Dozens of US Poker Pros Targeted in Banking Fraud, Identity Theft Scam

High-profile stove poker players are beingness victimized past a banking scam that exploits weaknesses in the online gambling casino payment processing system, according to the PokerFraudAlert website.

The proprietor of PokerFraudAlert is pro player Todd Witteles, who is himself a victim. He has so far has spoken at to to the lowest degree decade players who experience been targeted but believes on that point may follow many more. These include Joseph Cheong, Kyna England, Jacques Louis David Bach, Sam Panzica, and Clayton Maguire. Others did non want to live identified and include a “big name,” Witteles says.

But past targeting Witteles, the whodunit scammer has messed with the wrong guy.

Since falling victim to the scam cobbler's last month, he has been “quietly investigating” in arrears the scenes. It was only when he began to realise at that place were more victims in the salamander community, he went public with his findings on Tuesday.

Scammer’s M.O.

On Oct 20, someone created an business relationship inward Witteles’ figure on BetMGM Cicily Isabel Fairfield Virginia, a nation the California-based player has ne'er visited.

They were so able-bodied to work a $10,000 deposit from his camber account statement onto the BetMGM platform. They withdrew it directly to a Venmo Demit Mastercard linked to a phony Venmo account, also inwards Witteles’ name.

But how was the scammer capable to memory access his bank account? Witteles claims they didn’t need to because they were able-bodied to work a service offered past Global Payments Gaming (GPG) called “VIP Preferred.”

Global Payments is an Atlanta, Georgia-based fintech giant. GPG is its arm that processes payments for the US land-based and online gaming industry, based inward Las Vegas.

VIP Preferred lets users sedimentation funds at legion(p) online gaming sites and even land-based casinos without strict protection checks. That’s provided they a hold right history of transactions processed past GPG on another gaming land site where they underwent a more stringent verification process.

“[…] VIP Preferred … allows the scammer to approach antecedently used camber account statement information, provided the victim has used eChecks in the past, on i of many legalized gaming sites,” wrote Witteles. “He uses the bank building account that was used antecedently to deposit to these sites, which [is] saved and held by the defrayment processor.”

All they needed to pass on a verification check up on was Witteles’ name, address, and the last four digits of his societal protection number.

‘Incredibly Negligent’

The stove poker pro decided to publicize his findings after seeing a twirp from Cheong.

“Got debited via eCheck for $9.8k small over a calendar week ago by @BetMGMPoker @BetMGMCasino somehow,” Cheong wrote. “I don’t fifty-fifty get an account. Seems other poker players experience also been hit by this scam (?)”

Witteles is urging to a greater extent victims to come in forward. He says that the mutual denominator in for each one documented case so far is that the dupe had previously deposited on a gaming site using an eCheck.

Every single person victimized, to my knowledge, had the money stolen from the cant business relationship they used for past tense eCheck deposits on legalized gambling sites. This is very significant,” Witteles wrote. “If you ne'er did eCheck deposits (where the money is direct drawn from your cant account) via legalized online play sites, on that point is a richly chance you testament non be unnatural by this.”

“…This was improbably negligent on the parting of Global Payments to take a leak it so loose to portray someone and steal, and farther negligent on the division of BetMGM and other legalized gaming apps to permit such large transactions on the same mean solar day the accounting was opened, including withdrawals!” he added.

Shadow of Suspicion

Witteles notes it’s suspicious that the culprit appears to have got “extensive knowledge of Global Payments, its client base, which sites utilize them to process, and in some way has memory access to the good personal information.”

In a statement to Casino.org Thursday, Global Payments said it was “assisting law of nature enforcement with an investigating into fraudulent accounts go under upward at unaffiliated 3rd parties using stolen personal information.”

“There has been no certificate breach or fraudulent accounts opened at our gaming business sector inwards connectedness with this investigation,” it added. “The tribute of our customers and their clients’ selective information and funds is our top of the inning precedence and we are working with these third parties to ensure any impacted individuals are refunded.”

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