This has happened before, and other players have complained about it in the past.

Bovada charges a 5.9% credit card fee. That's kinda brutal, but at least you know that going in.

I made two $500 deposits, so the fee should have been $29.50 each, for a total of $529.50 each.

Instead, I was charged $569.13 both times -- almost a $40 skim for each one.

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I redacted the name, though honestly this shitty processor (and by extension Bovada) doesn't really deserve the courtesy. But I don't want to name this and screw things up for Bovada... unless they won't make this right.

This was NOT charged as a cash advance, nor does my bank have foreign transaction fees. I have deposited with this exact card in the past to Bovada with no issues.

Keep in mind that Bovada's payment processor -- not Bovada itself -- is the one guilty here.

However, Bovada takes a very cavalier attitude about this, attempting to blame it on "foreign transaction fees" or "cash advance fees", even if that's not the case.

They also unreasonably demand that you send them a "running bank statement" with your full name, credit card number, and the transaction. There is no such thing. American banks do not issue a full "running statement" prior to the completion of your billing cycle. It can take as much as 6 weeks from the time of the charge to see an actual statement generated.

When I told them I could send them a screen shot of my transaction list, with the bank name, my name, and last 4 of my CC number, they told me that "wasn't enough".

After speaking with a supervisor, I was told to submit that, and "it should be fine".

I'm very skeptical.

I will update the progress on this.

To repeat, this is NOT Bovada skimming, but it's their shady Chinese credit card processor doing it, and Bovada doesn't make it easy to recover the money.

They did advise me, in a roundabout way, that such skimming is getting increasingly common, and that I should use bitcoin instead in the future. (I wasn't forced to do this, but I was highly advised to do so.)

What a mess.