Fraudulent activity in a PokerStars tournament!

[motonutz]

So is anyone received the message like this before?

I got an email from pokerstars and it said something like this "due to fraudulent activity regarding one of the tournaments you have played in, your money is being refunded.! However we cannot tell you which tournament it was who the perpetrator was where it was or how it was done. But rest assured we have caught the perpetrator and it will not happen again"

So this was really surprising when I got this they put my stakes back in my account but I'm really curious as to what happened you know? What it sounds like is someone was able to see the other people's cards and was just destroying the field.

Has anyone else heard of this before?

 

[Blackchipp]

OMG!

this is not good notice, maybe somebody cracks the site... so bad, but PS have money to add news strongs firewalls defense. i dont know...

 

[Martin]

Yeah I've had that message before, no way of knowing what happened but I often think about colluding or multi accounting players winning the tourney or finishing in a decent spot

 

[KRANKES]

I'm glad to see that PS has the measurements to find these players and acts, as an honest player could expect. When I look around on other sites with 1000s of Russians sitting out in freerolls, one can imagine, these are all multi-accounts, but no one takes action against it. But in addition I was wondering about these Youtube videos from Pokerstars, where you can see all hole cards. If someone manages to hack that, THAT would be horrible.

 

[fundiver199]

Yeah I've had that message before, no way of knowing what happened but I often think about colluding or multi accounting players winning the tourney or finishing in a decent spot

I have never experienced this, but the explanation given by Martin seems like the most likely one to me. And its obviously good, that they compensate players, who got cheated out of their money. Cant imagine that PokerStars have had a superuser incidence AKA "POTRIPPER" or Mike Postle. If they did, that would for sure be all over the news

 

[Schokk]

Interesting things, it really strange that you can receive such message without knowing what did you do((

 

[infonazar]

I have had a similar situation several times. I don't know what this has to do with, but it's definitely nice when a site cares about the safety of players and exposes fraudulent schemes.

 

[motonutz]

Yeah I agree with you guys. PokerStars didn't have to tell us that we got ripped off. And PokerStars didn't have to refund us we all would have never known. But obviously PokerStars does care about their customers otherwise they would not have brought this to our attention

 

[Herkstwin]

Never happened to me either, but glad to know that PokerStars does actively monitor tournaments for fraudulent behaviour. I doubt that anyone has hacked the site and can see hole cards. More than likely it is collusion or multi-accounting.

 

[Zapahlohotrona]

Nobody can see your cards, you can be calm. Even the bot cannot see the cards. Not honest players are banned regularly, so you have received compensation.

 

[bobbayi]

thats crazy but makes one think

if theres a way to see the hole cards in general through the websites contruct or even worse if they are partly in on the show, could make for lousy gameplay but i trust casinos
wont lose sleep over it as much as i dont get sleep from it already!

 

[Daniel72]

seeing the cards I dont believe
it was the usual multiaccounting / collusion / ghosting etc. thing
they never say what it was
but congrats on refunding

 

[acidburnfx]

Yeah I agree with you guys. PokerStars didn't have to tell us that we got ripped off. And PokerStars didn't have to refund us we all would have never known. But obviously PokerStars does care about their customers otherwise they would not have brought this to our attention

We are talking about trust. Couldn't they privately tell what happened to the person's account to give them more credit? If not, why?

 

[toots babos]

Happened a few times to me, I've put it down to collusion in mixed games / mtt sng's.

 

[Canwai]

It could be collusion, multiple accounts, bots, trying to use cheating software... those are the reasons that would lead PS to look for this player. Very good that they found it because these things are really unpleasant.

 

[0546474]

It's nice that Pokerstars is doing something for the safety of its customers, but unfortunately I still think that poker sites are not doing enough to avoid illegal activity !!!

 

[Poker Orifice]

seeing the cards I dont believe
it was the usual multiaccounting / collusion / ghosting etc. thing
they never say what it was
but congrats on refunding

this ^

OP suggesting it was due to other player being able to see the cards... umm... I'd be willing to wager every penny I have to my name against that... at 100 to 1 odds.

I believe you stated that Stars didn't say the reason (method of cheating) so how did you come up with the thought that the player could see other's cards? fwiw, that is the most unlikely scenario possible.

 

[Schokk]

We are talking about trust. Couldn't they privately tell what happened to the person's account to give them more credit? If not, why?

I think that they do not explain the exact reason so that people would not repeat the same thing later and would not know how to bypass their control system.

 

[mina271]

I don't think anyone could see the cards either, but it was probably someone they caught cheating, no matter how with forbidden software or collusion or something like that. But it's nice that your money was given back to you. The fact that there are always people who try to get quick money through fraud can unfortunately not be prevented, but it is always nice when you see that the site is taking measures to ruin this and it also seems to be successful

 

[garibe]

I dont play Stars (Im in the US).

But I am part of a study group where all other colleagues play on Stars and this is not a surprise. Many of them receive emails like this often and share with us.

 

[motonutz]

I completely agree with you

We are talking about trust. Couldn't they privately tell what happened to the person's account to give them more credit? If not, why?

Yeah I had these questions and more so I tried to contact them at a personal level to get a private response however they refused to tell me anything regarding this issue.

I think one of the reasons why they didn't tell me personally or tell us all as a group is because it would give me or other people, the ways of how, to beat the system....

 

[okeedokalee]

Not seen it on Stars. On ACR I got a pop-up saying which card makes a flush, I answered and the following message was something like " Thank-you, we were testing that you were human"

 

[1nsomn1a]

this is certainly not bad, unless of course you did not get to the high prize money and the tournament was canceled.

 

[Emily Trott]

I think that they do not explain the exact reason so that people would not repeat the same thing later and would not know how to bypass their control system.

Yeah I had these questions and more so I tried to contact them at a personal level to get a private response however they refused to tell me anything regarding this issue.

I think one of the reasons why they didn't tell me personally or tell us all as a group is because it would give me or other people, the ways of how, to beat the system....

Both of you hit the nail on the head. To do otherwise would be like telling someone how your home alarm system works.

 

[Emily Trott]

Not seen it on Stars. On ACR I got a pop-up saying which card makes a flush, I answered and the following message was something like " Thank-you, we were testing that you were human"

I got one of those on ACR too.