Hey,

I'm RaúlGonzalez on Stars. I've been playing highstakes on both stars/ftp for a very long time, let's say around 8years.

During that period, I have made a bunch of both deposits and withdrawals to/from my stars account to my bank account. For the record, I have always used the very same bank account during all that time.

On 30th december last year I have made a deposit for €250,000 to my account. Before that, I had to fill a source of funds form and answer a bunch of questions regarding my deposit. But after short time, they gave me the wire instructions and so I made the wire on 30th december. I didn't expect it to go through very quickly due to the holidays around that date, but since the bank account stars gave me was a german one (so a domestic wire), I expected it to through latest by 4th or 7th of January.

Since the wire hadn't hit my account by that date, I started asking stars and they advised me to speak to my bank, they could see what happened to the deposit. I did that and my bank couldn't find anything weird and said it should be in the account of Worldpay (the payment processor of stars).

I got a little bit concerned at this point about the funds, but thought to myself that a correct transaction in SEPA can't really produce a loss of funds (Obviously I had checked few times if I had put in the correct info).

Long story short, on 16th of January the money was back in my bank account. I was somewhat relieved about that, but at the same time it meant some more waiting till I would receive the money in my stars account (and I needed the funds quite badly to keep playing my games).

What followed was/is utterly frustrating. I emailed stars to give me new wire instructions and investigate what happened with the first deposit. In one email (not sure if I can/should quote them here?), they admitted the issue was on their end (I have made lot of huge transactions from my bank account and they never failed to proceed ever). But instead of apologizing or giving me new wire instructions, they asked me again to fill the source of funds and some other annoying crap. Also, I waited few days for every reply pretty much.

Eventually I had to declare my rough net worth and prove I can afford to lose the funds I deposit. After all, I was given new wire instructions, this time for a €450,000 wire that I made on 2nd February. I was given the very same bank account by stars, but since it is probably always the same for all customers in Germany I didn't think much of it. After all, Stars cannot possibly be crazy enough not to investigate the nature of the issue for the last deposit...right? RIIIIIGHT???????

Five working days later, I haven't received the funds (they left my bank account directly on 4th February) and I'm completely sure I won't receive them anymore. They will be reverted to my bank account in 7-10 days again.

I tried my best with stars support (speaking to several departments - general support, payment team and security team) to make them ****ing investigate this matter, but they are yet to give me a proper reply. They don't accept the fact this issue happened with my first deposit attempt already and they have to fix it.

This has been obnoxious as hell to deal with and cost me a lot of time/nerves and most importantly I had to skip a lot of my games due to this nonsense.

The reason I started this thread is to indicate there might be (still a small chance, but whatever) something severely wrong with stars payment system in general, their level of support has lowered a lot and most importantly for me, to bring the attention of stars representatives to this matter and hopefully help resolve it.

on the bright side, think of all the money you are saving while these wires aren't going through

I can’t think of any rational explanation, based on OP (assuming Stars is being straight w you). Doesn’t make a lot of sense to deny deposit from nosebleed reg w lots of history.

So I can only spitball, based on the info you don’t know, and/or assuming Stars is being slightly shady, overly cautious, or not on the level. Maybe Stars was scolded by the anti-online gaming politicians from Germany and is stalling to hash that out before accepting a large deposit from a German citizen? Maybe they are stalling large deposits by winning players to protect ecosystem? Maybe issue between the specific payment processor and Stars? They could have bad info and are investigating the source of funds/networth stuff and stalling you in the meantime?

I’m pretty ignorant about likeliest scenario, other than to say that Im pretty sure OP has done ok in poker and it’s hopefully a short term inconvenience (that could admittedly cost you a lot of $ev), resulting from a new and less competent security dept that isn’t familiar w your history on the site. Gl plz keep us posted, I like logging on and watching the big mix games even tho I can’t play them

I wouldn't worry - I imagine that by the time you wake up tomorrow, you'll receive a bunch of compelling offers to invite you to play at other sites instead.

Maybe you've been winning too much in the past so they don't want your money ? Stars only want recreational players these days playing and losing in casino games.

Stars was know for being top notch regarding payments. Even though you are high roller they used to process everything pretty starightforward.