Merge Poker Making Suspicious Credit Card Charges


Thursday June 7, 2012 : MERGE POKER CREDIT CARD CONCERNS
 
Suspicious charges to credit and debit cards reported by players
 
The Merge Poker Network had more than just a buggy software upgrade that saw the network offline for several hours to worry about this week. The nightmare of significant numbers of players reporting suspicious charges on their credit and debit cards faced the poker site, already depleted by the exit of Lock Poker.
 
Poker forums came alive with a growing number of reports from Lock, Carbon and other Merge site players detailing unauthorised transactions that apparently started with small $1 or less ‘testing' probes and then escalated into large purchases of gift cards and cell phones with transactions valued at up to $1,500.
 
The online poker information site Pokeraddict recommended that players check their credit and debit card statements in detail to ensure they are not among those targeted.
 
Pokeraddict points out that many players reporting this fraud kept a separate bank account exclusively for Merge Gaming deposits, making it easier to identify the source of the fraud.
 
"It seems very likely some player banking information was compromised by Merge Gaming, one of their processors, or employees," Pokeraddict speculates.