NETeller has closed a loophole that U.S. customers were using to get their frozen funds.

After NETeller’s two founders were arrested by U.S. Federal authorities last month on gambling and money laundering charges, NETeller, an Internet money transferring service based in the U.K., stopped allowing U.S. customers to use the service to send monies to and from online gambling sites.

NETeller also stopped allowing U.S. customers to make electronic funds transfers (EFTs) from their NETeller accounts to their personal bank accounts–a common way to withdraw monies from NETeller–effectively freezing the Americans’ funds.

Some Americans figured out a way to get around this, however.

NETeller allowed customers to make something called “peer-to-peer transfers,” which were simply money transfers between NETeller account-holders.

Anyone holding a NETeller account could send any amount of money in that account to any other NETeller account-holder.

So some Americans simply transferred the monies in their NETeller accounts to the NETeller accounts of friends who live in other countries, and those friends were able to withdraw the monies via EFTs and send it back to their American friends.

No more.

NETeller (www.neteller.com) just announced on its website that U.S. customers will no longer be able to make any more so-called peer-to-peer transfers. According to the NETeller website: “U.S. member accounts have been temporarily decertified to revoke peer-to-peer capabilities. These accounts should be automatically recertified in the next 10 business days, but peer-to-peer transfers will no longer be available to U.S. members.”

NETeller is also taking action against non-American NETeller account-holders who helped American NETeller account-holders withdraw funds by doing peer-to-peer transfers with them.

According to the NETeller website: “If you recently performed a peer-to-peer transfer, your account may have been temporarily closed. Your account should be automatically re-opened within five business days, but you will no longer be able to perform peer-to-peer transfers.”

USA Today, a national American newspaper located in suburban Washington, D.C., reported last week that according to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), who arrested NETeller’s founders, the frozen NETeller account funds are being held by a U.S. court as evidence in the case.

Some account-holders may eventually get their monies returned, but there are no guarantees, an FBI spokesman also told USA Today.

NETeller continues to say all account-holders with frozen funds will eventually get all their monies, but the company has declined to provide a timetable for the payments.