Is it really that odd when you look at both sides of the coin? I don't follow many places on 2p2. I don't have that much time to read/reply to a lot of threads. I'm sure many wish I would stop posting in this thread (I probably should, I have **** to do I'm procrastinating on). I have networked with many poker players, and IF the subject were ever raised, sure I would chime in with my thoughts about it if someone asked me.

Also, it's worth noting that we don't know who (or if both) were scammers in this specific thread. I made it known earlier that it also is irrelevant to the points I brought up that support my opinion which wouldn't change if Lock was correct in this case. I feel that people who are quick to think I'm being naive really aren't being open-minded enough to look at how this could be a bad thing. Many use emotion and quickly assert that poker sites should protect players and fist pump the notion that they intervened and believe it's a good thing. This, however, in my opinion is pure fallacy. There are other posters in this thread who have illustrated similar sentiment as I have, and I don't feel they or I should be looked at in any negative light simply because no one posted in other relevant threads prior to this one (regardless of the outcome).

TY Bobo for pulling up the old incidents where Lock intervened. It seems like they have a pretty clear history of trying to adjudicate these issues when asked to. Is that unique among iPoker sites? What's still unclear is what sort of frauds they are willing to rectify, what constitutes sufficient evidence to take action, what opportunity is the accused given to respond, etc. Also, Shane hinted at it, but do we have a confirmed case of them returning funds to a player who alleged a p2p scam? I think there is somewhat of a difference between a site stepping in to return funds to a victimized player and a site banning the account of a chronic scammer (with or without freezing funds). I still have some serious concerns about a policy of intervention, but I guess Im agnostic on whether it's the right approach or not.

One of the things I don't like about it is that instead of confining the risk to players who have decided to engage in p2p trading, it potentially spreads the risk around to the entire pool of Lock players - you could get scammed despite never seeking out or conducting a trade. It would also I think stretch the resources and expertise of the Lock security department. They may have experience in evaluating what a skype chat should look like or a PM on 2+2, or know the accounting procedures on paypal, but when we consider the entire universe of documents which might count as evidence of either a fraud or a legitimate trade, it becomes hard to expect them to be that good.

I suppose the one positive is that if Lock is alone among poker sites in investigating these types of allegations, then that should be a big incentive for scammers to ply their trade against users on other sites. But everyone is trying to sell Lock right now and not as much for other sites.

One last thing, to Bobo. On your first post in this thread, you stressed that your opinion about those of us who question Lock's intervention was meant to be taken outside the context of whether Lock was doing the right thing with this policy. And it's a point well-taken. But back to those of us who've raised a stink: why can't it be about Lock? Why does our suspicion of intervention in these fraud cases have to be generalized to all sites? Our frustration isn't exclusively with Lock's intervention, it's the fact the Lock intervened despite a history of mishandling player security and integrity issues, despite a lack of opacity on certain policies, despite misleading, slow, and unreliable customer service, despite a parade of software glitches and bugs. It's not entirely unreasonable that someone could've read one of those threads 9 months ago and said "Meh, Lock intervened, don't have a problem with it" and read this thread yesterday and said "God, based on all the problems at Lock, I dont think I like the idea of them intervening in these cases" without being a hypocrite.

this sounds spot on to me

this doesn't make any sense. what does lock intervening in a dispute have to do with their sw glitches and bugs or faulty customer service? Are you saying that because they're doing some things badly they should just stop doing everything b/c it is assumed they will mess up? Might as well stop doing withdrawals altogether then, eh?

Furthermore you say you're frustrated that they intervened despite their ****ty past customer service. Well maybe this is a way of improving that customer service?

What's really amusing is that in your lack of time to post on forums, you managed to make a lengthy post in which all you do is dodge the question(s) that have been asked when a straight, to the point answer would have been shorter and spared you some of that precious time that you don't have enough of

That's the conclusion Lock have reached!

I sympathise with your pov Bobo, and think this issue is defintely arguable both ways, but just don't like the idea that a site holds my money, someone complains that I promised them some of that money and the site just grabs it. Some of the examples you gave relate to scammers who had committed multiple examples of scamming Lock players - in those cases Lock is correct to intervene imo as the Lock account is basically being used as a tool for serial scamming. A single purported case isn't enough to warrant it imo as it is much more likely to arise from a genuine dispute or misunderstanding.

The other important principle, which I think is a very shady area with some sites, is that any confiscated money must go to compensate players. Sites should not be able to lock accounts and just keep the cash.

.... thats a long grinding session!

Did the amount Lock confiscated equal the amount the other player was claiming?

This is a really stupid question but how was Lock able to determine for 100% that PayPal, Lock account and chat logs were all connected to the same parties?

You really are a consequence of faulty condoms. Bobo deserved a serious reply, you sir do not (anyone that reads any of your nonsense knows this). Normally I would ask you to read the entire thread before making a trollish response. Unfortunately, your motive was to stir the pile (as usual) and your capacity for understanding - be it mental ******ation and/or some form of social or learning disorder - is as effective as Lock's current withdraw situation so there really is no point.

ad hominem always a good sign

They weren't...they just saw an opportunity to seize 1k that was about to be cashed out and ran with it.

I think it's pretty clear that some things are required to execute this policy successfully:

-a well-staffed team of technically competent, adequately-trained professionals
-quick, reliable communication between customer service and players.
-good coordination between various departments at Lock
-a history of handling security issues prudently and with integrity.
-clear policies about what is and isn't allowed, and consistent enforcement of those policies.

You could quibble around the margins about a few of those conditions, but I don't think anyone could plausibly argue they've met all of them.

So of course it's natural to be more suspicious of a company like Lock having a policy to intervene than if a company like pokerstars had a similar policy.

Withdrawals are obviously different - even if all the conditions surrounding withdrawals got significantly worse, people would still want withdrawals. A really really terrible withdrawal system is still better than none at all. But it's not so clear if that's the case with a system of intervening in alleged scams.

I don't know... I think this is a ****ty situation for OP, but wouldn't say that Lock is to blame. They probably have protocol for these situations and if OP did in fact violate the rules well, that just sucks.

So for anyone else reading this, don't ever use pay pal. Just don't

This is kind of what I was getting at - if anyone who is saying they shouldn't ever intervene had read other threads about past interventions, I'd expect them to have spoken up them rather than waiting until now. But perhaps none of them had seen one of those threads, IDK.

I saw some references to Cake having done it; beyond that, I'm honestly not certain. I'm pretty sure there are a few networks that have never done it, at least not that has been posted on our forums. So while it may not be unique, it isn't universal either.

As a quick aside - I was momentarily confused by your iPoker reference, as that is a network as well, and they specifically use the lower case i in their name.

I'm pretty sure there have been such cases, but the threads I found weren't that easy to find, as there aren't any terms I can think of to search on that are unique to these kind of threads. I hope that makes sense - not trying to avoid your question, just don't know of an easy way to find them, assuming my memory is correct and they exist.

It absolutely can be about Lock - I just wasn't commenting on that. I was responding to the assertion that online sites in general shouldn't be intervening in trade disputes. If you feel that Lock specifically shouldn't be intervening, that's a different matter.

There definitely needs to be some criteria, and I'm sure different people will have varied opinions on what that should be. Hard to say what criteria this case meets without knowing the whole story.

That sounds reasonable. But it should be remembered that even when an account has money, it could "belong" to more than one person, and possibly even to the site itself if money was deposited fraudulently.

Lock should be given access to both of their paypals to see if any transactions have taken place.

Okay, this thread is wayyyy too long for me to read. However, I wish to provide some insight here.

As a long time eBay seller and someone who has literally made a living from it... I am kind of an expert in these matters (sold 500K+ over past few years...)

PayPal transactions are EASY to fake. My e-mail is constantly bombarded with fake phishing e-mails that appear to be from PayPal & eBay.

Lock shouldn't be getting involved here because the transaction was done off their site.

Additionally if the guy actually sent the money via PayPal and is telling the truth, he should be able to get his money back by filing a PayPal dispute, and should be going to PayPal for help. Not to Lock.

If he was to send a video using software such as Camtasia, that may be more convincing evidence... but a screenshot or forward of an e-mail is easily faked. Alternatively maybe a Skype session and let Lock remote view in, showing the guy logging in to PayPal and the actual transaction.

I said it before, i agree with this one. Yes, it's disgusting to have to do this, but really, the person who IS speaking the truth should offer them to log in to verify. Given the $ involved i'm sure it's more than worth it.

you would really let some random rep from lock login to your paypal account? Your ****in insane.

I would. I'd change the password first to something stupid like "Locksupport742589" or i dunno, something i'd change again later so they don't actually have my real password.

After that.. what do u think he's going to do with it, exactly, when you change the pass very fast after having him check it for a few minutes? Really can't think of anything that can happen, especially when you imagine if he tries pull off anything with it, the image loss would be huge for them. If he buys stuff with it online you cancel all of it asap/contact paypal saying u got hacked, the options are plenty.

Besides, not like you're ever going to lose more on this than the thousands you've already lost for sure if you don't take any action in his situation.

This, this, this, they even state it on there website, why the hell state this if they don't follow it?


Have you had something recalled on you through paypal? Have you gone through the whole process of being hacked, being scammed etc? It takes days to figure out, you have to provide proof, you have to wait 21 days or some crap to file a claim, etc. Sorry the hassle of going through that isn't worth it to have some random person go into any of my accounts whether its my bank, paypal etc.

No, i haven't. I simply estimate the chances of support pulling anything off around like 0.01%.. in the case it does happen, i didn't expect it to be that bad.

Can anyone (Shane perhaps) tell me how Lock was able to connect the PayPal, Lock, and chat logs to both parties involved?

not rocket science. Paypal uses e-mail adresses aswell as real life names. Both of which Lock has access to aswell if you play on their site..? What am i overlooking?

Could PayPal not use different email address than from Lock account? If it was a scam could a person not say that they sent via PayPal to a friends account thus creating a receipt? Then just tell Lock that was the account to send it to and then just use chat logs with a buddy? But then again maybe it is rocket science so thanks for being a smartass, though maybe you were one of the nicer people on here. Go lose some flips now.

I was unaware that poker rooms involved themselves in disputes of this nature. I have no opinion as to whether a scam did or did not occur in this instance but I would like to chime in on the side of thinking that they should not be involved. Anyone could accuse someone of some wrongdoing and I wouldn't trust most rooms to be judge jury and executioner.