Hi, sorry for my English.

I am a player 888poker since December, 2016 (my username Lucky_Alf), actively played poker and regularly took bonuses of casino. On December 20, 2017 I have received the mail from operation department 888 that my account Lucky_Alf is blocked because of violations of bonus policy and all available money won't be returned (about 9300$).
On all my numerous mails to operation department and support service 888 with explanations and a request to return my money I received standard answers that this is final decision, the account remains blocked, and all money will be confiscated. They don't want to enter to me into a correspondence, to speak with me by phone, don't even want to listen to my explanations.

I created a dispute in eCOGRA, a month waited for an answer from them, eventually received a letter from them that they are taking side 888 and denying me my requirements. They also did not reply to my subsequent letters.

I ask the help of experienced players who have already encountered such problems.
Where else can I write a complaint?
What other organizations, other than eCOGRA, can help resolve this dispute with 888 in my favor?

From my experience being flagged as suspicious, as well the responses in this thread, I'm
certain that 888 has a severely inadequate bot detection system. They need to allocate a lot more resources towards this problem. Otherwise either players will continue to be wrongfully banned, or they will become infested with bots, or even both.

Sent from my SM-N920W8 using Tapatalk

https://www.888poker.com/security-an...ment-uk/#par13

13. Disputes

7. The above procedure and guidance will not, of course, limit you from filing any claim with the courts in accordance with the Governing Law section below or referring a gambling transaction dispute out-of-court through the European Commission's Online Dispute Resolution Platform found here or affect any rights which you may have under applicable law.

They have a licencing requirement from the UKGC to report GLOBAL account suspensions for cheating, the total amounts seized and what happens to those funds.

If they are avoiding UK Accounts that matters not at all - because the cheating would affect UK players and the reports make clear it is for ALL account suspensions/fund seizures.

Thanks, now I'll try to send a complaint there.

P.S. I can't create a complaint. To submit a complaint on this site, you must be a resident of a country that's part of the EU. I'm from Russia.

Unless there are different T&C for players in Russia, it looks like you'll have to go with:

23. Governing Law

The User Agreement and the relationship between the parties shall be governed by, and interpreted in accordance with the laws of England and Wales. Without prejudice to your right to refer your dispute to an alternative dispute resolution procedure with eCOGRA or the European Commission's Online Dispute Resolution Platform, if you wish to take court proceedings against us you must do so in the English courts which both you and we submit to.

Maybe PM 888Rep, here, for further advice?

(Btw, 13.8. states: Please note that in the event you may have any claim or dispute which involves players that do not play in the UK, eCOGRA’S dispute resolution services as stated above will not apply to you. However, if such other player plays in any EU member state other than the UK, you can refer the gambling transaction dispute through the European Commission's Online Dispute Resolution Platform found here.)

*

Edit: Actually, as you are in Russia, from the previously linked T&C:

1.3. PLEASE NOTE: These Terms of Service shall only apply to you if you play or register an account in the United Kingdom (the "UK"). If you do not play or register an account in the UK, please see here.

From that link:

25. Governing Law

The User Agreement and the relationship between the parties shall be governed by, and interpreted in accordance with, the laws of Gibraltar and you irrevocably submit, for the benefit of the Company, to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Gibraltar to settle any disputes (including claims for set off and counterclaims) which may arise in connection with the creation, validity, effect, interpretation or performance of, or the legal relationships established by, the User Agreement or otherwise arising in connection with the User Agreement.

Hey guys,

got this email from 3 days ago:


Dear ****,

This is the Operations Team at 888poker and we are contacting you with regards to your account with username "****".

As you may be aware we carry out security checks on all of our members at some point during their membership with us. During a security check on your account we have been alerted to suspicious activity indicating that the use of Artificial Intelligence may be involved.

The use of Artificial Intelligence is strictly against our User Agreement and will not be tolerated on our site and as a result your account has been suspended. If you have any information which would assist with our investigation or if you feel that the decision to place restrictions on your account has been taken in error, please contact us so that we can clarify the situation.

Have the last 20k hands a winrate of Ev bb/100 about 30.(20k is not a big sample)
They do not write me back, so i don't know what to do.....
Did anyone have such a case?

ng

These online poker Ponzi schemes and the “agencies” that “regulate” them are so got damn corrupt it’s mind bending.

That email basically reads like this to me:
1. You accepted the prejudicial ToS when you signed up.quote

2. Quote ToS, emphasis added for effect.

3. Restate to you the particulars of the situation/problem which actually prompted your complaint. (Acct banned, winnings confiscated)

4. Assure you there’s ample evidence that you’re a cheating scumbag, but refuse to discuss, share detail, show you the evidence. Wait, wut? Wtf not?

They may just as well have written you this:

Dear ____,
Thank you for your complaint. We made 888 aware and they offered to split your winnings with us... so have a nice day, cheater. Hahaha *middle finger*.

Best,
Croniehorse****agencyalliancefortheftandgeneral*** *eryagainstpokerplayers, Esq.


And ppl wonder why there are always claims of foul play online. This is foul as it g.damn gets. But make one negative comment about a major online room, and the hounds of 2+2 are out for blood. It’s definitely not a logical response.


I wish you luck.

This is messed up cuz now the US is using 888 for intrastate poker. I wonder if dumb stuff like this is going on with the regulated US sites that 888 runs. How can you trust them or feel secure whatsoever having your funds on a site ran like this.

Not much reason to play on 888 anyway, theres plenty soft sites with actual rb

I had a "You're guilty!, now go ahead and try to prove your innocence to us" experience from 888 before. That site is the nut low on customer service, support, and trustworthiness. How anyone would choose to play on 888 when they routinely and repeatedly confiscate player funds in a "guilty until proven innocent" manner is beyond me.

I'm not sure the point of my post was understood so I'll go ahead and rephrase it. it seems to me that online poker players are better protected from site misbehavior in some countries (like the UK) which have strong consumer regulation than they are in others.

MH's post above seems to confirm my layman's observation.

Not at all sure anything much can be done about that in the short term, but then I know fa about gambling and consumer regulation in Russia.

And again, 888 is d/s so don't play there.

Have this mass banning effected any tournament players or only cash players?

Hi all,

This is Yeekoyok. I am a small stakes reg on 888. I have been played on 888 for more than 5 years. I played more than a million hands on the site.

A month ago 888 sent me this e-mail:

"This is the Operations Team at 888poker and we are contacting you with regards to your account with username "Yeekoyok".

As you may be aware we carry out security checks on all of our members at some point during their membership with us. During a security check on your account we have been alerted to suspicious activity indicating that the use of Artificial Intelligence may be involved.

The use of Artificial Intelligence is strictly against our User Agreement and will not be tolerated on our site and as a result your account has been suspended. If you have any information which would assist with our investigation or if you feel that the decision to place restrictions on your account has been taken in error, please contact us so that we can clarify the situation."


I only used Holdem Manager 1 on the site (which is allowed) and nothing else.

Since then I tried to ask them many times, what specific rule of theirs they think I broke. They always copy pasted the same bs, that decision still stands, so on.
They just won't answer it seems. I still can not log in, my money is still unavailable. I am really disappointed that this happened. So to fight for my truth I opened this topic.

What would you do in my place, to solve the situation? How can this happen to innocent people (I know I am not the first one) that they are just banned, and their money is seized without any warning because of a buggy software?

I am looking forward to hearing your stories too, and any advice which can help to reopen my account. I feel really bad that a poker site can treat a customer like this.

Please 888rep if you read this, help in my case because I feel ignored by 888. I don't believe they are investigating anything, they just trust their software which has been proven wrong many times and ban innocent people sending them copy pasted e-mails all the time.

If they confiscated your money, you can appeal to the relevant regulator.

This depends where your account is registered - if you post what country you are resident of, I can post the details of the regulator.

As someone who plays on Party, Stars and 888 and had my account suspended in error 2x and consequently cleared in less than 24h on Stars, but was never suspended on either Party or 888, yet have been on receiving end of these, let’s call them “study groups” of players, all I can say is, sure 888 is closing winning accounts for no reason and than there is this bridge you can buy.

These guys know exactly what they are doing and so does 888, but unlike your typical bot, what they are doing is admittedly somewhat harder to prove. No, I will not elaborate, the less we talk about it the fewer people will get any bright ideas.

And as for closing accounts, were some closed in error, probably, but as far as I am concerned if you do nothing more than have a study group you confess to online and than share tables with members of the group, you should have your account closed. Everyone who knows what’s going on, knows it’s much more to it than just softplay or even outright collusion, but let’s leave it at that.

Watching the wsop on ESPN, couldn’t help but notice all the commercials saying come to play 888 where it is the fairest environment, found it hard to believe

But if they ban all winning accounts I’ll come play there

Hi Josem! Thanks for your help. I hope I won't have to do that. Even if the chance is faint, I still believe they realize their mistake and reopen my account. I can wait for any real reaction from 888. At least for a little more time...

Not again, looks like another 888 fail.

Come on guys, sort it out. You losing so much credibility.

I've withdrawn a lot more $$$ than I would have because of this issue. Can't have my funds being locked down.

I will withdraw another $500 today because of this post Greengold. Thanks for letting us know

Hello, I, as a loyal player in 888 poker, did not expect such a thing from them at all, because I was a valuable player for them who made deposits periodically, and how many of them I couldn’t say for sure, but in the period of 7 years there were probably a lot, but not the point, in short there was nothing to do in the evening, I decided to ride freerolls, you probably know such a $ 3,000 lucky BLAST there, won a prize in general $ 5 a ticket, then won 15 bucks in the end and drove them up to 60 bucks, but since my financial situation was a little flawed at that time I put them to the conclusion, before that, so I never put the sums on the withdrawal, I put the minimum at $ 200. On the conclusion I put on Wednesday 12/12/2019 they promised in 2 days, but 5 days passed and I checked the cash desk on Monday, they all stood there, then I accidentally pressed cancel output button (this button works like two cancel and not interesting buttons for me), realizing that I made a mistake I immediately put the output back to the output, realizing that the scan countdown will be changed again, so I turned to the support chat , told them about my financial problem that they need funds for food and what would they fix my mistake to abolish the means that would not have to wait so long, she replied that he could not do it and I said that because of them (out of a poker game) experience problems with finances so your account will be suspended within 72 hours. They didn’t answer me anymore, they just sent me a letter saying that I’m an addicted player who should immediately delete their account and never play again. They just destroyed all my efforts, because I spent so much time there and gained great experience and played not a bad level due to my deposits , and they do this to me in difficult times, not humanly, I was depressed and destroyed, Please tell me how to understand their logic and why they made such conclusions? My nickname is 888 poker serygad, help me figure it out.

It is industry standard nowadays to exclude people for begging to withdraw quicker as they need it for food. It's probably the right thing for everyone involved too.

888 have the slowest cash outs in the world.. many better places to play

thanks bros, i spent 2 pages reading until i came upon "imfromsweden" account whereas i realised im reading a old thread. sick bump

They keep the money from the innocent victims.

Where is eCOGRA or Uk Gaming commission holding this site accountable?

Unreal

Well it does not look like any 2+2 UK players have...

>experienced the ban
>had to go to the regulator

Or, if they have they are not interested in sharing the experience?

Regulators only gonna regulate if somebody complains.