New $15 Million Wave of Full Tilt Poker Remissions Announced
Garden City Group (GCG), the Ohio-based claims administrator working on behalf of the Department of Justice, has announced the finalization of a third wave of remission payments to be sent out in June to certain former players of the original Full Tilt Poker. Full Tilt was one of three major US-facing online poker companies that was forced to cease service to American players following the indictments handed down in the April, 2011 “Black Friday” series of indictments.
The complete notice (below, and also available at fulltiltpokerclaims.com) confirms that 3,500 accounts and approximately $15 million in payments will be issued as part of the next payment round, expected to arrive via ACH in the next two to three weeks.
This latest round of payments includes a mop-up of regular FTP players who, for various reasons including late filing of refund petitions or erroneous banking information, could not be included in the first two waves of payments, issued in late February and mid-April, respectively.
Also included in the June cycle will be an unspecified number of accounts that were tagged as affiliates. GCG, previously speaking on behalf of the DOJ, has already confirmed that only the portion of affiliate-account balances that were attributable to actual poker play will be refunded, while funds that were generated through affiliate signups and later commingled by Full Tilt into affiliates’ regular accounts will not be part of the balances being refunded.
It is unknown exactly how many affiliate accounts are included in this most recently announced wave, though a minimum of several hundred affiliate-tagged accounts are likely involved.
The latest round of refunds will bring the running totals of accounts and balances in the FTP remission process to more than 33,000 accounts and more than $91 million in refunds. Funds for the remission process were made available via the 2012 settlement between the DoJ and PokerStars parent Rational Group, which acquired all remaining Full Tilt assets, refunded non-US players, and relaunched Full Tilt as a Euro-centric site.
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IMPORTANT NOTICE REGARDING UPCOMING PAYMENTS
GCG has been informed that the Department of Justice Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section has approved a new round of payments. This distribution will include approximately 3,500 payments totaling $15 million to Petitioners who submitted complete, timely or late Petitions confirming their FTP Account Balance. Also included in this round of payments are Affiliates who submitted Petitions confirming their FTP Account Balances. GCG expects to issue these payments in the middle of June 2014 and will post further updates on the payment process as they become available.
As part of the process of preparing this next round of payments, shortly before payments are issued, Petitioners who are approved to receive payment may notice a zero-dollar transaction in their bank account statement that relates to the Full Tilt Poker Claims Administration. Please be aware that this is a normal part of the bank testing process in preparation for payment of ACHs. However, not all banks post these notices during the testing process, so do not be concerned if you do not receive such a notice and believe you are eligible to receive payment in the upcoming distribution.
Please be advised that there are Petitioners who are eligible for payment in the upcoming round of payments, but who have a delinquent debt qualifying for collection through the Treasury Offset Program. Payments for these Petitioners will be reduced in order to satisfy their debt in part or in whole. A notice will be sent to these Petitioners in the upcoming weeks and will include a Unified Financial Management System Vendor Request Form, which must be completed by the Petitioner in order to receive the balance of his or her payment. Please note that Petitioners who were previously approved for payment and were notified that they had a delinquent debt qualifying for collection through the Treasury Offset Program, but who still have not returned a completed form will not receive payment until a completed form is submitted.
Please continue to check this website for updates regarding the payment process and this administration.
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