Nick Civitarese of Calgary Scams/Freerolls Eric for $16,000CAD

Name: Nick Civitarese
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nick.civitarese
888 Nick: StuckDeep
Pokerstars Nick: Civi1717
Hendonmob: http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=151054


This post might be slightly long so I will add cliffs at the bottom..
I want to start off by saying this was not me who was Freerolled by Nick Civitarese but a close friend who is an active member on 2+2, I’ve just given Nick Civitarese till tonight to settle his debts since it has really frustrated me all week knowing this can happen to anyone.

There is a large Facebook forum dedicated to Live Poker in Alberta, Canada which Shak (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...anada-1590015/) had actually scammed the community for Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars as well.

Nick Civitarese had message Eric the day of the $580CAD Main Event in Calgary, Alberta to ask if Eric would take 50% of his action at no Markup and he would be late Registering it. Eric had said he will take it, but was not able to send at the time because his EMT (Canada Bank Transfer) Limits had been maxed as his currently in Vegas for WSOP (There was proof posted from the member Eric has been buying Bitcoin from that has Maxed his transfer Limits.

When everything was done $32,000CAD ($24,133USD) was up top.


Here is the post that Eric had made after the incident

Here is a screenshot:
Here is a screenshot to all the chats prior/during the MTT (That was attached to his post)

Before Eric posted this, Nick had tried to clear his name and pretend he has done nothing wrong since he did not receive the money which he acknowledged before that it is OK to ship when he can.

Here is the very first post from Nick Civitarese to make it look as if he is getting “Blackmailed” to pay the funds.



Eric was not the first person Nick had asked to buy him 50% as a few members had said No Thanks previously to buying his 50% since it was last minute. It is clearly obvious that Nick was not going to play unless he sold 50% of his action, especially since it was last minute.

Eric has bought action and sold many times including with me. When action is booked it is booked! Here is an example of me buying action from Eric and shipping AFTER he had busted the MTT.


I’m sure anyone buying/selling action with reputable people has been in the situation more than once especially when the MTT is starting when they are selling the action.

After nearly a week of Nick being silent and ignoring the situation he had wrote his second post.



There is many flaws in his story, and had mentioned he has been burned 3 times by investors not paying up, but had not mentioned it to Eric at any point and had updated him during the run with hands/chip stacks until he knew he was ITM and was going to be cashing the event. He was also aware of Eric having to send him funds later since his limits were maxed right now.


The Facebook Alberta Poker Community has given Nick Civitarese a week to not go public and Nick Civitarese believes he has done NOTHING wrong and owes Eric Nothing.

I had finally had enough last night and told Nick he has till 11:59PM June 25th to get in contact with Eric and settle this before it goes public but this was his response.



I’m posting this for Eric on some suggestions on what can be done and to allow the 2+2 community to be aware if Nick Civitarese ever asks for a staking deal or is selling action online.


CLIFFS:

- Nick Civitarese wants to play the $560 Main Event last minute in Calgary and sells Eric 50%
- Eric says he will take it but can not ship now because his transfer limits are maxed.
- Nick says it’s no problem and updates Eric during the day.
- Eric sees he has a stack at the end of Day 1 and asks if he should ship the funds now or later with no response.
- Nick Civitarese starts to ignore Eric when he knows his cashing and doesn’t want to pay his 50%
- Nick Civitarese binks for 32k CAD and doesn't pay up..
- Facebook Alberta Poker Community gives Nick 1 week to save his reputation and pay Eric the funds he is owed.
- Nick knew he would have been paid if he busted and knew he could freeroll the event.



This makes me sick and one of the reasons I never buy action on 2+2 is because I know something like this can happen, but when it happens in your city at a local casino that's extra harsh.

Pretty clear from initial text convo this is booked. Not up for debate you are getting outright scammed.

****ty......not sure how Eric isn't booked here. Feels like Nick would've scammed even if Eric sent the money. Seems like he is using this as an excuse to scam $16k.

Normally you open yourself up for freerolls if you don't collect piece $$$ before the start of tournament but if its a friend or regular and you do a deal like this it seems like it is 100% booked and this nick guy owes the $$ / ****ty to not pay it especially with how much it seems his name is going to be dragged through all kinds of mud even if it is a bad misunderstanding (which it shouldn't be because it seems clear he owes the $)

The community had tried to avoid the situation and everyone had agreed that Nick owes the money to Eric. We tried to avoid 2+2 and other online websites so his reputation wouldn't have got ruined since the Forum is private and can't be googled)

It seems like, in a general sense, if Nick were to do business the way he dealt with Eric, he opens himself to getting freerolled, like he claims has happened to him in the past. From the information released from o.p, if Nick were to have this conversation with a complete random person on 2+2, this action would NOT be sold. The only reason there is debate is because Eric is a stand up guy and has sold/bought action a bunch within his community. Given the fact that they have never done business together I find the lack of communication from both parties at the end of the posts problematic. Not only does Eric fail to get any response from Nick regarding the transfer of the $280, but Eric phrases it in the most un-gto way ever. It's not a question, its not a statement..."Guess I don't have to send that 280 right away then lol". What should have been said was, "because EMT won't work tonight, how would you prefer I send the 280?" Anything was better than what was said.

An experience I had.... I used to play fulltime online and I was backed by a very well known stable on 2+2 for cash games exclusively. When I wanted to play an MTT with really good value, my investors insisted that they send me the money before I started playing in it, even though there was more than sufficient money in my account AND all of that money was theirs anyways, yet they still insisted on sending money specifically for the tournament.

It doesn't sound like either party is trying to scam the other person, imo. It's just sloppy business on Eric's part. If he is gonna insist on buying action from new players with no established credit, send money, otherwise pass on the action.

Ye i agree with this in principle. Unfortunately i think there is a fair bit of blame on the backer here. If its accurate they had never transacted with each other before then not sending the funds first is a cardinal sin. I have bought and sold action 100s of times (mostly bought) and can think of 3-4 times i havent sent or received before the start of the event and thats with people i have had many many transactions with and know to be of good character.

Sure a guy doing 5 figure bitcoin transactions could of asked a friend to send a $300 EMT to a person they had never done business with before to remove any angles/doubt. Don't want to sound harsh i think this is a clear angle but if the funds were sent before the event started he would of probably been paid.

Another side note is it would be better if there was a trustworthy arbitration that could go down since the 'backer' in this situation seems to be very popular in the community this was posted to on facebook whereas I am not sure about nick , It's like a community hero being backed by a ton of friends in an argument here with a lot of people who have no experience or knowledge in backing giving their opinions (from what I saw in the facebook thread(s)) and both parties clearly made mistakes here

(similar to how this situation is being posted as a scam here instead of asking opinions from people with experience)

No $$$, no action.

You say he was free rolling but without proof the backer could have been free rolling just the same. There needs to be consistency.

this, 100%

I am the backer here. Let me clear up some things for the "no money, no action" crowd.

Nick contacted me hours before the event. Asked me to buy, I accepted. He asked at least one other respected player/backer before me (who declined) before coming to me. It's almost certain he wouldn't have played without considering 50% of his action to be booked, and he wouldn't have approached me without believing that I'm good for it. No stipulation was made that the money had to be sent prior to the tournament for the deal to be active, and the updates throughout the day confirm that Nick was fine if the money was sent later. No doubt I would've been on the hook for $280 if he busted at any point during day 1. When I informed him that I couldn't send the money because of EMT limits, he simply responded 'haha ok' which should be further confirmation that the money was going to be sent late. Then when he bags big so close to ITM on day 2, it seems obvious to save a transaction and not send right away as he's a near lock to cash now. At any point if he said he needed the money for the deal to be active, I would have found a way to get him the money.

No contact by him from the end of day 2 to cancel or clarify the deal is unacceptable. You can all say "no money, no action", but I assume you all agree that he would have expected me to send the money had he bubbled on day 2. He knows what my reputation is in the community and knows I would never risk it for such a tiny amount.

Happy to respond to questions from anyone here.

If it's not you, and the victim is an active member on 2+2 why on earth are you posting it? All that leads to is the possibilities of errors and inconsistencies like the ones I've highlighted below.

That's a lot different than:

The OP implies, a couple of times, that Nick knew when the action was booked that Eric couldn't send right away. But Eric is saying that this never came up until later.

And then there's this:

No, if this the exact wording, it's not even close to confirmation. If all you said was that you couldn't send, and he responds "haha ok", then there is clearly more than one way to interpret this. And "haha ok" is nothing like "Nick says it's no problem".

Exact wording is pretty important here, and multiple versions certainly aren't helpful.

The screenshots of the text conversation between myself and Nick are in the OP.

I had wrote this for Eric because he is currently in Vegas and he wouldn't have time to write this up and before he could write this I'm sure the dust would of settled and people would of forgot about it.

This happened with Shak as well, everyone knew he was scamming the community (Which was prob over 300k+) but nobody spoke out. Nobody actually knew how much money was stolen until everyone started to talk from Chris's Post (Ironically enough Nick had asked Chris to by 50% before asking Wasy)

I wrote this knowing next time Nick see's me he will prob want to bash my face in, but I believe it was not handled properly and he needed to be outed ASAP...

The screenshots that Wasy had posted clearly show that he mentioned to Nick he will pay him later and Nick acknowledged it, He than went on to update Wasy about his stack more than once. (This is usually where you should STOP updating and tell them you don't have my action.. Right?)

The screenshots are word for word of the conversation that occurred.

If you think the wording is off, I can gladly change it and bold it from the chat messages.

Sorry I didn't mean any confusion and I do see the reason as to why Wasy should have wrote this than. I had sent him the copy of the writeup that I was going to post and asked him if he wanted me to changed anything before I post it.

I had nothing against Nick after this happened and assumed he would make the right decision. I had played Live with Nick before, and I'm sure I'll have to see him in real life again.

Here is the whole Convo between Wasy and Nick - (Which Wasy as posted in 6 photos at first and I made it 1 photo to be easier read)
It's also in the first post..

Yeah, but Bobo's points are still valid. It made absolutely no sense for TCarnage to begin this discussion rather than you. It just muddies the water with his third-person account and opinion of what went down.

From what's been written so far, it is obvious that both you and Nick made mistakes here and both feel that you're being honest and that the other person is in the wrong. Scam is much to harsh a word to be thrown around here. Not knowing either of you and just going by what has been written, I don't think either of you was trying to scam the other. This seems like a simple financial disagreement that should be able to be arbitrated by a well-respected, objective third party that both of you agree to.



ETA: I just reread the OP and noticed something that I initially missed: Nick has already offered to have this arbitrated by an impartial third party! So, WTF is the hold-up Eric (and TCarnage)? Not only is that the perfect solution to this mess, it also very clearly demonstrates that Nick isn't trying to scam anyone.

So, why hasn't his offer been eagerly accepted yet? If it is so clear that you're in the right about this and Nick owes the money, then there should be no reason whatsoever for you not to agree to have this arbitrated.

So what say you?

He wants a professional arbitrator, and wants the fees to come out of the $16k. I want someone involved in poker to do the arbitrating, because there are enough details specific to poker ethics and standards important to this case to warrant it. That's why we haven't agreed to arbitration.

Unfortunately this is 100% an intent to scam/freeroll by Nick Civitarese.

If action was not booked, there would have been mention of "Can you have someone xfer?"
Or the player should have messaged not booked. Also the player was sending updates throughout the day.

If Nick would ever agree to a "unbiased 3rd party" that understood poker backing Wasy would obviously accept. But his hopes are that it would go to some type of arbitrator that doesn't understand common action buying/backing practices. He would never agree to have it arbitrated by poker players. ( People like Manig Loeser, Max Silver, Ryan Yu and myself have all come out in the thread and said this is pretty clear )


To be clear, Wasy's reputation is flawless in the community and I regularly buy/swap action with him in most MTTs we play. There was never any doubt he was paying the 280 if Nick had busted( even though Nick max late regged which was not discussed prior to action purchase ).

I am also a member of that community, but not particularly close to anyone in it and have never met either of the parties involved. I'm glad it got posted here as I do feel the community is siding somewhat biased in favor of Eric due to his standing in the community.

My original thought on reading the post by Nick was that he maybe shouldn't pay - I was somewhat leaning to the side of "no money down, no action". The conversation screenshots however made it pretty clear to me that Nick had accepted the action. Throughout the conversation, the money had not been sent, and at all times you had:

Eric: the money will be sent, do your best
Nick: no extra requests for the money, no "your action is off if you're not down", no "You have to send immediately if you want to be booked", and as the text convo posted shows, he certainly had many many opportunities to do so

I also thought people were being overly harsh - as someone else posted, he'd agreed to 3rd party arbitration. However, it does seem as things have continued that this might just be stalling and he has no real intent of paying no matter what. On the other hand, a well respected action buying member of the community shouldn't be struggling to find a way to send $280 to someone either, so for all Nick thinks, maybe he saw Eric as stalling and was never going to get his $280. (Note: I'm not saying either of these is true - just that either is possible).

I think the "scamming" thread here is premature as the situation is not yet resolved. It certainly could have been posted as a "what should the resolution be" type post without including names. Thread should be locked/deleted at this time IMO until things are resolved. Very much agree it is not up to a third party to take it upon himself to post details of someone else's dispute.

Do you seriously believe that you can't find a professional arbitrator who is familiar with poker and poker staking agreements? Or at the very least, can't research the history and common culture of poker staking agreements in order to become educated enough to resolve the dispute in a fair and equitable manner?

That's patently ridiculous.

Lol at anyone who thinks this is just a miscommunication and not a pure scam. If you book action with someone, continuously provide them updates, hear from them that they can't pay you today and don't question it, and never mention that the action is off, your intent is 100% clear.

Also 100% obvious when the guy wakes up the next day with a monster stack and doesn't bother to "read" any messages from his investors what his plan is.

Maybe this would be a legit point if the action wasn't booked an hour before the event and the backer was in another country. It's not like he was waiting for weeks.

There are a million situations in poker/gambling where "no money no action" is not a ironclad principle. Booking action right before a tournament starts with a reputable person is like one of the most common and fundamental examples.

In what world do you live in where if I tell you "Will have to send later tonight" and you respond "haha ok" that's different than saying it's not a problem? I'm assuming English is the first language for Eric, Nick, and Bobo Fett, but correct me if I'm wrong.

If the ruling is "no money no action" does that mean when I "swap" with people now in events I have to pay for my specific percentage and then the other person has to pay me back the same amount. LOL .. If its booked its booked. End of Story.

so eloquently put, well done

+1 This is clearly a scam and should be treated as such imo