SANTA MONICA, Calif.—ePassporte is apparently pulling its announcements in-house. Following several weeks of intermittent announcements posted to the GFY board regarding its suspended Visa situation, company rep Michael O posted the following message late Thursday afternoon.
“A message has been sent to ePassporte Account Holders via the Message Center. Please login and click on the Message Center tab to view this message,” it read.
Shortly after, another GFY member posted up the following messages purportedly pulled from the Message Center:
September 16, 2010
Over the past few days there have been numerous blogs and posts calling into question the reputation of mr. Gregory Elias, united international trust and united international bank.
We are issuing this press release to clarify mr. Elias' position as well as the position of united international trust and united international bank in regards to epassporte.
Epassporte has utilized the services of united international trust since 2006. United international trust serves only to manage the corporate governance of epassporte and has no input, or control as regards its daily management.
In 2009 united international bank was formed to provide commercial and corporate banking services and subsequently epassporte has moved some of its operating accounts to this bank.
United international bank does not hold funds for epassporte holders. United international bank merely pays the vendors for epassporte.
Neither mr. Elias, united trust nor united international bank have any control over these funds.
All requests and inquiries should be forwarded to epassporte at the message center, which you may log on to at www.epassporte.com if you are an active cardholder.
We apologize to mr. Elias, united trust and united bank for any confusion that may have arisen these last weeks as a result of difficulties we at epassporte, with st. Kitts-nevis-anguilla national bank, are responsible to manage.
And:
September 16, 2010
ePassporte N.V. has had several extensive meetings with St. Kitts Nevis Anguilla National Bank (the "Bank") in an effort to resume operations and card functionality.
We are encouraged and believe these meetings and ongoing discussions with the Bank will result in all card functions becoming operational shortly, although a date has not yet been determined.
ePassporte and St Kitts Nevis Anguilla National Bank want to assure cardholders that their funds are safe and that resuming operations is a key and attainable goal.
A few very import points:
For information regarding your Account, it is imperative that you contact us via the Message Center or call our Account Holder Services line (310.301.2001).
PLEASE DO NOT contact ePassporte N.V. in Curacao, Mr. Elias, United Bank or St. Kitts Bank. Messages sent to the above may not be answered. All operational issues are handled by the ePassporte team via the Message Center or Call Center ONLY. Please also avoid posting your username on forums as this could pose a security risk to your Account.
We greatly appreciate your continued patience and understanding and will continue to update you regarding this situation via the Message Center.
Sincerely,
ePassporte.com
AVN is still waiting for a response to calls seeking an explanation from St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla National Bank (SKNA) regarding its request to Visa to block “network access for prepaid cards issued by SKNA and operated by ePassporte.com.”
