When did Scott Tom leave the company? In 2006 after the sale? In 2007 after the cheating was identified? In 2009 after his step-brother was working on payment processing? Isn't it more plausible to believe he never left at this point and Sebok was just parrotting a company line?

Definitely plausible... the only other possibility is in Aug 2010 when the indictment identified ownership of the company as being transfered to blanca games.. but again who knows

this thread should be called

Can we discuss Cereus seriously

seriously

Never f***ing gets old.

Cereusly.

Fraud? Stealing from your customers? Cereusly??

yea it smells worse and worse on cereus

Really hope all this gets settled, and we get our money. Cash-outs were processing super fast before friday, so really I will blame both CEREUS and DOJ for messing with my $$$.

I doubt dealing with the DOJ is even an option for them. Either figure out a way to service US players or go under.

+1

The thing holding AP/UB back from retrieving their dot com addresses from the DOJ is probably the fact they have not actually stopped US players from playing. They have a popup saying people can't sit but it's just a notice and not true. As usual with cereus this can be explained by their incompetence not necessarily their shadiness.

It's quite possible they don't have the technical ability to simply prevent US players from playing while still allowing the rest of the world. It's quite conceivable they were not prepared and are busy now translating their requirements to Korean before getting the work done.

I still hold hope that non-US withdrawals will start up. Hard to understand why those are down.

So shady the still take deposits from people who probably are unaware they will possibly never be able to withdraw.

Well, the best-case (well, in some ways) scenario I think is:
* They would like to ban US players and do a deal with the DoJ
* They currently have no technical ability to ban US players in their software (e.g., geographic blocking)
* They are arranging for that ability to be programmed in and that takes time
* In the meantime, they realize that if they would allow non-USA players withdraw they would have to deal with a lot of chip-dumping from USA to non-USA players, and they think that it is easier just to disable all withdrawals.
* Which means any day we can expect a new software and non-US withdrawals to go through, with US withdrawals following not that long after.
* In the meantime they are being their usual terrible selves at PR. That we're quite used to.

The worst-case scenario is that the company is bankrupt but they are bidding their time so that management can hide their money better before going clear about it.

Scenarios in the middle are them stiffing USA players to pay non-USA players, or perhaps trying to remain open for USA players by just ignoring the DoJ.

WTF go away. You will never forgive AP/UB for being run by cheats several years ago. I get it. There is no evidence that they've done any cheating since the scandals broke.

All companies are basically there to take advantage of people while hiding behind their limited liability. UB, FTP, AP, Cake, Party, and even Stars are not EVER going to be looking out for your best interest unless it helps their bottom line.

Ugh... just ****ing leave. I don't want to explain why you anti-Cereus zealots are being completely obtuse and idiotic. This is not the place.

The worst-case scenario is that the company is bankrupt but they are bidding their time so that management can hide their money better before going clear about it.

scary but seems like the main option...

I took this to mean that the DOJ is saying that they didn't actually go into the sites and freeze individual accounts from withdrawing/transferring, that this was something the sites did, which is true. But they still seized payment processors so knowingly or not, they indirectly "froze" individual accounts by making it tough on sites to process cashouts with less/no payment processors and less/no money.

Not sure if you're saying the same thing but the overall tone of posts I've read, not just yours, seem to be implying that the sites lied to us, which I don't think is the case.

Can the DOJ charge AP/UB with another crime? That of running away with the player's money?

I obviously have a substantial amount in my UB account, so would love some discussion on this topic. I am sure there are many others in the same boat.

Erm...seems to be a perfectly fair question considering AP/UB was pretty adamant that the scandal was due to "rogue" higher ups compromising their software's security and stealing millions of dollars from players. Pretty much the only reason anyone had an ounce of trust left with AP/UB was based on the fact that the site was under new ownership and AP/UB made it crystal clear in no uncertain terms that all these scummy ****wads had absolutely no dealings whatsoever in the "new" AP/UB management. So...if they flat out lied to everyone about this then being upset about it/pointing it out to everyone is hardly anything close to "anti-UB zealotry", wtf? Whether or not they cheated anyone after the scandal is irrelevant. I'm an icon on UB and have been for a long time FWIW.

about ub/ap not being able to block players based on location at the end of 08 i was blocked for 3 months because the state i lived in (KY) tried to ban online poker

Shrug, I'm sure they would, but quite honestly I don't see how anything would come of it.

Here's how I read the DoJ releases w/regards to Cereus. The release says "No individual player accounts were ever frozen or restrained" which of course would always be the case, the DoJ freezes the site or processor accounts. They go on to say "each implicated poker company has at all times been free to reimburse any player's deposited funds" in essence daring the companies to take care of their customers.

Pokerscout tells us Stars should have no problem with this no matter how much money the DoJ locked up. Full Tilt is complaining there is no way to know which funds the DoJ locked up. This suggests the DoJ seizures were material enough to make the comment. Full Tilt is not doing as well on Scout compared to Stars though they still have a good overseas player base and will likely weather the storm in the long run as a smaller company.

If the seizures were material for Cereus, we can see traffic on Scout has collapsed and that is with US players still playing on the site. Even if they now take signups/deposits the situation is so murky its doubtful they would get any takers. Without deposits, the site will soon fail absent some kind of creditor stepping in to assist.

The DoJ may be holding out the possibility some accounts/assets might be released forcing Cereus to not move forward. One could envision a deal where the player deposits were released if guilty pleas were lodged or some other leverage.

The company may have determined continuing in the US market is untenable since processors will be very reticent to work with them now. The DoJ could keep locking up assets including personal assets of the owners/founders. Banks and processing networks understand what has been charged, if they are found engaging in this activity going forward, they will likely be brought into the charging process. Otherwise, it just doesn't make sense that Cereus didn't step up immediately yelling "live free or die!" and roll out some deposit bonuses for American players.

I don't think Stars or Tilt are being purposely deceitful, I think they are constrained by the financial realities but both have issued statements and both have made clear moves to exit the US.

Cereus is another kettle of fish since they haven't issued a formal statement, continue to allow US players to generate rake with no clue if their money is safe and still haven't taken a firm stance on the future.

Are you serious?

Cross posting this from the UB regs thread.

Well, bank fraud was one of the charges in the indictment and this was something that does NOT rely on poker being legal or not. However, AFAIK it was only stars and FTP that were charged for this bank fraud and not UB/AP. Since many legal folks on these forums feel like the bank fraud charge is the most damaging, I guess UB/AP believe they can fight this legally.

That being said, UB/AP provide blackjack and other casino games.

I guess I'm trying to remain positive but the more time passes by without a clear statement from Paul or anybody from UB management, the more ****ed we are.

Right, basically what I'm saying. Cool.

And just FTR when I said, "sites" I def was referring to only FTP and Stars. I have no clue what Cereus is doing and unfortunately, it doesn't seem like anyone else does either.

I wasn't aware that the charges were seperate from site to site, is this true? I do know that UB was having the same types of issues with cashouts years ago that FTP has been having much more recently (checks bouncing, money being credited only to be taken back out weeks later, wires being rejected, etc.), so I don't understand why that would be the case.

Edit: Although if this Daniel whatever his last name is rolling on the sites is the only reason the DOJ was able to make a case and he dealt mainly (or only) with Stars and FTP then that would make sense. Don't know if that's the case or not, just thinking out loud.