Thursday, December 14, 2006

Disgusting Realization

I had a thought today that made me sick to my stomach.

The morons who sponsored the UIGEA were right. I still think the UIGEA was horribly wrong and will not do a single thing to address the situation. But in a way, this is exactly what they were talking about. Their attempt to fix it was lame and ridiculous, but things like this give them ammunition to enact these horrible laws.

I was operating under the fallacy that money kept in an account at someplace like Full Tilt Poker was safe. If something beyond my control happened to that money, I thought a respected site like Full Tilt Poker would do something to protect me and my funds.

I was wrong and the UIGEA folks were right. It is a totally unregulated industry that pretty much makes up its own rules on whether they want to protect your money or not. I am relegated to taking their word for the fact that my money was taken to the tables by some untraceable dirtbag and blown at the tables for absolutely no gain to him except the thrill of putting the screws to me. They've given me an IP address and a big text file of hand histories that show someone blowing my money to a few players over several hands.

There is no question that the player is not me. I played my final hands at the site, visited the Riverchasers tournament to chat with Al and Michael Craig for a few minutes, and the moment I logged off someone logged on from a completely different IP address and proceeded to ransack my bankroll.

Yet Full Tilt Poker, while not responsible for the disappearance of my money, certainly assisted in it's dispersal. There are no guarantees for your money. You are not putting it in a bank, you are not depositing it into a safe place. You are basically putting it in the hands of some foreign company, and hoping they have enough self-interest to protect your funds.

Again I remind you, do NOT keep your money on a poker site. It is not safe there, and if someone gets into your account you will not be protected in any way.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

DB, I'm so sorry for what happened. It's ridiculous that FTP won't do a damn thing for you. I'll be sure to put a PSA up linking to you.

Anonymous said...

I fired off an email to support to mention what a horrible job they did and to notify them of my negative postings online.

Lets hope that eventually they correct this issue

Anonymous said...

The word is being spread bro about Full Tilt. Many of us have posted a warning on your behalf.

Did you check your hand history to see if your money was lost to just 1 or 2 other players? You should at least have access to that I would think. You may be able to track down where it went anyway.

DuggleBogey said...

Full Tilt has determined that it was lost in real games to real players. That's why they say they can't help me.

I have my doubts, but nothing is certain.

Anonymous said...

Yet Full Tilt Poker, while not responsible for the disappearance of my money, certainly assisted in it's dispersal. There are no guarantees for your money. You are not putting it in a bank, you are not depositing it into a safe place. You are basically putting it in the hands of some foreign company, and hoping they have enough self-interest to protect your funds.

There would be more guarantees for your money if you had better AV protection or didn't download pr0n and warez that are infected with keyloggers. I'm not sure why the risk that you might download a keylogger should be shifted to FTP.

They gave you the hand histories and the IP address. What more should they do?

You also don't address the fact that, as far as FTP is concerned, you could be trying to defraud them. How does Full Tilt know that you didn't ask a friend to login to your account from a different site and dump your chips?

Daddy said...

Ooof.

I guess it's time to change your "BoyToy69" password.