While in Vegas this past week I talked to Phil Laak and I had a long conversation about the bot threat. To sum up our conversation he is extreamly scared and concerned about how well the bots played and the future of online poker as we know it. We got more into the technical aspects of the bots but people here simply wouldn't care nor believe that the bots that exist now are beating the games at huge win rates.

-Crazy Mike

Well spoken, I still think they can be easily exploited, but I have no reason not to believe you spoke with phil. Maybe if there was more information regarding these new bots, such as there capabilties and such, more people would take them more seriously.

MrG's post wasn't well spoken at all.

It is more of the same crap where he reinforces his own prejudices without providing any evidence to support them.

I am not necessarily defending them. I have stated that their customer service could and should be better. The point I am making, is this that I can understand how a complicated investigation can take a number of weeks to complete. This simple understanding seems to be beyond many people. I can also understand that FTP can only give minimal information out on an ongoinging investigation.

Now, once the investigation is completed, if FTP decide to confiscate sillysal's money and give no explanation as to why and they give her no way of challanging their decision I will be taking a completely different viewpoint. All I keep trying to point out is that let the investigation complete and then make our assumptions.

There are always 2 sides to a dispute and in this case 1 side is very limited in the information it can disclose to a public forum. Also we are not privy to the full details. So I do not just accept a 1 sided argument from a 2+2 poster that I have no knowledge as to whether they are honest or not.

That's kind of what I was saying when I said there is no information or evidence out there on these bots that can beat humans consistantly. If everyone played at stars there would'nt be as many problems. they have twice as many people playing and less complaints.

Now it's starting to make sense. Sillysal said she turned down Mike's advances. Rather than face the fact that a girl rebuked him, he convinced himself that she must be a bot, starting his crazy bot hunting career.

SillySal, have you contacted the Casinomeister yet? He'll light a fire under their ass.

whats this?

They don't resolve complaints anymore.

um theres plenty of evidence that bots have been winning big

there were tons of PT stats posted by me when the FT bot scandal was at its peak

i dont care to examine every point mrgatorade has amde about bots but in my experience hes been right nearly all the time

This whole situation makes me sick, I am done with FTP.

A conclusion to this case has been reached and the player has been informed of our decision. While we can't share the details of the investigation with the community in general, we would be willing to share some findings with Mike Haven or some other respected mod.

Sean

Wow! Pure speculation here but that doesn't sound very good for the OP if FTP wants a mod to look at the info to calm the masses

Obviously will be very interested to find out the conclusion. I suspect we'll be hearing from sillysal sooner or later anyway but I'm sure the masses would be fine with getting more info via Mike Haven as well.

Without going into the details of the investigation, or your investigation techniques, could you at the very least let us know:

1. What the ultimate resolution was (are you keeping or returning the money,) and
2. If the answer to one is you are keeping the money, the wrongdoing on the part of the OP. (Chipdumping? Credit Card Fraud? Collusion? )

Regards,
--jman220

My post now changes from FTP froze my money to FTP STOLE my money.

I have been falsely accused, convicted and prosecuted without seeing a speck of evidence. FTP's decision is complete and final.

Please moderators, if you have any sense of fairness and a desire to be true to your community you need to contact me.

I have written each of you a letter and I hope to hear from you soon.

Gross. I would like to see some disclosure, because that's a pretty serious punishment. FTP is more top secret than the FBI?

SillySal,
The first thing you need to do is let us know what FTP has told you. We're all in the dark here.

Regards,
--jman220

sal - sad outcome and pretty ridiculous.

FT is respecting your privacy and not publicisicing the results but there is nothing to stop you from copying whatever conclusion e-mail they sent you which supposedly explains their logic. I don't think you need to contact every moderator at 2+2 though.

sal,

can you cut and paste whatever email FTP sent to you here?

FTP fails again, assuming sillysal is being straight with us. If FTP has really seized her money, and has not told her ANYTHING about the reason why, then this is simply unacceptable and I'll never understand how people can see it any other way.

If a player really has done something wrong, then telling them what they were "found guilty" of can do no harm that I can think of. For example, if FT thought someone was botting, and they actually were, what harm could there possibly be if FT were to say "we are closing your account and seizing your money due to the use of illegal software"? If they actually WERE botting, they already know that. If they weren't, now they know what they're up against. Same thing goes for chargebacks, chip dumping, collusion, etc, etc.

*****

I've said it before, I'll say it again, FT (or any other site) needs to deal with account fraud one of two ways:

1) If for some reason they can offer NO explanation whatsoever, they are perfectly in their rights to close the account, give the player back his or her money, and tell them they are not welcome back. They have the right to refuse to do business with anyone, for any reason (aside from those against human rights of course IE discrimination, etc.). This is the case with pretty much any business.

2) If they plan on seizing a player's money, they need to provide the player with some way of defending themselves. They don't need to provide every detail of how they were caught, but a basic explanation of what rule they're said to have broken would be a good start.

*****

Now of course when I talk about what FT "has to do", or what their "rights" are, I understand that in reality FT can do pretty much whatever they want. They can give themselves all sorts of account-closing powers in their T&C's, and whether they meet the standards or laws of our country of residence or not, there isn't much we can do about it. When I speak of these things, I'm talking about the way FT, or any other site, SHOULD behave if they expect to be taken seriously by those who care about being treated fairly. To me, there is nothing "fair" about a site that can confiscate your money without ever telling you why or giving you an avenue of appeal. "Your money is ours, no we won't tell you why, decision is final, don't let the door hit your ass on the way out". Yes, FT CAN do this, just like I CAN choose to take my business elsewhere. As I have.

Edit to add: If FT HAS given sillysal some explanation, then obviously they are changing their ways, and much of what I've said above is rendered irrelevant. I might be jumping the gun, but given what we've seen in the past, I'm sorry to say that I doubt it.

One wonders what scottyy and others at Stars think of such public FT situations like this.
Even if she did do whatever it was FT thinks they handled this so badly that they garnered extremely negative publicity regardless.

Conversely, what does FT think of Stars' procedures? Do they think that Stars is just so lacking in security and that's why there are practically never these "FT froze my account forever and won't tell me why" type of situations?

The two sites appear to do things very differently and I just wonder if one side even gives the mildest hoot about how the other side does it.

Is there a reason you opted not to simply ctrl-c, ctrl-v, post? It takes less than two seconds.

FTP fails even if Sal is a multi accounting, bot running, credit card frauding, chipdumping criminal mastermind imo.

IF found guilty of any of the above - or some other I didn't think of - what is the reasoning / possible benefit behind keeping secret the nature of the crime?

EXACTLY.