Originally Posted by MUPokerPlayer

i betcha it is going to take quite a while to figure out how to pay us back.

i would imagine we have to wait til they get the money from stars, so who knows how long that takes. When i called the sdny office they said they would put up a press release on the site in a couple days. (i asked her who i need to talk to about the remission process)

 

Originally Posted by rebelfd

I believe the deal stipulated 6 days after agreement was signed.

first of like 4 stars' payments to the DOJ is due in 6 days. they are paying their fine out over like a 3 year span tho.

The Kahnawake Gaming Commission confirmed that Absolute Poker / UB has reached a settlement with the US DOJ to forfeit all of its assets:
http://www.gamingcommission.ca/news/pr08072012a.pdf

On the surface, the prospects of players being paid back do not look very good:

"The proposed settlement requires all of Blanca’s assets to be forfeited to the United States. The US Marshalls’ office will be mandated to liquidate Blanca’s assets. However, there will be no distribution of the net proceeds from the liquidation pending the resolution of claims filed by other parties who have asserted an ownership interest in Blanca’s assets. If the court approves the settlement, and if there are Blanca assets remaining after the resolution of the claims by other parties, it is anticipated that the court will provide a process for players to make claims against those assets."

I can confirm that pokerstars has paid the $225 million due to the DOJ. This is from an e-mail PocketFives just received from Full Tilt's legal team:

"The asset transfer to PokerStars was consummated immediately following the United States government’s receipt of PokerStars’ first payment of $225 million due under PokerStars’ settlement agreement with the US DOJ, which payment was confirmed this morning, August 9, 2012."

so jealous

the doj should have had access to ftps books for months they now have the cash in hand what the hell are they waiting for to release the remission info this is tilting beyond words

Love to see progress but the hurry up and wait thing is quite old, I thought for sure that with the great news of purchase there would be more info released about how long we should expect to wait in order to get paid and what steps we need to take in order to get paid. I guess I'm tired of waiting for others to figure out when i can get on with my life. DOJ is getting greased on both hands least they could do is make this process as simple and painless as possible we've been through enough. Love to see the plan in place to pay ROW players but is it that much to ask that we in the USA actually get clues as to what our plan is. Guess I'm just a dreamer nowadays.

 

Originally Posted by tedSTRETCH

Hopefully the doj will release a statement now that they have received the first settlement payment from poker stars. Seems pretty foolish to release repayment info prior to the deal actually being closed by stars.

The deal is closed with Stars' $225M payment today. We received confirmation from Full Tilt's legal team today. More info here:
http://www.pocketfives.com/articles/...mmated-587654/

this is great new for losing players!!! so how would we go about getting our money if it is determined you get back ur deposits? how do u prove what u deposited? i played on multiple sites at the time, they all have crazy deposit names when it comes through on a statement, how do i know which is which? what forms do we need to fill out?

would anyone like to wager that we are not going to be returned our deposits? some of these posts/articles are sftilting

 

Originally Posted by Iplaythabored

would anyone like to wager that we are not going to be returned our deposits? some of these posts/articles are sftilting

I would certainly think that US players getting paid based on their account balances is likely going to be the easier outcome for the DOJ to tackle. Let's not forget that right after Black Friday, US pokerstars players were paid back their account balances in full with the DOJ's blessing.

 

Originally Posted by gfunk1974

this is great new for losing players!!! so how would we go about getting our money if it is determined you get back ur deposits? how do u prove what u deposited? i played on multiple sites at the time, they all have crazy deposit names when it comes through on a statement, how do i know which is which? what forms do we need to fill out?

lol, there would be zero justice if this happened

Full Tilt's former PR guru, Michele Clayborne, talks about FTPDoug and addresses her knowledge about the inner workings of Full Tilt:
http://www.pocketfives.com/articles/...ncials-587662/

She's definitely defensive about being labeled as the person behind FTPDoug, but at the same time is in a unique position given her role with a very embattled company.

Thanks Dan... I have a bad feeling the DOJ is going to spin this somehow and the end result will be that we get less than we deserve... I hope the PPA has some pull with the DOJ to get us 100% of our account balances on 4-15-11.

More answers from the person behind FTPDoug:

Hi all,

Thanks for the many questions. I've done my best to gather all the answers. You'll probably notice I keep referring to "the plan," and I want to be clear that "the plan" is currently in constant flux, so it's quite possible some answers will change before we actually relaunch. So consider this more of a "state of the world as I know it right now" sort of update instead of a definitive list of answers. Some questions don't even have a guess right now and aren't included below, but we read them all and I'll do my best to keep everyone updated on our progress as we move along towards relaunch.

1. Is it true that players will be able to make transfers between their FTP and Stars accounts?

- Everyone agrees that this is a good idea that should happen. There are still plenty of questions about how exactly it will work and how soon it can be implemented. So for now the answer is, "I hope it's true."

2. Will all SnG's resume back to exactly what they were?

- There are no plans to change the tournament structures or payout structures. There will likely be some changes to the overall offering, though. Hopefully for the better.

3. Hiring again soon?

- Definitely. As soon as some job postings go up, I'll be sure to let everyone know (probably on Twitter or something).

4. Will über smart features that exist on either site get implemented on the other?

- That will depend on the plans of the other site. There are definitely a couple of nice little features I've blatantly stolen from pokerstars that should make their way into the FTP client by relaunch. More generally, though, the plan is to compete as much as possible on the software/feature side of things. So I'm sure you can expect a bunch of smart features to make their way to Stars at some point. (New employer slam!)

5. Will US players who have relocated be able to change the location of their accounts, or will they have to make new accounts?

- The plan is that players will be able to change the location of their accounts via the same process PokerStars currently uses.

6. I would like to know my balance. When will support be able to give information about individual account balances?

- I don't have an exact date, but the plan is to have that information available to players sometime before relaunch.

7. Will there be refunds of FTP points spend on purchases, that never arrived?

- That's definitely the plan, yes.

8. Completly forgot all my log in details. Was using the card thing too. Is it easy to get these details back? Or reset my passwords?

- There will definitely be a way to regain access to your account if you've forgotten any/all of your login credentials or lost your hardware token (or phone that had the token software on it). It might not be "easy" in the sense that we'll want to make absolutely sure you are the real owner of the account, but there will be a way.

9. I qualified for Black Card in June. Will I get my card?

- I don't have an answer for this one just yet. Sending out physical cards will be pretty low down on the priority list, but I definitely understand the appeal and credit card roulette implications. I don't expect to have an answer until after relaunch.

10. Do we get rakeback for the week before the shutdown?

- Yes, players who were due rakeback during that last week of June will still get it.

11. Any word on account bans that be implemented across both sites? How do you determine what is an exceptional circumstance? Will you be upturning any cases from the past and reinstate their account?

- I don't have any update beyond what Lee Jones said. It's a complicated issue with many details still to be worked out, but it's everyone's intention to protect the players on both sites as much as possible with a fair policy that makes sense.

12. Are you guys still going to freeze the Iron Man levels for US players? that way if you come back to the states we can pick up where we left off and not go back to month 1?

- The exact plan is still unformed, but we will do everything we can to make sure players don't feel like they've lost out on the value of the Iron Man promotion if and when they can return to playing on FTP.

13. Will the FTP logo still look like your avatar pic?

- I don't know. The marketing and brand guys are still working out all of the details when it comes to questions like that. If it changes I'll change my avatar!

14. Will I be able to use the dog like durrrr, make the smile emotion, and then play spewy thinking I am durrrr and lose all my play money?

- Without question.

15. Can we still call you Doug?

- I'd rather we didn't! Shyam really isn't that scary a name. It's pronounced just like "Sean" but with an "m" at the end instead of an "n." My parents were hippies and got married in India, blame them.

16. I saw that US players will have to do the remission thing and won't be able to keep balances on there. Will it be possible to make transfers instead of withdrawing?

- No, that won't be possible.

17. How's the FTOPS schedule looking?

- I'm guessing the next one will look a lot like the one we were planning for August of last year. So, pretty good?

18. My account was banned years ago because I made a deposit at my friend's account because he couldn't deposit. Is it possible I will get my account back?

- I won't be able to answer specific Support/Security type questions here (or anywhere else). It's likely you're going to have to wait for those teams to be back up and running properly with all player data before you get a real answer.

19. I cant recall if I had any $ in my account when this went down. However I know that I had bought some tournament tickets to The Sunday Brawl with FTPs. What is going to happen to them?

- If you're a ROW player you will still have those tournament tickets in your account on relaunch. If you're a US player they would have already been converted to $.

20, Will FTP continue to deliver completely different gameplay than Pokerstars or will both sites become very similar over time?

- The plan is to remain separate and unique.

21. What changed at FTP headquarters after Stars acquisition?

- There is going to be far more caffeine readily available. And a whole lot more excitement for the future.

22. Are you going to get rid of multi-entry?

- We have no plans to get rid of METs, no. That doesn't mean we won't make any changes to them. I understand the various issues people who don't like the feature have with it, and I've read over the thread with the poll.

23. What if someone had a ROW account before June 29 but has since moved back to the US. I know they are considered ROW but what if they don't have access to those particular bank accounts from ROW and the address for check mailing purposes. How will withdrawals work then?

- It's safe to say nobody knows the answer to that question just yet. Plenty of people are working through all the various issues that are part of this relaunch, and you can be sure that when it's all said and done there will be a process to withdraw any money in your account.

24. Will rush sit and goes and tourneys be still available to play?

- That's the plan, but anything is possible. If we relaunch and nobody shows up to play them, I don't know how long they'd stick around before we tried something else.

25. Will high stakes play money tables still be available

- There are currently no plans to change the play money offerings.

26. When is this DOJ submission process going to happen?

- That's definitely a question for the DOJ.

27. What is going to happen to affiliate deals and accounts? And balances that are still owed on there of course?

- I don't have an answer for this. I'm confident that once the affiliate plan is solidified all of the affiliates will be updated.

28. Any of you guys with money on ftp did receive an email from them?

- No player emails have been sent yet. There are some technical issues to overcome first, but an email will definitely be going out. We want everyone to know what's going on (and come back once we relaunch), not just people paying attention to poker news sites or forums.

29. Some of us also had those cash tickets in play. Whats the status there?

- Ring Game Tickets that were active when we went down will be converted to cash based on whatever value was still left on the ticket.

30. Are there any plans to make a Full Tilt mobile app.

- We actually already had a mobile app. The plan is definitely to bring it back, but it's possible it won't be until after relaunch.

31. What will be the deposit/withdrawal options once FTP opens up? The same as PS?

- We're still working through all of those issues, but the intention is to have the same options as PokerStars.

32. What are the plans for the tournaments that where currently going when the site shut down?

- They were cancelled and paid out according to our tournament cancellation rules. It's essentially a forced "chip chop."

33. Can you speculate as to when ftp or stars will be back for USA players? and maybe tell us the process of things that need to happen for it to happen?

- I can't even begin to speculate, no. I'm an eternal optimist and will likely keep on hoping it's just around the corner for as long as it takes. I do recommend following Rich Muny's (TheEngineer on 2+2) daily action plan to stay involved.

34. Do you know if our player notes will still be there? Im aware they are stored on our own hard drives, i just want to know if they will still be compatible?

- Yep, as long as they're still there on your hard drive they should be perfectly fine when you next log in.

35. How will you go about making the new MTT schedule. Are you going to build it from the ground up? Or are you keeping the same schedule as before and just adding where you see fit?

- The current plan is to return with basically the same schedule we had on June 29th, 2011. There will be some changes here and there, and the guarantees will likely be constantly adjusting as we figure out just how many players we have back on the site, but it will look very familiar to players who knew the old schedule.

36. Shouldn't this thread be in Internet Poker?

- I had that debate in my mind as well. My feeling was this particular thread is more news than poker (and will get more eyeballs here), but once we start having regular updates again those threads will be in the Internet Poker forum.

37. Is there any way a UK player could get some of their bankroll before the re launch?

- No, I'm afraid not.

Thanks again for the questions. The pace of answers might slow down (or speed up) based on our progress through the various issues we're dealing with to get back up and running, but I'll be doing my best to keep everyone as updated as possible. This will be much more exciting in a few months!