I have been advised to post in this thread my experience at GGPoker. I made a deposit on GG for about $350 and was playing one morning when this hand happened:

Poker Hand #RC533106861: Hold'em No Limit ($1/$2) - 2021/09/26 13:22:09
Table 'RushAndCash713458' 6-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: 8ed62965 ($193 in chips)
Seat 2: 14b54568 ($243.72 in chips)
Seat 3: 411a3bfa ($213.6 in chips)
Seat 4: 93240853 ($247.68 in chips)
Seat 5: 89f9b1ea ($257.88 in chips)
Seat 6: Hero ($226.8 in chips)
14b54568: posts small blind $1
411a3bfa: posts big blind $2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to 8ed62965
Dealt to 14b54568
Dealt to 411a3bfa
Dealt to 93240853
Dealt to 89f9b1ea
Dealt to Hero [2h 2d]
93240853: raises $2 to $4
89f9b1ea: calls $4
Hero: calls $4
8ed62965: folds
14b54568: folds
411a3bfa: folds
*** FLOP *** [2s 5h 2c]
93240853: checks
89f9b1ea: bets $7.5
Hero: calls $7.5
93240853: calls $7.5
*** TURN *** [2s 5h 2c] [5d]
93240853: checks
89f9b1ea: checks
Hero: bets $25
93240853: raises $25 to $50
89f9b1ea: calls $50
Hero: raises $165.3 to $215.3 and is all-in
93240853: raises $20.88 to $236.18 and is all-in
89f9b1ea: folds
Uncalled bet ($20.88) returned to 93240853
93240853: shows [5c 5s] (Four Fives)
Hero: shows [2h 2d] (Four Twos)
*** RIVER *** [2s 5h 2c 5d] [Ah]
89f9b1ea: shows [As Ac] (Aces Full over Fives)
*** SHOWDOWN ***
93240853 collected $509.1 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $518.1 | Rake $6 | Jackpot $3 | Bingo $0
Board [2s 5h 2c 5d Ah]
Seat 1: 8ed62965 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet) with Pair of Fives and Pair of Twos
Seat 2: 14b54568 (small blind) folded before Flop with Pair of Fives and Pair of Twos
Seat 3: 411a3bfa (big blind) folded before Flop with Pair of Fives and Pair of Twos
Seat 4: 93240853 showed [5c 5s] and won ($509.1) with Four Fives
Seat 5: 89f9b1ea folded on the Turn
Seat 6: Hero showed [2h 2d] and lost with Four Twos

After not believing that I could lose with quads and after Daniel Negreanu is done doing that stupid dance I thought I saw something about a jackpot. I then looked at my cashier and saw that I had around $50,000. I couldn't believe it and figured it had to be some kind of glitch. I went to the website and saw the badbeat jackpot promotion and read through all the rules and every qualification was met. I was extremely excited as I have never won anything like that in my life, and it was more money than I'd ever seen before in my life. I didn't think it was real though and didn't get my hopes up too much because I just had a feeling that GG was never going to let me cash out.

My account was not verified because I never planned on cashing out. When I created the account, I didn't send them the documents right away because I don't like to send my personal documents to a gambling website without a good reason to do so. When I play poker online, I look at it as entertainment and I don't ever plan on cashing out and I just try to play and win but mainly I know eventually I am going to lose and I just try to get as many hours as I can out of each deposit. Now this obviously changed that and I tried to make a withdrawal and couldn't. I knew it was going to difficult to cash out and the cashier said I can make a withdrawal but I kept getting an error. Then I read a little more closely and the the daily limit is $500 and the minimum withdrawal is $1,000. Since this is impossible, I was like ok here we go and so I e-mailed them and tried to get this worked out.

Here is the e-mail correspondence between myself and GG and you can see what a frustrating process it is because of how they pretend to play dumb, they take a long time to respond and 1/2 the time they don't even respond at all. Their responses are vague and seem to be copy and pasted.

I seperated each email with ----------------- and all my emails start with Hello Team GG,

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Hello Team GG,

I couldn't help but notice that the tournament I paid for must have been cancelled??? It was scheduled for 12:30pm today but is now gone. What happened to it? I trust that I will be getting a full refund for the entry fee that I just wasted on Day 1 since the final stage never happened?

Also there are a couple problems that I am having on the site. Like for instance, I went to make a withdrawal but couldn't. It's because it is really difficult to withdrawal an amount that is under $500 and over a $1000. Not sure if you are aware of this or not but that's a real issue. If there are numbers in the solar system that you are aware of that exist where this would fall under your umbrella of being able to make a withdrawal then I would love to know what it is.

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Hi,

Thank you for contacting GGPoker Support.

Firstly, we apologize for the server issues that required server Maintenance, which in turn caused us to pause and cancel some of our tournament offerings today - this is far from the level of service we strive to provide!

All paused tournaments have been canceled and will be refunded as per tournament cancellation policy.

Please note that all canceled tournaments, funds from cash games, failed buy-ins or funds won at the tables will be returned within 48 hours.

Should 48 hours pass and you have not been refunded, please contact us back again and we will investigate the refund for you.

Please note that the below Trophy events will be resumed next Sunday at the same time:
#19: Beijing Capital Cup (11:00 GMT)
#20: Golden Week Main Event [Final Day] (12:30 GMT)

Again, we apologize for this inconvenient issue.

Kind regards,
GGPoker Support

Shawn
GGPoker Help COM
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I sent 3 e-mails that they ignored and didn't respond to then I sent the following

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Hello Team GG,

When did I receive that refund because I didn't see it in the client in the balance history? Also I logged out earlier today and had $32,415.87 and wrote down that number. When I logged back in a couple of hours later I had $32,046.12 which is $369 less. That number is very close to the amount you say you refunded me. Probably not a coincedence right? So you refund me to show me that you took care of the tournament and then you steal it right back and thought I wouldn't notice? I notice everything. I notice the amounts that are missing and I watch my cashier like a hawk. I am writing down and recording my balance and the times that my balance is and noting any "glitches" or "issues" that would lead to my money being stolen.

I have a question about the verifcation. You accepted and took my money that I deposited on the site correct? I deposited BTC with real money that was taken from my account and you accepted it and if this is a real money online poker site then the money should be real as well correct? I don't understand why you would need me to verify my identity after you accepted my initial deposit and I played with that money and bet with that money. If I make a bet and it gets called and I lose. I don't get that money back and if I win then I am supposed to keep the pot. So who I am shouldn't a thing to you AFTER the game is played. I have the ability to send you these documents right away but I am a little hesitate about sending my personal documents to someone who has stolen from me and cheated me the entire time I have interacted with them. I don't know what you would do with these documents because you don't need them and you shouldn't need them to honor the bets that have already been made.

Can you guarantee me that when I provide you these documents that I will be able to make a full withdrawal without any issues? I saw that it has to be the same as my deposit method so I would need to go through coinpayments but I don't trust them. I would like to avoid them. I don't see why you can't just provide me with a check or why you can't just wire me the money? If you don't honor the bets made on your site and the money isn't real then you don't really have a business once people know this. If the money is real and the bets are honored then it shouldn't be an issue to simply let me make a full withdrawal.

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Hi,

Thank you for contacting GGPoker Support.

Please find attached your balance history for the period covering October 4th 00:00 UTC until the last transaction made October 5th at 15:46 UTC.

With regards to the refund it was issued on 2021-10-05 02:28:51 UTC as shown in the history (two separate transactions of $50 and $332.60)

No debits were made by GGPoker from your account, all other transactions are from regular gameplay which you will note in the history.

Please note the balance history is not fully accurate, however the cashier transaction history will document all account ingoings and outgoings including deposits/withdrawals, T$ transactions, C$ transactions and ticket history. You can access this from the cashier.

In relation to your verification query - players are allowed to deposit and withdraw to a certain limit without verifying their account however, verification may be requested by GGPoker at any time.

Kind Regards,

Gary
GGPoker Support

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Hello Team GG,


Then you tell me how I make a withdrawal that is over $1,000 and under $500??????????

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Hello,

Thank you for contacting GGPoker Support.

As an unverified player (yet to have verified your identity and address) you have a 30 day withdrawal limit of $500. At this moment, you still have $500 remaining on that limit.

If you verify your account, this will automatically be increased and you will have a $50K limit for 30 days.

You'll need to provide a digital photograph of the below documents.
A Bank statement or Utility bill (name and address visible) The document must be issued within the last 3 months. Please, note that screenshots will not be accepted. Online documents must be provided in PDF and pictures of a paper document in JPEG.
A Photo ID (passport or drivers licence). This document must be in date and not expired.
Hope this was helpful and if you need further assistance, please don't hesitate to ask.

Kind regards,
Tng
GGPoker Support

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Hello Team GG,

To confirm what you said in your e-mail I can withdraw $500 every thirty days until my account is verified? I saw that it says I need a $1,000 minimum on top of the $500 limit which we both know is impossible. Also, I don't really trust coinpayments so can I send you a wallet ID instead so I don't have to go through them?

I have a question about your instructions and about the whole process in general. So it just can't be a screenshot or a PNG? As long as it as a JPEG or a PDF then it is ok? I don't understand how if it can't be a screenshot how it could be a digital photograph? I have to take a picture of it even if I then turn that photo into a pdf so would that be ok?

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Hello,

Thank you for contacting GGPoker Support. Unfortunately as advised by a previous agent we would require some documentation before you can get your limits increased.

As an unverified player (yet to have verified your identity and address) you have a 30 day withdrawal limit of $500. At this moment, you still have $500 remaining on that limit.

If you verify your account, this will automatically be increased and you will have a $50K limit for 30 days.

You'll need to provide a digital photograph of the below documents.
A Bank statement or Utility bill (name and address visible) The document must be issued within the last 3 months. Please, note that screenshots will not be accepted. Online documents must be provided in PDF and pictures of a paper document in JPEG.
A Photo ID (passport or drivers licence). This document must be in date and not expired.
Hope this was helpful and if you need further assistance, please don't hesitate to ask.

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Ailis
GGPoker Help COM

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After ignoring my emails for a couple of days I sent another one.

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Hello Team GG,

I am trying to upload those documents that you requested but am running into an issue because I cannot change the address that is in my profile. I moved since signing up and that is an old address. I went to update that now and it will not allow me to change it. I choose edit and then I put in the correct address and it will not update or anything.

How do I go about changing the address in my profile to the correct one?

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Never received a response so I sent another one:

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Hello Team GG,

Can you update my address from the one that is currently there. It won't save in the client but I saw on the Discord channel that it says to e-mail you and you can update it.

My address needs to be changed to

xxxxxx
xxxxxx
xxxxxx

If you could do that please, then I will send you my ID documents.

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Never received a response from them so I just sent them a photo ID and my most recent bank statement.

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Thank you for your recent submission of documents to GGPoker.

Your Photo Identification has been submitted successfully.

Unfortunately, we cannot accept the proof of address document because it's invalid POA document. We still require the following document before we are able to verify your account:

• Proof of Address - A utility bill or bank statement as a proof of address document showing your name and registered address. The document must be issued within the last 6 months. Please, note that screenshots will not be accepted. Online documents must be provided in PDF and pictures of a paper document in JPEG

You can send the above by replying directly to this email and we'll ensure your account verification is expedited.

Thank you for your patience throughout the verification process, it is very much appreciated.

Looking forward to hearing from you,
Tg
GGPoker Support

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Hello Team GG,

I am still awaiting a response back because I still cannot make a withdrawal and I would like clarification on why you don't feel that my bank statement wasn't a bank statement?

If you could please get back to me and verify my account, I would greatly appreciate it.

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Hello Team GG,

I haven't heard a response back yet from my e-mail yesterday and so I went to check my account today and I saw this message after I logged in.





Why did I get this message when I haven't self-excluded and I think this must be some kind of mistake.

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We hope this email finds you well.

It has been decided upon the completion of a thorough review by our Safer Gambling team that your GGPoker account has been permanently closed.

While we understand that this may not have been the resolution you were hoping for, our number one priority is to ensure that we are protecting all of our players from potentially being harmed by gambling.

If you feel you are being negatively affected by gambling, please know you are not alone.

There are a number of resources and help organizations specifically put in place to help those who are being harmed by gambling.

We highly recommend getting in touch with Gamcare (www.gamcare.org) who provide a free helpline, a live chat support, gambling support forums, and can direct you to local support organizations in your area.

As a rule, and as mentioned in our Responsible Gaming page, self-exclusion is irreversible under any circumstances.

Please note that if you exclude yourself from GGPoker, you are not permitted to create any additional accounts on GGPoker.

Creating additional GGPoker accounts or any actions/attempts to circumvent your exclusion will result in the closure of the account(s) and possible forfeiture of any associated balance(s).

Kind regards,

GGPoker
Safer Gambling Team

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Maria
GGPoker Help COM
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Hello Team GG,

I think you have me confused with someone else. I never self-excluded, I don't have a gambling problem. I don't play with money that I can't afford to lose. It's nice that you care and you are attempting to help but I assure you that I have no gambling problem. I did not cheat; I have never cheated and I will never cheat. You will never find any process on my computer with any RTA assistance, and I don't even use preflop charts or anything while I play. I don't even use a calculator while I play. I asked you and checked with you if it was ok beforehand before I did anything.

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Thanks for your mail.

We would ask you to refer back to our previous mail, where it stated upon the completion of a thorough review by our Safer Gambling team that your GGPoker account has been permanently closed.

While we understand that this may not have been the resolution you were hoping for, our number one priority is to ensure that we are protecting all of our players from potentially being harmed by gambling.

If you feel you are being negatively affected by gambling, please know you are not alone.

There are a number of resources and help organizations specifically put in place to help those who are being harmed by gambling.

We highly recommend getting in touch with Gamcare (www.gamcare.org) who provide a free helpline, a live chat support, gambling support forums, and can direct you to local support organizations in your area.

As a rule, and as mentioned in our Responsible Gaming page, self-exclusion is irreversible under any circumstances.

Please note that if you exclude yourself from GGPoker, you are not permitted to create any additional accounts on GGPoker.

Creating additional GGPoker accounts or any actions/attempts to circumvent your exclusion will result in the closure of the account(s) and possible forfeiture of any associated balance(s).

Kind regards,

GGPoker
Safer Gambling Team

Sean
responsiblegaming@ggpoker.co.uk

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Hello Team GG,

I NEVER SELF EXCLUDED !!!!!!!

How many times do I have to say it?????

How do you call yourselves a poker site? You pick and choose who is allowed to play and who isnÂ’t. You should focus your number one priority if not cheating the player and not making **** up like someone self excluding when we both know that NEVER happened.

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I have sent them multiple e-mails since then and they all have been ignored. GGPoker appears to be giant scam where the money isn't real except the money that you deposit and that you give to them. That I know was real but none of the money I "won" on their site was real. I know I read a lot about GG closing accounts and confiscating the money but I always thought the players did something wrong and that the money was distributed to the players who were cheated. I never thought it would happen to me but here I am and now have a completely different point of view. They close accounts and make stuff up as an excuse to steal the money. They have banned winning players and took their money and now they took mine and I'm not a winning player. So much of what they advertise or try to say is that they protect bumhunting etc but it appears to me that it doesn't matter what your skill level is. It just matters what your account balance is and when it gets to a decent amount then they find an excuse to ban you and steal the money. I hope this will prevent others from being scammed like I was and we should not tolerate this type of behavior as a community and we should boycott sites like GG that operate their business in such an unethical manner.

I only skimmed through your post but **** me GG are complete scum.

Best of luck getting your $ OP

So, they banned you with 32k in your account? Fair enough, they now need to send you your balance.

This post is about 1000 times better than the prior rants. I'll try again to help, take it or leave it.

For some reason, it seems the bank statement triggered something that causes them to believe things are not on the up and up.

Your best bet might be to wrote a well thought out email and send it to security@ggnetwork.com. Be as absolutely detailed as possible. Include screenshots of the emails, your bank statement, photo ID, and as many other items as possible to show your address. Standard mail does not count for verification but could add some evidence to your submitted address is accurate. Most bank officers are able to certify or guarantee signatures. It is worth a trip to your local branch and ask them if they can sign a letter on the letterhead attesting to your address. Again, the point is to bombard them with evidence that your address is valid.

As far as exclusion issue over gambling habits or what they perceive to be habits, might want to get some monthly statement and pay stubs ready to show proof that your deposit amount is not meaningful amount of your income and net worth.

This is probably going to be a rather frustrating amd timely process for you. You want as much clear communication back and forth, both GG and your side. The reason for this is, if you need to go to the gaming commission, you want to make it as easy as possible for them to understand what happened. Having clear communication from GG stating their position and policy is good to have for your argument.

I doubt it is resolved in one or two emails and you will likely get furious over the process. Try to look at it as a 60 or 90 day process and just go with the flow. Good luck.

Tweet at them, that works with Stars.

Thanks for your advice and it makes sense and I have no problem doing it and will do it but do you really think they closed my account because of a fear that I have a gambling problem and that a $300 deposit would put someone in a bad situation? That's a tough sell for me and I don't believe that they closed my account and made up a story about me self excluding other than to steal the money. I also don't think that they have any concerns about my address because I logged into my bank and downloaded the PDF straight from there. The first one I blacked out the account numbers as well as the account balance and then I sent them a second without anything blacked out straight as the PDF I downloaded from my bank.


What gaming commission would I go to? I thought I researched this and found that they are regulated by a commission in the U.K. but I thought it was only for people who live in the U.K.? I thought I ran into a dead end when looking into that but don't remember exactly what it was. I am Canadian and didn't think they are regulated here but I could be wrong.

I am going to do what you said but I have sent a lot of emails and they haven't responded in weeks. I don't think they are acting as poker site that is concerned about a gambling problem that they think I have because then they would say what was wrong with the POA document, respond to my e-mails, and most importantly let me cash out.

Keep one thing in mind, CS ineptitude is pretty systemic in online businesses. The people in the department I gave you the email for are far more credible and capable. You might even get lucky and find one person to stay with you from start to finish.

Worst case is you have lots of communication to go to the gaming commission.

I don't remember the exact amount as that was just the amount I had at that time. I played some with the money and had it as high as $70K and and as low $24K. I think it was around $42K when they banned me. I have no way to check it anymore and I lost the document where I was keeping track of the balance after the $369 got taken.

Their replies are definitely not super competent... but are you sure you did not self exclude on an old account, then create a new one?

Or maybe a "brother or friend" who happens to share the same computer excluded themselves before you decided to sign up?

Not accusing you of anything, maybe GG just likes stealing money..but thats what it reads like to me.

I am also Canadian and I was also banned a couple of years ago after winning a tournament on GG for over 20+K and a jackpot for over 6k. I was banned under the guise of responsible gaming. I had started tilt emailing the site because I was being seated/ stalked on a 5/10 NL heads up table by what what strongly appeared to be a player using seating script software. I recorded several videos and sent them to Gg demanding they take action. They did, they banned me under the guise of responsible gambling. The players name was Hypernova from Slovenia or Slovakia. It was crystal clear they were using a script or some software to immediately seat me as they were 10 + tabling and would sit me instantly to ten seconds after I opened a table. Sometimes I did not even pick my buy in amount yet, and they just sat. It was spooky, especially as a recreational player.

I originally joined the site through an affiliate and was told I DID NOT have to provide any ID by the affiliate and that the cash outs would be done through transfers account to account, mine to affiliates , and then cash from the affiliate to me in person. People at Gg are well aware of this. Having a barrier of long distance between myself and the affiliate, and wanting to do things straight up, I broke off dealing with the affiliate, sent in my ID and cashed out over a few weeks time, using the “much better” app. I kept roughly 5k to play around with and ended up through tournaments and hu cash donking that off. Big deal, free money in my eyes.

That is my experience with them. Last year or so when GG offered banned players the chance to be reinstated I was denied again, citing responsible gaming. This is absolutely absurd as I make good money working, and again, won and profited a large amount in just under two months playing there. Any security with half a brain could see from game selection I was not a pro and isn’t that good when recreationals win, keep 20% on site and create rake? The money I ended up losing was strictly left over profits. I did get mouthy, as I wanted them to uphold game integrity.

To me, if you win large amounts on GG poker and are not using an affiliate they will look to ban you. This is just my experience and my opinion. Good luck getting your money, if you acted appropriately.

Actually, I had between $1600-2k left when I got the ban and they did pay me out. My experience was despite their extremely shady reasons for bans and loosely tying them to responsible gambling they did pay me my money.

I’d be very interested to see the % of players on the site using this balance to balance transfer system between players and affiliates and cash payouts by affiliates.

This weirdly reminds me of those Greek players on stars that use to register and unregister tournaments to avoid tax implications. Can’t be very tax abiding friendly for a site to unofficially be paying out customers essentially “under the table” using affiliates as the middle men. I mean really, GG poker paid me out several thousand using this affiliate cash payment withdrawal system before I took it upon myself to be straight up and do things properly and by the book, sending my proper ID. Before this, I started doing thousand dollar e-transfer between the affiliate, who would take the money from my account, give the cash to my friend and he would e-transfer back to me. Definitely can’t be keeping honest and accurate financials doing transactions like this when I am cashing out thousands but no money left the actual site. Maybe I am wrong. 🤷🏻*♂️

I thought the exact same thing.

Correct me if im wrong, but bad beat jackpots aren't awarded on Rush&Cash games.

You can hit BBJ on all cash game formats.

This seems ridiculous from GG but how are you showing this much emotion on just your second email? You're accusing them of stealing from you right off the bat, which just seems like a very poor approach to the whole thing. Again, this isn't to say your not owed your balance back, but anytime your dealing with front line staff like a customer service department you need to be calm, clear and avoid attacks.

As frustrated as you may be, rectifying the situation is going to require a lot of patience on your part. Good luck.

And to think if you just simply verify before you play this would have not happened.

Sucks that it has happened to you but I cannot for the life of me think why no one would ever not send them.

You need to post about this situation over at Poker Fraud Alert. "Dan Druff" will probably even talk about it on his radio show. Be warned, he is very unbiased and will look at the situation from all angles. Good luck, and keep us updated.

Sounds so weird it hurts my head when someone says : I don't plan on cashing out after I have deposited to play poker. Makes no sense at all. And they are obligated to verify your indentity scource of funds etc by regulators to prevent money laundering fe. You opening account with then and AFTER YOU HAVE READ THE TOS you agree to this. I mean it's the same thing with every site out there. Well atleast the big and legit ones. Mentioned this because you were wondering why they accept your deposit unverified.

Btw interested to know if gg returns this ammount to the bbjp pool or not.

Why?

So the situation can be heard by thousands of people, and we have a better chance of getting to the bottom of it. I mean, the whole premise of PFA is "scams, scandals, and shadiness" in poker and gambling.

That dude has 1.5k twitter followers (yeah I had to google him) so not really thousands of people.

You need to verify your account on every poker site.

I don't understand why you would deposit on a new site and then not immediately make sure to verify the account so that you won't have any problems later. It's your responsibility to do this.

As for the self exclusion, I have no idea, first time I heard of this being done to avoid paying someone out.

This money should not return to the BBJ pool since as far as we know OP won that fairly. If his account remains self-excluded he should be allowed to cash out once he verifies himself.

I’ve heard similar horror stories from GG but most end up in the player receiving their money. OP you should continue to badger them from every angle but you need to be clear and respectful in your approach. Don’t let your emotions show in your emails/tweets no matter how tempting it is. This is assuming you signed up for the account with a real name/address since it is strange to me that right after you sent the documents they seemed to quickly change their overall tune

a dewd is the real hero. Let us know how that email thread to security goes OP

Would agree if they said "we have reason to believe you have created another account" or something to that effect, but they said we have closed your account because we believe u have a gambling problem. Which should result in all funds being returned to the account holder.

More importantly, these sites have massive egos. Blast them with accusations all over the place and the odds of it getting resolved in a positive way for the player becomes very very low.

Once a site has just ended any chance at resolution, do what you need to do and blast away. Worst strategy to do while you are trying to get them to pay.