Blocked, banned and plundered

coolex....i'm off, so i wish you all the best. It was a painful lesson that's for sure.

I can assure that we practiced fold equity in a great manner..
A real expensive lesson, still praying though..
Thanks for your information and honest opinion, Welly!

I work in fraud at a credit card company. You dumped $600 and had $4000 remaining in your account. From a money laundering perspective that is a red flag. Once you reached a certain amount they would be required to file a report. They can ill afford to become a hotbed for money launderers - so they are going to stop it cold.

From the world I live in - can't say I blame them.

A POKER ROOMS POINT OF VIEW

I felt it would be quite important to add my perspective here.

Beleive it or not, Credit Card Fraud, Chip dumping and collusion are ALL issues that happen more than you would think.

A total of 2% of our depositors have had their CC deposits flagged due to suspicious OR stolen cards used.

2% is actually a high amount, but as the regulars will know we havent been around too long and its a quite small test group - BUT interestingly 12 came in the same group.

The deal was, there were multiple email addresses whom signed up pretty much on the same day, with multiple accounts, and a depositor in the far east whom also signed up and deposited ( a few days earlier ) .

All of the depositors (using stolen cc's) were found to chip dump to the far eastern account, who literally played in 23 pots between the other 12 accounts, winning each (raise, re-raise and fold, then repeat), and then cashing out in the far east.

there could be many reasons to do this:

A) simply "cleaning" the funds from the stolen cards and withdrawing the money legally (in this case 10 of 12 were allready reported stolen)
B) transferring money for illegal purposes abroad without bank trails
C) payments for "suspicious" services rendered in a foreign country (I cant be specific, but think ping pong balls and you might know where we are going with this.
D) International wire transfers (since changes in international banking following 9/11) are actually quite tight. It might seem to the bank user that you simply fill in a form at your local bank, but it is FAR more in depth behind the scenes. In order to prevent money laundering each transfer is gauged based on both the transfer originator and receiver, and if there are any flags that pop up the transfer is blocked - examples of things that would do this would be people that are on conviction lists, people whom have priors for fraudulent crimes, people whom may work for the state in the country of origin or receipt etc. etc. Big Brother is Watching!
E) Quite simply, money. If I transfer $2000 from my spanish bank account to one in the US - I am charged on average $66 for the transfer, and lose 2% of currency value upon receipt into the destination bank. The charges are increased if your local bank does not have a direct account with a major US bank and it has to pass through an itermediary. Even including rake, you could effect this same transfer internationally for less than 10% of the cost. Also - bear in mind that every poker room pays for all of the banking costs related to transfers. It might not seem much per withdrawal, but over a month it becomes a serious chunk of change.

As to why this particular case has been flagged - and if it is indeed in error, then pacific will no doubt honour the withdrawal within a few days. If it is suspected that the user has colluded (ie. behaved suspisciously by working with other players on the table, possibly with very close IP ranges) or chip dumped (intentional movement of funds not related to poker activity) then the user will be unlikely to get the winnings until pacific have contacted his bank, or Neteller, and assembled copies of personal ID, proof of address etc.

Fraud is a serious issue and needs to be dealt with harshly by the poker rooms to maintain decent levels of service. There will be unlucky cases where totally genuine users are banned due to it, but poker site operators are not in the business of banning people for the fun of it, and as long as the client realises this and co-operates by providing requested documentation in a timely manner, then the issue will be resolved.

thanks for your time spent reading this, I realise I can go on a bit sometimes, but you would be surprised how often this crops up for me on a dailly basis, and I personally have had shit off one member (and of this forum beleive it or not!) whom refused to provide any documentation, after using a CC that had been reported as stolen. This member no longer posts here so dont bother with a witchhunt!

dakota-xx said:

I work in fraud at a credit card company. You dumped $600 and had $4000 remaining in your account. From a money laundering perspective that is a red flag. Once you reached a certain amount they would be required to file a report. They can ill afford to become a hotbed for money launderers - so they are going to stop it cold.

From the world I live in - can't say I blame them.

Click to expand...

now If I had worded it like that I could have saved 10 minutes!!

martin_macd said:

now If I had worded it like that I could have saved 10 minutes!!

Click to expand...

lol - yea I just read yours and thought how nicely put but I didn't have the patience to go into that much detail.

But I was with you the whole way - I deal with this kind of stuff every single day!

dakota-xx said:

lol - yea I just read yours and thought how nicely put but I didn't have the patience to go into that much detail.

But I was with you the whole way - I deal with this kind of stuff every single day!

Click to expand...

its surprising just how often it comes up, but the network have 90+staff just for customer support and fraud detection. Im not sure of the ratio, but it does take them 2 hours to reply to support emails ;-)

Ty, Martin. It was a lot of reading , but it was very informative, and actually gave me some hope

coolex said:

Ty, Martin. It was a lot of reading , but it was very informative, and actually gave me some hope

Click to expand...

No probs mate, Im sure your claim is genuine as I have to deal with the other ones dailly, and they are certainly not forthcoming with information!

You will be asked for two types of ID, proof of address, copy of bank info etc. but as long as you can provide all of this then you will get your money.

Pacific nor any other site wants this to happen, its just we have all got to be carefull with everyone to ensure the safety of the rest of our players.

Good luck, and let us know the outcome!

martin

Ty very much, Martin.
You've been very helpful
I promise I will

kristian

Martin, while I'm irked that I can't play at your site, I have to give you credit. Your posts are very informative and I believe you are an asset to CC. + Rep

Alon Ipser said:

Martin, while I'm irked that I can't play at your site, I have to give you credit. Your posts are very informative and I believe you are an asset to CC. + Rep

Click to expand...

Hopefully by January something will be worked out Alon!

Nice post Martin, guy does seem to be genuine and now we all know the other side of things.

repididoo!

Martin. Great follow up post. Very interesting.

I just received a reply from pacific poker;


"I have reviewed your Pacific Poker account with user name "......" and
also your game history. Whilst reviewing your game history I see that
you have been participating in the transfer of money on our tables, as
explained by you previously. Thank you for your explanations regarding
the suspicious game play we have noted on your account. However I can
not accept your explanation for this as these transactions took place in
tournaments, with other players involved, for the sole purpose of
strengthening both of your positions so you could both reach the pay
off...

...Please refrain from opening any further accounts with any site owned or
operated by Pacific Poker as these too will be blocked and no deposits
returned. I now consider this matter closed, any further correspondence
regarding this matter will only evoke the same response"

You'll just have to believe me in this, as I'm not sure how I can prove it.
Here are my facts;

When I first started playing pacific poker, I played sit&go's most of the time..making minor money I started playing the tournaments after a while. The last month or two I've almost exclusively played the bigger tournaments at the site, with at least 5k usd gntd, and I've done it with some luck. These tournaments have at least 200 entrants. Can anyone explain to me how and why anyone would practice collusion in tournaments including that many players?
Is this a reasonable accusation? Or am I just the stupid kid who transferred money through hu-games again?


Frustrated, annoyed and helpless.

Is there something I can do? What shall I do?

kristian

The person you played heads up with - was he/she in the same above mentioned tournaments, and were you ever on the same table?

Yes, he's a regular like me, and we have probably played many of the same tournaments. But I believe we never shared table in any of those tournaments..

That's wrong, we have shared table for a brief moment at certain occations, as we're randomly seated. But I can't recall that he has played in any of the tournaments where I've won my money. I can't say it precisely though, but I most often scroll through the list to look after regulars.. I've won 10k gntd two times, 5k gntd one time and made 6th position in 50k gntd the last month..

Well unfortunately once you passed the money to him in the HU match all they really needed to see was whether or not you ever played on the same table with him with others at the table. And since you have won so much in those tournies - I don't think it mattered to them whether you placed in the money in the matches where the 2 of you ended up on the same table or not.

I think at this point you have to cut your losses and consider it a lesson learned. Their stand on this seems final and I think you would waste your time making any further attemps at trying to convince them it was an innocent exchange of cash. (even if it was)

Maybe Martin can respond again - since he has insider knowledge of the postion that they are in.

All I can say is ouch.

I appreciate your opinion, Dakota.
Being such a considerable amount, I'm not going to give up just yet..
I still feel this is extremely unfair, even though I can see it from their point of view.

Coolex, I'm not sure I would give up just yet myself either. I think your only 2 real alternatives here are to: (a) work your way up the management chain at Pacific or (b) seek legal counsel.

Not sure if I'd bother with (b), since you did break their rules as stated and it seems to me [note: I am not now, nor have I ever been a lawyer] that you wouldn't have a lot to gain by this route. However, it might be fruitful to gather up whatever evidence you can (table histories from the tournament, etc) that show that the chip-dumping etc only occurred at your heads up table, then try to get through support to management higher-ups who might be able to make a discretionary call.

It doesn't look good, but it seems worthwhile to continue to try.

Good Luck with this Coolex,

I have often thought of doing something similar with a few sites that we have played on here for CC events. I'm glad I didn't and made my deposit and bonus instead. Then withdrew my money.

If Pacifics support is anything like it was a few years back when I have dealt with them basically your on your own. I too started playing just their freerolls to try to make a workable BR and to move up in limits. When I was playing there you were very lucky if you did well in a tournament that the thing didn't get cancelled or sat you out.

IMO, If anyone still plays on there because of the fishies I would find another site with as many fish and more reputable than Pacific. To break it down to a small phrase. Pacific Sucks Raw Eggs(and that's putting it politely)

Again Good Luck and keep us updated on the results.

Hard luck there coolie...hopefully you can show your moving papers and get this resolved.

I played at pacific until recently but stopped cuz they really suck ___ (rhymes with pass ot crass)

good luck with it tho, but don't hold your breath

LAtes

I appreciate all the support! Thx a lot!

Got this reply from a different forum:

"http://www.pokerlistings.com/poker-forum/posting.php?mode=quote&p=23187 You can hire an attorney from the Bahamas but since you dont live there this is a real crap shoot. I having dealings with Costa Rican attorneys but I got them from references. They will all tell you they can help but if you just pick one out of the blue you could easily be throwing away more money because they will milk you for all they can while doing nothing for you. And then once they see they cant get anymore money from you they'll tell you sorry there's nothing that can be done.

Then there's the fact that businesses such as bodog which opperates out of Costa Rica are huge money cows for these small countries and they pretty much get to do as they please without any ramifications by the law. Your $4k isnt even a day's amount of tax revenue so who do you think they are going to help out, you or them. "


Gives me little hope when it comes to taking it to court..
Guess I'll just have to keep nagging, until they come to some reason.
They keep giving me the same answer every time I'm sending them e-mail. I've called them one time, but the one I talked to could give gave me just the same information I've gotten in the mails, and he wouldn't pass my phonecall to any other in the system. But I'll keep on sending them e-mails, and I'll keep on calling them until something happens...


kristian

Pacific poker doesn't provide a "buddytransfer" or a gift-function different from many other sites, so we ended up sitting down at hu-tables to transfer a little amount of my winnings.
I had no idea that this would be a problem, as this wouldn't involve anyone else..

Click to expand...

Sorry for your losses, but what you have done IS called Chip dumping and it IS against the rules...So, you won't see your money or be able to play there again. I wouldn't waste your time or money hiring a lawyer when you have clearly broken the rules and the poker company has not done anything wrong.

Ok