Neteller Falls On Hard Times

Filed in archive Poker Products on February 17, 2007

Think Bill Frist and Bob Goodlatte had a thought about all the people who work within the online poker business, and those who would be affected by their back-handed passing of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act? Many of those people, such as tourney writers, bloggers, and those who manage to pull a decent profit playing online poker, I call my friends. They have had their hobby; their lifeline twanged like a fender Stratocaster at a Van Halen concert.

Another fall out from all this is the biggest payment processor for the online sites, Neteller, taking a hit in business, and ultimately having all funds frozen. Due to the lockdown of funds at Neteller, 250 people have lost their jobs at the headquarters of the once mighty trader of poker dollars across the internet.

Here's Haley Hintze's article at PokerNews describing the ax'ing of more then 1/3rd of Neteller's work force:

NETeller's fall from the heights continued on Friday, with the announcement that the Canadian e-wallet services firm will trim 250 positions from its workforce. The continuing contraction will reduce the total number of workers employed by NETeller to approximately 425, distributed across its Canada, UK, and Asia-Pacific operations.

NETeller's Calgary-based service center will absorb the brunt of the staff reduction. The Calgary call center was the location through which most U.S.-account inquiries flowed, and with calls now tapering off in the midst of what appears to be long-term negotiations between NETeller and the U.S. government over seized and frozen funds, the staffers' days were clearly numbered. Promised moves such as the re-certification of U.S. accounts have not occurred. Other moves like a resumption of service are unlikely to resume in the near future.

220 of the 250 announced job cuts are occurring at the Calgary site, and NETeller has also announced possible plans to lease or sell surplus office space that no longer fits into the firm's future needs. In addition to call-center personnel, the security, marketing, IT and product-support functions have also been trimmed. About half of the downsized staffers took advantage of a "voluntary redundancy" program in exiting the company.