Fulltilt froze my account with 47 grand in it

[Synergistic Explosions]

If you play at FT, just play there knowing that if there is an account investigation you can kiss your sanity goodbye for at least 4 weeks during the silent period.

After 4 weeks, then it's time to start the process to get some answers within the next two weeks.

That's just the way they operate, and they've proven they will never change. If you can't handle it, you shouldn't be playing there. They have demonstrated time and again this is how they do their investigations. Nobody should be surprised by it at this point.

[toutatis70]

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tell me again why ppl play anywhere else but stars.

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I know why, they can't handle not having rake back.
I agree with you, not worth rake back anymore

[Rek]

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tell me again why ppl play anywhere else but stars.

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I know why, they can't handle not having rake back.
I agree with you, not worth rake back anymore

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This is just not true. Without wanting to get into the rakeback v FPP's again, rakeback is huge for many people. I havn't played there for a few months but did play at FTP for about a year with no real problems. I never had my account blocked and they did reply to emails (albeit, slower than Stars).

We get a few posts here complaining and everyone jumps on the bandwagon saying how bad they are. We don't know the full details so the delays may be reasonable.

Microbob, before you start bashing me for what i have said, I do agree that lack of replies in this case are inexcusable. If any FTP rep is reading this please just keep the OP informed. A dialy email is not too much to ask even if it just says the investigations are still proceeding and you are awaiting other information.

[MicroBob]

I see nothing bash-worthy here. Looks all well and good to me.

FWIW - it's not just a matter of everytime this happens at FT we all go crazy and jump on the bandwagon and it's all FT bashing from all the Stars lovers.
If Stars did something like this to one of their customers I would be tearing into them and their inapprorpiate conduct just as much if not moreso. Although the phrase, "this is the type of thing I would expect to see at FT" might pop in there at some point.

Anyway, I don't even go so far as to not recommend people stop playing there and I'm a little surprised at some of those who are so turned off by this incident that they say it isn't worth playing there at all. But if it puts you at ease of mind that your money won't get locked then I suppose it's pretty understandable.
But for those who want to play there I hardly advocate abandoning them entirely over something like this. It's a pretty small risk overall obviously. Especially if you don't do player-transfers and probably also true if you don't play very much heads-up.
However, if you're a high-volume player-transfer and heads-up kind of guy then it seems you run a higher risk but I still think it's more likely to just end up being a major inconvenience and a lot of stress without REALLY having to worry about them stealing your money if you really didn't do anything wrong.

I do think people should continue to speak up though which is I guess what ends up looking like 'everyone jumping on the bandwagon'.
FT's behavior on this has been pretty bad. They might not think they have done anything wrong and that people like me are over-reacting. But if nobody else speaks up and they are allowed to get away with continuing to think that they're doing things just fine then they will just keep on doing it.

And anyone who deigns to actually ask FT why they haven't been responded to within the time-frame that FT themselves previously gave will continue to be told that they are being kind of a pest and that the money will be frozen for even longer if they don't stop.

[Wilco666]

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I was writing about once a day and then got a letter back from them saying that I was actually slowing down the investigation.

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Wow, that is messed up.

Situations like described in this thread are the exact reason I never play at Full Tilt.

[toutatis70]

Well i will rephrase then. I played at fulltilt cause I was receiving 27% rake back. I just think stars has alot better tour. and an easier format o play and navigate on. feel like i'm playing in a cartoon on ft. I have heard story after story on here abput frozen accounts due to bots and overzealous (mis-spell prob) behaviour of Full tilt poker security. I would'nt mind playing bots at all cause I really doubt they are programmed to handle fold equity situations. If you cant beat a bot shorthanded then you must be a poor player due to the fact the bots cant handle being bluffed that well. In the united states from experience of dealing with well run businessess, if you are a good paying customer and there was any problem with your account you would usually receive a phone call and feel valued and thanked for being a customer. Full ilt poker seems to come off (and maybe its me) , like there doing everyone a favor. It will eventually catch up to full tilt if us market becomes regulated cause more customer orientated sites will come on the seen and take market share. I know stars is not as fishy as party, but if you practice good game selection you can find good games at all levels. Just takes some patience and investigating. I contacted them recently regarding an issue of not being able to log on after an update. Even though I had to email instead phone like party, they were back 2 me within a few hours and suggested i restart computer which worked. I contacted full tilt once by email regarding deposit problems and they responded the next day. I know my grammer is poor cause im very tired right now, but in a successfull business family where you take care of your customers and resolve customer complaints very rapidly, and pay close attention to all departments looking out for loose cannon managers such as a security department mgr wanting to look good to the higher ups. Sorry about the lenght, I have been playin online quite often since 1999 at paradise poker.

[Josem]

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Am I the only one here that sees a possibility that FTP has strong evidence that OP violated some rules?

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Of course there is some possibility.

However, given that I am not convinced in the infallibility of FTP, it seems rough to let them steal $47k without justifying themselves.

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Its pretty easy to jump on the "i hate ftp" bandwagon, but lets say that they come out with information in a few days that shows OP used a bot, or cheated somehow. Then, would you still bash FTP for the way they handled this situation?

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Yes.

Because this poor bloke has had $47k stolen from him, and he has no way of defending himself.

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OP if you have done nothing wrong, then you really do have nothing to worry about. imo

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If Stars can wrongly accuse TeddyFBI's mother, then there is no doubt in my mind that FTP can make a mistake here.

[Josem]

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But I do disagree with "And whether guilty or innocent I think the site has an obligation to inform their players of what is going on and to respond to e-mails." If the party is very guilty and the website has proven evidence, then I don't think that they owe anything to the player.

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This assumes that FTP never makes mistakes.

I think it would be fair to say that this is unlikely.

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It woudln't be hard for FTP to tell the customer what is at the heart of the investigation,

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I agree.

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so I believe that in certain situations, the customer is kept in the dark for a reason.

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What possible reason could there be?

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I've never really heard of FTP (at least not within this year) not responding to players within 2-3 days in normal situations.

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Read more IG forum please.

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I guess I rather wait and see what the outcome is, before I pass judgement.

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But the issue at hand is the delay - that's what people are passing judgement on.

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But if she is guilty of some fradulent activity, then I will have had no problem with how they handled it.

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I think that even people accused of serious crimes should be told what they are accused of; even people accused of serious crimes deserve a presumption of innocence; even people accused of serious crimes should be allowed to respond to the accusations against them.

[StellarWind]

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Because this poor bloke has had $47k stolen from him, and he has no way of defending himself.

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OP's money isn't stolen or even confiscated. It's just frozen while FTP investigates whatever it is they suspect her of doing.

Eventually they may accuse her of something and decide to close her account and/or confiscate funds. At that point I would hope she gets an opportunity to defend herself. But we aren't there yet. You are just unnecessarily inflaming matters by using words like "stolen" when they clearly don't apply yet.

Let's keep the discussion focused on the things FTP is actually doing wrong in this case:

1. Being rude to a good customer.

2. Not giving the customer an honest timeline for when they hope to resolve this situation.

3. Making promises to respond within a specific timeframe and not keeping those promises.

We've been around these issues before with FTP and they keep promising to reform their system and do better. Apparently they need to try again. Good customer service and a thorough investigation need not be mutually exclusive.

[Josem]

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OP's money isn't stolen or even confiscated. It's just frozen while FTP investigates whatever it is they suspect her of doing.

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"Seizing someone's money, with no reasoning or justification, and refusing to say when it will be returned" is pretty close to a decent working definition of "stealing."

Let's call a spade a spade. No other business in the world would be allowed to behave like this.