The week that former Full Tilt Poker customers in the United States have been eagerly awaiting has arrived. The remissions process has begun.
Beginning today, Garden City Group (GCG), chosen by the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York to be the Full Tilt Poker Claims Administrator, has started sending e-mails to any former American Full Tilt player who may be eligible for funds reimbursement. The e-mail process may run through tomorrow, so those who do not receive anything on Monday should remain patient (after all, it’s been more than two years, what’s one more day).
The e-mail will contain a lot of information about the distribution process and background of the case, but the most important contents are each individual player’s petition number and control number. These numbers will be needed to submit a claim for funds. The rest of the e-mail is largely unimportant, except for those people who might be ineligible to file a petition. Section III of the e-mail outlines the eligibility criteria; some people will be excluded from the process, though most will be unaffected.
Ex-Full Tilters can begin the petition process on Wednesday, September 18th, by going to GCG’s site, FullTiltPokerClaims.com. The deadline for online filing is November 16th. Anyone who does not receive an e-mail and believes they are eligible for a refund can still file a claim on the website.
Player balances were determined based on what was in their Full Tilt Poker accounts as of April 15th, 2011, also known as Black Friday. When a person logs into the claims site using their petition number and control number, that balance figure will be made available. No additional paperwork is needed if the figure looks correct. If a player disagrees with the figure, though, documents that provide proof of the actual balance will need to be uploaded.
Those who want to check their balances in advance can do so by logging into the Full Tilt Poker software. Michael Gentile at Pokerfuse.com was kind enough to provide a step-by-step instructional on how to find one’s Black Friday balance; Poker News Daily’s Earl Burton subsequently tested it out and wrote about it here. There are several steps, but in the end it’s quite simple. Once logged in, go to “Requests” at the top of the lobby and then select “Account History (Web).” That will open a browser window where you select all of the options and the appropriate start and end dates (end date is 04/15/11). Within a few minutes, you should receive an e-mail that says the account history is available. When that arrives, go back to the “Account History” page that you had already opened (either by going through the software again or just refreshing the page, whichever method works best) and you will see link by which you can download a zipped Excel file with all of your transaction history and final balance.
Funds will be paid by electronic funds transfer to the bank account provided by the player some time after November 16th.