I wonder if any of the US based higher profile players has had anything like this happen, i would guess not..

Yeah the Better Business Bureau seems to think they are a good company, which is a bit disconcerting. I study politics and their have been more than just speculative conjecture about the BBB and their independence and intregity. However, NPP is rated A- which means it is less likely for the government to open a case....

http://www.la.bbb.org/Business-Repor...ider-100071679

Above is FTSean in the NVG thread.

I am unaffected by this but as a FT customer am following with interest.
Everyone knows FT support is unhelpful, slow and unprofessional.
However this issue is on a completely different scale.
I don't think anyone would suggest FT is deliberately involved in fraudulent activity.
However it is undeniable that the one thing these fraud victims have in common is a FT account and for FT to do anything but investigate fully and warn all customers who may be affected, at the least, seems negligent.
After the AP,UB scandal I think the thing that harmed them more than the actual cheating was the way they handled the situation with all the attempted cover ups, shills, etc. I can't imagine FT will be as stupid and imagine they will start disclosing what they know forthwith.
It could be that this incident has arisen as a result of dataloss that FT is utterly unable to trace.
On the other hand it may be that FT at some point has shared their customers details with a third party, contrary to their quick deposit pledge.
If this is the case let's hope they come clean immediately.

So this is one of the first big things that makes us players realize that the "status quo" is bad and that it's only going to get worse until we have legal and regulated online poker in the US?

Without knowing all the details (and it seems like nobody knows all of the details at this point) this whole thing sounds really really shady. Either FTP is lying to us or somebody hacked into FTP's systems and stole their customers' personal banking information... both of those are bad imo and I'm not sure which is worse.

The one thing that seems brutally obvious to me at this point is that things like this are likely to become more common until there's some sort of regulation in place and the sites aren't forced to use shady payment processors. Also it should be obvious to FTP that something like this is the exact type of thing that could ruin their reputation, not only in their players' eyes but in the eyes of the government when and if there is ever legal and regulated US online poker.

Bump so it stays at the top!

I've posted a PM update from Sean after that, both there and here.

Yet another reason these threads need combined into one (here), stickied (hopefully) and cleaned up a bit (I wish)...

I PM'd Mike Haven to see what he thinks.

I'd gladly re-compile an updated first-post summary if a moderator would let me insert it.

EDIT: In fact, if I get time today, I'll re-write one, and go about seeing if we can update it later...

Nobody hacked into ftp systems... They handle billions of dollars their systems have to be hard to crack. There has to be a relationship at some point between ftp and pmi because amounts charged by pmi coincide with prevois executed transactions. When i called to my bank to make the claim the rep in claims responded "yes i am familiar with ftp and pmi related claims you should go to your nearest banking center and close tge acct"

Here is my e-mail response from FTP

"Hello XXXXXXX,

Thank you for contacting us.

We can confirm that Full Tilt Poker did not initiate or authorize the processing of this transaction. For further details on this charge, please contact the processor in question PMI 8888758035 or PMI Sales.

As this charge did not originate from Full Tilt Poker, we also recommend contacting your financial institution should you wish to pursue the matter further.

If there's anything else we can help you with, please let us know. We're always here to help.

If there's anything else we can help you with, please let us know by replying to this email. We're always here to help.


Regards,

Aaron
Full Tilt Poker Black Card Support"

Today I also called the 888 number that the palimax has listed in this thread. They answered very fast and informed me that they knew of the error and had initiated transferring the money back to my bank account on wednesday. They also said it will take 3-5 business days for it to reach my bank account.

Now for the waiting game. Will post any updates.

Glad you got through. Took me a couple of days.

What you wrote and what I quoted above is the canned response.

Anyone who calls is told that they already were refunding your money, and you amazingly called the day after it had already been put into motion.

The person who answered the call for me was polite, professional, and obviously and clearly working from a script.

If anyone has any success in getting them to deviate from the script, it'd be interesting to see what they come up with.

It's a good idea, I'd also leave in relevant posts, people who got scammed, etc.

To elaborate on this just a bit for those who don't know about merchant accounts....I have had a merchant account before. Once I get the card/account number, I could store it forever. I could change my "company" name to whatever the hell I wanted to, 100 different names per day, and charge accounts, and it would show up on your bank statement as whatever I put the name as.

I did contact "PMI" yesterday, and being that they told me the last 4 digits of my account number, I would think means they are a somewhat reputable business. But whether or not they are just a bunch of crooks with a simple merchant account or an actual business, either way, something's not right. And it's funny that as I looked through all the posts about people making contact with them, mysteriously we all get the same response time for being credited-back?! Will post as soon as I receive my money back.

I've posted it before itt but here goes again...

Ask the PMI rep. on the phone:

"If you have a note in front of you that this charge(s) was made in error, and it has been X amount of time since the error took place, why hasn't the money ALREADY been credited to my account and a notification of some sort sent to me?" AND "Is this charge in any way related to FullTilt Poker?" ANOTHER QUESTION/REQUEST TO MAKE... "I would like all of my personal banking information immediately deleted from your system for my personal privacy and financial security" responsible companies which are on the level WILL do this.

And when they don't answer or dodge the questios, request to speak to a manager or supervisor at the next level, I'm betting you'll get a runaround or disconnect.

Most callers want their money back.

I'll be honest with ya'll. I care about this, but my $600 came first. If I had $10x3 to worry about, I'd have gladly "spent" it by missing my opportunity to get cash but having recorded the call.

[I'm in a 1-party state...]

Maybe... but not necessarily. It may be that no bank realizes the magnitude of the problem, and obviously calls to the PMI people aren't going to trigger any investigation (which must be why they're reversing the charges for anyone who asks — they're thinking they can actually get away with this i they give the money back to everyone who notices it, and steal only form those who don't).

People who've been stolen from: don't stop just because you've gotten through to PMI and gotten your money back. Get the cops (FBI) onto this. They will nail the crooks, and maybe even figure out what Full Tilt's role was — and holding everyone responsible accountable is in the long term best interest of all players.

One things for sure... Ftp confirms how unreliable of a company they are by letting our private info be compromised and not be upfront. Cant think of bad press PS event guess thats why they are the biggest online poker room.

Well it took about 30 or 40 times calling but I finally got through to them as well. After giving them my name and last 4 digits I was informed that they had noticed the error 2 days ago and were already in the process of crediting my 3 transactions. Sure they were but hopefully I get my money back next week.

Another fine example of the "oh, we already knew, thanks for calling" bull**** story.

How the **** has nobody called the FBI yet? I am extremely grateful that I lost my wallet in early January and as a consequence closed my checking/savings accounts and opened new ones which have never been associated with FTP.... But I can't understand people sitting around bitching about FTP's responsibilities while you sit and do nothing of substance while PMI steals your money.

1. Contact your bank and tell them your account information has been compromised.
2. Close your current accounts and open new ones (this is NOT a huge hassle, your bank will help you).
3. CONTACT THE ****ING POLICE/FBI

How this situation has gone on for at least 3 months without anyone trying to contact the authorities is absolutely dumbfounding.

Obviously criminal activity and I'd like to think FTP would work overtime to make sure their association with this company becomes transparent and gets cleared up.

I'd like to think that but have no reason to and won't be playing on ftp until I am assured of it.

Also it looks like this was happening under another name as far back as last summer. Western Clear DES.

Someone ask FTP if they know what Western Clear DES is.

If it is that pmfinancial linked earlier- the contact info is an address in Los Angeles that looks like it could be either an attorney's office or located in a large professional complex if someone was close by and thought about taking a trip.

2029 Century Park East, Suite 1400
Los Angeles, California 90067

ftp won't exist in 2 years

I hope you're right.

Jesus christ, Full Tilt support is atrocious.