Need advice. Multiple Full Tilts accounts from my computer...

Maybe. Not sure they were all created on my computer, but let's assume half to all were. Probably makes no difference. Anyway.... This is hard for me to write. If I leave out details, it's probably because I am embarassed more than hiding anything. I only ask that you try, just try to refrain from comments like 'What were you doing with this jerk to begin with?' I've suffered enough. Just looking for advice as to what to do now, if anything. Here we go...

I started seeing someone, 2 & 1/2 years ago who played poker online - I never had or even thought about it. I honestly don't remember if he already had an account or created it at my home. But he turned me on to it, and encouraged me to create an account at Full Tilt, and I deposited $50. I knew nothing of rakebacks or any promotions or bonus codes, was not in it for that, just for fun. Hell, I was just playing freerolls, 10 cent tourneys and very small buy-ins in Railbird tourneys (before I ever found CC ). He had no credit cards, so he'd give me cash, and I'd transfer him the money.

He lived almost 2 hours from me. He could never hold a job for long, and in between jobs, he wanted to be with me all the time, and half-heartedly looked for jobs close to me, which would last a month before he'd screw up. He ran out of money frequently.

In a long stretch between jobs, in May 2007, he took my credit card, opened up another 5 Full Tilt accounts (totally unbeknowst to me), and within 1 one month, charged over $2k (claimed he kept trying to win the losses back ). Wound up repaying me just $500. But anyway, I don't know if he created the accounts here or at his ex-'s house on his son's computer (w/my credit card #). But I only discovered all these accts looking at the FT hand histories (which I never even knew existed on my computer until last summer). So he obviously played some of these $20 & even $50 SNGs from my computer while I was asleep. Tell you the truth, and I know this sounds strange and unbelievable, but I never even noticed the hand history folders for the newer multiple accts until a couple weeks ago.

To make a long story shorter, he's been in prison since last July, so he's not been using these accounts since. I am no longer in touch with him, but suspect he'll be out in July. I seriously doubt he'll even remember all the accounts he created except for 1 or 2 that he used a lot. A couple of the accounts have only a handful or less hand histories, at least on my computer. I have no idea what info he used to create these accounts. I assume that in a couple new accounts, where he deposited money using my credit card, that the account is in my name, or they would not accept the deposit, right?

I did a 'request', 'find a player' at Full Tilt, and it says 'player not currently sitting at any tables', which means the accounts still exist. FWIW, I have never opened a 2nd account at FT or anywhere else. I have quite a bit of money now in my divebich acct. I've never tried to cash out even once. After reading that thread by 'sirjigglesworth' yesterday, it got me thinking that I will have a problem. So....what should I do?
Should I contact FT and tell them everything, giving them all the screen names he fraudulantly created?
Or let sleeping dogs lie?
Can they tell if an account was created on my computer?
Will they likely say 'we don't believe you or even care', (as some here will no doubt say too) and close my account too, seizing my money?

I'm a little surprised that FT didn't catch it long ago. And wondering why not. But for now, I need some advice. Any questions, please ask, and I'll do my best to answer all. Thanks.

I really dont know what to tell you. Terrible situation obviously. I think that when/if you try to cash out, they will say something about multiple accts. At that time I think you should give the jiste of what you know and hopefully they can just add all the money on the accts to just one. I think that is the best case scenario... Good luck with this.

sounds like the stickiest of situations. I wouldnt be the first to think that in this case you may be telling the whole story here. My first guess was that if your completely honest with full tilt and provide them with all the relevant information they will be able to see what your saying. Ive always found honesty to be the best policy. But some would disagree with me.

Yes, I think they'll discover it too. Would be nice if they took the money and transferred it to me, since every cent came from me, but doubt they would. There's probably not much there anyway. Thanks for the help and good wishes.

That's kinda what I was thinking. If I'm upfront before attempting any withdrawal, they might give me the benefit of the doubt first, instead of shutting my acct and ask questions later (or even worse, leaving me with the burden of contacting them multiple times and pleading my case). Thanks for the help.

FT will most likely freeze your acount if you say aything t them.
let sleeping dogs alone for now.
you have the account names. any chance you have the password?
maybe it would be worth it to call this guy and get them.
you need to delete these before he get out. if yo dont he still has these poker accts. It's part of his restitution to you.
what would happen is that you will win some big money at a tourney and then your froze.
yes they can tell it was created on your conputer. a good analyst can tell when you play by the ambient noise created during session. there is alot of comm.talk between the pc's
why they did not dectect it, maybe one family member will open an account for multiple players.
good luck
later stevencool1

Now one thing i forgot to mention dive and i hope others correct me if iam wrong but i dont think u can make multi accts from one computer. From my experience me and my fiance both have accts. She had to make her acct for fulltilt and pokerstars from her laptop. When we tried to do it from the home computer it said can not create two accts from same ip address. My guess that if you send full tilt these names along with some dates when this happened they can check out where accts were located and if they used your info to create them.. Now they may have been accessed from your computer once created but i dont think they were made from your pc. This might make it easier for you to plead your case to full tilt.

Now just to say one thing. If she lets sleeping dogs sleep then how is she supposed to access the money in her acct she uses. If she doesnt come forward and say something then full tilt takes her money when she tries to withdraw. IF SHE DOES in the right way and provides all relevant information then full tilt will look on her as a valued member whos not looking to in anyway rob them or violate the terms of the agreement agreed to prior to opening her acct. TRUST ME. HONESTY ALWAYS GOES FURTHER THAN NOT BEING TRUTHFULL FROM THE JUMP

Dive, I say contact them. They will work with you, I do think he could have used his name to open them but not positive on that. If you tell them all the info they will close any multi accounts and let the first one opened in your name be the account.
Good luck!

Tell FT everything. They'll close the accounts (you don't want him to have access to your CC to redeposit when he gets out anyway) and you won't have to worry about it when the time comes to cash out.

I think contacting them would be your best bet. I mean worst case is they freeze the accounts until you can prove what you are saying to them.

Hopefully they will be a little more willing to work with you since the process was started by you. If you just let "sleeping dog's lie" I think you are most likely going to be in this sitiuation anyway that accounts will be froze, but then how willing do you think they will be to listening to reasoning behind it if it was something they picked up on instead of you contacting them.

I may be wrong here & this is just my opinion, but this is what I would do if I was in a similar situation.

Good luck to you I hope whatever your decision that things work out

Nice to see least the majority look at it the same as I.

I can't call him, he is in prision. I can't even write him (IF I wanted to, which I don't) as I have a 'no contact' against him. I have the password to just one of his accounts, the original one, but afraid to go in there from my own PC. Not sure what you mean about the 'ambient noise'. I only have one computer, and he would play from mine. But even if I could get into his account, there is no option to close it that I know of. Is there? Thanks for the advice!

Actually, I'm fairly certain you can created multiple accts from the same computer, at least you could almost 2 years ago, at least at FT. He only had access to my computer, and his son's. I don't think they let you download pokers aps at the library or an internet cafe, do they? He never worked in an office, and didn't have friends he hung out with at their homes. He created these 3 or 4 of his accounts within a very short time period. Here's a question though..Don't IP addresses change frequently? Like every couple weeks or months?

I certainly hope they'd see it that way. I've never tried to pull a fast one or even withdraw anything. I have over $600 in there now, and glad to be able to say I really don't need the money. But would be nice to know I can withdraw it someday. Thanks again.

When you decide what your going to do i hope you share with us whats happened. Be curious to see how it turns out

Definitely DO NOT let sleeping dogs lie, or the problem will never be sorted out. My guess would be that everything will be fine until you try to withdraw, so contact them before you try to withdraw anything. This guy presumably is guilty of fraud, if he used your credit card without your permission, so it might be a good idea to get the police involved too.

since I didn't know the details . then I agree with everybody else. get in tuch with FTP asap ( guys, I ment only to postpone for a day or two) until advice came in and other with simliar problems.

Well, it's so convoluted. I think he opened his account before me, not sure. But I do know what user name that was. Just don't see how he was able to use my credit card if he used his own name to set up his accts. Don't they have any safeguards for that to protect people whose credit card info has been stolen? I guess I will contact them. Thanks!

Believe me, that credit card was cancelled immediately. Thanks for the advice!

Well, I'm just not sure I can prove anything, except for who I am. Come to think of it, Full Tilt should have to explain to me just how they did not catch the same damn credit card being used at multiple accounts. And whether or not the accounts were opened with the same name (mine) and address. They should be satisfied that they got all that money from me. As anyone could guess, the good folks at Mastercard didn't want to hear it. But agreed, they should be willing to work with me if they didn't have to 'catch me'. Thanks for the help!

It's not a problem for any poker site until you try to withdraw from them. That's when they go through everything. As of now, it's not a problem for them. Know this, they already are aware that multi-accounts have logged in from your computer. Some guy, somewhere has it posted on his desk that when you or any of the accounts try to withdraw. He needs to verify everything. You need to contact them with this story and let them know which account you want. They will have no problem deleting the others and allow you to carry on as you were. You DO NOT want them contacting you about this once you try to get some cash from them. You life will be a living hell, believe me. As long as you are upfront and let them know what's up. They will have no problem working with you.

Let's just hope your boy didn't try using multi-accounts at the same tables or in the same tourneys. This would create a whole other issue for you. Please let them know immediately.

Lefty

Well, that is one sleeping dog I will let lie. We'd already been together for almost a year when his combo of freeloading and poker addiction really kicked in. He paid back what he could until I decided it was not worth it to have anything to do with him. I didn't want to proscecute at the time. There was no way I'd ever see that money again anyway - can't get blood from a stone. Thanks!

Hmmmm, I'll bet you're right. You'd think though that they would still have a problem w/multiple accts just because of the possibilities for collusion or fraud. Well, I don't care what accts they delete, as long as it's not divebich. I mean one of those other accts is legitimate, even if he created it on my computer. BTW, we never played at the same time, I have just 1 computer. And almost 100% certain he never played on 2 accts at a time anywhere else, don't think it was possible. Thanks much for the good advice!

I sure will. Keeping my fingers crossed.

I really hope this works outs for you - fingers crossed.

It's a tough situation for you Divebitch that's for sure. What Lefty says about them already being aware of multiple accounts is most likely very much the case. It's when a withdrawal from any of those accounts takes place that the dreaded refusal e-mail and security e-mails from FTP will start to happen tbh. They will always ( without exception ) revert all dealings back to the very first account that was created with regards to any of the monies, and even then depending on how they view things, might ban that account too.
At some point they will also most likely only correspond with you via the e-mail address on their records from the original account, and might not enter into any discussions from e-mail addresses from subsequent accounts.
In my opinion, you need to hold back from making any decision for a day or two until you get more feedback in this thread. Saying that, I do think your best option, eventually, will be to contact FTP yourself with a very detailed and completely honest account of what has happened, what you have found out, and what you hope can be a fair solution.
If you do go down that road, I would suggest that you don't mention anything at all about wanting to, or considering making a withdrawal to them at this point. Offer to take any hit to your monies with regards to any amounts of bonus money that might of been accrued via the rogue accounts as I think this might help your case. Also remember, the onus is always on the account holder to make sure multiple accounts don't take place, and not on the poker site. Best of luck and please wait a while before making your final decision.

EDIT: Another thought. I'm not saying you would or anything but, don't try to get clever with your monies by transferring to friends or chip dumping in a HU cash game with friends etc, that will just make things worse, both for you, and your friends.

I agree you should contact FT as soon as possable. I would even mention the no contact order you have against him and tell them you will show it to them if they want. As the victim of identity theft (wich is what this is if he used your CC info to open accounts or deposit on them) you have alot of rights here.
Personaly I think you should have contacted the CC company as soon as you found out about this. You might still be able to actually, and you might be able to get the money back from the CC company. I doubt fulltilt will give you any money back from this.
If after contacting fulltilt they are not willing to work with you, you might want to contact a lawyer. But as everyone else said...if you bring the issue to them, they should see that you are not trying to defraud them, but rather help them.
Best of luck.

Edit: strike the as soon as possable. Blue is probaly right. Take a day or two to get everything in order and gain as much advice and evidence as you can.

You can strike the bit about contacting a lawyer, too.

See, it's tricky. I was a rank ignorant newbie to the world on online poker when I signed up. Still am in some ways. I still don't know if 2 different people in the same household can each have an acct. I think they can, and why not? Long as you're not logged in at the same time. I know that some sites catch it, and ask for all kinds of proof that 2 people exist. Poker Stars did that, but he couldn't prove he lived with me (he technically didn't), so their customer service was excellent, and we jointly (PS & I) decided to delete his account completely. Neither of us had deposited there (to my knowledge ), so no biggie.

What I'm trying to get at though, is that I considered his 2 accts at FT(the only 2 I knew of back then) to be totally separate from mine, regardless of where he created them. That was very naive I suppose. I honestly don't know if his was created before mine. I hope not, because neither he nor I have any access to his email. For that I do not have the password, only to his first FT acct.

And I was such a newb, it turns out I did have a nice 1st deposit bonus (actually $80 left, so I guess I deposited $100 and not $50 like I originally said), but it expired, since all I played for awhile were freerolls, 10 cent tourneys, and a handful of small buy-in private tourneys. I was completely unaware you had to spend the money to get it back. Whatever is in the rogue accts, I don't care about. Just don't want to jeopardize my own.

No, I am not stupid enough to mention anything about a withdrawal, nor do I even intend to withraw anytime soon. And no, the thought of transferring to friends never even crossed my mind. Thanks for all the (usual) sage advice here. I will wait a day for a few more replies. A huge, sincere 'thanks' to all who have tried to help!!

Here is my point of view, you did nothing wrong but you still need to contact them with your story. Think about how bad it looks if they find 6 accounts in your name and when they find out, your story would only seem like an excuse.

Very simple, email them. Anybody who tells you otherwise is an idiot


The sooner you email them, the better it will be for you

You do not need a loyaler if you explain the situation to ftp

Thanks so much Dogz. But if I didn't contact a lawyer or proscecute about $2400, I'm not going to pay a lawyer $1000 to chase $650 in my FT account. Besides, I feel FT will do the right thing. Oh, trust me, I went back and forth with the credit card company the minute I got the bill. Don't know if it had to do with laws or just the fine print in the contract you sign with the CC company itself, but they do not cover online gambling sites. And on the credit card bill/statement, the charge is often disguised at something else (i.e. flowers) but somehow, they knew it's an offshore poker site. If he rung up a bill at Macy's, I would've been covered. Thanks much for the help!

What's this about a loyaler? Thanks much for the reply. It's been this long, I'll probably contact them tomorrow. I know I've done nothing wrong, at least I didn't mean to. No one got hurt except for me. I hope they can see that, and not add further injury to insult - or however the saying goes. hehe

You can have two accounts from the same computer/household. Husband and wife, boyfriend and girlfriend etc at FTP. Like you say, just can't play at the same tables and so on.
Yeah, knowing which account(s) were the originals is the tricky part for you and that will need to be explained to FTP.
You could start to type out what you want to say to them in advance so that you get everything right in your head.

Don't forget that when you started to discover what your ex had been up to, you started to look at hand histories and searching some of the names on the rogue accounts etc.
Make sure you tell FTP about doing so as they will most likely have such things logged somewhere or other anyway. Try to be consistent with dates and reasons because the moment FTP start seeing inconsistencies in your explanations, they will start to play hard-ball with you.
If you do contact them, consider by-passing customer service and head straight over to their security department instead.
Show willing, show concern, and show you wish to resolve the issue in a positive way. Anything that they might require from you will always be do-able/possible, they won't ask for the impossible. Have patience with them too, the whole thing might take a while to sort out. Good luck.

Just to be clear (and this is probably of little consequence), he told me about what he had done before the cc/bank statement showed up. He never mentioned the additional FT accounts, as it understandably didn't seem to matter, compare to what he'd done to me. I just learned of all of them a week or 2 ago, looking in the hand history section. As I mentioned before, it's unbelievable (even to me) that I never noticed them before. Also of little consequence probably, is that the weekend before he told me what he had done, I tried to use my ATM card on a weekend, and it was locked. I had no idea why. This was a Wachovia ATM/credit card (which I have since chanced to ATM ONLY, since I normally use an AAdvantage and/or United Mileage Plus for all my credit card expenditures. But this was when he knew it was a matter of days before I'd find out. Yes, I'll address it to 'security'. Thanks so much again!

Really sorry you are in this situation, and guess it kind of dampens your fun playing poker. I can only say what others have said...honesty and frankness should be the way to go. Really hope this works out for you, good luck and do keep us posted on how things go.

Nah, doesn't really dampen my fun. My outlook has always been "Don't cry over spilt milk, but always learn from your mistakes'. And it's taken me a long way in keeping my sanity to the (relative) max and stress levels to a (again, relative) minimum. Thanks so much for the reply and good wishes.

Great attitude guess things could be a lot worse, but still, hope you get it sorted in your favour. Best of luck.

i meant lawyer but mind was in a different place

I wish you luck in clearing up this nightmare. The best advice I've read here is to tell Full Tilt and tell them FAST. Don't let them notify you about the accounts. Good Luck

Best of luck to you. You need to make it very clear to FT that charges were put on your card illegally and these accounts on FT need to be closed. Touble is FT will most likely close your account too. FT should have caught it when more then one account was opened with the same card. Worst thing is that with FT and other on-line sites, you are totally at there mercy.

<insert agreement with all above about telling FT first and being completely honest about the whole situation>

Another key item to be specific about with them is that he has been in prison since July 2008. That means when you tell them about the various IDs, they will be able to confirm that none of those IDs have been accessed since July. That should be a huge plus for you. And if you can further back that up with any sort of legal record (freedom of information act, if necessary) that shows he went to prison and when, then even better.

I pretty much go with this idea. You MUST contact FT security right away (even though they are idiots) . This is pretty serious and may well come back and bite you somewhere down the line if you do not try to nip it in the bud now. Better to choose the time to fight your battle and put it all on the table instead of waiting for the day FTP finds out on its own (and they most likely will someday--Murphys Law says it will be at the most inconvenient moment).

Best of Luck