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Thread: Don't be this guy! Bovada player attempts dumb scheme to get $100 referral bonus for duplicate account, loses over $4600 because of it

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    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    Don't be this guy! Bovada player attempts dumb scheme to get $100 referral bonus for duplicate account, loses over $4600 because of it

    From 2+2

    Quote Originally Posted by dUbUp24
    I have been a long time player on Bovada for years and years. Recently, my wife wanted to start playing poker as well due to being stuck at home from the Covid-19 lockdown, so I decided to send her my referral code to sign up so I could get a bonus when she signs up and deposits. So she signed up and deposited $50 from her credit card and I got $100 referral bonus. I also sent her a voucher for $3000 and $143 which I was going to cash out but decided to just keep it in her account so she could have a bankroll and incase I needed to redeposit, she could just send me a voucher back. I only left $100 in my account which was from the bonus and wanted to build it up from that as a side challenge. My wife won some money in poker and betting on esports and her account went to $4,698 after about a month, most if not all her winnings were from winning esports bets and she was pretty much breakeven at Zone Poker 25NL. She wanted to cashout earlier around $4,000 but Bovada said she had to play through the whole voucher deposit of $3,000 to be able to cash out, so she played through it in poker and esports bets. So after the playthrough, she wanted to cash out the $4,698 via Bitcoin and after almost 48 hours of review, they cancelled the cashout and said the account was under investigation. 24 hours later, they called her and said her account was being disabled and all the funds in it would be seized because we broke the Terms of Service of having 2 accounts in the same household as well as abusing the referral bonus. They said they would return the $50 dollar deposit she made through her credit card though. My account was also shut down which I had $200 in that I was building up. I didn't read the Terms of Service before referring my wife and it does indeed say:

    3.2 Single Account Access. You are permitted to open only one (1) Account. Only one account is allowed per household. Multiple accounts held by the same individual are subject to immediate closure and we reserve the right to seize any funds gained as a result of holding multiple accounts. Furthermore you shall not permit another person to access the Website or Software via your account without the express permission of Bovada.

    I got no warning or anything, they just seized the funds and closed our accounts with all the money in them seized. I cannot even contact them via telephone because due to Covid-19 they turned their phone support off. Their chat reps just say their decision is final and they will not return any of the funds in the account except for the $50 my wife deposited from her credit card. In the email they sent me this is what rules they said I broke:

    Broken Terms Of Service:
    3.2 Single Account Access
    3.6 Information to be Valid and Verifiable
    6.2 Fraudulent Activity
    6.7 "Betting Syndicates"
    6.8 Abuse of Bonus Programs

    I was only guilty of referring my wife who lives in the same household and I guess abusing the bonus program since I received a $100 bonus for referring her, but I honestly didn't know that was against TOS and I admit I was clearly in violation of that. So they seized the $4,698 in my wife's account and the $200 in my account. Does anyone have any advice? Any advice/input would greatly be appreciated, and again, I know I made a mistake and broke the Terms of Service but does that warrant all our funds being seized? Thank you.
    Source: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...-wife-1767543/



    This 2+2 community (the Internet Poker forum there, which tends to be a smarter subset of posters on the site) wasn't impressed. They saw right through this BS before I even found the thread.

    Here was my response to him:

    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Druff
    As many of you know, I run a site which focuses on frauds and scams in poker, and I'm always the first to back someone up who has been mistreated by a poker site.

    I've also publicly complained about Bovada many times on 2+2 and my own site, so I'm not cheerleader of theirs.

    With that said, it's 100% obvious that this guy thought he was clever, pulled shenanigans, got caught, and now is crying foul because the punishment (complete confiscation of bankroll on the site) is far more harsh than he figured it could be.

    Your wife didn't play. It was obvious from the first post, and it's even more obvious now. You took over the account, hence the reason you transferred all of the money except for $100 to "her" account.

    You didn't leave $100 in your account as a "side challenge" to run it up again. It's insulting our intelligence to say that. In reality, you left exactly $100 because that was the amount of the referral bonus, and thus that amount was stuck until it was cleared. So you moved all of the play over to "her" account, and you were playing on your old account just enough to clear the bonus, cash that out, and be done with it.

    Then Bovada caught you, called you up, and you lied about the situation. That led to angering them further and believing you were a scammer, so they confiscated your roll.

    I admit that their actions were harsh, but that's the breaks when you try to pull tricks on an online poker site -- especially one which basically makes its own rules and answers to nobody.

    Why are they so hard line about this? I can answer that.

    In previous years, Bovada has been victimized numerous times by bonus whore hustlers. This became easy to pull off, thanks to bitcoin as a new deposit method. The hustle worked like this:

    1) Create new account with clean IP address
    2) Fund with bitcoin for something like $1000, get initial deposit bonus
    3) Clear the bonus via an aggressive, high-bet strategy which fails most of the time but occasionally clears the bonus with a high bankroll (5 figures)
    4) If it fails to clear, dump the non-bonus chips to a friend in poker, and trash account
    5) If bonus is cleared, cash out, profit 5 figures
    6) Rinse and repeat

    In case you're wondering, I never did this, though I was aware of it going on at the time.

    Some guys made hundreds of thousands of $ doing this before Bovada caught on. Nowadays, Bovada is aggressively watching for this, so the above no longer works.

    Hence, starting a new account, transferring money to it, and resuming play as if it's you (while attempting to clear the referral bonus on the original account) looks really bad to them, and reminds them of the above scheme (even though it's different, because presumably you didn't try to clear the $100 in an aggressive, high-bet fashion, or you wouldn't have had $200 in it when it got shut down.)

    You basically F'd yourself when you lied to them on the phone. They aren't going to believe that your "wife" suddenly wanted to play the exact same limits and style you do, while at the same time you lost the desire to play other than to clear the bonus in your account. You should have just come clean once they caught you, perhaps cleaning up the story a bit so you don't look like you were just outright trying to jack $100 from them. Then you should have begged for them to let you continue playing, promising to never do it again. Since it's just a matter of $100, they might have allowed it.

    Now you're screwed, and coming on 2+2 and lying about it just made matters worse.

    Next time you want our help here, please don't insult our collective intelligence by telling us nonsense "wife" stories, and then acting outraged when we don't believe you.

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    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    BTW, Bovada saw his thread on their community forum and posted a response:

    Quote Originally Posted by Bovada Support
    Thanks for reaching out.

    I'm one of the Moderators from the Bovada Community, and at your request I have reviewed your account and the situation you're involved in.

    At present, the action taken upon your account will stand due to multiple violations of our Terms of Service, with particular emphasis on the following:

    3.2 Single Account Access. You are permitted to open only one (1) Account. Only one account is allowed per household. Multiple accounts held by the same individual are subject to immediate closure and we reserve the right to seize any funds gained as a result of holding multiple accounts. Furthermore you shall not permit another person to access the Website or Software via your account without the express permission of Bovada.

    6.2 Fraudulent Activity. If, in our reasonable discretion, we determine that a player has engaged in fraudulent, unlawful, dishonest or improper activity (including, without limitation, the usage of a VPN, proxy or similar service that masks or manipulates the identification of your real location, or by otherwise providing false or misleading information, or by making bets, wagers or poker play through a third party or on behalf of a third party) we reserve the right to immediately terminate or deny a player access to their Account. In such event, all Account balances (including both deposits and any winnings) shall be forfeited and we reserve the right to disclose information (including the identity of the player) to applicable parties including but not limited to banks, credit card companies and/or any person or entity that has the legal right to such information, and/or taking legal action against such player.

    During your interactions with our Investigations department, you were given multiple opportunities to explain the situation. However, instead attempts were made to deceive the representative you spoke with, which is not something that we tolerate.

    Any funds that were seized were done so in accordance with our Terms of Service, which were agreed to when creating both accounts. As such, we won't be returning the funds deposited from the Vouchers to either accounts.

    Regards,

    Bovada Community Moderators


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    Platinum FRANKRIZZO's Avatar
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    This is different then guy who referred his wife had 5k taken.

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    Platinum JeffDime's Avatar
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    I can certainly pile on this guy what he did was short sided & transparent. About 7 years ago I won 18K on an offshore site through what I thought was a friend in Costa Rica. When I went to cashout he sent me the TOS that stated I could only cashout 3K a week. I took my slow pay, didn’t bet another cent on the site like they were hoping & haven’t made a bet with an offshore site or through an agent since.

    I know Bovada is in Canada but I have spent a good amount of time with these type of guys in Costa Rica. I went down for what was supposed to be a few weeks & met a nice girl an ended up staying for 6 months. These guys are even scummier than anyone would imagine. The post-up operations which people are depositing to essentially consider deposits revenue right away. These smaller sites are less reputable than Bovada but when I asked one of them what percentage of money deposited is actually withdrawn it’s easily 10% or less.

    With the Poker on Bovada I am guessing they are maybe between 20%-25% withdrawal rate. However, with most sports being shutdown for so long & the proliferation of legalized sports betting there’s no doubt these offshore sites are seeing more & more of their revenue being dependent on poker. Obviously ACR in Costa Rica getting a huge boom. BTW if anyone is wondering why ACR has so much trouble breaking down I can tell you most of the server equipment in Costa Rica is outdated & put together poorly. It is so hard to find good IT help down there as well. I guess I can share more of what I discovered in another quarantine thread but anyone who doesn’t think ACR & Phil Nagy will just disappear one day with all the money in the accounts you are kidding yourselves. This guy can never step foot on American soil again. I’m sure he’s planned his target goal of $ & exit strategy 100 times over.

    So this is all a long winded way of saying if they want to screw you out of your money they will find some reason or just make one up. If you actually give an unregulated site a reason to shut you down then of course they will. Does the punishment fit the crime? Of course not. If this happened in say New Jersey someone was trying to double up on a betting app promo like this guy no way they take his whole roll for that.

    I get people have to play poker and Bovada seems like the best option. I agree Druff learn from this guy’s mistake. Don’t give them any ammunition.

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    Gold sah_24's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JeffDime View Post
    I can certainly pile on this guy what he did was short sided & transparent. About 7 years ago I won 18K on an offshore site through what I thought was a friend in Costa Rica. When I went to cashout he sent me the TOS that stated I could only cashout 3K a week. I took my slow pay, didn’t bet another cent on the site like they were hoping & haven’t made a bet with an offshore site or through an agent since.

    I know Bovada is in Canada but I have spent a good amount of time with these type of guys in Costa Rica. I went down for what was supposed to be a few weeks & met a nice girl an ended up staying for 6 months. These guys are even scummier than anyone would imagine. The post-up operations which people are depositing to essentially consider deposits revenue right away. These smaller sites are less reputable than Bovada but when I asked one of them what percentage of money deposited is actually withdrawn it’s easily 10% or less.

    With the Poker on Bovada I am guessing they are maybe between 20%-25% withdrawal rate. However, with most sports being shutdown for so long & the proliferation of legalized sports betting there’s no doubt these offshore sites are seeing more & more of their revenue being dependent on poker. Obviously ACR in Costa Rica getting a huge boom. BTW if anyone is wondering why ACR has so much trouble breaking down I can tell you most of the server equipment in Costa Rica is outdated & put together poorly. It is so hard to find good IT help down there as well. I guess I can share more of what I discovered in another quarantine thread but anyone who doesn’t think ACR & Phil Nagy will just disappear one day with all the money in the accounts you are kidding yourselves. This guy can never step foot on American soil again. I’m sure he’s planned his target goal of $ & exit strategy 100 times over.

    So this is all a long winded way of saying if they want to screw you out of your money they will find some reason or just make one up. If you actually give an unregulated site a reason to shut you down then of course they will. Does the punishment fit the crime? Of course not. If this happened in say New Jersey someone was trying to double up on a betting app promo like this guy no way they take his whole roll for that.

    I get people have to play poker and Bovada seems like the best option. I agree Druff learn from this guy’s mistake. Don’t give them any ammunition.
    The regulated sites are just as shady as the offshore ones. Regulation does nothing to protect players. This has long been proven ...

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