I’m writing this post because my account and my friend’s account on 888 got locked and we got no response since sunday 2nd February. We emailed and called the support multiple times, and always got the same response saying that they’re reviewing. Called them on friday 7th february and the support told me that I will get a response in the next 24 hours.


I’ve been an 888 player for more than 11 years but haven’t been as active the past 2 years, still play cash and mtts once in a while. My friend is active and plays every sunday and series on 888. I’m part of multiple OTC groups where it’s easier to move money from site to site and BTC to site etc, so when I transfer with the people, I don’t necessarily know them, but we get vouches from people in the group. I’m also part in a french forum and that’s where a guy offered me 888 for bitcoins (his account name on 888 is “BBQTime”), we’ve done other transactions in the past and all was ok, he always sent the money first and I sent him BTC. This time, he sent me the money (about 1k) on my 888 (before me accepting the trade) for BTC and offered a vig of 10% (usually he gives 5%), which I accept and send him the BTC. He also wanted more so I told him to send it to my friend that I owe money which he did.


The next day, my account and my friend’s account get locked. I message “BBQTime” directly what is going on with the transfer, and he says his account got locked for chip dumping. My friend and I never played with him and have no relation with him other than the trade and both our accounts got locked because we received a transfer from him. They also locked our current balance that we had before the trade and they won’t give any response.

I have proof of all the transaction and the conversation I had with him for the trade and still, they dont give a follow up about what’s going on.



Cliffs:
- Did a trade with someone that I don’t know personally for his 888 vs my bitcoin
- He sends money to my friend and we both get our accounts locked -
- I ask the guy what’s going on with the trade and why our accounts got locked, he responded he got caught chip dumping to another account. Told him to send back the BTC and he didn’t send back.
- 888 freezes our account with our fund in it and doesn’t give a response for more than a week
- Basically got scammed on my btc and also my funds on 888 on top of my friends account

Would be very helpful if a rep can look into this and give a response about the situation.

Thanks

"888 freezes our account with our fund in it and doesn’t give a response for more than a week"

... you were using it as a bank to trade crypto, with a chip dumper. 888s money laundering team are going to be all over this. don't plan on getting your money soon. But good luck nontheless.

I was not aware of him chip dumping. In OTC skype group we use it as a mean to have liquidity on a site. Was not planning to cash it out but use it for blizzard series and so was my friend.

Also, it's common to have transfers with people we don't personally know.

BBQTime is an alleged serial scammer and multi-accounter.

Here are three of his posts here:

I am the other player who also got locked.

My sn on 888 is same as here. I play HS mtts there whenever I can and have mostly deposited in the past. Given i was owed money by Chanmix this time , i had asked him to send me some online funds if possible. This led us to this dumb situation.

I never dealt with this scammer " BBQTIME" but now my account is also locked just because he sent me money. I have no idea who he is or what he does but it makes no sense that I get banned simply because he sent me money.

As Chan stated, i have also been ignored by support. I am a " MVP" and sometimes deal with a special rep on there but 0 replies from that department aswell.

If this is what you're after, it would probably make sense to post in the 888 thread, or send a PM to the rep.

Thanks for the find.

Basically I got scammed by this guy too. It’s weird that 888 are holding us accountable for a transfer that we have no relation with the person.

Lost my transfer and get my account locked just doesn’t make sense to me.

It makes perfectly good sense that they might lock accounts associated with a scammer, while they investigate. If this guy's been up to no good with other accounts, they have no idea if you guys are involved or not.

Was not aware that the 888 thread was still up.

Thanks for letting us know Bobo.

As to your last reply, do you think it would also be fair if any other account associated to him is also locked? Let's say any account that ever trade with him in last 6 months?
If we had many transactions with him , then I understand why they would lock us because clearly we can be implicated.

I think it's kind of hard to say without knowing what kind of information 888 has. I mean, with every layer an account is removed from BBQTime, account closures become less justifiable in general, but I wouldn't want to say it should only happen if someone traded with him in the last x months, or had y transactions with him. Bit of a cop out on my part maybe, but I don't think it's my place to say what isn't justified.

That said, I hope you guys all get this resolved quickly.

Bump so it s on front page again.

888 contacted us , just to remind us that they are still reviewing the case lol.

They still have not said anything or explained anything.
It is quite ridiculous now specially since we're missing all the tournaments we planned to play during their series.

It has been more than a month now without a response.

They have ignored our last 2 attempts of contacting them.


To this point they have still not said anything or given us a reason for the investigation.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what we could do or who to contact?
At what point do we start calling this a theft since they have confiscated around 3000$ without saying anything.

Given you consented to their actions by agreeing to their terms of service, never?

It looks like another alleged theft by BBQTime. I'm not sure why you appear to think it should be 888poker who should lose the money. Why not try telling them you accept it was you two that were scammed; you've learned a lesson and won't be p2p trading with strangers again; and that you only want to continue supporting and playing on 888poker, as you have done without problems for many years?

I see you are Zebest7r on 888poker. What is ChanMix's SN?

Thanks.

*

Edit: Was ChanMix a user here between 2009 and 2012 called Chan KH?

Please explain what exactly I agreed to which allows them to do what they have done in this case.



My SN is Zebest7r on 888. You can see on sharkscope that i have been playing Highstakes there for a while.


So just an update on the situation , they got back to us today, here is what they said.

**********


Dear Rayan,

This is the Operations Team at 888poker and we are contacting you with regards to your account with username Zebest7r.

Thank you for you email; please accept our apologies for the delayed reply.

Rayan, with regards to your account, this has been reviewed and the decision to discontinue your membership still stands. This decision is final and has only been taken after careful consideration of all factors involved. The account will remain blocked and any money in your bank roll will not be refunded and no cashouts will be paid.

Please refrain from opening any further accounts with any site managed by us as these too will be blocked and no deposits returned.

Thank you for your time.

Regards,
Operations Team


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



This is literally the only email that talks about this situation. I was not given any information or reason or anything in the other emails. They were all just generic emails informing me that I am under investigation.


Keep in mind , I never had anything to do with the trade or funds being sent to begin with. I understand that 888 got frauded in this case and understand that the money should not remain in my account and they should take it back.
However It makes no sense that they ban me simply because i received money.
What was supposed to happen is Chanmix sends me money directly, for his own reasons he had someone else send because of a trade. I had 0 knowledge of this and when the money arrived, i never played with it or attempted to cash it out.

So simply for receiving money that i never touched , i lost my account and the money that was in there before.


At this point i will start calling this a theft.

MODs if you can please add " Unresolved " in the thread title just to give awareness to others about the dangers of playing on 888poker.

See https://www.888poker.com/security-an...ement-uk/#par6 and https://www.888poker.com/security-an...ment-uk/#par12. They're pretty all-encompassing rules that might say instead, "If you do something of which we don't approve, we can choose to confiscate all the money in your account."

For the formal complaints procedure that you should now follow, diligently, see https://www.888poker.com/security-an...ment-uk/#par13

Thanks for these links.

Now in my case , when i actually didnt do anything, how do these rules apply exactly do you think?
If i knew the money was coming from someone else , i would have refused it but obviously i did not even have that option. I didnt play on the account after the money was recieved , i actually didnt even have time to login.

Presumably, they think they have found some other physical or electronic connection/s between you and the alleged fraudster/s? Only you and 888poker know what those connections could be, if they exist. If they don't exist, you should have a good case to get your money back, in due course, if you follow the formal complaints procedure.

There is really no point in telling us that you are innocent, but I can totally understand your frustration if you are.

I can guarantee that there are 0 connections with said person. I have never transferred with him before. There is absolutely 0 link with him anywhere online and i never chip dumped or even played with his funds before.

Of course i will go through the proper connections for my appeal regardless.

I am trying to keep this as transparent as possible because i want other players to see the issues that lie ahead with 888poker.

From reading many stories like yours in this forum in the past, it appears that all online poker sites make mistakes like this all the time; that is, assuming all the stories are true. It doesn't stop anyone playing at the sites - mainly because people don't believe all the stories are true, and secondly because they don't think it will ever happen to them.

Fwiw, a large percentage of the storytellers are new to this forum for serious poker players, posting a few times before disappearing. It's quite rare, actually, for a long term forum user to post such a story, so there seems to be some sort of disparity between experiences, for whatever reasons.

Good luck with your appeal.

Thanks Mike.

However i do disagree with you. I have personally avoided some sites forever because of threads that I've seen here. Some of the stories i have seen gives you an idea of how these sites operate.
888 has made many mistakes in the past that I have seen , but this specific one goes to show that they do not care at all about their loyal customers.

I understand that Chan's account gets banned since he had previous transfers with him... It's still pretty harsh but i get it. However for me to lose ~1k because of a 330$ transfer from someone i never dealt with is ridiculous.

Did you contact the rep here?

I contacted him many times and he ignored for a while.

He finally PM ed me recently asking for my SN. I gave it to him and currently waiting to see if anything will be done.

Other than that i am a bit lost on the next step on who to contact.
In those links some stuff is contradicting and confusing. Since they specify that fraud dep has final say , but then say to contact a manager which I assume must have already had a look at this situation.

Well I just got unbanned.

I am glad they changed their mind but Chanmix remains banned.

They took back the funds that were fraudulent but gave back the rest. Step in the good direction from 888 , I am glad they came to their senses.