Once a month, the site allows you to make a withdrawal request (minimum $500) by cheque and they will send this to you by courier free of charge. Any additional withdrawals for the month will get charged the normal courier fee of about $30. For recreational players who don't really withdraw that much, once a month is just perfect.
The other great thing is that the cheque that they send is a local cheque. It is not a US Dollar or Euro check which takes ages to clear in our banks. It is a local cheque for pesos that is addressed to your name that clears in 2 days. Seriously cool.
I made a withdrawal request last September 25, 2009 right before Ondoy hit. The Fedex envelope containing the cheque was in my office on October 1. Not counting Saturday and Sunday. That's just 3 freaking days. I'm sure there was even some delay caused by logistical problems due to the typhoon.
In terms of exchange rate, its not too bad. Right now, the official rate is about 47 pesos to US$1. The rate that they gave me in their conversion less whatever bank fees is about 44. So about a 6.5% deduction to cover bank fees and exchange rate spreads. I think that's quite acceptable.
So from your online poker account to your bank account in about 5 working days and in pesos to boot, ready to be used. No hassles. Just a simple, fast and efficient procedure.
This really leaves you wondering about the procedures of other sites. If a small site like Cake can do it, I'm sure the bigger sites can do it better. It just adds to the conspiracy theory that they are deliberately adding layers of red tape to delay your withdrawal. I think this is primarily being done for 2 reasons : (1) It conditions your mind about the negativity of doing withdrawals. This obviously works to their advantage as you would just tend to play with the money and delay your withdrawals or do it less often. The more money you have in your account, the more playing time you spend and in the higher limits which earns them bigger rake. (2) Any delay that they cause means more interest earnings. Let's just say average withdrawal requests for a day sum up to about US$100K. Just delaying its transfer by 3 days earns them a few hundred dollars in interest earnings alone. Multiply this by the number of days in a year and you can imagine the thousands of extra dollars they earn by simply delaying your withdrawal. Quite unethical but financial institutions have been doing this for ages and poker sites are no different.
Again, since online poker is pretty much unregulated. We just accept and make do with whatever crappy procedure is currently in place. The only protest we can do is to take our business elsewhere. But then, other sites are even worse. So wala ka ring choice. Heheh....
4 comments:
how do you deposit sa cake ? - 11Finger
Pokerstars bank wire transfer let me receive my money in less than 24 hours. I request a cashout before 11am and the money shows up in my dollar account the next day. BPI charge a fix amount of $11.52 per bank wire.
@11finger - hmmm... i just realized i haven't made a deposit since the moneybooker days and that option is no longer valid. Let me check the other options and post something about that.
@anonymous - i agree. Online bank transfers are much faster. But they require you to open a dollar account and maintain a balance. Click2pay on the other hand requires you to register an account & get the debit card.
The check sending option of Cake does not require you to do anything extra. You just deposit the cheque that you receive in your normal savings or checking account. I was thinking that maybe if PS and FTP could offer the same service. It would make everybody's withdrawals much easier.
hmmmm... cake's check withdrawal should be ok if its in peso and only takes 2 days to clear. but the minimum withdrawal requirement is just to high, $500! it may take me a year or two may be before i can turn my $30 to that amount.
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