Can anyone suggest whether it is best to initiate a withdrawal, or simply leave the money in the site until the situation is more clear?

Withdrawals are not being processed.
So there would be no point in initiating one

I reversed my withdrawal before the money could 'disappear'

I would recommend to leave your money in the site, as the issue is with the company dealing with withdrawls etc. Although most people seem to agree that it really wouldn't matter whether the money was in MG's hands or Tusk's.

ya not suprised some donk wanting to pay off the lil fish, not to metion just casue someone has thousands online dont mean they dont need it

TMcStacks will plz stop posting?

It makes no difference, as the poker skins have stated, Tusk handled ALL the money 100% of the time.

a) Rednines also used purchaseonnet.com, so far in this thread I think it only had been mentioned in regards to battlefield.

b) Since the skin managers obviously can't help, I tried contacting MGS (generalenquiries@microgaming.com)

Obviously they haven't replied and probably feel confident that they can ignore such e-mails with how little play this story has been getting so far.

I think that has to change, at the very least we should start spreading the word on some of the major poker community sites and the SSNL -> HSNL forums on here. Yes, there are forum posts here and there, but imho it should be a major news item on just about every site out there.

God knows, maybe some players will even show solidarity and withdraw their money and play somewhere else until this matter has been resolved. We are being treated like we can't do anything, I don't believe thats true.

My question's been ignored but I still don't see how we as players can prove that the skins/Tusk/Microgaming owe us a definite amount of money.

These Tusk fellows really are a piece of work. If they had any intention of giving back the account balances they would have before announcing their liquidation.

They are scum.

Does ANYONE have a record of account balances? MGS? Skins? Anyone?

Or has all that information disappeared when they took the sites off line?

We could politely ask the skin managers to formally confirm our account balances by mail (much like a bank statement).

The big question isn't really how to prove we had money in the account imho, its who is accountable if tusk has no money left.

I took a screenshot just in case on the day this happend, even though I doubt that carries any weight at least I know for myself how much money I had in there. Btw I can still login and check my account balance, I just can't withdraw the money.

As I already hinted in my last post, I think the most important thing at the moment would be to get more publicity for these events. With AP things only got fixed when there was overwhelming pressure to do so. Right now its a bunch of guys whining on a 2+2 thread, its not hurting their business and they can just go on as if nothing happend.

if your acct still comes up with a balance, take a screen shot with the time and date. thats what i did when this all went down..

u are abso right this needs more press coverage, if this happend on Ft or stars it would make national 5 oclock news, i hardly hear crap about it isurf poker forums, poker mag sites etcetc and yet this is the most info i can find is 2+2 thread or come across some article sayin tusk is in liqudation yet most article dont say **** about tusk keepin players funds

MGS probably knows account balances for every player at every room in a central system, I'm assuming. When you join a table and it says your account balance and asks how much you want to buy in for, I'm guessing that this is part of the central network system information rather than the individual skin. Just guessing though.

I did take a screen shot (with the pop-up that says the room has been shut down by Microgaming to prove when the shot was taken) so that I have something at least in case it proves useful.

On the publicity issue - I suggested in the 2p2 Pokercast forum that they discuss it on air, which they did last week and are continuing the coverage this week. Props to the Pokercast guys for doing this.

I also wrote to Big Poker Sundays (Poker Road) since they had great coverage of the Absolute scandal. They did not bring it up, and I'm guessing that they never will since they are sponsored by Doyle's Room. I plan to e-mail them again about this and call them out about burying this because it could affect a sponsor. Others might consider doing the same.

We should probably all be e-mailing Bluff and Cardplayer to ask them to cover the story as well, but judging by how slow they were to acknowledge the Absolute situation I don't expect them to help us with publicity, as other MGS rooms buy ads in their magazines.

I also put a post up asking 2p2 to stop taking ads from MGS rooms and was flamed all to hell, and one asking affiliates to stop promoting other MGS rooms which didn't really receive any responses.

Any other ideas?

those are all great ideas

I think my idea could work as well in terms of spreading the info to players already on the site.

Mentioning this on as many poker forums as you know could be the next step.

you communist piece of ****ing ****

thanks mlschaff for your ideas, i am writing emails to those magazines now.

Out of interest, someone should post a poll in NVG to gauge how many people actually know about this debacle. I'd do it myself but I don't know how to.

I think the thing to do now is to have all players boycott the MGS network and all skins on the network until we get an answer from MGS of a plan going forward with regards to player balances. This is the only thing that we as players can do about the situation. I know this is a drastic step, but I have been waiting patiently for two weeks and still no concrete response from MGS. I understand why Tusk is not responding as they are in the liquidation process and probably will not be covering player balances. But MGS is still a thriving network and business, and its silence towards the players that support their network is disturbing. I’m not looking for a complete solution from MGS right now as the process is most likely a lengthy one, but at least a plan going forward (or at least some options). For example, are they looking into transferring our accounts to another network skin? Will MGS cover partial or full player balances if players are not paid by the liquidators? How long approximately will the liquidation process take?

If all players boycott the MGS network, then they will be forced to answer questions. If the player traffic all of a sudden decreases by half or more over the course of a week, then MGS will have no choice but to issue answers or risk losing millions (or potentially their entire business) in reduced player traffic. I encourage all methods in this boycott. You can do it by telling others with the poker chat facility, blogs, forums, or media (web, radio, or TV). With everyone being so silent, the players need to step up and force the action. I'm tired of just sitting here waiting.

The problem is that it is a pretty complicated situation- can you really imagine Joe and Gavin talking about what skins are, etc? Maybe someone who understands what has gone on could write a statement explaining this situation that everyone could send out to the media. It needs to address the relationships between all the businesses involved, what has occurred to get to this mess, what is likely to happen and the severity of this(estimates on figures and numbers affected). Also, does anyone know the sort of numbers involved, or are battlefield unwilling to release this?

I think earlier in the thread someone posted a link to Tusk's financials which show player balances at around $6mil, and the company as a whole around $22mil.

That might have been the numbers in the past however. Maybe not reflective of today's numbers.

Roger Raatgever - CEO Microgaming- potential contact

Also from Microgaming site:

Why MGS consider themselves different from other operators

We were the founding members of IGC and eCOGRA – so we lead the industry in adopting ‘gold standards’ of player protection, fair gaming and responsible operator conduct

So there are already 2 people to burn if the player balances are not payed

Is anyone getting or trying to get into contact with the liquidator themselves?

Since this legal term "held in trust" seems to be essential I have started to ask my poker rooms if the money deposited in their accounts are held in trust. You may help me in this work so the list in the end of this post will be pretty complete. This is the letter I sent to the poker rooms I play in:
"Hi
My money at another poker site in the Microgaming network is at risk since the company that manage the players accounts seems to have economical difficulties or they have simply stolen the players money. I'm talking about Tusk Investment Corporation. I'm pretty sure you know what I'm talking about. The issue is lively discussed at the twoplustwo forum and a lawyer has a post in that thread in which he claims that it's not safe to deposit money in any poker sites unless the money is - as the legal term read - "held in trust". So now I want an answer for this simple question: Is the money that player deposit in the Ladbrokes poker client held in trust?
Regards
Kent Andersson"

English is not my native language but the message should be clear enough i think.
The lists have until now following format (I have included the poker rooms that I have sent the above letter to):

Poker rooms where money is held in trust
"Poker rooms name" - "date when question was answered/YYYY/MM/DD"

Poker rooms where money is NOT held in trust
"Poker rooms name" - "date when question was answered"

Poker rooms and others who yet haven't answered the question if money is held in trust
"Poker rooms name"
Ladbrokes
Full Tilt Poker
Neteller

Have anyone here an account on the rawpoker skin ? ... There site is still up and their software works ok still. But they do not reply to ANY enquiries.

And ive depositied 90% of my bankroll there three weeks ago. This sucks.