Everyone, I'm a poker player from South Korea, i created this post to seek advice and opinions my frozen account issue on pokerstars.

I been playing poker online on Pokerstars for almost 8 years, played 10,000+ tournaments with cash games mixed in here and there.

I am not really good enough to make a living out of poker but i enjoyed the game a lot and played whenever i had the time and motivation.

The issue begin right after i emailed Support to increase my deposit limit to 25000 as i wanted to take part in SCOOP event #26 high roller . (buy in is 25000.USD)

Support initially approved to increase my deposit limit to 7000, but this was not enough in order to make the required deposit of 25000, thus i followed up on my enquiry and asked how do i enter the event if i cannot make the necessary deposit for the buy-in.

Pokerstars responded stating i need to fill in a Source of Funds Statement and a Screen Capture is needed to prove i got the available funds in my Skrill account.

I replied informing them i would provide the necessary information later on in the day.

About 3 hours later, my Stars Account was frozen, with an pop-up requesting me to contact support.

I did as i was instructed, waited patiently for 2 days with no response from them whatsoever. I missed the Scoop event as a result.

I received this email from them on 13 May.

Hello ,

Thank you for your email.

During the course of a routine investigation, we found that you have created and/or accessed your account in order to take unfair advantage of our promotional offerings.

Our Terms of Service expressly forbid any such activity. As a result, you have been permanently excluded from future play with us, and any funds within your accounts have been confiscated.

Do not attempt to circumvent these restrictions; any further accounts you attempt to use or create will also be closed, and any funds within them may be subject to seizure.

Regards,

Ivana
PokerStars Security


Now what promotional offerings are they talking about which i took advantage of ? The only recent promotion activity i took part in was their daily deposit challenge.

I replied in my email that i had absolutely no idea what is happening here.

After another two days, i received an response.

Hello,

Thank you for your email.

During our investigation of your account activity, we found that you have created or used the following accounts:

bokukokoro
shinobistrik
tamagootchi
kinguburger
thursdoi
lelolele

It was evident from our review that the purpose of these accounts was not to use the site to play, but rather to abuse our promotional offerings by receiving multiple bonus credits. Our Terms of Service state:

“5.9 - FRAUDULENT BEHAVIOR. In the event that Rational Group deems that a User has engaged or attempted to engage in fraudulent, unlawful, dishonest or improper activity while using the Service, including without limitation, engaging in any of the activities set forth in this clause 5 or any other game manipulation, or the making of any fraudulent payment, including without limitation, use of a stolen credit card or fraudulent chargeback or money laundering, Rational Group shall be entitled to take such action as it sees fit, including, but not limited to:

a. immediately blocking a User's access to the Service;

b. terminating a User's account with Rational Group;

c. seizing the funds within a User's account;

d. disclosing such information (including the identity of the User) to financial institutions, relevant authorities and/or any person or entity that has the legal right to such information; and/or

e. taking legal action against a User.”

As a result, the decision was made to exclude you from accessing our site again. We do not take these actions lightly and any such decision is reviewed by a senior member of the team who, after looking at the evidence, agreed that this was necessary and appropriate.

The integrity of our site is our primary concern and it is regrettable that such action is necessary. We take security very seriously, and will do everything we can to protect the integrity of our games.

Again, we remind you to not attempt to circumvent these restrictions; any further accounts you attempt to use or create will also be closed, and any funds within them may be subject to seizure.

Regards,

JuanF
Stars Security


To enhance the security of your Stars Account, we strongly encourage you to set up our additional security features; Stars PIN, SMS Verification, RSA Token and Security Questions. Activation of these features is extremely simple and can be completed within the Account menu in our software.

We will NEVER ask you to confirm your login credentials or password via email, phone or chat facility or in any way. We do not advise giving your login information to anyone under any circumstances.


First and foremost, I would like to clarify that i did not create or used
the following accounts.

I scanned through my playing history and could not find them at all

Who are these players ? Seriously i got zero idea.

I only remembered i did played Thursdoi , why so? because this donk dropped about 200 USD against me during an 10 mins session. Super aggressive and a calling station. I been on an lookout for him on the network ever since. I mean everyone of us take note of fishes dont we?

From what i understand, Stars discovered these accounts were created to take advantage of their promotions.

And i am also part of it because these fishes lost their roll to my account on Stars.

And now Stars is sizing my account to compensate their loss because the money is in my balance.

In the first place why are these suspicious accounts roaming around ? If stars decided to credit the bonus into their account then stars should be responsible for their actions since they have their security department to carry out checks.

So why cry foul and demanded the money back from an scapegoat who somehow played with too many of their questionable clients ?

Come on Stars, we endured so many ridiculous changes to our VIP rewards programme on the site.

As royal customers for years not only we do not get rewarded and appreciated.

But somehow it seem Stars take pride in closing our accounts for fun too.

Seem like they are only interested in luring re recreational new players joining the site who are more likely to play their casino and sportsbook rather than only poker

Please guys, give me some advice and opinions on this.

You wanted to enter a 25k event simply for fun but you also bumhunted someone who dropped $200 to you one time?

Looks to me like you got caught fair and square. If you disagree then take them on legally.

I wanted to enter the 25k event not for fun.

I am only taking up 5% action, with 95% of the action sold to backers both on live and online poker circuit.

How was i caught fair and square when all i did was play poker ?

And how do i take them on legally please advice

If your goal is to enter a Stars MTT then your best bet is to follow the advice Stars gives you

I'm not sure what super-secret work-around you expect us to give you is

So did you or did you not win money from that list of playing accounts?

I have no view on the substantive issue (whether or not you tried to defraud PokerStars) since that is fundamentally between you and PokerStars.

However, I am surprised that according to your timeline, on 13 May, PokerStars made a decision on your case without even having sent you an email with a request for an explanation on the situation.

A core and basic principle of natural justice is that when you suspect someone of doing something wrong, you give them a chance to defend themselves - even if you're a poker site.

Either PokerStars made a mistake in not laying out their suspicions and giving you a chance to defend yourself by explaining whatever they've found, or you've left something out of the chain of events in your original post. I don't know which.

I could only recall Thursdoi from that list dropping 200 to me during an heads up session on zoom hu , session lasted less than 30 mins.

I seriously had zero idea who the other accounts were

That is correct, i was given zero chance on explaining or defend myself.

I did wrote in to Stars to defend myself saying i did not create or used those listed accounts.

They simply did not elaborate how on earth the link or the connection was.

Here is their latest reply.

Hello ,

Thank you for your email.

We understand your frustration, however, we are not able to change the outcome.

Your account will remain closed and you have been banned from our site.

Do not try to create other accounts or use the account of other players. Any accounts you create or access will be terminated without notice and funds will be confiscated.

Note that our decision is final and future emails will be closed without response.

We apologise for the inconvenience and we appreciate your understanding.


Regards,

Ahdjia
Stars Security

I recommend players not to maintain too much balance on Stars.

Fairly certain the Security Dept at Stars want to take my money badly to balance the books in this case.

This would imply there are many frauds at Stars abusing their bonus and Stars Security Dept is facing a lot of heat to get some of that money back no matter how or what.

What happened to me might happen to you guys in the future.

How much money is in your account?

You need to handle this one step at a time. Send them an email where you ask them to confirm whether you will be allowed to withdraw your account balance. Nothing else.

Yes, I know that they already mentioned confiscation somewhere, but mixing the account balance issue and the question of reopening the account (plus "defending yourself") is not a good idea.

I'm sceptical that this is truly what PokerStars emailed to you, because claiming that their decision is "final" is just flat out wrong. As a customer, you always have a right to escalate and appeal against any decision they make, including to the Gambling Commission and/or the court system.

This is exactly what they emailed me.

Attached a screenshot for you sir.



Couple of thousand in my account.

I send them an email asking politely to return me my balance on Stars as well as my Stars coins converted to cash back to my Skrill account.

This was the reply.

Hello Leon,

As previously informed, our decision stands and you are no longer welcome on Stars.

Further the funds were obtained through prohibited activity and we have a zero tolerance policy to fraud. Your funds have been confiscated.

We appreciate your cooperation and wish you well in the future.

Regards

Julia
Stars Security

To enhance the security of your Stars Account, we strongly encourage you to set up our additional security features; Stars PIN, SMS Verification, RSA Token and Security Questions. Activation of these features is extremely simple and can be completed within the ‘Account’ menu in our software.

We will NEVER ask you to confirm your login credentials or password via email, phone or chat facility or in any way. We do not advise giving your login information to anyone under any circumstances.

Like i said, the Security Dept at Stars is facing a a lot heat to balance the fraud books.

Stamping Fraud on my account is an sure fire way of doing that for a start.


Be careful who you played against on the site guys, you might be up against a bonus scammer and get your account labelled Fraud with your roll taken next.

The funny thing is they insisted my entire balance were obtained through prohibited activity.

My roll consisted of my winnings from finishing 2nd twice last month on 180 man mtt, 8 usd buy in.

Didnt know 180 man mtt is considered prohibited activity on Pokerstars.

Well, I can't know if you say the truth or not, but I know by own experience that poker sites totally act this way when they accuse you of something : they don't listen any of what you say to defend yourself, they simply repeat the same thing again and again and refuse "real" communication with you.

If you're really innocent, then I understand your frustration, because you try to act as a civilized person but they consider you as a known criminal and you don't even have any evidence against yourself shown to you.

Anyway, if you read carefully any rooms T&C, they can ban you and seize your account at their sole discretion at any time, without any real possibility to get the case handled by independant arbitrator. Taking legal action would be such time consuming and costy that probably 98% of players don't have that possibility.

In your case, I would try to contact the Gambling Supervision Commission (https://www.gov.im/about-the-governm...on-commission/) since it looks like on Pokerstars website they're the only ones you can contact when a dispute arises. However, keep in mind that these guys are also located on Isle of Man like Pokerstars and are probably useless at helping player as any other "gaming commission".

Good luck, sir.

You sum it up real good there sir.

Any funds deposited into Pokerstars system by players are totally in their disposal.

I urged everyone to practice caution as what happened here to me could happen to one of you next.

Just did an search on all the mentioned screen names and realised that

both shinobistrik and tamagootchi did not even existed.

Invisible players ?

They probably exist, but you've never played against them on your usual account.
For one reason or another, Stars support thinks all those screennames are linked to your PC. i.e. they believe you are a multi-accounter that signed up for several accounts on the same computer.

Did you buy your computer from another player, or have you ever allowed another player to use your laptop? Do you use an internet café or share your internet connection with other people?

My computer and laptop are with me for 3 years now and they are brought unopened brand new from my local electronic shop. I never shared them.

Now that you mentioned it, i did logged into my Stars account at various internet cafe during an short stay in Japan last year.

However, i did emailed Stars Support during that time to confirm if it was okay to play in internet cafe and they replied it was absolutely fine.

Sir, I think that this is precisely the roots of your trouble.
There are many scenarios possible from that point but it could also be some other "regular users" who did not abuse anything but simply logged into their account from the same computers in cybercafes and Pokerstars linked the accounts to these specific IPs/devices. However, that still would be weird since I guess it's totally fine to play on any device (that's the point of having an online account).

Now even if that's really the case and nobody actually abused anything, good luck convincing them that scenario really happened, especially when they close their eyes and ears to any form of defense coming from you...

But yeah, in the future you should definitely avoid to enter any personal data on a publicly shared computer, because I'm almost certain the accusations towards you come from some things that happened after you logged in on Pokerstars in these cybercafes.
You should maybe try to explain that precisely and tell them all the info you can remember : dates, cities, etc.
If they're just a bit honest (I'm not sure about it, tho), they can maybe check again their logs and make IP checks or things like that...

If really you're innocent, don't give up the fight, don't let them steal your money.

I myself did not log into the computers at the internet cafes.

I used my own laptop and only used their network.

But i guessed it still might had resulted in the many scenarios possible from that point.


I had wrote to Stars Security explaining this situation.

But it seems Stars decided not to respond to me anymore.




What we learned from this is most likely they are going to take away your roll once you played with at least 2 flagged accounts.

So i would advise players to keep a small roll and steer away from players on the site who only recently created their accounts on Stars.

If you sit on a cash table with a new player its better to stop and get away than to risk your roll taken at a later stage.

Zero reply from Stars.

its scary to think that if they could shut down their communication along with your money anytime they deem fit.

Great site to play with the highest traffic, but also the most unpredictable treatment to players now since Amaya took over.

Have you asked them to prove that those multiple other accounts were yours?

Just did an search on all the mentioned screen names and realised that

both shinobistrik and tamagootchi did not even existed.

Invisible players ?[/QUOTE]

They both exist if you search on wtfru

yes i did.

All they could say was that i accessed my account to make use of promotional offerings.

Obviously they could not prove those accounts were mine, but rather maybe i played with one of these accounts and the money was in my roll.

if you are are actually innocent then this is really sinister by pokerstars.

Pretty funny that the security mail notifying you that you've been permanently banned also includes the standard list of suggestions to make your account more secure

I realize it's standardized to be in every security email, but still rubbing salt in the wound

To me it seems like stars accuse you of abusing deposit bonus and then funneling that money into other accounts (I guess your main now banned one)?

Latest update.

After continuously sending emails insisting that they prove those accounts were mine

Pokerstars have now changed their accusation on my account to chip dumping.

From multi accounting to chip dumping.

Well done Pokerstars, whats next ?

Hello Leon,

We are writing to inform you that your account has been investigated due to irregular poker play at our tables. Our investigation has concluded that you have been involved in chip dumping activity.

Please refer to sections 5.8 and 5.9 of our Terms of Service, which clearly state our policy on chip dumping:

5.8. CHIP-DUMPING. Chip-dumping occurs when any User intentionally loses a hand in order to deliberately transfer his chips to another User. Any User who participates or attempts to participate in chip-dumping with any other User, including being the recipient of funds, while using the Service may be permanently banned from using the Service and their User account may be terminated immediately. In such circumstances, Rational Group will be under no obligation to refund to you any monies that may be in your User account at such time.

5.9. FRAUDULENT BEHAVIOR. In the event that Rational Group deems that a User has engaged or attempted to engage in fraudulent, unlawful, dishonest or improper activity while using the Service, including without limitation, engaging in any of the activities set forth in this clause 5 or any other game manipulation, or the making of any fraudulent payment, including without limitation, use of a stolen credit card or fraudulent chargeback or money laundering, Rational Group shall be entitled to take such action as it sees fit, including, but not limited to:

a. immediately blocking a User's access to the Service;

b. terminating a User's account with Rational Group;

c. seizing the funds within a User's account;

d. disclosing such information (including the identity of the User) to financial institutions, relevant authorities and/or any person or entity that has the legal right to such information; and/or

e. taking legal action against a User.

Our complete Terms of Service can be located here:

http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/room/tos/

As chip dumping is not tolerated on our site your account has been permanently deactivated and any funds generated from this activity will be retained .

We wish you all the best with your endeavours outside of our site.



Regards,

Zachary
Stars Security

To enhance the security of your Stars Account, we strongly encourage you to set up our additional security features; Stars PIN, SMS Verification, RSA Token and Security Questions. Activation of these features is extremely simple and can be completed within the 'Account' menu within our software.

We will NEVER ask you to confirm your login credentials or password via email, phone or chat facility or in any way. We do not advise giving your login information to anyone under any circumstances.

95%+ of these posts are the OP leaving out important information. There really is no reason for Pokerstars to personally go after this guy, so they obviously believe the data they have on him. If he is the one in a lot that is completely innocent then that is indeed a shame and depending on the amounts he should get some help, but usually that never happens because the OP knows what he or she is hiding in terms of information.

In theory this person can try to get a reputable poster here to look over his database of hands and represent him in a fight (for a cut if they get it back), but good chance the hands would tell a bit of a different stopry than OP has shared thusfar, so unlikely that will ever happen.

No missing important or whatsoever, i do not know any reputable poster who could represent me here but i would gladly offer an 50% cut