Stay Away From Ultimate Bet!!!!!!!!!

My story with the con-artists that are known as Ultimate bet:
After the U.S. "crackdown" on internet gambling,I moved my play form Empire Poker to Ultimate Bet. I played the play money tables and travled to the casino for real money games. One night we got a pretty bad snow here and I couldn't drive up to Blackhawk, so I bought in for a hundred dollars on Ultimatebet. I played that first night with no problems at all and ened a whopping 42 cents up. When I woke up I tried to log on , only to discover that my account name was invaled.......huh?
I e-mailed Ultimatebet to see what the problem was. 3 DAYS LATER I finally got a response that did not explain WHY my account was deactivated. It only asked for the following, Credit report, rental history, ID, bank statement and a utility bill......huh?
I of course wrote back saying they forgot to ask for a DNA sample, and by the way, theres no way I'm going send you all that information. I got a message back the next day telling me the problem was I used a credit card under a different name to deposit chips, and all I have to send is a copy of my state issued ID and the answer to my security question. I did that without hesitaion and explained that since I do not have a credit card and did not want to pay the fees assosiated with the other forms of deposit, I paid my roomate 100$cash to deposit into my account(my roomate does not play poker online and has no accounts anywhere.) I got no response and my account was not released.

A few days later I got an E-mail That had a phone number on it requesting me to call it. I called and was told they would call me back in an hour or so. 3 hours later my phone hasnt made a peep. I called again and the man on the other end immediatly accused me of fraud. I told him he just accused me of a felony and now I need to speak to his supervisor. He put me on hold for 40 minutes and then told me he was transferring me. Than he hung up on me. These people are theives. No-where in their T&C does it say the credit cards names have to match. When I brought this up , I was told "were allowed to suspend a players account whenever we want to"

Stay away play somewhere else.

i dunno why they are taking this position as i have 3 different crds in 3 different names on my PokerStars account maybe their security is more harsh

i always thought they were a pretty reputable site. i mean not a fly by night one like spades and some otheres have turned out to be. they have tons of advertising and professionals(phil helmuth to. lol.) on their site.maybe they suspected collusion or something.

be careful with that, I actually asked pokerstars to disable my one account so I could start a new one and they wouldn't let me. Its actually against their rules I believe to have multiple accounts, If they decide to crack down on this you could see your accounts being locked.

not saying user is lying or anything but I cant make opinion unless I could hear all of the story.

they do not suspect collusion or anything.
They told me the problm was using my roomates CC to deposit chips. They now want a picture of the credit card as well as one of his credit statements and a notarized letter from him saying its ok.... They wont even refund the money back to the card...

If this was a problem than they never should have accepted the deposit to bigin with right? I think they're using any excuse they can think of to steal from their customers. I'm not even going to ask my roomate for that information and documents , as that is way to excessive.

I seriously doubt Ultimatebet is in need of your $100. Maybe they are just trying to protect Their customers and think maybe someone hacked your account and user their credit card to deposit.

Thats what I though at first , but i confirmed to them that I indeed did deposit the chips. I even emailed my drivers lisence and security question answer to them when they asked for it. Then they told me that wasnt good enough. Its been over a week now and i guess my money is gone. I think its because they think I wont go through the trouble for a measly hundred bucks.

And to be fair to Ultimatebet (i love UB) this is the work of their CC verification company, not the good people at UB.

A few hours after posting this on a couple differnt forums, I got a call out of the blue from Ultimatebet and was told the problem was fixed.

All hail the poker forums.

they all bin used on my 1 account i already lost my 5 other accounts lol

Nice, a little publicity does the trick.

gotta love the internet.

Similar thing happened to me at absolute but they refunded the money back. After that I said hell with em

Sorry guys - I work in Fraud at a major credit card company and I have to be greatful for their caution lol. You ought to see it from this end!!! Every single day I have accounts where a customer calls in and says their roommate or friend or family member used their card without their permission. Guess who takes the loss??? Not the customer.

debi, i don't want to spoil the pudding here( so to speak ) but i am sure the credit card companies recoop some of their loss with the interest rates they charge.let me just add that i don't think they are wong to do so. i mean they are trying to run a business and they do provide a valuable service. what i am trying to say is that i am sure they take this all into consideration when they decide on their interes rates and other fees like a jewelry store puts cheap jewelry on the counter so the thiefs that have to steal something won't steal the good stuff. they have to allow for shrinkage.( maybe some of the men will get this point )

Of course they do - they are in the business of making money not losing money. However it is the millions of dollars in fraud losses every year that have contributed to the increase in fees and interest rates. So anything they do to try to prevent or reduce these losses benefit the customers as well as themselves. And even when the customers don't suffer any financial loss due to the fraud - it still is a burden to them when it happens. (Time, credit reporting problems, etc)

So I still say thanks to Ultimatebet for their diligence.

yes it is kind of refreshing in this day of identity theft running so rampant that they are doing something to protect us and them

This has nothing to do with fraud protection. Obviously freezing the funds once they are deposited isn't fixing the problem, Ultimatebet has their money. To fix the problem and prevent fraud, Ultimatebet would not accept the deposit from a different person's CC in the first place. I agree that this is playing 'dirty pool' and that they aren't trying to protect anyone but their own financial well being.

The problem isnt really with these sites being cautious, it's with the customer support after they request more information. I sent Absolute a copy of my Drivers Liscence, a social security card, had my bank fax a bank statement and they still refused to reopen my account and took about 3 weeks to return my money. If that didn't identify me as me than nothing would unless I handed them these items personally.

Actually you bring up a good point - they shouldn't do it in the first place. Because reality is they don't have their money yet - if they did not follow guidelines the credit card companies can charge them back and it is their loss to suffer. They should deny the deposit until they can complete some type of verification/authorization from the cardholder.

I really don't have a problem with it at all. The site has no idea if you had permission to use the card or not. Granted, if the name didn't match the name of the cardholder, they should have caught that.

Next time, just use his name on the website that way the names match (IF you have permission of course - as you do).

I can appreciate their caution.

So what is the issue with returning the funds to the cardholder?? I had this issue as well when my name and address DID match the CC used. They refused to cash out until I submitted a long list of documents. If I had fraudulently used someone else's credit card why not return the funds to the card used? I read the terms and agreements and it was listed in there for the site I am basing my experience from, so I had no choice but to follow since I had agreed prior to my deposit (ya, like I read that ) But if they seriously suspect fraud, return the money to the cardholder in which the deposit was made from. Since that didn't happen, I believe this is nothing but a way to make money.

He didn't mention that the cardholder ever attempted a credit. Sounds like they were trying to verify that it was okay to for him to use it. Tho I agree with your previous point that they should do that up front.

Not sure what could have triggered the need for additional verification in your case if name and address matched. That pretty much only leaves the cvv/cvi code to mismatch. (those 3 little numbers on the back of the card). If not that it makes no sense....

Wow. At PartyPoker I use my MasterCard and was denied...the reason? It was a JOINT account with both my wife's name and mine...they told me the info on the card account (name, billing addres, phone number, etc) had to match my PPoker account information EXACTLY....and since HER NAME in NOT on my account with PPoker, I couldn't use it.

I'm really surprised any of the sites would take a card with a name that does NOT match the online account name

After my expereince, and one's now being mentioned here, I would suggest to anyone wishing to deposit to a gambling/poker site that they use netteller or something similar. Credit card deposits seem to cause nothing but hassles!