Hello,

I've recently received been banned by PartyPoker and, as a result of this ban, they have decided to confiscate all of the funds on my account. I do not know what I did wrong and they do not seem particularly interested in explaining to me what I did. I would like to resolve the issue they have with me, but thus far they seem to be completely unwilling to help me in any way.

To give you some background: I am an adult living in Canada, who used to play online poker regularly approximately 9-10 years ago. I stopped playing regularly around 2010 because I was a student and I felt like I needed to concentrate more on my studies. Since then, I never really got back into poker again and have probably only played a handful of times since.

Flash ahead to Saturday, April 13, 2019. I had a free Saturday evening and thought it would be fun to play a couple of tournaments. I signed up on PartyPoker and tried to make a $200 CAD deposit with my credit card. The deposit did not go through because my bank, TD, apparently does not allow transactions with online gaming sites. I remembered that I had an InstaDebit account from when I played regularly years ago and tried logging in to my account to see if it was still set open. It was, everything seemed to be good, so I deposited the $200 CAD using my old InstaDebit account and it worked. Or so I thought.

From there, I played a couple of tournaments, one of which was a $22 bounty tournament. Luckily, I won the tournament for a payout of approximately $800 CAD. By the time I was finished playing for the night, I had an account balance of around $925 CAD.

I was pretty pumped about this and already had plans to start playing more regularly. However, I'm pretty busy with work and my home life, so I didn't get a chance to play again. A few days later, I received an email from PartyPoker stating that my original deposit had been returned. They seemed to be under the impression that I made some sort of dispute. They asked for an explanation, and also wanted a copy of my bank statement for verification purposes. I sent them a copy of my bank statement, but I had no explanation about this dispute because I have absolutely no idea what this was about.

Around this time, I also received an email from InstaDebit that said the transaction I made was returned and refused by my bank. Again, no idea why. InstaDebit said my account was banned but offered no explanation as to why. I emailed them back, but they have not responded to me. I contacted a live agent and they straight up told me there was nothing they can do for me, and that I have to wait for them to respond to my email, which could take up to 5 days.

I tried explaining all of this to PartyPoker and asked them multiple questions about what was happening. They told me that they were taking $200 CAD out of the funds on my account for the deposit that did not go through (leaving me with $725 CAD), which is fair and I completely understand. They also told me that I needed to get a letter from my bank that says the deposit issue was a problem on their end and that they are at fault. I talked to my bank and they have no record of any transaction from my account in relation to InstaDebit, so they basically can't tell me anything about what happened, and with still no word from InstaDebit, I am still completely in the dark as to what even happened with this transaction.

I tried explaining to situation to PartyPoker and their response has been to ban my account permanently because of a security risk and to confiscate all the funds in my account. They have not answered any of my questions and are not offering any explanation as to why they have made this decision. I tried calling them and the rep I spoke with would only say that I violated the terms and conditions, but would not offer any further clarifications. I could not get her to tell me what I did wrong, what section of the terms and conditions I violated, and she did not offer me any solutions for how I can resolve this issue.

I do not know what to do from this point forward. I have verified my identity with them, I have verified my bank account, and I have offered to make a deposit through an alternate method, but they are simply unwilling to help me in any way. I do not believe I did anything wrong. I feel very cheated by this company, especially because they are not giving me time to figure out what happened and they are not giving me the option to resolve the issue at all.

I'm incredibly frustrated by all of this and would like to get my account ban lifted and the funds that I won returned to my account. Is anyone able to help me?

Your first paragraph is quite odd in that you claim to have no idea what the problem is, but then go on to explain the problem in the rest of your post. Hopefully you were a little less contradictory/more clear in your communication with Party.

Here's where I think they're at. If you either deposited fraudulently, or deposited legitimately and then reversed it, you'd be freerolling them. You could play some tournaments, and if you lose, you walk away. If you win and they simply deduct the fraudulent/reversed deposit, they are allowing themselves to be freerolled. When you basically replied that you couldn't prove that you didn't freeroll them, they decided to confiscate your funds.

Sounds to me like you have to get something from your bank or Instadebit showing why your deposit was returned, like they asked you to do. Depositing from another payment method doesn't help the situation - if your original intent was to freeroll them, the deposit doesn't change that.

Hey, thanks for the response. And sorry about the confusion. To clarify, when I said I had no idea what the problem was, I meant I don't know why the transaction was reversed. Hopefully InstaDebit will respond to me soon to elaborate on exactly what happened there.

Thanks for the explanation. Your response has been much more clear than theirs. I certainly didn't intend to freeroll them. I made a genuine attempt to deposit, but something happened along the way to reverse it, the details of which I don't know at this point. I guess I am forced to wait for InstaDebit to get back to me for now.

Some general points here:
-You should keep records of all your communication with the operator.

-You should proof read what you write to them (and post on this forum) before sending/posting it. Make sure that a stranger can understand what you are saying. Imagine that you're writing to someone who is smarter than you, but who knows nothing about the issue at hand.

-In the first instance, if you are unhappy with their initial decision, contact them directly, and let them know why.

-If, after directly explaining your point of view, you continue to have a dispute, ask for the issue to be escalated for re-review.

-Many legitimate gaming operators have licenses from Governments where they "operate". In the case of many online operators, the jurisdiction that they "operate" in are where their servers are located. If you continue to be unhappy, you can approach the regulator with your concerns. You can obtain the contact details either by searching on the internet, or by asking the gaming site to give them to you.

-If the regulator is not an option, or does not satisfactorily resolve your concern, you may be able to consider taking legal action. Please consult a professional legal adviser for further assistance with this.

-You'll get more sympathy from the forum if you post - clearly - a copy of all correspondence with the site.

The bolded text is my favourite part though, why not imagine their dumber than you so you articulate your argument more clearly then you would otherwise?

Maybe you deposited with an inactive account and set off some triggers for them to reverse the transaction. I think if you showed them your bank account with $50,000 in it, they wouldn't think you were freerolling them and give you a pass.

Because I think that someone smarter than you can pick out the flaws in what you're saying, and therefore demands more of you.

Just forget Party and move on.