It’s so close. Christmas in February nears. Well, if you consider receiving money that a former friend has owed you for three years a Christmas gift, then it’s certainly Christmas. On Monday, the Garden City Group (GCG), which is serving as the Claims Administrator for the frozen U.S. Full Tilt Poker funds, announced that payments will begin this week.
In a post on its website (http://www.fulltiltpokerclaims.com) titled “NOTICE REGARDING APPROVED PETITIONS AND BANK ACCOUNT INFORMATION,” the GCG wrote that former Full Tilt Poker customers in the United States who filed claims for reimbursement (Petitioners) and have both had their petitions approved and their bank account information verified will receive an e-mail either today, February 24th, or tomorrow, February 25th, detailing the amount that they will be paid.
The first round of payments will follow on Friday, February 28th.
The notice also included information for those whose Petitions were approved but who might not receive their payments in this upcoming first round. These people submitted bank information to the Claims Administrator that was either incorrect or incomplete, therefore making it impossible for the GCG to complete the electronic funds transfer. These individuals should have received an e-mail on February 21st with instructions on how to update their bank information. Those who do not update their information by March 13th will be mailed a physical check. Petitioners who do correct their bank information by March 13th will be paid in the second round of electronic payments.
There was no mention in the notice as to when the second round of payments would be, but considering March 13th is a Thursday and the first round will be this Friday, March 14th might be a good guess.
This latest update from the GCG comes less than two weeks after its last major announcement in which it said that the Department of Justice will not consider rakeback an affiliate payment. This decision came after many affiliates were seeing their expected reimbursement figure significantly reduced because of rakeback. It had already been determined that affiliates would be eligible to receive repayment, but only for funds that resulted from poker play. Money that resulted from an affiliate business will not be refunded. One big problem resulted from all of this: both rakeback and affiliate business payments were lumped under the same “affiliate” label, thus negating all rakeback payments. After players put up a stink and the Poker Players Alliance got involved, the DoJ realized that rakeback should be included in the reimbursements. Not all rakeback was necessarily successfully separated from rakeback payments; anyone who is still having these lumped together must provide an explanation to the GCG differentiating the two.