What is Skrill?
EWallets, online payment systems; call them what you will, anyone doing pretty much anything online beyond browsing Facebook or checking email will have come across an option to pay for goods, transfer funds or deposit money through one or more eWallet services.
Skrill is one of the big players in the eWallet world, helping money flow in something like 41 currencies and in most countries worldwide.
The name is quite new, but the company behind the name has been going for many years, trading as Moneybookers.
They're UK based, and regulated by UK financial authorities, and I’m sure they’d be happy to tell you all the precautions they take to be able to trade; they take things like money laundering and financial fraud very seriously indeed!
If you want to use Skrill to move money from your bank to the online casino of your choice the first thing you'll have to do is register for an account. This is quick and easy, just needing your email and postal addresses, telephone number, your name, and your DOB. After that, all you need to do is confirm your email address by clicking on the link they send you. Couldn't be simpler!
Is Skrill safe?
Once you have your account you should look around the website to get a handle on the services they offer ahead of any future transactions.
The site’s grey with burgundy branding; it’s clean and efficient looking but a bit on the bland side, with a definite feel of a bygone age. However, I can't fault the interface, which is fast and bug-free in my experience.
The main navigation buttons are ‘account overview', ‘all transactions', ‘cards and bank accounts' and ‘skill payment card' (about which, more in a moment).
Account overview gives you just that, with a list of your recent transactions, your balance and links to upload funds to your account, withdraw money, or make payments. Also on this page you'll find a selection of featured promotions, most of which relate to trading on foreign exchange markets, so if that's your thing you might find a few useful treats in there.
The All Transactions button is self-explanatory; it gives you a detailed statement of what's gone where in relation to your account, and also features a search facility with filters allowing you to define the search in a number of different ways, so you should be able to track down anything that's happened in your account with ease from here.
The next button relates to your cards and bank accounts and allows you to register these for use with your Skrill account. The Balance box makes another appearance, giving you information about available funds, and allowing deposits, withdrawals and transfers, as on the Account Overview page.
The final button is the one labelled Skrill Prepaid Card and it's here that you can find all the information about this prepaid MasterCard which can be loaded with funds from your Skrill account, then used for transactions exactly as you would any other debit card.
Real-life Experience using Skrill
On April 2014 the world experienced Heart Bleed, a security bug that left about 17% of the entire Internet's secure web servers vulnerable to the attack, allowing theft of the servers' private keys and users' session cookies and passwords. Millions of people had their email, bank account and eWallet accounts compromised and I was one of them.
I was driving home with my wife and kids when I received an email from Skrill saying “You've just sent £150 to X.” Then another notification from Skrill saying I had just transferred another £1,200 to this other account.
Three minutes later another notification, and another. I was shocked. My money was being stolen! I had more than £5,000 in my Skrill accountfrom a massive win I had playing Mega Moolah slot the month before; I had plans for that money!
I rushed home and quickly logged in. My hands were trembling. I got in and quickly downloaded all the money that was left; about £1,300 left in my account after this bloodsuckers managed to make several transactions.
[vision_notification style=”success” font_size=”12px” closeable=”false”] “Don't worry. Your money has not left the system and they’re not able to withdraw it. All we have to do is reverse the transactions.” – Skrill Customer Service [/vision_notification]Once my withdrawal was confirmed and my account had been completely emptied, I called the Skrill Customer Support team. I explained the CS guy what had just happened. My account had been hacked and my money had been stolen.
I feared for the worst. Lucky for me Skrill has LOTS of experience dealing with fraud, money laundry, hackers and scammers and they really stay on top of them.
The friendly chap on the phone calmed me down and explained to me that their system picked up on the suspicious transactions going from my account, mind you I had never sent money to anyone in the network, and immediately flagged them as possible fraudulent transactions AND accounts.
Both the transactions made with my money and the accounts that my funds were sent to were almost immediately FROZEN. “Don't worry. Your money has not left the system and they’re not able to withdraw it.
All we have to do is reverse the transactions.”, he explained. I couldn't believe my ears and I was so grateful that they were so good at their job. In the end, the fraudsters managed to get away with about £120 and I couldn't be happier but there was a lesson for me here though.
My Skrill account was never hacked, nor was it compromiseddue to the massive Heart Bleed attack of April 2014; it was my Yahoo email account that was ‘hacked'. Until that day, I had neglected the suggestion of getting a token.
Skrill had suggested it and offered one for just £15, as an added security measure. I didn't take it seriously and that was my mistake.All the fraudsters needed at that point was a way of getting into my email, resetting the password and comfortably login to steal all the money they wanted. I was lucky Skrill is way ahead of criminals and naive users like myself.
If you use Skrill as your main service for making deposits and withdrawals when playing at bingo rooms and online casinos, we have a list of online casinos and gaming sites that accept Skrill as payment method.
