This needed it's own thread as it is quite a serious matter. Lock apparently closed a players account without any hard evidence, and stole his funds.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...2&postcount=29

cliffs:
-OP and guy agree for a lock for paypal swap
-guy never sends paypal, so OP didn't make the lock transfer
-guy claims he sent the paypal, and contacts lock with a screenshot of a paypal transaction (which can easily be faked), and chat log (which can easily be faked)
-guy tells lock he never was sent the lock funds after sending paypal
-OP tries to cashout, and his account his closed by lock and funds confiscated for "having no intention to make the lock transfer after paypal was made"

shane needs to respond to this asap.

The security department never makes any public statements about any security matters so they wont be commenting on this.

OP needs to continue communicating with the security department on this as they have absolute authority on all security matters.

WOW

Im not sure why this surprises you, this is a universal rule when it comes to security matters.

So it's true.

lol

perhaps because your security team is dipping their hand in the paypal transfer pool when the response to any matter involving paypal should ALWAYS be "i'm sorry but we don't get involved with any player transfers that involve paypal"...and then using it as an excuse to steal player funds

From what the OP wrote as it stands the other person has send in evidence to prove their position which has brought a decision down against OP.

OP says the funds never arrived so OP needs to send evidence of this to security to prove his position. He can do this buy emailing security directly.

Whenever I contact security with issues from players they ask me to get the player to make direct contact with the security team

Lock is setting a horrible precedent here by getting involved with Paypal. Now every random person with a paypal screenshot can send it into Lock and claim "X Player" didn't send them Lock funds.

Hopefully Lock can find another solution to OP's situation

Isn't it also a universal rule where poker sites make it known that they will not be responsible for any trades or deals done between it's players?

There were cases in the past of people making dumb trades and complaining here (and on 2p2 in general) about it, to which the response was basically "it was your own fault, research it next time b/c the poker sites don't get involved and aren't responsible." I've always felt that the best route is for poker sites to not get involved, as it comes down to a lot of "his word versus mine" stories. Let's not forget those customers who play online poker in general have above-average photo shop skills and can doctor "proof" sent to a security department (just my opinion).

This specific case contradicts Lock's position on whether or not it will get involved in related matters (based on previous threads about trades gone wrong). Lock needs to adhere to a policy set forth regarding how involved it will get in disputes between players involving trades. Perhaps a Lock customer service rep was simply wanting to help out and he had only the best intent to rectify a problem. This thread is not an unexpected consequence of such actions and further proves that poker sites should simply steer clear of involvement, for better or worse.

There is a reason Paypal is banned as a trading option on twoplustwo.... I also hope Lock can clear this up, b/c they might have genuine intent here to help rectify a problem b/c they probably get tired of scammers just like us players do but this simply isn't the way to go about it.

So.. he sends a screenshot of his Paypal's history tab to security. If the "scammer" in question is indeed a scammer, he should get perma-banned from the entire network, aswell as possibly be reported to local authorities imo. Pretty serious scam to make.

They only get involved when players can send evidence to prove their position. We have only heard one side of this and we haven't seen anything that the other party was able to send to security as evidence.

The evidence here can be photo-shopped and there are no consequences for him if this doesn't work either. Also, its not like Lock can contact Paypal and ask about the situation first-hand to really verify if this is true or not because Paypal will insta-ban anyone and anything related to gambling-related transactions.

As far as the one side of the story thing goes, I completely agree that there are two sides to every story. We don't know who is telling the truth and who is not.

Isn't this again reason to avoid intervening in player trades?

So the preference would be to not intervene in any player trades whatsoever?

Reported under what jurisdiction? If I steal Cocaine from your living room table are you going to go to the police and report that I stole it from you?

There aren't any consequences for such actions, especially with ewallets such as Paypal who explicitly prohibit gambling-related transactions.

This is also why you see more scamming w/ online poker in an unregulated market. Do you really think you'll see this in current regulated markets and in the U.S. once sites are regulated and operating? Way less likely.

Is this a rhetorical question? Pretty sure I explicitly wrote this?

EDIT: I do want to add that if it's due to security breaches and/or player negligence and someone used keyloggers to obtain their information etc. then I would expect Lock and any poker site to at the very least do a routine investigation. Similar to when sa1251 lost something like $60k. This would be a prime example of when imo a poker site should investigate. Obviously the dollar amount shouldn't matter b/c $60k is a tilting amount.

But for trades, as one of my previous posts mentioned, I don't think poker sites should get involved.

wow so scammers can photo shop paypal receipt . then lock can close account and they chop his account funds . opens up a lot of shady areas for scammers or ppl who are mad at other players to exploit.

Hehe, yeah, agreed.

One missing link in this story btw. What does the alleged scammer gain from doing what he did? Only not lose reputation on 2+2? Also, who in the world would expect to ever receive money in the first place if you do what he did as a scam? Ontop of that, he convinced security with apparantly a good enough screenshot/picture showing proof which he'd need to have photoshopped..

All seems very fishy..

So then all of the people that get scammed are just out of luck?

With the number of victims we have that would seem rather harsh.

what if some one is in rake chase and is tired of 2nd or 3rd they could try and get someone to photo shop , or have your account closed mccormick by trade scandal. It could happen , opens up a different area a innocent person may not be able to defend.

Yes, people who enter trades outside of Lock should be on their own as this protects both parties from hearsay. The problem is you can't ascertain who is and isn't the victim enough of the time to make it worthwhile.

As it's been mentioned, this is setting a bad precedent and biting Lock in the butt when they do try to intervene and police a situation, however misguided it may appear. Want a good precedent? Look no further than twoplustwo's policies regarding 2p2 members engaging in trades through their forums.

With evidence so easily created in the described scenario, I don't know that Lock or anybody will ever be able to evaluate both sides fairly. My concern with this situation is this: Even if the "proof" is real, OP is completely guilty and just posted here to make Lock look bad, how did Lock's actions benefit the person the OP scammed?

If Lock had transferred the amount in question from the OP's bankroll to the person who presented the "proof", it could be said they were protecting a player who showed proof they had been scammed. If Lock just closes the OP's account and keeps the money, they've only helped themselves to his bankroll.

Agreed, this is a different situation. But then at least let's find out what the other motive is in this very case, though?

Just seems to me the -much and by far- more likely case is OP being the scammer. That being said, if it's NOT so (and obviously he should get all means of defending himself), I think it should be pretty easy for him to prove, infact, if i were in his case with this amount of money involved (since he's losing the rest of his account too it looks like?) i'd offer to temporarily change my paypal password, and hand it out to either someone reputable on 2+2 (but not someone he knows IRL, obviously) or let Lock support do it theirselves. I know this is a pretty disgusting thing to have to do, but I know i'd do it at least.

So.. OP, if you read this: at least consider it to prove your case.

Actually yes they can ascertain who is the victim in most cases.

Without seeing any of the evidence I can see several scenarios where OP could be proven guilty without doubt. (NOT SAY HE IS GUILTY, SPEAKING STRICTLY HYPOTHETICALLY HERE)

But security is never going to share that information here because the more we talk about how guilt is proven or how security matters are investigated the more chance we give fraudulent players to look for loopholes to commit fraud against other fraud. This is why security never makes public statements.

You finish by saying this is biting Lock, but that is only based on one person making one post on anonymous forum giving only their side without any supporting information. As it stands the other party involved in this has clearly send substantial evidence to the security team and now OP needs to do the same.

There is a lot of talk here about the ease of the other party's ability to fake the Paypal proof, but no mention of how easy it is for OP to send the ACTUAL PROOF. His transaction history and statements should all show no money was ever sent, he needs to take screenshots of that and send it to the security team.

The problems with this are:

a) saying you won't get involved unless X is basically saying you do get involved. No one would expect you to get involved without some sort of evidence from the parties. Any possible situation in which a site would involve itself in mediating these disputes would involve gathering evidence, evaluating the claims, talking to the parties, etc.

b) I think most players here would be/are shocked to learn that Lock has a policy of involving itself in these disputes. I suppose that is our own fault for assuming - but it certainly contradicts our expectations from poker sites and to some extent probably contradicts anecdote from dealing with Lock as a community.

c) involving the security department in these cases forces them to be detectives and possibly strains their expertise/resources. Obviously they are trained to sniff out stuff of this nature, but it's kind of galling that they devote resources to this while other, actual serious fraud offenses arent thoroughly investigated/punished.


I understand that the security department wouldn't comment on certain aspects of their procedures, but I think the main thing missing is a coherent, clearly articulated policy on these issues so that the players at least know what to expect.

Also I would add Im not blaming Shane for the issues I laid out. It is likely that others are responsible for the problems and he is of course just communicating site policy.