Warning TL;DR, no cliffs, so stop here if more than 140 characters is your limit

Anyway, my dad and his girlfriend live together and he accidentally opened her credit card statement and stumbled across some strange charges, here's a screenshot:



He immediately asked her about it and she said she got hacked. My dad being an amazingly thorough CPA was never gonna let that go and was on her daily about getting those charges reversed. She finally admits thats she's been gambling online. She is apparently very private (& perhaps what I am about to tell you is why) so he has never pushed her about knowing her finances but he does have access to her online bank account, so we looked it up and to our dismay discovered credit card payments monthly in amounts ranging from $2,000 to $25,000 (he pays virtually all the bills, she has no expenses so she shouldn't have charges greater than $500 most months, so its pretty safe to assume all the payments are for online gambling).

We went back as far as the bank allowed online (almost 2 years) and added up the payments to be almost $200,000. In all likelihood the total amount lost is even higher since we were only able to see around 24 months.

She unfortunately has been suffering from Trigeminal neuralgia known as the suicide disease for years and is also and a variety of drugs (iirc Oxycontin) so I am sure this isn't helping and could be contributing to the need to escape into online gambling which she obviously has no chance of winning. At least in casinos, she gets big time comps.

Anyway, thats the back story.

I'm trying to figure out who the hell is making those charges and from the little info I have (shown above in the image), searching for "FACEBK 650-543-7818" on google isn't leading me to any casinos.

We searched her browsing history and see she has been playing slots on Facebook at DoubleDown casino and doubleU casino which "appears" to be play money only but could be a feeder to somewhere off of Facebook but I don't know



Things I need help trying to find out:

1. How the hell can her credit card company allow these charges to occur to online casinos and not be liable for funding gambling transactions? Seems to me that was the big concern over allowing online poker but nothing is stopping her (& apparently anyone else) from flushing a small fortune down the toilet.

2. How can I find out who or what company is receiving this money?

3. How can I find out where has she been playing online (without asking her)?

4. Do we have any recourse against the credit card company for allowing these transactions to occur blatantly and consistently over the last 2 years? (FWIW, I dont know that I fully agree she is entitled to get her money back after making horrific life choices the last few years but I am pretty pissed that online poker is shut down in the US over concerns like this yet none of the mechanisms in place that are preventing online poker are preventing funding of infinitely worse online casinos /rant).

Given the suicide disease & her history of being extremely private, my dad wants to tread lightly and figure out how to deal with this in the most effective way, stop all future online gambling and not damage the relationship in the process.

I'll stop here as I am sure many eyes are bleeding from a post this long but I know of no better place than 2+2 to help answer my questions, give solid advance (& ridicule) and steer me in the right direction

What happened when you contacted the credit card company?

This doesn't have anything to do with Facebook, just like if the charges were from AMAZ0N650-543-7818 it wouldn't be related to Amazon. It may even just be run-of-the-mill credit card fraud that has nothing to do with gambling. Maybe your dad's girlfriend was their dream mark because nobody ever checked the statements and the charges always got paid.

Step 1: Call your bank/cc
Step 2: If they are unhelpful, perhaps ask why their security measures did not automatically flag these as suspicious transactions.

It's hard to know exactly what's going on with a lot of the reports because people get confused and think it was actually Facebook charging them.


https://efraudsters.com/us/fraudsters/6505437818/
https://whocallsinfo.com/6505437818

If it was fraud she wouldn't have made 25k payments on charges that weren't hers.

Oh, nevermind. I just saw something about his dad pays all her bills so I thought he paid that. It still seems odd that a company associated with dozens and dozens of fraud reports wasn't up to something shady. Maybe it was all just farmville credits instead of gambling.

as Helmuth said, she pays her own bills and we don't have access to her credit card statements or online account. When I said he pays all the bills, I just meant, there's nothing really left for her to spend money on so whatever she charges on her credit card is most likely due to the gambling which she's admitted to.

He hasn't told her that he knows she's lost 200K. We're waiting to try and learn more and then determine the best course of action. We want to gather as many concrete facts as we can and then when he asks her about various issues, he'll know if she's still lying on certain matters.

I havent had time to dig deeper but I am wondering if those Facebook play money casinos dont eventually tempt you with real money gambling somewhere in game.

Its remarkable how she has pissed so much money away

Did you try calling the phone number? 650 area code is SF bay area.

Impressive, imo. Where/how did she obtain her money?

yes, I got an immediate busy signal

she's 72, so a lifetime of working and saving. Fortunately, we checked her brokerage account and its only down $100,000 from the amount it was when we saw the first CC pymt 24 months ago until today.

So the brokerage account earnings + her retirement income has mitigated her overall losses but if she keeps it up, its only a matter of time until she's squandered everything

Wouldn't surprise me at all. Unibet, bet365 for years have their 'bet to watch' streaming sports links together with those completely illegal ones on pirate sports streaming sites. And that is the reason European authorities are lately cracking down on Affiliating, not because affiliates have been giving poker players too much rb, as some Industry Experts are actively trying to spin it....

so she has actually paid off $200K worth of these charges over the past two years?

yup (puked a little as I wrote this)

does she have her CC account set up to automatically pay off every month?

given that this is such a widely reported fraudulent charge, my guess is she had her card stolen and doesn't even look at what she is paying off.

maybe i'm stereotyping too much but if there was that level of online gaming you would be able to find evidence on her computer easily imo

if its a bank issued card I would be there talking to someone yesterday

No autopay, she's lucid, very sharp (aside from the obvious gambling blind spot) and knows what she's doing. Remember, when confronted by my dad, she admitted she was gambling. If she wasn't, there is no way she would turn a blind eye to these charges. She was an accountant for 40 years

How would you suggest I find the evidence of her gambling? I already searched her browsing history and only found the 2 Facebook "casinos" mentioned above

This all day. I would bet that they do

Those look like in game purchases. I saw something similar when my Ex's 7 year old racked up like $600 in charges one weekend playing some game on his tablet. These "free" games have a lot of paid content in them, unlockable levels, characters, etc. Maybe she's gone senile and is racking up charges in a "free game" where the purchases are for credits/points for the game and she's burning through real money on slot credits that don't pay real money. I really hope I'm wrong on this cause that's well....the wildest thing I've ever heard.

run some antispyware scans, those sites are full of garbage that it will catch as adware/tracking cookies and you can browse through any suspicious domains

superantispyware is a good free one that I use

As reluctant as I am to advise dumping a 72 y/o gf, that would seem to be a simpler, more productive, and more achievable goal for your dad than sneaking into his gf's financial affairs behind her back.

they've been together 20+ years and my dad didnt give any indication that was a possibility so until he makes that call, this is where we are

I understand. After 20 years together she shouldn't be hiding stuff and he shouldn't be snooping (obviously jmo). Any idea what the plan is if his suspicions are confirmed--either by her admission or the sleuthing?

Good luck to your dad.

She has to be forced to cancel all of her credit cards and denied access to your father's. I'd try to take her computer away as well.

I guarantee this is the situation.

She's buying Play Money to play slot games with zero chance of winning or cashing out real world money.

Facebook processes the transactions, as the game is played on Facebook. FB takes their standard ~33% cut just like all payments made on their game platforms, and then pay out the game app owners the remaining ~66%.

This is a multi-million or billion dollar industry annually; paying real money for virtual items/currency in games with no irl payoff.

Double Down was/is the largest "Social Casino" on Facebook and the company sold for $500 Million about 10 years ago, for a reason.

This is addiction. Not gambling.

I suspect the "fraud reports", are mostly bogus reports by other addicts who got carried away spending and are kicking and clawing to try to justify their actions and possibly get their money back. This is very common in the industry.

Good luck to your dad, OP.

I can see racking up maybe 5k in free facebook games...but 200k? I think she's gambling real money at a real internet casino. FWIW I had an aunt with a gambling addiction and I think she probably lost around or at least 100k on online casinos a few years back. Who knows how much lifetime including live casinos.

If she's really lost 200k playing free facebook games, I'd almost hope they'd have some compassion and send some of the money back or something. I guess that's a foolish wish.

Reading posts (ie fruit saklad) above it seems more possible than I thought.

ok. I'll be the one to ask. Why is it your business how she spends her money? She's 72, lucid, and chooses to gamble her money away. Isn't that her choice to make? If the charges aren't fraudulent, and it is her money, who are you or her BF (your dad) to be digging through her bank statements and finances?

- not saying that this newfound information wouldn't affect future relationships, or her actions shouldn't have consequences.

It must be this. Google returns some fraud discussions, but if this woman made payments for these charges for 2 years then she's either senile or she's spending the money somewhere.

you could try downloading those two apps, make a small purchase, and check your credit card statement.

you could also try facebook support as I'm sure they've been contacted about this charge before.