FTPSean

So if sillysal is innocent of any wrongdoing how do you plan on compensating her for this grievous action?

Will be interested to see sillysal's response to this.
Not going to look back through the whole thread but I thought she had e-mails where she did not receive a response within 24 hours...hence the reason she was sending the repeat e-mails in the first place.

It makes me wonder if Sean's claims on the e-mails response times are correct or if some of their responses were getting blocked for some reason.


It also appears possible that FT just puts themselves in a position where they are waiting for just one more charge to officially clear or for just one more player to send them ID. And if that player balks on that and just chooses not to respond then players like Sal are just left locked-out while FT waits and waits and waits...and possibly over a situation where the legality of the charge 4 player-degrees of seperation away aren't going to tell much about whether a player like SillySal is involved in anything befarious in the first place...but they are still locking her account and waiting for that last piece of info just for the sake of completeness.

Seriously, if they can say that they're almost finished with the investigation...just hang on a bit longer. And kind of imply that all they're doing is waiting on one more piece of info to complete the whole thing...then it seems like they have mostly already determined that person's innocence or guilt anyway but yet they are still waiting to have every last piece.
This is all EXTREMELY speculative on my part though. Just stringing together some bits and pieces from some of these threads about how these things seem to proceed.

I really don't know what the best way to go about such investigations is. But I suspect FT's way of doing it is probably not it and that Stars' way of doing it is probably much better.

Is it always the case that the player's entire bankroll is frozen? For instance, it would seem like a grave injustice to freeze a $47K bankroll if the amount of money involved (in whatever incident prompted this investigation) is much smaller.

For instance, if I have $50K in my bank account, including a recent $20K deposit of a cashier's check, and if the bank finds reason to believe that the cashier's check may have been counterfeit, I'd fully expect them to put a hold on $20K, but not to freeze the entire account balance.

R.I.F.

I would like to add my voice to these posts. I only play on Full Tilt. And although I haven't had anything like this happen to me (yet), I would like to know if something like this was to happen, that I would be treated fairly throughout the whole process. And thus far, I would not say that Sally has been treated fairly.

Freezing an account and not communicating with the player, even if only to put their fears at ease, just seems like an unwillingness to do the bare minimum of customer support.

I am paying great attention to this thread to see how this all turns out. And how it turns out will have a strong affect on me and whether I continue to do business with Full Tilt.

Sean, do you understand why it is considered insulting to say "if you haven't done anything wrong, then you have nothing to worry about" while a significant amount of money is frozen and there is admittedly limited communication regarding the investigation?

Do you understand why it is considered insulting to say "don't contact us, we'll contact you" while a significant amount of money is frozen and there is admittedly limited communication regarding the investigation?

If someone is proven guilty, he should be treated as such, but NOT until he has been proven guilty and you've communicated that accusation. He is innocent and should be treated as an innocent until he is accused.

Just wondering what your thoughts are on these points.

Let's see if we can somehow get some media attention regarding this. "Fulltilt cheats player out of $47,000" . It would possibly help with the Us poker regulation and maybe slow down all these threads I see regarding frozen fulltilt accounts.

All - FT haven't cheated anyone out of $47k. Given their profile/revenues they have VERY strong disincentives to do so. Especially since sal has brought this matter to 2p2s attention. While they may not have handled this perfectly, they won't confiscate her money without justification.

"Furthermore, a non-response from other players involved is information in and of itself, but it can take a number of days to determine a non-response."

so sillysal is at the mercy of other players, unknown to her, and that they'll respond honestly to FTP? this constitutes an investigation?

learn, chat and play with the pros. i'd love to know how lederer, ferguson, lindgren etc would respond to how this is being handled.

1) So far, FT is guilty of very poor customer service and having piss-poor procedure when it comes to this kind of investigation. What they are NOT guilty of thus far is cheating sillysal out of her money.

2) Absolute Poker HAS admitted to being compromised and thereby allowing its players to be cheated out of at least $700,000. There have been HUGE efforts by poker players here and on other forums to publicize this. This is a MUCH MUCH bigger issue than the FT freeze, yet I don't think it's been more than a blip on the mainstream media.

3) Even if you could get this out there in a huge way, why do you assume it would help with regulation? Isn't it just as likely that right-wing religious zealots might not pick up on it as proof that Internet Gamblin should be banned outright?

Just want to throw my post up for the lack of support that Full Tilt is showing here. It is a shame that you have taken this persons money for the extended time you have and not given ANY information to her. She has been nothing but helpful from what is in this post and you have done little more then spit in her face. A person who over the years has put alot of money into your site. The fact that you take a guilty until proven innocent stance make me and I am sure many more look very unfavorably on your site.

I play micro limits but honestly if this isn't resolved soon for a loyal customer of yours I will take my small BR to PokerStar where they treat the people that play on the site with respect and respond to them when emailing. I emailed support a while back and did not get a simple form response. No response at all. The simple lack of any respect your support seems to be showing the people that fund your site is showing and if you don't fix it you will lose alot of the people that keep your site alive. I may be a small fish in your pond but when all the small fish are gonna the big ones will follow them.

FTP Sean, thank you for taking the time to post, although it does seem a lot of 2+2ers still aren't really satisfied with what they are hearing I'm sure we all appreciate that you personally are doing your best.

Unfortunately it still hasn't been made clear what is the basis of this particular investigation. I can't see how at least a general comment about its focus could prejudice FT in any way. It's very unfair to keep the player concerned in the dark and the rumour mill will keep grinding until that's fixed.

Sillysal mentioned a recent player with poor skills who lost 15k or so to her and 8k elsewhere, there may or may not have been a chargeback following his losses.

If there was a chargeback, I expect I wouldn't be the only one to wonder how such a player was permitted to buy in the order of $23,000 worth of chips on a bad card without FT tumbling to it. I mean c'mon!! Why don't you insist on eyeballing customers who deposit that sort of money? That way you have some chance of pushing liability back to the credit card company. I can't think of any reason why you couldn't ask a local agent to take a physical swipe of a card or obtain a pin number, or insist on one of the Verified for Visa programs or whatever.

Is there an issue about Full Tilt's deposit policy here? People may wonder whether this incident isn't maybe a sign that FT are too lax and are now trying to pass liability for chargebacks onto the other players?

The players themselves are entitled to expect that FT have done a good job in preventing stolen money getting onto the tables, if FT can't do that then I guess the players will just go elsewhere.

I'll also just weigh in on sillysal's behalf if I may, I think it's frankly scandalous that FT have not immediately said that if she is cleared of wrongdoing she will receive interest on her deposit. Surely that's the least they can do, since I'm sure the money isn't just sitting on some security guy's shelf with an "evidence" tag on it!? It should be in a suspense account earning at least nominal interest which sillysal should get.

Right, I guess I am not going to be popular here because everybody seems willing to condemn FTP in this fraud investigation. 99% of replies here are siding with sillysal and if this person is innocent I too have deep sympathy over this. However, once again I have to say the only problem I have is with the supposed lack of customer service offered to sillysal.

I was under the impression that FTP was not responding to emails in a timely manner but FTP confirms that they were responding within 24 hours. To me, this is acceptable. So is somebody lying? Did sillysal get their replies or not? If sillysal was sending duplicate emails then understandably replies to these would not be sent. Do people really think that 24 hours is so unreasonable?

From my perspective though I see a dispute between FTP (a site I believe to be trustworthy) and a player I have no knowledge on. Something is amiss regarding the customer’s account and FTP are investigating. There is only a minimal amount of information that FTP can supply to a public forum on a private case – surely you can all understand that.

Constantly, we get the “why don’t we see these problems with PokerStars?” questions raised. We all know that the customer support of Stars is exceptional in this industry and FTP should strive to reach their level. However, there are factors here that we, as a forum, are not privy to and we cannot expect FTP to give us more information than they have.

If people choose to play on a site other than Stars knowing their customer service is a little slower than the market leader that is all well and good. However, when you have a dispute don’t keep coming out with the “but on Stars……..” argument.

The more I read this thread the more I believe something serious has gone on. Maybe sillysal is innocent, maybe not. I would however, like to know that a full investigation has been completed.

I am a player just like the rest of you and I would not like to be in sillysal’s position if I was innocent. But the investigation must be completed fully. It will be interesting at the end to see the final response from FTP to sillysal. FTP will, I assume, be unable to make this public but I hope sillysal will post a full report to let us really determine how badly FTP has acted.

Here's the problem, Rek. FT has a history of doing this, sillysal is far from the first person to post on here in a situation like this. Also, history shows that if they find sillysal guilty of whatever they are investigating her for, that will be the end of the story. Unless FT has changed their ways from the past, her account will be closed, the money will be taken, and she will never be given a clue as to what she has apparently done wrong.

This history is the context in which everyone is judging FT. FT has done this in the past, promised to improve their CS procedures in light of these events, and now it appears not much has changed. That's why everyone is jumping all over FT, imo.

Thanks Bobo - These past situations though. Are you implying that innocent people have had their accounts frozen and then confiscated? Or that they just don't let the forum know.

Obviously we get all sorts post here and con artists are always posting junk acqusations. Then its like a whispering campaign. I expect a good deal more complaints now about FTP without any real substance to them.

Just my thoughts on it - I am not a FTP appologist but I do want to know and be happy with the fact that any fraudsters get what they deserve. And we all get a fairer game.

I agree with Rek. If FTP has confirmed that they have replied within 24 hours to her emails, and she cannot deny that, then what is the point of brining up their lack of comminication in the past? ( in this case)

Also, I have no problem with FTP having her her account closed, the money will be taken, and she will never be given a clue as to what she has apparently done wrong, if she was guilty.


"you implying that innocent people have had their accounts frozen and then confiscated? Or that they just don't let the forum know."

i guess i AM an FTP apologist, prolly the only one

i assume that this is a mistype, right?

It is a tough call for me. On the one side I've been in Sally's position several times and I know how frustrating it was the first few times.

I also understand FTP's position. Scamming a poker site is relatively easy and almost impossible to prosecute. The amount of attempted fraud is probably a lot higher then most people realize.

The problem is allowing payment processors that advance any form of credit even if only for 2-3 days. It might hurt business a little to not allow people to play until their transactions clear but at least it would put an end to all of this.

I guess you'd have no problem with the police arresting you and throwing you in jail, without ever telling you what the evidence is against you or giving you a chance to defend yourself, if they believed that you were guilty.

Or your bank seizing your accounts and accusing you of bank fraud, without ever telling you what the evidence is against you or giving you a chance to defend yourself, if they believed that you were guilty.

It is not that they never will tell you only that they will not tell you for some time. Most legal jurisdictions do allow for detainment without a showing of cause under certain circumstances.

Oldboy!

The point is that if FTP decides that you are guilty, you will *never* see the evidence against you, and will only have a vague idea of what you were charged with in the first place.

ftp support is seriously the biggest [censored] joke ever and they should be shut down untill they employ non ******ed human beings that can read, speak english and can type on a key board. untill then they should burn in hell.

You can always go to the press about this. Online poker has been in the focus recently, and I'm sure they'd love a story on the risks of playing online that didn't involve the cheating by players, but rather the security of one's money in the sites.

Brilliant - any more bright ideas