FYI: When Withdrawal's Go Horribly Wrong. (Updated)

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Freelance Diamond Thief
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Boris-The-Blade // Franky-Fourfinger's // Bullet-Tooth-Tony
(Here's what happened on my withdrawal. Some of this is my fault, for just not checking and being thorough, some simple bad luck and ridiculous timing, and some : I just can't explain other than MA's sheer fault.)

So I want to tell you a story.

It started Back on September the 1st, 2010.
I had an ongoing support case open with mindark, I wanted to open one before withdrawing, and actually get a head's up on specifically in detail what I needed to do, to keep my withdrawal time down, and everything smooth. Ironic really, when I look back on it now.
My Initial case was opened on the 20th of July, and just featured some question's on how to begin my withdrawal, and what I would need. First a note for first time withdrawal's :

You Need A Bank Account, Period. It Also MUST Match Your Registered Name.

Moving on, on the 1st of September I initiated my first withdraw, all happy and fuzzy that I would actually be getting some of the mound spent in game, back. On the same day, I opened alternate account with my primary bank, to recieve the payment from Mindark. For 10day's I waited before submitting another ticket, basically to check how it was going.
Mindark wrote me back promptly, with the usual cut/paste "It's going to take up to 30day's maximum", so I said thank you, and waited a bit longer (honestly, I just wanted to remind them in hopes of speedier service :)). I waited until the 20th of September before submitting another ticket.

On the 20th of September, I re-submitted another ticket explaining I was a bit worried, and that a lot here commented on the forum's how smaller withdrawal's, were in fact speedier. They promptly emailed me back. They stated that Mindark payment's are indeed handled within 30 day's, but also to note that it meant business day's (I didn't pay attention to this, dur dur) as well, and that they would check it just in case for me. Unfortunately it had not been approved at that time, so the wait was on.

Now, on 1st of October the payment received "Committed" Status. I was ecstatic! Happy I logged straight into my bank account. (Well's Fargo). Attempting to log into my account, I got the notice that my account did not exist. Well that's a story in itself, I'll just give you the conclusion here. MA had taken so long to pay out, my primary bank had actually closed my account from inactivity, 2 day's before the payment recieved "Committed" status. As simple a problem as this sound's to be, once it's closed for that reason, no amount of calling can fix it. I tried everyone, even in different states lol. Well's Fargo had just went through a merger with Wachovia, and my account happened to be one from Wachovia, in which something went drastically wrong and they closed it just 5 or so day's after the merger. This was ridiculous, needless to say the payment was rejected just a day or so from the day it closed, ironically for inactivity. (Humorous)

Contacting MA again, I explained what had happened, and how horrible the timing had been. This was about the 5th of October. I gave them the new routing number, and IBAN number for my Green Dot Visa card, the same card I'll mention, that I had made previous deposit's with without any problem. (I had called after finding out what happened with Well's Fargo, discontinued and closed my accounts with Wells Fargo<Was quite angry at the time>, and called Green Dot beforehand to see if they could receive the payment). The online support techie instructed me of the account number and IBAN number to use to receive the payment, and I immediately sent that information into my open support case as a backup withdrawal method.

To my amazement, a day later MA support contacted me back realizing I was upset over the length of time it took, and the crap that had happened with the initial payment. They explained that they would NOT charge me the bounce fee associated with rejected payments, and that they would send the payment immediately. Let me put there his for new users in Bold :

700PED is the charge for rejected payments normally, plus your bank's international fee again to receive it, and the 100ped standard fee for withdrawals.

I was relieved to hear that MA was actually going to side with me and not charge me the bounce charge for rejected payment's. I actually felt a lot better about it then. I explained that I would wait the standard 5business day's before contacting them to let them know how it went, and whether or not I recieved it.

October 13th rolled around. I had been checking my Green Dot Visa periodically to check the status of the payment, and submitted another paragraph to my open support case with MA stating it had not been recieved. I told them I wouldn't mind waiting another day or two just to be sure, perhaps it was slow.
Almost there folk's, hang tight :)

October 15th, 2010. Today I double checked the account with Green Dot, to see if the payment had cleared. Indeed it had not. Now keep in mind I've called Green Dot some 3-4times regarding double checking the information the first rep gave me as to the account number, and IBAN international routing number. Everything was right, but they payment was still not there. Hmm. I called Green Dot, and was a little aggrevated when I talked to them, and immediately requested a supervisor. After hearing this lengthy problem, they forwarded me to a VIP shareholder in the company, that was able to affirm the fact's, in detail.

Let me now put this in Bold :

GREEN DOT CARDS CANNOT RECIEVE INTERNATIONAL PAYMENTS.

The shareholder looked up my account, and even verified the number again, that the original online tech gave me for forwarding the payment to. He then asked me what state it was coming from, so I mentioned it was International, and from Sweden. As you might have guessed, he explained that Green Dot Cards cannot receive international payment's. So yep, right now I feel like a chump, ha. Twice now I've just had piss poor luck, and probably should have done more homework beforehand.

That being said, he then went on to check my account history for the international payment coming through to verify. This is what bothered me today. Turn's out, MA had stated that they would forward the payment (this was on the 7th of October), without bounce charges to the new account number. Now, while the account can't actually accept it (Jeesh) that I found out today, he went on to state that there was NO account activity. I asked what he meant in detail. He went on to explain that the payment would have shown up, and been rejected as per normal course of event's, but in fact, MA never actually sent the payment in the first place. There was no account activity, and no payment attempt from MA to be found, ever.

UPDATE : 10/19/2010
Today MA after being asked why no payment was sent, or rejected, sent their reply.
"I just received word from our financial department that your payment was returned by your bank."
LoL, aggravating. After checking with Green Dot International, it was never sent in the first place, no reject payment's in the past year or so, much less in the last couple of day's. Beginning to wonder if the MA support person I'm talking to has any accurate idea of what's going on whatsoever. I've emailed Paypal now to see if they can accept the payment in some shape form or fashion, as sadly I'm beginning to run out of option's on how to get paid. I wonder exactly how much MA is sitting back and making, %wise, on my money at this point. Not a moment closer to getting it, as it seem's, and now nearly 2month's (business) of waiting.

Now at a crossroads, I am wondering. It was truly nice to have MA state that they would not in fact charge the rejected payment bounce charge, but they never attempted to send the payment in the first place. I can't really, after as many people as I've talked to or yelled at through Well's Fargo, or Green Dot, figure out how MA could deny this is the truth. Maybe they just had not sent the payment yet, despite saying they would sent it immediately? Or perhaps they just lied about it. Who knows, but this end's my story.

I'll keep this lengthy story updated, haha for the 3member's willing to read it all. I now have a open case that is @ 46day's long (66day's from the initial opening), and not a dime of my withdrawal lol. At least however, someone can read this and see that Green Dot won't work for your withdrawal's, and specifically what you'll need for your bank account to withdraw. I'll keep you all posted! :ahh:

UPDATE : 10/22/2010

I sent MA my information for a primary account now, for them to send the money too on the 21st. I also requested it in Euro's (why not) instead of USD this time around. on the 22nd they sent back this :
"Hi,
Please note that if you prefer to have the withdrawal sent in EUR we will have to exchange the money, which will incur an exchange fee. If your new account will not accept EUR the withdrawal will bounce again and incur additional band handling fees.
"
So ikes, apparently their is a fee associated not only with bouncing a payment back to them (700ped), but also a fee incurred to simply changed the payout type of currency. Anyone else encountered this? Seem's a little odd to me when a payment has never left a bank, that a fee is accessed to change the currency. LoL, get's better and better! I'll update this as soon as I hear something new. O.O
 
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Second report I've read about players banks closing their accounts due to lack of activity.

I dont understand why people are using banks that close their accounts within a month, or temporary accounts just for this purpose. Just seems weird. I've had a bank account of one sort of another since I was 11. Just use your regular account surely or stick £5 / $5 in it?
 
Sorry to hear about your troubles.. but correct me if I'm wrong... the standard 700 ped you are talking abut would have normally been applied after the payment was rejected from Wells Fargo.. or Wachovia or whatever its called.. not the green dot card... so of course when the green dot guy looked it up, there is no transaction ever.. cuz MA has yet to send you the money... contact wells fargo and they may or may not have a record of the bounced payment.. that MA has decided not to charge you for.

Regardless of this, I hope you get it sorted out... and Wells Fargo sucks... my mom opened an account there when she was in arizona last summer.. a savngs account for when she travels to the states to visit her sister... she only deposited $150 in it and when she went online the other day to transfer some money to it.. her money was gone.. slowly eaten away by $15 a month service charge.. for a savings account that had no activity since she opened it.. except for the monthly debit.. she promptly called them and told them to shove their account.

XZC
 
Thank's for the feedback guys.

Your right Xander, the 700ped shouldn't be charged for the Green Dot since it was never sent. Akward really, as they specifically mentioned it was sent back on the 7th, and even made reference when asked around the 12th that it was still attempting to be paid. In other word's, it really seems like they wanted me to believe it was being sent, when it really wasn't ever attempted to be, unless it's taken now 9business day's and still hasn't even made it to Green Dot.

Your absolutely right though, the 700ped fee could have been assessed when the failed attempt to Well's Fargo went through, but it shouldn't be with the Green Dot, simply because it was never sent.

Something very wrong with a company telling you that there going to wave bounce charges and send a payment, even attempt to "check" the payment status for you to make sure all's well, when in truth they haven't sent it at all. Honestly I'm really glad I contacted and made a fuss with Green Dot, the high up I spoke to there was very friendly, and even offered to waive some recent charges not related to MA because of the sheer trouble I've had with MA and getting this payment.

I'll update this probably monday when I hear back from MA too. I directly asked them if they knew anything about why it's not been sent, even after I asked back on the 12th, for them to check the status to make sure all was well.
 
Only thing I know is that banks like to make things as complicated as possible.

But good luck anyway.:)
 
Now at a crossroads, I am wondering. It was truly nice to have MA state that they would not in fact charge the rejected payment bounce charge, but they never attempted to send the payment in the first place.

Well as far as I know MA doesn't send the money: they order their bank to send it

So if the account manager of MA bank knows that your bank can't receive money, I call that efficient management not to send the money to see it return back with extra charges to the client (MA and then the player)

(So it still might not be MA fault).

As a side note, you should try to get a bank account which can receive money from anywhere.
 
66day's from the initial opening

That's 66 days from september 1st? That is well within the range before you would even need to make a case in the first place. (if there are no difficulties) What do I mean? The normal time for a withdrawal can be up to 30 WORKING DAYS. if you count that on a calender, that is about 90 REAL DAYS, and 66 < 90, meaning, you still have about 24 days to go from those 66 days, before it could even be considered something is wrong (if there were no difficulties in the first place). Remember, there are only 5 working days in a week! And that is without any holidays!
 
That's 66 days from september 1st? That is well within the range before you would even need to make a case in the first place. (if there are no difficulties) What do I mean? The normal time for a withdrawal can be up to 30 WORKING DAYS. if you count that on a calender, that is about 90 REAL DAYS, and 66 < 90, meaning, you still have about 24 days to go from those 66 days, before it could even be considered something is wrong (if there were no difficulties in the first place). Remember, there are only 5 working days in a week! And that is without any holidays!
Hmm...30 working days, 5 working days in a week means 6 weeks, so 6x7=42 REAL days, not 90 :)
 
Well as far as I know MA doesn't send the money: they order their bank to send it

So if the account manager of MA bank knows that your bank can't receive money, I call that efficient management not to send the money to see it return back with extra charges to the client (MA and then the player)

(So it still might not be MA fault).

As a side note, you should try to get a bank account which can receive money from anywhere.


Efficient management? Not real sure if the bank itself could possibly realize a rejection in the first place, but I can't agree with being told it is currently being sent, then even have it "Checked" in the meantime with the same status report given to myself <Still processing>. Meaning in short, they have either lied to me specifically, on twice the occasion now. Or, something random could have happened, such as a overzealous support operator that doesn't actually send the money, put it through to be sent, but actually has no idea when, or if it does. Could be anything really, but I'll never condone being told something that isn't happening regardless.

As far as a bank manager not sending a payment to a bank that cannot accept it : If they are just that good to know better, that's great. Mean's they can tell you ahead of time that's just not going to work, however keep in mind it's been about 11working day's now, and All I've been told was that "processing", when in point of fact it hasn't been sent atall, for whatever reason.

Could lead a unsuspecting person to believing that MA had attempted to pay them, then be grateful enough to thank MA about it, and feel a lot better about being charged a bounce charge the next go around having felt MA did them a favor already, so to speak.

That's 66 days from September 1st? That is well within the range before you would even need to make a case in the first place. (if there are no difficulties) What do I mean? The normal time for a withdrawal can be up to 30 WORKING DAYS. if you count that on a calender, that is about 90 REAL DAYS, and 66 < 90, meaning, you still have about 24 days to go from those 66 days, before it could even be considered something is wrong (if there were no difficulties in the first place). Remember, there are only 5 working days in a week! And that is without any holidays!

Hehe 90day's allowance for 30 'working' day's, I love it! I originally allowed for about 40, considering weekend's and possible holiday's. It is however, well beyond that at this point, some of which is my end's fault (bank account closing itself), but directly related to payout times I'd say.
 
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sorry, i skim read this but am i right in saying, you didn't get the withdraw since your bank account closed due to inactivity ?
 
Yep, that's correct for the first time attempting to send to the bank account.
 
I just update a email to my support case :

I emailed paypal, to see how they can handle receiving payment's from MA. Or rather, how I can set up getting paid to my paypal account. I mentioned on the update on support that I would attempt now to try and find a alternate payment method with paypal (I've used them for year's, can't see why it wouldn't work)
I also told them to go ahead and charge the bounce fee they supposedly waived when they didn't in fact send the money to Green Dot international (my Visa card), as I don't want to leave feeling I owe MA anything.

Hopefully, this can pan out in the next few day's, uninterrupted and positively. If paypal work's out, I'll mention it here so that other's might be able to get there payment via paypal in the future, instead of falling bank to banks and CC's. Might help some. I'll keep you guy's updated. (day 58) :rolleyes:
 
If you have a creditcard from paypal, it may work, if it is a 'normal' paypal-address or something, forget it. Paypal is not supported due to the ease it is to commit fraud with it. For example you could take out the money, then claim you never got it, and there would be no way to know if you did or not for MA.
 
Imagine team america theme song.

AMERICA Banks yeah


(american banks substitute the word fuck or fucked in this case!)

Accounts closin itself with amonth of inactivity is retarded unless its opened and never used which seems quiet logical)Here in the netherlands i believe there is a 20 year period you have to keep administration over if u are a financial institution not to mention no fckin bank would just close ur account unless it stated that its required u activate it and u dont)


Anyway, Good luck sortin this mess out. One time i had this thing i made a ideal payment to mindark it was bugged and a gave a error that it could not be completed. Anyway i keep trying and trying and trying untill one managed to come thru. Next die i try to take cash out of the machine and account is empty and im like WTF? Check it seems i made 22 deposits in a row and recieved just 1 while all got deducted which left me short about 8k$. MA didnt know where the money was and my bank didnt lol. And that was a good triple AAA dutch bank :p took me frikkin 2 weeks to get it back MA never claimed to have had it. Bank Claimed they didnt have it anymore. After 2 weeks fckin just appeared on my account again. Turns out there was a middle man neither mentioned (paynova) and they where nice enough to send it back to me even though i wouldve never know they had it lol.
 
Ouch, I feel your pain mate! Matter of fact they just updated my case saying "We just recieved word your payment was returned by your bank". This is a bit hilarious considering it cannot accept the payment as i thought originally, and having talked with one of the main folks over there, there is zero account activity whatsoever, and no rejected payment's atall.
Honestly, at this point I believe they wanted to lead me into thinking they sent it, so that I would be grateful that they waived the bounce charge, then ofc mention it failed afterward. Maybe that way I wouldn't be ungrateful when they hit me with the bounce charge this time around. But again, who know's.
8k suck's mate, and paynova? Really? that's pretty crazy, and sorry to hear that. I'm sure that was a hair yanking debauchle itself too!
 
and also it's been 11working day's since they were supposed to send it? lol, just to many stipulation's to be believable at this point.

I do hope your right Wody, I've been with them for a few year's now but not terribly sure how they can work it. I know they take bank withdrawals/deposits, and can even take them from other people just fine. This would definitely be the first time I've attempted to use it in this manner though.

Wonder how much % they've made off me and my money after this some-odd 2 month's have passed.
 
I contacted Well's Fargo today, to follow up on the payment that had been bounced back originally. Hopefully they will have a copy of it, and I'll get it sent to me today or tomorrow. If not, would show that MA never payed the account their either, which would be doubly bad. Trying to track down all the loose end's and paperwork, in case this keep's getting blown out of proportion, or MA delay's further for whatever reason.
 
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