This may be a little early in the investigation process but I'm really curious as to whether anyone else has had issues with missing funds utilizing this service from FTP?

The other day I withdrew money using the FTP Premium Bank Wire option and received a pop-up message stating "Full Tilt Poker does not charge for this service but your bank may charge a fee" so knowing my bank doesn't charge for wire transfers I decided to go this route instead of the normal bank transfer option because it was faster (win-win,right?).. Unfortunately when I got the money in my account I was shorted $36.78 for a $300 withdraw. I sent support the E-mail below to see where the money could have went and am awaiting a reply:

Dear Support,

I withdrew $300 using your premium bank wire feature and during that transaction I received a pop-up message stating that "Full Tilt Poker does not charge for this service but your bank may charge a fee". Well today I received a transaction for only $263.28 of the original $300 from a wire transaction so I emailed my bank to verify that they didn't charge $36.72 for the transaction and I received the following email from USAA:

Dear Mr. Sagan,

Thank you for your e-mail regarding your wire transfer. USAA does not charge a fee for an incoming wire transfer. Please contact the sending bank regarding your wire transfer.
We value your business and the opportunity to serve all your financial needs.

Thank you,
**Name Omitted***
USAA

So my question is to you, where did this $36.72 go? If it went to your wire transfer service provider then I feel that I have been misled and would like my money back and would also like to cancel my other bank wire request for $300 that I made the other day:

Date and Time: 2011-01-10 03:09:02
Transfer Number: 073FE313
Payment Method: Premium Bank Wire

Please refund my money or please show me where I approved that a fee be taken out of my transfer total by someone other than my financial institution.

Thanks,

Jason
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Maybe I'm in err here or I read the pop-up wrong (totally possible) but I'm not sure I did. Has anyone else had something similar happen? I'm not really thrilled about unknowingly paying %12 on a wire transfer but if I misread or am at fault I'd just like some clarification. Thanks for any insight anyone can provide.

 

Originally Posted by yoonaSNSDjess

according to FTP it goes through 2-3 banks before hitting yours, so those bank take the fees

most people dont cash out thru premium under 1000 due to the fees

But the issue is still the same... Where do they tell you that?

Thanks for the reply but I'm pretty sure they don't say anything about charging you. They say that YOUR BANK COULD charge for the transaction but they don't say anything in the pop up about the 2-3 banks they transfer through charging... And if they do indeed do that, they should tell you up front. It shouldn't be the players concern about them having to go through multiple banks to get me my money. It should be a black box. My money goes on the site and my money comes off the site--what happens in between should not impact the user unless they knowingly agree to it. I highly doubt people would ever use this option if the going rate is 12% and I know I wouldn't have if they made a whole hearted effort to inform me of the cost.

THey do tell you. Pop uo says ft wont charge you, but the banks might

 

Originally Posted by kniqUe

Use search feature imo, they tell you. It's that little box that pops up and nobody reads (including myself) xD

(Completely False)

 

Originally Posted by nimbus

It's 12% because you only did $300. It'll pretty much be the same cost (~$40) if you withdrew $2000.

(Completely False)

 

Originally Posted by aupoker1

They do tell you. Pop up says ft wont charge you, but the banks might

(Completely false)

I read the pop-up box and no where anywhere that I've researched has a standard fee for this (ie 12% or ~$40) -- it's varied... There is a long thread about it on 2+2 that I found. Here is a quote from one of the emails a poster recieved:

"When you request a Premium Bank Wire withdrawal through the "Cashier" window, a message advises you that your bank may charge a fee for receiving the transaction. (Again, this box that pops up says nothing about intermediaries charging or even that they use intermediaries that charge; how is that not misleading? My bank doesn't charge, Full Tilt doesn't charge so I shouldn't be charged. I never authorized that they wire money to 2 or 3 different banks before it got to mine because this sounds too much like Money Laundering to me and I really want no part of that.)

Please note that Full Tilt Poker does not charge any fees for Premium Bank Wire withdrawals, and we cover all fees associated with sending the transaction from our bank.

However, Premium Bank Wire withdrawals are sometimes routed through intermediary banks before reaching your bank, and these intermediary banks may charge a processing fee." (Not anywhere in the transaction process does this statement pop up. Does this sound like money laundering to anyone besides me? I'm not a legal savant or anything so anyone with more insight than the below information)

"Money laundering is generally regarded as the practice of engaging in financial transactions to conceal the identity, source, and/or destination of illegally gained money by which the proceeds of crime are converted into assets which appear to have a legitimate origin." (Granted I don't think the money is gained illegally just sounds shady to do it this way.)
I just did a quick search on the net and found some older articles (April 2010ish) about FTP getting investigated for Money Laundering by the US Government specifically for wire transfers. Does anyone know what came of that?

http://pokernewsboy.com/poker-industry-news/full-tilt-poker-faces-possible-money-laundering-charges/2568

After doing some research I'm not as worried about it as I was last night. From the sound of it, when making a wire transfer the banks involved in the process have to have a reciprocal agreement in place when they do the wire transfer. If they don't then they need to enlist the services of a financial institution that does have a reciprocal agreement with the gaining bank in order to send the secure transfer.

Now if I would have known this prior to making my two withdraws I would have just used the standard feature. When this turns out to be $7x.xx of $600 then that's quite a hit on profits when you normally just play 4.40 rush SNG's a few times a week. I know this isn't a big deal to you guys that do this for a living but for guys that just play for fun and make a little bit of money it's a bigger deal.