Pokerhost Stole $11,000 from me

[tripledouble]

sorry for sounding indignant Bob. I assure you that I was the model citizen when dealing with pokerhost. I believe if you go back and read my email to the Butafuco brothers you'll see that.

did i mention they didn't even bother to reply to that email?

you'd think that for 11k they could do the courtesy of a reply.

[theghost]

[ QUOTE ]
If you just transfer the money from one account to another the transfer will show up in the account history.

[/ QUOTE ]

bingo

[stir]

What immediately struck me upon reading the OP's story was:

How can someone who has played online since '99 and claims to have played on "most" every online site not have learned that chip dumping in a no-no and therefore he was taking a huge risk to try it.

[cardcounter0]

You are a large herion supplier on the west coast. Your east coast connection gets online and dumps $2626 in chips to you as down payment on latest shipment. Viola! Dirty drug money is now clean poker winnings.

Joey and Gino have to go back to old job of breaking legs in New Jersey as DEA swoops down and shuts down their entire site. Justice Department seizes all known assets and freezes all known bank accounts of the boss who only 12 people know and shall remain nameless.

Vinny and Rocko get sent to Cuba as suspected drug running terrorists under provisions of the 9/11 Patriot Act II.

A few months later, various body parts of Joey and Gino wash up on beach close to Atlantic City. Seems their fishing boat "Chip Dump II" sank in mysterious accident.
[img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Slick Al]

Call them! For being in touch with these people over the phone and being online since '99, wouldn't it occur to you to *call them* and ask "Can I transfer X dollars to my friend's account on your site?" If the answer is no, persue other options.

Chip dumping heads up is and was, as has been listed numerous times in this thread, used for illegal activities. A site has absolutely no reason to allow this, as all it does is raise further questions. It goes back to the old question - "Prove you're not a criminal." There's no way to prove this, so the sites don't allow transfering of money in heads up games in this fasion. If you're making millions, or even thousands of dollars a month, would you want your business potentially shut down on the *suspicion* that illegal activities *may have taken place* for some tiny fraction of your monthly income?

I agree that the way they handled this is poor, but if you have a way to call the guy, why not simply explain that you didn't understand why this was wrong, ask if there's anything you can do about it, especially since you've been a valuable patron to their site, yadda yadda.

Hopefully they'll work something out with you where you don't lose all your money, and it just ends up being a good free lesson on being careful with TOSs in areas with questionable legal jurisdiction/oversight.

Good luck with it.

Al

[Synergistic Explosions]

[ QUOTE ]
What immediately struck me upon reading the OP's story was:

How can someone who has played online since '99 and claims to have played on "most" every online site not have learned that chip dumping in a no-no and therefore he was taking a huge risk to try it.

[/ QUOTE ]

The guys story doesn't hold water. Sounds like he was caught, and couldn't persuade the site to release his money. Now he's on his last ditch blackmail attempt posting BS on all the forums.

Notice how all these account names posting the BS have just been created recently, and the first posts are on this subject.

Someone who has played 6 years and never before posted on a poker forum message board eh? Doubtful.

When you see the same people posting the same thing on multiple message boards I usually discount their stories as an obvious blackmail attempt to force the site to do as they want. No different than what crooks do when they demand payment with the threat of DOS attacks on the site. Except posting on message boards really has no bearing on a site to any extent. They are just wasting their time.

[tripledouble]

yeah because obviously everyone who plays poker MUST post on the message boards.

i could care less if someone named Synergistic Explosions believes if the story is true or not; look at all the incredible insight i've been missing from you by not posting here previously.

the reason for this thread is simple.

Pokerhost is a scam of a website..they stole from me, i'd like to think the community would appreciate a heads up so they put their poker dollars elsewhere. If after hearing about this, the ridiculous length of cash outs and the past shadiness of this site you still want to go tehre and spend your money, have fun.

someone steals 11k from you and you just sit there and do nothing? cracker please.

[tripledouble]

Hey Al, thanks for the post.

I in fact called them, repeatedly.

the email that I cut/paste in here was what they asked me to do after about 2 hours of phone conversations on the subject.

Joey gave me his 'word as a man' whatever the F that is, that my email would be read, considered and replied to.

ehhyah. after 7 days i heard nothing. Finally had to call them again to have them say and i quote "sorry for your misfortune, thank you for your time on Pokerhost"

not a whole lot i can do in my position...slam em here and elsewhere is just about it. None of that makes my 11k come back, but maybe i'll feel a little better knowing they might lose a potential client or two by their mistreatment of myself and my friend.

[richrf]

It is quite outrageous what happened to you from a purely ethical point of view, but unfortuately it is difficult to expect online poker sites to act ethically. There are "no rules" governing these sites and they can basically do what they want. Sort of like the "wild west days". But I am keeping track of all the sites that are most egregious of this type of behavior and staying far, far, far away from them.

[kdog]

[ QUOTE ]
yeah Kdog if it happened at one site; i must have an illegal money laundering scam going on..

..come on dude

in fact my friend transfered me 2600 on acr by "CLICKING TRANSFER CHECKS BUTTON"


[/ QUOTE ]

No, my point was that you have been around enough to KNOW that this is against the T&C's, will raise a red flag at any site and you run the risk of your account being frozen if you do it. Yet you did it anyway.

So if what you are saying is the 100% truth then what you are guilty of is either incredible stupidity or total arrogance for flaunting the T&C's instead of contacting the site.

Well, I admit $11K is a tough hit to take for being stupid but I for one would like to hear Poker Host's side of this. Anybody know how to contact them? I looked around the website but didn't see a phone number or email address. If someone has that please send them a link to this thread and see if they respond.