Account blocked by Grand Virtual casino - Help needed

[lojo]

That's a great post, bbk. Almost a manual. That was awesome of you to take the time to explain.

 

[chuchu59]

This is serious. If the reason given for not refunding deposits was bonus abuse, then this is downright 'rogue' behaviour. There has been a lot of debate on 'bonus abuse' but we were always talking about 'winnings' being confiscated and even the worst casinos in my book did not try to confiscate deposits. Are they really so desperate after the loss of US players?

 

[Casinomeister]

Good post bbk - thanks for the DVDs

By the way, the Grand Virtual group has never accepted US bets - I'm just making sure you're not confusing them with another group of casinos.

 

[jerrylee]

By the way, the Grand Virtual group has never accepted US bets - I'm just making sure you're not confusing them with another group of casinos.

with all due respect Casinomeister this is incorrect. Up until ~Oct 2006 Grand Virtual did accept US players for real money. Now it's play money only.

Anyway, nice to see Paj got what he wanted...his account opened and even a bonus to boot.

 

[Casinomeister]

with all due respect Casinomeister this is incorrect. Up until ~Oct 2006 Grand Virtual did accept US players for real money. Now it's play money only.

Anyway, nice to see Paj got what he wanted...his account opened and even a bonus to boot.

Well I know from the git-go, the Grand Virtual properties did not accept US bets. And when they were listed on this site years ago.

Check out their casino website screen shots from the Wayback machine:

Casino Treasure 1999

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Casino Fantasy

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Imperial Casino

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all state "void in US" - perhaps they temporarily opened their doors, but shut them again. I could find out for sure but this is beside the point.

I've been in touch with them and they explained in detail what had happened. It seems the weekend crew had some miscommunications - but it is sorted out. Good thing. I'm tiring of the fraud crap. We've had another Casinomeister member (senior member) caught out as a fraudster today.

The bottom line is - if you try to pull a fast one, you will get caught. Fraudulant accounts are usually pretty easy to detect.

 

[jas2587]

I dont understand what they meant by this

"My IP address is static and has never been used before I had it."

think it was PAJ that said it


Cindy

 

[BBKPoker]

Good post bbk - thanks for the DVDs

By the way, the Grand Virtual group has never accepted US bets - I'm just making sure you're not confusing them with another group of casinos.

I'm almost certain they took bets from US customers 1 1/2- 2 1/2 years ago. However, I may have played them when I was working/living in Edinburgh and remembering them from there. Entirely possible, but I'm 100% sure I'm not confused regarding the group.

 

[BBKPoker]

Well I know from the git-go, the Grand Virtual properties did not accept US bets. And when they were listed on this site years ago.

Check out their casino website screen shots from the Wayback machine:

Casino Treasure 1999

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

Casino Fantasy

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

Imperial Casino

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

all state "void in US" - perhaps they temporarily opened their doors, but shut them again. I could find out for sure but this is beside the point.

I've been in touch with them and they explained in detail what had happened. It seems the weekend crew had some miscommunications - but it is sorted out. Good thing. I'm tiring of the fraud crap. We've had another Casinomeister member (senior member) caught out as a fraudster today.

The bottom line is - if you try to pull a fast one, you will get caught. Fraudulant accounts are usually pretty easy to detect.

Good update. Did they address their policy of not refunding deposits?

 

[vinylweatherman]

Well I know from the git-go, the Grand Virtual properties did not accept US bets. And when they were listed on this site years ago.

Check out their casino website screen shots from the Wayback machine:

Casino Treasure 1999

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

Casino Fantasy

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

Imperial Casino

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

all state "void in US" - perhaps they temporarily opened their doors, but shut them again. I could find out for sure but this is beside the point.

I've been in touch with them and they explained in detail what had happened. It seems the weekend crew had some miscommunications - but it is sorted out. Good thing. I'm tiring of the fraud crap. We've had another Casinomeister member (senior member) caught out as a fraudster today.

The bottom line is - if you try to pull a fast one, you will get caught. Fraudulant accounts are usually pretty easy to detect.

This is the whole point, but before they discovered the issue to be with the weekend crew, they tried, convicted, and executed the player, who had no alternative than to find another means to argue their case, as the player was told "case closed". This seems to indicate that had the player NOT made the posts they did, and been picked up by Casinomeister, the mistake would never have been discovered, and this player would have been a GENUINE victim of "theft" by an online casino.
The fact that another Casinomeister member has just been found out as a fraudster shows the problem does exist. What is needed is a proper means for players to appeal internally, surely the "weekend crew" were not the level at which to make this decision in this case.
Further, we now have an allegation that Grand Virtual confiscates deposits, not just for fraud (which has now been shown to have innocent victims of confiscation), but merely for playing in a way they don't like. If they are accredited, they should not be confiscating deposits for "bonus abuse", and it is debatable whether they should be doing so for fraud. Cited are instances where the funds did not belong to the fraudster, and this does not entitle the casino to keep them, as this is "handling stolen goods". In this country, if you think you have received stolen goods unintentionally, you are obliged to return them unless the original owner (in this case the banks) say you can retain them. It is bad enough to find your account has been used fraudulently, but to have some merchants detect the fraud, and then refuse to repatriate the funds, makes the situation worse.

From my current reading of this thread, and assuming the OP didn't lie when they said all was OK now, I would treat Grand Virtual as a "proceed with caution", not something I would expect to have to do with an accredited group. I base this on the fact that it looks like they have an "f u clause" policy that can lead them to confiscating all the deposits, which goes well beyond the bonus abuse concept of considering undesirable play as "void".

If fraud is really such a problem from players, then genuine players might as well accept that no matter what precautions they take, they WILL get screwed over sometime no matter how reputable the casinos they play at are.
It would help players feel more sympathetic towards casinos that are hit this way if software vendors and some licencing juristictions start taking proper action when it is the CASINOs that indicate there are grounds for believing they are acting in bad faith.

 

[Casinomeister]

I asked them about the confiscation of advantage player deposits and their policy dictates that this is not done.

I haven't seen any evidence of the confiscations of deposits from this group, and I have in contact with them since 1999. As far as I know, the only time deposits have been forfeited is from fraudsters.

If there is evidence of this claim - please post it here. And please don't include complaints that are associate with player fraud.

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

 

[Casinomeister]

This is the whole point, but before they discovered the issue to be with the weekend crew, they tried, convicted, and executed the player, who had no alternative than to find another means to argue their case, as the player was told "case closed". .

Actually, this is not the case. Over the weekend 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. When the head management returned to the office on Monday, this case went through a standard second round of review, and they requested his docs which cleared him. This was done without my intervention and coincidentally when this thread was initiated.

GV gets hit up by many fraud rings, mostly from Israel and the UK (this is well documented here in the forum). But sure, this causes casinos like this to be vigilant to protect their business and mistakes can be made. Mistakes were made here, but they had discovered these on their own and were in the process of resolving this.

It's understandable that players are cynical when it comes to issues like this, thanks to actual rogue behaviour of many unfair businesses.

With this incident - I feel this is pretty much a rare occurrence with GV.

 

[vinylweatherman]

I asked them about the confiscation of advantage player deposits and their policy dictates that this is not done.

I haven't seen any evidence of the confiscations of deposits from this group, and I have in contact with them since 1999. As far as I know, the only time deposits have been forfeited is from fraudsters.

If there is evidence of this claim - please post it here. And please don't include complaints that are associate with player fraud.

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

Some confusion still seems to exist between GRAND Virtual, and the !Queen of Rogue City", the VIRTUAL group, who DO indeed confiscate anything they deem fit.
One thing that DOES need clearing up is whether the OP did anything at all "wrong" that could have lead them to receive this most direct of accusations from the casino:-

Thank you for your inquiry. Your account has been permanently blocked
by our Operations Department. The reason for blockage is that your
computer used to set up your player account has been connected to a
known fraud ring. There will be no further debits and/or credits posted
to your credit card or your preferred payment method and thus no
winnings will be paid out.

Regards,
Customer Care Team

There was nothing "woolly" about this explanation, and if these mistakes can be so easily made then it is most important that casinos accept that mistakes CAN be made, and should NEVER say they consider this final. In this particular case, it seems this came even BEFORE the player was asked for the usual documents.
It is IMPOSSIBLE for casinos to be anywhere near 100% sure at that stage, the cleverest fraudsters are not as stupid as the amateur, and will have taken steps to ensure that their details are NOT "fabricated", but are "cloned" so as to stand up as genuine from a cursory inspection. It is only when supporting documents are requested that casinos can see discrepencies in the details that require further investigation.
This player would do well to check their credit files in case they have had their details "cloned" and used elsewhere on the internet, it is this cloning that can create a completely groundless association between a "fraud ring" and an unconnected player. The cleverest fraudsters would even implement "dynamic MAC addresses" for the machines they use, so as to make them appear as different people, they would spoof IP addresses, and ensure any falsified data was consistent with the details given to any merchant.
If we have to accept non-disclosure because of security fears, then casinos must ENSURE they get it RIGHT before they shoot off a damning accusation to a customer and tell them they are having large amounts of money "stolen" from their accounts. EVERY TIME a casino gets it wrong, and the player does not get redress, we have one casino that can be considered a "thief". This is in the same sense that we can be convicted of "theft" if we take advantage of a mistake, and refuse to listen when it is pointed out to us, usually by a bank or shop.

Unfortunately, so many casinos have grossly misused the term "fraud ring" to include members of certain casino related forums, or even recipients of certain mailings from their affiliates, who will mislead to make a mundane offer look brilliant, even to the point of telling how it should be played (no doubt such affiliates are paid for new players, not a percentage of the hold for them should they lose). Even husband & wife* playing together seem to constitute a "fraud ring" in the eyes of some casinos, and is probably one of the few leisure activities where husband & wife* should split up, and go to separate venues.

When I first started playing in the summer of 2004, I saw almost NO complaints of players saying casinos had "stolen" their money except when related to the worst rogue sites, now barely a single day goes by without a complaint related to confiscation of winnings from a player. While some are fraud, it surely cannot be the case that the entire increase is due to such an increase in player fraud. If this were so, most casinos would have gone bust, as detected fraud is usually only a fraction of what goes undiscovered, and technology has moved on in those 3 years, and casino software has had the opportunity to be adapted to weed out the silly mistakes that new players might make that could look like fraud.

Given how big business behaves towards UK consumers, I will never be able to believe that any business is incapable of "bending" the rules in order to make a few extra dollars. The biggest, and most reputable and longstanding pillars of UK business society have been caught with their fingers in consumer's wallets at some time or another, and they spend fortunes pullling the wool over the eyes of the regulators. Casinos have openly exhibited one of the traits already, treating "loyal" players like "cash cows" who can get along with minimal levels of benefits, while spending fortunes treating NEW players like Kings (or Queens) for a while till they seem hooked.


* Includes all kinds of partnerships, the problem being that they cohabit one dwelling, as one would expect.

 

[Casinomeister]

Concerning US players

From the casino:

Ultra Internet Media SA (UIM), the owner/operator of Everest Poker, Everest Casino and several other prominent online casinos has never accepted US play throughout its 10 year history of operations. For a brief period in 2006, there was collaboration with a third party based in the UK, whereby this third party offered gaming to US players under a few of our brands. The entire customer relationship, including processing of deposits and cashouts and servicing of these customers was handled by this third party and neither UIM nor the technology provider received any financial benefit. Only a very small number of US based players were involved and the relationship ended in July of 2006.

 

[Keyser]

Thank you for your inquiry. Your account has been permanently blocked
by our Operations Department. The reason for blockage is that your
computer used to set up your player account has been connected to a
known fraud ring. There will be no further debits and/or credits posted
to your credit card or your preferred payment method and thus no
winnings will be paid out.

Regards,
Customer Care Team

I am glad that things have worked out and, as Bryan said, the casino themselves initiated the second review of his account. However, this Email, as vinylweatherman points out, is entirely unacceptable. "Permanently blocked" is what it means, and there is no way for the player to think that the casino is acting in a reasonable manner.

Why not an EMail stating "Your account is locked and under review because it appears that your computer used to set up your player account has been connected to a known fraud ring. This matter has been forwarded to (more senior personnel) and we will be in contact with you by (some time in the future)." You can also then add some boilerplate about if fraud is confirmed, then the account will be permanently closed and funds seized (although I agree with vinylweatherman also that just because a player is a complete fraud does not give the right to the casino to just keep the money. They have to follow through with the bank/credit card/payment processor as to how to proceed)

 

[PSB]

Keyser I agree that email is strongly worded. Sounds like there's no way out.
But I think this thread is going in circles... the OP is long gone, with the issue taken care of. It's curious how other posters keep hammering away at the original email, despite what's transpired since.

Surely their "Customer Care Team" has undergone reviews? One wonders if the person responsible for writing the original message was talked to? He he , what if she/he were even aware of this thread? Imagine the shame from first taking a hard line suggesting the player's account was blocked permanently to the casino management stepping in and reversing the decision...thereby nullifying anything she/he wrote.

 

[PSB]

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]

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]

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]

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:

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[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]

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]

...
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