Entropia Universe: my withdrawal was frozen because I gifted PED to people I'd helped in real life.

It took 176 business days to get my own money back. Here's the full story — and how it ended.

How Helping Two People in Real Life Froze My Withdrawal

This article was updated on July, 17, 2026. Revised and Corrected by Claude.

Between September and November 2024, I'd been quite lucky in terms of HOFs. But before that, I happened to help two people in real life, both of whom played EU:

1. The first was a German friend relocating from Munich to Berlin.
2. The second was a Ukrainian refugee who needed help and money.

I volunteer from time to time — unpaid — for a French organization helping Ukrainian families fleeing the war. We don't shout it from the rooftops, because immigration is a heated debate in France, and we never disclose the identity of the people we help. Some of them were journalists, and you know what can happen to those people.

As you may know, there's a large community of Ukrainian and Russian players in Entropia Universe — EU is well known in both countries, and it's not rare to meet someone with an account. So both of these people, my German friend and the Ukrainian refugee, had one. And because I'd helped them in real life...

Wwe agreed they'd log in later and gift me some PED as a thank-you. ☺️

A few months later, as I said, I got lucky with HOFs! Which incidentally feeds the long-running community theory that your in-game returns are somehow tied to how much you've deposited — or to how many PED the algorithm detects on your account, eventually triggering globals and HOFs. (Never confirmed by MindArk, of course.)

Anyway... During the 2024 Halloween Mayhem, I landed 2 HOFs for a total of 6,000 PED 😍

And so I decided to click the withdraw button for the 5th time.

I genuinely wondered whether they'd grant it in 44 days like my two previous withdrawals — or whether they'd investigate me like police officers again, asking why I'd received PED "for nothing in return".

On December 20, 2024, I had my answer... this email arrived:

"Hi, Please file a support case regarding the pending withdrawal with ID: 15380834.

Kind regards, Jasper | Entropia Universe Support"

Opening the Case: Nothing to Hide, Everything to Prove

So once again, I went to the support page and opened a new case.

The two Mayhem HOFs can be verified publicly:

1. 3,376 PED from a Mayhem Annihilation Zombie 03 — using a not-even-maxed Gravis GLR-33
2. 2,231 PED from a Mayhem Annihilation Zombie 01 — using a not-even-maxed Katsuichi Honor

This shows two things. First, that you can get lucky even with non-maxed weapons 😎 And second — more importantly — that the PED gifted to me by my German friend and the Ukrainian refugee had nothing to do with this withdrawal.

The money I withdrew came from HOFs I won months later, publicly documented on the official forum. I didn't receive PED and cash it out immediately — I used those PED to keep hunting daily. There was no money laundering involved. And frankly, we're talking about roughly 2,000 and 6,000 PED — a total of around €800

Nobody launders money €800 at a time. It's simply too small to make any sense 😅

But apparently, for MindArk, it's a problem... Again we go back to the algorithm theory, where if someone gives you peds and you keep them long enough, it's detected as if you had made a deposit which later will trigger Hofs ! 😏

I then received a message from Jasper and answered when I got back from a weekend in Belgium with my little family. (If you like good fries, beer and chocolate, Belgium is the best country to visit! 😅)

"We Support Ukraine" — Words vs. Actions

As I said, I had nothing to hide. But this whole episode brought back something that still bothers me.

At the start of the war, MindArk publicly announced on their official forum that they stood with Ukraine. A statement, a picture, a nice message of support. But to my knowledge, withdrawals were never made any faster for Ukrainian players — people in a genuinely dire situation who needed their money to flee.

That's the part I can't reconcile. It's easy to say "we support you"; it's harder to actually change a process. These players had real assets locked in EU, and the standard ~50 business days applied to them like everyone else, war or no war. Saying you support a cause while changing nothing operationally is, to me, just words.

And here I am, a few years later, having my own withdrawal frozen because I helped one of those refugees. The irony writes itself. After that, I received one last message from support — oddly, during the night. It was no longer Jasper answering, and the timestamp was 1:05 AM European time. (i guess they have externalized a Cybersecurity service in the U.S)

Actually i wasn't that surprised... In real life i am an IT Manager, and in every company i have worked for, the cybersecurity department was ALWAYS based in the united states. I guess they nuemrous talents in that domain there 👍

Then Came the Radio Silence

I said " i received one last message", because after that one — dated December 26, 2024

— it was total radio silence. So, I tried to wake them up with this...

And two weeks later, with this one...

Still no answer.

Meanwhile, I had around 400 strongboxes sitting in my inventory, and I'd already opened more than a thousand over the years. But it seems they didn't want me to buy keys from their webshop this time... No fresh money 🤨

I remember forum regulars claiming that Entropia Universe was safer than a real-life bank. Well — I transfer €400 every month to my ex-wife for my children, and my bank has NEVER once asked me to justify it in all these years. The only time my bank ever called me was when I moved thousands of euros at once.

Which brings me back to something I wrote in the final part of my guide: EU makes you think small — because MindArk thinks small. They chase casual players like me over €100 to €300. When will they understand that 10,000 casual players are worth more than 100 whales? If they investigate every casual player the moment a withdrawal doesn't suit them, they'll scare off the newcomers they desperately need.

So on January 25, 2025, I sent them this final message:

Because i find their silence insulting, i am a real customer and i am Ignored and treated like a common thief !

It makes me think of the whales of EU — the big spenders who proudly claim the game only survives thanks to people like them. Maybe. But no whale is eternal, and a business model resting on a handful of heavy spenders is a business model with an expiry date. Chasing away the casual base to protect a few big fish is exactly how you end up with neither.

61 business days at that point. I'd requested this withdrawal on October 26, 2024. The support case was open, they simply weren't answering. Not investigating — just letting time pass.

I think they were betting on the usual: "he's addicted like all the others, he'll come back and deposit anyway". Well, I'm not. I've played 3+ years, but I won't wait forever. I'd rather lose my level 72 avatar and get on with my life.

A company should know better how to treat actual customers.

Let's review a few points...

• A game where every transactions are monitored
• A game where you SHOULD NOT give free money to someone else ! Otherwise you'll be flagged like me as a "Money Laundry suspect"... Because in EU you can't do what you want with the money you deposited.
• A game where they can decide to lock your virtual assets, even if you're a depositor, making you wait for an eternity in radio silence, and at some point when the ticket will be out of the SLA (service level agreement) resolution time, they will close it. And at this time if your ticket was about a withdrawal, they can certainly refuse it, take the penalty fee and say it's because your bank account details were not correct! Even... if everything was right on your side.

Nethertheless... i updated my support case to notify them that i had uninstalled Entropia Universe... 😌

March 2025: They Closed My Case for "Inactivity"

My withdrawal had been requested on October 26, 2024. I'll let you do the maths. It also meant €300 of my assets were locked away, with no communication since December.

On February 28, 2025, I received a notification saying I hadn't logged in for a while...

No kidding 😅 They should really be careful with these "automatic" notifications...

So let me see, I should...

1. Look for a knowledge base article titled "MindArk refusing to give me back MY money"... Sadly it doesn't exist, so their documentation clearly needs an update.
2. Contact Live Support? You mean the agent who isn't authorized to disclose any information about withdrawals? Last time I tried, I was told my withdrawal was "under investigation".

I love that phrase. Under investigation. When the police say it, you eventually get an answer. When MindArk says it, the purpose seems to be letting time pass and hoping you'll stop asking.

So I screenshotted it, uploaded it to my "ghost case" and left a little message, as always.

And that was true — since quitting Entropia, I'd had time to finish Demon's Souls and Lies of P! 😍

Then on March 17, 2025, I received an email saying my case was closed.

Reminder: I'd requested this withdrawal on October 26, 2024.

Please read the answer of MindArk below... It's not a joke, it's not April's fool either 🤡

MindArk closed my case where...

1. I had answered every question, giving all details and player names.
2. I had sent no fewer than 5 messages while THEY stayed silent.

And their reason? Closed due to inactivity.

• Without resolving anything — the money was still locked.
• Asking me to submit a brand-new support case.

So they expected me to open a new case and wait another four months. Maybe that's normal to them — I've seen genuinely desperate people on the official forum fighting for more than a year to get their money back, resubmitting ticket after ticket as if that were an acceptable process.

Then I was asked to provide feedback... I did.

My money is still locked out...

But i am not sure my feedback will change anything in their way of disrespecting their customers...

All i can hope now is that new people interested in Entropia Universe will read this before stepping a foot in!

Update 2026: How It Actually Ended

Everything above was written in February and March 2025, at the peak of my frustration — and without knowing how the story would end. So let me close the loop honestly, because you deserve the full picture rather than a cliffhanger.

I got my money... Yes All of it.

The withdrawal I requested on October 26, 2024 was eventually paid out — after 176 business days. That's roughly nine months of calendar time for a payout their own FAQ advertises at "approximately 50 business days".

And the way it unfolded was almost comical: a month after they closed this case for "inactivity", I opened a completely unrelated ticket asking them to clear my outdated bank details. They closed that new ticket... and reopened this one, announcing my withdrawal had suddenly been approved. Then came another wait, because "granted" and "committed" are apparently two very different things at MindArk. I documented that whole second saga here.

So what's the honest verdict? Not "MindArk stole my money" — they didn't, and I want to be fair even to a company I have serious issues with. The verdict is worse in a way: they held €300 of a paying customer's money for nine months, went silent for weeks at a time, closed his case blaming him for the silence, and only moved when he stopped playing entirely. No theft. Just a process so slow and so opaque that it's functionally indistinguishable from one.

What I'd tell you, reading this and wondering whether to deposit:

 

• Yes, you can withdraw from Entropia Universe.
  I've done it 5 times, every euro eventually arrived. Don't believe anyone who tells you it's impossible.
• But budget for the wait. Not 50 business days — plan for months, and never count on that money for anything real.
• Gifting PED can flag your account. This is the actual lesson of this article: in an RCE, generosity looks like a transaction. If you gift or receive PED, expect questions when you cash out — and keep a record of why.
• Stay factual and don't disappear. Ironically, my case was closed for "inactivity" while I was the only one writing. Keep your ticket alive, keep it polite, keep it documented... And play another video game in real life in the meantime.
• Test the withdraw button early, while your investment is small. That advice from Part 12 has never been more relevant.

And the last thing, the one that actually matters: I uninstalled the game on February 14, 2025, along with Clash Royale from my phone. Both were addictions doing more harm than good. That decision came after reading Tony Robbins' Awaken the Giant Within — a book I'd recommend to anyone trying to sever a habit that's costing them more than it gives. Looking back, the frozen €300 was the best thing that ever happened to me in Entropia Universe: it set me free. I got the money back, and I got my time back too. Only one of those was actually worth having 😉