[marc]

I logged into my sports.com account last night, I had $3709. This morning I had zero. I figured it was some kind of glitch. I called and they told me that I lost all the money last night playing bermuda poker. I told them I've never played in thier casino and it must be some kind of mistake. They insisted that I did.

I call them back to ask for a copy of the hand history. The clerk asks me for my email address, which I give to him. He suggests that I change the password, so I say ok. HE asks a number of seciurity questions. Here is where the plot takes a dramatic twist. One of the questions he asks is what was my previous email address. I ask him what he's talking about. The last time I would have changed it would have been 3 years ago. HE said no, there was one recently. I told him, that can't be. WHen was it changed. HE said it was changed on the 7th, 4 days ago. He said there was a request put in over live chat.

Meanwhile, I made a credit card deposit on the 8th. YOu almost always get a receipt emailed to you. I just realize now, that I dind't get any such receipt. It must have been sent to this other person. So now this person has my name, address and last 4 digits of my creidt card. My guess is s/he used that info to call up and ask for the password.

So now they are oing to "investigate". Tehy are going to review the copy of the transcript to see what info this person provided (if any) to get them to change the email address on the account.

What I'm reaslly hoping for is they admit that they screwed up by changing the email address, and credit me all the money that I "lost" .

[tacomax]

Stuff like this always worries me and I'm not surprised that it happens. The way that books (even ones on the SBR recommended list) send out your account number and password via email is just asking for trouble.

[marc]

At first I used to be a believer that when you sign up at a book, you should give them correct information. If for no toher reason, then if they ask you for id, you would want your id to match. But now I realize, that every clerk at every little shop I have ever played at has all of my relevant info. In thoery, a disgruntled clerk could have taken my info, called sports, pretending to be me, and claim that they forgot my login and password.

[magnavox]

There are top notch books where the clerks do not have access to any passwords.

[AK]

MARC I feal the pain my friend

[pags11]

Marc,

this totally sucks...I'm sick just reading this as this happened to me with Cris with a much smaller ammount...keep us updated...

[pags11]

this seems to be a big scam going around...I wonder if some of the lower end books have a hacker on payroll to eliminate large balances like this...this is such bullshit Mark and I'm sorry you are going through this...your email address should have never been aloud to have been changed without ample security questions (which the hacker would most likely not have answered correctly)...

[yokspot]

Is sports.com not part of the "better" BetUSA Sportingbet sub-group? If so, chances are not totally zero for a happy resolution.

[bigboydan]

that sucks marc, hope everything works out for you.

[marc]

The good thing is that there was another players at another sportingbet site who had the very same thing happen to him. Someone logged into his account, and bet his funds on some virtual horse racing game. In my case, after 20 minutes of bermuda poker, the player got bored and bet 3600 on virtual horse racing to lose all the money. So being that they are now faced with two totally different players, both long time cusotmers who never played in thier casino, they will have a hard time claiming that it was our fault. Clearly whoevevr this person is, has breached Sportingbet's security. I'm very happy this guy was "nice enough" to bet my money on virtual horse racing as opposed to sports wagers. If it had been sports wagers, it would be exceedingly hard for me to prove it wasn't me. But since in my case and the other player the money was bet on horse racing, anyone with a brain can plainly see that it was an unauthorized user. The only question now is 1) will sportingbet do the right thing and return my funds. 2) How long will I hae to wait.

The reality is, all these clerks have access to our personal info. IF some clerk got fired, and wanted to take out his anger, he could easily call different sportsbooks and say "hi i;m so and so, I forgot my login, can you please tell me what my login id is." And when they ask for the password, he can just give them the password the player used at the book he used to work for. Most people use the same password at multiple places.

I'm going to call these guys tomorrow and see if they started thier "investigation" yet

[Billie]

exact same thing happened to me and still i havent recieve back any of my funds. they claimed that i played in their casino which i never. again, for those who don't play in the casino, ask for your account to have restriction to their casinos.

[marc]

Sportingbet sites don't have the ability to restrct casino usage.

I would like to apologize to all the players to who this has happened to in the past. I've read posts from other players before who had this happene to them, and there was always a question mark in my head as to wheather it truly was some unknown third party who hacked into thier account. It never made sense to me, and still doesn't, as to why anyone who break into someone's account, just to intentionally lose the money in the casino. So whenever I heard other people say that someone broke into their azccount, I always asusmed that it was likely someone they knew who was playing a sick joke. So I am truly am sorry, for not having believed those other posters.

I would love just to be able to ask one of these crooks why. If someone broke into my account, and somehow managed to withdraw my money into thier bank account, I could at elast understand the motive. But here, all they gain, is causing pain to someone they don't know (and helping the online casino's) That's why I kind of wonder if there is ome clerk out there, who has grown to hate players. SO everytime he has a bad day, he goes home, hacks into someones account and throws all their money away.

[biggs]

they should be able to see the ip from every session, tracing the ip to the isp will show you the exact location of the person who logged into the acct and did this to you

good luck

[MCP]

i dont buy it. just my opinion, sounds like you lost and are trying to get it back by any means necessary

[BAUS]

Marc is a respected poster who would not make up stories for financial gain. Marc has more credibility than does Sportingbet.

Marc has no reason whatsoever to play virtual horse racing games. Let's be more careful before you throw things around MCP.

BAUS

[pags11]

crappy thing with me is that Cris wasn't able to verify the hackers IP address...I totally know what you mean Mark...it's easy to think people are full of it until it happens to you...I play with 8 books and now have online casino access blocked off on all of them...

[MCP]

I don't need to be careful with my opinion...just going by my gut reaction from hearing the details.

[marc]

MCP,

I fully understand your dounts. I used to have my doubts too when I would here stories like this. But in this case, it's not just me making this claim. There is a nother player as well who contacted Bill Dozer, before I said anything to report that the very same thing happened to him two weeks ago. So now you hvae two players coming foward wiht identical stories. Clearly, someone has gained access to thier customer list. I don't know about the other player, but in my case, the thief went so far as to change the email address on the account. Not sure why he didn't also change the password.

Lastly, if I wanted to cheat Sportingbet, I wouldn't do something crazy like this. If I was a scammer, all I'd have to do, is chargeback all the deposits I've made over the past 2 months, and I could take the rest of the year off.

[marc]

Pags,

Did Cris give you your money back in the end.

[JoshW]

Most here already know it, but no way marc would play 3600 in a virtual horse game. Have known him a while and am 100% that he is not responsible for that action. I hope Sports.com resolves this quickly for you marc.

[pags11]

Marc,

Cris credited back over 80%, but I didn't get the whole ammount. Your ammount is much larger however. This just stinks. Keep us updated.

[marc]

Pags,

Did Cris give you any reason as to why they didn't just gve you back the full amount.

[magnavox]

The reason? Probably they feel it is not their fault and pags received the compensation only for part of the action in the casino which should not have happened as he called and restricted himself.

[Billie]

Hope you do get something back because I hate to see it happening to another person. In my case, I did recieve some of my funds back, but very little. When I posted my situation here awhile back, people also said that I lost it and trying to scam to get my money back. I wish you the best of luck.

[pags11]

yeah magnavox is correct...80% of the funds were stolen after I called in and notified them my password had been changed and restricted my casino access...they ran an IP trace on the intial funds and couldn't verify it came from anyone outside of my regular IP address....which is the scariest part about it..Mickey was pretty cool, but eventually I could tell they weren't going to credit anymore...like you said Marc, who would want to do something like this knowing that they wont be able to withdraw the funds?...it's really maddening...what's the latest with this?...

[marc]

Still waiting for a response. The problem is that sportsbook only care about thier own security. Many sportsbooks really don't care if someone hacks into of thier cusotmer aco****s and throws all the money away in their casino. I had a player write to me a few months ago, saying that someone hacked into his account and then porceed to play poker, and lose all of his money. All the book was willing to do was respond to any law enforcement enquiries. Books seem to feel its the players fault if someone else gets hold of thier password. The refuse to eblieve that anyone could hack into thier computer system. Or more siimply, every time a book closes down, there is a whole database of personal information together with passwords floating around.

If someone broke into my account, and had them wire my money to some foriegn bank account, I could understand debating over who should take the hit. But when it's my money going to the sportsbook, they should just give it back. It's no different than if someone had stolen my wallet, only to hand it to the guy standing next to me. The guy next to me should give me the wallet back. ANd shouldn't say "no it's mine now, that other guiy gave it to me."

But anytime you have a problem with sportingbet it takes a long time to resolve.

[pags11]

your first paragraph articulates exactly how I feel as well...the bigger books think that they are bulletproof and while players definitely need to take steps to protect themselves, the software is not totally fool proof...really sad, because you think the book would look a the history of the player (like in my case never having played at the online casino up until the day it happened) and credit it based on track record...I think they take the easy way out a lot of times...

[tacomax]

Originally Posted by pags11

really sad, because you think the book would look a the history of the player (like in my case never having played at the online casino up until the day it happened) and credit it based on track record...I think they take the easy way out a lot of times...

Not really - if they took the "history of the player" stance then everyone and his dog would stick their whole balance on the roulette wheel, and either withdraw the winnings or cry foul when they lose.

[TLD]

This is a very, very disturbing case, especially if it is part of a trend. (I’m familiar with yet another similar case at a different book from those that have been discussed here.)

I don’t know how in the world you’d ever adjudicate a dispute like this. The book can’t prove they didn’t have a confederate place losing bets, and nor can the player. (It’s easy to say, “But I never bet Lithuanian soccer,” or “I never bet $500 per game,” or “I never played in the online casino,” but of course a scammer who isn’t a complete retard is going to bet contrary to his usual patterns if he wants to set up such a situation where he either wins or can plausibly protest his losses. He also, again unless he’s a complete fool, would put the bets in from a different I.P, get a friend to call in the bets so there’s a different voice on tape, etc.)

The least likely hypothesis in these cases is that some third party is responsible, rather than a crooked book or a scamming player. That’s because, as pointed out above, there’s no motive for the third party to bet someone else’s account (as opposed to, say, making a withdrawal from someone else’s account). That doesn’t rule it out of course, since people aren’t logical, and someone might just randomly screw others over for no gain for himself (much like people who create and distribute malicious computer viruses), but I’d bet most of time it’s the book or the player who’s lying.

The scary thing is this could become another weapon against winning players that unscrupulous or desperate books can add to their arsenal. That is, I doubt many books other than the ESB types would just steal from their player accounts indiscriminately, since that’s just going to lose them their customers, but they may well steal like this from bonus whores, scalpers, and others that are playing with an edge against them. Taking those players’ money and angering them enough for them to leave is a win/win proposition for a book.

I suppose one of the few disincentives for the book would be concern about their reputation. But that just means they’d have to be concerned about doing it excessively, not that they couldn’t do it at all. Given that many players don’t keep detailed records and check their balances religiously, given that many players don’t even know about these forums, and given that many posters wouldn’t be believed because they’d be newbies or because they’ve been caught scamming or doing something in ethical gray areas before, a book could easily rip off ten players a year for significant amounts of money each, and have maybe one such case hit the forums. And is one unprovable “he said, she said” sort of case a year really going to damage a book’s reputation?

So, an ugly situation all around. I guess it’s just another reason to be careful choosing your books. Choose books that seem to have a track record for honorable behavior (as imperfect as the evidence for this is). Avoid books that might be struggling financially, since even some of those who behave honorably when things are going well might cut some corners out of desperation when they’re in danger of losing their business. And avoid angering your books, since it’s not wise to make an enemy of someone who is holding your money and we now know has a way to steal it from you with little risk of your being able to prove they did so.

[David]

Good post TLD.

[pags11]

I never thought about that tacomax, but I would think an experienced player wouldn't take a risk like that, but anything could happen...what I've seen with these things is guys play poker and bet all in with crappy hands and play black jack and hit on 19...purposely losing...

TLD,

excellent info. here...

[Bill Dozer]

Over a year after the initial complaint, we are happy to say that all players who reported a virtual horse racing theft have received their funds back. Jazette just credited this player's accounts with almost $20,000.

Sportsbook.com mgt. has worked on old disputes during the processing problems and I'm optimistic that they want, and eventually can, get this beast on track.