Dear all. I am new to internet poker but have been playing live games since 2008. I started my pokerstars account on june 2014 and played without any problem for 1 month. During this period, i have deposited and cashed out multiple times without any issues. I was bad beaten with AA on 19th June and decided to take a rest for 2 days. On 21st June 2014, i deposited 500USD into my account after taking a break for 2 days. Within minutes after my deposit, my account was frozen and an email was sent to me requesting for additional documents for verification purposes. I sent the documents within an hour and waited patiently for them to verify. I received an email 5 hours later stating that my documents will require translation and it will take 24 hours. Till date it has been over 45 hours and i have not received any responses as to why my account was frozen. No valid reasons. I have been playing honest games from 1 single account and i am the only person at home playing poker for leisure. I did not have violate any of their regulations. Despite multiple emails to pokerstars, i did not receive a response and they have already taken 500USD from my bank. If they require account verification, why did they locked the account only after i deposited the money? They could have done it before i deposited the money. I don't understand the logic here. The support is pretty bad. Anybody knows what i should do next?

Continue to wait patiently. While it sucks that it's gone over the timeline they gave you, <48 hours really isn't that long for something like this, especially given that document translation is required.

As for why a deposit triggered this, only Stars would know. I assume they must have automatic checks for fraud and/or money laundering, and your deposit set that into motion for some reason.

Hi Bobo. Thanks for the reply. I was previously using my main card for deposit. However, that card has preset default bank limit for internet payment which i have gone pass that limit within 30 days. I called my bank to increase my transfer limit but was told it would take 3 working days. I used a second card for the 500 usd deposit but my bank blocked the transaction initially. I received a call from my bank shortly and was told to verbally verify the transaction in order to pay for this 500usd purchase. I tried the card again after bank verification and the amount went through successfully. In less than 5 mins after my deposit, my account was frozen. Until now, i only received standard responses and nothing else

Was your card issued by a Thai bank? Did you use a 3rd party payment processor to circumvent the gambling site block?

Seems pretty standard, you probably don't need to worry.

Yup. It is thai issued card. Kasikorn bank has already approved my transaction with pokerstars for over a month. The bank did called to verify, not a problem on our end. I have called the bank and they said that the transaction of 500USD has already been deducted. Clearly it is not an issue with bank now

I am not generally worried about the 500usd with pokerstars. I am only dumbfounded by the fact that account was frozen upon deposit and their support is not responding to emails. Pretty disappointing with their support. I did my research before choosing to play via pokerstars. Looks like my decision was bad.

seems legit. Dont worrie, just wait a bit more.

Initial deposit to Stars was blocked and then after verifying with bank you tried again and the 2nd deposit attempt went thru on Stars? How long, roughly, was between the 1st and 2nd deposit with the card?

Clearly the blocked transfer and then 2nd (successful) attempt set something off. They asked you for additional docs (presume scan of Card and maybe a statement from the account as proof of ownership?) to help verify you own it.

They cannot predict what card/other method you will use to deposit before you do it.

On the flip side of this, if they didn't act right away after the successful deposit was made and your card had been used fraudulently you would also be complaining severely. If they leave account open, all the funds could be dumped/lost.

As others have said, <48 hours is nothing to panic about. The fact that you are Thai will mean that they need to wait until someone who can read Thai to be working, which could be a day or 2 longer.

The 1st and 2nd attempt was 10 mins apart. I am just unhappy that the support is really poor and slow. I missed a tourney because of this issue. Sad to say support is not good

They didn't wait until you deposited to freeze your account. Something about the deposit made them decide to freeze your account as a precaution.

Until they translate your documents there is nothing more that they can say or do than they have already said and done. I would not say that Support is "disappointing", poor, slow or "not good" in the circumstances.

I do understand that the move to freeze my account was for my own good. However, i do appreciate a more prompt reply rather than just keeping quiet. Like i said, i am new to internet poker and i am sure there are more of such issues in future. Thank you everyone for the reply. I hope they can reinstate my account soon. I already move on to 888poker now and won quite a generous amount on 2/4 blinds but i look forward to maybe playing again in pokerstars.

hi pornkamol,

exact same thing has happened to me... have you heard anything from stars yet?

when reading your post, you took the words right out of my mouth on how i felt, there is no logic in accepting a deposit when they believe my account is linked to a banned account which they accuse me of, why take player funds and give them no reason why their account is banned? they actually told me i was allowed for an increase, which is why im furious about this.

anyway i've sent all my i.d and its been more than 48 hours and i've got 2 emails from stars saying it has been forwarded to a senior investigative team member. still nothing resolved

have you heard back, please share what your outcome was, it appears pinkpower's post no longer exists on twoplustwo so i don't know whether his issue was resolved as well.

This thread?