Do you have any idea wtf you are talking about? Go look up the concept of legal discovery.

I just have a strong feeling this lady is innocent that's all. I just hope she gets her money back soon.

Don't see why we need to get so defensive here regarding fulltilt being under fire when everyone knows how bad their customer service is.

Thanks MicroBob, for trying to get this back on track. It was getting slightly ridiculous.

Just to make clear - I am not on the side of FTP. I actually am very much on the fence here. On the one hand, I can see how a fraud investigation could realistically take weeks to unravel. So, I don't think it wrong that sillysal's account is blocked whilst they get to the bottom of it.

On the other hand, if sillysal is innocent then I totalling understand his/her being very stressed out and worried. If all she is guilty of is unknowingly playing against a chip dumper then it is very unfortunate. But once it is known by FTP that something serious has occurred then accounts must be blocked whilst the investigation proceeds. I think we must all accept this could happen to us as well.

As FTP rightly state they may have to contact other players and outside agencies such as credit card companies and get responses from them. Realistically this could take some weeks to do. The credit card companies may even call police authorites in if the fraud is large and indeed if it is part of a much wider money laudering scam that could even involve potential terrorist funding programs (unlikely but not impossible) the investigation could go on for months.

The only real problem I have with FTP is they should be experienced in these scams and in each case they should have a more realistic timescale to give players an idea of how long it is likely to take. They do claim to have responded to sillysal's emails within 24 hours and she has not disputed this.

Where I take the opposite view from a lot of posters here is that just because the sum involved here is $47K doesn't give any justification for not completing a full investigation.

sillysal, or any poster, can come on here and make all sorts of claims that may or may not be true. FTP, on the other hand, are very limited to the disclosures thay can give on a particular case. I, for one, would be fuming if FTP posted all deatails regarding my account on 2+2. They are in a very awkward position. Apart from saying these matters are being investigated and results will be given to the concerned parties in due course, I see little else they can do here. Any time FTP make a statement posters hurl abuse and want to know more.

sillysal sounds innocent enough but if guilty is hardly going to come on here and say "fair cop, FTP got it right I was assisting in chip dumping".

I think it is now best to let the investigation conclude and hope that sillysal lets us know the full outcome in due course.

Wait, what??? What is "theoretical" about the appeals process in the US justice system?? Does the fact that people win their appeals every day not prove that an appeals process exists? Whereas on the other hand, I think you'll be hard pressed to find a single player who has appealed to the KGS and had a site's decision overturned.

First of all, I'm pretty sure this is incorrect. I'm no legal expert, and I can't be bothered to search the web all day to find conclusive proof, but a quick search found me this blurb about UK law: "The prosecution, however, is under an obligation to disclose all its evidence to the defence". I'm pretty sure this is a cornerstone of most North American law. Even if I'm wrong on this, I'm sure the prosecution is at least required to disclose much of their evidence so a proper defence can be mounted. The poster you are replying to did not assert that all evidence needed to be disclosed, that's something you added.

Turtle, I really don't know where you're going with these posts half the time. One minute you make a good point, the next, you are trading insults with someone over points that you really seem to be on the ridiculous side of. Why the constant need to be berating everyone who disagrees with you? I think you need to spend a little more time thinking your posts through, and less time insulting everyone.

Let me try to settle things down by listing what I think are points of agreement and contention.

I hope we can all agree that:

1) If they suspect some kind of fraud has taken place, FT in some instances will need to freeze a player's funds to prevent them from being withdrawn.
2) At times, FT will be able to disclose very little about the investigation so as not to compromise it.
3) FT needs to keep the player up-to-date with realistic time frames, and to respond to reasonable inquiries with reasonable responses.

Things that I believe, which may be a little more contentious:

1) FT should be able to give the player some kind of clue what the investigation is about. Even a vague description like "illegal software", "suspect transfers", "chip dumping", etc. If a player is guilty of one of these things, they already know what they are being investigated for, so I can't see how telling them would compromise an investigation.
2) When an investigation is complete, if a player is "found guilty", there needs to be a realistic appeals process.

100% agreed

This assumes the player is even told what they are "found guilty" of.

Since nobody has a clue what this is about, it's hard to comment on.

Just sucks that these things take so long and it's not even my money at risk.

Sal has been around the block a few times and knows what not to do at sites. She makes money playing poker not scamming or chipdumping. Even if it was something, I'm sure it wasn't for malicious purposes. Anyone can make a judgment mistake here and there. Hopefully it's nothing at all. But this is still more about how a site keeps you in the dark for way to long, kind of like the chinese water torture. Which of course is now legal in America, but still, not right.

Yes. My idea of a "realistic appeals process" would include the player being given some kind of information so they would be able to defend themselves.

This is very good. The only thing I would add is a mandatory reasonably short time frame. One of the things that irks me the most is that the online rooms are cash cows but some of them operate like "Bob's plumbing." If Bob's on another job, its just too bad. This is a multi-billion dollar industry and these companies should be investing in infrastructure and or human capital to meet customer needs.

And its never going to happen if we let on for a second that we think month long unexplained delays without even being told what the issue is is acceptable.

Rek,

While I understand the FTP does not want to take losses in credit card transactions, it is the cost of doing business as an online card room.

The investigation should be whether sillysal is in cohoots with the fraudsters. They can tell this by looking at her playing history. They should within a weeks time determine if this is the case. If she has not colluded with the alleged fraud team SHE SHOULD BE CLEARED REGARDLESS how the credit card company rules.

If full tilt is not wiling to absorb bad credit card transactions, then they should lower the limits of transactions until their player build up credit history with their site.

Dennisa

hrm, i ALWAYS thought u were a bot, u would never play me HU on pokerroom back in the day under the sn charga

Are you an idiot?

This was brought to my attention. Sillysal had her account suspened almost three weeks ago. This is from a job board forum. The post is dated 10/27/07. Coincidence?

what is the coincidence? That somebody is complaining about the quality of workplace that FT is at the same time there is a thread about money being frozen for a long time there?

Since we've had so many different threads about frozen-funds situations at FT I think it would be kind of hard to have some other discussion or complaint about FT that somehow didn't coincide.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting the drive of your post though. It's completely possible I have absolutely no idea what you are trying to say and further elaboration might be helpful.