Someone give me the lowdown on ePassport now that the mad rish to sign up is over.

1) I hear their customer supprt is non exisistent?

2) Its it practical to use for a mid to highish stakes guy who needs to move $5K or more at a time? Arent there limits that are pretty small?

3) Is there any problem going from ePassport to bank? Or do they send checks?

Someone give me a trip report please. Isnt there some hassle with the initial setup and loading it via a bank transfer or something?

Fees?

1) Email support is very slow. Phone is better.

2) The basic limit is 300/day with a $2 fee. This can be upped to 600/day with same fee for $5 annual. It can be upped further by submitting an application but I havent done this yet. Withdrawals usually take 7-10 days. But you can get a debit card for $30ish which makes it instant at atms.

3) No problems. If you have a really large amount, they also do wire transfers for $50. No checks.

xfers between sites are free and fast.

just called customer support for clarification (this is all iirc):

- to get $600/load, you need two verifiable load options. i think this is what the guy said. on the site under "increase my limits", it says that there is a $500 load limit for the basic account. i still haven't figured out what that refers to.

- a verifiable load option can be a bank account, a credit card, or a debit card. the debit card can be based on the checking account (?).

- once you have been a member for 4 months, you can apply for the "select account", and that doubles your limits.

- as you establish more history and/or shift large amounts of money, you can increase these limits by requesting it.

I have a “Select Account” and load limit is $1,000 with a 10 load max. I assume that load max must be per day. To get the “Select Account” I had to link ePass to a bank account and a credit card. Had no issues with either although setting this pig up did take a long time. Several weeks if I recall but I was in that first wave of folks jumping on board. They say on their site that if you wish to increase your limits further that you can send a request to Customer Service but as others have stated before, YMMV.

After my initial load I now get dinged with a $2 fee moving money to/from ePass and the bank account. All transactions to/from poker sites and ePass are free. When my Neteller money freed up I moved it to ePass and it only took a couple of business days. I didn’t do the ATM card or whatever since I don’t take money off very regular anymore and I don’t think $2 on a $1,000 withdrawal is too bad. Or I could always just move funds over to Stars and ask for a check I suppose.