently (1 to 3 weeks, US drawn.) Don't take that as gospel though, it's only 2nd-hand anecdotal reports. Bodog will cover the fees for your first withdrawal of the month, after that they charge a flat $20 fee regardless of method. It looks like the best (quickest) option to withdraw right now is via Moneygram, similar to Western Union I believe, so you can get your money within a day or two and not pay a fee... you just gotta go to like a Wal-Mart or something unfortunately. The store you go to will charge a $9.50 fee, but Bodog will reimburse it to your player account.
That WOULD be nice, but no such luck... not since the days when you could use PayPal for poker sites. *drools*

Looks like I've already addressed the Bodog withdrawal options as best I can. Regarding withdrawing from Walker, eWX was readily available as a withdrawal option. $1275 was the exact amount that I am trying. It shows as pending still, I'll keep you updated when it goes through (or alternatively doesn't, if it's too large or what have you.)

Randy

For my Bodog account I have these options:

E-walletexpress
Credit Card (Works for me)
Rapid Transfer
Click 2 pay
Money Transfer

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Mirage

Rapid Transfer = MoneyGram btw.

johnny

Except that Paypal just turned over a bunch of "John Doe" records to the IRS.

Mirage

Update: My withdrawal request was approved during the night, just before midnight, so about 2 and a half days' turnaround from Walker. Not bad! I got the approval email this morning, checked my eWX balance, and every cent of $1275 is there, ready to be deposited elsewhere. So, similar to ePass, the deposit/withdrawal limits don't affect what you can be transferred from a merchant. I think I'll be trying out Bodog with that money now.

So far, so good.


Edit: Deposited $1325 into Bodog (including the $50 eWX took from my bank account at signup,) no fees. It hasn't been deducted from eWX account yet, but it is available in Bodog. Sweet!


Edit 2: Hmmm, my plan to use Rapid Transfer to withdraw from Bodog might have hit a snag. When you go to "Payout," and choose the Rapid Transfer option, this paragraph is shown next to the box where you put in the amount:
It doesn't say that in the check by mail / check by courier options, however, so no fees might still be possible. Quick withdrawal... not so much.

Tysun

Quick question Mirage, did you forfeit your deposit bonus on Walker when you withdrew?

Mirage

No idea.

Edit: It clears so slowly I didn't even care.