Pokerhost Stole $11,000 from me

[tripledouble]

I have been playing internet poker since round about 1999. I started out on paradise poker and have played most every site out there at some point or another.

This past week something happened to me that has never happened before...a poker site up and literally stole 11,000$ dollars from me.

here's the situation. My playername on pokerhost is Water. I played there due to the shiny little pamphlet I got in teh mail and what seemed like a good incentive to buy in. I played mostly 40/80 HU and some 30/60 HU.

Pokerhost manager Joey would actually call me at my house and set up high stakes 40/80 for me to play.

During the course of my play I probably cashed out over 28k or so. These cash outs would require up to 7 or 8 days to process, I'd have to be on the phone with them at least twice a week.

I play on pokerstars, party, Pacific, UB, America's Card Room and a slew of others...mostly 15/30 some 30/60 and higher.

I borrowed 2.6k from a friend of mine on ACR, he simply clicked the 'transfer between players' button and sent me 2.6 from his account to my own.

I planned to pay him back on pokerhost site...when i went to try to transfer him money on pokerhost it was rejected, no reason given, just kept poppign back into my account.

so i had my friend sit at a NL HU(heads up) table and I lost two hands to him for 2.6k.

At this point Pokerhost seized both of our accounts and declared that we were cheating the site. They not only took the 2.6 k I'd just given my friend but the remaining 11k in my accoutn as well.

Are you kidding me???? on any other site I can click a transfer button, ship any amount of chips to another account. They accussed me of 'chip dumping' said it was in violation of their policy and that my account and money was forfeit.

Get this when i called them..they said that they DID NOT BENEFIT FROM MAKIGN THIS MOVE..when i questioned that they said ' <font color="blue">pokerhost in no way benefits from this, we will be dispersing your money amongst the players you won it from </font>

are you friggen kidding me???? not only are you seizing my money but you're giving it backto the people i won from???? unreal. I guess getting to rake 11k in free money all over again doesn't benefit you clowns at all eh?

in no way shape or form did i cheat those players in winning their money, never sat with my friend and colluded, no team play nothing..just 2 hands at a HU NL table to pay him back the money i owed him from another site.

the only thing i'm guilty of is trying to pay back my friend 2.6k that at ANY OTHER SITE YOU CAN JUST PRESS A TRANSFER BUTTON AND IT"S DONE IN under 1 minute!

Joey and Gino and pokerhost (their managers) are complete scams, i've never been so poorly treated by any site in my entire life.

I have no recourse it would appear..i sent them a letter from my lawyer...when i asked to speak to their boss..they laughed and said 'yeah right,only 12 people in the world know who he is'

I now have 11,000 reasons to make sure that YOU do not go to their site and give them your money. Don't trust these guys with your money...EVER.

[BaronVonCP]

chipdump on party and they'll seize your money as well

[Thythe]

You should have searched the forums for rule #1: Never, ever, for any reason, lose money to any other person intentionally on the tables as a means to transfer money.

This results in an instant ban at pretty much any site.

[sonoftow]

Gentlemen, I honestly do feel your pain. The way you've described the action it seems unreasonable and totally out of line. Consider this though...

If someone with illegal money were looking for a way to wash it, wouldn't the ability to do what you did seem rather attractive? I guess I'm saying that if indeed the poker sites are guarding against being used by organized crime as a way to wash their money, isn't that in all our interests?

I'm a novice and truly awed by the sums of money your are playing as I have never played above the limit 1-2 games online so please take my question with a grain of salt.

[The Bloke]

Out of interest, how do they track this?

The detection method must be pretty sensitive in order for it to pick this up after just 2 lost hands, as happened to the OP.

[tripledouble]

bloke..very easy in this instance..there was probably only one person with a bankroll over 10k on teh entire site..me.

to the fella that said things about 'washing money' on every other site...paradise, acr, party, pokerstars...you may click a button that says 'transfer chips' you transfer the chips and if you have the money in your account the chips are transfered. far as i know laundering money through a poker site not a very viable option.

after the fact pokerhost told me that I could have transfered the chips at 200$ a day for 14 days if i wanted to get him money...

..nevermind the indian lady i talked to on the phone after the transfer didn't work couldn't help me with any question that wasn't 'i forgot my password'

[ QUOTE ]
chipdump on party and they'll seize your money as well


[/ QUOTE ]

dude on party i hit a button that says send baron 2.6k and the matter is resolved instantly.

[RollaJ]

[ QUOTE ]
pokerhost in no way benefits from this, we will be dispersing your money amongst the players you won it from


[/ QUOTE ]

Great, you and your friend will be getting it back

[Mike Haven]

this post by pokerdude10 seems remarkably similar to yours

weird

[SirFoldsAlot]

my thoughts exactly

[tripledouble]

not surprised one bit. This happend to me over a week ago , but I have been hoping, apparently in vain, that some amount of reasoning would have gotten me my account back.

[ QUOTE ]
Joey and Gino,

I wanted to take a few days to calm down before I contacted you with my appeal. It is not everyday you just lose almost $11,000 so I hope you will understand my frustration.

I feel that I have been a very loyal customer of pokerhost.com, I have sat for countless hours on end at your high limit games offering a service to both myself and the site (myself because I have been fortunate enough to win money and the site because it means that there has always been the option for any player on pokerhost to try their luck at high stakes on the site)

I have worked with Joey to set up games, i have encouraged my friends to come play at the site at which I have had good experiences.

One friend is johnnyonthespot (XXXXXXXX). XXXX and I know each other in real life, we play in homegames (hgs) together and often discuss what sites we play on. Recently he told me of a site, America's Card Room or ACR, I came to play there and he came to pokerhost to try that out.

he transfered me 2626 on acr by using the 'Transfer Chips from Player to PLayer' Option. This is how every site i've ever played on does player transfers. This list includes Ultimate Bet, Pokerstars, Party Poker, BoSPoker, Prima Network, Paradise Poker and countless others. I play poker for a living, it's what I do. Every one of these sites let's me transfer money to another player.

I try to think of reasons why you wouldn't let me transfer money to XXXX. The first one i think of is that you thought that it was me on both accounts and i was trying to get around the cash out limits set per account. That is not the case, you can tell by the account set up and having spoke with XXXX that it is two separate accounts. The next i figured was that you felt we were trying to scam other players on your site..couldn't be further from the truth you can check your logs Water and Johnyonthespot have never sat at the same table with chips in play.

anyways, i lost the money i borrowed from XXXX on ACR, shocker i lose too. I told him i'd pay him back on pokerhost. That's all that happened. No one is trying to cheat pokerhost. Pokerhost has been very good to me.

It just seemed ridiculous to me to ship don 200$ a day for 14 days to pay him back when he shipped 2626 to me on acr in under 1 minutes.

I don't want to go to 'war' with you guys, i'm just a poker player. I feel like you're stealing my money at this point. XXX told me that you were going to redistribute money from my account to players that I won it from? This would imply that I cheated them when i played them, i did not, you know this and I know this. What that says to me is that pokerhost wants to get double rake action on that money by getting that money back in play. i don't think that is a good message for you guys.

I would say that an amicable situation would be to place the money back in my account and say 'look you cannot do this' you have been warned. Believe me the message has been received. I think you shoudl do this becasue you are a new site and I have been very loyal to your site, waiting many hours for games and encouraging players to come to your site. Also i think you shoudl do this because the standard of the industry is to just be able to ship chips between players through player transfer buttons.

both don and i competed in your tournaments on your site as well. We like playing there. XXX told me he cashed out some amount of the money i sent you but I would be very surprised if he cashed it all out because he told me that he still hopes to play 15/30 on your site or 10/20 , limits that are too low for me.

He also told me that he was willing to forfiet the 'chip dumped' money as a punishment for doing what we did. I still feel like that is stealing and an unecessary action but if you really feel like we were out to scam pokerhost (and if that was the case why wouldn't i just transfer all my money to don instaed of random 2626 ?) then taking the chip dump money i guess is better than takign both of our accounts. Obviously I wont' be happy about it, who would? I'll just consider it a very bad week at the tables.


thank you sirs for your time.

xxxxxx 'water'


[/ QUOTE ]

never even did teh courtesy of a reply, had to call them to find out their decision.