Fraudsters steal thousands of dollars from online poker players

[The Buzz]

Multiple online poker players have reported they've had "thousands of dollars swiped from their bank accounts" by fraudsters who created online gambling accounts under their names, according to a PokerNews.com article.

From the article:

Joseph Cheong, along with PokerFraudAlert's Todd "Dan Druff" Witteles, brought forth on Twitter some allegations of online gambling fraud. They both said scammers stole $10,000 from them by gaining access to their bank account information and creating internet casino accounts under their names.

Kyna England also shared a similar story. She told PokerNews she made one deposit on WSOP.com in 2020 using her bank account. On November 10, 2022, she noticed an unusual transaction, which turned out to be tied to the same online gambling scam.

Witteles, on his PokerFraudAlert forum, explained details of what he experienced. According to the poker forum creator, on October 20, "an account was quietly created in my name on legalized sportsbook BetMGM West Virginia."

How it Happened
As Witteles explained in his lengthy forum post, the theft is done through vulnerable security procedures from Global Payments Gaming Solutions (NYSE: GPN), a payment processor used for e-Check payments on BetMGM, WSOP.com and hundreds of other online gambling sites.

Global Payments offers a VIP Preferred service to online casinos, which permits players who gamble frequently to store multiple checking accounts in one place and deposit up to $50,000 within a seven-day period into their online casino account.

It's a convenient service for high rollers and regular gamblers, but it apparently has some costly drawbacks. Per Witteles's post, the VIP Preferred service allows the scammer to "access previously used bank account information, provided the victim has used eChecks in the past on one of many legalized gambling sites."

Read more here: https://www.pokernews.com/news/2022/...yers-42524.htm

[Nicole Goodwin]

Someone got access to some database? Great, of course, that a lot of technology is available in our time, but personal data is now very easy to steal