Skrill is this a scam? Review and Customers Reviews

Skrill – that payment system managed by Paysafe Financial Services Limited as part of the Paysafe Group, which appeared on the financial market in 2001 (Skrill – what is it?).

Why Skrill?

Skrill claims 3 key strengths:

• Convenience. Skrill is a multifunctional system, allowing you to combine card, bank, mobile accounts, wallets and a number of other services to operate with different currencies without unnecessary difficulties.
• Reliability. The company is controlled by one of the most serious regulators – the FCA. The service is its representative and provides customer protection according to international standards. Your funds are placed on dedicated (segregated) accounts, access to which by third parties is virtually unrealistic and too time-consuming (disproportionate to the profits received).
• Instant execution. Funds are sent and received within seconds, as confirmed by users.

We should also add that Skrill has a very convenient mobile application. And an interesting loyalty program. However, the latter is a standard package of Paysafe Financial Services Limited (the owner of the service), also implemented for its other product – Neteller.

Skrill for sports betting

If you go to the websites of the largest bookmakers, you will probably see Skrill in the list of supported deposit methods. Along with Neteller, it is one of the most popular payment agents. Users choose this method because of the high speed of transactions (nothing new, but no less important).

Skrill for buying/selling cryptocurrency

To buy/sell Cryptocurrencies Skrill has introduced reduced commissions: depending on the transaction amount, they range from 0.5% to 1.5% per transaction (or a fixed amount: from 0.99 to 1.99 EUR). More than 10 cryptocurrency units and many online platforms are supported exchanges and exchangers.

How do I use Skrill to pay for goods and services?

If the company whose products/services you want to pay for has a commercial account in skrill.comYou don’t even need to register in the system. You simply enter the recipient’s details and transfer the funds. If you want to make a transaction from your Skrill Wallet to a legal entity, you will need to select “Send” and specify “Skrill money transfers” in the purpose and fill out the form. For the first payment you will need to specify your residential address with zip code, date of birth and phone number, to which you will receive an SMS with a 6-digit confirmation code.

Then you will be asked to come up with a six-digit numeric PIN code for two-phase authentication: each time you create a transfer request, it will be a guarantee that it is you who makes the transaction.

A payment form will open with the option to send your funds to another Skrill user’s account or bank card / bank account details. By the way, some countries are not available from time to time. It remains to specify the payment details and confirm everything.

How to register in the Skrill payment system?

Registration in the system is mandatory for transfers and payments. Therefore, you should follow any link on the main page of the site and fill in the form, indicating your name and surname in Roman letters, country of residence, account currency, e-mail address and set a password. Please note that the fact of registration itself means that you have agreed to the terms of service, so if you have any doubts, we recommend you to read the documents.

The system will throw you into a personal cabinet, where you will have access to all the basic operations: deposits, payments, withdrawals, settings, editing personal data and registration in the loyalty program (but about it later).

Account type

Skrill has 2 basic account types: standard (separate for individuals and separate for legal entities) and VIP. The latter allows you to increase the limits and save on commissions, but to get it you need to make transfers of at least 6000 EUR (and the equivalent of this amount in other currency units) during the quarter. The difference between a corporate account (for legal entities) and a physical account is the ability to accept payments from clients and make transfers on a regular basis to business partners and employees.

How do I get verified at skrill.com?

Verification on skrill.com becomes available only after the account is funded. In principle, it is not so scary, because you can make a purely symbolic amount. But, one way or another, there is a risk of losing your money for a long time, because if you fail to pass the verification procedure will have to withdraw the deposit and wait for the money back (judging by reviews, sometimes this process takes more than a month). But back to the process. Once we have deposited a currency on the balance, the link “Verification” will be available in the settings. We open the page and see several options:

• Upload a photo via a downloadable mobile app.
• Uploading a photo from your device.

Thus, we are asked to provide scans/photos of the spread of the main page of the passport. There is also a confirmation via Facebook. In this case a selfie is taken with a piece of paper on which the current date and the name of the payment system are written. But, as practice has shown, this method is not too convenient for the Russian user because it works only once.

The most unpleasant thing is that after that you cannot go immediately to the next step – you have to wait for the helpdesk to confirm your data. And only then upload documents confirming your residential address (or simply allow the automatic location of your device) and wait again.

Deposit and withdrawal to Skrill

Depositing a Skrill account is done from debit and credit bank cards (VISA, MasterCard, JCB, Diners, American Express) and by bank transfer. These methods are available for users in all countries. The rest depend on the place of residence of the user.

So, mobile payments, Neteller (the service is also part of the Paysafe Holdings UK Limited group) and BTC cryptocurrency wallet are also available. We are promised instant crediting, but the commission will be charged (we will come back to it). Withdrawal methods are significantly less (also charged a fee):

• International (to another country) or domestic (within the same country) transfer to the user’s bank account.
• Transfer to another Skrill user.

Currency of operations

The system supports almost 40 currencies, including the Russian ruble, American/Australian/Canadian dollar, Danish/ Czech/Swedish/Norwegian krone, Japanese yen, Turkish lira, euro, Polish zloty and even the Moroccan dirham.

Commission

A distinctive feature of the skrill.com is the ability to send international bank transfers through the system without a fee. There is no fee for receiving funds sent to you by an individual/legal entity as well. In other cases the following tariffs are set:

• Replenishment is 2.5%.
• Withdrawal – 4.99% to MasterCard bank of the same country, 5.5% to a bank account of the same country (domestic bank transfer – not to be confused with international), 7.5% to VISA bank of the same country.
• Payments – 2% to a domestic bank transfer if it is a payment for services, 1.45% (minimum 0.5 EUR) to the account of another Skrill user. In the latter case additional penalties from 2.99% to 20% may apply if your account was funded through Neteller, PaySafeCard and several other agents before the payment was made.

Payment limits

Transaction limits are imposed by the administration of the service on an individual basis and depend on the residence of the user, the status of the account and a number of other factors identified during the verification process. This is stated in clause 3.7 of the Skrill User Agreement.

Withdrawal restrictions in Skrill

There is no lower limit for withdrawing c.u. to Skrill (section 3.4 of the Terms of Use), but your balance should be at least the amount you requested plus the transaction fee. The maximum allowed amounts are set on a per-client basis, just like depositing limits. As you make a transaction, you will see how much you are allowed to deposit. The Internet has information that it is allowed to withdraw not more than 7000 dollars per day, but we have not seen any proof of it.

Bonuses from Skrill

The Skrill bonus system is supported by three types of programs: loyalty (so-called Knect), VIP and referral. Let’s talk about each of them in a bit more detail.

Knect loyalty program

Knect is the standard accumulation of points. For users with a regular account type, 1 point is awarded for each euro withdrawn/deposited. VIP-users also get 0.25 points for each euro transferred to a partner store of the service. Once you have 10,000 points on your bonus balance, you can spend them on purchases and transfers.

VIP program

To become VIP user payment system skrill.com, you just need to make payments. Based on the total amount is assigned a status and related privileges:

• VIP Bronze. It is given when making transfers in the amount of 6,000 EUR or more per quarter. Round-the-clock VIP support via online chat is provided.
• VIP Silver. When making transfers in the amount from 15 000 EUR per quarter. In addition to the above-mentioned there is an opportunity to connect a multicurrency account (transfers from one currency to another without commission) and priority in transaction processing.
• VIP Gold. When making transfers of EUR 45,000 and more per quarter. Two multi-currency accounts, personal account manager, priority transaction processing and personal VIP support 24/7.
• VIP Diamond. When making transfers of EUR 90,000 and more per quarter. All the same as in the gold status, only not 2, but already 3 multicurrency accounts.

In addition, thanks to the statuses, the user has the opportunity to either reduce the commission for transactions or bring them to zero.

Referral program

This is based on new Skrill users who sign up and start making transfers through the system by clicking on the link you provide (which is given to them on demand). You receive 10% from the amount of revenue from transactions of each such user. Payouts are suspended either when 100 euros are accumulated (here we are talking about deductions from 1 person), or after 1 year since the registration of the invitee.

Reviews of skrill.com payment system

On international rating services like Trustpilot the average score for Skrill is 4.5 out of 5. Users praise the convenience and speed of transactions.

Among the reasons for dissatisfaction are problems with withdrawal due to difficulties with verification and contacting the support team. On Russian-language reviews the situation is much worse: many complain that the support team responds slowly, and some of the service’s functions do not live up to expectations.

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Regulation and license of Skrill

Before registering in the payment system, giving your personal data and card details to the provider and depositing personal funds on the balance, it is always worth checking whether it is legal and what your obligations to the service provider will be.

Skrill license

Owned by skrill.com (like Neteller, which we told you about in another review) is Paysafe Financial Services Limited (part of Paysafe Holdings), a company registered in the UK in 1999. It is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which is considered one of the most reliable financial institutions in terms of regulation, and is listed in the register of the regulatory authority under the number 900015.

User Agreement

The User Agreement (“Skrill Account Terms of Use”) is the document which defines the rights and obligations of the system account holder and the system operator to each other. For example, according to clause 3.6, you are not entitled to transfer the rights of management and possession of the account opened in the system to another person. Exceptions are cases of inheritance.

By using the service, you confirm that you have reached the age of eighteen. And the company has the right to ask for confirmation of this at any time (clause 4.2).

It is also forbidden to register an account if it is considered illegal in your country of residence (paragraph 4.4). If the provider suffers a loss as a result of your violation of this rule, you will pay for it.

You must confirm the authenticity of the data provided. After 6 months, a fee will be imposed on all users who have not done so (point 4.5).

You can close your Skrill account within 14 days of opening it for free (clause 4.8). Those who have already funded their balance will need to provide proof of identity. And the fee will be deducted upon return (it will not be refunded under any circumstances).

You can’t deposit your account with a payment tool (wallet, card, phone, etc.) that doesn’t belong to you (point 8.9). Violation of this provision will be perceived as fraud (by default it is assumed that you have read the user agreement) and punished accordingly.

The recipients of your payments, like you, will need to provide documentary proof of identity. In most cases this is an e-mail address (clause 9.2).

If you have it in the system, the funds are automatically credited to your Skrill account – no matter what details you have specified before (point 9.4).

Your account may be closed without notice if there is reason to believe that you have violated the rules of the agreement or the law, or are using the account to commit fraud (clause 16.4).

Customer Service

Regular customers can only use the feedback form or social media to get in touch with Skrill customer support. The online adviser is available after you have been upgraded to VIP status. There is also a knowledge base (FAQ), but we found it not detailed enough. For example, there is no detailed information about verification and little about limits.

Is Skrill a scam?

Skrill – is an officially operating Internet resource whose owner is regulated by one of the largest and most respected regulatory authorities (FCA). The system’s policies are designed primarily for the user, although there are items that create difficulties (for example, the penalty for failure to submit documents within 14 days after opening the account).

Nevertheless, if we take the global evaluation of the service as a whole, it has a good reputation in the online community. And it is convenient because it is present in almost all serious gambling online resources as a deposit/withdrawal method. The Skrill payment system is not a scam – it is quite a reliable product with its own advantages and disadvantages.

Conclusion

Skrill – another product of Paysafe Financial Services Limited (along with Neteller and PaySafeCard), which, however, is much more serious, as it seemed to us. Here there are more varieties of currency units, less stringent terms of the user agreement and a better designed bonus policy. At the same time the commissions are comparable to those of other services in the network.

Skrill has a fairly good reputation among foreign users.