FTP locks my account for excess transfers, refuse to answer emails.

[frommagio]

[ QUOTE ]

A few months ago, I asked a supervisor at FTP who I know personally if there would be a problem in buying into FTP and transferring funds to various people I know to stake them for poker. Many of them are 2+2'ers who I will not name in order to protect their privacy. The aforementioned supervisor said it would be fine as long as there was enough play on their accounts and there was no fraud going on (credit card chargebacks, chip dumping, etc). I assured him we would keep it totally clean.


[/ QUOTE ]

What does your supervisor acquaintance say? That would be the first person to talk to, since he cleared it beforehand.

[kyleb]

[ QUOTE ]
What does your supervisor acquaintance say? That would be the first person to talk to, since he cleared it beforehand.

[/ QUOTE ]

That it was escalated to "higher management" and he knows nothing anymore.

[kyleb]

Here are some emails:

June 22nd

Hello Kyle,

I apologize for the the confusion regarding your account.

You're account has been locked because a large number of player
transfers have been going to various players in the UK who receive the
large transfer, play a minimum of fixed limit games and then withdraws
the whole amount within the same day. I do understand that these
transfer are for staking players as you have stated but what isn't clear
is why Full Tilt Poker is needed in these transactions.

When you transfer funds to a player who then withdraws a large amount in
comparison to what type of games they are playing this does pose certain
security issues regarding the use of the funds. If you were to stake a
player on the site and the money was used to buyin to various
tournaments or ring games this would not be an issue as we can see
clearly what the funds were used for and that they were used in
legitimate play. In this situation the funds almost immediately leave
the site and occasionally come back on and funds send to your
FCommunists account. This is were the issue lies as this blurs the
nature of the funds. If the funds were intended for off-site use then
you can transfer the funds from your payment processor account to
another account rather than move the funds on Full Tilt Poker.

Can you please explain to us why it is necessary to move the funds on
Full Tilt Poker rather than using a payment processor account and
directly transfer the money? Once we receive an answer we'll look into
the situation as soon as possible. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Regards,

Antonio
Full Tilt Poker Support

My response to the above email

Antonio,

I was told by people who work at FTP that as long as there was no fraud (and there isn't any) and that we played enough hands to cover the deposit limits as well as make some money for the site that using transfers would not be a problem. Furthermore, I play a significant amount of hands on my own account as well, and use it for transfers to other people in the US and Canada. Two people from TwoPlusTwo had their accounts locked that are not being staked by me, and it's ruining my name on the forums. As such, I feel the need to defend myself, and may have to make the aforementioned post about FTP being irresponsible in these investigations.

Yes, the people in the UK are being staked by me and others for sportsbetting and other purposes. If we could open a payment processor and pay the fees ourselves, we would - but Click2Pay is extremely slow in responding to our requests, and they do not allow peer-to-peer transfers from personal accounts.

Had I known that FTP would look down on these types of transactions that we are engaging in, I would have never used them in the first place. I was under the impression that what we were doing was not only allowed, but welcomed, since we were bringing in new business for your site.

Please keep me informed with your decisions and any information you might need from me or others.

June 23rd

Hello Kyle,

Thank you for emailing Full Tilt Poker Support.

I have forwarded your e-mail to the appropriate department, Kyle, as
they can most effectively answer your question. You should hear back
from them shortly.

Thanks for your patience. If you have any further questions, please let
us know.

Regards,

Anthony P
Full Tilt Poker Support

June 25th

Hello Kyle,

I apologize for the delay in getting back to you. I am discussing the
situation with senior management at the moment and we'll get back to you
as soon as possible.

Regards,

Antonio
Full Tilt Poker Support

June 26th

Hello Kyle,

Thank you for emailing Full Tilt Poker Support.

Firstly, thank you for your patience during this investigation.

Your investigation has been escalated to Upper management who are now in
the process of reviewing your case.

Please be assured that they will respond to your inquiries and matters
shortly.

Thank you for your cooperation and understanding.

Regards,

Kevin L
Full Tilt Poker Support

July 1st

Hello, Kyle.

Thanks for writing in.

We understand your frustration with this issue, but we ask that you also
understand that an investigation of this nature and involving such a
large number of accounts and transactions can and will take a
considerable amount of time.

The investigation is ongoing and we believe it to be nearing completion,
and your continued patience is appreciated. Once we have completed our
investigation, we will advise you immediately of our findings.

Sincerely,

Kevin L
Full Tilt Poker Support

---------

They stopped responding after July 1st.

It's worth noting that all the money was not instantly withdrawn from all these accounts, and that no fraud was going on whatsoever.

[Teh1337zor]

thats so sick you give them a logical answer back and they just ignore you


horrible

[Kazuma]

If these players aren't playing enough, then they should just make them play more until they have paid enough rake. I don't see why accounts have to be frozen. Seems pretty dumb.

[frommagio]

Tough situation, I hope it will work out. You asked the questions up front, and complied with the rules that they laid out. Assuming that everything checks out, you really should be OK after the investigation. But the silence must be extremely frustrating.

Antonio's email actually started out pretty well. It's informative and clearly written, which is much better than one would expect from FTP. It gives some hope that the investigation is rational, and that it might lead to a reasonable conclusion.

But then the frustrating part begins. The communications begin to break down, the content begins to disappear, and the investigation enters into the realm of FTP's trademark silent period. That's the part that seems unacceptable to me. It's a typical example of what I have often referred to on these forums as FTP's lack of respect for its customers.

In various "official FTP" threads, I have challenged FTPDoug and/or Sean to address their overall issues with customer support, which I believe clearly arise from a fundamental corporate lack of respect for their customers. There are numerous examples; yet they will not address the issue forthrightly.

For me, the lack of customer respect is a huge red flag. It's the sole issue preventing me from patronizing FTP.

None of us would accept this treatment from businesses that we deal with in other areas of our lives. Even though there are few choices available for online poker, we should still insist on a minimum level of corporate ethics. Markets work; if enough folks held to their normal standards, we would all have far more acceptable choices.

[MicroBob]

[ QUOTE ]
fundamental corporate lack of respect for their customers.

[/ QUOTE ]

[4drugmoney]

Wow sucks dude.

[Mike Haven]

It looks to me like the Q&A is here:

[ QUOTE ]
June 22nd

Can you please explain to us why it is necessary to move the funds on Full Tilt Poker rather than using a payment processor account and directly transfer the money? Once we receive an answer we'll look into the situation as soon as possible. I apologize for the inconvenience.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
I was told by people who work at FTP that as long as there was no fraud (and there isn't any) and that we played enough hands to cover the deposit limits as well as make some money for the site that using transfers would not be a problem.

Had I known that FTP would look down on these types of transactions that we are engaging in, I would have never used them in the first place. I was under the impression that what we were doing was not only allowed, but welcomed, since we were bringing in new business for your site.


[/ QUOTE ]

If you haven't shopped your friend directly to FTP then it's time to tell their senior management his name so he can confirm these base facts.

If I have read it correctly, you deposited $10,000 some time ago. Obviously, this has shown by time passing that it was "good" money. You state you were fair to them and you played a significant amount at FTP, presumably so you could get your remaining money out at some stage. Slowly, you passed money out of your bankroll by transferring it to others who you thought and assumed were going to play enough hands at FTP to more than cover the costs of FTP's banking procedures before they withdrew to use what is in effect "good" money for whatever offsite reasons they wanted.

If this is all correct, (and I admit their is a taint of possible money-laundering or some other skeem I can't think of), then once their Supervisor tells them he agreed you could use their offices for the transfers, they have to give you your money, immediately. They may also choose to demote or fire the Supervisor, and they may close your account, but there should be no more than a few working-hours' delay in coming to the payout conclusion.

[Synergistic Explosions]

So they think you are the kingpin for a large money laundering operation?

Eleven days of silence after they hinted the investigation was nearing completion?

Good luck with those jokers.