Full Tilt Poker Still Unable To Guarantee Paybacks To US Players

With Pokerstars players reporting return of their deposits over the past two weeks, those who have money at Full Tilt Poker have been waiting for their returns to start coming in. Instead, one month after the DOJ handed down the indictments that closed Full Tilt to US players, those players are no closer to seeing any of their money.

To address these concerns, a Full Tilt representative who goes by the name “Doug” on the 2+2 poker forum, provided this update, the “official statement” about where Full Tilt currently stands on US withdrawals:

“Since April 15th and the days immediately following, Full Tilt Poker faced numerous challenges and hurdles to ensuring the smooth operation of its international business and the orderly return of US player funds. FTP has worked tirelessly to address these issues and has made significant progress on both fronts.

FTP’s international business operations are returning to normal while we focus on ensuring the safe and orderly return of US player deposits. We are absolutely committed to making sure that US players are refunded as soon as possible. We apologize for the delay and the fact that we underestimated the time it would take to work through these issues. We will update our US players when we have more specific information to provide.”

As one might expect, the reaction from the poker world has been swift and decidedly negative.

Knowing that US Pokerstars players have already been repaid while Full Tilt is still dealing with unnamed “hurdles” that have thus far impeded such repayments has not filled those owed money with much confidence. But for now there is not much more that they can do but sit and wait and hope that the money is there and can be returned.

Full Tilt’s “Doug” also identified and answered other questions raised by the closing of the site to US-based players:

“And what’s going to happen with our points?

- We will be opening up the FTP Store to US players again. All of the details haven’t been worked out yet, but this is how you will be able to use your points. It’s expected that everything in the store will be available for purchase except for bonuses and tickets. We will be sure to keep everyone updated when we know more, including when the store will re-open.

Where we’re at in terms of reconciling US player accounts:

All promos have been paid out. That includes Take 2, Tournament Leaderboards, Cash Back, and the FTOPS Satellite Challenge payments.
T$ and Ticket conversion has started, but is a slower process and will continue through next week.
Pending rakeback payments should also happen next week, but only after all of the store purchases that need to be refunded have been refunded.
Iron Man medals have been distributed for April’s play. Iron Man freeroll tickets will be converted to medals before all medals are converted to FTPs.

Other answers for US players:

1. what bout my cashout on april 15th that obviously hasn’t come AND has not been put back into my account?!

- All cashouts that were never received (or checks that were received but couldn’t be deposited) should be placed back into your Full Tilt account this coming week.

2. Can there be an “opt-out” for the medals/points conversions? Since it looks like there won’t be a forced cash-out for relocating players, can we just keep our accounts intact?

- There is no opt-out for the medals conversion, but we won’t be forcing anyone to use their points if they’d prefer waiting until they can play again to use them.

3. what about FTP store purchases made prior to April 15th, but weren’t sent out yet and put on hold. Are we going to get FTPs back for those or are you going to start sending those out soon?

- We are going to cancel and give the FTPs (or medals) back for any store purchases that have not yet shipped.

4. you tell us we’ll get our pending rakeback, but what about reimbursement for rakeback hits for store items that haven’t and won’t come?

- We will make sure any MGR hit is reversed on any store shipments that have to be cancelled. This is one of the reasons the final rakeback payments were delayed.

5. if we final tabled a FTOPS or MiniFTOPS event in the last series, will people in the United States still receive the jacket that they are supposed to get?

- Yes, these will still be sent out.

6. Posting to make sure you dont forget about PMI doug. Also an update on that would be nice as last week you said people were still working on it.

- We have confirmed that the recurring charge will not happen again. As far as we can tell it didn’t happen in April, so that’s a good sign. There is still an ongoing investigation into exactly what happened and how.

7. just noticed the “my promotions” page doesnt work either. not sure how they can get the academy, iron man stuff right without these pages functioning.

- I’m looking into this.

Answers for non-US players:

8. Moneybookers?

- Moneybookers has been turned back on for some countries. Once it’s confirmed everything is flowing smoothly more countries will be added.

9. CAN YOU PLEASE INCREASE THE MAX BUYIN FOR RUSH.

- There are no plans for this at the moment, sorry.

10. I think the tournament time shifts are definitely a good idea. However, you need to shift more than just a few of the majors. By shifting just these few tournaments it actually makes the tourney schedule considerably more inconvenient.

- What “normal” tournaments do you feel are missing from earlier times? Most US prime time tournaments have a Euro prime time equivalent already, so we didn’t think shifting the entire schedule was necessary. If there are particular tournaments you think the Euro friendlier schedule is still missing, though, let us know and we can shift the later version or just add a new version of it at an earlier time.

11. Will this effect Iron Man freerolls as well

- Yeah, Iron Man freerolls will start a few hours earlier than they used to.

12. Whats going to happen to the Cash Back Bonus for those people who are planning to be in the US for the whole of the WSOP? Are FTP going to make a 1-time exception so we don’t lose it?

- We’ll figure something out to make sure you don’t lose it.

13. I see the 150 seats to the WSOP has been removed. Are you planning on doing something like a 50 or 75 Gtd?

- No plans for that, no. The entire WSOP promotion has been scaled back, and that larger qualifier was one of the casualties.

14. Not sure if this has already been posted; but if you select this option [Auto-Close SNGs] & play a matrix, when 1 table closes the whole tourney shuts down?

- One of the small updates last week was to address this bug. It should work fine now, sorry about that.

15. Can you please give back some incentives for table starters

- I’ll look into it again for sure.”

While any response may be preferable to silence, the US-based customers of Full Tilt will not rest easy unless and until all their money has been returned.

 

Related posts:

1. Can Full Tilt Poker Pay Back The Money To The Players They Owe?
2. Full Tilt Poker Announced That They Will Ban US Players From Their Site
3. Full Tilt Poker Supposedly Making Payouts Next Week.
4. Patrik Antonius Is The Best Player On Full Tilt Poker Right Now
5. Full Tilt Poker Blocking Database Sites

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