Maybe Lee Jones is pissed at himself for selling his soul.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...ptops-1368996/

Hi folks -

This thread relates to issues that are important to poker players, so it’s important to PokerStars. While this is our first comment in this particular thread, we do read a large volume of player comments on 2+2. Since first becoming aware of this issue, we have made various comments on 2+2, and replied to inquiries from various media outlets and emails sent directly to PokerStars.

Why PokerStars said twice that local Spanish police were involved, when they were not

One of the key issues in this thread is why PokerStars said publicly (on 2+2) and privately (in conversation with Jens) that the Spanish police had been notified during EPT Barcelona. We said those things because, at the time, we thought that they were true.

As Jens has said in his posts on here, there was a meeting involving him; another player; our Director of Live Events; and our Live Events Security Manager. During that meeting, Jens advised our staff that he wanted the police to be called. As he will recall, our Live Events Security Manager left that meeting to make this happen. The manager went directly to the hotel staff and asked them to call the police.

Our Live Events Security Manager understood clearly from the hotel’s representative that the hotel would then contact the police. Indeed, our Live Events Security Manager reported this back to Jens in Barcelona, specifically referring to a special division of the Spanish national police. Confident that the police had been called, the Security Manager also reported this to other senior PokerStars management, including myself, who posted this news in the thread.

We later discovered that the hotel did not contact the police as requested. We do not know why the hotel did not do so but we deeply regret our failure at the time to follow through and ensure that it did. This was a mistake, and we will work hard to avoid similar mistakes in the future. When we discovered it, we directly notified Jens.

PokerStars’ liability and responsibility in these kinds of situations

As our players and many members of the 2+2 community can attest, PokerStars exercises deep and wide authority on all matters related to play on our sites and within the confines of the tournament floor during our Live Events. Outside these environments our responsibility and jurisdiction is much more limited.

When these worlds collide, there’s even more complexity. For instance, under various European data protection laws, it is illegal for us to publicly identify the names or User IDs of people who are alleged to have breached our Terms of Service.

We have previously obtained legal advice on this very issue and our lawyers advised us that we cannot publicly disclose names or other personally-identifying information in the context of fraud on PokerStars (or elsewhere).

At the same time, we are under no legal obligation to report suspected fraud to outside authorities. In this case, however, not only did we report activity that we believed might be related to the incident involving Jens, but – as Jens related – one of our security officers spent two weeks compiling an extensive report and evidence to provide to the appropriate authorities.

As it relates to publicly disclosing our efforts in this case, as a general rule, PokerStars does not publicly comment where we do not have anything substantially new to contribute. We have previously commented publicly that we have supported the relevant law enforcement agencies in their investigation of the issues. PokerStars is not a law enforcement agency, and does not have the power to arrest or prosecute individuals who are suspected of criminal activities. Thus, throughout this period, we have compiled information and reported it to our local law enforcement authorities (the Isle of Man Police) as they have a specific unit which deals with international sharing of such information. Furthermore, they are the appropriate authorities for us to contact and inform.

We have received written confirmation that IOMP has received our report and has referred it on to police authorities in other relevant jurisdictions. PokerStars is very keen that matters be formally investigated by the appropriate police force(s); however, clearly we cannot influence any police investigation decisions anywhere and can do no more than offer full and continuing support to any formal investigation.

Allegations of PokerStars staff involvement in fraud against players

We understand that the failures to contact Spanish police have caused some players to speculate that PokerStars, or some of its staff, must have a motive for doing so. It has even been speculated that PokerStars staff might have been involved in what happened to Jens at EPT Barcelona. PokerStars deeply regrets this inference. Within a few hours of even the first suggestion on 2+2 that there might be involvement of PokerStars staff in inappropriate behavior, our Director of Internal Audit and Security was made aware of the situation, and has continued to monitor the issue. We are aware of no evidence that suggests any involvement by PokerStars staff in this allegedly criminal behavior but if any is presented we will investigate it.

What PokerStars is doing to reduce the risk of this happening again in the future

PokerStars recognizes that high stakes poker players (like any other group of people making significant financial transactions on the Internet) are attractive targets for fraudsters. While players are responsible for their own personal security and personal computer security, PokerStars actively works to reduce the risk of PokerStars players being harmed. This includes, but is not limited to:

1. Increasing player awareness of the risks of this sort of fraud. This includes providing brochures at EPT events on practicing good computer security, and providing advice to players who contact us.
2. Reviewing suspicious activity and play that takes place on PokerStars.
3. Investigating every case of alleged fraud of this sort. Indeed, to our knowledge, PokerStars is the only online poker operator to have detected and provided refunds to players who were victims of such activity in the past.
4. Compiling a significant dossier to identify likely suspects and providing this information to law enforcement agencies.

I hope this helps to address the concerns expressed here and gives greater clarity as to what we have done, why we have done it and why we can’t disclose much of what we believe.

Best regards,

Lee Jones

PokerStars Head of Poker Communications

Why would this be hard to explain? You can substitute pretty much any other city in the world for Barcelona and the same would hold true. Police everywhere have to prioritize their time and for the reasons you mentioned, this sort of incident would fall directly to the bottom of the list, no matter what city it occurred in.

Also, nice response from Lee Jones.

Jeans, just let it go. I once got robbed of $5K (more than half my net worth at the time) face-to-face and let it go, because I got myself in a spot where police involvement would have gotten me nowhere. My buddy said "Aren't you pissed? Don't you feel violated?" but I didn't particularly, because I didn't take the necessary precautions and a predator took advantage. Such is life. I felt a little stupid, but didn't try to blame anyone else or get all kinds of "authorities" involved. I wasn't physically hurt, and money comes and goes anyway, so who really cares?

Thank you for replying. The part that troubles me the most is that when Jens first made this case public, overwhelmingly it seemed like the hotel was involved in some way, shape, or form in something very shady here. They seemed extremely suspicious in the way they handled the case and aside from the fact that it seemed they were involved, they certainly wanted it to go away more than be investigated.

Given that, why on earth would Stars go to the hotel as a middleman to contacting the authorities when it was so clear the hotel was potentially involved in this crime? That is why it seems so insane to everyone here. That is why people started suspecting PS was in on this even if they weren't. Because it seems so darn naive to go to the hotel in this instance rather than directly to the local police. Since people generally view Stars as highly logical and competent, doing something seemingly so crazy seems almost harder to believe than that PS was just in on it. I personally don't believe this, but the way this was handled defies all sensible logic to me. Whoever decided to go to the hotel instead of to the police shouldn't be in such a position to make decisions.

why did you try to blame jeans for "leaving early" in the player meetings with chuck when that clearly wasn't a fair and accurate portrayal of what happened?

why did it take so long (days/weeks) to supposedly realize that spanish authorities weren't ever contacted?

pretty clear to anybody who has half a brain that you should have been suspicious about the hotel's involvement from the start, so the fact that you placed the trust in them to contact authorities and didn't follow up on them actually doing it is simply mindblowing

also gonna +1 the idea of you staying out of the commentary booth on the ept broadcasts, you are so tilting to listen to

100% agree.

Hi Lee,
thank you very much for your response.

I must say beforehand that i'm disagree with pretty much 90% of ppl itt,in the way of ppl expecting from PS to play inspector gadget role.
i think it's been said enough about this so let's leave it there.

About your statement.


So it's pretty much clear you have been misleading in a very awful and inappropriate way by your business partner.

And happens to be the partner you are holding with a mayor event in his facilities during an entire week .

Honestly i do not believe you dont know why they have misled you at that point.
Any competent business will demand from their business partner's General Manager an immediately explanation specially considering the magnitude of the issue (you been lied) and you still been partners for future events. ( you are right ? )

Not saying PS owns us any explanation,but to Jens. And this purely out of respect.

Thank you.

So when you guys found out the hotel lied to the security manager and never called the Spanish police, why did you not do it right there and then?

Isle of Mann police? Seriously?? The least you could do is report it to both, given how this was handled.

Lee, the timeline makes sense in my head and am willing to believe this story, but surely the piece I quoted isn't the end of the story? Trusting the hotel to contact the authorities is a human error that is naive but excusable. But in hindsight isn't this extremely suspicious? There are serious reasons to believe that the hotel was involved in some way. I assume that since you haven't said the contrary that Pokerstars still plans to hold future events at the hotel. Certainly players haven't heard the information that is required to be able to trust this hotel again?

Lee-you keep saying that your security guy worked for two weeks investigating. But what was he investigating? Was it Jean's case at all? Was he reviewing key logs and hotel cameras or interviewing people involved? It doesn't seem so, since as you state you don't have the authority to do so.

So since Jean hadn't used that compromised computer to play, what was your security guy actually doing as it relates to Jean's case? Or was he simply looking for possible fraud on high stakes players acconts in general? You make it sound like you investgated Jeans case for two weeks, discovered info, and then gave that to IOM police. But did that even happen at all?

The statements seem contradictory. You say you don't have the authority to investigate Jean's case, then imply that your security guy spent two weeks on his case.

When something like this happens and a major corporation is involved, the company has one overriding concern: reducing liability. Every action taken revolves around this critical factor.

Their second most important concern is ensuring their reputation is not harmed in any way (or at least harm is minimized). Hence the close cooperation between Legal and PR.

And finally, way behind liability and reputation, they actually try to help the victim. Provided the first two concerns are met. If the victim can be helped in such a way that there is no liability to the corporation, win/win. If the corporation has to assume liability in any way, you can be sure the victim will receive little or no assistance. Worse, he may assume he is being helped, but in reality the company is just gathering as much info as possible from him to ensure their liability is minimized.

I think this particular case unfolded more or less along those lines.

--PP

@Lee Jones

Given the hotel's criminal or at best grossly negligent and dishonest behaviour in this case, will you rule out Pokerstars hosting another event at this venue in the future? If not, what steps will be taken to ensure a similar security breach doesn't occur at this venue?

Lee,

Why did you insinuate to Chuck Bass that it was Jeans' fault that the investigation didn't proceed?

Why did you threaten CB with breaking NDA when all he did was provide a valuable piece of information to the community regarding your deception/miscommunication about the case?

Why did it take weeks and direct questioning by Jeans before you admitted that there was a mixup and police weren't actually contacted? Why did no one apparently follow up on the police report and immediately notify Jeans when it was found out that police were indeed not yet involved?

Why are you currently handling this through IOM police and not Barcelona/Spanish police where the event occurred and where action clearly is more likely to be taken up?

Will you be doing conducting business with the Arts Hotel or any of their affiliates in the future?

Thanks,

Alex

Issue 1: Why has Pokerstars not taken the next logical step if above timeline is true? Why has Pokerstars not demanded answers from the hotel? Why has Pokerstars not broken their relationship with a hotel that is very likely involved in fraud, and at the very least is indifferent to player security and willing to lie to you.

Issue 2: Why did Pokerstars, in the aftermath of this debacle, take to creating a false depiction of the facts? Why did you tell people at the players meeting that the police were not involved because Jens left too early? Why did you lie about this? Why did you fail to address this point in your reply?

No one gives a **** what you are required to do, legally, in this situation. Players expect you to act in a way that is ethical and reasonable, despite what your lawyers may be babbling on about to cover your tracks after your failure in this matter.

I find this section to be cowardly, and I'm sure many others do as well. Surely you understand the importance of Pokerstars being considered a safe and ethical site. Not just a site who goes thru the minimum legally required motions in situations like these.

This isn't good enough. It is too vague, general, and avoiding of the topic at hand. Any well-meaning company would surely be taking the logically obvious step at this point. They would be cutting ties with the Hotel Arts in Barcelona. You have no interest in this, it seems. This implies that you are placing your bottom line before your interest in player security. Feel free to explain to me why this is not the case if you disagree.

I can see your lips moving Mr Lee Jones, i just cant hear any meaningful words.

I hope alot of news outlets get to hear about this story because Jeans has been put through an enormous amount of stress and paranoia. He has handled himself so classy the whole ordeal.
I wanna see some heads getting cracked over this.

What a bunch of BullSHIAT, so have you fired your Live Security Manager, after he was not able to contact the police by himself and obviously wasn't even following the situation?

+1 would like to see this answered

+1 Would like to see this answered too

Really? Do players honestly expect that? Because that is utterly divorced from reality.

A lot of what Lee said isn't specific to this situation, note how multi-accounters and other such cheaters never get outed by name. It's unfortunate that this is the case and I wish Pokerstars would publish the names of all cheaters/criminals, but if broadcasting that information would regularly create giant legal (and eventually financial) liabilities their policy is sensible.

Nice to see Pokerstars reply finally.

The fact that it took them three days explains the cover your ass type of the reply. I can see them furiously discussing how best to make it seem that they care about their customers.

With all off the remaining questions asked by some posters above, I'd like to add this one:

Why did you report to Jens that the police, and even some specific unit, had been called, when for all you knew some hotelemployee said they were going to contact the police?

Wow, what a ridiculous excuse to blame it on the hotel. There's no way that you can make the statement to Jens that there is no need for him to stay without talking the the police first, and obviously that never happened. It would have also been obvious very quickly if you asked the hotel to contact the police and they never did.

Lost a lot of respect for Stars and Lee both with this. Can't believe it took that long to come up with this.

Lee admits they messed up, not sure if this is really blaming it all on the hotel: