First of all Mycology big props for apologising and promising the $100 charitable donation. I think everyone understands what the heat of this situation does to peoples heads, I hope you get your money back.

Secondly I agree about Pokerstars. They are just head an shoulders above the rest of the pack here and I think they stand a legit chance of settling with the DOJ. Another poster commented stars is the first choice for many legislating governments which is a very good point. Stars have been asked to be the poker experts for governments a couple of times and have gone on record as for the things they ask for in regulation. These are 1) Reasonable taxes and 2) International liquidity in games. Italy was a big sticking point for 2 but they are slowly coming round. It is just a guess but if Stars pays a big enough fine and continues to act the way they have they might be allowed back in future. We will know if this is going to happen if Isai flys out there to be arrested of his own accord imo, the deal will already be done by that point and it will be an Anurag Dik**** type thing all over again.

Thirdly I know this is derailing, its falling on deaf ears and I bang on about it all the time but partypoker is extremely far from this. You say they played by the rules from day 1? On day 1 they were offering online casino software that cheated the customer. You think they are legit now? They are reneneging (sp?) on affiliate deals, arbitarily seizing player accounts and behaving like rogues whenever they see fit currently. Sadly the USA players in this forum remember party with misty eyes and think they are a great company. If they do come to the states you will be safer and better putting your money elsewhere.

Quote:
Originally Posted by randyd501
Would it not make sense at this point to offer players ownership in Full Tilt in addition to a percentage return of funds with a new investor taking over company? Of course that would have to include a whole new ownership and old guard booted. It would give new investors some sought of confidence that a % of players will stay on FT(of course Americans still cant play) and they will not have to come up with 100% of players funds return.

Ownership of company with no money. Yeah that's going to work...NOT!

Value of those shares is pretty much zero.

That was talked over so much in the earlier pages that if you are interested more start digging

If investor invents up they will be putting enough money that everybody gets their money. No investor is going to be giving money AND shares for free as a bonus. If no investor comes up then shares are irrelevant as they have NO VALUE. Shares in poker site that cannot run because of lack of funds...Yeah that's going to work...I think not



************************************************** *****************

Full Tilt can operate, they can't get back up due to lack of paying players funds back, if the players accepted shares in the company instead of demanding their money back, they could run games and profit from rake until they have enough capital to pay back everyone and then at some point "buy-out" players from their shares once all is paid. If players agreed and Full Tilt could convince the AGCC that players would be paid in a decent time period, then the license gets reinstated and they are in business again. Full Tilt is not bankrupt they have the money to still operate, (and they've already paid they're licensing fees just last month), they just don't have enough money to pay all the players back immediately at once. I'd rather wait 4-6 months more to get paid then to NEVER get paid as the current situation exists with everyones hand out wanting to get paid immediately.

If S:P reported a $128M shortfall then the investment would cost: 128M + DOJ Settlement + Relaunch/Employees. The key figure the investors will look at is how long to return the initial investment. It really becomes all about the DOJ settlement figure that decides the fate of FTP.

Regardless of what happens, no one is getting away with anything anyway. This is a no win situation for us and the FTP crew.

Either we'll have a total miracle and get our money back, or FTP will slowly fade into the night, and so will any chance any of the owners (on paper or otherwise) to have a public life (in any country, at this point).

You can't rob that many people in the 2nd Great Depression and get away with it. Especially when some of them had enough marginal utility in that money for it to really hurt. It was, afterall, some people's life savings.

But we sure don't put enough blame on the government here. No bank in the U.S. carries 100% deposits (it's about 10% actually), so if they raided your bank, and refused to allow the seized money to be claimed by the owners of that property (the depositers), either through a day in court or through some other means of arbitration, then of course this same thing would happen.

If the government never caused the 'run on the bank' none of this would have happened...or at least wouldn't have happened when it did. It wouldn't of happened at all if they weren't tyrants who made gambling illegal to begin with.

I blame the FTP crew as much as anyone...and believe me, they don't want me to run into them at a gas station in Ireland, Vegas, or wherever (lol)...but we don't blame the government enough. Those tyrants caused this by:

1) making it illegal for adults to use their property and property rights as they chose in order to make a tiny percentage of people safe from themselves (obstensibly; we all know it's about extortion for the government mafia).

2) further complicating the movement of that property via our property rights by passing the UGIEA, which essentially forced FTP to commit fraud in order to keep doing business with the bulk of their market share. The old 'give them rope to hang themselves with' comes to mind. Borders on entrapment if you ask me.

3) by causing a 'run on the bank' on Black Friday, which led to FTP eventually not being able to keep up, and forcing their volume of players to steadily plummet, compounding the problem

and 4) not charging any players with anything, thereby fully admiting we did nothing illegal, and yet not respecting our property and trial rights as citizens (this probably apllies everywhere, not just the U.S.).

Flat out, the government has our money...and even if they didn't, they should reimburse us, since they caused the problem through their direct tyrannical actions. They would if FTP was a fraudelant bank (which is essentially what they were).

If they raided your bank for money laundering, fraud, and racketeering, your deposits would be returned as long as you were not aware of the crimes (evidenced by not being charged with a crime along with the bankers). It being your property, that's the only legal thing to do. But here they refuse to acknowledge it's OURS and go about ignoring us just like FTP. Any legal mumbo jumbo hocus pocus to avoid this is flatly BS.

And why?

Because they're extortionist criminal thugs, of course. They are just a mafia, plain and simple.

Any real justice system would give us our money back, like they would if they raided a bank that used the fractional BS banking system of deposit vs loans that FTP did.

So, although the FTP crew should really watch their backs if this doesn't go well, and relatively soon (I'd say by the Presidential election at the latest; and only because we have an outside chance of Ron Paul getting in and returning the money...none of the rest will, obviously...and Gary Johnson, God love him, has no shot of being elected), we should really consider blaming our fake BS government mafia and recognizing it is neither benign nor respectful of our rights as property owners who commited no crime.

And please, don't tell me I'm threatening anyone...if you wouldn't say something to the FTP crew if you saw them, I question the marginal utility you had in that money anyway...and your sanity concerning these folks getting away with this in the 2nd Great Depression. It's clear, they will be in danger from everyone and anyone who seriously lost out. I've seen people get hit by cars for much, much, MUCH less ($40 will get you assaulted with a vehicle where I grew up). It's not a threat at all, it's an observation based on human psychology, and an understanding of marginal utility.

And if you want to turn me over the police go ahead, you have my IP (I know you won't; not flame-baiting the mods, just offering it up as proof I'm not making a threat). People will do their time get out, and walk right through restraining orders, so I doubt if someone was going to do something the law and it's penalties would stop them at this point anyway. This is exactly why illegal trades like drugs, gambling, and prostitution MUST be made legal...otherwise there is no other alternative to handle disputes. Without legal arbitration all people have is violence...and if the marginal utility in what they lost is greater than the marginal utility in their freedom, you have a recipe for disaster.

This is exactly why I joined the PPA years before Black Friday. (God, I hope they aren't a front group for FTP...lol.)

Please think about what I'm saying...nearly equal blame should go to both the government and FTP. FTP didn't handle our funds correctly, and placed many of us in serious financial jeopardy by commiting crimes and not fully informing us as to the risk to our properties. The government initiated force in an extrotion scheme with little or no regard to how it would effect our lives or properties. Both suck for what they did.

But, I'll patiently wait and pray for a miracle...that's all any of us can do for now. I'll hope new management and ownership will rebrand the company with the same software and account responsibilities in order to shed the stigma of what FTP did, and also to continue to treat the affected responsibly.

All we can do now is wait it out. I urge everyone to stay calm for now...it won't help to lose your heads at the present time.

Also worth pointing out that the "flower shop" crap FTP and Party and others used to process credit cards, apparently was not being done by Stars. DOJ specifically excluded Stars from this 'miscode' part of the indictment. Why exclude them? You don't need much evidence to prove they did it... one deposit or cashout with a funny description on a credit card bill and that's all the evidence you need. Stars have maintained they never did this (press release last Feb/March) and it's easy to disprove.

From my ROW viewpoint, I agree 100% with every paragraph of the poast.

Other governments, whose citizens who have already been under austerity measures for 3+ years, will see this the same and won't be afraid of making their feelings known. Poker is after all perfectly legal within ROW players affected countries.

And Stars continue to be squeaky, and I mean squeaky clean in adhering to the current DOJ requirements after being indicted. So maybe this is to reduce any fine, but PS are hardly sitcking the fingers up as if they didn't have a chance of re-entry e.g. there are threads full of guys who are not being paid major online tournament winnings by Stars being held for DoJ to decide whether to pay out. Not just the usual VPN abuse, but even guys who claim IP history showed they played in the US after BF (on UK accounts) but two weeks before the win which was back on home soil.

PS are making a big effort for a reason. They have ongoing meetings with DoJ, not just sat back waiting for the bill to arrive.

Wrong attitude imo. Nothing ever gets solved by waiting it out. You got to rise up dawg, and let them know you've had enough and you won't take this any longer.

If you want to be taken seriously you should stop making such statements.

Well, technically, my statement was correct, but my recollection was wrong. I accurately described my recollection. I also said it might be wrong. And I was, at least, according to this one article. Wish we could find the whole statement. The problem is, I know I have read statements that said that Party and Dik**** got in trouble for offering sports betting. That is a clear contradiction of another point made in the Pokernews article you linked. Perhaps the other sources I read had it wrong, or perhaps Pokernews didn't have the full story.

It is not as cut and dried as either of us have made it out to be.

I would point out that the part of the agreement that requires FTP to maintain all records is a separate part from the part of the agreement that provides for monitors. The agreement provides that the monitors must be independent of FTP but does not provide that they must be independent of the DOJ. The part of the agreement regarding monitors does provide that the monitors have access to all records and staff necessary for the monitors to do their job. While the duties and responsibilities of monitors are limited by the agreement, the scope of information transfer by the monitors to the DOJ is not. However, I'm going to agree that it is not likely that the monitors will be a conduit of information to the IRS regarding tax liability of US players.

When I mentioned the agreement providing DOJ access to records, I wasn't talking about monitors, I was talking about preserved records. My wording "the DOJ already has access the records" was misleading. I incorrectly gave the impression that the DOJ could look at whatever they wanted to right now. What I should have said is that the agreement provides that the records are preserved, and so with apporpriate permission from a court the DOJ could look at them and pass them to the IRS.

I was respondng to your seeming assertion that only if FTP failed would the records potentially come to the attention of the IRS. My point was that the terms of the agreement preserve the records, so, they could be subpoenaed or searched even if FTP survives.

I didn't mean that in regards to FTP but about his views toward the government.

You are like Bill Clinton. "Technically, I never had sex with Monica!"

I guess we just see things differently when it comes to having had enough in general.

I think it's fair you've had enough in this particular situation, and think people should do what they want to at this point though obviously I am entitled to my own opinion as well. I was just tilted by the generalisation you made, I generally hate generalisations.

The only way PS is allowed to operate or offer software again in the US is if the principle owners/managers are no longer part of the company. Maybe if regulation happens in the US PS would sell the company or something but they'll never be allowed back as is.

Well, Im glad Todd Terry and Co decided against waiting it out. Whether anything comes out of his suit remains to be seen, but at least he did what he could within the confines of the law.

No clearly they are guilty until proven innocent.... They were accused in 21st century America.

Seriously though, its highly unlikely a trial will ever occur for these people. They are facing 10-20yr sentences, you be would naive to think they will not plea bargin their way out of this, several have already accepted guilty pleas and the most interesting of all Daniel Tzvetkoff is sitting around in a safe house just waiting to testify against them should they decide to face this in court....however, probably none will ever see a court room except to give a statement of contrition to a judge or enter a plea. For the rest, they will stay on the run and unless they get caught, which I suspect is unlikely they will either buy a pardon 20+yrs down the road or just evade capture for the rest of their lives. But yes, you are correct, in a perfect world they are innocent until proven guilty. But since when is this a perfect world? Are they guilty? Philosophically thats not for me to decide, really its just for God and themselves, but one thing is for sure, they acted in a massively irresponsible manner losing 100s of millions of dollars of player money all the while regularly lying to people on their web site (you can still find these pages if you look for them) telling them that their money was safe, when it clearly was not. We find that to be the most Damning indictment of all. As for are they guilty of Bank Fraud? We think the publicly available information speaks for itself, you make your own inference or wait for the guilty plea or the trial you seem to think will actually happen.

If you read what a nosism was then you will have your answer to your question regarding the inside track.

Anyone have any idea???


Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

info@ifrahlaw.com

try jeff@ifrahlaw.com

I'll take the bolded part as a compliment.

And, technically, I never had sex with Monica either, so you are correct - I am like Bill Clinton.

thanks. pretty strange the contact email on his site doesn't work.

It would appear that you are suggesting that a moderator here could track my ip address, find out where I live, and then because they had weapons training I should somehow not comment if I think the moderation is a bit heavy handed.

You Americans are a funny lot. This sort of attitude pretty much sums up why you are in the position you are now tbh.

This is incorrect.

It is mentioned in the indictment that stars "miscode" CC transactions. Read the Civil Case against the principles including Poker Stars Schienberg as worked with and directed others to apply incorrect transaction codes to their respective poker companies.

Also it mentions Stars specifically when talking about phony e-commerce websites being set up to trick disguise the transactions, including phoney jewelry, clothing, bicycles and golf clubs. Not to mention all the other fraudulent means the DOJ accuses PS as being part of to move money in the US.

The whole situation with Jeff Ifrah is a joke.

He appears here last week and almost everyone embraces it because they think he is going to be honest, come forth with lots of information, and give us answers to our questions. The conceit is he will actually help us get paid.

Noah decides he will be a middleman to this important source, decides to collect questions for Jeff, edits what we can read, and what he deems unimportant he will weed out. Jeff is now a VIP here and is given his own sticky.

Jeff provides his phone number to a question I posed about the class action suit and invites me to call him personally. He appears to make himself as friendly as possible.

Then, he suddenly resigns as FT's lawyer, stops posting or answering any question. His e-mail is now permanently unavailable ???

it isn't

If the DoJ was able to operate a payment processor, perhaps it should get involved in partial ownership of a poker site so it can make $$$ and players can get paid