Online Casino News

eWallet Xpress payments halted and funds allegedly seized by the US authorities

eWallet Xpress is one of the handful of online financial intermediaries that continued processing deposits and withdrawals to online casinos on behalf of US citizens after the passage of the UIGEA, the US legislation from 2006 which illegalised such activity.

This situation changed radically in the middle of November this year. As reported by Casino Scam Report:

Last Friday when players from the US accessed their eWalletXpress accounts they were greeted to no banking options for deposits and a message saying they were having technical difficulties and would be back online soon.

Well days have gone by and there is no movement, no answers to emails or phones giving any explanation of what to expect.

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Although players were brushed off with the story about "technical difficulties", the truth was that the money was gone. When the matter was brought to light in the GPWA eWallet Express discussion, a representative of one of the resident affiliate programmes clarified the situation:

19th Nov 2010

I can confirm that yes they have been served with a federal warrant and funds have been seized.

Its an unfortunate situation to anyone who had any funds with them.

Beyond this unexpected and, in its way, unwelcome moment of honesty, there has been no word from anyone involved in the matter as to what happened. Players have speculated that the reason for the lie about "technical issues" was an attempt on the part of eWallet Xpress to dissuade them from seeking to reclaim their deposits from the banks from which they were sent - the longer deposits stand unreclaimed, the greater the liklehood that they clear and are no longer available for reversal.


When online processor Neteller withdrew from the US market a few years ago US players' funds were held up for fully two years before finally being released. This situation looks very similar, and the players will probably be twidling their thumbs for a similar period.


A couple of other ewallets currently providing services to US customers are My PaylinQ and Use My Wallet. In light of the above developments, if you're from the USA you might be well advised to withdraw your funds and avoid being stuck in the uncertain situation the eWallet Xpress customers currently find themselves in.


Update January 2011. this notice has now been posted on the EWE site, confirming the funds seizure:

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Kevin Stillmock and Count's Challenge

Count's Challenge would appear to be the latest project of Kevin J. Stillmock. Stillmock appears to be either trying to sell the enterprise, or looking for investors - see the Businesses for sale report.


Kevin Stillmock owes a lot of people a lot of money, money which was fraudulently obtained on the back of property contracts which, as it turned out, were substantially faked - see my original Cold Mountain Resort article. The matter is currently in legal hands.


This may be useful information for anyone planning on going into business with / buying anything from / investing anything in an endeavour headed by Kevin Stillmock. A lot of people have lost a lot of money, and at least one business has gone bankrupt, as a result of dealings with him.

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Blog now back up after a short hiatus.

This blog was taken offline by Blogger three weeks ago. I raised the matter with Google Help and implemented the official review process fully, but it was ultimately unsuccessful, with Blogger support informing me at the completion of the review process that the blog would not be reinstated.


Fortunately, a further review, conducted higher up the chain, resulted in the restoration of the blog this morning.

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