My main issue is the same issue as I have whenever an issue like this arises on a
poker forum - if someone were in OP's position but didn't know that poker forums where his grievances could be aired existed then there is basically a 0% chance that he would have received his money by now (or whenever he actually does receive it), and only a small chance that he would ever receive it at all. Poker forums should never be a necessary tool in the withdrawal of funds.
As a new poker platform we believe it is essential to maintain the utmost security in our systems for the safety of our players and to conform to the regulatory obligations of our license. It’s not a fast process but ultimately it is the fairest.
Investigations of this sort should be a swift and decisive process and the party being investigated should be kept updated and provided with a timescale for the completion of the investigation, especially when this much money is involved, and furthermore the site should be as close to 100% certain as possible that some form of cheating has taken place before taking any decision to seize funds. Whether what OP did "looked suspicious" or not is irrelevant when the site has access to hand histories and (presumably) competent investigators to look through them.
I'm not even going to touch on the fact that TC was seemingly never told that the investigation was still ongoing past the first instance of him being informed - instead he was kept 'up to date' with a hilariously tragic mixture of "you're fine take your money" and "you've been cheating we're seizing your money"
Hiding behind licensing seems incredibly disingenuous because all sites are subject to the same or at least very similar licensing conditions and there are plenty of sites around who are able to conduct swift investigations, or are at least able to communicate with the party under investigation and provide them with timescales and reasons for delays.
I read bits and pieces of the threads he posted at other sites - not everyone had zero doubt that he had not done anything wrong. (Or at least that an investigation was not warranted).
Internet forum people don't have access to the information BO did though, and internet forum people aren't (presumably) trained collusion/fraud/whatever investigators.
I do think BOL deserve a chance to put a case forward and explain how/why they screwed up and how they're going to stop this sort of thing from happening again, but it needs to be a hell of a lot better than the canned response they've just given ITT. Here's some of the questions I think they need to address directly (I haven't read any of the threads elsewhere so forgive me if any of these have been addressed). Obviously any questions about their exact investigation process are out of bounds, much as I think we'd all like to ask them.
- Why did TC have to initiate discussion with you to find out he was being 'investigated'? Why was he not notified immediately?
- Why was TC given misleading and even completely incorrect information on numerous occasions? What sort of communication was taking place (if any) between your investigation department and the front-line support who were talking to TC?
- Why did you claim that a month's worth of hand histories is "too massive" to send when I could request five years worth of hand histories from
pokerstars and receive them within 15 minutes? Why were the 'cheating' HHs never sent?
- What exactly has happened at your end between the conclusion of the first investigation where it was decided, presumably beyond any reasonable doubt, that TC had cheated, and now, when he's getting his money back?
As far as any advertising goes, my personal point of view (as someone who just deletes and moves posts every now and then and has nothing to do with advertising on the site
) is that we should give BOL a week or so to come back with a far more complete statement, and depending on whether or not that is forthcoming and satisfactory, move from there.
