Looks like good news is somehow bad news for this forum again.

one last processing fee...

I suppose it will be deductible, at least.

It is disgusting, huh? Pathetic political/legal games is the only reason this process is complicated. Stars is capable of doing this incredibly streamlined and simple with no fees and yet Americans are stuck with this crap. Their motivation is absurd and it is really strange that Ifrah has no idea why they are doing it. You'd think that would have been discussed at the negotiating table and it is weird they are clueless.

The government has the records either way so it can't be for those kinds of reasons. Instead it's just to make life more complicated for the player in order to come out of this looking more like heroes. Newspaper headline "government saves players and sends them 150M".

"LET STARS ****ING DO IT!"

This was answered by one of the PPA guys in another thread. I'm too lazy to provide the link, but basically it seemed to boil down to probable conflicts with their other ongoing cases if they let stars handle disbursements. So stop saying let stars do it, it's not going to happen. Not just you, everyone.

There's something more going on here... Even if stars isn't allowed to directly refund players they could easily allow the doj access to balances and records so that a check could be sent out.

The only reason that it's turning out to be complicated is that the doj has something in mind to teach us players a lesson

The DOJ (and the third party) WILL have that information. All FTP account information is being turned over to both Stars AND the DOJ.

But it is not just as simple as issuing a check. People will have changed addresses and bank accounts since 6/29/11. Some accounts will have unusual specific circumstances. Phantom deposits and un-cashed withdrawals will have to be factored in and may be disputed (by the players).

In the vast majority of cases it ought to be easy - balance sent to information already on record once owners ID and request is verified.

But the system can't be built for just the easy cases, it has to be able to deal with the not-so-easy cases too.

Skallagrim

This seems really ridiculous if they take this measure since the DOJ and IRS technically do not share information. Would be really surprised if all this was needed. Would definitely love to hear others opinoins

Sometimes, particularly when a large number of applicants is expected, the DOJ drafts a sample remission application. I suspect that will be the case in the FTP matter; however, the DOJ also provides a generic remission petition. Looking at the information it requests probably gives some insight into what is likely. BTW, I don't agree with all the instructions, you should read and follow the regulations with regard to any application. See: http://www.scribd.com/doc/101141742/...ssion-Petition

tuesday is newsday ldo
I usually search thru these threads to find the few posters like yourself who seem to have any clue what they're talking about, but while your point here seems like a good one your tone isn't. I'm sure the PPA would graciously accept if you wanted to volunteer your time to serve their organization in some capacity. Or you could just PM Rich Muny with helpful suggestions from time to time. Hopefully you won't just end up as King of the Trolls.

I would add to the list of points that the PPA's letter failed to mention the fact that many player balances include funds that weren't won playing poker on FTP at all. How many FTP players do you suppose have swapped $FTP for stars? swapped $FTP for cash? swapped for FPPs "sold" to another player? received staking profits from horses playing live B&M games? received payments for coaching? Of course, these transactions would show up as transfers in their account histories so they could be sorted out, but I don't see how the DOJ would have a leg to stand on to simply declare current balances irrelevant to determining the amount players lost to the alleged fraud.

Great points, also even rakeback deposits may be viewed as fraudulent since they didn't actually have any rake to give back.

I spent the week following the DOJ/PS agreement being thankful for the fact that we had a strong political lobby with a great legal team that has been making the case for online poker being legal for years, which might diffuse any concerns AFMLS had with SDNY's desire to base remission on player balances.

I then had my home flooded (Philippines) and had no internet access for a week, and upon getting back on line I learned that the PPA had squandered their opportunity to address any 'unlawful gambling' concerns AFLMS might have by simply regurgitating SDNY's fraud position.

So my tone should have reflected that I was extremely disappointed, frustrated, etc. with their effort, to put it mildly, after having wasted my breath in the legislation forum prior to the flood arguing that AFLMS needed to be instructed that poker itself is played in the jurisdiction where the table is raked (Alderney in this case) making both the losses and winnings lawful.

You'll have to explain to me how you think the reference to the US treasury regulations didn't alleviate this concern. The regs specifically say that returning money to gamblers isn't honoring an illegal business transaction.

How is in Re: Mastercard any different than those regs? Where is there any precedent for them to not honor these transactions?

The treasury regulations for the UIGEA have no bearing on how AFLMS will treat poker winnings, the DOJ is surely laughably unconcerned with the possibility of being charged with violating the UIGEA.

Re: Mastercard is an actual judicial precedent for not treating online poker winnings/losses as unlawful (not the transmission of the withdrawal but the actual accrual of losses/winnings), since the 5th circuit ruled that the offshore cites were not in violation of any Federal law.

The only law to have since changed is the UIGEA which now makes it illegal for poker sites to accept US deposits, but has no bearing on the legality of the winnings/losses having already been deemed lawful under re:MasterCard.

I disagree, the DOJ is not going to simply ignore regulations issued by the treasury department. I would also bet that the DOJ is as aware of in re: Mastercard's holding as they are of the treasury regs. So if you think including the UIGEA arg. in the letter was pointless, I would argue including in re: mastercard would have been equally as pointless.

I think the PPA did a fine job. But I'm sure you are free to send the DOJ a letter expressing your point of view as well, and you should if you think it will help.

You had me at "flooded". Wb, hope all is fine (or on it's way back to normal).

So.. it's a race!

THIS!

I really hope the DOJ doesn't say only "deposits" count. Almost all coaches accepted FTP transfers as "payment for coaching." How that wouldn't be counted as being a "victim" is beyond me.

If they do only pay deposits, I once again say we all sue. I know you can't technically sue the government...that's what they told me when I sued the state of washington last year (they buckled before it even got to trial, just wanted to avoid the bad publicity)...there's always a way to do it "somehow"...either by donating money to the right people and having them allow us to sue, or by making enough headlines that it's not worth it to not pay us in an election year.

There's some way we can hurt them back if they only pay deposits. And with this much money on the line it's worth fighting back for a lot of players.

I already answered this elsewhere, but will try to civer the main points again.

The DoJ is not in the business of settling outstanding third-party debts, which is what your balance is. They are going to pay remission. Remission is compensation for what you lost due to a crime and only due to that crime. The remission in question is being paid in relation to the specific crime of wire fraud by FTP's bosses against players. The fraud was tricking people into depositing on FTP, or if they already had funds on FTP that got there without having been tricked, keeping those funds on the site rather than withdrawing them. SO it wodl seem most obvios tht he amoutn lost to the fraud is the amount poeplw were teicked into depositing or not withdrawing

When a player is tricked into depositing $100 and wins another $100, and then doesn't get paid out, clearly the first $100 was lost due to the fraud. It is far less clear that the player ever actually had the second $100, so it is not clear it was lost as a result of the fraud. Furthermore, when a player is tricked into depositing $100, and "loses" $60 at the tables, and doesn't get paid out, the remission calculation probably doesn't care about the $60 loss that supposedly happened at the tables. The money wasn't available to be lost - it had already been gobbled up in FTP's general accounts and was used to pay the owners or fund a few withdrawls. No other player in the game actually received the money from the game. All $100 was lost to the fraud. If the player hadn't been tricked into depositing, none of the money would have been lost in any fashion related to FTP.

The obvious objection is that most players will feel that the results at the tables should be taken into account when determining how much they lost to the fraud. Net winners want what they think are their winnings. Net losers probably don't expect to get back what they think they lost at the tables. Going along with this might cause the DoJ some problems. First, they contend it was illegal for FTP to offer these games to Americans. How can they recognize the outcome of an illegal game? Second, they contend the money wasn't there to be played for. How can they credit a winner if the money wasn't there to be won? Thirdly, all the winning and losing that notionally took place happened after after the fraud - after FTP obtained the deposit be trickery or retained the amount on account by trickery. Therefore the adjustments to balances from play were not part of the fruad, so they don't go towards determining the loss due specifically to the fraud.

The point you raised, about the games being legal for ROW players, is the only reason I can think of that the DoJ isn't making ROW players go through remission too. Since the games were legal for them, the DoJ has no trouble recognizing the results of the games in determining the amount lost. Since this means remission for ROW players is the same as a balance refund, they are just simplifying and expediting the process by which ROW players get their money.

Despite these difficulties, the AFMLS probably has sufficient discretion available that it could make remission based on balances. The question is whether they will think that this is legally the best approach.

I''ll close by pointing out that paying compensation for net deposits after the fraud began, and for whatever was in accounts when the fraud began, rather than paying balances as of BF or Jun 29, results in more players being paid, and more money being paid out. The only losers are the small % of players who thought they were winners.

2nd paragraph (bold), but they do have records of this.... hints our account balance.

It sounds like they could easily spin one side to be legally correct. Even if they deem paying deposits is slightly more correct why would they take the much more rockier road when they know it's going to be hugely unpopular? If there are shades of grey on both sides why would they choose the side that ****s over just about everyone?

Also, why would they take the option that would be such a larger cluster**** for all involved? Yes, it's the government and a decision that lacks common sense shouldn't surprise anyone, but they would just be creating such a logjam of remission requests if they decided 'huehuehue let's pay out deposits only' and then get slammed by every player who deposited any money on the site (and then sorting through the mess that is transaction histories).

Whereas balances would basically (in theory) be a matter of 'final account balance statement pre-Black Friday less any 'phantom deposits' minus the handling fee by the processor.

You must have been in a hurry here given the spelling errors.

I believe you were also in a hurry when you came to this conclusion.

The fraud was not tricking people into depositing and into not withdrawing, that forgets the most important aspect of the fraud. It is not like FTP was phantom site and as soon as you deposited you lost access. After a deposit you both could go to the site and play and had access to your money.

The fraud was telling folks that their money was safe, secured, and (at least at one point) segregated when it was, in fact, none of those things.

As a consequence of believing those false statements players both deposited on, and left money on account with, FTP.

But the real consequence of the fraud, the actual harm players suffered, was that when people went to withdraw after BF they were unable to do so. And what they were unable to withdraw was their account balance.

So you started with a faulty premise: the fraud was not that the deposit was phantom nor that you could not actually ask to withdraw, the fraud was the inability to pay account balances all at once despite promising to be able to do so.

And everything else flows from there.

And the logical and legal conclusion is thus that making victims whole must involve getting them what they were fraudulently denied, their account balances.

Skallagrim

If we get our balances back within 12 months Id consider that a huge win. I think we're on track to do that, but doing this by October is, IMO, a pipe dream. If we have instructions by October I would be absolutely delighted.

Awesome, everyone and their dog has an opinion just like a few weeks ago when the deal would close...

It's funny how you reply with "I totally agree, I think you're right!" whenever someone posts an opinion that says what you want to hear, but you snap reply with "these are all just opinions, everyone needs to wait and see and stop speculating" every time someone says something that you don't want to hear.