Re: ALL MY ACCOUNTS WERE HACKED INTO
 

What country does FullTilt operate out of?

Seriously consider going to someone like the FBI (is CERT still around? and is this the sort of thing they were formed for?) This is a legal matter, and if the guy who stole your money is in the US he will probably be caught if you persue it (there is just too much of a money trail to hide.)

Email FullTilt and tell them that you will be persuing criminal procescution of the guy and that they need to cooperate fully with the FBI. They pretty much have to, because if they don't they send a really bad message to not only their customers and potential customers but to the anti gambling movement.

Also, keep demanding a phone number and name of a contact. I have been giving FullTilt most of my action lately, but this sort of thing seriously makes me want to reconsider where I play.

Also, I would PM the FT reps who have accounts on 2p2 again. They really are in no position to blow you off like they have. This sort of response will kill the on line industry.

Re: ALL MY ACCOUNTS WERE HACKED INTO
 

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I can assure that those methods were,
unfortunately, legitimate as well.

[/ QUOTE ] What does that mean? He laundered money through legimitimate means, so now they are actually clean? That makes no sense. Why can't full tilt contact neteller and tell them what withdrawals to what neteller account(s) consist of fraudulent money, and have neteller stop the money from going offline? Or at the very least tell you what accounts are involved so you can tell neteller about it.

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I'm sure what happened was this guy made more trades (Fulltilt money for money on other sites). And you can't take the money back from the guys he traded with since they acted in good faith and would be screwed over if you took their Fulltilt money away.

The money probably is unrecoverable at this point. But it is inexcusable that Fulltilt could not respond more timely to matters such as this.

Re: ALL MY ACCOUNTS WERE HACKED INTO
 

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I'm sure what happened was this guy made more trades (Fulltilt money for money on other sites). And you can't take the money back from the guys he traded with since they acted in good faith and would be screwed over if you took their Fulltilt money away.

The money probably is unrecoverable at this point.

[/ QUOTE ] I see how you obviously can't take the money from the third party, but I don't see how that makes the money unrecoverable. Just stop the cashout from wherever he made it. Be that mansion, stars, full tilt or neteller.

Re: ALL MY ACCOUNTS WERE HACKED INTO
 

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I F'ed up. I know this, and it's eating at me, badly. I know this is my f'in fault for doing this. I don't need people to make comments like this. Can you be a little more sensitive? Seriously.

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OP, sorry if my comments rubbed salt in the wounds. It is not met too. I would like to help educate my fellow 2+2'ers and get them thinking smarter about this subject.

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Yes. Sorry about that. I actually didn't mean to bash you. I just thought the guy talking about hiring network security professionals for taking care of your computer security at home was being somewhat silly.

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Why on earth would you discourage players from seeking professional advice/services? That makes no sense. Just because the typical HS player is working from their home, does not change what is at stake or what can be done to secure their efforts.

Many of the HS players are for all intensive purposes running a business from their home that generates revenues in hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars a year. These funds tend to be readily available from their computer (poker sites, neteller, brokerage accounts, online banks, etc). Many of the players are not computer experts, and it is not worth their time to become experts, educated users yes, experts no.

HS poker players are major targets for hackers. Any time that kind of money is "in play" there is going to be a very concerted effort to take it away. The idea that "do it yourself" consumer grade or freeware applications installed on a PC are an acceptable measure of security is just what the hackers are hoping to hear.

Re: ALL MY ACCOUNTS WERE HACKED INTO
 

One thing that sucks about hireing someone is that you actually have to trust people with your hundreds of thousands or millions. Taking care of it yourself (while never opening exe files you are not 100% sure of or doing other reckless things) could actually be more secure.

Re: ALL MY ACCOUNTS WERE HACKED INTO
 

Wow, just as I was thinking about moving my money back to FTP, this happens. Goodbye, FTP.

Re: ALL MY ACCOUNTS WERE HACKED INTO
 

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I'm sure what happened was this guy made more trades (Fulltilt money for money on other sites). And you can't take the money back from the guys he traded with since they acted in good faith and would be screwed over if you took their Fulltilt money away.

The money probably is unrecoverable at this point.

[/ QUOTE ] I see how you obviously can't take the money from the third party, but I don't see how that makes the money unrecoverable. Just stop the cashout from wherever he made it. Be that mansion, stars, full tilt or neteller.

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I'm not sure you understand how this works. The scammer went to someone on Stars and traded them Stars dollars from the OPs account for dollars put into the scammers FTP account. The scammer then went on FTP and traded the dollars to another site. Even if they were motivated to do something, I seriously doubt FTP can do anything once the money is on another site.

Re: ALL MY ACCOUNTS WERE HACKED INTO
 

I understand that the money is on a different site, but I think it's very bad if online poker sites can't work together in cases like this to catch scammers when they know where the fraudulent money are and could get it back with collective efforts. This cooperation would be good for everyone but scammers.

Re: ALL MY ACCOUNTS WERE HACKED INTO
 

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I'm sure what happened was this guy made more trades (Fulltilt money for money on other sites). And you can't take the money back from the guys he traded with since they acted in good faith and would be screwed over if you took their Fulltilt money away.

The money probably is unrecoverable at this point.

[/ QUOTE ] I see how you obviously can't take the money from the third party, but I don't see how that makes the money unrecoverable. Just stop the cashout from wherever he made it. Be that mansion, stars, full tilt or neteller.

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I'm not sure you understand how this works. The scammer went to someone on Stars and traded them Stars dollars from the OPs account for dollars put into the scammers FTP account. The scammer then went on FTP and traded the dollars to another site. Even if they were motivated to do something, I seriously doubt FTP can do anything once the money is on another site.

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But if they actually act in a timely fashion, and coordinate with the other sites, they can stop most of this crap. Alternately they could put mechanisms in place to make this much more difficult to pull off.

If the sites are not willing to actively protect their customers, then they will fail. This hurts online gambling on at least three levels:
It scares off potential players
It can scare off existing players (and at a site level, drives them elsewhere)
It hurts them on the political/legal front. (Not only in the US, where there is a vocal movement to ban (certain, unconnected) on line gambling, but also likely in the WTO; it has to hurt their case if the US can show that the environment is completely unpoliced and the vendors are doing nothing to remedy the situation. Hell, that is a pretty valid argument.)

Re: ALL MY ACCOUNTS WERE HACKED INTO
 

I think the logistics of this is a lot more difficult than you imagine. Remember, the site can't even acknowledge the OP's emails and freeze accounts on their site in a reasonable amount of time.

To get another site to freeze accounts that, as far as they're concerned, have done no wrong, you'd have to provide documentation and probably even affadavits from the aggrieved party. And even if the major sites could somehow ban together to coordinate their efforts at fighting fraud, there are small sites popping up every week.

Realistically speaking, it's not feasible.

And as for people suggesting getting the FBI involved. Frankly, the complexity of the case and the minimal amount involved is simply not worth their trouble. Remember, this case involves money transfers across national lines involving overseas corporations. And while $25K may be a lot to some individuals, in the big scheme of things, it isn't enough for the FBI to get involved in it.

Unfortunately, there really aren't any good realistics options for the OP, other than hope that it's not too late to recover some of the funds from Stars.