I haven't played poker in months, and only very little in the past few years, although I used to be a highstakes regular in the past. However, 3 days ago my Pokerstars account was entered with another device from Poland, whereas I always have played in The Netherlands.

-This hacker deposited $10 into my account using his own NETeller account
-Hacker proceeded to turn my 70,000 FPP into money by converting 1000 FPP's into $10 and did this till all my FPP's were depleted, as my VIP status was bronze and he couldn't convert a larger sum at once.
-He then played on my account losing my money to "legitimate players"
-Then used "his own" MasterCard and deposited $55 into my account more than a dozen times. Roughly $1000 total.
-He then cashed out 2 sums of $800 each to his own NETeller account.

Afterwards Pokerstars froze my account.

E-mail from Pokerstars:
It baffles me why Pokerstars wouldn't disclose the full account number of the hackers NETeller account.

Also I know that securing my account is my own task, and I used to have a secure token however as I stopped playing on Pokerstars for a long term, having little cash except for 70k FPP, I stopped securing it. However, it baffles me that someone can use their OWN mastercard on my Pokerstars account and then cash it out to his Neteller account and then have Pokerstars tell me that I should now pay the total of $1000 of deposit. How can someone from a foreign country be allowed to use a Neteller account and a mastercard account with DIFFERENT NAMES AND ACCOUNT NUMBERS (as I normally use my own neteller account and creditcard) and deposit and cash out on my account without Pokerstars nor Neteller stopping them in the process?

I have generated tons of rake for Pokerstars, been supernova multiple times, and now due to health problems haven't been able to play regularly and have no income and money problems, now they want me to pay for the hacker?

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Edit/MH: Summary.

Sorry to hear this. It seems unfair that you have to cover the $1000. I am however impressed with the way Pokerstars has investigated this.

Did you find any virus in your PC?

I am deeply upset by the fact that Pokerstars did not think it was suspicious enough to freeze my account when:
1) Someone entered my account from a foreign country which I have never been to nor played on Pokerstars from
2) Using a new NETeller account, even though I have used the same NETeller account since I have been a member of Pokerstars
3) Making 70 purchases from the Pokerstars store
4) Raising the limit of the allowed deposit amount
5) Making 18 deposits with a Mastercard I have never used, containing an unknown name, while I have always used my own Mastercard
6) Throwing money away on the tables playing games I normally don't play, as more than 95% of all my hands are played in HU SNG.

I am also highly baffled by the fact that Pokerstars is protecting the privacy of the hacker by not disclosing the Neteller ID that was used to steal money from my account. Because upon contacting neteller security, I was told that Pokerstars needs to disclose the account ID in order for them to trace down the person in question.

Also, tell me if I'm wrong, but I am pretty sure that you can only open a Neteller account if you provide your true identity. Plus for them to cashout from their Neteller account they need to provide a bank. That is an easy way for Neteller to track down the hacker, but yet Pokerstars refuses to cooperate. And on top of that they want me to pay for the 18 deposits that the hacker did with a fake Mastercard because Pokerstars apparently accepts "FAKE MASTERCARDS". This is outrageous.

There should be more awareness for this, because if any person decides to take distance from poker without ever fully terminating their Pokerstars account, he/she will risk to be in debt to Pokerstars even if they have no bankroll on the site, cause the hacker can use a fake mastercard to deposit into their account.

Any ideas on how the person new your password?

No, I didn't give it to anyone and no one has access to my computers. There are multiple computers that I have so now I need to scan them all. So far have scanned 1 with avira, but it will not tell me if there is a trojan on my PC because I don't know what to look for, I just scan and delete... so I am not sure what I am deleting anyway. But I doubt that there is a trojan on my PC.

Have you used the same password to signup to any other poker forums/sites ever?

No, it is a unique Name and password. Also I haven't played for months.

with the above, and assuming that when Stars says:

that this means there was also no forgotten password attempt made

If you have not told anyone the password then there must be something on one of your systems

FWIW, I dont think you actually enter a name with a credit card when you use it to deposit for the first time, so that would not be a factor. There could be a BIN mismatch however, if the credit card used was not from Netherlands, which should have created an alert on your account, along with the new country login. Though the card used could have been from your country

I think the identity thing (needing to provide ID before doing anything financial related) may depend on the signup country with Neteller. Also, the hacker didnt need to cashout to a bank accout, he/she could have easily put the funds onto a new poker/other site and cashed out that way, or done a P2P on NT, etc - basically create a chain transactions long enough so that the funds can make their way to the hackers hands.

Your account was used to make fraudulent (I presume Stars thinks they will get charged-back) deposits. You are responsible for the security of your account details, which were compromised to allow someone into your account. Its prolly in their EULA/TOS somewhere stating that you are responsible for the deposits, as much as that sucks and maybe should have been caught before it came to that

agree it's ridiculous that Stars won't release the info for the neteller account. Pretty scary story, gl OP

The whole point is that wherever he sends the money to, it will leave behind a trail. So if he does a P2P on NT, it will be easy for Neteller to trace that. That is just easy logic. The same goes for if he deposits it into another pokersite, because the transfer ID will reveal the ID he has on that pokersite, and you can only open poker accounst with your true identity. So wherever he sends the money to, it will leave behind a trail. It's only on the refusal of Pokerstars and/or Neteller that the hacker can get away with it. Else there is no way for the hacker to get his hands on the money.

FWIW: I have made an appointment with the police on Friday and I will provide them with all the data I have gathered so far. If needed, I will take this to court. I will not stand still while my BR is depleted and am being charged with another $1000. It's only logical that if Pokerstars/Neteller put in some work, they could easily find out the identity of the hacker and/or find the trail to the money. For companies this big, there should be procedures like this. Afterall, if I had the data they refuse to give to me, I could have done it myself within 30 minutes. I know that this is a longshot, but this is something I will not give up on no matter what. I will get my money back. I already proved to another company how far I will take it, even though they only stole $20. However, since in this case it's $2500,-, I will take it further than anyone can imagine. All I need is the cooperation of Pokerstars and Neteller to get this solved. If they refuse to do this, they are as guilty as the previous company and I will do anything in my power to solve this incident.

Cashout From Stars to NT -> Deposit to PokerSite B -> Cashout to Method C -> Deposit to PokerSite D -> P2P to Player E -> Cashout to Method F -> P2P to Player G on Method F -> P2P to Player H at a live event who gives them cash

That is a long, but very possible, trail to eventually get some of the $1,600 that was withdrawn from your PokerStars account. I personally think that it will require full cooperation from a lot more than just Stars/NT. Also, that is an easy way to detect if you have access to all those sites, it gets a lot harder if on some of the sites the funds were played with and some was intentionally lost at the tables to other player(s), if its done well.

I honestly wish you the best of luck with this and please keep us updated in this thread if its allowed

I kind of see what you are saying. If the player used a hacked net teller account, that could throw a lot of things off.

Why weren't the cashouts made back to the credit card as per their own cashout policy?
Make a complaint to the regulator, there should have been more than enough red flags here for them to investigate. Stars must have some fiduciary duty of care here.

No chance whatsoever this is enforceable. If the facts are as presented by OP, I would not only demand confirmation that I was not liable for the deposits, but be requesting reimbursement of the FPPs.

In Europe banks have to compensate customers for fraudulent transactions, so they have to take the hit for lax security. There were several obvious flags here that stars should have picked up. Not only have they caused OP financial loss, they put all Stars players at risk by their poor security practices which encourage the scum lurking in the dark corners of the internet to hack accounts.

OP should certainly write to Stars main regulators (UK, IoM and Malta) pointing out that their security is unacceptably lax and complain about their handling of this matter.

Stars (nor any other site I play) don't process cashouts to mastercard.

RSA Token plz...

OMG Exactly the same thing just happened to me last night!

Almost identical and I am sure it must be the same people.

I am not happy with any of this and will be happy to cooperate with any investigation or legal proceedings necessary to get this sorted out.

I would guess this could be happening to lots more of us right now and is a clear and current threat.

My password was very complex and secure and I do not believe I should be responsible for the hackers stolen credit card payments. It's just wrong.

What country are you from? Is your account registered to that country? What were the IP(s) that accessed your account?

Was your PokerStars password used for anything else? Also its not secure

Please add more details. As I have scanned my PC's and there were no virusses/trojans. It could very well be Pokerstars security that has been compromised. This whole situation is very fishy. I am sure this has happened to lots more.

Doesn't the cashout have to be made using the same method of deposit? If you deposit with mastercard you then can't cashout to neteller.

He first deposited $10 into my account using his Neteller account. Still weird that he could cashout $800 2 times and have it reach his account instantly, whereas it usually takes days. Also on top of the fact that for years I have used my own Neteller, it just didn't raise any red flags to Pokerstars that suddenly someone with a foreign ID added another Neteller account, and did a whole list of other crazy things.

MasterCard physically dont allow cashouts to their cards - its not just from gaming sites afaik

your account would have instant cashout ability matching upto the amount that your account has deposited in the last X time (X used to be unlimited, now its something like 90 days or 6 months I believe)

Well I haven't deposited any money into my account for atleast a year. How was it possible for him to deposit $10 and get away with $1600 instantly?

You previously claimed that there were over $1,000 in deposits very recently on your account, although I am unsure of the timefrme of these deposits vs the withdrawls

Actually these Mastercard deposits were made by the HACKER 1 hour after he entered my account. However, as soon as he entered my account he first deposited $10 using Neteller. He was also playing with some of the money as it states in my e-mail inbox that I achieved ChromeStar.

Also it turns out there were 22 deposits done with the Mastercard instead of 18, because there were so many e-mails in my inbox due to the hackers activity that I overlooked 4. And the 22 deposits total 900 EURO's, which is over $1000.

Prior to the hacker, there were no deposits done by me for several years.