Paypal stealing money from poker players like Chris Moneymaker (UPDATE: Federal class action lawsuit filed!)

PayPal getting really nasty these days.

https://twitter.com/TheRyanFeldman/s...27850373115911

https://twitter.com/CMONEYMAKER/stat...22483480236032

https://twitter.com/CMONEYMAKER/stat...27206199472134


Mike Matusow also tweeted that he lost 11k from something like this.


PayPal has stepped up their confiscation game! They used to freeze your funds for 180 days, and then release them if nobody charged back in that time. Now they're just outright confiscating the funds after those 180 days (after first claiming you'll get it back), claiming "damages".

This company really needs to be brought under control. They're the same pieces of shit who run Venmo, which keeps allowing poker pros to get hacked from the inside of that platform, and refuse to address it or even provide support for most of these people.

I've hated PayPal for 20 years.

https://twitter.com/themouthmatusow/...30107227426819

They probably added that $2,500 damages provision for "each violation" into their TOS as a legal basis to keep the funds.

Still awful and should be challenged in Court but who knows.

Ethereum does ten times as much business as PayPal.

Open a few crypto wallets and force people to pay you in crypto.

No chargbacks.

No bullshit about having your account froze.


https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pr...FtutdelKjURW1g

https://globalwealthprotection.com/w...protection.jpg

I hope Moneymaker doesn't hope to get any sympathy since he takes money from WPN and they have confiscated funds from an account or two

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Originally Posted by randomguy

I hope Moneymaker doesn't hope to get any sympathy since he takes money from WPN and they have confiscated funds from an account or two

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This is about Paypal and Venmo both owned by the same company allowing thieves to operate with impunity and then being thieves themselves, arbitrarily locking accounts and seizing funds for whatever reason they feel like and essentially you having to fight a corporate behemoth with tons of lawyers to try and get your money back.. #FuckPaypal #FuckVenmo

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Originally Posted by Ryback_feed_me_more

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Originally Posted by randomguy

I hope Moneymaker doesn't hope to get any sympathy since he takes money from WPN and they have confiscated funds from an account or two

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This is about Paypal and Venmo both owned by the same company allowing thieves to operate with impunity and then being thieves themselves, arbitrarily locking accounts and seizing funds for whatever reason they feel like and essentially you having to fight a corporate behemoth with tons of lawyers to try and get your money back.. #FuckPaypal #FuckVenmo

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I understand that and don't disagree. I was pointing out the irony of Moneymaker complaining when it happens to him but takes the ACR money with the other hand who does this type of thing all the time and so Moneymaker isn't going to get any sympathy from me.

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Originally Posted by randomguy

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Originally Posted by Ryback_feed_me_more

This is about Paypal and Venmo both owned by the same company allowing thieves to operate with impunity and then being thieves themselves, arbitrarily locking accounts and seizing funds for whatever reason they feel like and essentially you having to fight a corporate behemoth with tons of lawyers to try and get your money back.. #FuckPaypal #FuckVenmo

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I understand that and don't disagree. I was pointing out the irony of Moneymaker complaining when it happens to him but takes the ACR money with the other hand who does this type of thing all the time and so Moneymaker isn't going to get any sympathy from me.

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I would disagree that "this happens all the time" with ACR. They actually have a good record of paying out and not many stories where they confiscate funds from legit accounts.

Not sure why you came to this forum? Help? Just to vent? But in your thread, you've provided 0 shred of evidence of your claims.

Chris is indeed suing them.

And his attorney?

Friend of Poker Fraud Alert (and my attorney, as well), Eric Bensamochan!

https://www.poker.org/chris-moneymak...-seized-funds/

Definitely GL!

Hopefully there is no requirement in the TOS for filing the lawsuit in Northern California, particularly in District Court = home town bias.

Have to wish them all the Best..... Going up against Goliath.....shd be interesting seeing it play out...:hof

Here's another article about the matter:

https://www.tightpoker.com/news/chri...-paypal-14638/

I'll forgive them for misspelling my name.

ERIC BENSAMOCHAN HAS PAYPAL RUNNING SCARED

https://twitter.com/CMONEYMAKER/stat...18054133387268

https://twitter.com/CMONEYMAKER/stat...18405083488259

https://twitter.com/CMONEYMAKER/stat...86168025546754


Good writeup here by Jennifer Newell, who has done a great job covering both this and the Postle situation over the past 2 years: https://www.legaluspokersites.com/ne...eymaker/26991/

PayPal's reign of financial terror and thievery must be stopped.

https://twitter.com/Robert__Douglas/...90005941182464

I messaged this guy, hopefully he joins the lawsuit.

The plot thickens

UPDATE

Eric might be responsible for PayPal attempting to tighten up their TOS!

I just got this e-mail, which was blasted out to all members:

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Hi Todd,

We’re making some changes to our legal agreements that will apply to you.
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Amendments to the PayPal Acceptable Use Policy

Effective: September 21, 2021

We are revising the policy to clarify that violations may subject you to damages. We are also expanding the existing list of prohibited activities and clarifying the commercial activities requiring pre-approval.

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This can be found (for the moment) here, but that link will change soon, as it's an ongoing list of upcoming changes.

So it looks like they are changing their AUP to "clarify" that you will be responsible for "damages" if you violate their terms. This is presumably out of concern regarding the lawsuit, where they're afraid they may not have the right to collect the "damages" from users that they've been stealing from them.

They're also "expanding the list of prohibited activites", presumably to give themselves more rights to shut down people's accounts and take their money. Furthermore, they're "clarifying commercial activities requiring pre-approval", making it tougher for certain types of small businesses to utilize PayPal without it being a terms violation.

I think it's highly likely that these are all concerns spawned by the lawsuit. Remember, this suit won't just feature poker players and gamblers, but also small businesses such as baseball card trading and gun parts, where their money was also stolen by PayPal. Presumably PayPal thinks that by specifically listing more prohibited types of sales, more clearly stating that people will be liable for "damages" for violating rules, and disallowing certain transactions without prior approval, it will allow them to continue taking people's money with impunity.

Even if they think this covers them, I have to believe this is a positive for the upcoming class action suit. These changed terms would seem to imply that the prior terms (when the money confsications occurred) weren't sufficient.

radio time brother...feeeerollllllll... we counting on you!

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Originally Posted by AhoosierA

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Originally Posted by randomguy

I understand that and don't disagree. I was pointing out the irony of Moneymaker complaining when it happens to him but takes the ACR money with the other hand who does this type of thing all the time and so Moneymaker isn't going to get any sympathy from me.

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I would disagree that "this happens all the time" with ACR. They actually have a good record of paying out and not many stories where they confiscate funds from legit accounts.

Not sure why you came to this forum? Help? Just to vent? But in your thread, you've provided 0 shred of evidence of your claims.

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ACR has a problem but its not scamming people directly.. Its their at best Shitty IT department and constant server failures at worst its deliberate take downs of the servers when they miss guarantees by signficant margins and dont want to pay the overlay out of Phils fat ass

I bet you forgot about this, right? (If you're here from Twitter, scroll up to the top to understand what's going on.)

Well, attorney Eric Bensamochan didn't forget. A lawsuit was filed against PayPal in the Northern California district of federal court today, with three named plaintiffs, seeking class action status.

Once class action status is established, more plaintiffs can join. The best known of the three plaintiffs is female poker pro Lena Evans. This was a picture of her from 2019:

https://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/pic...EVANS+2019.jpg


If you'd like to read the 37-page complaint, I have it for you here, in PDF format: https://pokerfraudalert.com/paypal-lawsuit-seizures.pdf


Bloomberg is already all over this one: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ut-explanation

I really hope this lawsuit is successful. Paypal has likely stolen from a staggering number of people around in the world, via these seizures.

I'd have had this up a few hours ago but I was out and about for a few hours, as I am most Thursday evenings. If you don't want to read all 37 pages, here are the highlights:

https://www.poker.org/moneymaker-cla...ead-plaintiff/

Paypal has a lot of class action defense experience regarding its shady practices. It probably rakes in so much money that it just gives its users the middle finger for as long as possible and then settles since the money settlement makes little difference to its bottom line.

In fact, it looks like Paypal just settled a similar lawsuit last week with similar claims.

https://lastattorney.com/paypal-clas...ent-announced/

Good luck to these folks!

Is there a list anywhere of their prohibited activities? They seem out of control but I know a lot of people in the gambling/poker/booking business still use them despite their fleecing of their customers.

Shannon Bream on Fox News just did a segment on this. Had 2 lawyers, 1 argued on behalf of PayPal and the other argued on behalf of the plaintiffs. Shannon brought up Chris Moneymaker' name as she was describing the backstory.

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Originally Posted by ReformDorm

Shannon Bream on Fox News just did a segment on this. Had 2 lawyers, 1 argued on behalf of PayPal and the other argued on behalf of the plaintiffs. Shannon brought up Chris Moneymaker' name as she was describing the backstory.

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Can you tell me more about this segment?

Was the Fox News segment tonight, and specificaly about this lawsuit? Pretty awesome if true, regardless of what anyone here thinks of Fox News. The more exposure this gets, the better.

I already see it's being covered by Bloomberg, Artstechnica, Endgadget, and some other fairly big websites.

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

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Originally Posted by ReformDorm

Shannon Bream on Fox News just did a segment on this. Had 2 lawyers, 1 argued on behalf of PayPal and the other argued on behalf of the plaintiffs. Shannon brought up Chris Moneymaker' name as she was describing the backstory.

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Can you tell me more about this segment?

Was the Fox News segment tonight, and specificaly about this lawsuit? Pretty awesome if true, regardless of what anyone here thinks of Fox News. The more exposure this gets, the better.

I already see it's being covered by Bloomberg, Artstechnica, Endgadget, and some other fairly big websites.

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I was shocked this was covered by Fox News. I swear I was literally flipping through the channels and the commercials just ended and then Shannon Bream is back on and starts the segment. She hosts a show Mon thru Friday between 12am and 1am. She mentioned Chris M and how he was going to sue PayPal for 12k but PayPal gave him the money back. Then she went to the 2 lawyers on the segment and got perspectives from each side.

Definitely huge publicity there.

Did Eric Bensamochan get mentioned?

They should've called him for comment! I'm sure he would have appeared, even though he's not on that political side of the aisle!

What about Lena Evans? Did they mention her or any of the other defendants?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

Did Eric Bensamochan get mentioned?

They should've called him for comment! I'm sure he would have appeared, even though he's not on that political side of the aisle!

What about Lena Evans? Did they mention her or any of the other defendants?

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Nope. Basically Shannon told the viewers that PayPal is being accused of confiscating people's money and mentioned CM and his accusation. Then she went to the first lawyer who was trying to defend PayPal by claiming that we aren't allowed to use them for gambling transactions. And PayPal had a right to confiscate the money lol.

Then the second lawyer disagreed and said there were plenty of people not using PayPal for gambling and their money was still being confiscated. And that PayPal isn't giving anyone explanations or answers and wasn't responding to the people.

And it was on tonight around 12:45 am est.

Chris Moneymaker going full throttle against Paypal. He has his money back, but he's still pissed!

https://twitter.com/CMONEYMAKER/stat...78476285931525

https://twitter.com/CMONEYMAKER/stat...32891652042754

Here you go, starts at approx the 34 minute mark. You may have to log in with your streaming provider to watch and sit through a few MyPillow ads (lol).

No mention of EB but 2 criminal attorneys talking instead.

Better hurry up and watch it before the Paypal/YouTube/Google/Twitter/Zukerberg cabal figure out a way to zap it off the web

https://video.foxnews.com/v/62919465...#sp=show-clips

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Originally Posted by JoeD

Here you go, starts at approx the 34 minute mark. You may have to log in with your streaming provider to watch and sit through a few MyPillow ads (lol).

No mention of EB but 2 criminal attorneys talking instead.

Better hurry up and watch it before the Paypal/YouTube/Google/Twitter/Zukerberg cabal figure out a way to zap it off the web

https://video.foxnews.com/v/62919465...#sp=show-clips

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Thanks for finding this. The attorney tasked to "defend" Paypal in this segment didn't really make very good points, in my opinion. The guy just kept focusing on gambling and saying that the user accepts the Acceptable Use Policy, so therefore they're bound to all the terms.

The attorney who was speaking on the side of the plaintiffs accurately stated that 2 of the 3 listed plaintiffs had nothing to do with gambling, and also that Paypal is simply jacking the money without even giving an explanation or way to contact the department which did it.

Clearly both attorneys read at least part of the filing. Eric has hit the big time! Two attorneys debated his filing for 5 minutes on Fox News! Too bad he wasn't mentioned.

Shannon Bream claimed Fox News would be "following the story", so maybe Eric himself can appear on there next time, and discuss it.

https://twitter.com/CMONEYMAKER/stat...79447701590019

https://twitter.com/CMONEYMAKER/stat...80015899664386

Interesting that PayPal keeps talking about their policy with regarding to gambling, when they are a major deposit/withdrawal method for almost all the major regulated online sports betting apps. This is Bet MGM(Borgata skin in Jersey but same thing)…



This is typical and I will try to go through all the apps in which they are both funding and withdrawal methods. I had to use them with Ceasers NY last week because every other method wasn’t working. I only deposited with them as a last resort. 0 chance I would withdraw through them.

https://www.thelines.com/paypal-laws...neymaker-2022/

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...alleges/?amp=1

https://www.engadget.com/amp/paypal-...073128563.html

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ut-explanation

https://finance.yahoo.com/finance/ne...yi7NWut0zdRCmb

https://lawstreetmedia.com/news/tech...-client-funds/

https://www.cardschat.com/news/class...-filed-107378/

https://www.law.com/radar/card/evans...nc-43244158-0/

This Bensamochan guy blowing up huge in 2022.

For those of you who don't have a cable provider and couldn't watch JoeD's link, Fox News posted this video which is accessible to everyone:

https://video.foxnews.com/v/6291957136001#sp=show-clips

Covered this on radio.

Go to the 0:10:56 mark. Eric came on to discuss the case.

https://pokerfraudalert.com/forum/sh...nishing-Paypal

You've heard of film critic Joel Siegel, who died 15 years ago?

Well, how about class-action-killing attorney Joel Siegel, who is very much alive?

https://www.dentons.com/en/joel-siegel

Mr. Siegel is going to be defending PayPal here.

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Joel and his team have successfully handled scores of high-stakes cases, some involving hundreds of thousands of putative class members with commensurate implications for the company’s bottom line and reputation. His team’s multi-pronged approach to defeating consumer class actions efficiently and effectively has included successfully opposing motions for class certification, disposing of class allegations at the earliest stages of litigation, settling when appropriate on an individual or class basis and, where warranted, trying cases to verdict and defending results on appeal.

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This is notable because PayPal is NOT using in-house counsel! All those full-time lawyers they have on the books, and instead they went to hire this class action specialist and paying his presumably high hourly rates.

Does this mean they're worried that the case has plenty of merit? I think so.

:popcorn

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

This is notable because PayPal is NOT using in-house counsel! All those full-time lawyers they have on the books, and instead they went to hire this class action specialist and paying his presumably high hourly rates.

Does this mean they're worried that the case has plenty of merit? I think so.

:popcorn

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I don't think Paypal's choice to retain a class-action defense specialist to defend this class lawsuit has much bearing on the merits of the case. You wouldn't hire a GP to perform brain surgery, even if your GPs are good and already paid for.

Paypal's new tactic:

Steal from people until there's a possible publicity backlash, then refund them.

A CBS station in Sacramento contacted PayPal about a woman whose $1200 got jacked by them, and suddenly the decided to return it and unfreeze her account.

https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2022...atland-paypal/

Just got an updated T&S from Venmo addressing terms of arbitration, etc, etc.

I assume this is at least partially bc of the moneymaker induced lawsuit.