I recently had an experience with Ultimate Bet that can best be described as “shady”. I don’t feel that the evidence warrants accusing them of outright theft, so I’m just going to post a factual account of what happened and let people make up their own minds:

In 2007 and 2008, I had an active account on Ultimate Bet. I played in their bigger tournaments and in cash games ranging from 5/10 to 25/50 NL. When the extent of the cheating that had taken place on UB began coming to light, I withdrew the entire balance of my account and have not played on there since.

On January 24, I discovered an old e-mail from UB , dated 2/19/2010, in my spam folder. The e-mail informed me that I had $1040.26 in my account and encouraged me to come play on the site. I do not know for certain where the money came from. My best guess is that it was a superuser refund, but to my knowledge (it could also have been lost to a spam filter, though I think the other email got scammed primarily because it was an auto-generated advertisement), I never received an e-mail or anything explaining that I would be getting a refund.

The old e-mail that I stumbled upon was NOT a notification that money had been credited to my account. It seemed to be an advertisement sent automatically because I had not logged in for a while, informing me that there was money in my account and encouraging me to return to UB to use it.

I have no intention of playing on UB anytime soon, but I downloaded the software and logged into my account intending to withdraw the $1040.26. Upon logging in, I received a message that my account was unavailable and that I needed to e-mail support, which I did:

The next day, they responded:

It’s not clear whether they are saying that there was never a restriction on my account or that they lifted whatever restriction there was, but in any event I was able to log-in successfully. I was not surprised to see that my account balance was $0. I wrote back immediately:

The next day, the money was back in my account, no questions asked and no explanation given:

After withdrawing the funds and confirming that they were safely in my bank account, I asked for an explanation as to why the money was removed from my account. Here is the response that I got:

I find this suspicious for a few reasons:

1. I don’t know at what point the money was removed, but my account had been inactive for well over 6 months when the initial e-mail “reminding” me about the $1040.26 was sent.

2. The money was not automatically restored to my account when I re-activated it. More than 24 hours passed between the time that security informed me I could log in to my account and the time that the money was restored to my account.

3. Significantly, the money was not restored until I asked about it, but was restored immediately when I asked about it. In retrospect I wish I had allowed more time to pass before asking, just to see what happened, but it seems to me that they had no intention of putting that money back into my account had I not inquired.

In their defense, the User Agreement does state that

The primary reason that I have problem with them confiscating money from the account in this case is that, as best I can surmise, the only reason that there was money in there at all was because of the cheating that occurred on their site. In that case, this was a refund that I was issued when I was no longer an active player and would have no reason to realize that this money had been added to my account. I’m sure I’m not the only person to receive a refund after cashing out my account never to return, and it doesn’t seem right to me that they can take this money back after 6 months of inactivity.

I gave them one last chance to explain themselves before posting this:

This was sent on February 4, 2011. It is now the 21st, and they have not responded, so I’m posting this as a PSA to others who may be in a similar situation and generally as yet another warning that UB is still engaged in shady practices.

Cliff’s Notes: I stopped playing on UB years ago and cashed out my balance. For some reason, possibly as a superuser refund, $1040.26 was credited to my account without my knowledge. I eventually found in my spam folder an old advertising email from UB telling me there was still money in my account. When I logged in, the money was gone. I wrote to ask why, and they returned the money with no explanation. When further pressed, they told me the money was “on hold” because of my extended inactivity but did not respond to further questions. I was able to cash out the money.

Why don't you just wait until you have all the information and evidence instead of just crying "SHADY BUSINESS ITT" first?

180 days is an awfully short amount of time to completely close an account with funds in it.

Sure, they gave him the money after an email, but it's REALLY shady that they took the money from his account without ever notifying him of doing so.

Specifically what steps do you feel I should have taken that I did not? I e-mailed them requesting an explanation over two weeks ago, and they have not responded.

Don't partypoker do something similar?

what are you crying about? you got $1040 free...

they closed your account.. big deal

you asked for the money, they gave it to you... big deal

you cashed out without issue... big ****in deal.

Because UB blew their right to the benefit of the doubt about 8 scandals ago.

I thought I saw a thread like this with a similar story the other day, funds going missing from acc's and then being put back? I have never played on UB so I dont know how they operate over there but from all the reports of scamming and superusers and what not, I doubt ill ever even install their client.

Yeah I think party contact you after about 6 months of inactivity and state that you gotta play one raked hand or something like that to keep the acc open

Not post until they answer. They are a business that has to investigate if they do not have the answers readily available (regardless of their shady past).

Maybe if you waited until you had the full story or even emailed them back again regarding the issue, you wouldn't just start a speculation fest. Who the hell knows what happened to it? Maybe another rogue employee took the money without their knowledge or maybe your account was inactive for too long and it was sitting in escrow? I could spew off 10,000 possibilities and they would all be speculations. What difference does it make since you're freerolling this monies anyways?

I'd just like to say it's good that you posted this and ignore the few UB fanboys that are going to defend UB. The way they handled this is very shady and if they do this with every account that goes unactive they probably get away with it a lot of the times.

wtf is this chit? You got 1040 bucks for free and you are crying? Stfu and be glad they gave the money to you and that you could withdraw it without problems.

It makes a difference because it is very likely other people that will read this will find that they have been "scammed" in the same way

OP, does your spam filter delete any messages? If not, make sure you have identified every mail UB has sent you between the receiving of the money and when you found out about it and realised it was gone. If there is no mail warning you the money would get removed, this is very serious imo.

you should rename this to "UB game me free money". i don't see the problem here... it cleary says if you stop playing they will take your money. you got a 1000 bucks for free why is this a problem?