Merge Gaming Network Removes Skrill as Withdrawal Option
Players on the Merge Gaming Network are used to disappointing news, but they continue to return for more. The latest head scratcher: players with outstanding Skrill withdrawals were told last Thursday that Skrill in no longer a cashout option.
Skrill, formerly Moneybookers, is one of the most popular e-wallets for transferring funds to and from online poker rooms. It is typically fast and easy and the fees are relatively minimal. As a Skrill user in the U.S. for non-poker payments, this writer can attest to the site’s efficacy. And while I don’t like any sort of transaction fee, having to pay five dollars to move money from Skrill to my bank account isn’t too bad at all. Unfortunately for Merge players, the convenience of Skrill is now gone, according the following e-mail:
We apologize for the inconvenience but we are no longer able to provide Skrill as a Withdrawal Solution. Due to reasons out of our control, Skrill will no longer be used as a payment option to process Withdrawals. Therefore, we have canceled your pending Skrill WD and funds have been returned to your account. Please fill out the Bank wire instructions online and request a new Withdrawal via Bank wire. We will be sure to prioritize your Withdrawal once the verification process has been completed.
In order for you to receive your bank wire withdrawal, we need you to comply with our verification process by clicking here. to access our secure form. Click on the radio button ‘yes’ next to the question ‘Is the documentation you are uploading related to banking information?’ in order to expand the form to display the fields where you must enter your banking details and make sure to attached a bank statement or voided check.
We will continue to look for more banking solutions for our valued customer but for the time being Skrill is temporarily unavailable to process any Withdrawals at this time. We appreciate your understanding and look forward to processing your Withdrawal via Bank wire as soon as possible. As a small token of our appreciation and due to the inconvenience we have also added 3 X $11 poker tournament entry coupons to the Sunday Big Ticket Qualifier – [50 Seat Gtd] that takes place every Saturday at 16:00.
I’m sure we all feel quite confident that those $11 tournament tickets will boost customer satisfaction significantly.
To make matters worse, some players who are perfectly willing to commit to a bank wire can’t even do that because of restrictions put in place by Merge. One Serbian player said on Two Plus Two that he provided the network a list of every bank in Serbia and Merge said that it could not wire money to any of them because they use “intermediaries.” No mailed check option, either.
Some people even got the old “PSYCHE!” play. After sending in identification verification documents for their bank wires, they were approved. The bad news: bank wire isn’t an option.
So, as it stands now, there is a not-insignificant number of Merge Gaming Network players who are unable to get their money of the site. Nice, that’s nice.
And while the removal of Skrill is a new thing, it’s not like Merge has never had cashout problems. Actually hold on a second – the removal of Skrill IS NOT a new thing. In late April, the same thing happened. Skrill disappeared from Merge. It was reinstated (obviously), but there is a history here. Additionally, cashouts have been insanely slow on the Merge Gaming Network all year. According to a thread that tracks such things on Two Plus Two, Skrill cashouts were taking about three months from the time they were requested in the Merge cashier to the time the money showed up in players’ Skrill accounts. Checks were not much better, taking over 80 days to reach players’ mailboxes. Comparatively, bank wires have looked like they were transported via Millennium Falcon, reaching their destinations in an average of 41 days.
The Merge Gaming Network is one of the few online poker networks that still accepts U.S. customers, but largely due to its cashout issues, it has been struggling. It now barely cracks the top thirty internet poker rooms or networks in terms of cash game traffic, according to PokerScout.com. With a seven-day average of 220 cash game players, it is not even that much larger than some of the U.S.-only networks. For comparison, Bodog, the largest U.S.-facing online poker room, as a seven-day average of 1,800 cash game players and ranks third in world behind only PokerStars and 888poker.
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