After a frustrating call where I went into circles and eventually had to get a supervisor on the line, Bovada offered and I accepted the following:
- I will deposit the check and pay the $75 fee
- They gave me $50 in bonus money immediately
- For future withdrawals I can use WU for a $40 (or more) fee
The other options they gave me were not very helpful for me personally though they may have been for others. They included:
- Stopping payment on the check ($40 fee and a week-to-10 day wait for funds to to back into my account)
- Opening a new account at a larger bank who would process international checks with less of a fee or none at all
- Endorsing it to a family member who could deposit it into a larger bank that they bank with
I also learned that despite my preference for checks from the east, they cannot (or will not) take requests for which banks checks are drawn. It's apparently a crap-shoot. Even though I had no problems with East checks, this doesn't matter, for this or any future withdrawals.
This means that my future cash-out options are as follows:
- A free check which may or may not cost me $75 to process no matter the check size.
- Western Union which will definitely cost me no less than $40 to process.
I am not a gambler, I am a nit!
So in the future, I will ask for Western Union although before my next withdrawal I will ask them if I can choose Rapid Transfer (slightly less fees).
I am not thrilled with this. These fees might be "the cost of doing business" and are fine when cashing out for even as little as four figures, but they make being a recreational low-level grinder who likes to deposit $50 and withdraw $150 when I run that up to $250 cost-prohibitive.
I have a couple of things I might do here. I might just cash out and stop playing. Or maybe I'll take a shot with what is in my account and either get lucky or go broke and just not deposit again.