Pokerstars Compensates High Roller Scam Victim
Wednesday August 7,2013 : POKERSTARS COMPENSATES ONLINE HIGH ROLLER
Suggestion that punter's computer was compromised, enabling online cheaters to strike
The always entertaining and informative poker forum twoplustwo was humming this week with the sad tale of online high stakes poker player Douglas Polk aka WCGRider, who took to the threads to publicise how he was cheated in an online gaming scam, resulting in Pokerstars refunding his account with almost $35,000.
Long story short: Polk was introduced by a well-known poker professional player to another poker fan named Joshua Tyler, who subsequently visited with Polk at his Las Vegas home on two occasions.
Very little appears to be known about Tyler, it has to be said.
The implication is that during the visits Polk's computer was in some way tampered with, rendering sight of his hole cards in subsequent online action possible, and in an online adversary using the handle Forbidden536 – who at first appeared to be an easy "fish" – taking him for a cool $35,000.
Polk then reported to Pokerstars that he suspected that Forbidden536 had been able to see his hole cards. An initial investigation did not turn up anything untoward, but two weeks later Pokerstars contacted Polk and confirmed that something had, indeed, been wrong although not through any fault on the Pokerstars end.
“We have determined that ‘Forbidden536′ violated the Terms of Service for using their PokerStars account during their play with you," Pokerstars advised Polk.
"We have reviewed the play with both players' hole cards exposed. We are sure beyond any reasonable doubt that ‘Forbidden536′ was able to see your hole cards whilst they were playing against you.”
The poker company then refunded Polk's account $34,397.10, the remaining balance in the account of Forbidden536.
Polk has also reported a similar – but less expensive experience – at Pokerstars sister-site Full Tilt Poker, where an enquiry has been carried out – so far without a positive result.
Polk has not openly accused Tyler of tampering with his computer, and that aspect remains open to conjecture.
The twoplustwo thread shows that Polk was not the only big player that Tyler befriended; others included multi-millionaire One Drop winner Antonio Esfandiari and several nosebleed stakes professionals…none of whom have apparently been targeted.
Daniel "Jungleman" Cates, who introduced Tyler to Polk, has made several posts denying any responsibility for anything other than the introduction of two poker players to one another.
“I didnt vouch for Josh, i never said he was nice, certainly didnt say he was trustworthy, or any such thing," he posted. "Doug [Polk] could have decided not to invite him over or whatever. I had no influence whatsoever on this decision.”
