With the news earlier this week that Garden City Group, the administrators for the reimbursement of American players from the old Full Tilt Poker, will begin to accept applications for that payout, many U. S. players may be left wondering how to find out just how much they had on the site. Pokerfuse’s Michael Gentile presented a guide on how to go about that task and, as I had funds on the site, thought I would take you through the process as I did it myself.
First off, you don’t need to download the “new” Full Tilt Poker client if you are looking to find out your information. Although I hadn’t warmed up my old poker computer in quite some time, I was able to update the software through that old link and, after a few moments, was brought to the new welcome screen with the visages of Gus Hansen, Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan and Viktor ‘Isildur1’ Blom rather quickly. The next step was to remember all my pertinent log-in information (which I could) but, if you don’t remember such info, you can ask for an e-mail reminder of your log in info from Full Tilt Poker.
The next screen that I saw was one telling me that, due to the factor I was in the United States, I couldn’t play for real money on the site (not surprising). After closing that window, my next step was to head to the “Requests” tab at the top of the lobby page. Finding the “Account History (Web)” section, I was off to remind myself just how much money I had on the old Full Tilt Poker.
This is where it began to get a bit complicated, but I soldiered through it. Once the browser launched with the “Account History” window, I had to select all of the options available. Transactions, promotional payments, real money balance, tournament dollars and tickets…these were just a few of the tabs that were indicated. You also must put under the “Time Range” indicator on the window a start date and the end date of 4/15/11 (now infamously known as “Black Friday”).
Once the request has been submitted, you are informed that you will receive an e-mail that will have the required information that you have requested. It only took a couple of minutes for that e-mail to arrive and, once I had that information, I could move on to the next step in my informational recovery.
After closing the original “Account History” webpage, I once again had to go back to the Full Tilt Poker lobby and repeat the “Requests” step. After clicking on “Account History” under the “Requests” tab, I was once again whisked to the “Account History” webpage. This time, however, there was a new “Download” tab that provided the information I requested as a ZIP Excel .xls file. By tapping that tab, you get the ZIP file of the requested information regarding your Full Tilt Poker account.
For those that don’t use Excel, viewing the information can be done in a couple of different ways. Gentile suggests downloading a free viewer from Microsoft, but I found that I had another program on my old computer that would open up the file adequately. Once that was complete, I had the first step complete on my trek to receiving my money back from Garden City Group and Full Tilt Poker.
This process is important to complete soon because American players looking for a refund will only have a short window to proceed with the remittance process. Beginning on September 16, Garden City Group will only accept repayment petitions until November 15. Thus, having the accurate information (as well as having it in a physical form) is critical in not delaying payment for American players. It is not known at this time if players will be reimbursed in full or if they will receive anything for the miscellaneous items that they collected (tournament tickets, medals, etc.) while playing on Full Tilt Poker.
Overall, the process is pretty simple to find out what your balance was on Full Tilt Poker as of April 2011 and kudos to Gentile and the Pokerfuse crowd for explaining the process concisely. Now if the remittance process can only go as smoothly, then perhaps the online poker community can begin to put the dark cloud of “Black Friday” behind it somewhat.
So, if a red pro or full tilt pro had money in there from a media payment, sponsor stipend, do they get that money???
Hey Ibtrackin,
That is a decision that apparently will be left up to Garden City Group. While it may be a sticky situation, if the money was in the player’s account on April 15, it may be viewed as in their possession and therefore would receive it back.
I am fairly assured that GCG is going to go over all player applications for reimbursement with a microscope to ensure that the claims are legitimate.
Thanks for reading!
Earl
TY for article: but I had done all that months ago (downloading history). What was missing from the article is who/what/where you send that info (Garden City) to request reimbursement.
Hey Gypsy,
Garden City Group will be providing that information once they start accepting reimbursement applications on September 15. I am figuring it will be an online process but, for those without internet, there will probably be an alternate means of providing the information.
Thanks for reading!
Earl
What about those with withdrawals that were pending never received? I had 3 checks i receieved that i deposited (on purpose) to let them bounce so i had a record of that. I had 2 others that were never received but all 5 checks left my ftp balance at zero. Whats your opinion on those with ftp balance of zero but have copies of bounced checks and transaction numbers of withdrawals never received?
Hey Rusty,
Unfortunately, you may be out of luck. From all information given by Garden City Group, they are only going to be looking at official balances on April 15. Therefore, if you have the three bounced checks and two others that were never sent that left your account at zero, that will probably be what GCG looks at. It doesn’t hurt to file an application when the process opens in September, just don’t get your hopes up.
Thanks for reading!
Earl
This is so unfair, first on april 9th, I came second in my first tournament $2500.00 requested a $2000.00 withdrawal, left 500 in there to play, then again on april 11th requestes another $229.00, Full Tilt already knew at that time, they were not paying anybody even though it says withdrawal no one rec checks. MY balance is showing $ 132.00. I SPENT 97.00 FROM THE 9TH UNTIL THE 15TH. WHY SHOULD THEY GET AWAY WITH NOT PAYING PEOPLE THE CASH OUTS THAT WERE NEVER SENT OR BOUNCED? AT LEAST GO BACK A MONTH WORTH OF WITHDRAWALS NOT JUST USE WHATS IN ACCT, WE ARE STILL GETTING SCREWED, NO MATTER HOW YOU LOOK AT IT. THESE PEOPLE HAVE FULL TILT’S RECORDS SO THEY KNOW WHAT WITHDRAWALS WERE PROCESSED, THEY ARE GOING TO TRY AND GET AWAY WITH JUST PAYING WHAT WAS LEFT IN YOUR BALANCE, NO WAY WE NEED TO STICK TOGETHER ON THIS.
Hey Rita,
Can certainly identify with your thoughts. As I explained to Rusty above, however, you might go ahead and attempt to get your full balance back if you can show that the withdrawals never went through. Good luck and thanks for reading!
Earl