Garden City Group Provides New Updates Regarding Full Tilt Poker Repayments
Late last week, the Garden City Group, the firm responsible for overseeing the repayment of money owed to Full Tilt Poker players in the U.S., posted two new announcements on its website regarding the remission process.
The GCG announced last month that approximately $82 million in Full Tilt Poker funds is expected to be returned to petitioners by the end of March. However, some may not see any of the money hit their bank account at all. The first update posted on the GCG website on Friday update regarded customers eligible for a refund who have a delinquent debt owed to the U.S. government. According to the GCG, payments owed to these petitioners will be "reduced in order to satisfy their debt in part or in whole."
Those who fall into this category were issued a notice from the GCG on Jan. 29 that included a Unified Financial Management System Vendor Request Form. Players who wish to receive the balance of their payment need to fill out the form and return it to the GCG within 30 days. More information can be found at the GCG website.
The second update concerned petitioners identified as affiliates for Full Tilt Poker. Initially, affiliates were not eligible for repayment as determined by the Department of Justice, but that changed after a meeting between the DOJ and the Poker Players Alliance. The stipulation, though, was that affiliates would only be repaid for money earned by playing poker. All funds earned through affiliate-related activity would not be eligible for repayment.
On Jan. 31, the GCG sent approximately 8,400 notices to affiliates with information and instructions for participating in the remission process. All petitions must be submitted by March 2, 2014.
This does not apply to players who worked for Full Tilt Poker as Red Pros. The GCG said in its latest update that it is still reviewing how to handle those accounts, and a notice will be sent to those players once the review is complete.
UPDATE: On Feb. 4, the Garden City Group made the following announcement regarding affiliate repayments:
Affiliate balances shown upon logging into the online filing site were determined by deducting from the account balance all payments labeled as Affiliate payments in the data provided by Full Tilt Poker. The Department of Justice does not consider rakeback an Affiliate payment and will include rakeback payments in approved remission amounts. However, if rakeback was labeled by Full Tilt Poker as an Affiliate payment on a particular account and was therefore deducted from the balance, it is the player's responsibility to dispute the account balance and provide an explanation differentiating rakeback from Affiliate revenue.
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