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Absolute Poker Claims Administration

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Well, check your inboxes, as Garden City Group, the U.S. Department of Justice-appointed claims administrator that we became all too familiar with during the long Full Tilt Poker claims process, began sending out e-mails yesterday, confirming the approval of people’s claims for funds. On April 13, 2017, GCG finished emailing approximately 1.2 million Notices to all potentially eligible victims of Absolute Poker/Ultimate Bet’s conduct who have been identified by GCG utilizing data supplied by Absolute Poker/Ultimate Bet. Please be sure to check your email account's spam or junk folder to ensure the message was not filtered.

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There are probably many of you reading this that are totally unfamiliar with Absolute Poker. You may have heard of it, but you have not been playing online poker long enough to have actually had an account there. It was actually a solid site – the graphics weren’t all that pretty, but they were functional, it was easy to navigate, and it was fairly stable. (WARNING: SARCASM INCOMING). There were just a couple minor problems, though. Absolute Poker has this little thing called a superuser scandal and then disappeared with customers’ funds after Black Friday. You know, the usual stuff.

But former Absolute Poker players can rejoice. After forgetting about the money you had on there, assuming it was long gone, it looks like you will now actually have a very good chance at getting it back. On Monday, Joon H. Kim, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that a claims process similar to that which is wrapping up with Full Tilt Poker has begun to reunite poker players with their lost Absolute Poker money. Also like with Full Tilt, the Garden City Group (GCG) will be the claims administrator.

To most, this is very much out of the blue. As mentioned, we have essentially forgotten about Absolute Poker aside from it being an unfortunate poker history lesson. With Full Tilt, players were able to get their money back because of a deal PokerStars struck with the U.S. Department of Justice in which PokerStars agreed to acquire Full Tilt in exchange for reimbursing its players. It appears, according to the press release announcing the Absolute Poker compensation program, that left over funds from the Full Tilt claims program will now be used to make Absolute players whole.

Definition

Even better: funds from UltimateBet.com, Absolute Poker’s sister site, are also included.

The GCG says on its claims site, AbsolutePokerClaims.com, that it is sending out about 1.2 million e-mails to “all potentially eligible victims of Absolute Poker’s conduct who have been identified by GCG utilizing data supplied by Absolute Poker.”

Absolute Poker Claims Administration Program

These e-mails will have a Petition Number and Control Number that will be needed to submit a claim. This information can be entered on a form that can be accessed via a link near the bottom of the Absolute Poker Claims page. For those that did not receive an e-mail for whatever reason, a claim can still be filed using the player’s Absolute Poker e-mail address, player ID, and last name.

Absolute Poker Claims Administration

From there, it’s just a matter of verifying personal information like name, address, phone number, and social security number, and then okaying the balance the GCG says the player is due.

Absolute Poker Claims Administration

After that, it’s just a waiting game. Filing a claim does not guarantee payment; the claim still must be approved. If you were a normal player, though, without any sort of oddities or uniqueness to your account, one would think everything would go smoothly.

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Absolute Poker Claims Administration Rules

Because of the way the refund process was setup, a bet a lot of you had forgotten that you were still waiting to receive long-lost deposits from Absolute Poker (AP) and UltimateBet (UB), didn’t you. Well, check your inboxes, as Garden City Group, the U.S. Department of Justice-appointed claims administrator that we became all too familiar with during the long Full Tilt Poker claims process, began sending out e-mails yesterday, confirming the approval of people’s claims for funds.

Absolute Poker Claims Administration Definition

Absolute Poker Claims Administration

Absolute Poker Claims Administration Guidelines

It was in April that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York raised eyebrows and produced smiles when it announced that former customers of Absolute Poker and UltimateBet, the two online poker rooms that comprised the Cereus Network, would be eligible to receive their deposits that they hadn’t seen since April 15th, 2011, best known as “Black Friday” in the online poker world. After Black Friday, AP and UB went under, taking player funds with them.

GCG managed the claims process for Full Tilt Poker, using funds from the settlement PokerStars agreed to with the U.S. DoJ, a settlement which included PokerStars’ purchasing of its former top rival. According to the April press release announcing the start of the AP and UB remissions process, it looks like excess funds from Full Tilt are being used to pay Cereus players.

The bulk of the procedure for players to submit an application for remission was the same as with Full Tilt: enter a Petition Number and Control Number from an e-mail, fill out some basic personal information, and send. Those who didn’t get the e-mail (like me, because I didn’t use the e-mail address anymore) could use their AP/UB login info, instead. After that, it was up to GCG to review the application and give it the thumbs up or thumbs down.

The difference with AP/UB is that GCG did not ask for bank account information so that payment could be sent upon approval. Instead, that step was to be taken after approval, which is now. The e-mails sent out in the wave Friday include instructions on how to login with the Petition Number and Control Number once again in order to submit bank account information for a domestic ACH payment.

All in all, four months from the start of the remissions process to the approval confirmations isn’t all that bad. Another four to six weeks for payment is something I know I can live with, especially since I never expected to see my Absolute Poker or UltimateBet money ever again.

I can’t say I’m in love with the separation of the application submission from the payment info submission, as there is a risk that former customers may not see the approval e-mail and forget that this whole claims process was even going on. If GCG would’ve taken the payment info in April, it could have saved players a potential headache down the road. At the same time, though, some people will have their claims rejected, so it might be for the best that GCG doesn’t have their banking information if those players aren’t going to get paid. Not that GCG will do anything with it, but why risk any trouble.

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