could I get some informed discussion on whether or not I should be hiring a lawyer for this process? FWIW I have mid-high 5 figures on FTP.

And if I should hire a lawyer, what kind of lawyer should I look for? And when should I contact them? Obviously I don't want to rack up a big legal bill for nothing while waiting on the DOJ.

- fwiw I have no tax issues
- I have no phantom deposits or withdrawals to worry about
- While I have close to $8k in points and bonus value I'm willing to let that slide to get the bulk of my balance with the hope that I could earn those bonuses in the future on the site.
- I did not make many player transfers over the years. Probably less than 20 in my 5 years on the site.

I would wait until the claims process is outlined and made public by the claims administrator/DOJ. At that time you will probably better be able to evaluate the EV of hiring a lawyer.

No, I'm not soliciting clients. I don't intend on representing anyone but myself in recovering my own FTP balance, so please don't ask. I've decided that my time and money are better spent on other projects.

When I said you may want to hire or a lawyer if you have a large (big enough to miss) balance, I meant that in the way of a disclaimer. Free legal advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. I don't want anyone here complaining later that I steered you wrong.

For example, one reason you may want to hire or at least consult with a lawyer is if your winnings far exceed you deposits, and FTP/DOJ is unable or unwilling to recover all those phantom deposits leading up to Black Friday.

Read carefully this excerpt from the SDNY AUSA's press release:

By way of background, in April of 2011, this Office entered into a domain-name use agreement with Full Tilt Poker. That agreement, among other things, expressly authorized Full Tilt Poker to return player funds to players. However, as the September 22 amended complaint alleges, Full Tilt Poker did not in fact have player funds on hand to return to players. Instead, the amended complaint alleges that Full Tilt Poker had, among other things, (a) transferred significant amounts of players’ real money deposits to principals of the company, while (b) allowing many players to continue to gamble, and “win” and “lose,” with phantom credits in their player accounts.

Note how they put the words "win" and "lose" in quotations? Note the term "phantom credits"? If that doesn't alarm you it should. There is a distinct possibility that the DOJ may only return our deposit money, not our winnings.

Don't shoot the messenger. I'm only pointing out my concerns.

^ this, no reason to hire anybody yet when there r so many unknowns

If the DOJ is justified in reimbursing players only their deposits, how would hiring a lawyer be beneficial to players seeking whole balances?

Do you realize that the DOJ would owe MORE money if they repaid deposits than if they paid back balances?

Please don't start this nonsense up all over again.

As you've seen ITT, whether or not the DOJ could reasonably decide to only pay back deposits is not a totally clear question. IF the DOJ takes the position that it is only going to pay back deposits, a player who would be getting a relatively small amount either way really doesn't have much of a financial incentive to hire a lawyer in order to challenge the DOJ's stance. If, however, a player had deposited a small amount and run that initial deposit up significantly, that player might well decide that hiring a lawyer to challenge the DOJ's position in court would be worth it...

I'm not an expert on the remissions process, so this might not be a perfect analogy, but in class action lawsuits, people are given the option of opting out of the class action and suing the defendant themselves. Now, most people have small claims, so they just go ahead and opt into the class and take the settlement, but some people who have a very large claim may decide to opt out and try to get a better deal with an individual lawsuit. Given the rather unique nature of some of the issues involved here, a player with a big bankroll locked up on Tilt may decide, if the DOJ's process would pay out only a small amount of his roll, to try to sue the DOJ to argue that the process the DOJ used to determine payout amounts was incorrect.

Do you really need me to answer that? Are you a DOJ troll?

How do you define "justified"? Is the IRS "justified" in claiming some earnings as income and other earnings as tax deferred? Tax lawyers argue these type issues all the time. Lawyers don't find the law, we make it.

If I were representing a client who had millions of dollars in winnings on FTP I would be very creative and diligent in arguing to the DOJ that they would be justified in paying players their whole balances. On the other hand, if I were representing a class action of clients who had lost millions of dollars in deposit money, I would be very creative and diligent in arguing to the DOJ that they would be justified in paying players their deposits only.

Speaking personally and as a player, my wish is that the DOJ pay players our whole account balances. If FTP is unable to secure those phantom deposits due to their bank fraud schemes then let them eat the losses. The players are the victims here, not FTP.

What Bigoldnit said. His post popped up as I was typing mine. This was my whole point about hiring lawyers. If the DOJ doesn't decide to pay us our whole balances it will be impossible to keep lawyers out of the process.

This ^ ... This "debate" has been hashed, rehashed, and jumped the shark twice. For Full Tilt or the DOJ to pay back "deposits", they would need to have not only all the deposits but all the "rake" as well. It makes no sense. IIRC, the DOJ used the "deposits" verbage when Stars hadn't paid us back yet and "deposits" ended up being "account balances".

Did the ROW players get back "deposits" or "account balances"? Why would the rules change for US players?

Time will tell, but I am not worried in the least about getting my deposit versus my account balances. I don't think I or anyone will need to hire a lawyer. My only concern are the questions I laid out before.

That makes sense, but if the DOJ was gonna go ahead and angleshoot like that to begin with, I assume they would make sure they were well within the law to do so, for all cases, regardless of the size of each individual's balance.

The argument 'but judge, I had a lot of money' would then be something like an appeal to pity, so hiring a lawyer would seem futile.

I guess this all hinges on the DOJ actually taking that line to begin with so it's a cross that bridge if it comes sort of thing.

[1] If the DOJ says 'it's balances only' yet you eventually get your millionaire client back his full balance, wouldn't that set a precedent that each other player then should receive his full balance as well?

[2] If you were the DOJ and considered yourself susceptible to a skilled lawyer getting his millionaire client back his full balance, would you choose the line 'it's balances only' to begin with?

I'm sorry I bumped this thread. I didn't really get my question answered (well other than pianospike who pretty much nailed it) and somehow it restarted this stupid debate about deposits vs balances.

sigh...

I feel your pain, believe me.

I wasn't trying to reopen the debate about the deposit vs. balance question. But the more I think about this problem, the more likely it seems to me that the deposit vs. balance question has probably been the main obstacle to us getting our money. It's been nearly two years since BF and a lot of those bank accounts owing those phantom deposits have long since been shut down. That's probably why it was it was part of the PS buy-out deal that the DOJ administer the return of the player accounts. If PS were to try and do this privately they'd likely have to swallow a huge amount of toxic debt. In contrast, the DOJ has the authority to see to it that those phantom deposit could be processed; maybe not all of them, but I suspect at the very least they'll try and settle up the balances of anyone trying to submit a claim.

One more comment and I'm done.

I'm sure everyone is tired of hearing about the deposit vs. balance question. But this issue is really central to the whole way in which the DOJ has treated online poker. At first they thought it violated the Wire Fraud Act and was illegal. Now they've officially opined that it's legal. If online poker were illegal, then arguably all the depositors are victims and we're entitled to our deposits back.

I think everyone in the thread would agree that we knew what we were doing when we made our deposits (or thought we were making our deposits) and any losses we suffered were fair and square. To argue otherwise is to jeopardize the future possibility that online poker will finally be licensed and regulated within U.S. borders.

this just really doesn't make any sense to me. The ability to collect on that debt (imo) had little to do with the settling or sale of FTP assets to Stars, and shouldn't have much to do with the repayment of FTP players (as the amount paid should be sufficient for the vast majority of balances even allowing for processor fees or other losses to settlements). And Stars has to make furter 9 figure payments down the line to the DOJ in order to meet the terms of their settlement. So the DOJ is going to get it's cash regardless of whether they spend hours going after deposits that they may not even legally be able to receive.

I'm not saying they won't, but I don't think they're going to spend the bulk of the time trying to figure out how to collect on phantom deposits; OR that they won't go forward ironing out the remission process due to that pursuit. If they find that they can legally collect on many of those phantom deposits I'm going to assume that it's just icing on the DOJs already very rich cake.

This process had to be discussed and outlined for months before this sale was complete, and the amount the assets were forfeited for and the way that the process has been discussed would not suggest that collecting on that money was ever a priority for the DOJ or stars.

Stars already took care of the toxic debt. they forked over a **** ton of cash. Whether or not the DOJ will try to figure out some bull **** loophole to prevent us from getting our money I don't know. But claiming they don't have the money due to an inability to recover phantom deposits really makes no sense.

all of above is pure speculation. I'm not a lawyer or an expert. Just some one that attempts to use available information and a rational understanding of things. I could be entirely wrong.

thanks for your attempts to provide information to the thread. If you have the time and are so inclined I would greatly appreciate you looking at my original post of lawyer-related questions and attempting to answer each questions specifically. Especially stuff related to type of lawyer, and when to contact.

thanks very much either way.

It seems as if the fair and likely solution to this is to give every person who had an account at Full Tilt poker $50.

This way, they avoid having to deal with phantom deposits, deposit history, etc. My guess is that they will give each person $100 to $150, and then set a date so that the offer expires and they can be done with it.

Now, if all players get $100 that means that those who had $30 in their accounts will make out, while those very few who had large balances (due to phantom deposits, loans from management like Barry G got, colluding, or just playing a game they knew was considered illegal) will feel that they missed out.

In reality, when criminal enterprises like this are shut down, you are lucky to get anything. Take your $100 and give it a spin on roulette the next time you are in Vegas. Or play the powerball. You could even donate it to charity.

To those who have the fantastic, irrational idea that you are going to fill out a form and have the DOJ send you a check for say, 80K, please let the rest of us know what you are smoking. Lol.Lol. Lol.

^^^^^ lolz

So much wrong with that... just wow.

wow the trolls comes out swinging on some days

hi potleemit

I will say this s l o w l y.


I have money on deposit in my bank account

My bank account has a balance.

The money on deposit in my bank account equals my balance.


Sometimes a banana is just a banana.


Bonus questions..............


How many definitions of the word up are there?

Is the word up an adverb, preposition, adjective, noun, or verb?


In other news my gf obtained sushi for my oldest cat as today is his 21 year, 2 month and 5 day birthday.

Happy Thanksgiving!

jesus christ shut up and lets just wait for actual info instead of people who know nothing arguing about something they dont know **** about.

Been gone a while ! Is this deposits vs balances goofy **** still being debated?

Yes. And until the DOJ issues a formal statement resolving the issue, trolls gonna troll, speculators gonna speculate, informed opinion makers will provide informed opinions, and the PPA will advocate for balances. And we will all still have to wait until the DOJ speaks.

Skallagrim

And I thought the original FTP thread was the worst ever. This one is quickly topping it.