Account blocked by Grand Virtual casino - Help needed

[PSB]

Originally Posted by Casinomeister

the player's account was flagged and locked for potential fraud - there were identifiers that I am not privileged to discuss that connected him to a fraud ring.

Meister, I know you don't want to give away the casino's fraud team secrets, but can you give clues on whether or not what some posters here have written are spot on - or way off base?

what is an identifier exactly - without naming the specific one(s) involved in this case? sorry, as a newbie I have no idea what an identifier is.

[BBKPoker]

Originally Posted by Casinomeister

BKKpoker - if you have an old issue with them, please PAB and I'll find out what happened to your deposit.

I worked out all my issues with them by dealing with their rep directly, they don't owe me any money at all. I still think that it needs to be addressed that their standard operating procedure is to steal deposits from those who's accounts they've "blocked".

[BBKPoker]

Originally Posted by PSB

Meister, I know you don't want to give away the casino's fraud team secrets, but can you give clues on whether or not what some posters here have written are spot on - or way off base?

what is an identifier exactly - without naming the specific one(s) involved in this case? sorry, as a newbie I have no idea what an identifier is.

A number of things could be used as identifiers: Mac Address, IP address, email, address, home address, phone number, a big group from one city all hitting them "coincidentally" at the same time, etc. My opinion is that the less obvious ones should be excused. I.E., I think that a bonus syndicate playing their legitimate accounts in a profitable manner and all signing up at the same time because they discovered a new casino and are hitting it is perfectly legitimate, and assuming they are playing their accounts with their real ID, and their own e-wallets, they should be paid as promptly and courteously as any other casino player. If the casino realizes they are an abusive syndicate and decides to disqualify them from any other promotions, then that is 100% okay, but confiscating winnings because they played a profitable strategy is not. If however, it is obvious by duplicate Mac Address, Machine ID, IP address, email address etc that they are fraudulently signing up multiple accounts, they should have their deposits refunded, and their accounts closed. I think this is a pretty reasonable and rational explanation, and I think most would agree. Prior to the UGIEA, I think most reputable casino managers would have agreed as well, but now that there is a lot less dead money in casinos from the Americans who comprised 60% of the online gambling base, bonus hunters are far more damaging to the casino's bottom line and so you've been seeing a lot of unscrupulous actions taken by casino groups that formerly were super reputable.

I mean, look at the list of groups that had a previous excellent reputation that have done things that can only be described as rogue w/in the last year:

Sunny Group
Fortune Lounge
Casino Rewards
Mainstreet Group
Mini Vegas Group
Hippojo (Might be a little disingenuous since they were only in pending accredited status)

I'm sure I'm missing several others, but that list alone is pretty alarming to the average webmaster/affiliate I would guess.

[Casinomeister]

How did the Mainstreet group end up rogued? As far as I know they're still behaving nicely. One of the few decent RTGs left BTW

FL got hit up by massive fraud/mixed in with advantage players, and didn't handle it well.
Minivegas got nailed by massive fraud/mixed in with advantage players, didn't handle it well either.
Casino Fortune went off to bizarro land - no pay and totally whacked out.
Casino Rewards - messed up some bonus terms and felt the wrath.
Hippojo - they are actually still communicating - but not well I'm afraid. They are partial paying the players, and I hope to get further info from them.

You are correct on the indicators. There are numerous ways in which to spot phony accounts. Even here in the forum, I have people signing up with the same email address and trying to pretend that they are different people. It doesn't take an Einstein to figure some of this out.

Most casinos have fraud departments that review suspicious accounts. Sometimes human error is involved and shit happens; you get the occasional dolphin in the tuna net. That's just the way it is sometimes. It happened with Vesuvio in a Bellerock incident a little over a year ago. He was pegged as connected to a load of fraudsters, but was ultimately cleared.

Committing fraud is criminal activity. I don't think you could convince a casino to return the deposit of a fraudster - but I'm sure many casinos have policies that dictate that they do so - it all depends on the circumstances. I know of a number of cases where players have submitted phony IDs - yet they all had their deposits returned to them.

Keeping deposits from accounts deemed as advantage play is wrong, and a casino belongs in the rogue pit for doing so. I don't see that happening here.

And you are correct by implying that many casinos are more vigilant against unwanted play - casinos that were hit hard by the US situation. They have tightened their belts protecting their business as well as they can.

[BBKPoker]

Originally Posted by Casinomeister

How did the Mainstreet group end up rogued? As far as I know they're still behaving nicely. One of the few decent RTGs left BTW

FL got hit up by massive fraud/mixed in with advantage players, and didn't handle it well.
Minivegas got nailed by massive fraud/mixed in with advantage players, didn't handle it well either.
Casino Fortune went off to bizarro land - no pay and totally whacked out.
Casino Rewards - messed up some bonus terms and felt the wrath.
Hippojo - they are actually still communicating - but not well I'm afraid. They are partial paying the players, and I hope to get further info from them.

You are correct on the indicators. There are numerous ways in which to spot phony accounts. Even here in the forum, I have people signing up with the same email address and trying to pretend that they are different people. It doesn't take an Einstein to figure some of this out.

Most casinos have fraud departments that review suspicious accounts. Sometimes human error is involved and shit happens; you get the occasional dolphin in the tuna net. That's just the way it is sometimes. It happened with Vesuvio in a Bellerock incident a little over a year ago. He was pegged as connected to a load of fraudsters, but was ultimately cleared.

Committing fraud is criminal activity. I don't think you could convince a casino to return the deposit of a fraudster - but I'm sure many casinos have policies that dictate that they do so - it all depends on the circumstances. I know of a number of cases where players have submitted phony IDs - yet they all had their deposits returned to them.

Keeping deposits from accounts deemed as advantage play is wrong, and a casino belongs in the rogue pit for doing so. I don't see that happening here.

And you are correct by implying that many casinos are more vigilant against unwanted play - casinos that were hit hard by the US situation. They have tightened their belts protecting their business as well as they can.

Alright, I'll see if I can dig up my old emails from Grand Virtual, but considering the length of time since I had those issues with them, I doubt I'll be able to find them. It would be nice to have the Grand Virtual rep himself comment directly on their policy of "blocking" an e-wallet which includes their refusal to refund deposits, something I consider to be outright theft.

Mainstreet Group had a problem of delayed and stalled payments for several weeks this past summer including ignoring their players emails inquiring about cashout status. It didn't really make it on here all that much (a thread search from that time only turned up a couple of Mainstreet threads) but it was a big enough deal that it was discussed on the CAP website and mb.winneronline.com. Here's the CAP thread:

http://www.casinoaffiliateprograms.c...rs.21099.html?

[vinylweatherman]

Committing fraud is criminal activity. I don't think you could convince a casino to return the deposit of a fraudster - but I'm sure many casinos have policies that dictate that they do so - it all depends on the circumstances. I know of a number of cases where players have submitted phony IDs - yet they all had their deposits returned to them.

It is up to the courts to decide that though, casinos cant just "steal" a deposit because an attempt was made to steal from them. In many cases, the money probably does not even belong to the fraudster, but to a third party, or even the bank if they obtained a credit card using the same fake identity. It is really up to the bank to decide what to do, and shoud lock down the card/account when the casino confirms fraud.
In order to have any justification to keep a deposit, the casino should get a court order from their licencing juristiction, and this can act as a receipt for the player concerned, who can then opt to defend the action.

The reason why threads keep going after the initial complaint is resolved is the way casinos continually mishandle these cases. When the account was sent for further review this was to check more thoroughly, however the player was told the FINAL decision had already been made, and there would be NO review. It then turns out to have been yet another mistake, showing the process for detecting fraud is flawed. Because players can not know what went wrong, we can not be expected to differentiate between a genuine case of difficulty and pure incompetence. Casinos also call things as "fraud" when it is nothing of the sort, but want to confiscate winnings without giving a proper reason (which usually turns out to be some kind of bonus issue). Last, but not least, when an innocent player gets caught up, the casino just WILL NOT LISTEN, and are often extremely RUDE when the player attempts to sort the issue out. In such cases, it takes public critisizm, intervention from the likes of Casinomeister, and a few weeks of anguish for the casino to suddenly discover a "simple" error was the root cause of the trouble.
When players have their accounts flagged, it does not mean CS can be rude and refuse to listen, nor that they can just say their money is confiscated with no right of appeal. Casinos MUST accept that there are "dolphins in the net", and should ensure that all non-fraud explanations are investigated before branding the player a fraud.
In this case, the player has been cleared, but there is clearly something "wrong" with him that caused these flags to be triggered. Since he cannot know what happened, he will always wonder when this will happen again. If a player is cleared, there is no reason not to be helpful to ensure he can make the necessary changes to prevent him being mistaken for a fraud the next time.
Incidentally, the information is not really that "secret", it is just that casinos don't give it out, but the real fraudsters know what methods they are using, and by comparing their own circumstances with the circumstances fraudsters invent for defrauding casinos, innocent players can probably see how they get mixed up with it.
Here in the UK, watching a few back episodes of Panorama, Watchdog, and Dispatches should give plenty of indications as to how online casinos can be targeted by known scams adapted from elsewhere.

[PSB]

Originally Posted by Paj

I am logged in and playing again, not getting my hopes up until I cash out.

When I saw the casino's response of "We consider this matter closed." I was furious and if they had of confiscated the deposit in my eyes it would of been theft. Unfortunatly as said there really would of been nothing I could have done.

A huge thank you to Casinomeister for giving the casino a poke and getting the problem resolved

Funny how this thread went off tangent and everyone seemed to forget about the OP Paj.

Paj, what's your experience been since returning? Did you eventually wager enough to cash out?
Here's hoping you got what you were looking for

[Casinomeister]

Originally Posted by vinylweatherman

...
The reason why threads keep going after the initial complaint is resolved is the way casinos continually mishandle these cases. When the account was sent for further review this was to check more thoroughly, however the player was told the FINAL decision had already been made, and there would be NO review...

They admitted that mistakes were made, and it's unfortunate that mistakes are still made by experienced casinos. But when you have humans behind the scene, perhaps even new employees, there is always room for human error. I agree that the casino needs to rewrite it's preliminary account closure statement - it was too abrupt and final.

Another issue - that may not be associated with case, but it is associated with dealing with players in general - is to keep your cynicism in check. One must always consider that there are dolphins in the tuna net.

[Paj]

Sorry the delayed response but yes I have made a successful cashout, thanks again